Underworld

"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 the Sound On Sound article "The Making Of Everything, Everything," Underworld mentions their Oxford Synthesiser Company OSCar Synthesizer, noting that although it's a valuable piece in their collection, it hasn't been used recently.

Underworld's Rick Smith on the Yamaha DX7: "The DX7 is my oldest and favorite synth. I have a set of sounds that I've programmed and that seem to work consistently. Recently I've started programming it again, but in ridiculous fashion, with sounds just coming out like noise. When you sample it and time-stretch and create other sounds and rhythms it can be interesting. It's true that most of my synths are analogue. I think most modern digital synths do too much. They fill all the gaps, and make up for a lack of imagination. And tweaking buttons is nice. You have to really struggle with these old synths. You may walk in on Tuesday, and for some reason it sounds shit all day, but the next day it may be sounding great."

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

"Live has changed the way we work. It's such an inspiration in the studio and onstage. We fill a sequence with our loops, tracks and samples; then we play around, and every time it comes up trumps! You can get things to fit like no other sequencer can, because the instant, on-the-fly time-stretching is amazing. You can alter a loop with ease in so many ways - instantly. We use it as an instrument as well as a sequencer. You can make the maddest loops out of any audio. Live has revolutionized our live performances. We now have the option of playing audio at any BPM and at any pitch, so mixing our more mellow 100 BPM tracks into the 135 [BPM] fat breakbeat tracks is a piece of cake. At our last show in Tokyo, I used Live for playing loops and songs while DJing in front of 28,000 Japanese kids in one hall going crazy. Then Underworld played using Live on two PowerBooks with another two running Logic, and the place went bonkers."

In an article from Sound On Sound titled "The Making Of Everything, Everything," Underworld discusses their use of the Quasimidi Technox synthesizer. They note that while it's not heavily used, it excels at quickly providing pad or bass sounds when needed.

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 a video showing Maschine in Underworld's setup, Darren Price plugs it into his Funktion One FF6000 DJ Mixer.

Underworld can be seen using the Roland GR-1 Guitar Synthesizer pedal in this Instagram photo, which apprently they haven't used since the 90's:

Silent since the 90's 21st century prodigal son

This article on the recording of the "Barking" album describes the band's then-current studio setup. It states, "Underworld relied on both software and hardware synthesizers. Soft-horses included Logic ES2; GForce ImpOSCar, ImpOSCar2, String Machine, and Oddity; Sonic Charge’s Synplant; Synthogy Ivory (piano); Rob Papen BLUE; and Native Instruments’ Battery 3, FM8, Reaktor 5, and Massive."

This article on the recording of the "Barking" album describes the band's then-current studio setup. It states, "Underworld relied on both software and hardware synthesizers. Soft-horses included Logic ES2; GForce ImpOSCar, ImpOSCar2, String Machine, and Oddity; Sonic Charge’s Synplant; Synthogy Ivory (piano); Rob Papen BLUE; and Native Instruments’ Battery 3, FM8, Reaktor 5, and Massive."

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

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

It's unclear what version of Logic Pro Underworld uses currently, but back in 2000 they were on version 4.5. Rick Smith says "We've recently taken out a lot of things, partly because things became so cluttered, partly because the plug-ins that I use in Logic Audio are so brilliant. Audio effects plug-ins are fantastic things, they've made a huge difference. You can now run a mix in the computer that comes out in stereo, so the size of the console isn't really an issue."

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."

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).

In this photo posted by Karl Hyde to Instagram, his Guild electric guitar can be seen. It most closely matches a Guild Starfire III, though the finish is custom and it is adorned with decals. The pickguard, dot inlays in the neck, body shape, and knob configuration match that of the Starfire III. Hyde's is perhaps an older vintage model, as a few things differ such as the pickups, Bigsby tremolo with some rust/tarnishing on it, and "reinforcement" around the pickup selector switch.

For their latest tour(s), Underworld have switched their on stage line mixer to an SSL L500. Rick Smith says:

"It was tricky because I knew I was looking for a console that was going to sit in a performance aspect on stage as opposed to purely front of house."

Read the full article here.

In this photo posted by Underworld, they can be seen using the Electro?Harmonix Superego Synth Engine pedal to process a guitar signal. They caption the photo:

#guitar processing party #underworld #Essex

This image from the band's Instagram account shows a pair of hands (presumably Rick Smith's) holding a 0-Coast unit.

In this archived version of a December 2000 article from Sound On Sound, Underworld's Rick Smith "explained how the music was improvised, with loops stored in the Akai S6000, clocked by an MPC2000, sequenced from two Apple Powerbook computers running Logic Audio, and then run through two Mackie desks, one 32-channel and the other 24."

"I have a Roland GR50 chopped up in a slim box behind my guitar."

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

The vocoder in Karl Hyde's live rack is a Roland VP330.

In an article from Sound On Sound titled "Underworld: The Making Of Everything, Everything," Underworld describes the Neve 33609C Stereo Limiter/Compressor as "the most wonderful, beautiful compressor," highlighting its integral role in their studio setup.

Underworld's Karl Hyde incorporates the Access Virus A Synthesizer Module in his studio setup, as detailed in the Sound On Sound article, "UNDERWORLD: The Making Of Everything, Everything."

Part of Karl Hyde's Studio.

Part of Karl Hyde's Studio.

Rick Smith listed the ARP 2600 as one of the most important pieces of gear in Underworld's studio in this Sound On Sound interview.

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"