killabyte11

From Rich on the Stone In Focus upload - This track has now thankfully been found and uploaded here, I was very worried it had been lost, very relieved*** It was not included on the original CD’s as there wasn't enough room. I usually always give priority to the vinyl versions of all my releases as I never ever really liked CD's much, think I would have liked CD's a little bit more if you could put 90 mins on them, who decided they were to be 74 mins anyway? Thinking about this now I'd love to try and get Warp to do high quality chrome cassette versions of all my Warp musics, maybe even metal ones if possible. Yes please to the chrome/metal cassette releases....I'd buy every single one.

Listening to the Rozzbox demos, its easy to hear that synth in the mix.

For very little money you can get a semi decent tape deck to rip it with better results. Or you can just send me a copy and I'll do a high quality rip from my Nakamichi BX-150.

See I knew it. There's a lot of younger Aphex fans hear a softsynth that sounds like a 303 and they say "yep this must be what he used". The 303 basically only does a handful of sounds/tones but is a really distinct sounding machine. There are a bunch of emulations in both the hardware and software world....with different levels of quality and accuracy among them but few if any sound as good as the original. So it would be pretty dumb to use a software emulation when you have a real Roland TB-303. Roland just did a remake of it called the TB-3 but not sure how it measures up.

OK if he said it was soft synths but I thought it was made during his analord/back to hardware period.

If you mean around 1:30, it sounds like a filter with an LFO assigned to the cutoff of a particular sound.

I'm highly doubtful of this. If it's a 303 sound, then it's probably from a real 303.

So 4 more years til bleep store?

Can someone give an update on this? Haven't been following or even lurking here for a couple weeks and just remembered that something was supposed to happen around this time. Any word on what it is? Has it been delayed...what's the deal?

Ooops just realized I was Iding tracks from the 2011 set. Disregard or enjoy the tracks anyway. (:

Another gem I haven't heard in a while into falling free afx remix....

One of the illest amen smashers ever...nice pick rich!

Some definite Oscar Mulero too. A few other records I have in my collection but can't name them off the top of my head. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnSLaNjxaJc

Jeff mills I9

Add a little ex-Drexicya Gerald Donald aka Arpanet....

Has anyone started a tracklist for this set? Why such little interest in this one compared to Field day??? A quick listen to a couple of the above clips, I recognize a couple old classics - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_B3T3x_pLw ...and Derrick May... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBbo7tkYoYc

Wouldn't mind seeing some actual artwork this time around for whatever it is.

Yeah, if he made Syro with all hardware...then I believe he could do anything with that set up. A computer just makes these types of edits/ arrangements easier but I believe you get much more for your time when going the hardware route. IMO if he would have made all computer albums like RDJ, Druqs with a hardware set up instead....they would have sounded that much better. As far as what you said about modern day drum & bass. It was infinitely better in my opinion when it was made with hardware samplers connected to an Atari st for sequencing as it was for the first decade of it's evolution. I followed D&B religiously from the mid 90's til around 05 which is when they started going ITB more and more...and in my experience, this is when that genre lost an awful lot of it's originality and started sounding much more samey, sterile etc.. Before that, almost 100% of D&B was made with little more than Emu e6400 or Akai S series sampler connected to an Atari for midi sequencing and over driven naturally, usually on a cheap Mackie desk with a rack of effects, eq, compressor between. There may be things that are easier to achieve working in the box but in my experience this works both ways, there are many things that dedicated hardware machines do that you could emulate in the computer but you probably wouldn't because it would be such a pain and take way too long to set it up that way....while the hardware just does that task right out of the door in a very immediate way ...just sort of specializes at that task. I'm not against computers at all, I use one myself. When I started producing I couldn't afford much gear, so when the whole computer production revolution happened, I completely embraced it as it gave me the ability to create fully realized tracks with just my computer. Over time I acquired more and more hardware but also continued to use vst's out of convenience and lack of gear but as time went on I found them to sound more and more sort of the same and lifeless. I've continued trying every conceivable one to find the best sounding possible but the more old hardware I pick up, it just has a more lively/living sort of sound quality....even cheap rack effects, which most early dance music was made with have a character to them that software effects just don't have. In a way, it comes down to that one word - character. Not sure how else to describe it. Just that everything made strictly in a computer environment sort of has this plasticky film over top of it. Not to mention 95% of my all time favorite tracks were made with hardware.

Not all of the gear he uses is analogue, he has also used plenty of digital synthesizers/samplers in his set up...FM, wavetable and many others are digital as are most hardware samplers. I think a lot of people here get confused and think that all hardware is analogue. I've discussed this at length here before...but one typically does not use vst's when you have access to the collection of gear that Richard has in his arsenal, which is nothing short of a dream set up and one that most producers would kill for. You don't drive a Prius when you have Ferrari's, Lambourghini's, Porches, Benz's etc.. You just don't. A lot of people who post here have these massive misconceptions about gear, computers, electronic music production in general. Softsynths are synthesizers that are struggling (at best) to emulate real pieces of digital and analogue hardware...and none of them come close in sound quality. A soft version of an H3000 does not sound like it's $5000 hardware counterpart. When you are RDJ - there is almost nothing he can't achieve with his hardware set ups that he could with a computer....and it will sound infinitely better in quality as a result. I've personally used and tested every one of the most coveted soft synths on the market in the past 15 years -including the newer ones like Serum. I also have about 10 pieces of hardware, some of it vintage. I don't care what it is, vst's sound relatively the same and they all lack a certain realness, soul, substance, organic quality that good hardware has, hell even most cheap hardware sounds somehow more substantial. Even digital hardware synthesizers, you would think a computer with a good soundcard/interface would be comparable but it's still somehow lacks something. Computer generated music always has sort sterile sheen over the whole production. I still use vst's myself but only out of substitution for what I can't afford in the hardware world but I put a lot of effort through effects and such to make it sound like it didn't come from a computer.

Well he said that Syro was by far the most accessible of material he has planned so I'm thinking it's about time for some completely left field, bonkers stuff.

I predict it's going to be an album of much more experimental/abstract material.

One thing I'll say about this release, it definitely has the classic Aphex sound. The fact that it's older makes that obvious but can't wait to hear other tracks I haven't heard via the soundcloud page. For all those complaining about non current material, If he's anything like a lot of musicians...the stuff he's been working on now you'll hear in about 2 or 3 years or so. That's usually how it works. You have material backed up that you feel absolutely compelled to reach closure on/release then you move on to the next newest material.

I think you completely missed the point, iirc it's literally based on some 80s cheetah packaging. I love it, and I loved the idea of syro's packaging too, though I do wish they went with the foldface pic as the front cover. It's not really 80's style, more like 70's.

Tape has made quite resurgence in more recent years. There are several very popular tape only labels doing their thing. I personally love the quality of tape, be cassette or reel to reel.

Can't wait to here the release. Hate the packaging to death. Extremely generic but even more so than Syro's.