New Order's keyboards

I would like to get any kind of informations about the keyboard used by New Order in their career.

Thanks

notator milano - italy antonio.pessina@galileoavionica.it

Welcome!

There is (I believe) a seperate thread on this in the tech info section here but I shall give you the abbreviated version, seeing as you're new and all.

Joy Division:

ARP Quadra Sequential Circuits Pro-One Powertran Transcendent 2000 (which Bernard built from a kit).

This stuff was used on Closer a lot, particularly the second side. It was also still being used on New Order's first album, Movement (1981). A lot of their gear was nicked later.

New Order:

Drum machines: Boss DR-55 Dr. Rhythm, Oberheim DMX, Roland TR-808, Yamaha RX11.

As above for Movement. 1982-5 saw them using Sequential Circuits' infamous Prophet 5 synths with its Polysequencer and a Moog Source, an Octave-Plateau Voyetra and an E-mu Systems Emulator I. This is the setup on which Blue Monday was written. It was notorious for breaking down and going out of tune live and was sequenced by another kit-built sequencer which Steve Morris described as "Mickey Mouse".

Because the Prophet sequencers were minicassette-based (don't ask) and took ages to load their data, the band were obliged to use more than one live so one would be loading whilst Gillian Gilbert (spouse of Steve Morris and now an ex-member) was playing the other. Matters reached a head after they were forced to have five Prophet setups on stage at once!

They found that the Emulator would not always load its sounds from floppy disk properly so used to whack the leg of its stand with a hammer! "A four-pound lump hammer" was the one the band endorsed, according to Hooky.

1985 saw the Prophet setup take its final bow on Low-Life, as it was replaced with a system built around a Yamaha QX1 megasequencer and TX812 rack mount synth module (basically eight DX7 synths in one rack). The Voyetra continued to feature. They upgraded to Emulator IIs and started using computer sequencers, mostly Upbeat on the Apple Mac.

The last five or so years have seen a scaling-down of the amount of tech gear they use live so it's mostly two Roland XP-80 workstations.

Hope this helps.

LOL @ lump hammer I forgot about that. Seem to recall Gillian being a victim of an EII hard-drive addon coolant failure as well....whirr, grind, spit, ouch., tho it may just have been that I heard Steve talking about this mythical failure. I always sort of blank out the prohpet in my head. Mainly cos all the reall unique noises from that era are the ARP in it's dying days, and the amazing voyetri. Apparenly they had an arp3600, never seen it (hard to miss) or heard it (much easier to miss, it can do tame and nice with the best of them).

You missed out the EIII dodgy yamaha YS (or something like that), D50 and mac era (technique ish)

And there's also a Kurzweil floating round up there somewhere alledgedly these days. We'll never know what it does, cos Kurzweil, for a while, have specialised in making instruments that can impersonated any other at weill (pink ffloyd use one to replce the EMS VCS3putney on "on the run", and it does a stunning job. (FWIW, it ISN'T actualy a putney on the record despite the legend, it's a custom thing made with it's filter bank and patch matrix, I think bits of it were based on or ended up in, the delaware synth)

My mistake. I've a blind spot where the D-50 is concerned. There was one on Ebay last week for £120! The chimey choir sound on Vanishing Point is D-50 I reckon but I found it relatively easy to clone it on my K4R when playing it live.

I know Electronic used D-50s a bit. I wonder if they were 'on loan' from Barney's 'other' band...

I know that Steve triggers his programmed drum patterns from keys on the Kurzweil. It replaced the Emulators but then they slimmed-down the amount of kit they use anyway which is fair enough. It's strange to think that they went through a period - typically around Brotherhood - when they were almost Yamaha endorsers due to the amount of their kit they used.

I think the ARP 2500 and 2600 were quite large modular jobbies and not easily transportable. Steve remembers that the electronic drum sounds on Closer - as featured on Isolation for instance - were programmed on the 2500 and run from an ARP sequencer. I suppose Steve cloned those sounds on his Simmons pads live originally but are now sampled into the Kurzweil.

Controversial subject: are the gigs more boring these days because it's unlikely the gear will stop working/go out of tune or fuck up badly?

The JD800 was usually present during 1993 as well.

I wish I had not had to sell my vintage synth collection I had. I had two Sequential pro-ones, and two Korg Poly 61s and had a ARP sting ensemble (well, that one was "borrowed" by someone, who has not returned it!) and a Casio MT-250 all of which I had to sell to afford CD duplicator kit in 2000, in hopes of selling cds of my own music on my own indie record label, Robotique Records. Bad deal. Bad move. Missed the CD boom, as MP3s came out, and would do better to have the synths.

Wish I still had these.

I do have a Roland JX 305, a Casio Cosmosynth, and a Yamaha DX100, as well as a MC-303 and MC-505 grooveboxes, and a Yamaha RM1X groovebox, which I am trying to make original music from with a similiar sound to my old kit.

But it ain't the same.

I like the ones used on the Perfect Kiss video, and the one on Love will Tear Us Apart, looks like my old Arp -that I want to get back very badly after seeing that video!

The racks in TPK are voyetra "slaves", externaly multitimbral capability basically. And Gillian mixing them by hand is the coolest thing in the history of the universe.

Giga suck ass cos of stuff coming off tape. i want live music not tapes. And to parahprase Dr 'chandra' (creator of HAL9000) "Whether we are based on carbon or silicon makes no difference, we should all be allowed to play bum notes live"

2500 and 2600 were modular but not exacly giants, even with the sequencer unit attached. they were pretty much packed into a fightcase too. The shamen played one live on ToTP doing Move any Mountain. Best thing about it is that it's one of the last instruments to use actual "patches", with a front panel resembling a telephone exhange. If you want really terrifying, you need to meet TANTO or Dr Moog's (bless him) own personal modular, that took up a room.

I have a manual for a 2600 somewhere in PDF. never ever read it, despite using a virtual version a lot.

What cosmosynth BTW? I finally consigned what was left of my CZ3000 to the bin, now looking for a 5000 every time I have a spare 50 bills. £120 for a D50 is prety cool. I had an E20 which was a preset, semi home keyboard version of the D series, and it had LOTS of D50 noises, including the bell-choir on vanishing point 9 it was called atmosphere or something oddly enough). Yamaha gear gives me stomach cramps BTW, I never ever wrapped my head around NO's obsession with all things QX, RX and TX (thankfully, they are unique among 80s bands in never, to my knowlege, having appeared with a DX7 (hck tah!)). There's mongloads of Rx drums on their mid 80's stuff, I just don't get it. I think the percussion on TPK is as well? (don't seem to be any of those noises on my drumulator or dmx sp1200 or so on banks, but I've heard very close ones on RX's).

Abject sympathies on the MC's I played with one wonce for about 5mins and chucked it indisgust, it had fucking horrid fake filters that stepped blatantly like the ones on the JD800, the word "interpolation" and the phrase "16bit" meant dick to Roland around then. The JD800 is the most let down by a machine I've ever been, was breathless for it for a year, pklayed it for 5 mins and was like "hmmmm, what's that one" and wandered over to the Gem S2, which is a true BEAST of an instrument. Handy thing was, this was in college so when 9 other people fought over the JD, I got the Gem to myself for a whole year, I think when I left, they pretty much scrapped the thing cos I was the only sod that could work it, and the manual was long gone.

BTW, this ARp string machine....a Solina or simillar?

I swear I heard Barney say the strings on procession are a Solina, and they sure as hell sound like one to me(built in WHOOOOOOOOSH). But most people insist it's one of their own ARP's

I read in www.trance.nu that L.A.-based prog/trance band Second Sun (who really kick-ass live + their debut album rules) bought New Order's Sequential Circuits unit.

I mean, it was probably owned by a few other people after New Order, but...

It was in an interview put up this week - check it out.

The Cosmosynth bit had me intrigued too.

The Cosmo was a one-off made for Tomita for the Ars Electronica in 1984, the technology from it then being used to develop the CZ range. I've just sold my 3000 after four years and bought a Yamaha CS1x which is a totally different beast altogether. If anyone has or had one here, please drop me a line as some of it is quite confusing!

I've used one. They are horrible what bit of Yamaha didn't you understand :D

What u wanna know? Not that I'm likely to remember, but try me.

Cheers. I've mailed you regarding this.

Gillian used Voyetra racks eh? Wondered what those were. Sweet! I would LOVE to have one of those! Yeah, that is a nicely done video, and I like everything about it. Gillian is a beautiful woman too, (pretty eyes, yes?) and Steve did good hooking up with her! (Kudos to good ol' Steve Morris!)

That Cosmosynth I have, is an interesting little synth. I put a guitar strap on it, and use it's sounds, and also midi it to a Roland MC-303 or 505, or that Yamaha RM1X I have to play the sounds from those modules. I also use a DX-100, (also with a guitar strap) but I never use the presets..I made my own sounds.

I also used to have two Junos also...I may be classified, perhaps as a bit of a "gear slut", as they say, in a popular music magazine (EQ) I get.

That ARP String Ensemble I had that I am trying to get back, was in a bit of shlumpy condition (needed some cosmetic work on the cabinet) and was given to me when I worked at New York Music in Boardman, by someone I repaired synths for. I was going to fix it up nice, and a girl who I platonically dated for a couple weeks at the time (1999) borrowed it and did not return it. I am still angry about it, and want to get it back. She moved to Utah, but her brother in law and sister, who she lived with, still live in Youngstown, Ohio, (fifty miles north of me) and I have been telephoning them, but no answer. (they moved to another part of that town, and probably trashed or sold it anyway) That ARP had the same sound the one JD used. It was a nice bit of classic kit. I also miss those prophet ones I had. Still kicking myself in the arse for selling em! I got really lucky in getting these things, and I think them days are over...as it is hard to find any kit like this for free or cheap. (which is all I can afford now, free!) Everyone expects you to pay out the yin-yang for anything now.

The Yamaha CS1X, I never used yet, tried it once. Sounded nice, but these newer synths seem a bit flimsy in build-quality. Alot of them look like toys nowadays too...I guess manufacturers try too hard to put these glitzy curves (too much computer-desigining...I think they need to do it the old-fashioned way again! Square and solid! Metal and wood! Not plastic cases!) and put cheap-feeling plastic knobs on em, and the pots feel cheap and wimpy, the keys are thin, and break easily, and they suck! Yet, they want you to pay $$$ for them!