Neumann USM69i
Neumann U89i
Neumann U87AiMarina and the Diamonds Go MOOG for World Tour
Keyboardist and remixer Jon Shone began his career by giving up. Strange as that may sound, at end of a long string of dead-ends he ended up selling a keyboard through a classified ad. Through that sale he met a man tasked with managing a new group called N-Dubz, and the rest is history. Jon has gone on to work with a variety of other artists such as Ironic, Tinchy Stryder, V.V. Brown and most recently playing live in Marina and the Diamonds. We caught up with Jon in- between tour dates to chat about how he got started, and why hes rocking the Little Phatty?
Did you learn piano as a kid, were your parents pushing you to do that?
Yeah I had formal training but no, no-one pushed me. My parents werent musical at all they didnt give a crap, I could have done anything. I had a choice. I was really into swimming so it was like: band night, or swimming
Of course they are totally related!
Ha, I know I was getting quite up in my field of swimming, getting to quite a competitive level, and I was starting to have to make a choice where its either band practice, or swimming on a Tuesday night. And I chose the band. And starting smoking twenty cigarettes a day.
So how come you left for London?
Well, it was kind of like the only place thatd take me was London. Id actually wanted to go to Leeds college of music to do jazz, you know. I was such a jazz head when I turned 18, so I was like Jazz is the way forward and Im glad I didnt get into Leeds, because Jazz isnt the way forward.
As soon as I got to London I realised it was going to pave the way for me to get into the music scene. I saw the scene and realised this is it where I want to be. I wanted to be in the pop world. So I came down here and did music at Middlesex university.
Did Middlesex Uni help you get into the industry?
They didnt give you any help, but in some respects thats probably a good thing. They say look, you are in the deep here go and get some gigs, and so you start hustling the gigs which is a good way I think.
I was doing restaurant gigs at Pizza Express, once a week, for a Pizza. And by the time wed had everything off the menu, you know I just thought this is not it! I was here to make a living. So I thought how do I get away from this? And get into the RnB scene? So I just started doing loads of unsigned acts and open-mic nights. Urban music nights where it could go on till 3 in the morning. You wouldnt really make any money from it, and youd have to chase the guy down the street to get your money at the end of the night, but it was good fun, and it opened my eyes up to this world of other players gospel players and groove players.
How did that relate to getting in with Marina and the rest?
After the unsigned stuff I realised I was kind of getting stuck in a rut, because you can just go round in the unsigned circuit for years without getting anywhere. So it wasnt until weirdly I was giving up really, and deciding to say sack that I'll get a real job.
I had a Motif ES6, and a few other vintage boards, and thought thats it so I put an ad out on Sound On Sound. And people were ringing up. Are you selling it, and Im umm-ing and ahh-ing, and this one guy rang up, and he was really persistent. A guy called Tim. And I was like No Im not selling it mate, and hes ranting on about it and Im like Im still not selling it. Then Im sat in the bathroom and am like Yeah actually, Im gonna sell it.
So I rang him back, and he came round. He was on a small label doing something with a band called N-Dubz that Id never even heard of. And we got chatting, and then we went to work on it together. When it first started, around 2007/2008 it was when they were just getting signed. So we co-MDd that and I still work on that project to this day. By selling a keyboard on Sound on Sound!
Then from that I went on to work with Ironic, then Tinchy Strider, V.V. Brown for 9 months, then from that Im working with Marina and the Diamonds.
So how did you come to get a Moog Little Phatty?
Well when I started working on the Marina live show, it was really a case of how do we make the most of this album live with the guys that we've got.
And its a no-guitar band two keyboard players, a bass player and a drummer. There isnt a lot of guitar tracking on the record, and wherever there is its quite low in the mix. And for me, as the synth player, the pianos are the foundation and I kind of layer everything else on top.
And so for my rig I already had a few bits of pieces, and back in the day Id played the MiniMoog and the Moog Rogue. Im not an in-depth synth player but I have a grasp of synthesis. So for me I needed something that would give me really great lead sounds for the solos we do, and some really nice things that sit lower down to cover those guitar parts.
We use four boards on this gig, and the one thing Ill say about the Moog is since Ive been using it, since Ive had chance to mess about with it and get the sounds right for the job its the one thing that really cuts through out of all the boards, the one thing that when we want to take it up a notch, does.
Are there any other particular bits you use it on?
Theres a song we do called Guilty, and I use a Moog lead at the end off the Little Phatty, and its great. I've tweaked it, I've used the overdrive and its great. Its a great board. Theres a bit at the end of the show the drums are going mad, its a real tribal ending, and I just switch to the Moog and just bring the solo in and it just cuts through.
I'm finding I'm using it more and more, which is the thing about it. I use an Alesis Micron, and a MicroKorg and a Korg M3 for strings and bits n pieces the really pop sounds. And the Alesis does a bit of analogue modelling, but I'm now switching away from the Micron because the sounds are all just a bit similar its a little too Euro. Im moving some of my sounds over from there to the Moog because Im just enjoying using it a lot more.
We do another song which we have to sync to a video, and I now use the Little Phatty arpeggiator to sync to that. It just sits really nicely against the video; and for live the latching mode is great because I know where I am on the board I've got a lot of sweeping, lot of moving to do along with the arpeggiator.
One thing I notice with the Microkorg is when I play the arpeggiator Im getting a little bit of drift now and then, but the Moogs really solid. No matter how many notes you are running into it its still tracking them really well.
Its a great keyboard, really stable, and the VCOs are phenomenal. They are ultra-stable and warm up really nicely together. And its got the classic 24db ladder filter, which is just great, really great for sweeping.
Have you tried the Voyager?
The one thing I havent tried is the Voyager. Every time I see it at a gig I'm like whoah, I need to have a go on that! It looks pretty amazing. If Id had the money I think I would have gone for the Voyager. But I thought the Little Phatty I've seen it and I've heard it on pop gigs, my mate uses the Phatty with Pixie Lott and they are just great.
Has there been any chance to use the Phatty in the studio?
With the tour we've not had a chance to bring it into the studio, but I do really want to get more in depth with it. Every time I'm at a gig I sit and play for a couple of hours beforehand and I'm always finding something new, and enjoying creating really nice sounds with it. You know I was never like hugely a synth-head so for me its really good to work with when I know the sound I'm looking for. And when someones starting out and really wants to get to grips with synthesis it'd be a really practical hands-on board. Its like a Juno 106 really practical and easy to see what such-and-such is and does.
The beauty of it is the simplicity.
Yeah thats so true.
We've just done a bunch of European festivals, and theres four or five thousand people, and you need one thing that cuts right through when its needed to.
We do another song called Are you Satisfied and thats a song where I use the Fusion Anomaly patch, I think its patch 84 its a real meaty womp womp a really nice meaty thick sound. And thats actually a guitar part on the record, but I wanted to get away from having guitar backing when theres nobody there playing it. You can mask it a little bit in pop, but I wanted to recreate some of those sounds. And I thought - you know what, we can take that guitar rhythm and we can just switch it on to that Moog because it'll fill that frequency and I can adjust the filter so its not massive up there, but it just sits in that bed where a guitar would. Its so punchy and its really good fun to play with, man. I'm really enjoying it!
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