Moby: "I still use hardware"

Moby has been speaking about the production of his most recent album, Last Night, and has revealed that, despite having a penchant for some of today's state-of-the-art music software, his first love is still outboard gear.

"I still use a lot of the equipment that I was using the late '80s, whether it's a TR-909 or 106 or 303," the star told Future Music. "I also love working with some of the newer software programs like Reason and Ableton [Live], but I still keep making my records with Cubase and Pro Tools and I still mainly use outboard synths."

Despite sticking to his old-school approach, though, Moby does have time for some of today's virtual processors: "I love plug-ins, they sound great and can be really fun to work with, but I still like doing as much as possible in the analogue realm and being able to move sliders around and craft sounds that way."

In fact, although he admits that he "loves the fact that you can now make a record from start to finish on a laptop," Moby reveals that he's been adding to his collection of hardware rather than trying to replace it.

"I have actually found myself buying up more and more old analogue gear," he confirms. "I have this strange obsession with old drum machines."

To learn more about Moby's studio and working methods, check out the full interview in the October issue of Future Music (FM205), which is on sale now.