Official Yello sources
Primary reference for the official Solid Pleasure listing: 1980, Ralph Records / Vertigo, fourteen tracks and the published durations used by the archive.
Official biography for the Zürich Dada context, named influences including John Coltrane, Pink Floyd and The Residents, the San Francisco demo story, and the description of creating paintings and stories with sound.
Official reissue notes for the original two LP sides, the bonus tracks “I.T. Splash” and “Glue Head”, the early trio roles, Blank’s retrospective description of the debut and the reported U.S. dance-chart peak for “Bostich”.
First-hand production history
Blank dates his first Fairlight to 1981 and describes earlier reel-to-reel practice: recording found sounds, cutting tape into equal lengths, changing tape speed and building delays. This supports the archive’s broad pre-Fairlight chronology, not a per-track equipment list.
Blank recalls recording kitchen objects with a Revox, exploiting different speeds, feedback and echoes, then working with a small mixer and ping-pong recording in the early Yello period.
First-hand context for the ARP Odyssey, the impact of Herbie Hancock’s Sextant, and Blank’s non-traditional approach of shaping sound by ear rather than working from conventional instrumental technique.
Interview about manipulating recorded material, the analog-to-digital transition, storing short sound structures and Blank’s own painter analogy for building music.
Discographic & listening cross-checks
Community-maintained cross-check for releases, dates, labels and recording/writing metadata. Used cautiously where editions differ.
Secondary critical reference used only for broad listening/genre context, not as the authority for historical production claims.
Current external playback destination used by the optional click-to-load player on the album page. The archive does not analyze or copy the stream.
Research policy
Chronology before gear lists
Retrospective interviews can compress dates or mix equipment from different periods. The archive therefore avoids claiming a definitive machine list for each 1980 track. The stable distinction used here is that Blank dates his first Fairlight to 1981, after the debut, while describing substantial tape and cassette work before it.
Listening notes are interpretation
The fourteen track overlays are deliberately concise listening lenses. They are not presented as quotations from Yello or as newly discovered production documentation.
Visual cues, not sleeve reproduction
The interface uses high-level relationships such as orange, black grid, acid green, magenta/pink, yellow display type and hard contrast. The original album-cover image and official Yello logo are not reproduced in the interface.
Project audio is original
Archive collision sounds and all fourteen v2.7 starter worlds are synthesized by this project. No Yello master, stem, Yellofier bank or extracted commercial recording is bundled.
Sound Lab v2.7 — what this release actually is
The public Lab is a modern browser instrument inspired by broad historical gestures rather than a reconstruction of the Solid Pleasure sessions. It presents 14 original synthetic sound worlds, each mapped to the same 10 pad roles, plus a four-bar sequencer. Quarter-note mode exposes 16 steps; eighth-note mode exposes 32 steps. Tempo is user-set from 50–200 BPM and the interface shows beat, bar and complete-loop duration in seconds.
For this release there is no microphone input, no user audio-file import and no bundled third-party sample pack. The code contains an adapter for a future authorized ten-slot sample pack, but nothing is registered by default and there is no public sample-import interface. The “Record” control records pad hits into the quantized sequence; it does not record a microphone or export an audio master.
Each of the fourteen album-seed patterns can become a session draft while the page remains open. Those drafts are kept in page memory only and disappear on reload. The Lab does not detect the key or tempo of external music, because this public release does not ingest external music.
Historical idea vs modern convenience
Recording found sound, cutting/reordering, repetition, speed change and echo are supported by Blank’s own accounts as broad creative references. The ten-pad mapping, 14 seed worlds, four-bar grid, groove control, auto performance tiers, collision animation and exact browser scheduling are this project’s modern design choices. They are not claims about Yello’s 1980 studio workflow.
Browser & timing references
Normative reference for AudioContext time, scheduled audio-source playback and Web Audio processing used by the Lab.
Background reference for look-ahead scheduling against the audio clock rather than relying on visual timer precision.
Classic explanation of the distinction between JavaScript timing and Web Audio scheduling used as an implementation cross-check.
Terminology reference for “Repeat Rate”, “Intensity” and “Echo Volume” in legacy Lab material. It is not evidence that an RE-201 was used on Solid Pleasure.
Reference for consistent pointer interaction across mouse, pen and touch in the project’s interactive surfaces.
Historical and implementation references reviewed for this public release on 8 September 2026. A source link documents what it is cited for; inclusion does not imply endorsement of this fan project.