(...) As far as electronics, I'm using an Oberheim 4-voice with a programmer - which is the first synthesizer I ever got, one of the early ones - and a Prophet 5-voice, which is a recent addition, then a Yamaha CP-30 electric piano, and a Yamaha YC-20 electric organ. I'm putting it through a little black box that electronically duplicates a Leslie. Then I'm running all those into a Tangent 12-channel mixer, the 1202-AX. I'm running all of the instruments in mono into the mixer, even though the CP-30 and the Oberheim are both stereo. Then I've got two digital delays - one I'm running through the effects channel of the Tangent, to add quite a beat of repeat echo. It's essential for synthesizers to have lots of echo; otherwise they sound dry and ugly. Then I take the left output of the stereo outputs of the mixer to another digital delay to add to the pitch-bend effect. Plus, I'm tuning all of the instruments out of tune. Each module on the Oberheim has two oscillators; I tune one of them flat and the other one sharp, so they sort of vibrate around the center pitch. I do the same thing with the Prophet and the CP-30. I was trying to duplicate the effect Pat had with his digital delays. And that's also the way a real string section or horn section will play; it's not going to be exactly in tune. Anyway, I'm running the left output of the mixer into a digital delay with pitch-bend, and the right output straight. I'm also running both of those into a Furman stereo crossover, and powering the high-end through a Crest 750-watt stereo power amp and the bottom end through a Peavey 400-watt power amp.
Metheny: Don't you have a compressor or something in there too?
Mays: Yeah, I use a limiter in the Prophet and an Axe Max on the Oberheim, a little box that matches the impedance. I also had a couple of modifications done on the Oberheim to get a cleaner, brighter signal.
