Synth Talk with Richard Burgess of Landscape

LANDSCAPE: 'European Man'

Uploaded on Jan 19, 2008
Landscape's 'European Man', featuring Barbie Wilde.

Pea Hicks who runs Optigan.com and the MC-8 blog, has a great post up on Richard Burgess and the use of the Roland MC-8 Micro-Composer.  The following are a couple of excerpts and videos for reference.  Along with synth talk there are some interesting historical bits on the time including the origin of the New Romantic label and scene.  Richard Burgess worked with Rusty Egan who in turn was in Visage, a band consisting of him Billy Currie and Midge Ure of Ultravox, John McGeoch of Magazine, Siouxsie &  PIL (Johnny Rotten of The Sex Pistols), and others.  Lot's of cross collaboration at the time.  If interested you can start with Visage on wikipedia and click through the names.  The post-punk New Romantic followed by New Wave movement brought synthesis to many.  In Pea Hicks' interview you'll find a great audio snip with some geeky synth talk on setting values for the MC-8 - this is in an actual track.

"Pea: I’m sure to you it probably seems like a head-scratcher why anyone in this day and age would voluntarily subject himself to the hassles of dealing with ancient sync dilemmas, but for me that’s part of the fun and also it’s a way of working that inevitably produces some idiosyncratic results that you wouldn’t get by doing things the “easy way.” I’m definitely after that metronomic Human League type groove.

Richard: I think the machine definitely influences the result so I don’t see it as odd to want to use the MC8. I have thought about it myself.The same thing applies to analogue sequencers. Like I said, we synched the MC8 to the CR78 by programming a square wave to come out of the mulitplex outputs and then we adjusted the level through a console until it ran the CR78. Most of those old drum machines run on simple square waves with no flags. Getting them to run in the same time is less of a problem than getting them to start at the right time. I used the MC8 in preference to later machines because of the timing. I found early Cubase to be shaky (it’s fine now) and SMPTE Track from Hybrid Arts was very sensitive to processor load. I always liked the timing of the Linn 9000 and I still have mine. I don’t know about the DMX but the 808 should lock tight – it’s only one machine later than the CR78 if I recall correctly."

And on Shock's Angel Face:

"Richard: Oh yes, that was all me. Rusty Egan brought the group and the song and I programmed everything in my home studio and recorded it at Mayfair Studios in South Moulton St. with John Hudson engineering. It was the System 100Ms with the 10x gate modification on the bass line for sure. I did all their recordings and I wrote the rest of the songs with various members and Rusty."

Shock - ANGEL FACE - Shock