A Few Words with Terry Lawless

Maybe you could start by telling us a bit about your background, how did you get into making music, and more specifically, becoming a keyboard technician on the road?

I was very lucky to have grown up when instrumental music was still being taught in the public schools. My parents had started me on accordion when I was pretty young, but I didn’t really get interested until I started taking saxophone lessons in school. I later switched to bassoon. I had excellent teachers, both in public school and privately. In college I carried a triple major in Music, Education and Mathematics. I also began playing piano and was introduced to my first electronic music lab. After college I taught school and worked in a music store, the whole time playing in bands. In 1983 I moved to Los Angeles. This was the year the Yamaha DX7 was introduced. There I was, with degrees in music and math when this great synthesizer hit town. It was just a matter of always sticking my nose everywhere I could and trying to get my chops as good as I could on every synth I could find.

What projects have you been working on recently?

I have been on a little break from the Cher Farewell Tour. This has been going on steadily for about a year and a half, so it is great to be home and spread out a little. I have been building a new rack for Robert Lamm of Chicago for an upcoming tour. It will use a Roland XV-5080 and a laptop and nothing else. Recently I spent a week helping program for an upcoming Anastacia series of TV shows in Europe. I’m leaving in a few days to program for Hispanic superstar Alicia Villarreal. Also, I have been writing an album of Techno/Trance tunes for a production library. I fill in the cracks with some sessions and live gigs.

There is always some concerns when using software for live use, how do you deal with that?

Backup, backup and backup. Always have an alternate plan, should one method fail. Make sure that if you are using VST instruments that you have a hardware synth backup that can be gone to immediately. But, most importantly, use quality, dependable software and strip the computer of any extra stuff. Don’t make it a computer that is your only email machine, that you play games on, that you do scanning or home video production on. Make it your music machine.

In terms of performance, sound quality and playability, do you think that virtual instruments are getting there?

I think they are head and shoulders above most synthesizers as far as sound. The drawbacks come in the performance aspects, mostly latency. As memory and buss speed both increase, we see these problems going away. It is easy to pull out a single instrument for a session when boot time isn’t a factor. But the problems come up when you need three or four instruments available and immediately switchable from MIDI.

How do you select the software that you will be using live?

At the level I work, cost is usually not a concern, so the bottom line is sound and performance. If the sound isn’t there you don’t need to worry about the smooth setup. You might as well use a synth at that point. Buggy software doesn’t get used no matter how good it sounds.

What do you consider to be the most challenging aspect of your job?

I love translating what the artist wants to a workable solution. I’m a bit of a MIDI efficiency expert. I always look for the best way (usually the simplest) to do things. I don’t like doing things “just because you can”. Fortunately I can do the geeky things with the slant of how a musician would like it.

Finally, what's coming up next for you?

I’ll be hitting the touring circuit again in mid April. I have a couple tours to program for. And I have a keyboard session with a pretty major band coming up in San Diego next month. In the holes, my writing partner and I continue to crank out production music.