3 October 2026
A couple snippets from Richard D. James in conversation with Tatsuya Takahashi discussing their collaborative development of the Korg Monologue (2017)
RDJ: The first thoughts that I had about tuning in general happened with my early noodlings on a Yamaha DX100, one of the first synths I saved up for. I remember looking at the master tuning of 440 Hz and thinking I would change it, for no other reason apart from it was set by default to that frequency and that it could be changed. I just used to select a single note, adjust the master tuning of it to taste and then base the whole track around that, something I’ve done ever since, just intuition and maybe a bit of rebelliousness. It’s very simple, but do you want your music to be based on an international standard or on what you think sounds right to you?
...
RDJ: What is your worst fear?
TT: Well, doing the same thing over again and then one day realising that's all you can do.
RDJ: Yeah, I think we all have to fight against this, especially as you get older. I’ve really been looking at my habits recently and denying them. It feels great if you can manage it.