Gary Numan

Just seen the amazing new Omnisphere 2 promo by @spectrasonics. That's the rest of my life taken care of then.

"During the course of recording, Native Instruments brought out updates, including the Rammfire plug-in [emulation software based on Rammstein’s Richard Z. Kruspe guitar rig], which is great for guitar parts."

"After the initial piano, it’s usually one of two things. Spectrasonics Stylus RMX, an amazing sample and loop player, it’s the fundamental background of the groove, at least in the early stages anyway."

“Soundtoys plugs-ins are so good, they have made our outboard effects almost redundant – even the high end ones!?In particular, we love EchoBoy, Crystallizer, Filter Freak, Pan Man and our new ‘go to every time’ plug in, Decapitator.? Decapitator manages to give everything an added dynamic. We are working an a new album at the moment and it is fantastic on drums, guitars, bass, vocals… pretty much anything. The quality – as with all Soundtoys plug-ins – is astounding.”

You work in Pro Tools?

I do, but my producer, Ade Fenton, works in Logic. We used Native Instruments Massive, Reactor, but I struggled with that. We also use Omnisphere. The danger with that software is, it’s very popular and then you get sucked into using things everybody knows. It’s difficult not to do, but it’s fantastic software. So many things really work straight out of the box, you have to be careful of that. But as a rule we work hard to make sure we are creating new sounds.

Gary Numan's testimonial from the Native Instruments website: "What's particularly impressive is the low end – just about as close as you can get to the real thing."

"I have the usual array of soft synth Plug Ins, Omnisphere 2, Trillion, Stylus RMX from Spectrasonics, most of the Native Instruments stuff, Ethno 2 from MOTU, and some cool stuff from a German company whose name I forget unfortunately." It's misspelled as "Trillion," but it's clear from the context that Gary Numan is talking about Trillian.

In the kit list for Savage included with Gary Numan's interview with Electronic Musician, Guitar Rig 5 is listed as one of the software processors.

You work in Pro Tools?

I do, but my producer, Ade Fenton, works in Logic. We used Native Instruments Massive, Reactor, but I struggled with that. We also use Omnisphere. The danger with that software is, it’s very popular and then you get sucked into using things everybody knows. It’s difficult not to do, but it’s fantastic software. So many things really work straight out of the box, you have to be careful of that. But as a rule we work hard to make sure we are creating new sounds.

"I have the usual array of soft synth Plug Ins, Omnisphere 2, Trillion, Stylus RMX from Spectrasonics, most of the Native Instruments stuff, Ethno 2 from MOTU, and some cool stuff from a German company whose name I forget unfortunately."

Although Numan writes all of his music on an aged upright piano, slowly adding effects, synth sounds and big beats, he also works with modern gear: Emagic Logic Audio Platinum and Digidesign Pro Tools on an Apple Mac G4 with two iZ Technology RADAR 24 digital recorders and a Mackie d8b desk. His synths are both soft and hard: Korg Wavestation, Alesis QuadraSynth, Korg M1, Roland D50 LA, GEM S2 Turbo and a Korg electric piano.