Richard James Burgess

"The New Edition stuff was all computer and I mainly used the Roland MC4, actually doing all the programming in the studio."

"For instance, on the Melba Moore album I used the Yamaha RX11 drum machine with the individual outputs, which is MIDIable. I would write the song pattern on the RX11 and then MIDI it up to something else. I was MIDIing to an Emulator II which had samples on it which you could tune. It's basically using it instead of a Fairlight except you're not restricted to using Fairlight samples or Emulator samples. You could mix the RX11 sounds with the Emulator sounds, or you could trigger the DX7 with the RX11, or even an analogue synth via MIDI."

"We rehearsed the music and recorded those sessions, I wrote out my drum parts and programmed them for the MC-8 Microcomposer and the prototype SDSV drum synth."

"We rehearsed the music and recorded those sessions, I wrote out my drum parts and programmed them for the MC-8 Microcomposer and the prototype SDSV drum synth."

"I had just moved to NYC and I didn’t have much equipment with me – a LinnDrum, DX7 and a Juno 106 and I made the record with just those instruments."

"The major technical hurdle we had on the 'Tearooms' album was synching the CR78 with the MC8 (on the track 'The Tearooms of Mars…') and we did it by generating a square wave, recording that and locking the CR78 to that. It was hit and miss because the CR78 had to read every tooth of the square or it would slip out of synch. I seem to remember we got the square wave wrong at first and the CR78 was running at double speed. It was very exciting when we cracked it."

" I always liked the timing of the Linn 9000 and I still have mine."