In The Studio with Jean Michel Jarre

[raymondh]

He's using Live but don't let that put you off, still quite an interesting video.

Check out the spliced-tape loop at the end

[joet63]

Thanks for sharing this raymondh! I've been a JMJ fan for a such a long time, I daren't remember lol

[CharlyCharlzz]

damn I just seen your thread after I did one on his new album .....

I like the way he can still make the Buzz and show synth power
gonna get his new CD tomorow .

[gak]

Hi, debby downer here....

So glad he's able to use max for live, I sure as hell couldn't w/o constant crashing

[bpmorton]

I've been warming to his music lately. What soured me on him early on was a live video of him playing the laser harp...just thought I might as well been watching/listening to Yani.

[raymondh]

I've been warming to his music lately. What soured me on him early on was a live video of him playing the laser harp...just thought I might as well been watching/listening to Yani.

You would likely enjoy Oxygene live in your living room much more than his showy concerts. The DVD/Blu-ray has an interesting walkthrough with JMJ and his gear.

[gak]

Yeah, but, that's all analog. We all know live sounds terrible :

[raymondh]

Yeah, but, that's all analog. We all know live sounds terrible :

You're messing with me, aren't you

[gak]

Absolutely!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm fun like that.

BUT, that viddy of him doing the live thing from yesteryears is indeed all analog, no?

[raymondh]

Yeah - all analog. The documentary on the DVD is really interesting. He talks about how the stage lighting heated up the synth and sent some of them wildly out of tune. As he was playing some of the instruments, he was tuning at the same time!

There's a bunch of interesting reading around on when he did his breakthrough 1981 concert in China (The Concerts in China is brilliant work).
The show was put together with 70 people, and 16 tons of stage gear! "Jarre tells the camera, en route to what he hopes is a rehearsal, that they are having “a problem of stability with the power”. It’s an understatement of massive proportions: Billboard’s coverage of the tour (March 13, 1982) recounts that until two hours before showtime, there was no cable to connect the stage’s power to the outlet two hundred yards away (and that power in the surrounding part of the city had to be cut to feed the Jarre Machine)."

[bpmorton]

I've been warming to his music lately. What soured me on him early on was a live video of him playing the laser harp...just thought I might as well been watching/listening to Yani.

You would likely enjoy Oxygene live in your living room much more than his showy concerts. The DVD/Blu-ray has an interesting walkthrough with JMJ and his gear.

Thanks for linking that.

[bpmorton]

I will say that he can't play the theremin very well and that is were the showy crap comes in. plenty of synth patches that will emulate that sound so no good reason for it.

[raymondh]

Yes true, not exactly a case of playing to ones's strengths eh?

[JoshuaPhilgarlic]

I will say that he can't play the theremin very well and that is were the showy crap comes in. plenty of synth patches that will emulate that sound so no good reason for it.

Agree. I saw JMJ live a few years ago, and the Theremin thing was so shitty ...

He'd better use Moog's Theremini in the future, 'cause this one has an optional pitch correction !!

[bpmorton]

I was thinking that too but it doesn't look as cool on stage as that giant wood box.

[raymondh]

Yeah true. The idea of playing instrumental synth music live is a bit of an odd one. How do you turn it from music, into entertainment.

Jarre's theatrics and lightshow seem to work pretty well for him, with record concert numbers. And that laser harp, which he didn't invent and could have more effectively been been played directly on his Synthex, I guess is just the gimmicks he needed to convince people to stand in the hold rather than staying home with their headphones on, sipping a single malt

I guess Kraftwerk beat him to the idea of bringing robots on stage to play the music while they can go out back to have smoko