As far as I can tell, Jesse was playing a Moog Minimoog Voyager synthesizer, plus some claves for some extra percussion during the verses. Contrary to my original assumption that he would have been playing the bass part on the synth, it seems that he provided the various lead sounds from it - pads and stabs (thanks to Chris Flynn for keeping me right on this!). Tim plays the piano parts from the Nord Lead 3, while it looks like he plays the bass part on his Korg Triton Extreme.

I actually discussed Tim's full rack set-up with him when we met in July and I'm hopefully going to do an article on what he's using and why - most likely sometime after the Perfect Symmetry touring is underway and I can see what he has in the new set-up. However, I'll briefly say what I've been able to tell so far - though this is obviously only covering his late 2006-2007 rack set-up. Tim believed this was correct, though amusingly he'd forgotten about most of it (having not had to look or deal with it for about 8 months when we spoke!) so even he struggled to piece it all together!

There were no fewer than 6 POD XT Pro units in Tim's second rack, as well as two in Tom's rack - far more than any other band I've ever heard of! My understanding of it (based on obsessive viewing of video footage and photos) is that the CP70 is connected to the top two units in the rack. The three Nord Lead 3 synths (one on top of the CP70 and one on top of each Rhodes-Yamaha S90) also have an XT Pro each. The two Rhodes-Yamaha S90's (one on main stage, one on b-stage) both talk to the second PowerBook G4 on Tim's rack via MIDI, which run either a Rhodes piano sample or a CP70 sample (depending on the song) using Kontakt 2 - the output from this laptop also goes through an XT Pro. I didn't actually ask about the two in Tom's rack, but I think its a reasonable assumption that one is for the CP60 (or rather the MOTIF Rack ES it drives), and the other is probably for the Hammond XK3 he plays on Hamburg Song.

So yeah, believe it or not, they are all used!

The amplifier situation has always been a bit of a grey area, so there may be some stuff here that is incorrect, or some stuff that is missing (please let me know if you've seen them using something else that isn't here!). However, I'll give it a stab...

The main amplifiers they use for the CP70 and CP60 pianos are Fender Twin Reverb models. They seem to have used quite a few variations on this over the past few years, but the last I saw looked like they'd be standard '65 models - possibly vintage, but hard to tell... might just be the current reissue models. I'm sure I also remember seeing a couple of photos were they used a "The Twin" model, but couldn't track them down. They also seemed to use a VOX AC30 for the CP70 for a brief period at the beginning of 2005 in the US - this seemed short-lived, so it was possibly hired rather than owned.

When Tom played the Hammond XK3 organ on Nothing In My Way and Hamburg Song during the Hopes And Fears tours, they used a head-and-enclosure approach rather than a combo amp like the Twin. Its been hard to pin down exactly what they used, but from photos, it looks most likely to have been a '68 Bassman Head (silverface) with a 2-15 Bassman Speaker Enclosure - something like this one is my guess.

In the studio, the band have made lots of use of Barnett Davies Fifteen Thirty amps - it featured heavily on the Under The Iron Sea sessions for distorted piano sounds, and is also used on The Lovers Are Losing for the stylophone! I'm sure they've also used lots of others, but I don't know what they are at the moment!

I've not been able to identify Tom's guitar amp for the forthcoming Perfect Symmetry tours, but its a head-and-enclosure type rather than a combo amp - will need to wait and see what happens come early October and the first gigs. Equally, it remains to be seen what amp Jesse will use for the bass, and whether the Twins will continue to be used for the pianos. Hope this helps!

This pushed beyond the limits of my knowledge, apart from being able to say that Love Is The End is in 3/4 time, while the others are standard 4/4 time. However, I consulted my friend and Keaneshaped guru Chris Flynn who was able to provide his expertise:
Thanks Chris!

I've been wondering about this since first hearing the song! Having listened to it numerous times now, I'm tempted to say that it isn't a banjo. My guess is that its a synth or possibly a sample - I don't think it's the real thing though.

Well, all we really know is that Tom has frequently been seen playing Fender Telecasters - he has at least a couple of them, possibly more. There was the white one with the black pickguard (with the rose attached to the headstock) which featured a lot during the album recording, while he has been seen playing a red model during the rehearsals.

Beyond that, its difficult to say anything else until the touring starts really! There still seems like a reasonable chance of him playing acoustic guitar at some point, but whether they'll do the acoustic set is anyone's guess. And finally, it's purely my own speculation, but I don't believe he'll be playing guitar on every song.

Since you've already got Logic Studio, you're already most of the way there - Tim uses Logic for playback on the PowerBook (albeit it will have been an older version than yours - probably 6 or 7).

Each song will be set up as a "project" within Logic, featuring one or more tracks. There is the click track (probably just done using Logic's built-in metronome function, though I can't say for definite), then a bass track, then other synth tracks and so on. These instrumental tracks will be taken from the original studio recordings and played back. Sync'ing each backing track is straightforward - you set the project's beats-per-minute (BPM) and its the easy to align your tracks to the click.

It remains to be seen what will be done on the forthcoming touring for Perfect Symmetry, since the band want to reduce the dependency on playback of tracks from the laptop. But the basic principle I've outlined should be enough to get you started, I hope!

I don't believe that there is any musical saw in Better Than This. If its the riff of the song you're thinking of, my own opinion is that its done by putting a Fender Rhodes-style electric piano through some heavy chorusing. The musical saw definitely features in Love Is The End though!

Good question! Firstly, the unique sound of the Yamaha CP70 comes from its design, rather than the controls on the front (they only provide volume, EQ, tremolo and effects send/return). The two main factors that give the distinctive sound are that the bass strings in the piano are on a far shorter scale than they are on an acoustic grand piano, plus the fact that it has fewer strings per note compared to a standard piano (1 on the lower bass octave, 2 on the rest). The other factor is the fact that each string has a piezo pickup that allows the sound to be amplified, sent through effects and so on. This is a similar system to what is used on electro-acoustic guitars, and it does produce a different sound to the normal "acoustic" sound from the strings. These factors all combine to give the CP70 (and its CP80 sibling) their distinctive, clunky, chiming sound.

Prior to having recently bought my own CP70, I had also been attempting to find a way of emulating the sound. I'm not overly familiar with the P85, but by the looks of things, it doesn't include a CP70-style voice (it only has two Electric Piano voices, which would typically mean Rhodes-style piano voices). Sadly, the only keyboards with a remotely convincing CP70 sound tend to be quite high-end and expensive - the voices (usually called something like Electric Grand) tend to sound like cheap, detuned pianos on the lower-end models. Yamaha's MOTIF XS range apparently have quite a convincing CP70 voice (here's someone doing some very accurate U2 songs with one), as do the Clavia Nord Stage and Electro models. However, getting them for just the CP70 sound would be mad, as they'll set you back between £900 and £2000 - and if you hang around, you can get a real CP70 for potentially less!

So, if you want to do it with a P85, you'll need to investigate some other options involving MIDI. Like most keyboards, you can connect the P85 to a computer (with an appropriate audio interface supporting MIDI) or a hardware sampler to trigger sounds using the keyboard. If you don't want to go the computer route, the best I can suggest to you is to try and get hold of an old E-MU Vintage Keys or Classic Keys rack module. Amongst various vintage electric pianos, organs and synths, these old modules include a CP70 sample that is convincing enough for the price - although they don't make these anymore, you should be able to pick one up on eBay (they come up quite frequently, usually selling for between £75 and £125). If you'd rather go the computer route and use some software samples, you've got a few options. Hollow Sun have the best known samples as part of their Nostalgia sample set, and this has been adapted by AraldFX for use with their Grand Electrix software instrument (you can use it with any software that supports VST instruments, such as Cubase). The most in-depth sample set is the Prominy PCP80 - it's based on the CP70's bigger brother (the CP80), but the sound is interchangeable. You probably won't find anything more convincing unless you buy the real thing, but its quite difficult to track down - I had to get one imported from the US. MOTU also introduced their Electric Keys sample set a couple of months ago, which includes a CP70/80 software instrument - not actually tried it myself, but the samples on the website do sound good (thanks to Sham for the info!).

I'd personally recommend you try the Vintage Keys rack unit route first and see how you get on - you'll also get the benefit of lots of cool synth voices too!