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Post by Buttler on Aug 24, 2015 16:49:12 GMT
ELO II
piano, Moog, guitar, harmonium, vocal harmonies
ON THE THIRD DAY
piano, Moog
ELDORADO
piano, Moog, guitar, backing vocals, arrangements
FACE THE MUSIC
piano, Moog, guitar, Clavinet, string arranger
A NEW WORLD RECORD
Wurlitzer EP200 electric piano, Minimoog, Micromoog, SLM Concert Spectrum, Electra x3200 guitar, Gibson SG Custom guitar, Hohner Clavinet, Yamaha C7 grand piano, Mellotron M400, Morley RWV pedals, Maestro Phase Shifter, Systech Flanger, percussion, backing vocals, orchestral and choral arrangements
OUT OF THE BLUE
Polymoog, Minimoog, ARP 2600, ARP Odyssey, ARP Omni, RP Sequencer (minus noise maker), Wurlitzer EP200 electric piano, piano, Moog, guitar, Clavinet, orchestral and choral arrangements
DISCOVERY
grandi piano, synthesizers, electric piano, Clavinet, string and choral arrangements
TIME
piano, electric piano, synthesizer, guitar, string arrangements
SECRET MESSAGES
synthesizer, grand piano
BALANCE OF POWER
keyboards, piano, sequence programming
Hope that helps
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Post by ShardEnder on Aug 30, 2015 13:09:12 GMT
I'm not sure about the specifics, but all four core members of ELO signed deals with various instrument makers just prior to sessions for the Discovery album starting. Around this point, Jeff first started endorsing Rotosound brand guitar strings, which is an association that continues to this day, while Bev received a newly-redesigned kit under his existing sponsorship from Slingerland, resulting in an upgrade to the setup featured in the company's 1977/8 drum catalogue. Similarly, it should be noted that Kelly also used Rotosound strings, though I don't know how long this particular association continued for, as I seem to recall he later adopted quite a few custom bass guitars that may also have included different strings.
As for Richard, he was already using Yamaha keyboards from one of these being present at Musicland in Munich (probably the same 7 ft piano that Queen played when they first began recording at the same studio with Mack in late '79), though he was clearly on their radar since the CS-80 is featured prominently on both Discovery and its respective video album - one of the band's many running jokes was that the weight of this synthesiser is the reason they didn't tour around this period or headline the Knebworth festival, as they were invited to do so as one of the music world's largest acts at the time. Speaking of Time, this era marked the beginning of an association that would carry on for the next two albums...
Often mistaken for Jeff's Stratocaster, the "guitar" on Another Heart Breaks was actually Richard making use of the pitch wheel on an Oberheim OB-X, which probably wasn't the same one as also used by Queen for their albums The Game and Hot Space around the same period, since he took this on the road as part of his keyboard rig for the Time Tour. Also, in the 2001 remaster's liner notes, Jeff describes how Richard went crazy with the Oberheim's portamento setting on When Time Stood Still, though I'm still no closer to knowing what specific model of vocoder featured on Time. What I can be sure of is that on the subsequent tour, Dave Morgan provided his own, which then appeared on the Secret Messages outtake, Tears In Your Life.
Further pointing in the direction that ELO possessed their own Oberheim-made equipment, perhaps due to a sponsorship deal, they would go on to make extensive use of the DMX drum machine and DSX sequencer on Secret Messages, where this combination literally reduced Bev Bevan to mainly providing the occasional cymbal hit because of Jeff supposedly not being too fond of the low bitrate sampled crashes. Apart from the second half of Hello My Old Friend, the triggered snare heard throughout Time After Time and a a brief solo in Danger Ahead, Bev's most audible contributions to this album were fills played on his Remo Rototoms, such as those of the title track or Stranger. Dennis, the barking dog credited on Four Little Diamonds, was really Dave Morgan's sampler.
For his contributions to the Electric Dreams soundtrack, Jeff - with a little help from his friend, old Magic Fingers himself - went even further on his journey into what he later described as "push button music" and the work of a "typist," adopting the Fairlight CMI to play back assorted samples on Video! (itself a hasty recycling of the same basic melody that had once been the chorus to Beatles Forever, which I'll cover at greater length in a moment), and of the three songs recorded for this project, it's odd that Sooner Or Later is very much a preview of the increasingly stripped back production style he'd pursue on Balance Of Power then on through his post-ELO years. By contrast, Let It Run is perhaps his finest all-out rocker and last showcase for the full kitchen sink approach.
Briefly on the subject of ELO's last album before Jeff went off to become a producer to the stars, Balance Of Power and its subsequent live shows saw Richard playing the Yamaha DX7, suggesting that his relationship with the company remained long after he'd started using Oberheim keyboards, although their technology was still visibly part of his 1986 touring rig. As a massive fan of the album, I'm curious to know exactly what's on Earth Rise, which Dave Morgan was only able to complete to such a stellar standard because of the many production tricks he learned from Jeff, who invited him to Wisseloord Studios in Hilversum to feature on Secret Messages following his brilliant work on the 1981/2 shows.
Finally, in researching for my upcoming book, it's been suggested to me that Jeff's actual reason for wanting to continue blocking the official release of Beatles Forever isn't because he is embarrassed by its lyrics, though it's claimed he's upset at not mentioning any of George's songs, even if the first line does perhaps unintentionally reference Something. During a later interview, he stated that it may be a track he'd like to rework one day, again likely forgetting that he'd already done this with Video! So, what other reason could there be for this highly-requested fan favourite to remain firmly locked away in the vault? I'm sadly not at liberty to reveal who explained this to me, but it's obvious when you think about it for a moment.
After pretty much every Beatles song that is named in the lyrics, we hear either a short direct quotation or an approximation close enough so that to the average listener it might as well be a sample, although it should be pointed out that each and every one of these instances was painstakingly recreated by Jeff, Richard and Dave in the studio. For the sake of historical context, at the time of Secret Messages being recorded, rap as a genre had yet to really become mainstream, and the law on what constituted sampling had yet to be properly determined. Could it be that Jeff wants this song buried to avoid potentially being sued by The Beatles for what are effectively several bursts of questionable plagiarism?
Now there's some food for thought, and in addition to hoping this post has been helpful to many of you, I'd love to see if anyone else out there can fill in a few blanks for me.
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Post by ShardEnder on Aug 30, 2015 21:00:26 GMT
Just a quick update after consulting my research notes...
Some of the keyboards used on the handful of shows in 1986 include models by Korg and Roland (specifically Dave's vocoder), plus an Emulator II for Richard with another played by Louis Clark, which served as a replacement for the acoustic cellos laid off back in 1979 - his Time Tour rig consisted of Crumar and Moog synthesisers doing the same thing. Of course, this doesn't apply to the group's televised "playback" appearances, where they simply mimed to their recent singles, Calling America and So Serious. While it's probably a legal minefield because of the various artists involved, I'd love for someone to strike a deal with the BBC and see if the full Heart Beat '86 show is still in their archives, as I feel it would be great if this finally saw the light of day officially. Then again, considering how much Jeff is a fan of not putting out live titles, he'd probably block such a package or insist on overdubbing extensively, as he was on less than his usual top form that day. Saying that, he sure did perk up when George Harrison joined him for the all-star jam at the end, even if the main ELO set was run through at a similar breakneck speed to the '81/2 concerts.
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Post by PowWow on Sept 19, 2015 17:45:57 GMT
I always though it was an OB-X for the Time album because it has that signature creamy brass sound so thick it'll cut through anything, gotta love those discrete circuits. Oberheim > Moog, period.
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