Underworld

Underworld's Rick Smith says "I use this a lot. Very important."

"Our oldest sampler. It goes on once a year."

"Handy. It sends MIDI info from the faders and buttons so you can control the faders in the computer, instead of using a mouse. You can also attach it to synths and use it to control parameters."

Underworld use the 24-channel version in the studio. Rick Smith says "My favourite thing in here. I like the valve sound."

"The most wonderful, beautiful compressor."

"We put whole mixes through this, especially for Beaucoup Fish, whilst being very delicate."

Part of Karl Hyde's Studio.

Part of Karl Hyde's Studio.

Part of Karl Hyde's Studio.

Part of Karl Hyde's Studio.

Underworld's Darren Price talks about Maschine by Native Instruments: "We've had bits of equipment over the last years coming into the studio - it's blown us away - but Maschine is one that's stood out over them all. So this is what we normally do in a live situation. Say we probably write some beats in Maschine in a hotel room somewhere in the world and think 'Oh, I want to play that tonight.' So I'm upping Maschine, I'm on top of the DJ kit, and then I'm ready to rumble. I can either jam it straight from Maschine or put some parts into the main desk. From hotel room mode to live gig on the spur of the moment we normally just run Maschine in sync and... rocking. Since 1.6 I've been running it standalone because of all of the new features. Floating external instruments, plugins, all of my core audio units, whether they're Native Instruments, third party, whatever, I can kind of do the whole track in Maschine and it's great. That's why we've kind of being using it, trying to reinvent some of the old Underworld records to perform live in 2011. They sound a little bit old drum-wise and you put Maschine on and it kind of gives it a new edge, it gives it this new kind of sound. So that's how we've been finding it and it's been very successful. Over the last few weeks us trying different things Everybody Jack...I wrote that in one day. And now it's going to be in the Underworld live set so it's like, you now, [I've] not written a track in one day, on the computer, in any program, in quite a long time. You've got so hands on with each note, holding pads down, tuning, length, position. Don't even touch a mouse - there's no mouse involved. If I'm looking at arranging a track on the screen I'd probably let the section go for probably less time... but if I'm in front of a console or Maschine, you go with your feeling. If your feeling isn't to go 16 bars an hour then you leave it for 32 or 64. it's just a different way to arrange and mix the track. If I spent three weeks in the studio I could translate all the Underworld stuff into Maschine and I could turn up like that and we could do an Underworld gig out of it. We could do it without taking all of that backline and all of the live stuff. It's just a great, great piece of kit, and I love it."

"My rack and MPC2000 take the clock from Rick's MPC2000, whilst my MPC2000 goes through this little 8-channel Mackie, so I can turn off or boost things. I select my source via the rack at the top left, which is made by Funktion One. It's really just a channel selector, and the red button in the middle is a mute."

In this photo posted by Underworld to their Instagram on April 2016, a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 USB Audio Interface can be seen on the left on top of the stack of books. This appears to be Underworld's mobile gear setup. The photo is captioned, "Hotel recording with #rick" ("#rick" referring to Underworld's Rick Smith).

"The Drawmer gate is the last in the chain before it goes to Rick's desk."

This photo from Underworld's Instagram account shows the band's CR-78, and indicates that it previously belonged to synthpop legends Ultravox.

This video clip from Underworld's Instagram account shows Rick Smith (or possibly Darren Price, hard to say who the hand belongs to) jamming with a Maschine, which the caption identifies as a MK3 model.

In a video of Underworld's Darren Price demonstrating the track 'Everybody Jack' on NI's Maschine, Absynth can be seen as one of the synths used on the track.

In this March 2016 photo of Underworld's hotel room gear setup, a set of Bowers & Wilkins P7 Headphones can be seen. The photo is captioned, "#Brussels hotel studio"