Stephen Luscombe

At the centre of Blancmange's sound over the last few years has been Stephen's Roland Jupiter 8, an instrument which he cherished and claimed to know inside out. His first excursion into the domain of electronic sound came some years before when he borrowed a VCS3. It turned out to be a good introduction: "The VCS 3 helps to understand how synthetic music works, because it has a matrix on it. You could see where one oscillator went through an envelope, then through a filter or whatever. And you could see why it did it and how it affected the sound." In spite of his mild disdain for digital synthesis ("I still don't like ultra squeaky clean things...") he has finally yielded to the times and switched to the JX8P.

Stephen can be seen playing a Korg Polysix synthesizer in this video.

Blancmange used a Casio CZ-101 in their album "Believe You Me," according to this article.

"Other keyboards that we've tried are the Korg Trident (I must say that I didn't find it particularly impressive) and the Korg Delta which is a lot of fun."

Blancmange used a Casio CZ-1000 in their album "Believe You Me," according to this article.

"Other keyboards that we've tried are the Korg Trident (I must say that I didn't find it particularly impressive) and the Korg Delta which is a lot of fun."

"We use the Roland JP8, which is quite a versatile instrument and a Korg MS-20 mainly."

At the centre of Blancmange's sound over the last few years has been Stephen's Roland Jupiter 8, an instrument which he cherished and claimed to know inside out. His first excursion into the domain of electronic sound came some years before when he borrowed a VCS3. It turned out to be a good introduction: "The VCS 3 helps to understand how synthetic music works, because it has a matrix on it. You could see where one oscillator went through an envelope, then through a filter or whatever. And you could see why it did it and how it affected the sound." In spite of his mild disdain for digital synthesis ("I still don't like ultra squeaky clean things...") he has finally yielded to the times and switched to the JX8P.

Stephen can be seen playing a Roland Jupiter 8 synthesizer in this video.

“The first keyboard that Stephen bought for Blancmange was the Roland Super Jupiter"

Surprisingly, the pair have resisted the general trend towards sampling. "We let Roland do that on the drum machines. Some people just bung Fairlights on for the sake of being modern, and if it doesn't need it there's no point. All we used was JX8P, Casio's, Jupiter 8, a few other keyboards, DX7 only on one song thank God, and a Prophet to do the bass on 22339. The 707, real congas and drums, backing vocalists, Steinberger guitar, Hugh Masakela on flugelhorn. If I was starting again in 1985 and I wanted to make a big flashy Fairlight number", Stephen explains, "that's alright, if it's obviously a Fairlight job. But imitating other things is pointless, especially if you know people who can just come in and play it."