Gary Numan

How do you feel about the way technology shapes music?

I've always been a big fan of new creative technology but sometimes this has been overplayed purely because I became successful with electronic music, a newish thing 25 years ago. A a result I was given a techy sci-fi label by many people that stuck long after I'd moved on to other things. In fact my music's always involved guitars and I actually started out in a three piece punk band. My first big single, 'Are Friends' Electric?, the song that many people now look to as the one that brought synths into the mainstream (not that I agree with that actually), had guitars all over it. Having said that I am and will always be fascinated by all things new and 'techy'.

So, you've had the MOTIF ES for a few weeks now, how do you find it?

I have to admit I've not had that much time to get into it so far it but the first thing that hits you is the quality of the sounds, they're really deep. Obviously given the number of onboard voices I haven't had a chance to find my favourites yet but from what I've heard so far, they're pretty amazing. Another nice thing is that the filters are really quick and responsive which gives them a really nice 'analogue' feel and the number of effects you get is very impressive. When you think of the power of this synth in terms of the effects, the EQ, the sampler and all the rest it's quite incredible.

Although I'll be mainly using the MOTIF ES as a powerful sketch-pad to input ideas it's really nice to have the options to integrate it further into my Pro Tools/Logic rig using the 'Remote Control' facility and who knows, maybe even with the mLAN board when that's available. I'm also gonna have to go and try out some of the expansion boards, the option of adding DX7 sounds in pretty cool!