Want to know what John Cale uses to create his music? Check out his musical hardware.
He uses Apple's MainStage when he plays live. In the studio he uses that program's Ultrabeat feature, the iMPC app or the Koala sampler app.
When John Cale plugged in his bass, there was no escape. After the Velvet Underground were endorsed by Vox Instruments the famous Westminster Bass Amp was brought in. Endless hassles to get to damned thing to work.
Cale dragged a chair across the floor to create the scraping sounds on European Son on the The Velvet Underground & Nico album. Not to be confused with the child's game musical chairs.