Underworld turning back to hardware?

[Dirty0900]

From reading interviews, blogs on UWlive it became apparant that during the process of RiverRun's, Sunshine OST and OWB that UW were taking Lemonworld with them in little computer boxes and doing stuff all over the world to jam alongside the inspiration of the places they visited in social contexts and whilst on the roads.

I think UW have not got sick of using software to create music, but want to press around with buttons, twiddle various dials and create something on the go which can't sometimes be done on some software. Think this quote from the Telamatic Peel audio page on the audio section of UWlive sums it up:

Singing;

It's really difficult to explain the magic of an analogue mixing console.

In 2003 audio software and computer processing power had advanced to the point where we could create an entire virtual studio (easy) and clone it across all our computers in three studios and two laptops. We could write and record anytime anyplace anywhere and we could then take the data recorded on any machine and play it back exactly the same on any other. Total recall. Moments captured absolutely.

We swopped powerbooks in hotel rooms, jamming and recording on each others machines. We could sit on a plane and write and mix tunes, then take it home and fire it up deep and loud on our glorious Funktion One system. It was absolutely empowering and transforming.
We were recording and finishing records entirely "In the box".
In late 2007 I'd had enough of the extreme rigour of the process and longed for a change.
I wanted to feel again that unspeakable magic which is live mixing in analogue and a chance to use all ten of my fingers at once whilst writing and mixing. A proper Jam.

I'm not a musician, but through my tuned ears of listening to music over the years, I still think artists using pieces of hardware are going to get better results as you can only go so far with one single piece of software to create music with. Yer, they'll be plug ins and expansion packs, but from brief jams with a mate on a project which really is taking to long to do, we can literally loose ourselfs in a mountain of drum machines and other twiddly objects.

By no ,means am I slagging off software created music, but maybe UW are going back to hardware for upcoming stuff. Could be an interesting listen. The recent UWlive updates have hinted at this, especially the one today [7/2] with a guitar pedal that could maybe be rolled out live? Don't think Karl uses them when playing. Correct if i'm wrong.

Just another mindless opinion.