Vince Clarke

Do you have a favorite synth?

"The Pro-One [i.e., the Sequential Circuits Pro-One analog synth, used on Yaz hits like “Don’t Go” and “Only You”]. I’ve had it for so long. I like the envelopes on it, and it has really interesting modulation. It was easier to zero in on earlier in my career since there weren’t that many synths around, but now there are quite a few."

Another of Vince's many synths is the Roland Jupiter-4. Source.

The Roland Juno-60 can be seen in the lower left side of this photo of Vince Clarke's studio.

"The MC4 came in very useful when I left Depeche Mode and formed Yazoo, because I used it in place of other musicians. The only problem was that the Jupiter 4 hasn't got Gate or CV In, so I had to get a Pro One to work in conjunction with the MC4. That was more or less all I had when I came to do the first Yazoo album: the JP-4, the Pro One, the MC4, and a TR808 to provide any percussion sounds the Pro One couldn't generate!"

In the Synthtopia article "Vince Clarke and the Temple of Synth," Vince Clarke is noted for using the ARP 2600 synthesizer.

Vince Clarke using the MC-4 - Vince Clarke began using the MC-4 on Yazoo's debut album Upstairs at Eric's in 1982.

Depeche Mode album gear discussion on 1981 album: "I SPOKE TO VINCE CLARKE A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO AND HE TOLD ME THE DRUM MACHINE USED ON SPEAK AND SPELL WAS A KORG KR55 PRESET MACHINE .THE BAND USED JUST THE SNARE AND HIGH HATS SOUNDS FROM. THE BASS DRUM WAS GENERATED FROM AN ARP 2600 SYNTH WHICH WAS SYNCHED TO THE MACHINE AND AN OLD ROLAND MC4 MICROCOMPOSER SEQUENCER. SO THERE THE ANSWER IS!"

Vince plays the SH-101 in this video

A Roland MKS-80 Super Jupiter is among many synths owned by Vince according to Keyboard Magazine.

The live Erasure set-up - excluding the human beings - runs to an Oberheim Xpander module, a Yamaha TX rack with three modules (equivalent to DX9s in a small box, reckons Vince), a Sequential Pro-One synth, plus two Casios, the CZ1000 and CZ101, all driven by a BBC computer using the almost universally praised UMI-2B MIDI sequencer. A Yamaha RX11 and Roland TR727 (latin) supply the drums.

A Casio CZ-101 can be seen in Vince's studio (in front of the Roland Juno 60).

The Roland JP-8000 is featured in the "Studio Equipment List" on Vince Clarke's website.

The Roland SH-1 is featured in the "Studio Equipment List" from Vince Clarke's website.

"Well, I got the Yamaha DX7 not long ago. I think it's great, really excellent. When we recorded 'Never, Never', the Fairlight had a much narrower band-width than it has now, so we got the Synclavier in, and that was the first time I'd used a keyboard that worked on the principle of FM synthesis. Since then, we've got new voice-cards for the Fairlight, which have made the sound much cleaner, and I've also got the DX7: so in a way I now feel as if I've got almost everything available in terms of the creation of sound. I've got FM on the DX7, digital sampling on the Fairlight, and analogue on the Pro One and RSF Kobol."

The Moog Minimoog can be seen just above the Korg MS-20 in the right foreground of this photo from Vince Clarke's studio.

According to the website "Synthtopia," this audio recording features Vince Clarke, in 1984, discussing the Fairlight CMI and how he was using it at the time.

"Martin had a Yamaha CS5, Vince had a Kawai 100F and Andy had a Moog Prodigy."

"When we were building Splendid Studios down here, we had the Fairlight upstairs at Blackwing, and while they were demolishing this area of the church to make way for the studio, they turned out all sorts of rubbish down here: bits of wood, china, glass, God knows what else. So I came down here with a hammer and just started smashing everything, sampling all those sounds onto disk. Since then we've sampled most things, from acoustic guitar to Roland TR808, and even a Casio VL-Tone..."

In this photo of Vince Clarke's studio, the Roland Jupiter-8 is the second synthesizer directly below Vince Clarke.

The Korg MS-20 can be seen in the right foreground of this photo of Vince Clarke's studio.

In the Synthtopia article "Vince Clarke And The Temple of Synth," Vince Clarke is noted for using the Waldorf Microwave XT Synthesizer.

The microkorg can be seen on the table to the left side of Vince's studio (below the Juno 60 and to the left of the Jupiter 8)

The Roland D550 is featured in the "Studio Equipment List" on Vince Clarke's website.

The live Erasure set-up - excluding the human beings - runs to an Oberheim Xpander module, a Yamaha TX rack with three modules (equivalent to DX9s in a small box, reckons Vince), a Sequential Pro-One synth, plus two Casios, the CZ1000 and CZ101, all driven by a BBC computer using the almost universally praised UMI-2B MIDI sequencer. A Yamaha RX11 and Roland TR727 (latin) supply the drums.

The PPG Wave 2.2 is featured in the "Studio Equipment List" on Vince Clarke's website.

The Korg MS 10 is featured in the "Studio Equipment List" on Vince Clarke's website.

"We use the same basic gear for live work and recording: an Oberheim Xpander, Juno 106, MKS80, Prophet VS, D550, S550, all run off UMI. My favourite is definitely the Xpander - that's the synth. We use all sorts of stuff really - a lot of analogue equipment. I've still got all my old gear, I never throw anything away. I think it's something that I'd like to get back into now, the old analogue equipment. There are companies now that are making analogue synths based around things like the Roland System 100, and I'd like to get more into that. That's why I bought the Oberheim Xpander — it's like old modular synths really, except that it doesn't have patch cords, but you can still modulate anything with anything else."

"I've always had bits of System 100s, always. I've just extended it really, adding more modules, although I'm not really collecting them any more. There are little submixers and things which I could get, but they're not that useful to me. It's a great sounding synth; really rich. Plenty of bollocks. I use it a great deal."

Listed for sale on Tone Tweakers on December 2, 2016.

Mini Korg-700 for sale. We got this one from our friend Vince Clarke (Erasure). We specialize in vintage synth servicing and, after a full overhaul, it's now working perfectly. This unit was had jacks added for pitch CV, gate and filter CV, making it much more useful than a stock Mini-Korg. Please search our site for Minikorg to find other units we may have available.

Estimated preparation time: 0-2 weeks

Auction for Vince Clarke's Roland PG-300, which he used to program his Roland MKS-50.