CENSUS WORKING OVERTIME (J.D. Considine)

[sidebar to "The Dukes Of Swindon", Musician May 1989, p.31. Contributed by Martin Monkman

He may (or may not) be the Mayor of Simpleton, but Andy Partridge knows one thing: The Roland PG-1000 programmer that goes with his D-50 confuses the hell out of him. "I'm not a very logical person," Partridge declares, and the PG-1000 "is aggressively logical and it rather upsets me." Until he figures it out, he's happier with a "tiny little Yamaha sampler" that he used for songwriting until recently. He seems to be having more fun with a new toy, a Alesis HR-16 drum machine. Partridge records home demos on a 1982-vintage Tascam Portastudio; for that purpose he keeps a "fizzy" Session MKII amp -- "not fantastic". He was impressed with a Fender Stage Lead he played through during the Oranges and Lemons rehearsals. Oops, guitars: Until '82 he played an Ibanez Artist exclusively, but that changed when he got a Fender Telecaster Squier -- "it has a nice clangorous tone" -- that's his current electric one-and-only. On the acoustic side, Partridge has played his Martin D-35 on all XTC albums dating from English Settlement. He also has a small Yamaha acoustic for "twanging" purposes, and a "Woolworth's" bass guitar (no name on the head) with a "very unusual tuba-like tone to it." Guitar strings are D'Addario or Ernie Ball Regular Slinky. Other gear: Korg DDD-1 drum machine, Yamaha D1500 digital delay, Alesis MIDIverb, Hitachi boom box. He has PG Tips teabags but prefers coffee.

Colin Moulding used three basses on Oranges and Lemons, predominantly a Wal. Back-up basses were a Fender Precision and, for the double-bass sound on "Pink Thing", an Epiphone Newport. "It goes 'poun'," Partridge describes helpfully. Moulding's album rehearsal amp was a Trace Elliot -- "so clear it was unbelievable" -- and he holds his group together with Rotosound strings. Instead of a pick he prefers a fingernail (home-grown). He writes with the help of an Ovation acoustic guitar.

Now if you want to talk guitar, ask Dave Gregory. He was crushed that he couldn't take his entire guitar harem (over 20) with him for Oranges and Lemons, but he made do with his faves: a 1953 Gibson Les Paul gold-top; a Schecter Telecaster-style ("quite versatile"); a 1963 Stratocaster; a semi-hollow 1964 Epiphone Riviera with miniature humbuckers, heard on the "Pink Thing" solo ("It has a nice Beatley sound"); and one of the first 25 Rickenbacker 12-strings shipped to England in the wake of "A Hard Day's Night." Gregory uses Ernie Ball strings "out of force of habit," but creates his own gauge set: .011-.013-.016-.024-.038-.050. He has a Roland JC-120 amp "for those rare occasions that I go out of the house," and a Japanese Fender Sidekick 30 amp for home practice. Effects include a MIDIverb and D1500. For keyboard dabbling he keeps a Roland JX3P with MSQ-100 sequencer, and "an old acoustic piano."

Co-producer Paul Fox called upon his background as a session musician to add some keyboards to Oranges and Lemons. He used mainly an Emulator III (e.g. the "strings" on "Across This Antheap") and, "for layering," a Roland Super Jupiter. He also employed an Emulator II, Roland D-50, PPG Wave, Prophet VS, Yamaha DX7, Oberheim Xpander, and his "museum rack" with an Oberheim 4-VC, Prophet 5, Roland Jupiters 6 and 8, and a Juno 106 MIDIed through a Sycologic box.

Drummer Pat Mastelotto, a Yamaha endorsee, played on a Recording Series kit with Remo heads. But he obviously loves variety: He switched among eight different tom-toms (8" to 16") and 15 different snares. The 22"x16" kick-drum with a DW pedal pretty much stayed put, except for "President Kill"'s early-'40s Leedy parade drum; and on "Scarecrow People," featuring Mastelotto's old red Rogers -- was well as ashtrays and pots and pans to approximate Partridge's idea of a scarecrow drum kit. Cymbals tend to be Paistes for crashes, small (8", 10" and 12") Sabians for rides. "Scarecrow People" has an old K-Zildjian with rivets (courtesy of Fox); "Garden of Earthly Delights" includes a pair of 6" or 8" Sabian splashes. The high-hat was a 10" Sabian with a Paiste bell underneath.

Mastelotto isn't shy with electronics. He used "a fair amount of samples" for composite snare sounds, including three alone for "King for a Day," played on a Roland Octopad, and the overtone of "a very ringy Ludwig similar to a tube-lug snare" sampled on an Akai S900. The drummer and his tech Paul Mitchell bent the samples with a warp function "to a note that sounded good" for each track. Tabourine-shaker, congas, tablas and other oriental percussion came from Casio FZ-1 samplers. A Yamaha RX5 drum machine crops up on the fade of "Hold Me My Daddy"; elsewhere Mastelotto used an MX8 MIDI patch bay to increase the velocity of a LinnDrum fed into a Yamaha QX2 program. An old Simmons SD55's kicks and snares are on "Chalkhills and Children" and "Poor Skeleton Steps Out." There's a Pearl SC-40 on "Cynical Days" -- "similar to a tambourine but more of a bongo" -- and "Garden of Earthly Delights," "for a low kick that bends up like a tabla." "Garden" also employs a Roland TR727 drum loop. And Mastelotto still uses sticks: Pro-Mark 5Bs of 909s, "butt-end."

Finally, a few words of discouragement from Andy Partridge: "I don't take that much pride in instruments ... There's still no equation between better gear and better-quality songs, unfortunately."

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