Philip Glass

When I joined, the keyboards consisted of 3 Farfisa Mini-Compact organs. That was it.

Over the years of my involvement, the Ensemble went through a series of migrations to new hardware. The first was the replacement of one of the Farfisas by a Yamaha YC45-D dual manual electric organ, a wonderful machine with touch sensitivity and adjustable percussive attack. After that, we added an Arp Explorer synthesizer. Next came a Sequential Circuits Prophet 5, then an Oberheim OBXa, then a Yamaha Dx7 (one of the first in the US, hand-carried back from a tour in Japan), then an Emulator I sampler (serial #002), then a Roland Juno-106 and a Roland JX3P, and an Emulator II sampler, and then, as we adopted MIDI controllers and rack modules, a Roland Super Jupiter, a Yamaha TX-816 rack and a YTX-802, several Oberheim Matrix-6R. and a number of Akai S-900 samplers, later replaced with Digidesign Samplecell I cards running on Mac IIs.

You’ve joined the Philip Glass Ensemble in 1974. I guess the live rig has changed a few times over all these years. Could you share with us how your setup has evolved until the latest pre-Bidule setup?

When I joined, the keyboards consisted of 3 Farfisa Mini-Compact organs. That was it. Over the years of my involvement, the Ensemble went through a series of migrations to new hardware. The first was the replacement of one of the Farfisas by a Yamaha YC45-D dual manual electric organ, a wonderful machine with touch sensitivity and adjustable percussive attack. After that, we added an Arp Explorer synthesizer. Next came a Sequential Circuits Prophet 5, then an Oberheim OBXa, then a Yamaha Dx7 (one of the first in the US, hand-carried back from a tour in Japan), then an Emulator I sampler (serial #002), then a Roland Juno-106 and a Roland JX3P, and an Emulator II sampler, and then, as we adopted MIDI controllers and rack modules, a Roland Super Jupiter, a Yamaha TX-816 rack and a YTX-802, several Oberheim Matrix-6R. and a number of Akai S-900 samplers, later replaced with Digidesign Samplecell I cards running on Mac IIs.

How does the new rig look like now and what do you like the most about it?

The new rig consists of 7 Mac Mini mid-2011 servers, each connected to an M-Audio ProFire 610 interface for MIDI and audio. Each player in the Ensemble has his own dedicated computer. I chose this Mini model because it has a quad-core processor and dual 500GB internal hard drives. I’m not using any server functions on it. The second internal drive is a clone of the first, maintained by Carbon Copy Cloner; whenever the machine boots up, the clone is updated and older files archived. All computers are run headless via Ethernet from a MacBook . All machines have identical software loads, except for their manual IP addresses and desktop pictures which have the computer name embedded in them so I can tell which one I’m looking at. I have written a number of custom Applescript applications as front ends for rsync to manage synchronization between machines, a subject worthy of a separate discussion, so I won’t go into that now

From this September 1985 Electronic Soundmaker, Philip Glass says:

"My studio at home is just a Baldwin upright piano and a big desk! — but in the 24-track we do a lot of preparation for live performances as well as the album pieces.

November 29, 2023 I attended a performance of Koyaanisqatsi by the Philip Glass Ensemble at Town Hall in New York. They were playing 5 Yamaha Motif XF8 keyboards.

In this photo, a Hohner Clavinet I can be seen to the bottom left (empty chair) during the premiere of Philip Glass’s "Music in Eight Parts" in 1970.

"V-Collection 5 has been an invaluable resource in recreating the sounds we used in the original Philip Glass Ensemble pieces during the 70s and 80s. The interface is easy to use and and sounds just like the original units."

In this photo of the Philip Glass Ensemble performing at the Walker Arts Center in 1970, a Baldwin Electric Harpsichord (back left) can be seen accompanied by three Farfisa Mini Compact organs.