Jordan Rudess interview (excerpt)

Justin Colletti: I’d love to get a sense for you using both software and hardware in the studio and in live situations. I remember early on with Dream Theater, you're using the Kurzweil stuff a lot and you kind of transitioned over the Korg Oasis, and you have a lot of hardware that I can see here in the shot in your space. I’m wondering how you blend using both software and hardware tools – are there certain things that you use plug-ins for? Are you ever creating sounds with plugins and then finding ways to take them into a live setting, or you just doing that stuff on albums? I’d love to get a little bit of sense about that stuff, about how you work digital into your world.

Jordan Rudess: Well I am a sonic junkie, so I am open, interested, entertained, fascinated by all kinds of software that make all kinds of sounds. So it's a funny combination [in] my world, because those of you who know my on stage appearances with Dream Theater know that I go out there basically with a Korg Kronos, and that is 95% of what's happening on that stage. Generally what I do to make that happen is, if I use something in the outside world that's like a software plug-in or whatever, I’ll sample it so I can then have it inside my Kronos. Ever since I got into this stuff, I love the idea of using an instrument that was so powerful where I didn't have to jump around, like for instance, lift up a phrase before I was done to have to reach over and play another keyboard, which is a funny thing because people think of me as a “prog keyboardist” and prog keyboardist are supposed to have a Mellotron and a Clavinet, an electric piano and this and that, and I was always like, “You know what? I care more about the music and I just want to make sure that I’m really focused on it.” So I do things like splits and layers and all this stuff, and I’ll get all my sounds in there. Then as for entertainment, to keep myself relaxed and just having a good time on stage – I’m not standing still – my whole keyboard rotates around 180º and it also tilts and does all these fun, cool looking kind of things. So that's very much the live thing. But in the studio, I’ll have my Kronos there, because the reality is that over the years, starting with the Kurzweil days, then moving to the Oasis and now to the Kronos, I’ve made so many sounds that I have available with the Krono synthesis – so many heavy, cool, “Jordan sounds” and “Jordan leads” and all these signature sounds – that's a big part of what I do. But I also have my computer there and if it's orchestral, yeah I’m going to use the latest ATO, Spitfire stuff, the Cine samples, horns and whatever it is! Then I’m going to really worry about how I’m going to translate that later. Again, if I really need something very specific, I’ll put it in the Kronos; maybe not sample, every note or every octave, because the reality is that the French horns might be sampled at 16 velocity levels, but if the French horns are in a Dream Theater song, they're probably going to be all out and sounding like really glorious and they're going to be in this range [gesturing a small amount] and not this range [gesturing a large amount]. So I really only need to sample at one or two velocity levels in a smaller range. So I end up being able to get everything I need inside the instrument that I’m going to use, and that's what's worked for me so far. That combination of thinking that way, but also being open to all the amazing software, has been kind of been my world. The other part of it is that I’ve also been very engaged, interested and active in the world of controllers – like beyond just keyboards. Hardware like the Haken Continuum, which is a big part of my life conceptually and musically, the LinnStrument and of course my own instruments like Geoshred, which runs on iOS. One funny thing is that my keyboard tech – who's really into technology and forward thinking – gutted my keytar. So I would walk to the front of the stage with a kind of a keytar-esque thing, but instead of a keyboard there was two iPads – one for visualizations and one to play Geoshred on. So that kind of thing also is very much part of what I’m interested in.