Independence day

Yet Tangerine Dream has traditionally shied away from the limelight, preferring to let their music speak for itself. Many years ago I wrote to the group and received a somewhat cryptic reply, stating, “Some wise guy once pointed out that talking about music is like dancing about architecture.” (The wise guy was Elvis Costello, incidentally.)

As a result, the enormity of their impact is often overlooked – particularly in comparison to contemporaries Kraftwerk, prompting British Mojo magazine to shrewdly observe, “The music press has a notoriously narrow frame of refernce. It can just about process the antics of mouthy boys with guitars: if you do anything to circumvent this formula… your column inches will dwindle. Thus the fate of Tangerine Dream, who didn’t so much refuse to play to that formula as to have absolutely no interest in it in the first place. Consequently they were quietly airbrushed out of ‘rock’ history.

But if you allow that there’s an alternative pathway through ‘rock’ – one where James Brown is important as The Beatles, and the dodgily-dubbed Krautrock has had a greater effect on today’s musical landscape than the Pistols – it becomes apparent that Tangerine Dream are actually very important.”

But is this highbrow postulating really necessary? It’s unlikely to wash with Edgar and Jerome Froese anyway, a discerning duo for whom the age-old adage, ‘like water off a duck’s back’ admirably still rings true.

Having safely crossed the border into a new millennium, father and son envisage a very different Tangerine Dream indeed, both philosophically and technically. Freed from the unhealthy contractual rigours of the mainstream music industry, having founded their own TDI Music label in 1998, they will ultimately become the sole proprietors of the Tangerine Dream legacy – past, present and future.

According to its Company Profile, two key goals of TDI Music are, “…providing a vehicle for Tangerine Dream’s unceasing creativity…” an, ”…re-releasing all… past releases of Tangerine Dream and Edgar Froese.” Recent albums include Mars Polaris, The Great Wall Of China Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, and Soundmill Navigator • Live At The Philharmonics 1976. Many more are on the cards: check out the TDI Music website (www.tdi-music-mall.de) for further information on the likes of Antique Dreams – “…a collection of rare and unreleased Tangerine Dream recordings from the years 1970-1988, which features a track listing that will seem like a listener’s ‘dream come true’…” – and Seven Letters From Tibet.

Risky business

Edgar, you’ve been quite outspoken of late in voicing your concerns over what you once termed the “old-fashioned, absolutely destructive structure” of major record companies. Presumably this has directly influenced your decision to go down the potentially risky independent business road with TDI Music?

Edgar Froese (EF): It’s true that I’m not a fan of the industry. It’s not that I don’t understand the industry, and I’m certainly not saying the industry isn’t needed for anyone. If you’re a young composer or musician looking for a contract, looking for some money to make a living, and you need support, then the first door you’ll knock on is the industry – whoever will give you that money.

Today, of course, you can put MP3 files on the Net to try to make other people aware of your existence, but will that pay your rent? No. So I would say the general experience of what the industry is all about is quite necessary – when you’re starting out. But you should be aware of what these guys are doing – what they want to do, what they want you to do, what kind of contract they would force you to sign – otherwise you won’t know what you’re talking about. And, one day, if you’ve got quite a clear consciousness, you’ll definitely want to leave the industry. But you should know why you are doing that.

For us, it was definitely a very important step to take, because we know so much about the business and know we can handle it ourselves now. At first, we just tried to find people who could help us manufacture a few of our records outside Germany, because we were still contractually bound to certain bigger companies at that period of time. We had to carefully read contracts, because that’s one of the philosophies the industry has: they won’t let anyone contractually escape – if possible. So we had to build our own little ‘living room’ around those kind of contractual obligations we still had. By initially moving into Britain and dealing with a small company there, we were able to take the first step towards our situation of today – setting up our own company, world-wide. It’s the right time to do this now; we’ve done it, we’re very happy – and we’re free!

Jerome Froese (JF): We were still missing some territories we wanted to explore and have control over; that was the main reason why we decided to do everything by ourselves in the end.

Wild wild west

You’ve already briefly touched upon MP3. With the number of Net-wired businesses and homes already dramatically increasing, coupled with predictions from the likes of IDC (International Data Corp.) that wireless Internet subscribers are set to outnumber their wired counterparts by the end of 2002, dramatic changes are undoubtedly on the music industry horizon, too. Thomas Dolby, for instance, has already asserted an interest in releasing his own music directly over the Internet, effectively bypassing the intervention of major record companies and distributors altogether. What are your thoughts on these exciting technological developments in relation to TDI Music?

EF: All of us, as musicians, really share Dolby’s desire of bypassing the industry. But even if that desire is completely understandable, and quite logical, one has to remain realistic. And, talking about right here, right now, it’s still necessary to have some kind of commercial ground.

The idea of a composer simply putting their music on the Net and having millions of people participate in what they’ve just created on a studio platform – whatever platform that may be – is, of course, very appealing: that composer created something, and now it’s being moved out into an unknown audience.

But the first day of the next month always comes around. So how is that composer going to pay their rent, or put petrol in their car? The bottom line is all about different ways of financing music today: how will the cashflow be organised? How secure is the Net?

Therefore, in my subjective opinion, I would say one has to work in a kind of hybrid capacity – for the next three years or so, at least. By all means explore and use all the possibilities of the Net, but, at the same time, one must still make use of regular, old-fashioned platforms – like a record store, distributor, or whatever. The right time to totally move over is when the Internet becomes satellite-based. That’s what we are working towards right now.

Today, we’re still talking about an old-fashioned communications system – by wire: that’s what the Internet is more or less working with today – even if you use a cellular phone to send emails, and so on. But one day the Internet will be switched over completely to a satellite system – not because it’s better than a wired system, but because it gives companies, industries and governments control. That’s why it’s being changed, and there’s no way ’round that.

JF: The Internet is still like the Wild West right now…

EF: Right. And even if it’s a good feeling – something adventurous, like the first industrial revolution of 150 years ago – a government needs control. Not that I would say that’s a good thing, but, from a government’s point of view, they can’t leave the Internet the way it is. Otherwise, each government, world-wide, will become part of the ‘Wild Wild West’. As long as a 13- or 14-year-old kid can plant complete confusion into the Pentagon, then that’s something weird! Even if everybody laughs about it, those people controlling that bloody system certainly aren’t laughing at all.

Anyway, back to the music: even the music world will be part of the new system. So what happens tomorrow has to be clearly thought out and professionally set up today.

East meets west

More recently Tangerine Dream has again, quite literally, shifted its musical goal posts with the construction of an impressive, custom-designed, private studio complex in former East Berlin. Given that you already have additional well-stocked recording facilities in Eastgate Studios – within the Froese family vacation home on the outskirts of Vienna – was this latest Berlin move in any way necessitated by the self-imposed increased TDI Music workload?

EF: The entire Tangerine Dream recorded catalogue consists of nearly 100 records. Obviously we can’t deal with all of it at once. So far we’ve released about 25 records in the last year-and-a-half, which represents a huge amount of work for the both of us on different levels, working perhaps the hardest we ever have. As far as the musical side of things is concerned, we’re a two-man crew! We do everything ourselves. There’s no ghost-writers involved, no hired musicians working in the background.

JF: The working facility we had quite near to the city centre in Berlin was in a not-so-friendly neighbourhood. We had to totally soundproof its rooms, so there were no windows. We were sitting in a kind of black hole, really. For several years we said, “Well, it’s okay because we also have a working facility in Austria.” But we’re not always in Austria, because our business headquarters are in Berlin. So for years we’ve been searching for a new city studio location where we can set up our instruments in natural daylight, and not disturb any neighbours! Although we work on a lot of music using headphones, sometimes you have to listen back to something at high volume over loudspeakers, so that was another good reason for moving.

EF: Our experiences throughout all the years have taught us that one is often inspired by one’s surroundings. In the end, I was having such a hard time working in a kind of isolated box in Berlin, as Jerome described. And commercial studios often aren’t any better. We’ve worked on many specific projects where we’ve had to move in and work on an already prepared platform. But I never felt very comfortable in that kind of environment, even in LA, where I’ve worked in most of the studios – great places, by the way, but, because of the nature of what a professional studio is all about, they always seem to be missing a kind of coloured landscape feeling. I don’t want to be trapped in a black box anymore.

So this place is ideal. An architect originally designed and built it for himself and his company. He’s a computer freak and had already installed ISDN connections before we came and looked at the place. We gave him a few ideas about what could be done here and there during the final stages of finishing the building.

JF: I had some minor problems because the power supply to my studio space up in the roof here was not very reliable at first, so we called an electrician and he put in a new fuse – a red one; all the others are white. I said, “Why is this one red? Is it to do with the strength?’ He said, “Yes. Normally those fuses are used at bigger facilities, like Siemens, to power their machines!’ So now everything’s okay.

EF: My new studio space has been set up in a completely modular fashion; I can take it apart and move it to another part of the building within a day, if I want. Both Jerome’s and my working spaces are networked together, so we can transfer data between floors. Sometimes we can work together without necessarily seeing each other. That’s quite interesting.

The Martian chronicles

Of course, an impressive studio inventory does not a successful recording make. There’s using technology, and there’s knowing when to use technology. Needless to say, given the impressive TDI Music output of late – both quality and quantity-wise, Tangerine Dream unquestionably falls into the latter category. What can you reveal about your latest studio album, Mars Polaris, both in terms of its compositional concept and the recording technology involved?

EF: Mars Polaris is, I guess, the highest possible standard we could achieve at the time we recorded it – as far as sounds and recording techniques are concerned. Unfortunately, it’s associated with that damn flying vehicle that disappeared over Mars! There was even a Tangerine Dream performance planned to take place in Los Angeles on 10 December 1999 to coincide with the Mars Polar Lander touching down, so we obviously had to forget about that! But what’s left is, in our view, quite an interesting musical statement, a kind of step in the direction we hope to head for further on, a little glimpse into what we, as a band, want to do in the future – maybe less guitar and acoustic stuff, a bit more of what we see as the futuristic side of sounds.

I know we’ve hinted at similar changes in the past, but we’ve realised that even most of our fans would not understand what we are doing if we gave them 100 percent of what is really achievable right now. If we applied all the technology we have today – which is much more powerful than can be heard on Mars Polaris – on a record straight away, then most people simply wouldn’t understand what we are doing. They’d probably say, “Is this the future of music?” And we’d say, “Yes. And not only that, it can go much further.” And we could loose contact with our listeners. So we have to cut these changes down into little digestable portions.

JF: It’s always the same. Many fans in the ’80s cried, “Back to the ’70s!” Then in the ’90s they wanted Tangerine Dream to sound like they did in the ’80s! And now some people are asking us, “Please, can you make another record like Melrose?”

EF: One of the most damning statements an artist can come up with is, ‘Back to the roots’ – not because the roots, as a given starting point, are necessarily bad, but because whenever an artist utters those words, it means there’s nothing left for them to do. They’re burned out. History has always shown this to be true. As long as an artist is just getting on with their work, and not saying anything, then that’s the way it should be.

Get into the groove

‘Comet’s Figure Head’, and particularly ‘Astrophobia’, though instantly recognisable as the current Tangerine Dream style, feature some very interesting rhythm programming. The latter is almost drum ’n’ bass-like, in effect. Similarly, ‘Towards The Evening Star’, ‘Rising Haul In Silence’ and ‘Lamb With Radar Eyes’ on the Goblins Club studio album of 1996 featured what Jerome then termed, “…a complicated mixture of loops and programmed sounds.” Are the aforementioned Mars Polaris tracks a continuation of these rhythmical ideas?

JF: Collecting and creating the sounds for Mars Polaris actually took a lot longer than the compositions themselves. As far as the grooves are concerned, on Mars Polaris and Goblins Club we wanted to stop using hand-played percussion parts, using keyboards. That’s what we did on records like Rockoon, which was also a kind of learning process for us, but it’s much more interesting working with several loops, mixed together to form a layer. We wanted to switch over to using loops – not because it’s fashionable to do so, but to try and create drum parts that sound like a real drummer or percussionist, not a keyboard player. So, I guess, Mars Polaris is partly a result of that change.

Now we want to create rhythms without using any recognisable drum sounds like a bass drum, snare, hi-hat, toms, or whatever. On the Mars Polaris track ‘Outland’ we experimented using non-traditional percussive sounds, and that’s something we want to experiment with more in the future. We also want to try a different approach to the composition of percussion parts. Edgar and myself have discussed some new ideas, but we can only really talk about that in more detail when we have some definite results to talk about!

And now for something completely different

You’ve been talking for some years now about a forthcoming double CD release for choir, orchestra, and keyboards called Dante’s Divine Comedy. So what’s the score here, then?

EF: Dante’s Divine Comedy is proving much more complicated than first anticipated. And there are a couple of reasons for that: you have to understand, from a very specific viewpoint, what the entire project is all about. It’s a masterpiece of world literature, and no-one has ever touched it as a complete musical work. Strause and Liste both wrote classical material based upon it, but as a complete work there’s masses of words involved. So if someone is going to sing those words – kind of like in a play, then that needs to be organised. Secondly, it has to be composed in a way that is completely alien to people who have been listening to Tangerine Dream up to now. It’s not opera; it’s not a musical; it’s not a normal play. It’s something completely different.

It’s taking a long time to do this properly; we’re now in our sixth year of working on it – whenever we have time outside of our other activities. Setting up and launching our own label has cost us about a year, so the performance date we originally planned for this year cannot be held.

But it’s still in production, and will definitely represent the highest point on the musical mountain for us. I don’t think we can go any higher after that, because we are putting all of our technical knowledge and creative capabilities so far into this project.

Wired for sound

In passing, you’ve mentioned both ISDN and networking. Are we to take it, then, that you foresee the Internet also having an impact on future Tangerine Dream recordings?

EF: Here in the studio we’re already developing a couple of new approaches for future concert performances. For instance, there are advantages to be had in using the Internet for recalling data – not just LiveCast, but using the Net interactively on-stage between different band members, which is a completely new technique…

JF: Keeping our sounds at home, but using them somewhere else on-stage, in other words.

EF: Correct. The real hi-tech parts of the show will remain in the studio, whilst we perform on-stage. We’ve tested this already and know it works. Now we have to make the technology more user-friendly. I’m sure it’s the key to future performance techniques. Even if audiences are still stuck in that kind of old-fashioned mindset of a guitarist posing sexily at the front of the stage, we’re looking for something different.

The good thing about our new place is that we now have so much freedom to do all kinds of crazy things. Some days we just work on different Internet projects, starting with the Homepage, ending with various music communication services that are possible today – what is good and bad about MP3 for us, or whatever.

Now that the new Berlin studio complex has been up and running for a while, are you happy with the result – both in terms of its working environment and the projects that you have undertaken there so far?

EF: Absolutely. But, you see, now we are always thinking about what we call the ‘third step’. The first step was the entire analogue level of equipment, which lasted exactly from 1971 until about ’82 or ’83. Then we started working on a digital level – step two. And now we’re starting to leave this digital level in favour of a more virtual level, but virtual in a good sense – the third step. It’s more or less a completely wireless situation with a totally different control mechanism. In fact, it’s so different that one could even say, “Is there anything in it that has something to do with music?” And the answer is no, because there is nothing that reminds you of a traditional music studio anymore. That’s the level we’re working towards right now, but we’ve got a kind of hybrid situation at the moment.

New dreams for old

This ‘hybrid situation’ presumably extends to your recent studio hardware of choice – a Mackie 32:8:2 traditional in-line design console, for example, as opposed to a digital alternative like the same company’s relatively new and low-cost Digital 8•Bus?

EF: I don’t need all of that hardware for any of our future music. Eventually, I won’t even need a keyboard anymore! The Mackie console, and even the modular rack-mounted stuff, only exists for one simple reason: we still have a lot of back-catalogue work to complete. With sessions involving older recordings we bring in the vintage tape, hook up the necessary machinery, play the tapes only once onto another medium, then throw them away. We just need the Mackie for monitoring old multitrack tape formats, starting with quarter-inch eight-track – later we used 16-track, then 24-track machines. We run all the different tracks through the mixing console over to individual audio tracks on a computer.

As evidenced by a healthy mix of current Apple Macintosh and IBM-compatible PC machines, computers would appear to be taking more of a frontline role than ever before in Tangerine Dream’s working methodology. Has this proved problematic in any way?

EF: Not at all, because we run all software programs separately, so there are no problems – as far as MIDI control goes. We wouldn’t, for example, run a sequencer program and NemeSys’ GigaSampler on the same computer. I wouldn’t recommend anyone doing that. Maybe some people might say, “But, hey, I can’t afford two computers – just to have things separated.” But it’s much more reliable that way.

Unfortunately, right now we are still talking about MIDI here. And we are only using MIDI because some of the interfaces to the outside world are still MIDI. Even if one has a so-called ‘MIDI 2’ interface, it doesn’t make every dataflow faster, after the interface. It’s like starting a race in a Formula One car at 300 miles per hour, suddenly reaching a fence, and having to change over to riding a horse! It doesn’t make any sense. So now we are working with a couple of people to get rid of that interface – to have absolutely no time delay from the very fast attack of a given signal to the final storage of the sound. And that would get rid of the entire problem of latency when working with audio files which we will always be stuck with as long as we use MIDI. There are much faster data connections already available, but, because the music industry has missed all and everything within the last 10 years, if one wants to beat these limitations then one has to do things oneself. The industry is so far behind, it’s unbelievable. What those guys have been doing since ’89, I just don’t know!

JF: And that’s a good reason for using the GigaSampler. The old way of recording Edgar just described is the problematic way. It’s better to record the whole composition as a WAV file in CD-quality – effectively playing the whole song as a long MIDI note on the GigaSampler cuts down any latency time. Most people still record the old way, inserting little spaces to try and disguise any latency problems.

Sound sculpting

Speaking of sampling technology, Edgar, several years ago you lamented, “Sampling has long overstepped the borderline from being helpful to becoming the crutch of helpless musical amateurs. We are now working on different sound events that have nothing to do with what I would call the ‘plastic loop events’ created by most modern samplers and even sound modules.” Have you been moved by the virtually unlimited sound storage capabilities offered by the likes of NemeSys’ GigaSampler into rethinking this rather dismissive stance?

EF: My thoughts about sampling in general remain the same – as far as hardware samplers are concerned. As I’ve been saying for many years, the problem with sampling does not lie with the storage of sounds, but the fact that hardware samplers still have very little storage space, and therefore have traditionally dictated that people work with very short loops. And short loops are like a dead end road.

An interesting sound has to have some kind of life to it. Looping a sound is dependant on the length of the envelope curve, so if you loop a sound within a short time frame, and cut off the most important parts of that envelope curve, then you’re left with a dead end sound – a plastic loop event. That’s why I don’t touch that entire rack-mounted shit anymore! I’ve always been really unhappy with hardware samplers, and I’ve had them all! Even on the earlier sounds we created with analogue instruments one can still hear the living curve of the sound. But as soon as that ‘plastic millisecond’ stuff arrived, it always sounded false. Most people can still live with hardware samplers – I can’t! I want to hear the living vibration of a sound, which means I have to hear the entire envelope curve.

And now, with the GigaSampler, I can finally achieve that again. For instance, using a sampled grand piano tone, I can play a key and hear the attack sound of a metal string being struck, and I’d also hear the entire release part of the final sound – with or without the sustain pedal. Of course, it doesn’t replace a real grand piano, because the acoustics of the room aren’t there, but it’s as good as it gets – for now.

The same principal also applies to artificial sounds, combining them with other instruments to make a ‘stack sound’ – maybe using a given sound just for the attack, then moving into another instrument to reach the decay level, and starting another instrument at the release stage, when, usually, the sound starts fading away a little, before finally combining it with reverb, delay, or whatever, after a certain time. You’re creating the real body of a sound, and you can do this simply because you can store the entire event – without worrying about a given storage space. We’ve got tons of CD-ROMs of various sounds we’ve created ourselves over the years, so I myself had to sit down for about three-and-a-half months, transferring my entire sound library into the GigaSampler!

So now sampling is starting to become a complete new tool. Put simply, I can once again create a sound sculpture. Music becomes a very interesting part of a sound event if it’s like a sculpture. Therefore, it has to have a third dimension. That’s why we are so happy with the GigaSampler!

Flying blind

Like it or lump it, the Tangerine Dream name will probably forever remain synonymous with synthesizers. Is there anything new that excites in this department?

JF: Well, I’m using the Roland JP-8000, mainly for creating sequences, because I like working with its arpeggiator. But I don’t really use its sounds, because we have tons of better sounds stored elsewhere. And that’s it.

You don’t sound very enthusiastic about what you’re hearing. So what are your feelings toward both the virtual analogue synthesizer phenomenon and the more recent proliferation of so-called ‘soft’ synths – like Native Instruments’ Pro-Five, for example?

JF: We never use that stuff. If we wanted to use analogue sounds then we’d get our MiniMoog or Jupiter-8 out of storage. That’s real analogue. Why should we use virtual synths? I don’t want to use a mouse to put a virtual cable into a virtual jack socket! Why should I buy an analogue, or, more precisely, an analogue-featured synthesizer with only six voices from a German company for thousands of Deutschmarks, only then to have to pay even more money to have it upgraded to 16 voices, or whatever? Why?

EF: It’s damaging the industry. To give a simple analogy: imagine a young pilot, who is only used to flying a modern Airbus airliner with a little joystick, talking to an older, more experienced pilot, who says to the younger pilot, “Can you not remember that feeling of sitting in a real, prop-driven machine, battling against stormy weather, using both of your hands, with the rain lashing against your windshield?” And the younger pilot replies, “Wait a minute; I simply turn on my automatic pilot and fly above that bloody weather, so I don’t feel it anymore. Why should I run through bad weather with a prop when I don’t have to?”

For whatever reason, these instruments always seem to be championed by people who don’t want to go forward. If I have the possibility of making my bloody life as a composer easier and faster, as far as the storage of the composition process is concerned, then I’ll definitely use new technology. But there is no reason for me to spend good money on lots of so-called ‘analogue’ equipment, just to turn knobs like I did 20 years ago!

Besides, most people don’t even understand the functioning process of that early equipment. Knowing the background, I would say that without the Moog filter, all of that analogue equipment would have been worthless anyway. Tom Oberheim was the only person who came very close to the Moog filter, before he sold his company to the Japanese. Even when the Moog filter patent ran out, and it was taken over by some other companies, they never came very close to it at all.

Analogue does not necessarily involve turning knobs; analogue simply means that one has a chance of changing the given sound of an oscillator through a very specific filter. And that was the Moog filter, developed by Robert Moog. Without that filter, to me, analogue sounds as bad as, or worse than, many other cheap instruments. People should understand that it’s all down to the filtering process.

So I don’t understand these new instruments from a commercial point of view. The manufacturers want to sell things because they supposedly sound like ‘the good old days’ – without telling people what those sounds are really all about. It’s like jumping from an Airbus into an old prop: you think you can fly, but you’ve just spent two years flying with a joystick, and all of a sudden you’re faced with all these physical controls: “What are these? Is this still a plane?”

Back to the future

EF: The musical instrument manufacturing community reminds me of a bicycle maker who invites you along to see a bicycle with three wheels – each positioned behind the other. And you say, “Hey, wait a minute. Why?” And the bicycle maker says, “Well, it looks strange, doesn’t it?” And that’s it.

I guess what most people don’t seem to realise these days is that with a computer or hi-tech piece of equipment you can create a hit song or something very interesting without knowing the background of, or learning something very specific about, the equipment involved. That was not possible 20 years ago! Maybe a techno or dance card makes it easier to create a hit record or some dance grooves, or whatever, but that, to me, has nothing to do with making music. It all boils down to what’s at the end of the road in 10 or 20 years time, or how it all started 30 years ago. Those leaving a remarkable track in musical history are coming from a completely different angle.

© Jonathan Miller (June 2000)

www.tdi-music-mall.de

www.tangerinedream.de

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TANGERINE DREAM BERLIN STUDIO INVENTORY (MAY 2000)

EDGAR FROESE’S WORKSPACE:

COMPUTER HARDWARE (MUSIC): Apple Macintosh G3 (400MHz, 128Mb RAM) • Iomega ZIP 100 • MotU 2048 MkII HD recording • Plextor Plexwriter 8/20 CDR/W • 40Gb HD unit (Seagate Barracuda) x2 • 18Gb HD unit x2

COMPUTER HARDWARE (SAMPLING): Echo Gina eight-channel audio interface • Pentium II PC (500MHz, 128Mb) x2 • 25Gb HD unit x2

COMPUTER HARDWARE (INTERNET): Acer ISDN modems • Apple Macintosh G3 (400MHz, 192Mb RAM) • Iomega ZIP 100

COMPUTER SOFTWARE (MUSIC): Steinberg Cubase VST/24 (with all available plug-ins)

COMPUTER SOFTWARE (SAMPLING): NemeSys GigaSampler v1.6 x2 – “We’re using NemeSys’ GigaSampler as our main sample library tool. The latest update especially is the best device for building a large library of samples that is swiftly accessible and easily overseeable. It also has the advantage of providing us with nearly unlimited storage space from whatever HD units we add.”

COMPUTER SOFTWARE (AUDIO TREATMENT): BIAS Peak 2.1 (digital editing and processing) • SFX Machine (multi-effects software plug-in)

COMPUTER MONITORS: EIZO F77 21-inch x2 • IIyama VM Pro 450 19-inch x3 • LCD Krystal View KV 15-inch TFT display x2

MIDI INTERFACE: Opcode Studio 5 LX

SAMPLER MODULES : Akai S2000 ‘jumper sampler’ x3 – “These are used to import sounds which, for one reason or another, have not yet been stored into the GigaSampler. They are a reliable part of our equipment, but rather old-fashioned because of their 32Mb storage limitation.”

SYNTHESIZER MODULES: Ensoniq SQR+ • Korg M1r • Kurzweil K2000R • Roland JV-1080 (with four expansion boards) • Roland JV-2080 (with six expansion boards)

KEYBOARDS: Korg T1 (master keyboard) • Korg Z1 • Roland JP-8000

OUTBOARD: Eventide H3000-S Harmonizer • Roland SDX-330 • TC Electronic M2000 • TDX (3D surround system)

HARDWARE MIXERS: Mackie 32:8:2 • Mackie CR1604

RECORDING: Alesis ADAT Type II (20-bit)

MONITORS: B&W CDM 7 Special Edition (‘System A’) • Monitor Audio UK (‘System B’)

HEADPHONES: Sennheiser HD580 Precision

JEROME FROESE’S WORKSPACE:

COMPUTER HARDWARE (MUSIC): Apple Macintosh G3 (300MHz, 128Mb RAM) • Iomega JAZ drive – “Not recommended!” • MotU 2048 MkII HD recording • Plextor Plexwriter 8/20 CDR/W • 40Gb HD unit • 4.3Gb HD unit

COMPUTER HARDWARE (SAMPLING): Echo Gina eight-channel audio interface • Pentium II PC (450MHz, 256Mb) x2 • Pentium III PC (600MHz, 256Mb) • TEAC R58S CD writer • 40Gb HD unit x2

COMPUTER HARDWARE (INTERNET): Iomega ZIP 100 • Panasonic LF-D101 DVD RAM drive • Pentium III PC (600MHz, 256Mb) • Plextor Plexwriter 12/4/32 CDR/W • Zyxel ISDN modems • 20Mb HD unit x3

COMPUTER SOFTWARE (MUSIC): Steinberg Cubase VST/24 (with all available plug-ins)

COMPUTER SOFTWARE (SAMPLING): NemeSys GigaSampler v1.6 x2

COMPUTER SOFTWARE (AUDIO TREATMENT): BIAS Peak 2.1 (digital editing and processing) • SFX Machine (multi-effects software plug-in) • Adaptec Toast (CD recording software)

COMPUTER MONITORS: EIZO F77 21-inch • LCD Krystal View KV 15-inch TFT display • LCD Ilyama Pro Lite 36A 15-inch TFT display • Sony Multiscan G-500 21-inch • Sony Multiscan 17SF 17-inch

MIDI INTERFACE: Opcode Studio 5

SAMPLER MODULES: Akai S2000 ‘jumper sampler’ x2 • Roland VP-9000 – “Just added – not on photo!”

SYNTHESIZER MODULES: Alesis D4 Drum Expander • E-mu Morpheus • E-mu Orbit v2 • E-mu Planet Phatt • E-mu Proteus 2000 (expanded) • Ensoniq SQR+ • Korg M1r • Korg Wavestation A/D • Kurzweil K2000R • Roland D-550 • Roland JD-990 • Roland JV-880 • Roland JV-1080 (including four expansion boards) • Roland U-220 • Yamaha TG77 • Yamaha TX802 • Waldorf Microwave

KEYBOARDS: Roland D-70 (master keyboard) • Roland JP-8000

OUTBOARD: ADA Microcab II speaker simulator • Digitech GSP2101 Studio Tube (Ltd. Edition) • Ensoniq DP/4 • Lexicon PCM60 • TC Electronic D-Two Rhythm Delay

MASTERING: Anatek SR-7 • Behringer Denoiser Model 2000 • Behringer Edison • Behringer Ultrafex II • DQC System – “TD’s own mastering invention.”

HARDWARE MIXERS: Mackie CR1604 • Mackie LM3204 • Roland M-240R

RECORDING: Alesis ADAT Type II (20-bit) • Sony PCM2600 DAT with SBM • Tascam MD801 MiniDisc recorder • Yamaha CDR-1000 CD recorder (with Apogee UV22)

MONITORS: Tannoy System 600A Active

HEADPHONES: Sennheiser HD560 Ovation II

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TANGERINE DREAM • TDI MUSIC DISCOGRAPHY

Canyon Dreams O.S.T. (1987)

Rockoon (1992)

220 Volt Live (1993)

Turn Of The Tides (1994)

Tyranny Of Beauty (1995)

Dream Mixes One (1995)

Oasis O.S.T. (1997)

Tournado Live (1997)

Quinoa (1997)

Ambient Monkeys (1997)

Time Square • Dream Mixes 2 (1998)

Transsiberia O.S.T. (1998)

Dream Encores compilation (1982-1997)

Atlantic Bridges compilation (1988-1997)

Atlantic Walls compilation (1988-1997)

The Hollywood Years Vol. 1 O.S.T. compilation (1991-1997)

The Hollywood Years Vol. 2 O.S.T. compilation (1991-1997)

Valentine Wheels • The Shepherds Bush Empire Concert London 1997 (1999)

What A Blast • Architecture In Motion O.S.T. (1999)

Sohoman • Live In Sydney 1982 (1982/1999)

Mars Polaris (1999)

The Great Wall Of China O.S.T. (2000)

Soundmill Navigator • Live At The Philharmonics 1976 (1976/2000)

Tang-go compilation (2000)

Antique Dreams compilation (1970-1988)

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