To celebrate the upcoming release of my EP (Recovered Artefacts) on Sleepers Records I’m exploring each song in a live jam. This is song number #4 on that EP, titled StarBilliard.

This version is very different from the one which appears on the EP … which was recorded in the early 90s but using a lot of the same equipment.

As you are here there’s a good chance you are a synth nerd, so I’ll explain exactly where the noises come from.
At the very start there’s a swooshing synth pad noise coming from an SY85 just out of the bottom of the shot, it’s not getting used much.

The first notes I play are on an Arturia MicroFreak.

The Drums are programmed on that white thing with all the buttons, that’s called a BeatStep Pro, the bassline is partly MIDI in Ableton live which is synced to the Beatstep, then it’s sent to that Synth just above the white slab. That’s where the bass noise comes from.

The Drum noises are samples, the sound and shape of which are modifed by the stack of boxes up to the top left. There are effect sends to sent the echoes, synths, drums and bass, as I decide it – to the Eurorack, and also to the MS20 synth. That’s all being sent the being sent out of a patchbay and routed to the stack of boxes up there.

Those boxes are also playing the dit-dit-dit- distorted echoey beep noises.

There’s a foot pedal on the floor which helps me switch sounds when my hands are full.

I play the same riff as I play at the start on my Korg MonoPoly, which is a bif old Analog synth.