What are Daft Punk actually playing inside their pyramid?

Tom writes to direct us towards the Erol Alkan forum for the first pictures I've seen of the inside of Daft Punk's pyramid. I'd always assumed they were using two laptops running Ableton and/or Google Mail and/or Linerider, but their setup is wonderfully (and predictably) cool and eccentric: It looks like: 4 x Moog Voyager racks, 2 x Behringer BCR2000 controllers, and possibly 2 x Lemur controllers in the middle (DP endorse the Lemur). Presumably there's also some computers somewhere, but there don't seem to be any keyboards involved at all.
Ps: Daft Punk? 290,000 views and counting...
UPDATE: Seems my alma mater Mixmag have captured a better shot of inside the Daft Punk pyramid, together with some words from Guy & Thomas.

Posted by Tom Whitwell.

Comments:

some footage of their gig in Amsterdam last week, nice show !

http://3voor12.vpro.nl/weblogs/rebelbass/bericht/35547756

# posted by

Anonymous : 4:05 pm

I always thought that it was chocolate inside of the Pyramid, boy was I wrong.

# posted by

circuitmaster : 5:13 pm

Those don't look like lemurs.. Lemurs have a big black margin around the screen, those look more like flatscreens angled for optimal viewing angle.. most likely showing ableton live

# posted by

Anonymous : 6:45 pm

what gets me is that Daft Punk have been around far longer than Ableton...

Still, kudos for the picture. I've always wondered what was up there.

On that note, if you look at video of their various shows, you'll see that some songs vary quite a bit between shows, whilst others are virtually spot-on identical.

# posted by

Andrew : 9:15 pm

Robert Henke / Monolake start recording around 1994, so in that sense Daft Punk haven't been around *that* long before Ableton. (Ableton the software product, yes, but not the musicians who founded the company. And like many tools, the ideas behind Ableton were a long time in germination.)

Not to mention, I dread the day when the 90s become historical. Oh, crap. It's already happened, hasn't it? Damn you, Internets!!

# posted by

Unknown : 1:41 am

I like to go into that room the next time I visit their city. ;)

# posted by

Anonymous : 4:47 am

What difference would it make if they were "around before Ableton"? Why wouldn't they* use an available technology to realize their music in a concert? No one is saying they used it in the studio.

*Well, obviously from the pictures they don't, but the is no reason they couldn't have.

# posted by

Phillip : 6:28 am

http://forum.jazzmutant.com/viewtopic.php?t=817

This is a thread on the JazzMutant site about this...

# posted by

ABBP : 7:55 am

Check Out HiphopHits.net

Dj Slue

# posted by

Anonymous : 4:44 am

Well they don't even 'play/mix' live so they might as well have a Alba CD player in there.

# posted by

Anonymous : 12:19 pm

*Well, obviously from the pictures they don't, but the is no reason they couldn't have.

6:28 AM

----- Actually Phillip, Bangalter has been quoted on how he uses Ableton in studio. Its a great program, I myself use it to DJ. I have seen what they use to do back during the early and mid 90's (anyone else who wants to see it; go buy the D.A.F.T. DVD and put in the Alive performance, and make your player navigate to camera 6). They have been using computers since the beginning. They still mix stuff with 909's and rack mounted samplers.

As for Anonymous saying that they dont mix live, that is a bunch of bullshit. The entire thing is mixed to the max. Its not a normal DJ mix, where a DJ is forced to pull something out of their ass with either pressed vinyl or a rendered cd. They can take the peices that they have made and mash it up far beyond that of the normal DJ. Anyone who says that all they are doing is pressing play, has never had the privllege of using Ableton in front of anyone. Sure, vinyl has a skill associated with it, but so does this.

# posted by

Anonymous : 12:14 am

An electronic music label in new york, PALMS OUT RECORDS, has a blog where, among other features, every wednesday is samples wednesday. not only do they track down the original sources of samples used in an artist’s songs, they provide mp3s of the original songs. Some of DAFT PUNK’s samples are obvious, others may have you scratching your head. As they put it: “you’ll either decide Daft Punk isn’t as genius as you thought they were or that they’re twice as amazing.” Other artists palmsout has pulled the curtain on: OUTKAST, JAY-Z, MISSY, LADIES LOVE COOL JAMES, MADONNA, and so on. It really is an amazing archive.

# posted by

Anonymous : 5:05 pm

oh yeah. the link.
http://palmsout.blogspot.com/search/label/Sample%20Wednesday

# posted by

Anonymous : 5:07 pm

http://www.tvi.iol.pt/morangos/site/default.htm

# posted by

Anonymous : 8:38 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaFkSWWqSfw

ups, i meant this!!!

# posted by

Anonymous : 8:50 pm

A question I thought you may be able to answer because of the Daft Punk sampling video: The melody in Justice's "Phantom Pt II", that's a sample, right? What is it?

# posted by

Anonymous : 5:36 pm

took the photos inside the pyramid. and they got stolen from my flickr!!!!

# posted by

edforever : 6:10 pm

Good message, Site has been digged and bookmarked, Thankx

# posted by

Anonymous : 6:19 am

I collect daft punk Promo albums look my blog
http://daft-punk-remixs.blogspot.com

# posted by

Anonymous : 7:04 am

anonymous yhey are running ableton live

# posted by

Anonymous : 3:15 pm

This comment has been removed by the author.

# posted by

Unknown : 6:24 pm

There's an inside-the-pyramid shot from the Alive 2007 digital booklet (iTunes download - dunno if this is in the CD booklet or not) where you can see the four Voyager rackmounts units, and it does appear that the two LCD screens are displaying Ableton Live. Given the absence of keyboards/mice, I'll bet they're touchscreens, which would explain the larger border - Thomas Dolby had a similar screen running Logic on his last tour. You can't see the BCR2000s though - Thomas and Guy-Manuel are in the way.

However, they were shown using the Lemur onstage during the Kanye West Grammy performance.

I'm betting that the reason for two Live instances is for seamless song-to-song mixing...

# posted by

Unknown : 6:26 pm

Frankly, I suspect all that gear is set up at live shows for appearance's sake. I'm not saying they don't use it (who cares? not me) to make the recordings, but I doubt it's used much in the "live" shows.

What I want to know is: how do they make the vocoder-like sounds that we hear in the song "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" or "One More Time"? Do they use vocoders, or Antares Auto-Tune, or ... what?

# posted by

Anonymous : 6:36 pm

That's some wild gear!
Ever wonder what Around The World would sound like using nothing but acoustic instruments?

Check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtRrlaMjE3s

# posted by

Anonymous : 6:21 am

Here's a picture from when I saw them live in Seattle.
Please vote!

http://www.brickfish.com/Pages/PhotosAlbums/PhotoView.aspx?picid=792248_93145039

# posted by

Anonymous : 2:44 pm

so when they play harder better faster stronger when they use the ouch screens is that controlling the pitch and tone or the actual lyrics? know its a dumb question but just getting into dj's and im curious

# posted by

Anonymous : 2:32 am