Michael MacNeil

On stage, Mick uses an old Yamaha CP70 piano, converted to MIDI, as his master keyboard. Behind him is a Kurzweil with the Macintosh on top (the computer saves Mick's Kurzweil sounds — amazing, he says, that an £18,000 keyboard won't save your programs when you turn it off). Then there's an Emulator II, an Oberheim OB8, and a Roland JP8 which he uses MIDI'd together off the CP70 as his main 'block' of sound: the JP8 and OB8 panned around, and the Emulator padding out things with cellos and voices. He also uses the Emulator for one sequence in the current set, a cello intro on the re-arranged 'Book Of Brilliant Things'. On top of the CP70 at front is the inevitable Yamaha DX7. Not that Mick counts himself as a big FM expert — he uses the presets, like most users, and was put off any further exploration by early and complete confusion at FM's seeming illogicality.

"I'm pleased with the JP4's stereo ensemble facility, but there's not enough memories. I'm going to try to get Roland to split the eight memories into four groups, giving 32: you soon run out on stage with just eight. The arpeggio's good, using trick timings with echo."

"The OBXa I got very recently — it really sticks out when you record it, piercing without needing volume. The first one I got kept wiping memories, a real worrier because all I kept getting was white noise and people thought I was doing it deliberately!"

"The instruments I'm using at the moment are an Oberheim OB8, a Jupiter 8, and a Yamaha DX7 that I've just bought."

"The instruments I'm using at the moment are an Oberheim OB8, a Jupiter 8, and a Yamaha DX7 that I've just bought. I got it when we were about halfway through recording the new album, so I've only really just started using it. I was really surprised by the DX7, first because it was so cheap, and second because the digital sound quality is very high. No matter how softly you're playing, the DX can still lift your sound above the other instruments in the band, and that's something very few other keyboards that I've tried can do."

On stage, Mick uses an old Yamaha CP70 piano, converted to MIDI, as his master keyboard. Behind him is a Kurzweil with the Macintosh on top (the computer saves Mick's Kurzweil sounds — amazing, he says, that an £18,000 keyboard won't save your programs when you turn it off). Then there's an Emulator II, an Oberheim OB8, and a Roland JP8 which he uses MIDI'd together off the CP70 as his main 'block' of sound: the JP8 and OB8 panned around, and the Emulator padding out things with cellos and voices. He also uses the Emulator for one sequence in the current set, a cello intro on the re-arranged 'Book Of Brilliant Things'. On top of the CP70 at front is the inevitable Yamaha DX7. Not that Mick counts himself as a big FM expert — he uses the presets, like most users, and was put off any further exploration by early and complete confusion at FM's seeming illogicality.

Korg 770 is included in the list of Michael MacNiel's keyboard.

"The instruments I'm using at the moment are an Oberheim OB8, a Jupiter 8, and a Yamaha DX7 that I've just bought."

"I just got the Roland PA150 amp/mixer, and I feed it into my two Yamaha bins."

He used a Roland RE-501, according to this article.

"We've got Doctor Rhythms and a new Roland, the 8000. Programmable are best — presets get boring."

"For this album we used the Oberheim DMX, and at first we thought it was a bit too close to the sound of a real drummer, but it turned out to be the perfect vehicle for our songwriting."