Feargal Sharkey

"I don't actually put that much down on a Portastudio. I have a Tascam 246 because it's easier to handle than the older ones, and it saves time pissing around the back plugging things in. All I want to get down on a Portastudio is the basic chord structure and melody line, then once I feel like it's going in the right direction I'll leave it. I don't like the process of spending a grand doing demos, 'cause by the time I get round to actually doing things I'm bored stiff with them and there's nothing left for me to achieve."

Although the main bulk of the keyboards were played by Pat Seymour, Feargal actually played keyboards on almost every track. A keen computer music enthusiast, he has a collection of keyboards including a Korg CX3, a recently acquired Emulator II, a Jupiter 8 and two Casios, the CZ101 and 5000.

Although the main bulk of the keyboards were played by Pat Seymour, Feargal actually played keyboards on almost every track. A keen computer music enthusiast, he has a collection of keyboards including a Korg CX3, a recently acquired Emulator II, a Jupiter 8 and two Casios, the CZ101 and 5000.

Although the main bulk of the keyboards were played by Pat Seymour, Feargal actually played keyboards on almost every track. A keen computer music enthusiast, he has a collection of keyboards including a Korg CX3, a recently acquired Emulator II, a Jupiter 8 and two Casios, the CZ101 and 5000.

Although the main bulk of the keyboards were played by Pat Seymour, Feargal actually played keyboards on almost every track. A keen computer music enthusiast, he has a collection of keyboards including a Korg CX3, a recently acquired Emulator II, a Jupiter 8 and two Casios, the CZ101 and 5000.

Although the main bulk of the keyboards were played by Pat Seymour, Feargal actually played keyboards on almost every track. A keen computer music enthusiast, he has a collection of keyboards including a Korg CX3, a recently acquired Emulator II, a Jupiter 8 and two Casios, the CZ101 and 5000.

"On most of the album we used the MSQ700. I haven't had time yet to get to grips with the sequencer in the Emulator. The only thing that bothers me is that there appears to be no step time programming on it. Obviously I prefer real time, but there are times when I want it to be so precise that I'll actually sit down and programme it in step time. Again, with the CZ5000, unless you have some idea of notation, you're going to be up shit creek because the display is in notation. So unless you know the difference between a semiquaver and a demi-semi-quaver you haven't even got a look in. But anyway Pat actually played most of the sequences except for really simple repetitive things. That way we got them right after about three takes instead of spending about 10 hours programming the things."

I've been through all the Roland drum machines, you know, cheap and tacky. Now I've got the Yamaha RX11. The snare sounds on it are a bit naff, but one of the bass drum sounds can pass as a reasonable sound in the studio with a bit of compression and eq. On the album me and Dave would work out the basic pattern on the drum machine and then get Ulle or Martin Chambers to take that as a basis. But on A Good Heart, although Ulle plays on it, at one point there's a rim shot and a bit of shaker from the original drum pattern, so we do things like that for percussive effects."