@@jasoncruizeryou are absolutely spot on, sadly people don’t take the time today to understand theory in general which I think this is why there is a lot of sub par music
@Pardus777 I can see your line of thought with this, as a musician and a designer. However, I also have a degree in Fine Art and I am absolutely a better artist overall because we took the time to truly breakdown and back engineer what the masters created, in order to innovate. True innovation doesn't have to crash through glass cielings. It is entirely possible to understand, calculate and then metaphorically 'land' on the moon when you know exactly why, how and what you are doing. I've been using ableton live for decades, but understanding the alchemical process of sculpting waveforms, particularly with hardware, (and particularly the early prodigy work) provides key information to help me to grow as an artist. Liams own school of thought came from breaking down hip hop, blues and punk records to create something entirely new. Just because you know what an amen is, doesn't mean you need all your music to rip off the amen. Amen.
I was at a huge music festival in Australia called the Big Day OUt. I was 14 years old, on acid and had lost all my friends. I was hustling to get to where Slayer was playing completely lost. All of a sudden this sound came into my brain that was insanely amazing and unfamiliar and mind blowingly intoxicating. It was soooo loud and commanding. It was the synth line from Voodoo People i later found out and it was The Prodigy and the beat dropped and a whole field of people just went insanely ballistic and i completely forgot about slayer and joined in. One of the greatest moments of my young life!!!!!! MY life took a big turn at that point. Thankyou Liam Howlett for blowing my brain into another dimension and giving me the loving gift of dirty, twisted synth madness derangement syndrome. xoxoxox
My mate did some tech servicing for Liam at his room in Tileyard. As a long time 2600 owner, my mate asked me to visit to help setup his 2600 as he was having issues getting the gate / trigger working over midi. In the corner was a W30. It was the same one Liam used on What Evil Lurks EP. My inner child raver was very happy.
I make sample hunting videos, and I've covered The Prodigy at length, it's always fascinated me, been a fan of them since seeing Out Of Space on MTV in about 1992. having familiarized myself with most of their samples, it's been amazing to see the other side of their music production. I've literally been waiting for a video like this for god knows how long. Thank you so much.
@@waynesilverman3048Recorded to sequencer on the W30. He'd play the parts through instead of looping bars and quantising, which resulted in a more dynamic feel.
The Prodigy is what got me into synthesizers. I came across a W30 on Craigslist in an unrelated search. Thought it looked interesting and came across the VSE article mentioning Liam Howlett. Blew my mind how large of a role the W30 played in their first couple of albums.
It's true. And they're still pretty cheap, those W-30s. Casio FZ-1s are another cheap keyboard sampler that played a big part in UK electronic music. Aphex Twin, Underworld, u-Ziq and plenty of others. There's a whole pile of Akai S950 all over that era too, hardcore, jungle etc..
@@compucorder64 Where I live they are ridiculous prices $5K S950, W30 $6-7K as wonderful as they seemed back in the day will leave them where they belong, in the past, unless prices become sane again, sadly with greed being what it is today 100% doubt it.
@@saftpackerl No, seems not. He used it for early hip-hop production, then produced the demo that got him signed to XL. Which later fed into the What Evil Lurks EP. Later, he used it to drive his MIDI chain, with 909 before it. And he used it for sequencing. Seems he used it at the beginning the way others might have used an MPC. Think Charly was produced on it. Seems it was a key part of his early lo-fi sound, which he partly attributes to his getting signed to XL. There's an interview on MusicRadar. Not sure after the first E.P.s and albums, but sounds like he was very comfortable and proficient with it as his hardware sequencer. And even midi'd two together to get 32-channels when he got all his other hardware. It sounds like the 12-bit sampling was also a big part of his sound.
The Prodigy and their sounds inspired me so much! It’s unbelievable how less their impact on pop music has been discussed. They actually laid the path for a whole new generation of electronic music where genres blended and merged altogether. I do know that they didn’t invented all of their style, but of cause they brought it to the mainstream.
@@AlexBallMusic got a JD-800 a good 15 years ago and then thought of getting a JD-990 aside a couple of years ago. Until looking at the resale prices. Sweet Jesus they are high! Well, I had waited almost 15 years even to get the JD-800 until I noticed the price is never gonna decrease and paid about the price they were brand new. I know 990 has at least osc sync that the 800 doesn’t have but I would just like to have a lighter tour version as well. I wonder whether this expansion module would fit them both.
Was lucky to know it was a great module way before the price rise. Can't find the price I paid, but it was probably £500-600. I got a JV-2080 for $199 which was a bargain.
Great video. Had the chance to play a lot of the same lineups back in the day, as another live act, and loved the whole Prodigy crew (in their various configs). Liam will go down in history is an important creative, and endured no shortage of cheap seat criticisms and pushed through multiple eras of electronic music. Was always in awe of the hard work and determination he had, from the early days of pushing records to lugging the live/playback rig to all the major label era. Amazing. Great to see his studio talent getting such recognition.
What a way to turn my "I don't feel good" day into a Wow Alex Ball grooves to the Prodigy like I do!? :D This is the coolest tutorial I have ever seen for music Also for SMBU you are right he used a Chorus (more like Doubling Echo, where two different takes of Korg Prophecy both slightly alternate versions of the same patch. If you hear the album version, in headphones the left side is the Original Prophecy patch Liam did in 1996. Whereas the right side is the Doubled Prophecy patch for the 1997 album. Been listening to The Prodigy since I was three in '97. So The Fat of The Land has always been one of my favourite albums of all-time. :D
The Fat of the Land is a better-produced album without a doubt but prodigy experience including all the singles and b sides is musically better with better hooks and the more interesting beats. Around that time period and the jilted period liam howlett was definitely at his best in my opinion.
Superb Tutorial! Grew up in Springfield Essex. Went to Boswells, same school as Keith. He was a year below me. Had the pleasure to play along side them in a few gigs back in the early 90's. R.I.P Keith! Essex Finest!
Amazing to see a breakdown of the sounds, but it is the guys coming up with the sounds in the first place and creating the songs that really blows my mind .
I bought "Experience" back in 1993 as a 13 year old. It was one of the first CDs I owned. "No Good" came out a year later. Liam was making the rawest rave sounds ever heard. It's great to hear these synth patches deconstructed so faithfully.
as a long time Prodigy fan, and more recently Alex fan, this video was brilliant. Liams ability to produce what he did using gear like this sequenced by Roland w-30's (you should do one on those) boggles my mind. Having dabbled in midid back in the day it astonishes me what he produced, the amount of painstaking work to get even 1 track done and saved to floppies must've taken hours and hours and hours.. Experience especially has a place in my heart forever as that door opening music/album everyone has. Particularly like the claustrophobic sting tb 303 bit as it is still one of my favs. French kiss!
I’ve been trying to figure out how the opening sound for poison was made for over 2 decades, THANK YOU for covering it, I can FINALLY scratch that itch!
Boy, I sure remember my introduction to The Prodigy. I'd been doing a bit of LSD with my school friends and older girlfriend on the weekends and listening to a lot of music by The Orb and back in the day one of the only ways to find new music by a band was to swing by the record store and see what was in stock. I stopped by a store that was not my usual haunt but it was close to where I lived and I believe, it's the only time I bought music there but immediately, I beelined to the "Electronica" section and flipped through the CDs until I found the section for "The Orb." What seemed like bad luck at the time turned out to be good luck as there wasn't any CDs by them at all, however, just back from that was this stark white CD that just said "The Prodigy Experience." I didn't know if it was the name of the band or the name of the album but I liked the cover, and I wanted something new to listen to so I bought it. The way it was laid out, I thought it might have even been saying, "Experience The Prodigy" Friends, let me tell you, as someone who was looking for something similar to Little Fluffy Clouds or Outlands or better still The Fountains of Elisha mix of Outlands ( th-cam.com/video/ATZxJJn8xaM/w-d-xo.html ) by The Orb, I was *not* ready for The Prodigy. On the first play, I hated the CD. I felt like I got totally screwed. Back then though, you boughts it? you keeps it. So, there I was, stuck with this CD. So I listened to it. I listened over and over trying to find my way in and, as it was for many, Out of Space is what finally broke me and I realized I liked at least one song on the CD. The Jericho started to make sense to me then Wind it Up. Eventually Weather Experience with its spooky, uncomfortable vibe mixed with the soaring hopeful synths worked its way under my skin. Before I knew it, this unusual CD with it's challenging music worked its way completely into my life and is the soundtrack to so many of the ridiculous things I did in my youth. When Music for the Jilted Generation hit it was all over, I was a dyed in the wool fan. Shortly after I got my hands on the Poison CD single (I still have it) and that 95EQ mix of Poison became one of my most played songs of all time. All of this is just a long way to say how much I love The Prodigy and how cool it is to see how they made some of the sounds that were my constant companions for many, many years. What a band.
I still have it on my car and its one of the CD's that plays the most despite obvious scratches. Same for Underworld live in Brussels CD. Funny enough I started liking The Prodigy because of Fat of the Land and nowadays those tracks don't have the same appeal to me but The Experience still touches my innerself.
@@ganiniii It makes me happy that you love it as much as I do. I think you're right on the money vis-a-vis Fat of the Land vs. Experience. The opening notes of Jericho are every bit as powerful now as they were when this first dropped. Cheers friend.
Love how you took apart the downtuning so casually at 2:20. Probably a creative decision to make the music sound heavier. Or to suit the vocals - perhaps sung slightly too flat. It shows the immense skills of Howlett though. Everything is auto tuned to 440 now to the point where even Gotye is cited as revolutionary and a genius for just using auto tune lower than concert pitch
These artist breakdowns are chocked full of so much gold for us budding producers. Even better when one actually has a few pieces of gear in the collection. Just reminds me to dig in and play around with the synths I have rather than hunting down the next synth that will make us a "legit" artist. I love going back to a synth/machine I've neglected for a bit and finding inspiration in it. Cheers from Texas.
That 'Poison' intro was completely unexpected and also rather good. Some might say hilarious, but as a responsible person I limited myself to a 'sensible chuckle'.
Hi! I literally almost never ever comment under TH-cam videos, and I don’t think I’ve even seen you before, but I’m so so excited to watch this holy moly I’m almost shaking
Awesome video! I discovered electronic music and The Prodigy in 1993 when I was 9 years old. I was listening to rock music like Nirvana and The Smashing Pumpkins and playing on my dad's drum set. The Prodigy inspired me to want to make electronic music. Thank you so much for this vid.
The work that went into this video 🙃 Incredible! What's so interesting is that Liam made all these fat 303 sounding sounds on digital synths, while having a real 303 at hand.
Just absolutely brilliant and I’ve wanted to see something like this for ages and you’re the best guy to deliver it! Liam howlett’s synth riffs are iconic
Experience (Prodigy album) is one of my favourite start to finish albums, they do so much with less sonic ingredients than later albums, thanks for doing a video on them Im a big fan of your 'how to' videos. 80s chords and the prophet 5 ones very useful (Everything in its Place sound made on Pro800 🥰)
I'm a guitar player who loves Prodigy. I've been watching tutorials about 90's rave music for years (without trying it myself) and it always amazes me. Still don't know anything about it. A whole different world in music history. Liam is a genius. Thanks for your video!
Hey man, if you want, check out the video: Making Of “The Prodigy - “Smack My Bitch Up” in Ableton ‘ showing where the samples came from and how he made the tune… had no idea he sampled ‘Bulls on Parade’ by RATM amongst others. It’s made up of mostly samples, but in the most genius way. It’s also crazy how the guy back engineered the tunes to find all the samples. 🤯
1 year ago this week I was in London visiting from Denver at their show at Brixton Academy. One of the craziest shows I've ever been to and one of my favorite bands of all time. And as a fellow synth nerd, this video is poetry. By the way, I would absolutely die a happy man if you did an Orbital synth tutorial.
@@AlexBallMusic I got to meet Paul and Phil when I was out there too as we have some mutual acquaintances that brokered the meeting. Paul would definitely help out.
The Claustrophobic Sting bassline is genius in its simplicity. Liam's work on Experience and Jilted is some of the best in modern music history, up there with the likes of Stevie Wonder and Quincy Jones. He should be given a Polar Prize for those two alone.
Prodigy is what got me into electronic music as a 12 year old kid, it sounded so different than the rap and punk all my schoolmates we're listening to, I was instantly hooked.
Same. I went to a music festival when I was 19 that the Prodigy was headlining. I had never heard of them, so I asked my friend if she wanted to leave after the co-headlining band to beat traffic. She convinced me to stay and I bought my first synth about a month later!
Watching hackers in 95 dipped my toes in edm but my brother brought home a big beat sampler CD set from a senior trip to the UK and I've been hooked since. DNB is my bread and butter and has been for almost 20+ years. I remember one day thinking this is all people in the future will listen to 😅
I've never really been a fan of the Prodigy, but my god did they get some great sounds, and watching this amazing tutorial made me appreciate it even more!
The sounds are preset synth sounds created by sound designers who worked for the synth companies. Liam didn't create these sounds he used them as they sounded 'straight out the box'. This video is a description of how the sound designers created the sounds.
I often watch your videos like someone casually learning English by watching movies or television... picking up new vocabulary every once in a while, but I must say that this particular video really opened up my understanding quite a bit more! As someone completely clueless about this hardware (except that I enjoy the sounds people make with them) it's a testament to your presentation skill that I'm able to learn anything at all and I'm grateful for it!
I hope this video will elicit more love for Roland’s work in the digital domain. From the D50, right through to Zenology, they created an incredibly powerful synth engine and huge library of iconic sounds It also shows what can be achieved with whatever tools are available to you
Every time someone mentions the Prodigy I always think back to Keith and his big coat up to no good in the 'beer garden' of Flacks. From toytown techno to stadium giants - Liam always seemed ahead of the curve and the bands' continued success demonstrates this.
Your videos are always thoughtful, smart, funny, and informative, but I especially like when you do deep dives like this one. You’re a real synthesist’s synthesist, and I really appreciate the hard work and time you put into making these
Excellent vid as always. Bit of my Prodigy trivia if your interested. Sometime in 1990 the band I was in got a gig in ‘The Bit On The Side’ which was a bar on the side of Golddiggers nightclub in Chippenham, should have had a few people there but it was quiet, loads of people around and a bit of a buzz going on. Turns out a new band ‘The Prodigy’ were playing in the main club and word on the street was they going to be the next big thing. Guess the rest is history. 😊
Well done Alex! It's funny how many of The Prodigy's sounds are presets. Which isn't necessarily bad. There are many artists who relied on presets. I mean by now a 303 or the infamous Amen-break are pretty much presets. It's what you do with it that sets you apart. And Liam Howlett & The Prodigy are a prime example of that. The individual building blocks they used may have existed before. But what they built with it was new & refreshing.
A professional is able to get brilliant results using almost any gear. Prophecy was a new gadget back then and that's why it attracted Liam's attention. I suppose he tried all synths in production being in a constant search himself
I really truly appreciate this video because I never thought I would know how these sounds were made. There have been a few videos on the sampling of Liam Howlett but nothing like this... absolutely fantastic. Thank you. I heard Experience for the first time when I was about 14 in the 90s, instantly falling in love with the ridiculous sounds and beats. I was really happy to find that their second album was already out at that time too so I bought it immediately (they were the first two CDs I ever bought). Hearing Poison for the first time is forever embedded in my mind, one of my favourite memories ever and it forever shaped my taste in music. No one came close to them at the time. Once again, thanks for this!
Growing up, my friends and I were all very into rock and metal, except Prodigy. Fat of the Land got as many plays as any abum by Metallica or Dream Theater when we hang out. Later I managed to get those guys into stuff like Boards of Canada and Tangerine Dream, but Prodigy still gets played on road trips and at parties and such all the time. Truly classic music!
I grew up on metal, but these guys got me into all sorts of electronic music, like Aphex Twin, many great techno and drum and bass acts too. They deffo changed my perception of electronic music. To this day it's one of my favorite bands. This year I'm going to their 8th gig.
Same with me. Brought up by my older Brother with Metal and DT etc. But Prodigy also got me :-) We used to listen to Fat of the Land when driving Indoor go-cart. Absolute banger. Nothing beats this drive, when you Drive 😊
This video has answered questions I’ve had for three decades about how these particular sounds were made! I had some guesses I came up with over the years and it was neat to see what I got right and what I got very, very wrong.
The vocal sample for Out of Space is from a Max Romeo (Production by Lee "Scratch" Perry) song called, "Chase the Devil." Great track, both his and Prodigy's.
So cool! Loved the lil' tidbit about Eric Persing. As a proud owner of a JX-8P his fingerprints are all over the presets for that one, and many of them still sound wonderful and useable today (others are dated, but hey it was the 80s!). If I'm not mistaken that was his first major sound design role at Roland. Then of course he took over the sound design for the D-50 and the rest is digital native dance history.
Alex I always enjoy your breakdown videos of these vintage sounds and how they came to be. Very informative and gives us a better perspective on how to use our synths in our own music. Thank you for your time and dedication and to your friends also who assist and facilitate these tutorials.
Oh man! This is soooo satisfying to watch and learn from. Your explanations and the logical flow of ideas are just a delight… what a gift to us all. Thank you 🙏 thank you 🙏 thank you 🙏
Really appreciate your time on this. I have grown up with these early Prodigy albums and now as a programmer and composer these examples are gold. Thank you ❤
I found this interesting also because I have a Prophecy and a JD800. The JD Wailing guitar is great - I use an edited version of that in my music. As a side note, when my JD caught the red glue virus a few years ago I bought an XV5080 and was able to program some of my JD sounds into it. That Space Adventure sound on the Prophecy is cool too. I've used it slightly tweaked. Another great vid Alex!
MATE - This was fantastic! Precisely the level of details and walkthrough I love to see, you are clearly skilled and knowledgeable and I appreciate the declaration of what you know for sure and what you don't know. Just fantastic. Thank you.
Funnily enough, I'd been looking for this video and couldn't find anyone who'd done it and so I thought I should just do it myself! Was satisfying to get the answers.
when you started taking apart the Voodoo People sound, i screamed "ERIC PERSING HAS ENTERED THE CHAT" from my workbench while I am assembling a second Vanilla Synthesiser, and I was pleased to find out how correct my gut was by the end of the segment.
ive been digging reddit for infomation like this cause howlett's production really stood out for me over the years and made me curious. thanks for putting this together!
I was figuring this out, playing it on my electric bass. I could hear the upper maj 3rd harmonic in the dyads, but it still wasn't right. It's that pitch envelope decay that really makes it. Not being a synth player, I never would have figured that out. Kudos.
prodigy , chemical brothers, underworld and metalheadz... just about anything out of the UK at that time ... was my soundtrack in last part of college (96-99) great time for dance music....memories! thanks Alex!
This is glorious! Thanks for putting in the time and effort into doing this, it was so interesting to learn how Liam did those epic sounds. Prodigy is one of the greatest bands of the 90s. Everyone loved Prodigy; metal-heads, rockers, hardcore DnB and underground techno people that thought it was too mainstream - but when "Everybody in the Place" started playing on the sound system they all danced and had a great time! They should be inducted in the Rock Hall of Fame, IMO
i have the Korg Trinity with the Prophesy sounds...and ive always thought how theres something amazingly penetrating about some of these sounds, it has a beautiful moog replication.
I prefer the more human version th-cam.com/video/zcOhrtAFc-Y/w-d-xo.html
😂😂😂
Ha, I wasn't expecting that 😆
...hard grinning here, too
Hhahahahahaha that was so unexpected
Wow wow wow wow wow….
Wow!
How the fuck did Liam make so many bangers... One of the best producers of all time
Totally, man's a proper artist
by being an absolute 'kin legend/freak/artistic genius. Sooooo much respek. I mean he was the prodigy... the other lads just got out of the way
clue is in the band name
@@jasoncruizeryou are absolutely spot on, sadly people don’t take the time today to understand theory in general which I think this is why there is a lot of sub par music
@@jasoncruizerreally well put
To electronic musicians... This is as important as Hendrix 's guitar or Bonham's drums. Bravo Alex!!!
@Pardus777 VERY TRUE ... REMINDS ME OF VANGELIS A REAL ARTIST
@sandpiper9288 The Prodigy are the exception ;)
@sandpiper9288 this is obivious ragebate
@Pardus777 That´s a good point.
@Pardus777 I can see your line of thought with this, as a musician and a designer. However, I also have a degree in Fine Art and I am absolutely a better artist overall because we took the time to truly breakdown and back engineer what the masters created, in order to innovate. True innovation doesn't have to crash through glass cielings. It is entirely possible to understand, calculate and then metaphorically 'land' on the moon when you know exactly why, how and what you are doing. I've been using ableton live for decades, but understanding the alchemical process of sculpting waveforms, particularly with hardware, (and particularly the early prodigy work) provides key information to help me to grow as an artist. Liams own school of thought came from breaking down hip hop, blues and punk records to create something entirely new. Just because you know what an amen is, doesn't mean you need all your music to rip off the amen.
Amen.
It’s like watching a TH-cam video unlocking the secrets of the universe. Amazing.
I was at a huge music festival in Australia called the Big Day OUt. I was 14 years old, on acid and had lost all my friends. I was hustling to get to where Slayer was playing completely lost. All of a sudden this sound came into my brain that was insanely amazing and unfamiliar and mind blowingly intoxicating. It was soooo loud and commanding. It was the synth line from Voodoo People i later found out and it was The Prodigy and the beat dropped and a whole field of people just went insanely ballistic and i completely forgot about slayer and joined in. One of the greatest moments of my young life!!!!!! MY life took a big turn at that point. Thankyou Liam Howlett for blowing my brain into another dimension and giving me the loving gift of dirty, twisted synth madness derangement syndrome. xoxoxox
I switched from slayer to rave listening to Fire & outer space 💪🏼
The name Prodigy is still exactly what describes the band perfectly. What they have done in the 90s is incredible. R.I.P. Keith Flint.
I'm a rock / metal guy and that band was so great for me. First trip to UK in 1997 CRAZY time !!!!!
Word Up G
Liam is a pure genius and The Prodigy is a unique band. Thank you Alex for this video and all the nostalgic vibes you share.
Maybe take a listen to Amon Tobin. Hope you enjoy as much as I did. Have fun... brother from my jilted generation.
@@riseatdawnmedia Love Amon Tobin too of course. Some others... The Chemical Brothers, Laurent Garnier, Mr Oizo, Vitalic, ScanX, Micropoint...
My mate did some tech servicing for Liam at his room in Tileyard. As a long time 2600 owner, my mate asked me to visit to help setup his 2600 as he was having issues getting the gate / trigger working over midi. In the corner was a W30. It was the same one Liam used on What Evil Lurks EP. My inner child raver was very happy.
R.I.P. Keith. A true one-of-a-kind artist, who helped move mountains in popular music, and a good man.
Indeed. Forever a legend.
@@AlexBallMusic Thanks for this history revisit! Great work!
Dang. This was the first I had heard. I didn't even know he was sick.
@@nerfytheclownapparently a suicide sadly
@@marklewis4024 this decade is trying to kill the past and anyone that remembers it....
I make sample hunting videos, and I've covered The Prodigy at length, it's always fascinated me, been a fan of them since seeing Out Of Space on MTV in about 1992. having familiarized myself with most of their samples, it's been amazing to see the other side of their music production. I've literally been waiting for a video like this for god knows how long. Thank you so much.
Hey, your sample videos are awesome!
Your videos are sick and one of the channels that inspired me to make dnb specific sample videos
I thought Liam played by hand insteadof sequencer s as he was a goodpiano man .He even did the beats on the 1st lp Manually
@@waynesilverman3048Recorded to sequencer on the W30. He'd play the parts through instead of looping bars and quantising, which resulted in a more dynamic feel.
I’ve watched some of ur vids. Great stuff
The Prodigy is what got me into synthesizers. I came across a W30 on Craigslist in an unrelated search. Thought it looked interesting and came across the VSE article mentioning Liam Howlett. Blew my mind how large of a role the W30 played in their first couple of albums.
It's true. And they're still pretty cheap, those W-30s. Casio FZ-1s are another cheap keyboard sampler that played a big part in UK electronic music. Aphex Twin, Underworld, u-Ziq and plenty of others. There's a whole pile of Akai S950 all over that era too, hardcore, jungle etc..
@@compucorder64 Where I live they are ridiculous prices $5K S950, W30 $6-7K as wonderful as they seemed back in the day will leave them where they belong, in the past, unless prices become sane again, sadly with greed being what it is today 100% doubt it.
I remember he had 2 W-30's in 91-92, They played Donington park the night after he did top of the pops. They were very nice chaps & very polite.
Didnt he use the w30s just for live "loop firing"? Not so much production...
@@saftpackerl No, seems not. He used it for early hip-hop production, then produced the demo that got him signed to XL. Which later fed into the What Evil Lurks EP. Later, he used it to drive his MIDI chain, with 909 before it. And he used it for sequencing. Seems he used it at the beginning the way others might have used an MPC. Think Charly was produced on it. Seems it was a key part of his early lo-fi sound, which he partly attributes to his getting signed to XL. There's an interview on MusicRadar. Not sure after the first E.P.s and albums, but sounds like he was very comfortable and proficient with it as his hardware sequencer. And even midi'd two together to get 32-channels when he got all his other hardware. It sounds like the 12-bit sampling was also a big part of his sound.
The Prodigy and their sounds inspired me so much! It’s unbelievable how less their impact on pop music has been discussed. They actually laid the path for a whole new generation of electronic music where genres blended and merged altogether. I do know that they didn’t invented all of their style, but of cause they brought it to the mainstream.
I never even thought the poison riff would have been done on a JD. Nice one Alex you got the remedy!
Yep, the JD-990 is quite eye opening for me. I'll probably give it a video of its own in time.
@@AlexBallMusic Yes it. Been playing with with a Roland module today myself. So a vid on the JD would be cool 👍
@@AlexBallMusic got a JD-800 a good 15 years ago and then thought of getting a JD-990 aside a couple of years ago. Until looking at the resale prices. Sweet Jesus they are high! Well, I had waited almost 15 years even to get the JD-800 until I noticed the price is never gonna decrease and paid about the price they were brand new.
I know 990 has at least osc sync that the 800 doesn’t have but I would just like to have a lighter tour version as well. I wonder whether this expansion module would fit them both.
Was lucky to know it was a great module way before the price rise. Can't find the price I paid, but it was probably £500-600. I got a JV-2080 for $199 which was a bargain.
Great video. Had the chance to play a lot of the same lineups back in the day, as another live act, and loved the whole Prodigy crew (in their various configs). Liam will go down in history is an important creative, and endured no shortage of cheap seat criticisms and pushed through multiple eras of electronic music. Was always in awe of the hard work and determination he had, from the early days of pushing records to lugging the live/playback rig to all the major label era. Amazing. Great to see his studio talent getting such recognition.
I like how your 303 has all the silver rubbed off around the top knobs. Very well used instruments make me happy.
Jesus, I had no idea they used so much JD!!! Been a prodigy fan since the very beginning and I thank you so much for doing this!!!!
Dude I love how you're hitting on the older songs. Classics for me. Giving me chills... Particularly out of space
What a way to turn my "I don't feel good" day into a Wow Alex Ball grooves to the Prodigy like I do!? :D
This is the coolest tutorial I have ever seen for music
Also for SMBU you are right he used a Chorus (more like Doubling Echo, where two different takes of Korg Prophecy both slightly alternate versions of the same patch. If you hear the album version, in headphones the left side is the Original Prophecy patch Liam did in 1996. Whereas the right side is the Doubled Prophecy patch for the 1997 album. Been listening to The Prodigy since I was three in '97. So The Fat of The Land has always been one of my favourite albums of all-time. :D
Agreed!
Liam is the keyboardist's keyboardist, always fascinating seeing (and hearing) how we got those iconic sounds!
Cracking video, Alex. Your T2 score video was so far my favourite but this is a very strong contender. Such iconic sounds from a bygone era.
Cheers, I'm trying to get back to the kinds of videos that brought people to the channel in the first place. This is one such video. :)
Prodigy paved the way how synths should sound like. Raw and gritty; back to the basics, in fact.
The Fat of the Land is an absolute masterpiece of an album. One of my all-time favorites in the electronic genre!
Fair play, Experience and Jilted as well!
Apart from always outnumbered I rate all their albums really highly
I was at the HMV midnight opening for it
In Germany it's called "Die Fette vom Land".
The Fat of the Land is a better-produced album without a doubt
but prodigy experience including all the singles and b sides is
musically better with better hooks and the more interesting beats.
Around that time period and the jilted period liam howlett was
definitely at his best in my opinion.
Superb Tutorial! Grew up in Springfield Essex. Went to Boswells, same school as Keith. He was a year below me. Had the pleasure to play along side them in a few gigs back in the early 90's. R.I.P Keith! Essex Finest!
Amazing to see a breakdown of the sounds, but it is the guys coming up with the sounds in the first place and creating the songs that really blows my mind .
I bought "Experience" back in 1993 as a 13 year old. It was one of the first CDs I owned. "No Good" came out a year later. Liam was making the rawest rave sounds ever heard. It's great to hear these synth patches deconstructed so faithfully.
I was about 12 when I bought it. I got blessed when hearing No Good and Outer space back then ☺️
@@Bobo Good times
as a long time Prodigy fan, and more recently Alex fan, this video was brilliant. Liams ability to produce what he did using gear like this sequenced by Roland w-30's (you should do one on those) boggles my mind. Having dabbled in midid back in the day it astonishes me what he produced, the amount of painstaking work to get even 1 track done and saved to floppies must've taken hours and hours and hours.. Experience especially has a place in my heart forever as that door opening music/album everyone has. Particularly like the claustrophobic sting tb 303 bit as it is still one of my favs. French kiss!
"I nearly killed myself in the studio, as working has to be intense. Otherwise it doesn't mean anything to me. I was like a machine" - Liam Howlett
I’ve been trying to figure out how the opening sound for poison was made for over 2 decades, THANK YOU for covering it, I can FINALLY scratch that itch!
Boy, I sure remember my introduction to The Prodigy. I'd been doing a bit of LSD with my school friends and older girlfriend on the weekends and listening to a lot of music by The Orb and back in the day one of the only ways to find new music by a band was to swing by the record store and see what was in stock. I stopped by a store that was not my usual haunt but it was close to where I lived and I believe, it's the only time I bought music there but immediately, I beelined to the "Electronica" section and flipped through the CDs until I found the section for "The Orb." What seemed like bad luck at the time turned out to be good luck as there wasn't any CDs by them at all, however, just back from that was this stark white CD that just said "The Prodigy Experience." I didn't know if it was the name of the band or the name of the album but I liked the cover, and I wanted something new to listen to so I bought it. The way it was laid out, I thought it might have even been saying, "Experience The Prodigy"
Friends, let me tell you, as someone who was looking for something similar to Little Fluffy Clouds or Outlands or better still The Fountains of Elisha mix of Outlands ( th-cam.com/video/ATZxJJn8xaM/w-d-xo.html ) by The Orb, I was *not* ready for The Prodigy. On the first play, I hated the CD. I felt like I got totally screwed. Back then though, you boughts it? you keeps it. So, there I was, stuck with this CD. So I listened to it. I listened over and over trying to find my way in and, as it was for many, Out of Space is what finally broke me and I realized I liked at least one song on the CD. The Jericho started to make sense to me then Wind it Up. Eventually Weather Experience with its spooky, uncomfortable vibe mixed with the soaring hopeful synths worked its way under my skin. Before I knew it, this unusual CD with it's challenging music worked its way completely into my life and is the soundtrack to so many of the ridiculous things I did in my youth. When Music for the Jilted Generation hit it was all over, I was a dyed in the wool fan. Shortly after I got my hands on the Poison CD single (I still have it) and that 95EQ mix of Poison became one of my most played songs of all time.
All of this is just a long way to say how much I love The Prodigy and how cool it is to see how they made some of the sounds that were my constant companions for many, many years. What a band.
I still have it on my car and its one of the CD's that plays the most despite obvious scratches. Same for Underworld live in Brussels CD. Funny enough I started liking The Prodigy because of Fat of the Land and nowadays those tracks don't have the same appeal to me but The Experience still touches my innerself.
@@ganiniii It makes me happy that you love it as much as I do. I think you're right on the money vis-a-vis Fat of the Land vs. Experience. The opening notes of Jericho are every bit as powerful now as they were when this first dropped. Cheers friend.
Love how you took apart the downtuning so casually at 2:20. Probably a creative decision to make the music sound heavier. Or to suit the vocals - perhaps sung slightly too flat. It shows the immense skills of Howlett though. Everything is auto tuned to 440 now to the point where even Gotye is cited as revolutionary and a genius for just using auto tune lower than concert pitch
These artist breakdowns are chocked full of so much gold for us budding producers. Even better when one actually has a few pieces of gear in the collection. Just reminds me to dig in and play around with the synths I have rather than hunting down the next synth that will make us a "legit" artist. I love going back to a synth/machine I've neglected for a bit and finding inspiration in it. Cheers from Texas.
That 'Poison' intro was completely unexpected and also rather good. Some might say hilarious, but as a responsible person I limited myself to a 'sensible chuckle'.
The reverse engineering of the Poison Lead patch at 8:06 is phenomenal..
Hi! I literally almost never ever comment under TH-cam videos, and I don’t think I’ve even seen you before, but I’m so so excited to watch this holy moly I’m almost shaking
Awesome video! I discovered electronic music and The Prodigy in 1993 when I was 9 years old. I was listening to rock music like Nirvana and The Smashing Pumpkins and playing on my dad's drum set. The Prodigy inspired me to want to make electronic music. Thank you so much for this vid.
The work that went into this video 🙃 Incredible! What's so interesting is that Liam made all these fat 303 sounding sounds on digital synths, while having a real 303 at hand.
303 ?
Incredible video. Thank you to you, and Liam, of course for crafting the soundtrack to my teens.
Just absolutely brilliant and I’ve wanted to see something like this for ages and you’re the best guy to deliver it! Liam howlett’s synth riffs are iconic
Oh my word, I do love the Prodigy.
Prodigy, synths AND Alex Ball! This is overkill :-D
Experience (Prodigy album) is one of my favourite start to finish albums, they do so much with less sonic ingredients than later albums, thanks for doing a video on them
Im a big fan of your 'how to' videos. 80s chords and the prophet 5 ones very useful (Everything in its Place sound made on Pro800 🥰)
I'm a guitar player who loves Prodigy. I've been watching tutorials about 90's rave music for years (without trying it myself) and it always amazes me. Still don't know anything about it. A whole different world in music history. Liam is a genius. Thanks for your video!
I'm most amazed by how many of Liam's famous synth sounds are presets
You should watch a video where damon Albarn explain that most all the base of Clint Eastwood is a preset
Hey man, if you want, check out the video: Making Of “The Prodigy - “Smack My Bitch Up” in Ableton ‘ showing where the samples came from and how he made the tune… had no idea he sampled ‘Bulls on Parade’ by RATM amongst others. It’s made up of mostly samples, but in the most genius way. It’s also crazy how the guy back engineered the tunes to find all the samples. 🤯
You'd be amazed how many of your favorite songs are made from samples and presets
Well, they are not presets anymore. Somehow mysterious voodoo magic transformed them into new sounds.
This is a legendary tutorial. I can not imagine how long it took to put this together.
Love the Korg Prophecy. I love how it uses physical modeling technology.
1 year ago this week I was in London visiting from Denver at their show at Brixton Academy. One of the craziest shows I've ever been to and one of my favorite bands of all time. And as a fellow synth nerd, this video is poetry.
By the way, I would absolutely die a happy man if you did an Orbital synth tutorial.
Absolutely amazing live, I bet that was ace!
Orbital - I know Paul a little bit, very nice guy. Maybe I could persuade him to give me some hints.
@@AlexBallMusic Grovels 😉
@@AlexBallMusic I got to meet Paul and Phil when I was out there too as we have some mutual acquaintances that brokered the meeting. Paul would definitely help out.
I would love an orbital video also . Loving this one. . accuracy is unbelievable even my wife looked up 😂
@@AlexBallMusic Yes, please.
Hot damn!!! Spot on!!!
uh oh, bad gear time?
Voodoo People is such a perfect tune. Love it to bits.
The Claustrophobic Sting bassline is genius in its simplicity. Liam's work on Experience and Jilted is some of the best in modern music history, up there with the likes of Stevie Wonder and Quincy Jones. He should be given a Polar Prize for those two alone.
Prodigy is what got me into electronic music as a 12 year old kid, it sounded so different than the rap and punk all my schoolmates we're listening to, I was instantly hooked.
Same. I went to a music festival when I was 19 that the Prodigy was headlining. I had never heard of them, so I asked my friend if she wanted to leave after the co-headlining band to beat traffic. She convinced me to stay and I bought my first synth about a month later!
I was like 9 or so when I first got into them and I'm pretty sure them and Primus made me the funky weirdo I ended up becoming.
@@connorflynn1885 as a bass player I concur.
Same here, about 13yo and prodigy blew my mind. Edm /rave was appealing but the prodigy brought it to an all new level of greatness
Watching hackers in 95 dipped my toes in edm but my brother brought home a big beat sampler CD set from a senior trip to the UK and I've been hooked since. DNB is my bread and butter and has been for almost 20+ years. I remember one day thinking this is all people in the future will listen to 😅
A love of the prodigy is part of why I got into making music, so as a sound designer I feel very targeted by this lesson.
Great work!
I know nothing of synths, but you’ve just taken me right back. Many thanks.
I've never really been a fan of the Prodigy, but my god did they get some great sounds, and watching this amazing tutorial made me appreciate it even more!
The sounds are preset synth sounds created by sound designers who worked for the synth companies. Liam didn't create these sounds he used them as they sounded 'straight out the box'. This video is a description of how the sound designers created the sounds.
Outstanding video. And I now have the Claustrophobic Sting bassline programmed on my TB-3. You are a gent, Mr Ball.
That's the video I wasnt expecting, but really enjoyed watching.
Thank you! Quite interesting and inspiring.
I often watch your videos like someone casually learning English by watching movies or television... picking up new vocabulary every once in a while, but I must say that this particular video really opened up my understanding quite a bit more! As someone completely clueless about this hardware (except that I enjoy the sounds people make with them) it's a testament to your presentation skill that I'm able to learn anything at all and I'm grateful for it!
Damn-it.. Why can I only give this just one thumbs up.. I have two thumbs!!!! One is just not enough .. Great upload!
That opener...... Brings me right back. Hearing those sounds for the first time back in the day was mindblowing for a 14 year old.
I hope this video will elicit more love for Roland’s work in the digital domain. From the D50, right through to Zenology, they created an incredibly powerful synth engine and huge library of iconic sounds
It also shows what can be achieved with whatever tools are available to you
Crazy isn't it? People say Ewwww digital. But then swoon over the Prodigy and other acts that use it.
The old pieces of digital hardware from the mid 80's to the mid 90's
are more interesting and more appealing than the newer ones
in my opinion.
@@vaiman7777
Liam uses both but their sound is definitely more digital.
Good to see the JD990 getting some love. I must of had mine now for well over 20 years, its a keeper :)
Every time someone mentions the Prodigy I always think back to Keith and his big coat up to no good in the 'beer garden' of Flacks.
From toytown techno to stadium giants - Liam always seemed ahead of the curve and the bands' continued success demonstrates this.
The songs just start playing in my head through that intro, wow you nailed it.
Absolutely glorious. Thanks for this wonderful walkthrough of these vintage gems. ❤
Your videos are always thoughtful, smart, funny, and informative, but I especially like when you do deep dives like this one. You’re a real synthesist’s synthesist, and I really appreciate the hard work and time you put into making these
Absolute synth scientist you are,excellent work mate
You are the coolest synthi guy on TH-cam. Pure gold.
Excellent vid as always.
Bit of my Prodigy trivia if your interested. Sometime in 1990 the band I was in got a gig in ‘The Bit On The Side’ which was a bar on the side of Golddiggers nightclub in Chippenham, should have had a few people there but it was quiet, loads of people around and a bit of a buzz going on. Turns out a new band ‘The Prodigy’ were playing in the main club and word on the street was they going to be the next big thing. Guess the rest is history. 😊
One of the best breakdowns I have ever seen… clearly explained, in depth and on the actual equipment is extremely informative…
Really appreciate that, thank you! I wanted to do it properly and with the right stuff, so that's really nice to hear the effort was worth it.
Well done Alex! It's funny how many of The Prodigy's sounds are presets. Which isn't necessarily bad. There are many artists who relied on presets. I mean by now a 303 or the infamous Amen-break are pretty much presets. It's what you do with it that sets you apart. And Liam Howlett & The Prodigy are a prime example of that. The individual building blocks they used may have existed before. But what they built with it was new & refreshing.
Even LFO’s LFO is using preset with the chord coming out of it!
A professional is able to get brilliant results using almost any gear. Prophecy was a new gadget back then and that's why it attracted Liam's attention. I suppose he tried all synths in production being in a constant search himself
I really truly appreciate this video because I never thought I would know how these sounds were made. There have been a few videos on the sampling of Liam Howlett but nothing like this... absolutely fantastic. Thank you. I heard Experience for the first time when I was about 14 in the 90s, instantly falling in love with the ridiculous sounds and beats. I was really happy to find that their second album was already out at that time too so I bought it immediately (they were the first two CDs I ever bought). Hearing Poison for the first time is forever embedded in my mind, one of my favourite memories ever and it forever shaped my taste in music. No one came close to them at the time. Once again, thanks for this!
Growing up, my friends and I were all very into rock and metal, except Prodigy. Fat of the Land got as many plays as any abum by Metallica or Dream Theater when we hang out. Later I managed to get those guys into stuff like Boards of Canada and Tangerine Dream, but Prodigy still gets played on road trips and at parties and such all the time. Truly classic music!
I grew up on metal, but these guys got me into all sorts of electronic music, like Aphex Twin, many great techno and drum and bass acts too. They deffo changed my perception of electronic music. To this day it's one of my favorite bands. This year I'm going to their 8th gig.
Same with me. Brought up by my older Brother with Metal and DT etc. But Prodigy also got me :-)
We used to listen to Fat of the Land when driving Indoor go-cart. Absolute banger. Nothing beats this drive, when you Drive 😊
This video has answered questions I’ve had for three decades about how these particular sounds were made! I had some guesses I came up with over the years and it was neat to see what I got right and what I got very, very wrong.
Liam Howlett is a Pioneer, RIP Keith and big respect to all involved ❤️🏆
I love the format of this video! Really interesting and fun to explore classic sounds like this. Very nicely done Alex!!
I see Prodigy in the title, I immediately click like.
The vocal sample for Out of Space is from a Max Romeo (Production by Lee "Scratch" Perry) song called, "Chase the Devil." Great track, both his and Prodigy's.
And the song itself appears in a rasta movie "The Harder They Come".
Its a good day when Ball uploads
So cool! Loved the lil' tidbit about Eric Persing. As a proud owner of a JX-8P his fingerprints are all over the presets for that one, and many of them still sound wonderful and useable today (others are dated, but hey it was the 80s!). If I'm not mistaken that was his first major sound design role at Roland. Then of course he took over the sound design for the D-50 and the rest is digital native dance history.
Excellent, crazy detailed. I knew that Boutique JD-08 patch sounded familiar! Would be cool to have a video on famous JD-800/990 presets
Alex I always enjoy your breakdown videos of these vintage sounds and how they came to be. Very informative and gives us a better perspective on how to use our synths in our own music. Thank you for your time and dedication and to your friends also who assist and facilitate these tutorials.
Oh man! This is soooo satisfying to watch and learn from. Your explanations and the logical flow of ideas are just a delight… what a gift to us all. Thank you 🙏 thank you 🙏 thank you 🙏
Glad you enjoyed it!
Another brilliant video. Interesting to see where the original sounds came from. Took me back to the 90's.
Damn, I almost forgot how pure and powerful these are.
As always, incredible amount of research and work behind those videos! Thank you so much Alex for putting this out there!!
Fascinating! Those patches are not that complicated after all and can be reproduced easily on most modern software synths.
Yep, that's why they're great to break down.
Genius music production from Liam. No other band like them. Nice tutorial
I got very excited when this popped up in my feed 😝 Love Liam's sounds...
Really appreciate your time on this. I have grown up with these early Prodigy albums and now as a programmer and composer these examples are gold. Thank you ❤
I found this interesting also because I have a Prophecy and a JD800.
The JD Wailing guitar is great - I use an edited version of that in my music. As a side note, when my JD caught the red glue virus a few years ago I bought an XV5080 and was able to program some of my JD sounds into it.
That Space Adventure sound on the Prophecy is cool too. I've used it slightly tweaked.
Another great vid Alex!
MATE - This was fantastic! Precisely the level of details and walkthrough I love to see, you are clearly skilled and knowledgeable and I appreciate the declaration of what you know for sure and what you don't know. Just fantastic. Thank you.
Glad it was helpful!
I've wanted to WATCH this video for a very long time, so thank you for FINALLY making it!
Funnily enough, I'd been looking for this video and couldn't find anyone who'd done it and so I thought I should just do it myself! Was satisfying to get the answers.
when you started taking apart the Voodoo People sound, i screamed "ERIC PERSING HAS ENTERED THE CHAT" from my workbench while I am assembling a second Vanilla Synthesiser, and I was pleased to find out how correct my gut was by the end of the segment.
I love the sound from Voodoo People, well done! Great video.
Yeah, such a familiar riff. Satisfying to play.
ive been digging reddit for infomation like this cause howlett's production really stood out for me over the years and made me curious. thanks for putting this together!
Wow, such iconic sounds. Brilliant breakdown 👌👍
I was figuring this out, playing it on my electric bass. I could hear the upper maj 3rd harmonic in the dyads, but it still wasn't right. It's that pitch envelope decay that really makes it. Not being a synth player, I never would have figured that out. Kudos.
My mind is glowing 💭
It sounds like glowing but I think it might be 'going' and sampled from 2001 a space odyssey
prodigy , chemical brothers, underworld and metalheadz... just about anything out of the UK at that time ... was my soundtrack in last part of college (96-99) great time for dance music....memories! thanks Alex!
I'm a guitar player, keyboard tinkerer and from the very first note of that, the first thing I thought of was Prodigy haha!
This is glorious! Thanks for putting in the time and effort into doing this, it was so interesting to learn how Liam did those epic sounds. Prodigy is one of the greatest bands of the 90s. Everyone loved Prodigy; metal-heads, rockers, hardcore DnB and underground techno people that thought it was too mainstream - but when "Everybody in the Place" started playing on the sound system they all danced and had a great time!
They should be inducted in the Rock Hall of Fame, IMO
i have the Korg Trinity with the Prophesy sounds...and ive always thought how theres something amazingly penetrating about some of these sounds, it has a beautiful moog replication.