> And to confuse matters more, in a 2013 interview with Time Magazine, Bangalter says:
> > So we've never actually made music with computers! [laughs] Neither Homework nor Discovery nor even Human After All were made with computers.
> Was he contradicting himself from 12 years before? Or did he forget? Or maybe it's a terminology thing?
The thing is—and this is coming from someone who has been making electronic dance music daily for over 35 years and counting—when Bangalter spoke earlier in their career about a PC (likely an Atari ST or Falcon) it was being used as a MIDI / SMPTE timepiece and master sequencer, nothing more. Later when he speaks about never making music with a computer, the context of the discussion has changed, as by that time computers were becoming more accomplished at DSP. The comment he is making is that they didn't use computers for audio domain tasks, like Pro Tools, Digital Audio Workstation type action.
That said, computers were still deeply embedded in their workflow just not in the way most modern producers would recognize. Even the SSL 9000 J console at the heart of their studio relied on an onboard computer system for total recall, automation, and channel configuration. The distinction Bangalter draws is really about where the actual audio lived: in 12-bit sampler memory, on tape and through analog audio circuits, not as samples and waveforms being crunched inside a CPU. The computer was a conductor, not a performer.
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> And to confuse matters more, in a 2013 interview with Time Magazine, Bangalter says:
> > So we've never actually made music with computers! [laughs] Neither Homework nor Discovery nor even Human After All were made with computers.
> Was he contradicting himself from 12 years before? Or did he forget? Or maybe it's a terminology thing?
The thing is—and this is coming from someone who has been making electronic dance music daily for over 35 years and counting—when Bangalter spoke earlier in their career about a PC (likely an Atari ST or Falcon) it was being used as a MIDI / SMPTE timepiece and master sequencer, nothing more. Later when he speaks about never making music with a computer, the context of the discussion has changed, as by that time computers were becoming more accomplished at DSP. The comment he is making is that they didn't use computers for audio domain tasks, like Pro Tools, Digital Audio Workstation type action.
That said, computers were still deeply embedded in their workflow just not in the way most modern producers would recognize. Even the SSL 9000 J console at the heart of their studio relied on an onboard computer system for total recall, automation, and channel configuration. The distinction Bangalter draws is really about where the actual audio lived: in 12-bit sampler memory, on tape and through analog audio circuits, not as samples and waveforms being crunched inside a CPU. The computer was a conductor, not a performer.