JapanSylvian.com

Hi all,

Does anyone know where I can find details of the equipment Steve uses onstage? I'm particularly interested in the percussion rack that he has where a mounted tom would normally be - it's a white rectangle with 6 pads.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Slope wrote:Hi all,

Does anyone know where I can find details of the equipment Steve uses onstage? I'm particularly interested in the percussion rack that he has where a mounted tom would normally be - it's a white rectangle with 6 pads.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

i think this is just a trigger that you can activate drum samples from your computer im sure its and older Roland spd look at the gallery ive uploaded it for you it has roland written on the back:smt006
...

That's perfect, neonico - thank you very much!

Slope wrote:That's perfect, neonico - thank you very much!

glad that i could help they also use a nordlead 3 with of course apple notebooks i would buy the apple air best whishes neonico.. i have a list of the studio equiptment somewhere i have to dig it out when i have the time..

There are 2 pads he uses. The SPD-20 which is the white one with 8 black rubber pads.. There's a picture of it in the Samadhi studio. He does not use this live anymore though.The live pad is the silver one with 6 black pads ( actually there is 9 pads but you cannot usually see the top 3 small pads in live pics) The live one Steve used for Sylvians last tour and Slope live is the Roland SPD-S These have been around quite a while but are still very popular with musicians (myself included)
It's basically a sample trigger pad.

The SPD-S comes complete with hundreds of samples when purchased but most people import their own samples from a pc/mac.You can literally trigger anything. A noise,part of a loop from a track, real instruments,samples etc etc.
You may also notice that Steve does not use a Bass (kick) drum when playing live either supporting Sylvian or when performing slope.He uses a small black pad which is a Roland kick trigger. The bass drum sound will be triggered from the SPD-S pad. He uses a kick drum beater reverse mounted.

During Slope live Steve used the SPD-S to "play" samples from the album rather than try and programme them and reproduce them live.That nugget of info came from Steve himself!

During Slope Live Steve used no acoustic drums. In place of a snare drum he used a Roland pad again triggered from the SPD-S. Kick trigger + the SPD-S pad and acoustic cymbals which were mainly Sabian HHX series.His drum hardware is generally Tama iron cobra series.

So you can see why he uses them, they are a very versatile piece of kit. Live he can play Snare / Kick Drum / Toms plus all the various album samples and effects through the one medium, the SPD-S.



Hope that info helps

Thank you pinenut - very interesting info.

As a long standing drummer myself, I've started getting into electronic percussion (because of domestic limitations, and my desire not to alienate the neighbours!) - I have a small Yamaha electronic kit and even this modest set-up has really opened my eyes and ears to a whole range of possibilities. It certainly blows the notion of being "just a drummer" out of the water.

The temptation is certainly there to go right over the top - and players like Steve have the discipline and taste to hold back. Most impressive.

Thanks for the information!

Additional information.

Unfortunately the site is in Japanese, but Steve talked about Roland products...
http://mnavi.roland.jp/works/200711_01.html
http://mnavi.roland.jp/works/200711_02.html

He used SIMMONS as the first electronic drum, then in 1988 he used Roland OCTAPAD (PAD-8) during David's tour. During David's 2004 tour he used Roland HandSonic 15 (as well as Roland V-Kick Trigger KD-7), and Roland V-Drums for Ryuichi Sakamoto's 2005 tour.

The live photo in the middle of the first link is during Yukihiro Takahashi's Something Blue Tour in 2006 and he used Roland SPD-20.

For the World is Everything tour In 2007, he used SPD-S and KD-7 (as you can see at the bottom of the first link).

During the interview he tried HandSonic10 and gave a comment on it (the second link).