New Order used an Oberheim DMX and a pair of Voyetra 8-voice rack-mount synths on Power, Corruption, and Lies, and on Low-life. Their hit single "Blue Monday" was programmed on a DMX. - Michael 'RS422' Ashton moog source (aka bassline of newOrder's blue monday) - bwilks@ukelele.gcr.com they have a couple of Voyetra 8's in the rack. [in the perfect kiss video] - Tom M Moravansky Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris of New Order also used the Voyetra-8 on several side projects with Stanton Miranda a.k.a. Thick Pigeon, very distinctive, the New Order "sound" (circa 1983/84) sticks out like a big beautiful sore thumb. - M. Christopher Jones (mcjones@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu) Regarding the Voyetras - They were very into them. They used a QX1 to sequence. The Bass in Blue Monday.... Moog Source - Drums Oberheim DMX. They also relied heavily on the Prophet 5, and Emulators of all kinds. I would guess that for the Voyetras, they might have used Voyetra's master keyboard... as seen in the Reflex Politics of Dancing video - long, white and very very narrow. - Jim Reay (jamesr4812@aol.com) From Future Music, Issue 16, February 1994 Q: What equipment was used to put together New Order's mega-selling release of 1983, _Blue Monday_? Stephen: That was a Moog Source and a bit of Prophet. Gillian: We tried to update it when we did the '88 version but the new equipment couldn't improve on it. Stephen: I think a lot of it was down to the nice little accidents, like the knob-twiddling and Gillian starting the sequencer off in the wrong place. None of those things really happen any more. Like when you're editing a synth now, you've got to know exactly what you want and how to do it. If you want to make it wobble a bit more you've got to know which parameters to tweak. Gillian: You never knew why things wobbled then, but now you've got to find out why and go into it more. From Future Music, Issue 16, February 1994 (some random gear-related comments from the interview) Stephen: As New Order, the first thing we had was a home-made Transcendent 2000 and a Transcendent sequencer on which we managed to triple the memory by piggy-backing some RAM. That was 1979, before MIDI was invented. 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. When I eventually got a drum synthesizer and it made that 'boo boo' noise, you can imagine my disappointment. ... With Joy Division, there's a sound on _Atrocity Exhibition_ that sounds like feedback guitar with a pig being slaughtered in the background -- that's this tiny little drum synthesizer put through a fuzz pedal. We also got the Oberheim DMX and the Prophet V. Gillian: We'd have this huge sheet of paper and every little tick on it was a clock step. But when we loaded tapes and the data wasn't there, we just wouldn't believe it. Stephen: Playing live was a big problem. ... You'd turn it on, and more often than not, you'd just get rubbish out of it. Our solution to this was to buy two or three of everything. In the case of the prophets, we ended up at one particular gig with five and we could only get one of those to work. Gillian: The Prophets were already unreliable, so when the sequencers started getting that way as well, everything got wiped. The Prophet was wonky and playing out of tune and the sequencer wouldn't play back anything at all. Stephen: We started with the Emulator Is -- the IIs and the Emulator III are still in there. The only way you could get those things working half the time was by whacking them with an iron bar. > I know that New Order used a [ARP] Quadra on most of their early > records (after upgrading from an Omni during their Joy Division days) Since > early New Order is brilliant I figure that this synth must be a Gem. -- Jonathon Disegi From tekpagan@io.orgSun Feb 12 14:21:04 1995 Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 16:39:09 -0500 (EST) From: Antony Balcerzak To: ANALOGUE@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Subject: RE: Which leads to another question... On Fri, 10 Feb 1995, Peter Fitzpatrick wrote: > I recall seeing an interview with them in MUSIC TECHNOLOGY and it went > into a lot of depth. I remember it was late '80's (could have been '85 > though). Actually had the magazine until recently .... > -Peter > ---------- > >>>From: Scott <1SHW1010@ibm.mtsac.edu> > >>> > >>>I never see write-ups of New Order's equipment anywhere, which seems rather > >>>strange to me considering they're certainly not strangers to the synth > >>>world. > >>> > >>>Actually, does anyone know what kind of equipment they were using say, > >>>around 1985...as compared to what they have now? Here is the equipment listed in an interview with New Order in the March 1985 issue of Electronics & Music Maker. Seq Circuits Pro One, Powertran Transcendent 2000 w/ Powertran 1024 Seq, ARP Omni, ARP 2600 w/ ARP Seq, Simmons SDS2, ARP Quadra, Moog Source, Boss Dr Rhythm, Prophet 5 w/ Seq Circuits PolySequencer, Oberheim DMX, Emu Emulator, Octave Plateau Voyetra. ******************** _/\_ "We have sought for firm ground and found none. * Antony Balcerzak * _\ /_ The deeper we penetrate, the more restless * tekpagan@io.org * \_ _/ becomes the universe; all is rushing about ******************** || and vibrating in a wild dance." MAX BORN