Phil Hartnoll will always be known as one half of the ground-breaking and dance- music defining duo Orbital, who had world-wide success with their unique blend of electronic music from 1990 until 2004. Since the demise of Orbital, Hartnoll has been as busy as ever with DJ?€™ing and producing new music. He’s also got a new band, Long Range, and a collection of new gear.

?€œI?€™m working on a Long Range album project which is me, Nick
Smith and Ben Burns,?€ he says. ?€œI?€™ve know Nick for about 10
years. He?€™s been doing music for a long time and he?€™s very good at
sound design and has worked on films like Hannibal. Ben is a mate of
his and has done loads including stuff like Caged Baby on Southern
Fried records.?€

?€œWe?€™ve done six tracks and have another four that are nearly
ready. Dave Pemberton at Strongroom is also working on them so the
album is almost finished so hopefully the whole project will be coming
out in the Summer, probably June or July. It?€™s not that dissimilar to
Orbital in that there?€™s a variety of styles and it doesn?€™t stick to
one genre, apart from the electronica thing. You can check out some
stuff at MySpace under Long Range Music.?€

Hartnoll is also working with some of the latest gear, courtesy his
relationship with Novation, which goes back to his time in Orbital.
?€œNovation has been with me since the start. Me and Paul always had a
BassStation and Supernova and used them all the time with the Orbital
stuff, so I?€™ve used them extensively over the years and really love
them. I still use the Supernova. It has a great bottom end and really
is a good all rounder.?€

Phil still has the BassStation and also a DrumStation but it?€™s the
ReMOTE SL that he has been using for the Long Range project?€? ?€œYeah
we?€™ve just got the ReMOTE 25SL,?€ says Phil, ?€œand have just got
some maps for them ?€“ fantastic idea and very useful.?€

?€œWe use it with Logic so we?€™re waiting for the Automapping,?€
adds Nick, ?€œbut we?€™ve been enjoying it with IMPOscar which is well
cool. I love the feel of the keys, it?€™s nice looking, has smooth
functions, the keyboard?€™s really nice and it?€™s great that is uses
the buss for power.?€

Phil is also making quite a name for himself DJ?€™ing, and one of the main parts of his DJ set-up is his Saffire.

?€œI?€™m using the Saffire with Ableton Live on a laptop. I used to
go out with vinyl but now it?€™s so much easier with MP3s. I got a
track from Rennie Pilgrem the other day that he emailed over and I
played it out that night. I basically use the Saffire as the breakout
box using the four channels out into a traditional DJ mixer. Anything
that can help rather than using the headphone socket, and Focusrite has
such a good name for its D-A converters?€??€