Electron-Users has a nice interview with Richard Devine that touches on his music and the gear he uses to create it.

In the article, he (of course) talks about using Electron gear, but he also touches on his reasons for composing:

What inspires you to compose?

I find inspiration from many different sources. Sometimes I will be out at an art museum, and see a video installation, short film, or sculpture piece, and it will inspire me to create something. I love late 21st century modern architecture too. I see the skeletal structures of buildings and spaces, and it makes me think of musical structures. I have always believed that there is a close relationship between visual art and music. They are based on the same principals of design, repetition, color, balance, rhythm, tone, texture, etc. I tend to get more ideas from visual references than audio sources.

You are also a well-regarded sound designer. How do the two processes, composing and sound designing, complement each other? Are they even two separate processes? For instance, when you sit down to work, do you approach the session as a “sound design” or “composition” session depending on your mood? Or do you just let the session flow?

I look at both processes differently for different applications. When I work on sound design projects, it could be scoring sounds to a video game where I go in and create a palette of sounds that are design to be triggered by the user. These could be switches, buttons, selection sounds, loading, weaponry, Foley FX. It literally is thousands of small pieces that will be used in a specific environment or interface. So in that situation the process of sound design is only to have the sounds work in a single shot instance, and they should be unique to work on their own. In scoring to TV/Film I use sound design much differently. I term this as being what I call “musical” or “narrative” sound design. Where the sounds almost tell a story and work on a linear time line matched up with moving picture and the events happen in a very specific order. This is to me composing and this similar to how I compose some of my musical compositions.

Check out the full interview for more.

For gear freaks, here’s Devine’s gear list:

Gear List:

Here is a new complete kit list:

Mixers & Speakers

• Mackie HR-824 x 5
• Mackie HS-120 Sub
• KRK-Rokit x 2
• Mackie 32-8 analogue mixer
• Mackie 1202-VLZ analogue mixer
• Mackie 802-VLZ3 mixer
• Yamaha 02R digital Mixer
• Rane MP-24 mixer
• Allen & Heath Xone 3D
• Digidesign DIGI 002
• Digidesign Mbox
• Technics 1200 turntables x 2
• Stanton STR-150 turntables x 2
• Stanton Final Scratch 2.0 and 1.5
• Stanton SMX-501 Mixer
• Stanton C324 CD Players
• Ecler NU04 Mixer

• Alesis Andromeda A6
• Alesis Fusion
• Access Virus TI Polar and Snow
• Akai S3200
• Akai MPC-5000
• Akai MPC-1000
• Clavia Nord Modular G1 rack
• Clavia Nord Modular G2
• Elektron Monomachine mk II
• Elektron MachineDrum UW-mk II
• Hartmann Neuron
• Korg Radias rack
• Korg Triton Studio
• Korg Trinity Pro
• Korg Kaoss Pad V2
• Korg Kaoss Pad V3
• Korg MicroKontrol
• Korg S3 Drum Machine
• Muze Research Receptor
• M-Audio Ozonic
• M-Audio Oxygen 8
• MFB-Synth Lite
• MFB-Filter Box
• MFB-502 Drum Machine
• MFB-Synth II
• Symbolic Sound Kyma System
• Oberheim Matrix-6R
• Open Labs Neko 64 Keyboard
• Roland TB-303 (Devilfish Mod)
• Roland TR-606 (custom mod)
• Roland TR-707
• Roland TR-727
• Roland TR-808 modded by Josh Kay =)
• Roland SBX-10
• Roland R-8mk II
• Roland VP-9000
• Roland V-Synth
• Roland V-Synth-GT
• Roland D-5
• Yamaha DX-100
• Yamaha TX81Z
• Custom Chaos box-by Tim Adams
• Custom Modular synth by Time Adams

• Apogee Rosetta 200 (192k)
• Alesis ineko
• TC Electronic Finalizer 96k
• TC Electronic M-One-XL
• MOTU-896HD
• MOTU-828mkII
• RME Fireface-400
• RME Fireface-800
• Focusrite TwinTrack pro
• Eventide H3000-D/SE
• Eventide H8000-FW
• M-Audio Octane
• M-Audio Delta 1010

• Apple G5 Dual 2.5
• Apple Powerbook G4 1Ghz
• Apple Powerbook G4 1.67
• Apple Macbook 2.4 Ghz
• Apple G4 Dual 550
• Sony Vaio 3.0ghz tower
• Sony Vaio 2.0ghz laptop
• Logic 8
• Pro tools HD-7.3 with 96 HD hardware
• Nuendo 4 by Steinberg
• GRM tools
• Cycing 74 all software and plug-ins
• Sound toys all plug-ins
• Composer’s Desktop Project
• MetaSynth
• Csound
• Universal Audio UAD card
• All Native Instruments software including Kore-2
• Almost every known plug-in for PC and Mac.

Note: You really don’t need any of this gear to make good music. If you have a nice clean kitchen table, a pair of decent headphones and a Macbook running your favorite sequencer is really all you need =).