Everything's Gone Green: slight tech confusion?

Bearing in mind that it's now twenty-four years since EGG was released, could it be that New Order themselves are slightly confused as to how the pulsing synth riffs on it were achieved?

The FAQ here states:

The first drum machine we had was a Boss Dr. Rhythm. It was all plugging little mini jacks into mini jacks. It was all CV and gate.

He's referring to a Boss Dr. Rhythm DR-55, probably the first affordable drum machine to be totally programmable (as opposed to preset/semi-programmable). It had three sounds. I know this because I owned one too! It was a small jobbie, about the size of a book or something, had one mono output, was battery powered and didn't synchronise to anything.

It's this that can be heard on the intro to EGG and the outro as well and it's also on Truth on Movement. It did feature two 'trigger' outputs with which to run external sequencers (like a Roland CSQ-100 or that of a Roland SH-101) and to trigger other synths. I reckon it's this that's running their ARP and they admitted as much on the Music Technology interview from 1985, saying they "pulsed the individual sections to get that sequencer-like effect and then layered the strings over it".

They said then that this is the method used on Temptation and the second Peel session on tracks like 586 with the Powertran sequencer (which Barney built from a kit) but which Steve described as "mickey mouse". This setup was ditched in favour of the even more unreliable Prophet V/Polysequencer setup used on P, C and L and Low-Life.

The difference is that on TX: New Order a couple of years back, they tell a different tale, saying Hannett had this idea that they could pulse the ARP using the VU meter from Steve's hi-hat. They even said it worked! It might've worked at the time but Steve doesn't play sixteenths closed hi-hat throughout the track (unless he did and it was mixed out later) so I personally think the beatbox method is a lot more likely!

Happy for this to be placed in the FAQ if the fine moderating chaps here feel it's not greatly relevent.

Ps The Yamaha QX1 sequencer was a massive and labyrynthine beast that "took three hours to get going" according to Hooky. They used to use it live!

Worth me buying one of these DR55s, Al?

Must be the Pernod which made him forget the setup.

Didn't Re: Order do EGG? I remember seeing half of it, I wonder how they pulled it off.

Worth me buying one of these DR55s, Al?

If you value your sanity, no!

Three thin-to-the-point-of-anorexia sounds that don't even sound good turned up loud (unlike a lot of drum machine sounds) but processing it is probably ok. I found the samples of it on a site a while back so it's worth downloading them for nowt and bunging them into your sampler if you're intend on getting the authentic buggers down on tape or whatever.

They're probably a collectors' item now out there.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7335516592&category=1289&rd=1

Ta-da!

Is that it?

Hannett of the Apes wrote: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7335516592&category=1289&rd=1

Ta-da!

Is that it?

not it. that's something that came out in the 90s. we're talking about a really old piece of kit from early 80s.

Chemical wrote:

The difference is that on TX: New Order a couple of years back, they tell a different tale, saying Hannett had this idea that they could pulse the ARP using the VU meter from Steve's hi-hat. They even said it worked! It might've worked at the time but Steve doesn't play sixteenths closed hi-hat throughout the track (unless he did and it was mixed out later) so I personally think the beatbox method is a lot more likely!

If Hannet was tech savvy enough to use the voltage lead from a VU meter to trigger their ARP, then it's indeed possible he could have also used a clock divider circuit to double the pulse so that it took only 8th notes. Only they would know for certain, but I'll have to say that it's a really clever approach.

if you want to try one out then check this virual version out first:

http://www.keyboardmuseum.org/d_machines/virdr55full.html

johnny james wrote: if you want to try one out then check this virual version out first:

http://www.keyboardmuseum.org/d_machines/virdr55full.html

that's it - that's what it looks like.

That's exactly it!

It's a pity you can't programme the version they've got there but if you could, you'd be able to exactly replicate the drum track to Truth as well as EGG etc. That machine was released in 1979 so it deffo is a piece of vintage kit. It's not the oldest one on that site either!

It wasn't done with sync. I had a DR110, and it had an accent trigger output. On each beat you had accented, it sent a cv gate-open pulse to whatever hung on the end of the cable. I actually used this, connected to a Rogue Moog, to do egg and temptation, long before I heard about NO using the 55 and the ARP. The Shamen used a hit hat feeding the side chain on a noise gate to to do something simmilar to the hannet method described. I think the Hannet method would have worked in the studio, but almost certainly the drum machine method was done live (there are bits where I can tell, from personal experience, gillian is reprogramming the accents on the fly.)

Wasn't there a DR50 as well? maybe that's what it was if you;re sure the 55 had no external connections.

BTW, like the idea of using the clock divider, except, we're not talkin about a 2600 or 2500, but an odessy or quartet, I don't think they had all the clever shit the big ARPs have.??

EDIT: good to see the keyboard museum is back up, was down when I last went looking. You should check out some of their demo records and sound sheets. The emulator and fairlight stuff is gobsmacking. Oooops. just checked, the emulator demos must have come from elsewhere, but the fairlight tape is there, and some ARP stuff too.

Yeah, cheers. I checked out the keyboard museum and some of the stuff, as you say, is awesome.

Wasn't there a DR50 as well? maybe that's what it was if you;re sure the 55 had no external connections.

To clarify my earlier point: it had two trigger outs. The 'CSQ' one triggered stuff off the accents only and the other one 'DBS' triggered on every sixteenth note so I reckon they may've used the Hannett/vu meter approach in the studio and then found they were obliged to recreate it somehow live. That's fine but that doesn't explain the presence of the DR-55 on the recording of EGG!

How long did you have your Rogue for? I had mine for ages!

I also remember reading an interview and they said they filtered the ARP through a Marshall Time Modulator (talk about rare kit!) "to get that 78 record, speeding up and slowing down feel" as well on Temptation.

I was listening to Ecstacy the other day and remember they said they used a EMS vocoder on it which hardly ever worked. They kept having to have it repaired and spent a fortune on it but it only worked twice, for Ecstacy and Blue Monday/The Beach!

Shit, and i thought it was done on a ROLF HARRIS Stylophone