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Each keyboard player has a backup Muse Receptor should the worst happen.
Is there any live sequencing going on?
PE: "The Receptor stuff is completely separate from the playback side. I'm doing
all the program changes on the Receptors here, off stage, but we are using
both Ableton Live and Pro Tools alongside the Radars. Each is on a separate
MacBook Pro. Ableton Live is being used just for live drum processing while Pro
Tools is there for the program changes that are flying about on stage, changing
the keyboards and stuff like that.
Paul controls the Receptors from his laptop.
"It works like this: The Radars are kicking out time-code which is going into
Kerry's laptop running Pro Tools. So Pro Tools runs in time with the Radars.
Program changes are fired out of Pro Tools for the guitar rig and the keyboards
on stage, and into a bit of software that I wrote that controls Ableton Live in thesecond computer. You load all your projects into it and when it gets the change
it closes songs in Ableton Live and loads the next one up. I used it on Snow
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Patrol and Verve too, with Logic, but it seems to work with Live too."
Sorry, Pro Tools and Ableton Live? Live is doing live drum processing?
PE: "Yes, it's quite complicated! But Kerry went down to Christian [Eigner,
drummer]'s place in Austria and they ummed and ahhed about the best way to
do it. And this is what they came up with. The band decided they wanted to use
live drums, but they wanted them to sound like electronic drums, depending on
the song, of course. "We decided not to use triggers so we're taking the live
drum sounds into Live and processing them live. The drum sounds are going in
via a MOTU 828 interface, processed in software then output via another 828.
Live is so versatile - they tried it out and they love the sound. No latency, and we
can get the electronic sounds we need whenever we need them."
{PAGEBREAK}
So there's plenty of playing, but how many tracks come off the Radar?
PE: "18. Though it changes from track to track. The band tend to play all the lead
sounds. All the big riffs that you'd recognise are all played, mainly using the
Receptors. Meanwhile incidental stuff, percussion that Christian doesn't play,
some of the strings that Peter [Gordino, additional keyboards] doesn't play
come off the Radar.
"They've got three keyboard players so they do play a lot but sometimes it has
to go to the Radar."
And are the lighting queues from the Radar?
PE: "No they're from Graham, who's front of house! He's a great lighting
director. There are starts for triggering the video but as for the performance,
the flashes of light, that's all old school. During the gig he's dancing around,really getting into it."
And once again, a backup Radar for your Radar?
PE: "Yes, we have two Radars, an A and a B - one is ran simultaneously for
backup, so it's just like the old days. You set one off and the other is set in
chase. There's a tone on a spare track on each Radar and they feed into a
Radial SW8 switch box.
"If there's a green light there then it can hear the tone. If that stops it
immediately switches to the output from the B machine."
How quickly can it make the switch?
PE: "You don't hear it. We've done A to B tests and the band didn't notice it. And
it's happened live a few times. The daftest times was when we had these
torches mounted here [Paul gestures towards a pair of mini gooseneck lights,
now safely away] and they got knocked and fell perfectly and hit the stop
button. We looked and went "It's on the B machine! Why's it on the B machine?"
And then we realised what had happened."
Can it flip back from B to A?
PE: "Ah, it'd be out of time then. So you're stuck on B until the end of the song.But it's not like we have to make it to the end of the gig on our backup - with
everyone staring at it!"
8/18/2019 Depeche Mode's Live Setup Revealed - Music Radar
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PE: "This is Fletch's rig. He does a lot of the baselines off the Virus Polar here.And then there are two Edirol PCR-800 controllers, each of which triggers one
the Receptors. There are two Receptors per player, and each is doing the same
thing. They're pretty standard Edirol controllers but they're very good. He
generally plays on this one and the other is the backup. If there are any
problems he can just play the other one and the backup Receptor."
Peter Gordino: Keyboards
PE: "This is Pete's rig. He gets the big, weighted piano keyboard, a Roland RD-
700. With Pete only one Receptor is live and if that goes down I can switch to his
B Receptor. And then he's got another Virus, he does a lot of stuff on that, It's a
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PE: "This is Martin's rig. He's not actually using this Virus. He's just using it as acontroller. It was actually used in one of the songs on this tour, but we dropped
that song from the set.
"Again, two keyboards: the Virus TI2 and an Edirol PCR-800 controller. The top
one is the main Receptor and the other is a backup Receptor."
{PAGEBREAK}
Guitar rig
While the obvious star of the show is the hi-tech setup, Martin Gore's
burgeoning guitar rig is a whole gig in itself, as guitar tech Jez Webb explains.
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ez Webb: "There are a lot for a synth band. A few more than I was expecting. I
should have read the contract a bit closer!"
The keyboard kit, the Radars, everything seems very state of the art over there
but here! amps! stomp boxes!it's a bit more rock 'n' roll.
W: "Well everything's off stage. This is the heart of it, the old TC Electronic G
System which we used on the last tour as well and has worked well for us. Every
song has its own patch, and some of them have three sounds in them. It gets a
feed from Pro Tools and that switches the patches.
"Before that I had to switch all the sounds, which is a bit of a pain if you're trying
to tune the next guitar ready too! The output from the TC Electronic G-System
goes into this switchable audio loop which is also switched by Pro Tools. The
pedals here are always on, permanently kicking their output into the switcher
and their output is switched in and out automatically when it's needed. The
pedals are mainly distortions because the G doesn't do distortion. Then
Martin's got a wah pedal and a fuzz pedal on stage too and that feeds into the
loop here too. So hopefully I don't have to touch anything."
TC Electronic's G System is the beating heart of Martin Gore's guitar setup.
{PAGEBREAK}
Seems that every hi-tech part of the tour is backup crazy, but not over here
eh?
W: "Well I do have a bunch of spare pedals if one goes wrong. And there's a
backup TC Electronic here. And a backup loop system here! But the worst thing
that can happen is that one of sounds goes out without the required distortion
effect on it until I can swap in another. The wiring at the back of the rack is
pretty complicated but Whirlwind made a connector for me. I can leave
everything in this rack connected and the output from the entire guitar systemcomes out on this patchbay here. And I put in a couple of auxiliary channels too
and we're using those for the couple of pedals Martin has on stage."
