Radiohead's Keyboardist

[Senor Cactus]

I saw Radiohead on Saturday Night Live about a month ago and the keyboardist was playing some crazy contraption.

It had the look of a small organ or old analog synth. I'm not sure if it had keys or not. It looked like the guy had his finger in some thing that had a wire coming out of each side of it. He was moving the thing his finger was in back and forth over where the keys would be if there were any.

The thing made an synthy kind of sound that would slide up and down in pitch as he moved his finger back and forth.

Does anyone know what this thing is?

[robert jaybird]

I didnt see saturday night live.

Was it a theramin?
http://www.bigbriar.com/
(bob moogs new company)

also radiohead use modular analog synths at times, I beleive thery use one made by analog systems:
http://www.analoguesystems.co.uk/rssystems.htm

[lemonsucker]

HA!

you find me prepared on this one. i'm the big boss of a leg of the radiohead fan club.

that thing jonny is playing on the snl live (GREAT performance, lovely idioteque and national anthem versions), especially during "the national anthem" is an Ondes Martenot.

the ondes martenot was one of the first electric instruments ever, being invented in the very beginning of the twentieth century by a french inventor, Martenot. I kinda understood the way it works, but you really should go to a website about the thing to understand it properly. it's indeed a very interesting instruments, quite pricey too. anyway, it looks like a reissue af the thing is about to be manifactured pretty soon.

about that SNL performance, it's also interesting to notice the huge old modular synth that jonny manages to use live during idioteque, reproducing the sound of the record (kick = gated sine wave ; snare = gated white noise ...) quite carefully yet keeping a sort of freedom in triggering different patterns live.

radiohead is absolutely the best band in the world.

i hoped this helped you, but feel free to ask ANY question about them and their equipment, and i'll be more than glad to answer.

[Senor Cactus]

I just saw the thing and wondered what the heck it was. Cool instrument.
He had a lot of cool gear there with him. You don't see anybody playing the huge old synths anymore.

[VirtualSamana]

Hey lemonsucker,

I am reintroduced radiohead junkie. Living in the bay area I got interested in them when "creep" was first played on San Francisco's live 105. Man I loved that song before it was rereleased with "fucking special" censored into "very special"

any how I recently got turned on to all their stuff. I attended a concert and was surprized to see up on the big screen that i recognized some of their gear. They were using a Korg chaos pad and also some line6 effects. Wow that's good news to us hobbyists to know that some of the pros are using stuff that we can buy at Guitar center without plunking down a whole shitload of cash. Anyway since you are such a big fan I wanted to know if you knew any websites that list the gear they use and specifically what gear they use on what songs. Cheers!