#backdrifts

[foldback]

Radiohead - "Backdrifts"

Please enjoy this bit of visual and audio madness from their Hail to the Thief tour that wasn't included on the recent Hail to the Thief: Live Recordings 2003-2009 album.

[mattheusdb]

The true definition of  an underestimated masterpiece

fucking hate this band for ignoring HTTT so much 

[thekingofgear]

Hey there KOG! I have a question regarding Jonjon's MacBooks and storage. So I wonder if jonny buys his Maca with a ton of storage, or he uses an external hard drive and only puts the data for songs he needs during shows on the system itself. The reason I ask is, by my understanding, the old PowerBook G4's didnt come loaded with storage space (128gb max) and I was curious how jonny managed all that software and project files back then compared to now. Thanks!

Hello! Jonny used his 12" Apple PowerBook G4 from around 2003 to 2008. The 12" model was offered with a maximum of 100GB, assuming that Jonny didn’t swap in an alternative. The only application that we have any evidence of Jonny using on the 12" PowerBook was Max 4, specifically versions 4.1-4.6. Those applications were only about 20-40MB in size, including documentation (which is deep in Max’s case).

Jonny’s 12″ PowerBook G4 during the 2008 tour. His “drum machine” Max patch is visible on its screen.

Jonny has repeatedly spoken about his preference to use Max for sound processing. All of the Max patches which he used on Hail To The Thief - the reverse guitar on Backdrifts, the stutter on Go To Sleep, and the full-band processing on The Gloaming - were live processing effects, meaning that they required no stored audio files. Even complex Max patches can take up less than a megabyte, so there’s little worry of filling a computer with those.

The looper patch which Thom controls (via footswitch) on Give Up The Ghost and the piano-filtering Max patches which Jonny uses on Codex and Glass Eyes are all live processing effects, while the complex MIDI-generating patch used on performances of True Love Waits is just a patcher file involving no audio at all (the MIDI is used to trigger the piano sound module on the Yamaha U1TA upright piano, which the band usually only uses as backup in case of any problems with the instrument).

Jonny’s 17″ PowerBook G4 during the recording of The King of Limbs – From The Basement. The Max window visible on the screen is Jonny’s fairly simple piano-filtering patch for Codex.

Jonny did incorporate some pre-recorded sampling into his Max patches in order to build a drum machine for the “wonky rhythm experiment” 15 Step (the Max drum machine is also used on performances of Videotape). Based on images of the drum machine, Jonny used short recordings of individual percussion hits (far less than a second in length), each of which takes up an extremely small amount of space even at high quality.

A section of the Max 7 update to the “drum machine” patch which Jonny built in 2016.

Additionally, the 11" PowerBook G4 was by no means Jonny’s only computer at the time. Rather, it was just a compact machine used to integrate Max processing into his setup. Many pictures from the recording of In Rainbows show Jonny with his own personal PowerBook G4. Projects invoking larger audio files, such as beat managing, were often created collaboratively and so likely done on one of the band’s more powerful desktop computers. This is probably why he used a 17" PowerBook G4 2011, despite the age of the machine: it was still totally adequate for his Max-related needs.

A silly photo of Nigel in studio during the recording of In Rainbows, with several desktop computers behind him.

Jonny doubtless had many more samples and patcher files on his “12 PowerBook than we’ve ever heard, but a single computer dedicated to his particular style of using Max would almost certainly have a good deal of space free.

[kodiakkodiak]

[thekingofgear]

What pedal uses Jonny to Make the reverse effect in songs like "identikit" (solo)? I thought It was de DD-5

Hello, there are no reverse effects applied to Jonny’s guitar during the outro solo of Identikit. The only time-based effect used on that track is his BOSS RE-20. In fact, on the 2016 tour Jonny exclusively used his Boss RE-20 for guitar delay. The reverse effects applied to Thom vocals near the start of Identikit were likely done in a DAW or with a Max/MSP patch.

Jonny has only rarely applied reverse effects to his guitar. Backdrifts is the most notable example. On that track, the reverse delay was created with a Max/MSP patch programmed by Jonny. You can best hear it during the outro solo of this performance. Radiohead haven’t played the song live since 2004.

Ed has been a huge fan of the Boss DD-5 since the late 90′s, and he still has one on his gigging pedalboard, but Jonny has never used one.

[niniblack]

We're rotten fruit We're damaged goods What the hell, we've got nothing more to lose

[tippytapage]

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Decided to shake my music selection up a little! #improvtapdance #tapdance #radiohead #backdrifts #shinyshoes #taplesque https://www.instagram.com/p/B1ttYW9HbRL/?igshid=1867kn769cg4v

[artdiscography]

"BACKDRIFTS" Hail to the thief Radiohead