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Radiohead’s live setup revealed
At the recent Radiohead shows, you must have spotted those MacBooks and Jonny Greenwood’s PowerBook on stage. Radiohead’s live technician, Russ Russell, told MusicRadar about the band’s secret performance weapon.
A MacBook Pro is hooked up to a rack of daisy-chained audio interfaces and receives MIDI from two on-stage keyboard stations that are played by Jonny and Colin Greenwood.
As Russ explains, Kontakt is loaded up with all the sample-based sounds that Radiohead require. “It has allowed us to get completely away from all the frustration of hardware samplers,” he says. “Editing and importing becomes quicker and easier, which allows the band to make changes or try new ideas without delay or fuss.”
When it comes to triggering the sounds, Colin Greenwood uses both keyboard and floorboard devices, while brother Jonny also works with a selection of analogue devices and his own laptop. All songs are played live, though on more ‘electronic’ numbers such as 15 Step, the Greenwood brothers are known to trigger percussive loops in real time. [full story]
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Make A Comment: ( 12 so far )
12 Responses to “Radiohead’s live setup revealed”
phil
September 1st, 2008
hm.. I can’t say I’m not a little disappointed to hear they’re not using the TR 909 on stage, but I guess the laptops are really handy.
nddled
September 1st, 2008
if they used a pair of Commodore 64 i’m sure theyd be doing awesome music too
njikòlai
September 2nd, 2008
Those Greenwood brothers always playing with there drum machines
hollowgr4m
September 2nd, 2008
ahhhhh… such fantastic geekiness!
Nikita
September 2nd, 2008
what i wanna know is who fucked up the san francisco show by turning the sound off twice during their set at outside lands.
anthony Galaz
September 2nd, 2008
Using a fragile piece of hardware like the TR909 on the road would be moronic. He doesn’t even use the original Ondes. MacBooks are the way to go
nudesnatcher
September 2nd, 2008
I’m with Anthony.
Dylan
September 3rd, 2008
This article has more info on the setup, since they use NI’s Kontakt:
http://www.native-instruments.com/index.php?id=radiohead&L=1
henselt
September 3rd, 2008
there is a 909 on stage next to colin watch the webcast
pworks
September 3rd, 2008
love the question marks on this:
http://www.native-instruments.com/index.php?eID=tx_cms_showpic&file=uploads%2Fpics%2F05_Radiohead_Jonny_Greenwood_Station.jpg&width=1000m&height=800m&bodyTag=%3CBODY%20bgColor%3Dwhite%3E&wrap=%3CA%20href%3D%22javascript%3Aclose()%3B%22%3E%20|%20%3C%2FA%3E&md5=24c34cbd9fead74d533d76cb1c74f80d
good stuff!
blofse
September 3rd, 2008
Hey, I broke this story ages ago…where’s the love? 
Tortoise-Boy
September 5th, 2008
i actually did notice some middle aged dude messin with the laptops before the werchter gig !!
classs