The Shamen gearlist?

[Phenom]

I'm a big fan of The Shamen's En-Tact and Boss Drum albums but I'm having trouble finding info about their gear. Boss Drum obviously has a lot of 303, as well as 808/909 (though I think I read that they got their 808/909 sounds from a Roland R8m, if that's the case I'm very impressed). Some big cross modulated sounds evident as well.

The only thing I can remember reading on them apart from the aforementioned R8m was an Oberheim 8-voice.

I seen them live and I remember they had a Jupiter (6 I think) and a Taurus II.

Any info on what synths they use?

[nathanscribe]

As of early '93 they were using:

Roland MC-500 sequencers (for live)
Roland Octapad 2
Roland R-8M w/cards
Moog Taurus 2
Roland TB-303
ARP 2600
Moog Memorymoog
Oberheim Xpander
Oberheim Matrix 1000
Roland D-10
2x Akai S1000
SCI Pro-1
SCI Sixtrak
Moog Source
Oberheim 4-voice
Roland JX10
Voyetra polysynth
Groove Stinger (racked Wasp)
Roland GR-707 guitar synth
plus various effects including quadraverbs, and a zoom 9002

[Z]

I hadn't heard anyone bring up "The Shamen" in nearly 20 years. I've got a cassette somewhere I'll need to dig up.

I bet with early 90s prices, the Akai S1000s were the most expensive pieces in their rig. Followed by the R-8M.

[nathanscribe]

Ha! Quite possibly. The Akais were fitted with hard drives and 32MB of RAM.

[Phenom]

Thanks nathan for that great answer, just the era I was interested in too!

Yep those Akai's were pricey as h**l back then, and it cost nearly as much upgrading them with Akai's proprietary ram and fitting a hard drive than it did for the sampler itself.

Just wondering how the h**l a D10 managed to sneak in there, hmmm...

[Z]

The D-10 was probably one of their first instruments: relatively affordable and multi-timbral. I was rather lustful of the D-20 when it came out.

[Sir Ruff]

I hadn't heard anyone bring up "The Shamen" in nearly 20 years. I've got a cassette somewhere I'll need to dig up.

you should get out more

Mr. C is a well-respected DJ these days.

[StepLogik]

Great albums! Highly influenced me and still do to this day.

[astroidmist]

I love the Shamen. Some of my favorites were Oxygen Restriction, Re: Evolution, Boss Drum, that one tune with South African Bishop Desmond Tutu doing vocals (ah I forget the name... Hear Me?), Boss Dub, Fat Man, Hyperreal Selector (remix by Jack Dangers!). Good times. Even their album covers were exciting and cryptic.. and oh so many remix 12" vinyls!!!.

[Soundwave]

a mate has their 2600

its had some kind of midi retrofit with velocity affecting the cuttoff and one of the vco's is actually from a roland

there was a good article about their studio in one of the first Future Music mags back in the day