Prior to April 2013 my synth rack equipment was spread across multiple racks cases, which was great for transporting, but annoying for setting up and dismantling after gigs. A whole set of cables were required passing between the two racks, which invariably ended up in a giant tangle after a gig, and the sheer number of interconnections gave me a sense that one day, one of those cables would fail mid-gig, and I'd never have a chance of finding the culprit.

So I decided to rebuild it all into a single larger (16 unit) rack case, so that the interconnections were all neatly hidden away inside, and cable-tied down to prevent anything getting loose or tangled. The resulting rack has served me well over the last year, and has travelled with me all around Europe to a whole load of gigs.

For those of an inquisitive disposition, the units in the rack, from the top down are:

• Yamaha Motif Rack ES
• 2 x Muse Receptor 2+ Pro
• 2 x Behringer ADA8000
• 2 x MOTU Midi Timepiece AV
• 2 x Nord G2 Modular Engine
• 2 x MidiMan Fineline mixer

Most of the units appear in pairs, one being a backup in the event of failure. Surprisingly, although most of these units are built like tanks, things do fail, especially in the harsh conditions of the stage environment, or bumping around in the back of a truck. Having a backup MOTU Midi Timepiece AV saved the day at the recent IQ gig at the Melkweg in Amsterdam, when the primary one failed (due to a dead internal CMOS battery). I don't have a backup of the Yamaha Motif Rack ES simply because it really is built like a Panzer tank, and I actually only use its sounds in a few minor places.

Most of my live sounds come from the Muse Receptor, and the Nord G2 Modular Engine. The Receptor is essentially a rack-mounting computer which runs synth plugins such as Omnisphere, Kontakt, Ivory II and so on, making it just about the most flexible synthesis module available. It connects to the ADA8000 module via optical cable, which in turn provides 8 analogue outputs, allowing me to send 4 different stereo feeds to the venue PA system for different types of sounds (pianos, Mellotrons, leads etc), and thus allowing the sound engineer some flexibility in adjusting relative levels during a gig.

The Nord G2 Modular Engine is the modern day equivalent of the giant Moog Modular systems Keith Emerson used to haul around the world; essentially an infinitely flexible modular synthesizer. It has no external controls apart from a power switch; you devise sounds on it using a computer, which provides an immensely powerful interface where you can stack up synthesis components such as oscillators, filters and so on, and wire them together in weird and wonderful ways. Want more oscillators? Just drag a few more into the rack! Once you're happy with the sound you've created, it can be stored and recalled instantly during a gig, without the need for an attached computer. The result is a mind bogglingly capable, eminently giggable, rich-sounding analogue modular synth, which I use for many of my lead and polysynth type sounds.

Inside the rack, all of the modules are linked together using nice short cables to avoid any tangling, making it easy to make modifications, re-route signals and whatever else I need to do.

The rack served me well, but if you were to ask the opinion certain members of the IQ band or crew, you might get a somewhat colourful response. It was the most evil thing imaginable to lift! The Receptors alone are 7.5kg each, and all in all it weighs about the same as a person, which makes it not entirely fun to lift up to neck height onto a stage, or up slippery metal steps to a rehearsal room.

As well as the weight, there are other drawbacks with the system. The MOTU units route MIDI from my three keyboards to the synth modules in a very static fashion. What this means is that a range of MIDI channels is dedicated to the Receptor, some to the Nord G2 Modular Engine, and others to the Yamaha Motif Rack and the physical keyboard synths I use on stage. Consequently I'm restricted to about 6 MIDI channels for the Receptor, which then limits how many plugins I can have set up ready for a song, without the need to load other plugins. The Receptor provides features to combat this, called Snapshot Multis, that allow you to switch between different banks of plugins almost instantaneously. However it does limit how smoothly you can make such transitions within a song, and makes managing song setups more fiddly.

And so after lots of careful thought, I've come up with a plan for a completely revised synth rack, which I think will weigh in at a little over half the weight of the current one (well, maybe two thirds), and will provide complete flexibility in which MIDI channels are assigned to which physical modules and software plugins. This means I'll have more freedom to use exactly the sounds I want, for each part of each song, without compromise, and hopefully without too many headaches (or back aches from the weight). I haven't worked out all the details yet, but I shall be posting to this blog as I make each step towards the next working evolution of my synth rack. Stay tuned!