“The Gloaming,” live from Nigel Godrich’s basement in ‘07

Radiohead is probably the best live band out there, and since the Beatles quit playing shows just before they hit their peak, you could make a convincing argument that no one has ever been better on stage.

Of course it helps that they’ve got millions of dollars in toys and engineers at their disposal, but Radiohead earned those things by grinding their way through the club circuit like everyone else. The trick to their impact is in the way they get their samples, synths and beats to seamlessly mesh with the stadium-size guitars; Everything feels human and immediate. So how do they do it?

MusicRadar.com interviewed Russ Russell, the band’s live technician, about the details of their setup for the In Rainbows tour. Apparently the samples are being handled by Native Instrument’s Kontakt, running on multiple MacBook Pros.

Some other things that aren’t really highlighted but can be learned from this interview and the photos that go with it:

• They use Ableton Live from those same laptops to trigger beat loops.
• Jonny Greenwood sticks with a little Powerbook running Max/MSP.
• Everything isn’t original - they use some modified factory samples from Kontakt, just like everybody else.

Take a look: Radiohead’s live setup revealed
(via AtEase)