Live sound banks
Notes
As part of his 2011 auction, Alan Wilder sold 20 numbered and signed ZIP discs for the Emax II sampler containing samples used during the 1987-1988 Music For The Masses Tour and 1993 Devotional Tour[1]. Most of the samples were taken from the original multitrack recordings.[1] Samples of songs from the Devotional tour that went unplayed or played only once (in the case of Something To Do) were also included in the auction.[1]
General information
Copied & pasted from the original auction listing[1]:
The Zip discs will work in any suitable Zip drive and connect to the Emax via a scuzi[2] cable. Despite our best efforts, we were unable to transfer everything absolutely perfectly from the original floppies. The vast majority of sounds are fully in tact but one or two have small corruptions at the end of notes. The good news is that, with a bit of careful editing, these glitches can be removed. (Thanks goes to Tom & Simon for their help)
Alan's comments
Copied & pasted from the original auction listing[1]:
“I spent many hours (days!) programming each member’s keyboards for the tours, painstakingly trying to recreate as accurately as possible the sounds we formulated and used on the records. The Emax was a perfect tool for the live re-creations. This collection covers most of my own sounds for the two tours, although I did play live drums on some songs. I tried all these out recently and discovered how much fun it is to work out the various parts we all used to play. I even found some guide sounds which weren’t actually performed live but were used to demonstrate parts to others. For example, I discovered some guide vocals for Condemnation which were sampled to help routine our girl backing vocalists during the rehearsals.”
Please note that for obvious reasons, the samples can not be made available here on the wiki. It would seem they circulate fairly widely nonetheless, to the point that there's a post about it on reddit.[3]
It would seem that the ZIP discs sold were not necessarily complete sets, as more samples than the ones auctioned from the respective tours circulate more tightly.
Sequences
A couple tracks have sequences that originate from Alan Wilder's setup; one track is sourced from an Emax II ZIP disc, the other from an Emulator II floppy disc.
Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth
The sequence for Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth was present on one of Alan Wilder's Emax II ZIP discs, as told to me directly from an anonymous source who worked with Alan during his 2011 auction. The quality is somewhat degraded due to age of the ZIP discs[1] and lossy audio compression used for this track. The pops and clicks in the middle section specifically are the most obvious audible result of the degradation due to age. ZIP discs are notorious for their poor reliability, so this situation certainly makes sense. This track was previously thought to be a well-made fan cover, but I believe it is a legitimate sequence that was used during the tour. This information also appears on the 1987 - 1988 Music For The Masses Tour Backing Tapes page.
- Listen to the sequence of Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth:
Christmas Island
A sequence of Christmas Island sourced from one of Alan's Emulator II floppy discs was sent to me by an anonymous source. The quality is significantly improved over the sequence of Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth above, which is sourced from degraded Emax II ZIP discs.
- Christmas Island (Emulator II Sequence):
If you listen closely towards the end of Alan Wilder's Emulator II demonstration video below, it seems that this sequence was the one he played over.
Furthermore, the Soundcloud user Michigan-Sweden recreated very faithful sounding "live instrumentals" of many tracks from the MFTM tour and other tours using some of the original samples from Alan Wilder's Emax II setup. Listen to them on his Soundcloud here.
| Tour | Bank | Song |
|---|---|---|
| 1987-1988 Music For The Masses Tour | 00 | People Are People |
| 01 | A Question Of Time | |
| 02 | A Question Of Lust | |
| 03 | Pleasure, Little Treasure | |
| 04 | Sacred | |
| 05 | Blasphemous Rumours | |
| 06 | It Doesn't Matter | |
| 07 | Things You Said | |
| 08 | Strangelove | |
| 09 | Shake The Disease | |
| 10 | Never Let Me Down Again | |
| 11 | Just Can't Get Enough | |
| 12 | Stripped | |
| 13 | Pipeline | |
| 14 | Nothing | |
| 15 | Behind The Wheel | |
| 16 | Something To Do | |
| 17 | Everything Counts | |
| 18 | Somebody | |
| ?? | Black Celebration[4] | |
| 1993 Devotional Tour | 34 | Mercy In You (Alan 93) |
| 35 | Fly On The Windscreen | |
| 36 | Nothing (Alan 93) | |
| 37 | Something To Do | |
| 38 | Leave In Silence (Alan 93) | |
| 39 | A Question Of Lust | |
| 40 | Clean (percussion trigger sounds) | |
| 41 | Condemnation (vocal guide) | |
| 42 | Everything Counts (94 version) | |
| 43 | Waiting For The Night | |
| 44 | I Want You Now |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 The Alan Wilder / Depeche Mode Collection: 20 x AW / DM sound sample ZIP discs
- ↑ Pronunciation of SCSI, "Small Computer System Interface" (Wikipedia)
- ↑ reddit: Depeche Mode Samples - I have them!
- ↑ Strangely, Black Celebration's sound bank is not listed on the auction page, despite a sound bank existing for the song.
