Technique music

Can someone please explain why NO doesn't plaw any Technique material anymore? Also, will they come back to the states in the fall?

I would not hold out hope for US dates in the autumn. More likely they'll finish their summer dates and finish up the new album and take a bit of a break.

And it is not just Technique - most of the older albums are neglected. We just have to accept that we get the newer songs, the songs the band thinks everyone needs to hear, and a couple of treats.

Yeh all it seems to be these is Greatest Hits, plus 3 & 4 new ones.

But, I'm not complaining too much, as long as they play at all.

Part of the reason we don't see the madly varied sets of old undoubtedly has to do with migrating the tracks to the new MIDI rig. Anyone who's ever written a song on a particular rig and then had to play it back on another in a studio or whatever will tell you it's a living hell, because SO much of a part's phrasing and grove exists in the sound, because sometimes 2 parts that lived in peace on rig A beat 7 shades out of each other on rig B.

They can't just rattle out TPK because it doesn't exist in a form that will work on the current system. TPK is an excellent example of a tune like BM or YSF, where the actual sounds are VITAL, there has been a lot of trouble taken on both those tracks to either sample or match all the original sounds. In fact BM sounds more like BM than it ever used to, because it uses a sample of the original Moog source bass sound rather than a Voyetra filling in for it as was usual live. On the other hand things like TBTHOG, TF, and on the last but one tour, confusion have undergone radical reprogramming jobs and while they share most of their bits, they sound very differnt from their originals (ok TF is a slight exception since that version does exist outside gigs).

Which reminds me......I have a thread to post..

Oh, and You always see more variation in the accoustic tunes, cos they are all plug and play :)

They don't have to match every note. Part of the fun of live versions (for me anyway) is the variations from the studio tracks. I particularly enjoy the Reading TBTHOG (on the 316 dvd). Let's be honest, some of the sounds used on the original studio versions haven't aged that well. If they just keep the songs intact, maybe doing those old songs on new equipment will make them sound less "'80s" and more timeless.

ickyelf wrote: They don't have to match every note. Part of the fun of live versions (for me anyway) is the variations from the studio tracks. I particularly enjoy the Reading TBTHOG (on the 316 dvd). Let's be honest, some of the sounds used on the original studio versions haven't aged that well. If they just keep the songs intact, maybe doing those old songs on new equipment will make them sound less "'80s" and more timeless.

Well precisely, i DID cite TBTHOG as an excellent and different sounding reprogram, like confusion on the same tour. You are totally right that some songs do get a new lease of life from a reworking. The point is, that some songs DO need that note for note, sound for sound approach, can you imagine for instance TPK, without steve's awesome perc programming.....or how off kilter the groove in it could be on a different kit. Or what about that odd "bouncey" note in the voyetra bass, the one that sounds pushed or doubled or something, it's deadly important to the song, and almost certainly would not happen if you ran the MIDI program on anything but a Voyetra8

And even with the ones that can easily stand to vary, the haven't BEEN transferred yet, trust me, this is not planet GeneeralMIDI we're on here, in fact I doubt master sequences exist for anything pre-technique, instead being in bits in various formats for various machines. While it's a doddle to remember a song you've sung for 20 years, it's not so easy to figure out what exactly was going on to get such an interesting sound from some long dead machine, when all you have is a 5.25" floppy, a cd of the song, and 20 years of being in new order to cloud the brain.

Anyway, they'll get round to it, but they will mostly be ground up rebuild, either into their original form like BM or into groovy new mutants like TBTHOG. The point is, untill they are done, there are no versions they can play at all. Unless they lug that rack full of Voyetra's, and the Emulators and so on out and fire up the original files, you won't get squat. I hope they pull their fingers out too.

John Lehmann wrote: Can someone please explain why NO doesn't plaw any Technique material anymore?

I always wanted to say that:

It is because "Technique" sucks... (now kick me out of the community :D )

Steve Campbell wrote:

ickyelf wrote: They don't have to match every note. Part of the fun of live versions (for me anyway) is the variations from the studio tracks. I particularly enjoy the Reading TBTHOG (on the 316 dvd). Let's be honest, some of the sounds used on the original studio versions haven't aged that well. If they just keep the songs intact, maybe doing those old songs on new equipment will make them sound less "'80s" and more timeless.

Well precisely, i DID cite TBTHOG as an excellent and different sounding reprogram, like confusion on the same tour. You are totally right that some songs do get a new lease of life from a reworking. The point is, that some songs DO need that note for note, sound for sound approach, can you imagine for instance TPK, without steve's awesome perc programming.....or how off kilter the groove in it could be on a different kit. Or what about that odd "bouncey" note in the voyetra bass, the one that sounds pushed or doubled or something, it's deadly important to the song, and almost certainly would not happen if you ran the MIDI program on anything but a Voyetra8

And even with the ones that can easily stand to vary, the haven't BEEN transferred yet, trust me, this is not planet GeneeralMIDI we're on here, in fact I doubt master sequences exist for anything pre-technique, instead being in bits in various formats for various machines. While it's a doddle to remember a song you've sung for 20 years, it's not so easy to figure out what exactly was going on to get such an interesting sound from some long dead machine, when all you have is a 5.25" floppy, a cd of the song, and 20 years of being in new order to cloud the brain.

Anyway, they'll get round to it, but they will mostly be ground up rebuild, either into their original form like BM or into groovy new mutants like TBTHOG. The point is, untill they are done, there are no versions they can play at all. Unless they lug that rack full of Voyetra's, and the Emulators and so on out and fire up the original files, you won't get squat. I hope they pull their fingers out too.

A voice of sense in a world of unrealistic expectation.

Want to volunteer to do the programming Steve? It might make it happen then, and at least they would know you are approaching it from the right perspective!

John Lehmann wrote: Also, will they come back to the states in the fall?

Now listen John, just because Bernard does a Mark E Smith impression on Working Overtime, it doesn't mean that he will be joining the travelling circus that is Prestwich's poorest!

Spotnick wrote: I don't buy this.

They can easily hire somebody to program the damned thing... after all, they hired Phil !!

How hard could it be to find somebody to program the full back catalog on those machines?!?!

1. They don't want to.
2. They can't be bothered.
3. They have moved on, they already play all the old songs they want to.
4. We have had to sacrifice old NO songs for JD ones - they want to play them, some of us want to hear them.

I would be quite happy to hand over a disk containing several accurate MIDI prgrammed versions, with every component part split, configurable and ready for them to use how they see fit, containing a range of songs stretching back 25 years, but there would be no point - if they wanted to play old stuff they would.

Any effort you make that helps 'em out would be worthwhile just to see the back of the 'orrible versions of BM/Temptation/BLT that should have been stuck back in the vaults ages ago. They WERE great songs, but just TOO tedious when trotted out in 99.9% of gigs they do. Other stuff in the catalogue deserves re-airing sooner rather than later.

Round & Round for Hyde Park

Hell yeah R+R2005 gets my vote too.

Someone mentioned happily giving them a bunch of MIDI files, come on man, it's more than the notes. That note I was talking about in TPK is a prime example ( when the voyetra bass re-enters after the percussion section, the octave note on the bottom note of the bassline jumps out of the mix), that's a quirk of the instrument it was written on( probably to do with making that note shorter in the sequencer to make the synth jump straight to it's release portion), play the same notes back on another machine and that note will play the same as all the others. Trust me, I have migrated a lot of my own songs, mainly due to my gear not being as good as the stuff in the studio and me getting greedy, but also to save songs who's original machine's are no longer with us. It's long and boring amd very hard to get absolutely right. And that's migration ( which , since the thread was about technique seems OK), with stuff where no master sequence exists, it's prbably going to be a matter of doing it by ear. Hands up who can play the two arpreggiator parts on BM? no one probably, despite the fact we can all play the strings and bass on it.

But the idea of getting a proper session MIDIguru to do it all seems good, except that it's not really very "new order", I'd rather wait until they do it themselves.

Of course the best solution is to raid Chez Steve for all the old Emulators and voyetras and just play the damn songs right. Funny we never had the headline "Emulator2 leaves NO to be replaced by E3", I always condider machines to be other band members ( the only person I ever seen do this for real was Vince Clarke who used to intorduce his devices one at a time and let them do little solos).

But here's a little experiment, those of you with a decent sound card and some virtual instruments, why not grab some of the NO MIDI files off here ( are they still hosted here?), and see if you can make your fave tune sound close enough to the original not to cause a stage invasion if played at a gig......close enough that people would think you WERE New Order.Not at all easy.

Incidentally....how do they DO temptaion now? I can think of no way to apply an external rhythm and internal pitches to a sound using MIDI ( it was a doddle with my DR110 and Moog Rougue). Any thoughts?

Given that technique is widely regarded as thjier best album, that bernard himself seems to think its thier best album, that the band compared FTSC to technique repeatedly, you would think they would play a track or two off of it on the current tour.

Surely they could play Fine Time? While lots of people on this board dont like it. Fine Time was a hit when it was released and its still a popular club tune. Ive seen people go nuts for it at clubs, and most New Order fans I know think its a fun dance song.

They do have Fine Time programmed, they played it in 89....

I mean 98......

Spotnick wrote: I don't buy this.

They can easily hire somebody to program the damned thing... after all, they hired Phil !!

How hard could it be to find somebody to program the full back catalog on those machines?!?!

I programmed a BLT ringtone on my mobile (cell) phone which I got off this site, and it took f*)78ing hours. So its probably more time consuming than you guys think. Although they could just employ someone for a few weeks/months to do it.

I'm blessed with a passion for Sagem phones. The last one had a ringtone editor that was just notes and a staves, piece of cake to do ceremony and BM. My new one, you just record something in, so I have the arpreggiator from Confusion for texts, the 2nd secion of the TPK intro for calls and something called "March of the Oysters" for an alarm, it aint NO, it'll fun to see if any of you DO know what it is, WITHOUT using google.....bloody amazing tune, would be great for a band to walk on or off to, and I'm fairly sure the Orb made a tune out of it.