Rick Smith

“We bought the 909 in 1984, the year it came out, and I’ve been using it ever since,” admits Smith. “It was the first drum machine I plugged in when we started playing live again in 1992. It’s not something we like doing, taking vintage instruments around with us, but the sound is so fantastic, particularly the kick drum. The sound of that over a PA is something else.”

This image posted to Underworld's Instagram account shows the band's long-running, hard-working Roland Vocoder (the band uses the keyboard version rather than the rackmount unit), visible on the lower rack. Smith typically uses it to "play in" Hyde's voice.

This article on the recording of the "Barking" album describes the band's then-current studio setup. "[Rick] Smith supplies microphone and preamp details: 'We used a Neumann TLM170 for Karl, quite an old one. In terms of a mic pre, Karl used an Apogee Mini Me at his home studio. In my studio, it was the Midas console preamp, or possibly a Focusrite ISA 430 MkII Producer Pack.'"

This image posted to Underworld's Instagram account shows Rick Smith's portable Eurorack setup. The Minirig speaker is positioned in the lower-left corner of the image, and it appears that Smith is using it as a monitor.

This image posted to Underworld's Instagram account shows Rick Smith adjusting a bunch of Eurorack units. The A-189-1 VBM is the third to the left of his hand.

This image posted to Underworld's Instagram account shows Rick Smith adjusting a bunch of Eurorack units. The Clouds module is to the left of his hand.

This image posted to Underworld's Instagram account shows Rick Smith adjusting a bunch of Eurorack units. The Bark filter module is above and to the left of his hand.

This image posted to Underworld's Instagram account shows Rick Smith adjusting a bunch of Eurorack units. The Erbe-Verb is below and to the left of his hand.

This image posted to Underworld's Instagram account shows Rick Smith adjusting a bunch of Eurorack units. The Maths module is second to the left of his hand on the bottom row.

This image posted to Underworld's Instagram account shows Rick Smith adjusting a bunch of Eurorack units. The Optomix is the second module to the left of his hand.

This image posted to Underworld's Instagram account shows Rick Smith adjusting a bunch of Eurorack units. The SVF-201 is the fourth module to the left of his hand.

This image posted to Underworld's Instagram account shows Rick Smith adjusting a bunch of Eurorack units. The Random Sampling is the module just above his hand.

This image posted to Underworld's Instagram account shows Smith's portable Eurorack setup. The DrumDokta2 is located in the lower-left corner.

This image posted to Underworld's Instagram profile, the Circadian Rhythm module is in the upper-right corner.

This image posted to Underworld's Instagram profile shows the Wogglebug in the bottom-center of the picture.

This image posted to Underworld's Instagram profile shows a Rose module in the bottom-left-center of the picture.

This image posted to Underworld's Instagram profile shows a Complex Oscillator in the lower-left corner of the picture.

This image posted to Underworld's Instagram profile shows a Phogene module in the lower-right corner of the picture.

This image posted to Underworld's Instagram profile shows a Eurorack with many modules. The PEG can be seen in the center of the picture.

This image posted to Underworld's Instagram profile shows a Eurorack full of modules. The Galilean Moons unit can be seen in the center-left of the picture.

This image posted to Underworld's Instagram profile shows a Eurorack full of modules. The Quad Clock Distributor can be seen in the center of the picture, just to the right of the PEG.

This image posted to Underworld's Instagram profile shows a Eurorack full of modules. The A-106-5 unit can be seen in the bottom-right area of the picture.

“The actual emulation of the VP-330 is really good but I’m hoping for better off the VP-770. I did a really stringent direct A-B test of one of our original VP-330 vocoders against the modeled one and it was good enough for me to go, ‘Look, I think we should go with this live.’”

“The actual emulation of the VP-330 is really good but I’m hoping for better off the VP-770. I did a really stringent direct A-B test of one of our original VP-330 vocoders against the modeled one and it was good enough for me to go, ‘Look, I think we should go with this live.’”

This image posted to Underworld's Instagram account (signed by Rick) shows the two Lyra-8 synths Smith used on the group's recent collaboration with Iggy Pop.

This image posted to Underworld's Instagram account shows Rick Smith's portable Eurorack setup. The K-Board is visible at the bottom of the picture.

This image posted to Underworld's Instagram page shows Smith's ARP 2600.