Snapshots (of Technology)

Ed: When Miami Vice was on, I remember reading an interview with you in, I believe, Keyboard magazine where you discussed the Fairlight, the Minimoog, the DX-7 and the 24 track.

Is that still your basic approach, or are you more computer based?

Jan: I think that by the time that Miami Vice ended, the computer/MIDI sequences started really working well. I really jumped on Opcode immediately once it started out, and I was like one of their people, testing their Vision Sequencer, and Studio Vision, and all that. So I switched completely from the multitrack. Everything moved into Midi, and then Midi and audio combined, within the Mac.

Ed: I was going to ask, what do you think of hard disk recording and software-based synthesizers?

Jan: I live by it-it's all I do. I don't work with tape at all, and I haven't, for I guess, a decade.

Ed: But it sounds like you will use a hardware-based synthesizer from time to time, right?

Jan: Yes. But they're all Midied together. You know what I mean? As opposed to recording the sounds onto the tape, and then mixing, I use them as virtual instruments that only get mixed only in the final mix, onto a DAT or a hard drive.

Ed: What made you decide to launch your own Website? How has it been received?

Jan: I don't know! Elliot would probably be much better to answer that question. But it seems like I've had it forever, but it's probably just a few years. It's somewhere there: between forever, and a few years!

It's fun, it's been really great to have that, because it's like a meeting point where everyone can find me. It's surprising how many people, from every corner in the world, to get in touch.

Ed: Is it hard to keep up with new technologies-or new computer technologies?

Jan: I wouldn't say it's hard. It's always been natural for me, because I've always been very curious, and part of me is very much a geek, as far as getting into to it. I like the whole process of working with the computer, using it as a tool. I like the tool itself, and that comes from almost exclusively from working with a Macintosh. I can't help it, it's just so beautiful.

Ed: What do you think of synthesized music today?

Jan: Every once in a while, I hear nice production behind some pop song, when it's really done well. There are nice things, but as far as overall, it's not that I don't listen, but I don't listen that much to other people's music. I listen to classical music, I listen to old, really classic jazz. By classic, I mean '60s.

Ed: Miles Davis, John Coltrane.