Stephen Morris

In this interview, Stephen explains how he encountered his first drum synthesizer. "When I actually saw one, I think it was a Synare I in a music shop in Manchester. What I really liked about it was that it had a handle... it was like a suitcase and the fact that it had a handle, I thought that was cool because you could carry this thing about. When I actually got a drum synthesizer, it was the Synare III."

Asked in this interview about how he achieved some of the distinctive noises on Joy Division records, Stephen responds, "The unusual noise that I like the best is on Atrocity Exhibition. By then, I had a Synare III and a Simmons SDSVI [sic]..."

In this interview, Stephen was asked if he was using any electronic percussion while playing with Bad Lieutenant. "I use a Roland SPDs sampling pad for samples and an expanded TD20 driven by triggers from the kick and snare for odd sounds," he explains. "These are only used on about a quarter of the Bad Lieutenant songs — the more electronic ones obviously. Previously (for the last ten years) with New Order, I used either a TD10 or TD20 V drum kit exclusively with only a real kick and snare to provide triggers."

"For other tracks in New Order's live shows, a click pulse from the DR16 was fed to Stephen's headphones so that he could play his Roland TD8 electronic drum kit in time to the assorted sampled material."

What would be your favourite drum kit to use?

My favorite drum kit. Oh, that’s easy. The one I have at the moment, the DW. Don’t ask me what kind it is, I can’t remember. It’s a blue sparkly one. I have had a few through the years, obviously, but the last one I’ve got, The DW Collector Series that’s right that’s what it is. Fantastic, really great-sounding drum kit.

"Throughout the recording of Unknown Pleasures, drummer Stephen Morris played a traditional Rogers concert kit with a 14-inch Gretsch snare, 12, 13, 14 and 15 inch hanging toms, 15-inch Super Zyn hi-hats, 20-inch Earth ride cymbals, and 18 and 14 inch Zildjan crash cymbals."

An Octave Plateau Voyetra Eight is visible for the first 16 seconds of this video, when Stephen is playing it in the back of the room. Additionally, this article about the making of some of New Order's biggest hit singles lists the Voyetra among the synths used by the band in the studio.

In this interview, Stephen explains how he was drafted to play keyboards instead of his usual drums on certain New Order songs. "Did I want play keyboards? I'm the world's most reluctant keyboard player, I didn't really want to but it happened early on because there was just the three of us. It just happened that Bernard can't sing and play guitar at the same time, Hooky can't sing and play bass, and I just can't sing playing anything! So I ended up playing keyboards. We got the ARP Omni towards the end of Joy Division for Closer after using an ARP Solina earlier. So I ended up playing that with the drum machine on top."

Stephen is playing an Emulator throughout this video.

What’s your favourite synthesizer?

The Monomachine. I use that an awful lot. I have two Voyetras that are getting mended at the moment; I remember them very fondly. But the one that gets the most use is the Juno 106. So I suppose that is me favourite. A close thing between that and the Monomachine.

"The vocal choir part on 'Blue Monday' was sampled, and it was probably one of the first instances of someone sampling something from someone else's record. New Order originally used an Emulator II to play their samples live, but a lot of the time the Emulators wouldn't load up so the roadie would have to hit one of the legs with a hammer to start it working again — it was that kind of technology! So Steve had that part loaded up into his Kurzweil K2500."

What’s your favourite synthesizer?

'The Monomachine. I use that an awful lot. I have two Voyetras that are getting mended at the moment; I remember them very fondly. But the one that gets the most use is the Juno 106. So I suppose that is me favourite. A close thing between that and the Monomachine.'

The E-mu Emulator is clearly visible for the first 16 seconds of this video, where Stephen is playing it at the back of the room. Additionally, this article about the making of some of New Order's biggest hit singles lists the Emulator II among the synths used by the band in the studio.

In this interview, Stephen is asked what his first drum machine was. "It was just after [recording Joy Division's album] Closer that I got the first affordable programmable drum machine, the Boss Dr. Rhythm DR-55 and that was on the early New Order stuff like 'Truth.' I think there's even a version of In A Lonely Place we did with the drum machine, it didn't work out too well."

This article details the making of The Other Two and You by Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert. "The pair have been resident at their farmhouse home for four years since moving the short distance from Stephen's native Macclesfield. The 200 year-old dwelling commands impressive views of the local countryside and their home studio has been set up in the large converted loft area of the farmhouse's adjacent barn... Their studio at that time, just following [New Order's] Technique, was based around a little Seck desk and a Fostex E16."

In this interview, Stephen is asked, "The acquisition of your first digital drum machine in the beloved Oberheim DMX of course gave you Blue Monday. It must have been like night and day compared with your Boss Dr Rhythm but how was it trying to synch up this state of the art technology with the Polysequencers in those pre-MIDI days." He replies, "It was fine, I never had a problem with synching it up because it was just a clock really. I have honestly come full circle and getting back into it again now."

Stephen explains how he used the Moog Ladder Filter in tandem with his Synare 3 drum synth, in this article, to produce "that sound on 'Insight'... I didn't quite understand how a Moog ladder filter worked which is why when you listen to bootlegs of 'Insight'... basically you'd crank the resonance up and it would turn into 'tweeting birds' for these weird freak out breaks but of because of this filter, the volume went up by 10! So yeah, in a lot of bootlegs, that's all you can hear!"

Photo from a Factory Floor session at Stephen and Gillian's studio.