The Prodigy: Replacing Hardware with Reason
The Prodigy: Replacing Hardware with Reason
Liam Howlett maintains that the most important piece of his kit for the creation of the (new) album remains his laptop loaded with Reason. Indeed, it’s a tool that helped him not only smash through an extreme dose of writer’s block but also knock out classic tracks at an alarming rate.
Liam Howlett maintains that the most important piece of his kit for the creation of the (new) album remains his laptop loaded with Reason. Indeed, it’s a tool that helped him not only smash through an extreme dose of writer’s block but also knock out classic tracks at an alarming rate.
Completely Reasonable
Freeing himself up from the restriction of using lead vocalists was an important step in the creation of this album. However, perhaps more significant was the decision to write entirely using Propellerhead Reason on his G4. The move followed a near fruitless year of working in his home studio with longtime cohort Neil McLellan. It was slow going, and Howlett sank into the depths of creative depression. Ironically, one of the things holding him back was the huge amount of equipment he had amassed.
“It was everywhere,” Howlett says. “The studio floor was just covered in kit, three rooms of my house. I couldn’t think straight. It got to the point where I’d be doing anything to avoid working on something.”
Almost at the breaking point, he installed 10 years of sounds onto his G4 and started messing around with Reason. It was a revelation to him. “I was feeling very stale in my studio, and the more equipment I bought, the less I seemed to be feeling the vibe,” Howlett reveals. “I just found myself going back to the same equipment; it was always the reliable old stuff. More and more, I had this whole thing about just not wanting to be in the studio, and I just started doing more on the laptop. This whole thing about wanting to write on the laptop was that it was pure, you know? No one else could fuck with it. And the mobile way of writing was just so refreshing that I took the kit I needed and locked the door. The rest of the shit is still in there.”
And it looks set to remain locked away for a while yet. “When we were going to take the photos for Remix in the studio, we couldn’t get the door open,” Howlett says. “It’s fucking jammed shut. And I think that kind of represents the fucking story of this album; it’s quite ironic. The fact is, I didn’t write the album in the studio; I wrote it in the bedroom or in the garden on the computer. The album feels more natural for it.”
Howlett’s introduction to Reason allowed him to work in a much more direct and immediate way. Gone were the hours cutting up on Akais. Instead, he was able to deliver ideas almost instantaneously. It was, he says, “like a guitarist jamming a tune.” For Howlett, the impact was immediate: “I just started to rock the beats again.”
Subscribe to Remix for only $14.97:
Look for the August issue of Remix at your local newsstands @ any Tower Records, Guitar Center, Virgin Records, Borders, Barnes and Noble, or FYE as well as over 1500 independent music stores nationwide!!
Freeing himself up from the restriction of using lead vocalists was an important step in the creation of this album. However, perhaps more significant was the decision to write entirely using Propellerhead Reason on his G4. The move followed a near fruitless year of working in his home studio with longtime cohort Neil McLellan. It was slow going, and Howlett sank into the depths of creative depression. Ironically, one of the things holding him back was the huge amount of equipment he had amassed.
“It was everywhere,” Howlett says. “The studio floor was just covered in kit, three rooms of my house. I couldn’t think straight. It got to the point where I’d be doing anything to avoid working on something.”
Almost at the breaking point, he installed 10 years of sounds onto his G4 and started messing around with Reason. It was a revelation to him. “I was feeling very stale in my studio, and the more equipment I bought, the less I seemed to be feeling the vibe,” Howlett reveals. “I just found myself going back to the same equipment; it was always the reliable old stuff. More and more, I had this whole thing about just not wanting to be in the studio, and I just started doing more on the laptop. This whole thing about wanting to write on the laptop was that it was pure, you know? No one else could fuck with it. And the mobile way of writing was just so refreshing that I took the kit I needed and locked the door. The rest of the shit is still in there.”
And it looks set to remain locked away for a while yet. “When we were going to take the photos for Remix in the studio, we couldn’t get the door open,” Howlett says. “It’s fucking jammed shut. And I think that kind of represents the fucking story of this album; it’s quite ironic. The fact is, I didn’t write the album in the studio; I wrote it in the bedroom or in the garden on the computer. The album feels more natural for it.”
Howlett’s introduction to Reason allowed him to work in a much more direct and immediate way. Gone were the hours cutting up on Akais. Instead, he was able to deliver ideas almost instantaneously. It was, he says, “like a guitarist jamming a tune.” For Howlett, the impact was immediate: “I just started to rock the beats again.”
Subscribe to Remix for only $14.97:
Look for the August issue of Remix at your local newsstands @ any Tower Records, Guitar Center, Virgin Records, Borders, Barnes and Noble, or FYE as well as over 1500 independent music stores nationwide!!
