Michael Whalen - Imaginary Trains

Michael Whalen is a two-time Emmy Award winning, Grammy-nominated composer with over 30 years experience composing for film and television, as well as being a recording artist in his own right, with over 800 million streams since 2015. Here he talks to Rob Puricelli about performing his latest instrumental album ‘Imaginary Trains’ to a live audience at the EMEAPP museum, using their extensive collection of rare vintage synthesizers.

Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
01:47 - What was the inspiration behind the album, “Imaginary Trains”?
05:06 - How did you come up with the idea for the live broadcast?
10:51 - What instruments did you choose from the EMEAPP collection
20:10 - How did you go about replacing the studio parts with the gear you chose?
22:44 - Did any instrument daunt you?
27:07 - Behind the scenes...
30:19 - The choice between live and sequenced
34:01 - Rehearsal and preparation
35:42 - Gear Acquisition Syndrome! (G.A.S.)
39:10 - Did any of these old machines let you down?
39:50 - Would you do this again?
41:55 - Future projects

Michael Whalen Biog
After more than 30 years as one of the top television and film composers, an an internationally renown recording artist, a music supervisor, artist coach/client and former record label executive, his music has been heard by billions and billions of people. He has accumulated more than 800 million streams from all worldwide music platforms since 2015. His musical output is enormous and ranges from ambient/new age to jazz to soundtrack/theme music, world music, singer/songwriter, classical and crossover.

Michael is an expert on copyright law, music monetisation and digital rights. He consults with major technology and music companies and mentors artists around the world as part of his company Artist Expansion. As a teacher, he has been an adjunct professor at NYU, The Berklee College of Music, and The City College of NY. Michael is also an author, thought leader on the future on digital copyrights and panelist at dozens of major conferences and festivals.

https://www.michaelwhalen.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14ugFiMYlr0
https://emeapp.org/

Rob Puricelli Biog
Rob Puricelli is a Music Technologist and Instructional Designer who has a healthy obsession with classic synthesizers and their history. In conjunction with former Fairlight Studio Manager, Peter Wielk, he fixes and restores Fairlight CMI’s so that they can enjoy prolonged and productive lives with new owners. He also writes reviews and articles for Sound On Sound, his website Failed Muso, and other music-related publications, as well as hosting a weekly livestream on YouTube for the Pro Synth Network and guesting on numerous music technology podcasts and shows. He also works alongside a number of manufacturers, demonstrating their products and lecturing at various educational and vocational establishments about music technology.

www.failedmuso.com
Twitter: @failedmuso
Instagram: @failedmuso
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/failedmuso/

Catch more shows on our other podcast channels: https://www.soundonsound.com/sos-podcasts

Creators and Guests

Host

Rob Puricelli

Rob Puricelli is a Music Technologist and Instructional Designer who has a healthy obsession with classic synthesizers and their history. In conjunction with former Fairlight Studio Manager, Peter Wielk, he fixes and restores Fairlight CMI’s so that they can enjoy prolonged and productive lives with new owners. He also writes reviews and articles for Sound On Sound, his website Failed Muso, and other music-related publications, as well as hosting a weekly livestream on YouTube for the Pro Synth Network and guesting on numerous music technology podcasts and shows. He also works alongside a number of manufacturers, demonstrating their products and lecturing at various educational and vocational establishments about music technology.

What is Electronic Music?

Welcome to the Sound On Sound Electronic Music podcast. On this channel we feature some of the pioneers of the industry, interview musicians and talk about retro and current gear.

More information and content can be found at https://www.soundonsound.com/podcasts | Facebook, Twitter and Instagram - @soundonsoundmag | YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/soundonsoundvideo

Hello and welcome to the Sound On Sound podcast channel about electronic music and all things synth. I'm Rob Puricelli and in this episode I speak with Michael Whelan, a two time Emmy Award winning, Grammy nominated composer, with over 30 years experience composing for film and television, as well as being a recording artist in his own right, with over 800 million streams since 2015.

Earlier this year, he released his latest instrumental album entitled Imaginary Trains. As part of the promotion for that album, Michael conceived of a plan to perform the album live, but with a twist. He approached the Electronic Music Education and Preservation Project near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

with the idea of using pieces of their extensive collection of rare vintage synthesizers to perform imaginary trains to an audience.

Before we discuss the daunting task of assembling such a live rig and the intricacies of filming the performance, I wanted to know what Michael's inspiration for the album itself was.

So, I am a train fanatic. So, like, in the, in the UK and, you know, in Europe, You guys have a much different relationship to trains than here in the United States because here in the United States It's much more sort of romantic. I think in especially like in Europe. It's much more sort of like, you know functional It's like, okay, I got to go from point A to point B but in America a lot of train trips are long they're like hours and hours and hours and Um, so when I was a kid, I went to boarding school and the way I got to boarding school was the train.

And so I have loved the train for my whole life. And I loved the idea that you could feel perfectly safe and still while you were in motion. And I've always wanted to try to create that. And so I think the musical sort of inspiration was my love of the music of Tangerine Dream. So, uh, you know, the first time I ever heard Tangerine Dream was the movie Risky Business with Tom Cruise and Rebecca de Mornay.

They're on that, that scene, you know, on the L train in Chicago and they're, you know, getting it on and whatever. And that incredible track happens. And the first time I heard that, I was like, what is that? And that was one of those changed my life moments. And, um, and since then, you know, Uh, nearly 40 years later, uh, that music has become such an important part of what has inspires me and what has been sort of like, you know, pushing me forward as a, as a composer and as a synthesist.

This is not your first album. Of course, you've done many albums before. So where does this kind of fit in terms of, you know, the oeuvre, shall we say, of Michael Whelan? I am a little schizophrenic musically. I think it comes from the fact that I started my career in commercials and I've done many thousands of commercials and many, many hundreds of different genres and stuff.

Um, but I would say at this point I have a very strong representation in the electronic side. So my very first solo record back in 1996 was called night scenes and that was A deep ambient record. And, you know, and I, and since then I've been kind of playing with things and doing things and whatever, but I think imaginary trains is building on the success of the record that I did back in 2020 sacred spaces.

And, you know, and I'm really in a very sort of. Deep growing period as a sound designer and as a synthesist, and I'm really going for it on a lot of fronts. And, um, so I think imaginary trains is definitely inspired by all the soundtrack work that I've done. It's definitely inspired by the work that I've done with all the classical music that I've done, but I also think, um, my love of creating sounds is, uh, intense.

I, I have it. Created tens of thousands of sounds for myself and also for all the, the, the ads and the TV shows that I've worked on and the themes that I've done and the feature films that I've worked on, um, creating palettes, uh, of sounds have been a, um, a huge part of who I've been as a musician. How did you come up with the idea for doing a live performance of the entire album, and not only just doing a live performance of it, but doing it at, um, EMIAP, uh, which is this fantastic facility, uh, full of electronic equipment, you know, how, how did that, all of that come about?

So, um, our friend Larry fast said two years ago. Oh my God, you got to go to this place in Philadelphia. This place, Emiab, it's unbelievable. I went to the website and I was like, yeah, it doesn't look that great. And I finally, you know, and they're not really working on their website and they're not really spending a lot of time promoting themselves and they're not really doing a lot of that stuff.

So I, um, I finally reached out to them about six months later and I went down and I had the tour, Rob, I don't even know where to start. They. I don't even, I, I'm literally speechless on how to describe this place. I mean, it is the personal synthesizer collection of a guy who definitely knows the stuff, but the amount of historical, like important instruments they have there, I don't even know how to, I mean, they've got Keith Emerson's modular Moog there.

So like, I mean, you know, you want to start with that conversation. They have one of. Two Yamaha GX ones in the world that still work and theirs is in fantastic condition. So it's not just, I have a pile of gear. It's, ME app is a place that's about curation and it's about, um, uh, preservation and, you know, and so, uh, you know, Vince is, you know, uh, to put together a, a, uh, a collection like this, you have to be a lunatic.

In the best possible sense of the word, but at the same time, I think it's something that I don't think a university would have the wherewithal to do this. I don't think that even a museum would have the wherewithal to do this. So I think it has to fall on a private person to say, The stuff needs to be protected.

The stuff needs to be taken care of because I can't even imagine. Let's just talk about Keith Emerson's mug. Like that instrument needs to be cared for. And yes, I know. Keith dragged it all over the world for 25 years. Yeah, I know. But he had a team of guys fixing that thing constantly. So even to have that thing sitting in a room working, it's, um, it's unbelievable.

It's, it's unbelievable. Yeah. So did you approach them or did they come to you to do this? Oh, I, I, I totally came to them and I said, okay, I have this idea. I doing this record and I'd like to do a concert of music from this new album. Uh, have you ever done anything like this? And they're like, no, no one's ever done this before.

I'm like, duh, really? And they've done concerts. They've done, you know, smaller concerts and things, but they've never done anything on this scale. And what I said is what if. I picked 6, 8, 10, the number actually turned out to be 13 eventually, 13, 13 instruments to use as my rig for the event. And they said, sure.

And so I sent them a diagram. And what's amazing is that the diagram that I sent them is actually fairly accurate to what We actually ended up doing it. Uh, it actually kind of amazingly. So, um, and, um, they set up the room and I got down there and we moved a couple of things around and we did a couple of things and, um, I spent a lot of time rehearsing because I think, and, uh, and a few people have asked me this question is, did you want to do a concert with all of these older sense?

Cause I mean, I think only one. I think only the Prophet, let me think about this, the Prophet and the reissued Minimoog that I used were the only two of the 13 instruments that even had MIDI on them. So, um, the rest of them were not, before MIDI, way before MIDI. And so, the idea was, okay, well do you need to like go and prove yourself with all this gear?

And I said, honestly guys, I'm not even thinking about MIDI. I'm only thinking about can I go and perform and do this at the level that I want to. And I'm not really thinking about, like, the technical part of this yet. I'm more thinking about the musical part. So, so for me, it was never about, you know, integrating their synthesizers into my rig, whatever that means.

And, um, so, and we had a long conversation, me and the people at EMIAP about how do I want to do this? And we went back and forth, do we want to have a live audience? Do we want, and, and, and it was really, and it was February when we finally made this decision and a lot of bands were going out and they were going out and doing like a week or two weeks worth of stuff and then stopping because of COVID.

So I was like, uh, yeah, I don't want to do that. So we, we shifted gears and we went from a live event to a streaming event. And I got a friend of mine here in New York city to come down with a camera crew, and that's when we decided to do this as a live streaming concert. And, uh, it kind of freaked me out to have all those cameras.

I was like, ah, so. You say you drew up this list of instruments. First of all, what did you choose? Okay, so out of the gate, um, and I know this is going to sound weird that the first thing out of my mouth is the piano. But the very first thing was the CP 80, the Yamaha CP 80. The Yamaha CP 80 they have at EMIAP is literally the nicest CP ever.

Either, you know, 70 or 80 I have ever played in my life bar none. And I have played some major people's gear and it doesn't even come close. I mean, Rob, this thing is so close to being brand new. I don't even know where to start. It's, it's beautiful. And the action's beautiful. And when you, and when you, and when you play it, all you, all you can think of is Peter Gabriel playing, here comes the flood, and it's still, it's still like, Oh, Oh my God.

It's so. And so that was literally going to be the home base. And then they have a DX1. I have a DX1 over my shoulder. You and I are total FM fanatics. It's fine. Their DX1 is that much nicer than mine. They have a, they have a beautiful Yamaha DX1. And, uh, as somebody who has spent a lot of time with the DX1, I feel very comfortable with that.

I've made a lot of sounds for it. So I brought down cartridges of sounds and, um, their instruments, gorgeous. So between the CP 80 and the DX one, that became kind of the home home base. And then I knew that I was going to put the laptops with the sequencers and stuff on top. So from then, I was kind of off to the races and I was like, okay, I definitely need a Rhodes 100%.

And so they have a Rhodes 88, which is maybe the nicest roads I've ever played in my life. And I'm going to say this a lot, Rob. So as soon as you get sick of this, just, you know, feel free to punch me in the face over there, over, over the stream. Um, then it was, then it got a little strange because a lot of.

The lead sound, the lead sounds on, um, imaginary trains, um, is my Minimoog. I have a, I have a 2017 reissue Minimoog, which I absolutely adore. And it played the lead melody thing on pretty much all of the 11 songs on the entire album. So I said, okay guys, well, I need a MiniMogue. And they said, oh, well, we have 26 of them.

Which one would you like? guy, I, I mean, Rob, when I tell you, I don't know how to describe Emmy app. I don't know how to describe it. So I said, I, I, I said, guys, I need a reissue. I need a really old one that can do that. Funky, distorted, like, you know, like. Moving to kind of whatever, cause I need that for the low stuff.

And then I need another one. So they, they picked serial number 16. So I got an RA Moog serial number 16. So they were like, is that early enough? I think Dr. Moog actually. screwed this together himself, you know, and you know, it absolutely beautiful instrument, absolutely beautiful condition. And then the other one they had was Bernie Worrell's Minimoog, which it just was so beautiful and funky.

And it had that like, that nearly exploding kind of distortion, but not distortion thing. Oh, it's so beautiful. And so I had the two of those sitting next to each other, and then below it I had Keith Emerson's, um, Hammond CX 3. Um, and a lot of people don't know that I have spent a lot of time playing organ, and I love organ, and even though I don't own one, I have played a lot of organ.

Um, I I I I've never played a Hammond like That before, um, uh, Al Goff spent an enormous amount of time modifying Keith's CX three for him. Cut it down, did all kinds of stuff on the key bed. It's the fastest keyboard I've ever played on anything. Just, it just, it just wants you to play fast on it. Um, it's, it's a, it's a wonderful instrument.

So having the too many moogs on top of the six three, when you look at it. It just makes sense. You just go, Oh, okay. That, yeah, that makes sense. So, um, so then, um, uh, CSAT, the CSAT that they have, uh, at Emmy app is the nicest CSAT I've ever played in my life. See, I did it again. And, uh, then, uh, profit five, because I have a lot of profit on the album.

And, uh, so just, just from a sound replacement standpoint, I decided to do that, so, uh, they have. At least 10 profits. And so I actually, uh, got one of the later ones. It's a, um, uh, uh, uh, a revision three, really great shape, uh, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, stable instrument. So did that. And then there's the GX one.

And I, and so there's this whole conversation about whether I should use the GX one and I'm like, because it's not really, uh, where am I going to use it and what am I going to do? And it has such a, it has such a distinctive sound to it. You know, I mean, anybody who knows any of the stuff that Keith did with it, whether it's any of the stuff from works or any of the stuff he did on that tour, you know, it has a very, very distinctive sound to it.

Yeah. And you can dial things up on it, but it's still got a very, very clear kind of quality of sound to it. So I said, okay, fine, I'll use the GX one. And then there was this whole conversation about whether we should use keys, modular mode. And I was like, Okay, I guess. And again, I mean, uh, you know, somebody would be like, of course you should use it.

I'm like, yeah, but I'm also thinking about, I want the music to speak and I want the music to do what the music needs to do. And as much as I want to do kind of this, Celebration of synth history. I still want my music to sound the way I want my music to sound. So I said, okay, I'll use the modular mode.

Now, one of the rules at Emmy app is you cannot change any of the sounds on that instrument. So the sounds that are in the programmer, they had, cause they have a programmer that can hold 10 sounds. Um, you can use those 10 sounds and that's it. So it's like, Okay, so not only am I using this instrument, but I'm now like, uh, okay.

So I used the kind of the wide open Keith kind of crazy lead sound, you know, and, uh, you know, you know, Tarkus thing. And I said, uh, okay. So what I ended up doing was I wrote a piece that could feature the GX one and the modular mock. And so, so I do five songs from the record, and then I do this, this sort of jam piece where I can kind of stretch out on the organ and then I do like a mini Moog thing and then I turn around and I play the GX one and, um, and it worked out, I think it worked out well because, uh, it's very different than the music on Imaginary Trains, but I think, uh, the piece is much more sort of idiomatic.

To those instruments versus trying to fit those instruments into what I was doing on imaginary trance. So I think it worked out

We've had many modes as a profit the GX one Keith Moog modular the CP the DX one You Was there anything else? Was there any ARP instruments in there? Well, I had an ARP Quadra that, uh, didn't quite make it to the shoot. It got very unhappy at a certain point. So we decided to pull that and I put an Oberheim four voice in, I mean, and Rob this, this four voice is just beautiful.

It's just beautiful. And, and it had that big kind of like wonky, like that SEM thing. And then They had a selena string synthesizer. So it was the string thing with the synthesizer section on it So imagine like an arp omni to the 10th power like it did it has all kinds of other stuff on it And i'd never really played a A Selena synth before and it was cool.

So, uh, if you watch the concert, there's a, there's a scene that sounds almost like I'm playing like a theremin or something that's the Selena and it has, it has this really cool sound to it. I was like, yeah, I like this a lot. And so, um, that was one of those. Two minutes before we started recording things, I started like playing with the sound and I was like, yeah, this isn't really like what I did on the record, but I like it.

So why not? Let's go for it. And it worked out well. I mean, obviously you didn't have all of these instruments when you recorded the album. So what was the process of saying, right, well, that part I used instrument X on the record, but now I'm going to replace it with this. You know, did you go through and really think about replacing the instruments with special things from the museum?

Okay. So. That's a great question. So what I ultimately ended up doing was I took off about 50 percent of the tracks. And then the sequence is playing like the other 50%. And so what I ended up doing was not trying to recreate the record. What I said was, okay, here's musically what needs to happen. And here's how I'm going to approach that.

And so if you know the record and then you listen to like my version of imaginary trains, which has got a very long introduction to it. And it, and it goes to like all like some, a couple of different places to it. It's not. Exactly the same as the record. So like melodically, I do some stuff and I use some textural stuff and harmonically, I do some stuff and whatever, but I, I, I think on the one hand, I understand when you do a concert, people are like, I want to hear the song.

And on the other hand, it's like. I like when people bring something to it. And so what I decided to do was instead of trying to say, okay, I'm now going to color inside this box that I've created called the right notes to play in the right order. I'm going to kind of interpret my own piece and I'm going to kind of use the framework of the song and I might go to a couple of places, but eventually I'm going to come back to the melody and like the stuff that needs to happen.

But, um, it, no, it was not a straight line. The experience then of somebody listening to the album and then somebody listening to the gig is going to be quite a different thing. But familiar. I was very familiar and some differences. I think, I think some important differences and I, cause I want the record to be the record and I wanted the performance to be the performance.

And I think, and because I, you know, I'm not going on a world tour and I'm not going to like do a million, you know, shows like this, I wanted to give the music. A slightly different flavor with a performance and also, you know, like in the case of some of the pieces, some of the pieces were a year old by the time the album came out.

And then I started thinking about doing the concert. So I had been living with it for a while. I'm like, okay, so where else can I go with it? You mentioned some amazing pieces of technology and some amazing vintage synthesizers there. You spoke about the, the Moog Modular and being Emerson's Moog Modular.

Was there any other instrument in that collection that really daunted you? Not maybe so much from, you know, Bernie Worrell's Mini Moog or, or Keith Emerson's Modular, but from a technological standpoint, is there anything there that maybe you weren't too familiar with that, that kind of gave you the heebie jeebies?

The GX 1, I spent in an, I spent eight hours, uh, playing and rehearsing on that instrument. So, cause people are like, when I'm playing it in the concert, people are like, Oh my God, you really, really know, uh, you, you, you, you, you, you have such expertise. And I'm like, yeah. Guys, that's eight hours of cramming on this thing.

And the other thing also is that the instrument tuning wise was not happy. I'm not trying to come up with the right word, especially the little solo keyboard, the, the, the, the third manual, um, not happy. So, um, it was a, uh, a team effort to keep that instrument in tune, working properly during the performance, um, and to have it do what it needed to do.

But, um, the thing with that Yamaha, and I think it's also true of the CS 80, all the switches are backwards from the way you think they should be. So, like, so if you look at it, you say, okay, well, this is on. No, no, that's off. So, so you're looking at 12 other synthesizers and now you go in front of the GX 20, you're like, okay, so now I got to spin my head around and you know, so I had to really set up the synth so I could play it and get right into it.

And then things like the pitch bend, and then the modulation that I do with a second manual, you know, you've got, you can sit there and do vibrato with your hand, but Well, you got to get into it and then doing things like playing with the modulation and the LFO and, and, uh, it took a lot, it took some time to really become comfortable with it to the point where I could like sit down and say, now I'm going to make some music with this thing.

Cause, um, uh, yeah, it, okay. The GX 1, in my personal opinion, and I know I'm about to get a, a, a avalanche of hate mail, but here it comes. The GX 1, in my personal opinion, is closer to being an organ than a synthesizer. It's set up for organ performance. And so if you're an organist like Keith Emerson, you're going to look at it and go, Oh, yeah, I get it.

But if you're like a normal synthesizer guy like me, you need a minute. And it's not even really set up like a, like a Hammond, it's set up more like, um, like a theater organ or like a pipe organ. It, it, it, it really is like, you really got to get your act together. And the guys from Meme app took the pedal board off of it.

So, cause they, you know, their GX one has a full pedal board and the whole thing, I'm like, yeah, yeah. Guys, I'm not using any of that. So, um, it, the, the, the, the, the. Daunting is the nicest possible word you could put for my experience with an instrument and We were like, hey, where should we put The keyboard for the modular, I know we'll put it on the top of the GX one.

And then you've got the mode keyboard to control this thing. Overwhelm is not even close to how I was feeling about this. I, it was just like, and so if you're Keith and you're looking at this every night and you're playing it every night, and you've got two incredible technicians keeping this thing going and working for you.

Great, but if you're sort of in 2022 and you're like, well, gee, I really hope this works I mean you I mean i'm flying up by the seat of my pants man flying by the zoom and thank goodness. I mean Um, the people from me app were really really nice. Uh vince Really did a great job on uh, wrangling the synthesizers and really making sure that they were doing what they're supposed to do Really very very very patient because i'm not and um, it all worked out What was the team like because when you watch the video, it's just you and all of these keyboards What's going on behind the scenes in terms of keeping all of this going and making sure everything's working and it was, you know, was it being mixed live?

You know, tell us a little bit about the technical aspects of all of that. Okay, so it was not being mixed live. So what was happening was it was being recorded and. It was being filmed simultaneously and then we mixed it after. So people are like, wow, what a great recording. I'm like, yeah, I mixed it myself.

Um, but the stuff that you're seeing is all happening in real time. So we have someone. On the audio, making sure that that's working. And then that's all being fed to my second laptop so I can actually see that it's being recorded in real time. So I have a sequencer over here and I've got logic over here and it's all being recorded.

And then, um, we have a guy on lights. Then, um, one of the volunteers, Mike Hunter, did an incredible job with all of the projections, the graphic Computer graphics stuff. Really, really cool. And then, um, we had, uh, two, uh, production assistants. Then we had the three cameramen. Uh, and then we had Yeah, so we had, we had like 10 people altogether.

Um, but, but the idea was to try to make it look as seamless as possible. One of my personal pet peeves with, um, doing streaming concerts is, The sound is terrible, and I think you can't have terrible sound. I think you can, I think you can throw some of the video off the side of the ship, but boy, you cannot do that with the audio.

The audio has got to be Tight because people are here to experience the music. And even if the video is a single shot and it's boring and they just decide they want to listen to the music, that audio better be great. But I decided that I really wanted to have the audio be first class, but I also really wanted to have the video be first class.

So we actually ended up shooting with the three guys moving around and then we have a stationary camera up over me. And then there's a. There's two other stationary cameras. So by the end of the, by the end of the day, we had seven cameras. And, um, I have to say, Paul, my friend, Paul, who shot it did an incredible job putting cameras in my face and not making me go, Whoa, there's a camera in my face.

Um, and, uh, cause I, he really wanted to give people. That experience of okay. Well, if you can't physically be there for the show What if you could be a fly on the wall and kind of get up over the keyboards and see what you're actually doing? And so for me that was like, oh the rooks you're gonna be watching my fingers and he's like Yeah, really?

They're more going to be kind of in the experience of the whole thing And I think at the end of the day, that's what it looks like It's the The whole the whole experience comes off. I think, well, you mentioned about choosing about 50 percent of the stuff that you're going to keep on on sequences. And then the rest of you going to play.

What was the process that you went through to choose what was going to be automated and what was going to be live? And was that a simple process? Did you swap around a lot? You know, how did you get to that point? Um, so all the percussion obviously was the sequencer. Okay, so so that's, you know, You know, and on some of the songs that can be up to about a third of the tracks and some of the, some of the songs had 150, 200 tracks.

So it was a lot anyway. So then, uh, I did a lot of vocal effects. I did a lot of a coder stuff. I did a lot of like process guitar stuff. So that all stayed, um, things like pianos. Roads went, uh, things like pads went, things like all the mini Moog, uh, melodies went. And so there's only a few times where I kept any of the quartal stuff.

And that's where I use more like my, my string libraries, like, you know, to do like big sort of like string pad stuff, because I knew if I wanted to do any of like the, sort of the analog pad stuff, I could do it on the fly. Or, you know, I could do my Tony banks, like, you know, Rick, Rick Wakeman, you know, one hand on one keyboard, one hand on another keyboard.

Uh, but, um, what was interesting was I actually ended up not doing that as much. And I think the, the final mix of the show actually feels a little more open on some of the songs than it does on the album, I mean, cause. On the album, there's some of the songs, like they have like 20 pad tracks and I'm playing with different sounds and different inversions and different, different places, playing with the filters, doing different things, whatever.

So all of those sounds were gone for the concert. And what I ended up doing was I only played pads and I only did sort of re harmonizations of things where I really wanted it. And then the rest was, I really liked the space. Because what was interesting was. Once you get in that performance mode and you've got the bass pounding and god They had this incredible subwoofer at ME app and all of a sudden you start seeing how all of these Frequencies start filling things up The last thing you want to do is add more stuff.

What you start doing is start, you start like editing on the fly and saying, yeah, it doesn't really need that. It doesn't really need this. And so like, let's concentrate on the melody. Let's concentrate on moving the composition forward, but do we need to load it up with more stuff? And I think in some ways.

I like some of the overall effect of the concert more than the album because I like, I like how much space there is. But I think also part of it was to make it work through speakers and to get more of that sort of visceral experience because like the percussion is so much louder for the concert than it is on the album.

The bass is so much louder for the concert than it is on the So, so right off the gate, you've got much less headroom to add lots of Who did you do's that I was doing on the album? And in some ways I really liked that. I thought it was, I thought it was fun. I think it gives it a little bit of like an energy thing to it.

It, I think it came out well.

In terms of rehearsal, did you do a lot at home in your studio? Uh, and did that feed into the planning of how you then translated that in, in Emmy app? And then, and then how much time did you have to rehearse? Actually with the the gear that you use for the film. Um, so I made three trips to emmy app where I spent all day For two trips and then I went two days before the shoot and I spent a day and a half Like picking sounds and rehearsing and just running things and running things and running things.

Um, at home, most of the preparation was here's the tracks I'm going to do. And then I started sort of compiling lists of things that I needed to kind of concentrate. So I knew when I got there, okay, here's what I need to set up. Or here's What I need to do in terms of like chain of patches. So, okay, okay.

Track one is this, track two is this, track three is that. And so, and the other thing I was also trying to do was to keep. The prep and the patch change thing as seamless as possible from song to song. So you, you don't see me running around and changing a lot of patches between songs. Um, so I think I did a pretty good job trying to keep things sort of seamless and moving along.

And so, uh, you know, I, I don't really change the Minimoog sound on a lot of the songs, uh, like that, that, that lead sound, I use some variation of the same basic sound through the whole thing. Um, and I'm, and I'm okay with that. Like I'm like, cause I did, I was happy with how it worked musically. So I was like, let's just make sure the performance is right.

And I'm good. Did, uh, playing with any of these glorious synthesizers give you any gear acquisition syndrome or gases? Is there anything that you wanted to come away from there thinking, thinking I've never played one of these before and I've just fallen in love with this and I've got to have me one of them.

Uh, okay. So I had a moment of. I'm selling everything and buying a CS 80. And then I got over that. And then I had a moment of, I'm selling everything because I have my room here in New York city is, is 10 feet by 12 feet. Um, and I'm going to get a CP 80 so that I got over that. And then I had a moment of, I'm selling everything and I'm going to go buy an Oberheim four voice.

And so instead of doing that, I pre ordered the Oberheim, um, OBX8. It's funny because a lot of people I think came away from seeing the concert with, I must be some sort of like gear purist, which I'm not, I really like plugins. I like new gear. Like, you know, my, uh, my Prophet 5 is a reissue. My Minimoog is a reissue.

The only really old synth I have in my entire collection is the DX1, and it's in really, really good shape. So I don't like old gear breaking down cause it drives me nuts. And I, there's no reason for it, but at the same time, I love the challenge of. Performing, showing up and doing the music and then trying to translate what I wanted to do with the music with these synthesizers.

So I said another way. I think I could do that show on any set of synthesizers you gave me. And was it fun to play Keith Emerson's, you know, uh, Modular Moog? It was a thrill of a lifetime. Do I need to do that to play this show? Absolutely not. I worry when you hear some of our colleagues and our friends talk about I must have this keyboard.

I must do this on this. And, and that kind of attachment worries me a little bit because I think it takes the whole musical performance part out versus what does the piece need? And can the instruments that you have. Do it like I don't have any ego about like the right synthesizers and you must have this and you must have that You have what you have at the moment and you go so this was a moment in time Where the people from emmy app were very nice to me and they you know, they let me use Three million dollars worth of gear I mean, Keith Emerson's Moog is priceless, but I can't even imagine what it would cost to buy.

But, uh, you know, but like the GX one alone, a half a million dollars more million, I don't know. So those two instruments alone, sort of beyond all the other stuff, I mean, the RA Moog serial number 16, like what in the world is that worth? So beyond sort of the providence of this and that, like to me, it was, can this instrument do the job that I need it to do?

Right now, end of story. And I was incredibly happy that the instruments held on . They're too, they're tuning long enough to, to make it through. Um, 'cause we, we had some close calls there. Uh, but um, yeah, but it, I mean, it was a thrill. It was just an incredible thrill. Did anything actually let you down during the gig and you were able to kind of.

Push it to one side and, you know, dust over it at all. Um, uh, yes. So, uh, this is a. Unknown fact, but here we go. So the RA Moog held together for five songs. And, uh, so what we did, if we took it out, we, we swapped the reissue with the RA Moog, we put the RA Moog on the other side of my, my keyboard set up. So visually it would look like, like, you know, you have some continuity.

And then I used, um, the reissue for the last couple of songs. Would you do anything like this ever again? And if so. What would you do differently? It's actually interesting. I'm actually having a conversation about doing another streaming concert, but doing it here in this room, which would be really interesting.

Um, and doing another performance, but doing it here in New York City and a big space. I don't want to give it away. I think what I would do differently is I would do Almost all of it was soft sense and I would maybe bring the mini Moog and that's it. I think everything else I could pretty much do in the box and do it with MIDI controllers and, and, you know, and, and I could do the piano stuff on, you know, I, I, I have a CP88, which I really, really love and.

And I'd be good because I think the terror of jumping into the concert, not knowing whether your gear was going to make it from one side to another. I don't need to do that again. I mean, I remember seeing a video of Jean Michel Jarre doing that concert from 2007. We went on tour and did, um, Oxygen with him and the three guys and they had all that vintage gear and whatever.

I have no idea how he did that. I have no, I have no after, even after the experience at MEF that I just had, like, I mean, I can't even imagine what it would take to move this stuff and to have it set up. Because if you move this thing for more than 20 feet, who knows what's going to happen to the amplifiers and the tuning and everything else.

So. We got everything settled. We plugged everything in, everything was warmed up and then we tuned everything. And then we crossed our fingers. So, I mean, so I think people who have done these kinds of things repeatedly, like Jean Michel Jarre and other people, I have no idea how they did it. I do not need to walk that tightrope ever again.

What's next in your world then? I actually have a terrifying number of records going simultaneously. Um, uh, so on July 1st, the, uh, recording of this concert is actually going to be released digitally everywhere. Um, and you, you can buy the download of it. I don't know if I'm going to do any hard copies of it, but on July 1st.

The recording for the live concert gets released and a score that I just did for a documentary that's coming up later this year Which i'm very very proud of and then i'm in the middle of doing a group project with An amazing collection of people which is going to come Beginning of next year, uh, I'm doing a jazz record with a really cool group of people.

I'm really excited about it. And then in the beginning of 2024, I have another electronic record, but I'm going to do it with a vocalist, which I will not talk about yet, which is going to be really, which is really cool. And, uh, it's something that I've wanted to do for a long time, but it's going to be. a completely different approach, uh, sonically to anything that I've done previously.

And of course, people can keep in touch with everything that you're doing through your social media channels and of course your website, the links of which will all be in our show notes page. Michael, thank you ever so much for joining us today. It's been fascinating insight into what is a remarkable gig.

Of course, the link again to the gig can be seen in the show notes page. Uh, thank you ever so much for joining us today. Thank you so much for the opportunity. I am very, very grateful. Thank you for listening and be sure to check out the show notes page for this episode, where you'll find further information along with web links and details of all the other episodes before you go, make sure you visit the sound on sound podcast page at sound on sound.

com forward slash podcasts, where you can explore all the other great content playing across the other channels. I'm Rob Pericelli. And this has been a failed Muser production for Sound On Sound.