full interview here"Is it easier now to perform live than it was say 20 years ago because the technology is better?
Definitely, we've been very lucky that the technology developed in our direction. (laughs) This is what we envisaged in the late 70s when we worked with mostly analogue [equipment] of course. Then we composed the concept of [the album] Computer World coming out in 81 and we didn't even have computers at that time. So that was more like a visionary album. We only got that technology, a small PC, around the tour of that album and we used one on stage just writing letters. Just typing them in, not even in synch or anything. Just live, and a guy putting that on screen.
So we have been very lucky because you can imagine in the late 70s the travelling problems. We couldn't tour at all because all our drum tracks were recorded and were synchronised by sequencers."
Based on bootleg recordings & videos, it seems that their live shows peaked in 1981, when they were still struggling with the cumbersome analog equipment. When they attained their Utopia of Synclaviers & eventually laptops, their shows became nothing more than 4 video screens and 4 guys who might as well have been looking up train schedules on their Vaio's.
ReplyDeleteFor crying out loud, they took both a PS-3200 & PS-3300 on the road for Computer World, and even if Karl & Wolfgang were pantomiming half the time, at least we heard tapes of them playing their homemade pads.
The fact that they may be "improvising" now by deciding which 32-bar sections of music or visuals to play may keep them entertained, but it is lost on the audience.
Most importantly, they sacrificed the sonic element. It's just like in the recording studio: real synthesizers sound like they're in the foreground & anything "ITB" might as well be coming from someone's cellphone.
Tangerine Dream were able to fully actualise their music live in the analogue domain. it took spending their income on custom modular gear, but they did it.
ReplyDeletealso that's funny the above poster says that "ITB" (which i'm assuming he means softsynths and not mixing real instruments inside a computer instead of an analogue desk) might as well be coming from someone's cellphone, as i did just a month ago use an EDP Wasp soft clone to make the ringtone for my Palm phone!