Jean Michel Jarre

Apple France has a look at Jean-Michel Jarre and his use of Macs and Logic Pro.

Here’s a short excerpt, through Google automatic translation:

Jean-Michel Jarre says his passion for the Mac

You are using Apple products for a long time. De quels matériels disposez-vous ? What materials do you have?

I am a big fan of Apple since the very beginning! I have a Mac Pro and Power Mac G5 in my recording studio, a Mac Pro to my home and I’m separated from my MacBook Pro 15 “. In addition, I have two iPhone and several iPod, I even kept the older models. At the moment, the MacBook Air tent me a lot. When I tell you that it is a passion…

What do you do in everyday?

Macs are an integral part of my life. In the studio, the Mac Pro I use for records. My MacBook Pro with me everywhere. Even more so, I came to compose and produce songs on it, on a plane between Paris and Beijing, especially for my album “Aero”. I love iPhone is a true handheld. I use to read my mail, video, audio, call for course and I look forward to future developments.

As a musician, how you run Pro Logic and GarageBand?

I use a lot Logic Pro. Everything is integrated, there is no external interface is fantastic. I operates as a wholesale sequencer is the brain of registration. It is also installed on my MacBook Pro. I will soon go on tour and I’ll be able to continue to work on my next album. I also GarageBand, especially as a notepad to mark all my musical ideas.

What attracts you most about Apple solutions and you can not find elsewhere?

I think that there is unity in access to software. This consistency is the same in all areas: image, word processing, audio, editing… The familiarization with a new Apple software is so easily. Any iLife apply this idea of simplification. This is an important specificity of Apple. I am also very sensitive to the aesthetic approach and consistency between the content and container. As a musician, I developed a rapport with my emotional instrument. And I think that Apple leads this reflection for all of its solutions and offers its users the opportunity to respond so emotional. There is a trend away from the keyboard and mouse to find the sense of touch that existed in the analogue technology. I find this idea in the iPhone which is for me a real revolution.

How do you use Apple hardware at your recordings?

The Mac has a function within the heart of all my projects, audio or visual. The Power Mac G5 serves me specifically for the studio work at all stages of registration: mixing, mastering production to final… You can compare it to an airport is the place where everything converges and ” where everything starts

What is your way of working in the studio?

First, I have my work habits. I love the trackpad, I am left handed and I think that is more convenient than the mouse. I have two screens, even at home, and put all my machines network, it is possible to work together more on the same project. I really appreciate the mindset Apple and I hope they continue to do what they are…

The automated translation is bad – so if you know of a better translation or if you translate this yourself and post it, let us know in the comments!

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Clash Music has an interesting interview with synth music pioneer Jean Michel Jarre.

It touches on some very timely subjects, including the role of the Internet in music:

The Internet isn’t the only answer

I think that the Internet might become the ultimate marketing machine, but I also think that in maybe five years’ time, what will be cool will be not be on the Internet. I’m pretty sure that the next generation, or the next punk attitude will be not being some kind of Internet freak, but instead finding something else. I think we’re in a very ambiguous situation. When you have fantastic tools such as web TV, digital radio, YouTube and iTunes type of systems – they are not THE answer, but they do enable you to stay in contact with your fans. In my opinion what Radiohead did with the download of their album for whatever price you chose wasn’t that positive for music. I think it’s something very dangerous, it wasn’t necessarily fair on young artists. When you’re a band the size of Radiohead you can afford to do that, but for new artists these days it’s very, very difficult.

Recognise that record companies are absolutely necessary

I think it’s a cynical attitude to think that musicians can survive as artists without them. Within the labels and record companies there are some really good guys who work 15-16 hour days to try to make things happen. It would be naïve to think you can just launch your album on the Internet in London and someone in Auckland would immediately know what your music is about if you don’t have the necessary distribution network. Although it’s very difficult to accept that the people that invented pirate radio in the ’60s are now the people who want to put today’s pirates in jail!

Jean Michel Jarre, who’s on tour with truckloads of rare vintage keyboards performing his classic Oxygène, says that the old gear posed some unique challenges at his most recent concert:

The MemoryMoog went out of tune, the same for the ARP; we had very little time to set up everything. I tried quickly the Moog Liberation (the portable keyboard) and it had a constant vibrato that I couldn’t stop. We tried everything and eventually Patrick succeeded to make it usable.

I decided to go on stage with a maximum of energy and ready to cope with anything and….. everything happened!

First of all the Egg chair did not turn properly, the arpegiator of the MemoryMoog was blocked, the ARP was out of tune and I had to retune each of its oscillators live, one AKS had no sound, I had to switch the power off and on to make it work, I had to re-pitch the flute sound constantly all along Oxy 2, the DigiSequencer was blocked and I had to reload the sequence for Variation 2 and play something else in the meantime, the percussive sequence on Oxy 5 was hard to start and the Eminent went crazy on Oxy 13 during the encore..

But I felt Claude, Francis and Dominique really on the case full time and the audience totally with me from the beginning and it gave me the necessary energy to rage against the machines!

The Moog Liberation solo with its strange sound was probably one of the most inspired I’ve played since the beginning of the tour and the concert one of the most spectacular since the beginning as well.

The result was that the audience went really crazy screaming and doing the Ola at the end – we got the most animated standing ovation. ¡Viva Madrid…!

I have no idea what “doing the Ola” is – if you do, let me know in the comments.

And shouldn’t we all have problems like Jean Michel Jarre’s?

Image: p_c_w

p_c_w has posted a great collection of images of Jean Michel Jarre performing Oxygène at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

I had to laugh when I saw this post at Jean Michel Jarre’s blog:

After the concert in Berlin, I met a lot of people from the electronic music world:

Jon from Elektron, who brought me a drum machine I ordered in Copenhagen last week, the director of Neumann, the people from Memotron, who have built an extraordinary new version of the Mellotron with even some Eminent sounds in it. I took one as a spare for the one Dominique has on stage.

Also a guy from Ploytec offered me an amazing midi pedal allowing to control live any tempo variations and doing a lot of other tricks.

It makes it sound like people are throwing gear at him wherever he goes – maybe even better than groupies!