How did Steven Morris play along with the sequencers and `confusion' question.

Hiya, I was wondering the other day about Mr. Morris's methods of playing along with all the backing beats and stuff..... Can anyone shed any light on his approach to this?

For instance, on the 1984 riverside performance of temptation, he plays kick, snare and hat live (side note: though he has loads of other drums/cymbals which he doesn't use - did they play any other songs for this show?).... And in the background....I think he is playing to a synthetic kick/hat pattern..... Similar thing in the PCL tracks from the glasgow rarites DVD as well

Then on the TOTP performance of true faith (and other occasions).....The drums sound totally sampled/synth....but he is playing a little pad thing occasionally? Do you think it's miming? Or can he really play like a machine?

I guess it's quite a nebulous area but any speculation would be fascinating. I really love early New order's mixing of acoustic and synthetic percussion, it's a pity they stopped doing it (Plus hardly any other bands seem to try it)

On a related note, I used to be under the impression that they once performed `Confusion' on Top of the pops? Is that true? Has anyone seen it?

Cheers :)

Alex

From looking at the videos he plays as much as he could live. and it seems to become less and less as time went on(with songs becoming more electronic), but they always mixed in acoustic drum numbers like: age of consent, sunrise, as it is when it was, all the way, run. With the dance numbers he mostly played hi hat, snare/drum pad, and bass drum.

ive posted many o threads hoping for an insight to Stephen Morris' drumming mind, no avail - basically he is a human mentronome, the stig of music if you like.

but for his synthed(???) kinda sound i was told by a few on here that its the snare which is EQ'd to it sounds so see the Hac '83 July for the best eg. sounds feckin mint!

but as they years go he turns away from the big dock off kit and turns towards the fully electric Yamaha(??) kit.

i am most likely wrong but just wait for an answer doc or OLF,

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr04/articles/rogerlyons.htm:

"Steve is a big fan of the TD8, but he uses a real bass drum with a trigger on it to get the feel and air on stage, and a real snare with a pad on it for a similar reason. I think the real drums were miked up, but that was probably just going to his stage monitors."

He is a drummer after all, and I suppose he cannot NOT play the bass drum? Even though Lyons mentions a trigger above, for some of the more heavily sequenced songs, it's probably the sequenced bass drum that goes out over the PA (although the snare comes from the "live" feed). Depends on which song, I guess.

"For instance, on the 1984 riverside performance of temptation, he plays kick, snare and hat live (side note: though he has loads of other drums/cymbals which he doesn't use - did they play any other songs for this show?)...."

Not a clue about the technical stuff but they also played Chosen Time.

we used to do this, but our drummer needed a set of headphones to follow the sequencer click (so he would stay in time to all the sequencers)....

i never see morris wearing any type of ear piece or headphones.

or did they just blast the click thru a monitor near him?

You often see drummers with headphones, I presume to hear and match with something sequenced/preset, but other than that why would it be any different than playing with the other members? He would have it planned ahead of time to some extent.

In the 2000s, from the live DVDs, the electronic tracks seem almost like Karaoke anyway.

Simon Simpson wrote: "For instance, on the 1984 riverside performance of temptation, he plays kick, snare and hat live (side note: though he has loads of other drums/cymbals which he doesn't use - did they play any other songs for this show?)...."

Not a clue about the technical stuff but they also played Chosen Time.

...and Procession, Hurt, Senses, Denial and In A Lonely Place (all not broadcast though).

Tarbox23 wrote: we used to do this, but our drummer needed a set of headphones to follow the sequencer click (so he would stay in time to all the sequencers)....

i never see morris wearing any type of ear piece or headphones.

or did they just blast the click thru a monitor near him?

I think that's the method used, you will probably see two monitors, one each side, pointing directly at Steve with a click/drum track for him to play along to.

Click track. Plain, simple, and common solution.

Tarbox23 wrote:

i never see morris wearing any type of ear piece or headphones.

or did they just blast the click thru a monitor near him?

"Blast" is exactly right. In an interview once, Steve said that he had to have the click track incredibly loud in order to be able to hear it. Presumably, not least because everyone else is turned up so loud! It scared me to see Gillian with that large monitor pointing directly at her right ear, at ear level. That's kind of the Pete Townshend approach to on-stage monitoring.

I think Steve wore headphones for the "Rock around the clock" broadcast, but that would have been because he was in the isolation area and without their normal set up.

Peter

if you have any live recordings (not official ones where they edit everything out), you can hear the cue to the click track counting off before certain songs begin, like Regret and World.

Last I saw New Order was in 2005 in Oakland, California... I was close to the front so I could get fleeting glimpses at what kind of kit they used at that time.

Stephen Morris used the Roland PM3 Personal Drum Monitor System onstage at the time. No idea exactly what he used for his electronic kit. It looked like one of those newer *cough* Roland pad sets, with the black cymbal pads.

The kick drum trigger was substituted by one of those small 16" Yamaha floating kicks, which are in those portable Hipgig kits. Yellow finish on the kick which did look nice under the lights.

Don't know exactly what sound source they were using, but I would bet it was a Roland. The cymbals sounded very false, so false that they did not even sound like cymbals you would use for an electronic style of music.

You also had trouble hearing the kick drum, except on the classic dance tunes like Blue Monday, Temptation and Regret. Perhaps that was the front-of-house again, but the snare, hi-hats and toms were very loud.

johnny james wrote:

Simon Simpson wrote: "For instance, on the 1984 riverside performance of temptation, he plays kick, snare and hat live (side note: though he has loads of other drums/cymbals which he doesn't use - did they play any other songs for this show?)...."

Not a clue about the technical stuff but they also played Chosen Time.

...and Procession, Hurt, Senses, Denial and In A Lonely Place (all not broadcast though).

Never knew that! Did any of those tracks ever see the light of day?

Simon Simpson wrote:

johnny james wrote:

Simon Simpson wrote: "For instance, on the 1984 riverside performance of temptation, he plays kick, snare and hat live (side note: though he has loads of other drums/cymbals which he doesn't use - did they play any other songs for this show?)...."

Not a clue about the technical stuff but they also played Chosen Time.

...and Procession, Hurt, Senses, Denial and In A Lonely Place (all not broadcast though).

Never knew that! Did any of those tracks ever see the light of day?

Nope, all in the BBC vault.

Some of that vault is paid for with my License Fee. Maybe should be a Wilson and demand that the people want to see it!