Paul Woolford

May 28, 2019, Resident Advisor:

RA: I read that you once used an E-Mu as a core part of your setup. Are we talking something from the Ultra series?

Woolford: Yeah man, rack mount E4XT Ultra.

Resident Advisor, May 28, 2019:

Mine [Emu E4XT] had a new lease of life when I did Soul Music because I used it with a Manley Massive Passive EQ, which is proper military grade equipment. Everything I put into the sampler went through the Manely first. This means I could sculpt sounds so that they're booming before they even get in the sampler.

Resident Advisor May 28, 2019:

Another piece I run almost everything through is the Maslec MLA-3, which is a multi-band compressor. Another game changer for me. It really enabled me to hear things differently, to pick out new frequencies in the sound. It has a certain effect, not a glue-type thing, but it's almost as though it gives you more headroom in a mad way. I felt it as soon as I got it.

As seen in screenshot from this May 28, 2019 Resident Advisor interview.

Resident Advisor, May 28, 2019:

I was made redundant from a job I had at a DIY store around that time. I was getting something like £400 a month and they gave me three months pay as severance. I spent it all on an S2000. My parents were like, "What have you done!" And I'm like, "Yeah, I got this massive cream box that I don't know how to use." But I was so happy to have a real sampler because I was botching it for years.

May 28, 2019, Paul Woolford bares all for Resident Advisor:

The guy there was so patient with me. I'd go in and say, "Right, what can I get for £120?" Then he'd be like, "You can have this, that or that." One was a Yamaha CS-5, the other a BOSS DR-660 and the third bit would always be something a bit more expensive, which in this case was the Roland R-8. I ended up getting all three of those bits. And even to this day, I love them all. I didn't have the R-8 long, maybe two years, but I made loads of tunes on it. I had the CS-5 for 12 years. I put it in storage but it disappeared with a few other pieces a while back. I was gutted and I still think about that synth now. Need to get another.

May 28, 2019, Resident Advisor:

I'd want a stab from an Eric B. & Rakim record or a vocal from the Bomb The Bass album. I'd try and sample breakbeats but there wasn't enough sample time on the SK-5 to get the full loop in. But you quickly realise that if you play a lower note on the keyboard the sample plays lower and slower, and if you hit a higher note it pitches up and speeds up. As a kid I always wanted to speed everything up.

Resident Advisor May 28, 2019:

So the Manley was a total game changer for me as well. Once you've had it a few days you can almost tell who else is using it. Some people's sound comes from this EQ. I won't name names but once I got my own I realised "Ahhhh, it's the Manley that does it." I was using the Sequential Circuits Pro One a lot when I got it. I'd sample a bass note off the Pro One, loop it, run it through the Manley and then sweep all the frequencies around. It sounded mental, I'd not heard sweeping like that before. Then I'd sample those sweeps and play them with the keyboard, so once you've got a riff going, those sweeps are all moving around in strange ways.

May 28, 2019, Paul Woolford bares all for Resident Advisor:

The guy there was so patient with me. I'd go in and say, "Right, what can I get for £120?" Then he'd be like, "You can have this, that or that." One was a Yamaha CS-5, the other a BOSS DR-660 and the third bit would always be something a bit more expensive, which in this case was the Roland R-8. I ended up getting all three of those bits. And even to this day, I love them all. I didn't have the R-8 long, maybe two years, but I made loads of tunes on it. I had the CS-5 for 12 years. I put it in storage but it disappeared with a few other pieces a while back. I was gutted and I still think about that synth now. Need to get another.

May 28, 2019, Paul Woolford bares all for Resident Advisor:

The guy there was so patient with me. I'd go in and say, "Right, what can I get for £120?" Then he'd be like, "You can have this, that or that." One was a Yamaha CS-5, the other a BOSS DR-660 and the third bit would always be something a bit more expensive, which in this case was the Roland R-8. I ended up getting all three of those bits. And even to this day, I love them all. I didn't have the R-8 long, maybe two years, but I made loads of tunes on it. I had the CS-5 for 12 years. I put it in storage but it disappeared with a few other pieces a while back. I was gutted and I still think about that synth now. Need to get another.

May 28, 2019, Resident Advisor:

Around this time I was getting more inquisitive with the equipment itself. The CS-5 has an external input for running sounds through the filter and I remember just dicking around, didn't know what I was doing, and I ended up sticking a Roland 606 through it. I loved the 606 but I always wanted it to sound heavier. Then when I ran it through the CS-5, it sounded bonkers. I didn't know what a filter was, it was just a knob on this battered old synth. Then you could turn down the sound of the synth's oscillator so you could have just the drums running through the filter.