UNKLE

we can see him playing the Roland System 8 at 2.50mn

James. “The MS-20 has been a staple-diet for UNKLE. I’ve been using it since Never, Never, Land, so at least 18 years. It’s just got wicked bass sounds and I’ve always loved Moog for the bass side of things.

James Lavelle of UNKLE mentions the Roland TB-303 at 0:15 as one of his first pieces of gear, as highlighted by Roland.

Steve: “I’m actually running the MS-20 and the Little Phatty through a Space Echo. They’re both mono, so I’m just going in left and right and it’s coming out the same.

“The Little Phatty is a great mono synth - Moog is a little bit more sweet-sounding I guess. The Moog has presets as well, so I can flick to different sounds really quickly, whereas the MS-20 has to be reprogrammed and the sound doesn’t change that much throughout the set.”

James: “I’m also using this new Dave Smith SP-16 Pioneer DJ Sampler, which I’m running a load of sounds through and using a bit like an Akai MPC. It’s got additional rhythms that I can add into the mix and vocal samples that are chopped up MPC-style. It’s full of stuff that I’ve sampled from films and vocal recordings.”

James: “I’m using the AS-1 analogue synthesizer for running a lot of bassline stuff and filtering.”

Steve: “I’m also using the Toraiz [AS-1] and doing a similar thing. The AS-1 has got the same synth engine as the Prophet 08 that Dave Smith made, except this is mono. It’s got a little ribbon keyboard and we’re sending the MIDI notes out of Ableton into it via a MIDI connection.”

A lot of the pre-editing is now done in File's Apple laptop with Digidesign's M Box and Pro Tools LE, "which is 24-track and as much as I need. After which we'll go into the Strongroom to spend two days finishing off there. We stick the mixes on CD-R, while many of our samples will be coming off the MPC2000."

File and Lavelle set up their studio in East London and called it Dos-Shot. File continued his work with his acoustic guitar and MPC2000 programming techniques, while Lavelle continued to contribute samples and conceptual ideas. The studio's Pro Tools rig was a then-top-of-the-range Mac-based TDM system, and in addition to the MPC2000 they retained an Emu 64000, and also had a Korg MS2000 and MS20. Meanwhile, says File, "mates would bring in loads of things. Pro Tools was the hub of everything, and we had every plug-in available going. On the Atari everything was in MIDI, which is great for beats and samples. But working with audio in Tools gave me so many options, I couldn't believe it."

For all Lavelle's non-hands-on non-musicianship, he is credited as playing Mellotron on 'What Are You To Me?'. "That was the first live recording session we had," explains Richard File. "Ant and James and I just had a writing week and I was really inspired and we had come up with 'What Are You To Me?' and 'In A State'. On 'What Are You To Me?' I was playing guitar, and we had a bassist and a drummer and a guitarist, and James was playing a Mellotron through a Space Echo, and manipulated the filter.