Ye Later Ju Ju Live Rig
So after having been touring for a while, you quickly get the fetish for small and light. This was the eternal grail for us as a live unit – how to maximise flexibility and the possibility for interplay and spontaneity while at the same time having as few bits of gear possible for air line Baggage handlers to mis-treat.
In search of the ultimate live performance sequencer/sampler/workstation I went through an entire range of toys over a period of about two years. Starting with the Yamaha SU700 which on paper looked like a really good little box, I bought a unit, and was quickly horrified at it’s limitations. No note information? Huh? Quickly sold that one on, but not before having to learn it and program a whole bunch of shit into it for a few gigs at the time. Then the Yamaha RM1X, which was quite neat little machine. I had used this in the Ju Ju rig for about a year, wrote some kinda cool jams on it before becoming frustrated again. During this period I used to have to specifiy an Akai sampler as backline gear for overseas gigs – which I would then load with the Intersound drumkits which the RM1x fired at, trying to compensate for it’s lack of sampling ability.
It was during this period that I constructed my first loom. A wonderful thing and something I recommend any-one carry out who has 30 minutes of patching to do as part of their setup. I soldered up perfect length leads, with funky home made printed labels heat-shrunk onto each cable and bound together with fat plastic loom gatherers and cabled tied to the back of my road case to be stuffed inside when traveling. Cut patching time down from 30 minutes to 10. Great.
So for the Intersound and after period of gigs which included trips to Hong Kong, Japan, and New Zealand as well all up and down the East Coast of Oz the gear was as follows:
The RM1X, using much of the internal sounds was the sequencing heart of the show. This unit fit nicely into my trusty old aluminium gear case as well as a few extra cables and disks for the Akai. A 4-unit SKB case with the long suffering DP4 and JD-990 providing the wacky effects and lush layers of synth sounds respectively. For interstate and overseas shows we would get an Akai s-3000 supplied (nice coz it’s a bog standard bit of gear) and then the only other box I had to hump was the little Mackie 1402 in it’s own little SKB case. Later we got custom proper flight cases made to replace the 4 unit SKB.
When I heard rumours of Yamahas next model after the RM1X I got REALLY excited. Stayed tuned to the development and release of that box like a fly on shit. And as soon as it was released, and I had studied the PDF of the manual and made sure I didn’t get a really early model, I went out and bought the Yamaha RS7000. I sold the RM1x to Suze for use with her band R-70 and never looked back. The RS7000 finally gave me the opportunity to ditch the sampler from the gear list and even the opportunity (which took a while to do) to also leave the JD-990 at home.
Alex had a custom case made for a couple of modules, his effects and little 1202 Mackie mixer. For out of town shows he would get a D-50 supplied and he had a little case made for the SH-09.
But even though by the end we managed to really streamline our gear list, it never A) seemed quite small enough to travel with conveniently, or B) as flexible as the mountains of analog gear use to be. Ah well, there’s always new gear to be drooled over...
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