[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Such hostility ! Back in the day, all that din sync Roland x0x stuff was
> obsolete due to MIDI, that's how the Black and Latin Detroit, Chicago and NY
> guys got hold of that 1st shit so cheap (at that time our white friends were
> down with Krokus and Dokken and chanting "disco sucks" at ball games). They
> turned it into techno, house, hip-hop. So it ain't what you got it's how you
> use it. Derrick May did more with a DX-100, a 909, a cheap efx box and a
> reel-to-reel than most cats w/ full studios. Go on witcha Korg Electribe and
> rock some shit.
Here's the famous Music Technology interview I found in the AH archives,
hope no one has a problem with me re-posting this on 313, thought it would be
appropriate in light of the 808/ gear discussion and T1000's comments.
Gives great detail on what type of gear Kevin and Juan used 10 years ago.
PS. read what Kevin Saunderson has to say about the 808.
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED],
From: Praised and Perused [EMAIL PROTECTED],
cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],
Subject: The Holy Trinity of Detroit Techno
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 00:18:09 -0700
Ok kids, today I FINALLY ran across a copy of the Mar/Apr
'89 Music
Technology magazine, the one with Juan Atkins (and Baby
Ford, Matt Black,
and others) on the cover, the one that got destroyed when
my basement
flooded, and the first place I heard about Techno. In
appreciation of my
lucky find, I've typed in the text for everybody. Enjoy!
TECHNO
THE SCENE: DETROIT, murder capital of the USA, an
industrial city left
behind in a post-industrial society. A recent New York
Times article
vividly refers to urban landscapes "marred by vacant
factories, warehouse
and great open spaces where such buildings once stood."
Despite drastic
cuts in services the city was virtually bankrupt, and its
mayor decalred,
"We are at the edge of an abyss."
Welcome to the world of Techno music, a world peopled by
dreamers caught up
in the despair of everyday Detroit life, yet glimpsing a
brand new future
in which technology functions as savior rather than
destroyer. They've
read Alvin Toffler's 'The Third Wave' and realized that
they're riding it.
Three of those riders are Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and
Kevin Saunderson.
They represent a new generation of musicians who claim
direct descendancy
not from Motown, but from the music of Kraftwerk, Depeche
Mode and Gary
Numan.
"It seemed like music of the future to me, " recalls
Saunderson.
"Kraftwerk had this really clean, computerized,
futuristic sound. Their
music had a good groove, but at the same time it was deep
and you could sit
back and listen to it."
The biggest music in Detroit during the trio's formative
years was
Parliament/Funkadelic, and it was a shared liking for the
Mothership
Connection which first brought together the youthful
Saunderson, Atkins,
and May at Belleville High School in West Detroit. It was
May who likened
Techno to "George Clinton and Kraftwerk stuck in an
elevator with only a
sequencer to keep them company."
Atkins first came to prominence in Cybotron, an early
'80s techno/electro
group which achieved some success but was eventually
split by conflicting
musical directions. Since then he has worked as Model 500
(choosing the
name because he "wnated to use something that repudiated
an ethnic
designation"), releasing on his own Metroplex label
polished, minimallist,
hi-tech dance-music gems with titles like 'Future', '
Time Space Transmat',
and 'Interference'. "My concept was that the Kraftwerks,
Telexes and Devos
were good but they weren't funky. I felt that if I could
take that type of
music and add a funky element to it then it would be a
smash."
Although worshiped, early technopop was never viewed as
an end in itself.
Derrick May states, "English bands ten years ago hardly
knew what they were
doing. They left us waiting. Somebody like Gary Numan
started something
he never concluded." Saunderson identifies a significant
difference
between the music of the early '80s groups and that of
Techno musicians:
"Techno has a better groove as far as the bass end goes,
and it has a much
rawer sound. In fact, the bass end tends to make people
associate Techno
with House music, but really the two are very different."
Like many of today's most influential dance music
producers and artists,
all three bagan their musical careers as DJs - in
Saunderson's case on
college redio and in the underground clubs of Detroit. He
still plays the
clubs, currently spinning a mix of Techno, House and Acid
on Friday nights
at Detroit's hottest underground club, The Music
Institute, alongside
Derrick May.
When Saunderson took the decision to start creating his
own music instead
of playing other people's ("I was always wanting to add
things to other
people's music, and I felt I had a good feeling for what
people liked to
hear"), the number one priority was to set up his own
studio. His mother
helped him out financially, while Juan Atkins advised on
equipment.
Saunderson started out with a Yamaha DX100, Roland Juno
106, Fostex
eight-channel mixer, Tascam eight-track recorder, several
reverbs, and
giant speakers that could handle 800 Watts each - all set
up in a
two-bedroom apartment. Hardly surprising was that he had
to move four
times in the first year.
"I tried to be courteous to people", he maintains,
"but...I have to play my
music loud. That's the only way I can get a feeling for
what I'm doing."
Examples of Saunderson's work includes "The Sound" and
"Bounce Your Body To
The Box" - stripped-down bass'n'drum workouts which
attempt to dissolve
music into pure frequency and rhythm. Saunderson creates
a spacious
rhythmic backdrop through a judicious use of reverb and a
careful
combination of splashy, clicky percussive sounds which
float in and out of
the mix. Rich, booming bass sounds operate at virtually
subsonic levels,
strange synth sounds burble away, and any hint of a vocal
line is reduced
to a disjointed rototic incantation - all over a
pounding, insistent
bass-drum beat. The effect is hypnotic and compulsive.
Saunderson's instrument arsenal now takes in a Roland
S550, Casio CZ5000,
Roland JX8P, Korg Poly 800, Roland TB303 Bassline and
Ensoniq Mirage.
Drum-machine chores are taken care of by Roland's TR909,
808 and 727
together with an Alesis HR16 ("one of the cleanest drum
machines I've ever
heard") and his own sampled sounds.
"I like to use a combination of 909 and HR16 hi-hats,
together with the 808
bass drum or sometimes the bass on the 909", he explains.
"Those drum
machines have a real good feel, both together and on
their own".
Atkins shares Saunderson's love for the old Roland
machines: "I still use
the 808 and 909. The 808 has a real techno feel.
Everything on that drum
machine has an electronic feel - it's not like
digitally-sampled real
drums".
Saunderson refuses to use sampled drum-machine sounds in
place of the
genuine article: "Sampling changes the sounds in some
way. I'll go into a
studio and they'll say, 'We have the 808 right here,
sampled on disk', but
I won't use those samples 'cos somehow the results just
don't have the same
feel".
Instead he prefers an offbeat approach to obtaining
percussive sounds which
is in tune with the creative spirit of sampling - for
instance, sampling a
handclap or a piece of paper being crumpled, and playing
around with the
tuning to see what sort of results he can get. Extracts
from old records
don't find their way into Saunderson's sampler.
"What's going to be the music of the future if people
keep sampling all
this stuff from the past?" he argues. "I figure that the
people who're
gonna be real successful are those who keep looking
ahead, who're going to
set the trend. Forget what's happened in the past. It was
good, but let's
move on".
Atkin's Model 500 tracks are characterized by a clean
sound and a
contrapuntal interplay of musical lines - or "layered
sequences". It's an
approach which he explains as the major influence of
Kraftwerk on his
music. How, then, does he set about putting together a
track?
"On 'Interference' I started with the bassline, cause the
bassline is to me
the most important thing in a dance record. Even the
drums become
secondary to a good bassline. I worked everything else
around that. A lot
of times I let my basslines carry the melody. You'll hear
that the little
tweaks and bits people can listen to are in the
bassline".
Like Saunderson, Atkins is not interested in sampling old
records. He
prefers to devote himself to the delights of synthesis,
and in particular
to "one" synth: "The Pro One is my heart. I'll use that
Pro One until it
falls apart, and then I'll probably still use it if it
makes any sounds".
"These new synthesizers now, I think they're scaling them
more to interface
with the consumer. Synthesizers used to be synthesizers
that a synthesist
could play. Now manufacturers are going for presets and
they make it
really hard to get beyond those preset to program your
own sounds."
Techno strives to bring the future to present-day feet
and ears. "I make
my records in the hope that people will go and buy them
to listen to as
well as to dance to", Saunderson explains. "A good dance
track is going to
grab your attention, but on top of that I want something
that's interesting
and different enough to make you take notice of it. It
should be totally
different from anything else that's happening, but not so
different that
it's beyond people so that you end up not interfacing
with them. Be right
on the edge without going over".
"The music is not for everybody. It's for certain people
that want a
little twist".
Atkins echoes the sentiment: "I want whatever I do to
stand out, but not be
so far above that people won't relate to it. It doesn't
really make sense
to do music that people will get into in ten years or so.
I just want to
be involved with things that are going to be interesting
enough to set
trends or standards".
