The Syro progress

[Alcofribas]

On 1/24/2021 at 6:48 AM, cern said:

I just wonder what the heck all those mixers, EQs, FXs routings, Samplers and recorder devices do to the sound when the result is exteremly clean and mastered to perfection.. I mean doesn't the sound lose alot of that analogue gear jizz? 

 

imo syro is not especially "clean" sounding, there's even quite a bit of hiss happening throughout (due to summing so many tracks i guess). i think there's a bit of confusion where people think hardware/analog is the same as being "lofi" and there's a sense that "warmth" is something like an effect. on that syro list he has api and ssl channels for example - these are super high end strips that some of the greatest expensive as shit albums were made on. people are drawn to them because they have warmth and richness but it's not like the warmth of a cassette tape or something - it's the way the channels come together and saturate the harmonics making the highs sound more soft and rich and the lows nice and beefy. i think syro is hands down the best sounding aphex record and the production level is crazy to me. i think his chops are not confined to making fucked up beats and wacky melodies but also in syro we get to see his talents as a producer. the whole record is extremely warm and beautiful sounding, just a really lush and deep sound on every tune. it has like a liquid quality where everything fluidly interacts, whereas something like the rdj album is much more harsh and cutting (which also sounds amazing imo). 

maybe syro is "clean" in a certain sense compared to his more lofi recordings but i think it's also very warm and rich, something that struck me right away when i first heard it. in fact i'd even say while the record is less show-offy than some of his other stuff i think it's kind of like a masterclass in hardware production. 

to echo what has been said comparing his hardware set-up to autechre - i think it's probably quite similar to what ae are doing ITB (also they used to use a shure auxpander which maybe is an early indication of where they were headed). creating custom "patches" where you're not just patching together individual modules like in a synth but entire instruments and effects and even recording channels to create a totally specific system to work within. i think this is kind of what he means when he says the studio creates the track - just like on a smaller scale if you have a modular synth the specific way you patch it entails a specific outcome in terms of sound character and what's possible. richard is just doing this with tons of hardware. i would love to do such a thing, but i am not a millionaire lol. essentially he has an irl daw.

Edited January 25, 2021 by Alcofribas

[brian trageskin]

48 minutes ago, Alcofribas said:

imo syro is not especially "clean" sounding, there's even quite a bit of hiss happening throughout (due to summing so many tracks i guess). i think there's a bit of confusion where people think hardware/analog is the same as being "lofi" and there's a sense that "warmth" is something like an effect. on that syro list he has api and ssl channels for example - these are super high end strips that some of the greatest expensive as shit albums were made on. people are drawn to them because they have warmth and richness but it's not like the warmth of a cassette tape or something - it's the way the channels come together and saturate the harmonics making the highs sound more soft and rich and the lows nice and beefy. i think syro is hands down the best sounding aphex record and the production level is crazy to me. i think his chops are not confined to making fucked up beats and wacky melodies but also in syro we get to see his talents as a producer. the whole record is extremely warm and beautiful sounding, just a really lush and deep sound on every tune. it has like a liquid quality where everything fluidly interacts, whereas something like the rdj album is much more harsh and cutting (which also sounds amazing imo). 

maybe syro is "clean" in a certain sense compared to his more lofi recordings but i think it's also very warm and rich, something that struck me right away when i first heard it. in fact i'd even say while the record is less show-offy than some of his other stuff i think it's kind of like a masterclass in hardware production. 

to echo what has been said comparing his hardware set-up to autechre - i think it's probably quite similar to what ae are doing ITB (also they used to use a shure auxpander which maybe is an early indication of where they were headed). creating custom "patches" where you're not just patching together individual modules like in a synth but entire instruments and effects and even recording channels to create a totally specific system to work within. i think this is kind of what he means when he says the studio creates the track - just like on a smaller scale if you have a modular synth the specific way you patch it entails a specific outcome in terms of sound character and what's possible. richard is just doing this with tons of hardware. i would love to do such a thing, but i am not a millionaire lol. essentially he has an irl daw.

that's great and all but still the tunes suck imo lmao

[Alcofribas]

17 minutes ago, brian trageskin said:

that's great and all but still the tunes suck imo lmao

it's starting to make sense why people dm me referring to you as the "syro of posting"

[auxien]

1 hour ago, Alcofribas said:

people are drawn to them because they have warmth and richness but it's not like the warmth of a cassette tape or something - it's the way the channels come together and saturate the harmonics making the highs sound more soft and rich and the lows nice and beefy. i think syro is hands down the best sounding aphex record and the production level is crazy to me. i think his chops are not confined to making fucked up beats and wacky melodies but also in syro we get to see his talents as a producer. the whole record is extremely warm and beautiful sounding, just a really lush and deep sound on every tune. it has like a liquid quality where everything fluidly interacts, whereas something like the rdj album is much more harsh and cutting (which also sounds amazing imo). 

yeah, partly...i mean you're very right about getting the analog/etc machines to 'glue' together is a lot of the magic more so than just the instruments themselves (tho obv the instruments are integral in many cases, but i'm sure in some a different reverb wouldn't have necessarily mattered)... the thing is does the sound fit the tone of the album, and the thing is the album doesn't really feel like it has a specific tone, to me. i enjoy it for the most part, really enjoy some of it, but it feels like two or three EPs he just crammed together....but the production varies and it doesn't necessarily do so in service of the song or the album...and so it just all ends up feeling disjointed as far as i'm concerned. i guess that's what happens when you end up piecing together an album from various 'studio' setups like you point out later (i've done the same, and it sorta bothers me too lol but also i don't do this for a living)

1 hour ago, Alcofribas said:

maybe syro is "clean" in a certain sense compared to his more lofi recordings but i think it's also very warm and rich, something that struck me right away when i first heard it. in fact i'd even say while the record is less show-offy than some of his other stuff i think it's kind of like a masterclass in hardware production. 

yeah, that's been my guess with his meh output over the last decade or so....he's too lost in process and production and tho obv his talents and songwriting skills are still there and occasionally shine (very brightly in some cases ofc!), they're simply not up to par with his previous output.

1 hour ago, Alcofribas said:

i think it's probably quite similar to what ae are doing ITB ...creating custom "patches" where you're not just patching together individual modules like in a synth but entire instruments and effects and even recording channels to create a totally specific system to work within.

don't think so at all, or at least i've heard very little if anything to suggest as such to my ears. it seems to be he's mostly just making unique recording channels almost exclusively...which is no different than basically anyone in a sorta kinda professional 'studio' environment. from what i've heard/read The Beatles (and producer/s engineers etc) were 10x more experimental on some of those later albums in the studio than RDJ is these days. 

programming a Cheetah is apparently very difficult and all, and i'm sure he did some interesting things to get those tracks sounding as good as they do, but those tracks or really anything he's been doing doesn't seem to compare to the fucking insanity of AE's most basic shit in the same time frame. not saying AE > RDJ or anything ofc, but listening to the variation of the setup displayed over AE_LIVE sets vs RDJs different 'mixes' of tracks...just, naw. not really a comparison from how it looks out here.

1 hour ago, Alcofribas said:

i am not a millionaire lol.

liar, we know better. 

[Alcofribas]

25 minutes ago, auxien said:

don't think so at all, or at least i've heard very little if anything to suggest as such to my ears. it seems to be he's mostly just making unique recording channels almost exclusively...which is no different than basically anyone in a sorta kinda professional 'studio' environment. from what i've heard/read The Beatles (and producer/s engineers etc) were 10x more experimental on some of those later albums in the studio than RDJ is these days. 

i don't mean similar processes that lead to similar sounds between ae/aphex, i just mean creating custom set-ups where your stuff interacts in unique ways that lead to particular kinds of outcomes. i think with ae and syro-aphex, they press start it will set the system in motion, which they can manipulate as it goes (ae does so to infinitely greater degree ofc; in comparison what richard is doing is way more limited) - it's not just like he's sitting there overdubbing synth parts. at least this is my understanding of how syro was made. as you say, the connectivity is basically what everyone with a studio does to some extent, but aphex just has a ton of gear and syro is the result of creating unique contexts for certain things to come together in specific ways. 

as for your first point about the record being disjointed - i agree with that but he also has other records like this; drukqs is not a particularly tight album and could've been made into a couple of more coherent eps. but yeah overall it doesn't have that sense of unity of records like rdj, selected ii or the analords. i also don't think all the tracks on syro reach the same level of excellence but they are all good to me. 

[Alcofribas]

to clarify what i'm trying to get at - he says:

"I realized I actually like making studios more than making music, because I like the possibilities of what you can do. I make these setups that will achieve some sort of purpose, so the way I've wired it together becomes the track in itself."

to me this implies that the tracks are the result of how things emerge from these "setups" which i'd imagine are fairly complex. like, on a completely rudimentary level this all goes without saying because that's what making music is - you just combine stuff within a context of rules/gear/whatever. if you have a guitar going into a delay pedal that implies certain possibilities. but clearly he's indicating something more modular in its construction where the gear interacting and producing distinct inter-related sounds is a big part of what the track becomes and that can be quite specific. i don't recall where i read this but there was an interview at the time in which he said much of the recording of syro is just a stereo capture of these "setups." i think he put together these little systems out of which essential elements of the track are "generated." this is different to just having a bunch of gear in a studio and plugging things in as you see fit, recording the drums, then grabbing a synth and doing the bass, then adding some verb to the two buss or whatever. it's more like if you went and made a track in a different studio where everything was wired up in a different way and you couldn't rearrange it. that's white i've come to think of it at least. 

ofc this is aphex so there's also the possibility he just did this in the computer and is full of shit.

[Alcofribas]

found the thing about the stereo recording. i hadn't read this since it was released, it's really so revealing it's like the opposite of every other rdj interview before it lol: https://archive.fo/aKu80

"none of the tracks on syro were multi tracked into the computer , they were all recorded live to 2 track"

[ignatius]

25 minutes ago, Alcofribas said:

found the thing about the stereo recording. i hadn't read this since it was released, it's really so revealing it's like the opposite of every other rdj interview before it lol: https://archive.fo/aKu80

"none of the tracks on syro were multi tracked into the computer , they were all recorded live to 2 track"

i spoke to aaron funk some years ago and he said he's doing the same thing. perform the track and it's done. no mixing to worry about no edits etc. maybe do a few takes and keep the one liked best. said he hasn't used computer for music (other than as a clock source) for ages. 

[Alcofribas]

7 minutes ago, ignatius said:

i spoke to aaron funk some years ago and he said he's doing the same thing. perform the track and it's done. no mixing to worry about no edits etc. maybe do a few takes and keep the one liked best. said he hasn't used computer for music (other than as a clock source) for ages. 

that's interesting. in the syrobonkers interview rdj indicates the mixing is done within the play of the system so it's being automated in real time. like, he could have just done this ITB but no:

But on things like the korg ps3200 and cs80 you can do near instant pgm chnges, and so u can make them like wavetable synths, cs80 looks especially awesome when you sweep all the presets back & fwd knight rider style while playing all the sounds consecutively.
Trouble is when you go to a diff pgm sound, u usually want to eq that differently, so in more recent traks after syro where ive used a lot of pgm changes ive bothered to route the output into an audio matrix switcher so when i switch programs the sequencer will simultaneously route the audio to another eq!

[auxien]

3 hours ago, Alcofribas said:

i think with ae and syro-aphex, they press start it will set the system in motion, which they can manipulate as it goes (ae does so to infinitely greater degree ofc; in comparison what richard is doing is way more limited) - it's not just like he's sitting there overdubbing synth parts. 

i'm pretty sure he's just programming very exact things into the Cirklon (or whatever other seqs he may have used) and maybe tweaking a few knobs, or perhaps triggering a pattern that he's pre-programmed. 

3 hours ago, Alcofribas said:

at least this is my understanding of how syro was made. as you say, the connectivity is basically what everyone with a studio does to some extent, but aphex just has a ton of gear and syro is the result of creating unique contexts for certain things to come together in specific ways. 

i don't remember reading anything about him having a complex modular-ish/AE-Max-ish interconnected system of vastly interconnected triggers and sequencers etc. for SYRO. he did have a a modular i guess, but to my ears there's very little left to chance on SYRO...and if he's said different i sure could be wrong, but i'm basing most/all of my assumptions on my ears. everything is too exacting and syncopated if he's recording to a master stereo track as you mention later.

you can hear stuff on Analord, SAWI & SAWII, Drukqs/CCAI2, etc that sounds live/off/in error/etc. cool, i usually like that sort feel. but for most of his 'electronic' tracks on his full Aphex Twin albums and EPs, things are pretty 'exact' and i'd be very surprised to hear if any significant portions excepting perhaps a smattering of songs here and there were anything except 95-100% pre-programmed.

and his pre-programmed stuff is sometimes absolutely amazing so don't think i'm downing one approach or the other  

3 hours ago, Alcofribas said:

as for your first point about the record being disjointed - i agree with that but he also has other records like this; drukqs is not a particularly tight album and could've been made into a couple of more coherent eps. but yeah overall it doesn't have that sense of unity of records like rdj, selected ii or the analords.

yeah, i'm with you there for sure. i dont' think he's ever been very strong on the 'cohesion' aspect of things. even SAWII, as great as it is, is pretty all over. and Drukqs obv as well, tho it's obviously purposeful there...just don't think it ever works well for me personally. that said i'm 100% okay putting on most of his albums front to back, so really just nitpicking i guess.

2 hours ago, Alcofribas said:

"I realized I actually like making studios more than making music, because I like the possibilities of what you can do. I make these setups that will achieve some sort of purpose, so the way I've wired it together becomes the track in itself."

...  if you have a guitar going into a delay pedal that implies certain possibilities. but clearly he's indicating something more modular in its construction where the gear interacting and producing distinct inter-related sounds is a big part of what the track becomes and that can be quite specific.

idk that he is indicating something more 'modular' but really we're both speculating. i don't hear much of anything on SYRO or SYRO-era stuff that sounds to my ears like it's some complex interaction of weird audio connections or MIDI pinging CV pinging an effect module to change states suddenly at super speedy rates or anything crazy. everything sounds very exacting, except when it sounds like a demo.

2 hours ago, Alcofribas said:

think he put together these little systems out of which essential elements of the track are "generated." 

yeah i never read anything that implied that to me, and i definitely haven't heard anything that sounded it even if it was.

2 hours ago, Alcofribas said:

found the thing about the stereo recording. i hadn't read this since it was released, it's really so revealing it's like the opposite of every other rdj interview before it lol: https://archive.fo/aKu80

"none of the tracks on syro were multi tracked into the computer , they were all recorded live to 2 track"

yeah, if there was some amount of wildness/unpredictability/'generative'/'modular-ish' aspect to his SYRO stuff, if it was all recorded to a stereo track, you'd hear it. the 'wildest' thing on SYRO is 180db_ lol*

1 hour ago, ignatius said:

i spoke to aaron funk some years ago and he said he's doing the same thing. perform the track and it's done. no mixing to worry about no edits etc. maybe do a few takes and keep the one liked best. said he hasn't used computer for music (other than as a clock source) for ages. 

yeah i've been doing that for a few years now. no computer except for 'mastering' and it's fuckin' great except when it sucks.

1 hour ago, Alcofribas said:

that's interesting. in the syrobonkers interview rdj indicates the mixing is done within the play of the system so it's being automated in real time. like, he could have just done this ITB but no:

But on things like the korg ps3200 and cs80 you can do near instant pgm chnges, and so u can make them like wavetable synths, cs80 looks especially awesome when you sweep all the presets back & fwd knight rider style while playing all the sounds consecutively.
Trouble is when you go to a diff pgm sound, u usually want to eq that differently, so in more recent traks after syro where ive used a lot of pgm changes ive bothered to route the output into an audio matrix switcher so when i switch programs the sequencer will simultaneously route the audio to another eq!

the cs80 bit sounds like he was playing with it in some interesting ways....but note he doesn't mention he actually used that. just that he did it....which is cool dont get me wrong and if he used it like that, definitely interesting i'm sure. 

the 'audio matrix switcher' being used to switch sequencers/eqs simultaneously and all...i mean, that's interesting production-wise, sure, but that's just using the hardware like it's designed to be used, basically. which is fine! but also more just RDJ being a cool producer not a cool sound/music creator or cool songwriter, yknow? just using a different eq on a synth for a different part of the song isn't 'pushing' anything in and of itself, imo.

1 hour ago, Alcofribas said:

that's interesting. in the syrobonkers interview rdj indicates the mixing is done within the play of the system so it's being automated in real time. like, he could have just done this ITB but no:

it'd probably 100x easier if he were to do that crazy pre-programmed sorta stuff ITB, maybe he'd spend more time making sure the songs fucking rocked instead of throwing duds half the time

 

edit: *or the birds in Aisatsana 

Edited January 26, 2021 by auxien

[fxbip]

Syro is the definition of fat synths.

The use of Analogue Hardware def has to do with it.

Analogue is not better than digital in itself but it sounds different and has its own tone which imo is fatter especially the bass synths and it's why people still use them and still pay fortunes for things like a CS80 or a Prophet 5.

It may not be better than Serum or Absynth 5 or whatever in ITSELF ,BUT it has its own sound that you cant get any other way and that VST certainly can't do as well.

Some other non analogue hardware synths and hybrid gear and sampler or mixers, compressors, FX units etc also have unique sounds. ( things like PPG, Fairlight samplers, digital synths with an analogue filter)

Basically you pay for one particular synth or piece of gear uniqueness.When they are rare you pay a lot. (GX-1 im looking at you!)

You absolutely don't need any of this gear to make good music but you need a CS80 to have the real CS80 sound, a real Prophet 5 to have the real Prophet 5 sound and a real Fairlight sampler to have the real Fairlight sound.And if you have the money and a gear fetish well there it is.And RDJ obviously has that tone fetish cause he seems to have one of the biggest synth collection on the planet.

RDJ doesn't just use hardware synths for no reason.He wouldn't get this exact sound without this gear.

The synths on Syro are fatter in timbre and tone than the things made on PC only.

It's a hardware synthesizer fetish album basically.

IMHO

Personally it musically arouses me greatly.

Edited January 26, 2021 by fxbip

[koolkeyZ865]

yeah but what about the sick beats

[fxbip]

Just now, mngosx said:

yeah but what about the sick beats

HAT on Xmas is pretty sick even if chill but yeah

I wouldnt mind a Renoise album eh! haha

[Alcofribas]

@auxien

 

i think i'm in basic agreement with you here for the most part, though there is a discrepancy between our ideas of what these setups are. ae's stuff involves what might be called "chance" or an indeterminate outcome which doesn't at all seem to appear in the end result of syro (though it certainly could be part of the creation of original material, i have no clue). but i don't think "generative" or "modular" systems are only to be understood as ones that produce unpredictable outcomes, i see them as more neutral conditions that can result in more mannered or stable results if the operator so desires. perhaps i should de-emphasize the term "generative" since it seems to imply specifically unpredictable outcomes - i was using it to mean how specific setups will "generate" unique characteristics which become part of what the track itself will be.

literally all i'm saying is that it appears that syro is what happened when rdj put together his own idiosyncratic systems of very specific hardware. i also think it's fair to speculate that among the processes taking place are modulations between different bits, though the result is not necessarily "fuckery." that you don't hear this connectivity is somewhat besides the point bc i don't think it's a universal rule that any time midi/cv pings a thing it must result in some kind of distinct perceptible outcome. syro is obviously a more "pop" version of the sort of thing he can do with this.

i think you are emphasizing the chance element whereas i'm curious about the meaning of the "setups" or individual "studios" that he's using and their role in the compositional process. if it was merely him making some tracks with different bits of kit i genuinely see no reason for him to talk about it in this way, otherwise he's just describing making electronic music with hardware. i mean, he is doing that but it seems he's trying to describe different states of mind and compositional outcomes directly related to unique studio setups and how he spent more time making individual tracks in this manner than making tracks on any other record - idk, seems like this goes beyond just he used cables to connect hardware.

he describes how he did different versions of cirklont6a using different gates triggering in different ways - sure, this is using hardware as it's designed to be used, no it's definitely not leaving things to chance, but for sure it indicates how he carefully setup precise networks of hardware working together and that is part of the composition of the music itself. he even describes it as "sounding like" the drawmer gate he used on the stereo bus compared to earlier versions. what i'd like to emphasize is how the entire composition comes to being once he presses play and everything is interacting in real time which is the end result of a very long process of building unique setups for each piece. otherwise yeah, he could just multitrack stuff and go back and change things ITB. it's interesting to me bc it's the classic approach to making electronic music pre-daw but it's on such a grand physical scale that can be constructed and deconstructed with a flexibility rivaling a daw in some respects. 

 

[fxbip]

by the way this is just wow

But on things like the korg ps3200 and cs80 you can do near instant pgm chnges, and so u can make them like wavetable synths, cs80 looks especially awesome when you sweep all the presets back & fwd knight rider style while playing all the sounds consecutively.
Trouble is when you go to a diff pgm sound, u usually want to eq that differently, so in more recent traks after syro where ive used a lot of pgm changes ive bothered to route the output into an audio matrix switcher so when i switch programs the sequencer will simultaneously route the audio to another eq!

crazy motherfucker hahaha

quite the process

 

[auxien]

8 hours ago, Alcofribas said:

literally all i'm saying is that it appears that syro is what happened when rdj put together his own idiosyncratic systems of very specific hardware.

yeah, i'm sure not disputing that. i'm just emphasizing that this is really no different than thousands upon thousands of studio sessions that have happened since the '50s. RDJ is just substituting the band players with programmed synths/drum machines/etc. RDJ isn't much different than hundreds of studio engineers/producers at this point (and this saddens me, truly).

Quote

i think it's probably quite similar to what ae are doing ITB ...creating custom "patches" where you're not just patching together individual modules like in a synth but entire instruments and effects and even recording channels to create a totally specific system to work within.

this is the original thing that doesn't track imo, obv in part because neither of us actually know the inner working of AE's Max setup nor AFX's home studio. but your language seems to be assigning some sort of specialness with some RDJ magic inherit to it, and i'm just trying to knock that down a little and remind that rock and electronica producers have been doing similar and many cases much more complex/interesting versions of these 'studio tricks' for like 60 years. all are interesting in their own right i'm sure, RDJ's included. but i don't hear anything particularly unique on SYRO/etc. i'm just here deflating that SYRO blimp, that's all 

 

Edited January 26, 2021 by auxien

[Extralife]

Hot take: Syro is his best album.

[Freak of the week]

1 hour ago, auxien said:

yeah, i'm sure not disputing that. i'm just emphasizing that this is really no different than thousands upon thousands of studio sessions that have happened since the '50s. RDJ is just substituting the band players with programmed synths/drum machines/etc. RDJ isn't much different than hundreds of studio engineers/producers at this point (and this saddens me, truly).

this is the original thing that doesn't track imo, obv in part because neither of us actually know the inner working of AE's Max setup nor AFX's home studio. but your language seems to be assigning some sort of specialness with some RDJ magic inherit to it, and i'm just trying to knock that down a little and remind that rock and electronica producers have been doing similar and many cases much more complex/interesting versions of these 'studio tricks' for like 60 years. all are interesting in their own right i'm sure, RDJ's included. but i don't hear anything particularly unique on SYRO/etc. i'm just here deflating that SYRO blimp, that's all 

 

You are aware of the fact that people were making their own hardware and software for automatic music production before Ae, right? So if we are gonna be honest Ae's approach is also not (that) special.

[auxien]

1 hour ago, Extralife said:

Hot take: Syro is his best album.

maybe!? it's pretty damned good.

Just now, Freak of the week said:

You are aware of the fact that people were making their own hardware and software for automatic music production before Ae, right?

... . . .  .   .     .   WHOA!

are you serious?

i thought they invented that.

1 minute ago, Freak of the week said:

So if we are gonna be honest Ae's approach is also not (that) special.

never said it was, did i?

[Alcofribas]

3 hours ago, auxien said:

yeah, i'm sure not disputing that. i'm just emphasizing that this is really no different than thousands upon thousands of studio sessions that have happened since the '50s. RDJ is just substituting the band players with programmed synths/drum machines/etc. RDJ isn't much different than hundreds of studio engineers/producers at this point (and this saddens me, truly).

this is the original thing that doesn't track imo, obv in part because neither of us actually know the inner working of AE's Max setup nor AFX's home studio. but your language seems to be assigning some sort of specialness with some RDJ magic inherit to it, and i'm just trying to knock that down a little and remind that rock and electronica producers have been doing similar and many cases much more complex/interesting versions of these 'studio tricks' for like 60 years. all are interesting in their own right i'm sure, RDJ's included. but i don't hear anything particularly unique on SYRO/etc. i'm just here deflating that SYRO blimp, that's all 

 

no, i'm definitely not claiming that rdj is the first to use the studio as an instrument lol. nor do i think he is breaking new ground by doing any of this. indeed, i'd even say that making that record was more like making a "proper" studio album than anything he's ever done, which is part of why i find it so fascinating. i think it is unique within his catalogue afaik in terms of its physical scale and i think it's obvious he got really into approaching tracks in this manner which i think it very cool. but yeah, i'm also a fan of rudy van gelder teo macero, toni vosconiti and i have heard of "the beatles" so i appreciate the many wonders that have been done before in studios. ofc i have no idea what's actually going on, it's just speculation, this was set into motion by people being curious about what the big deal was with patching a bunch of hardware and i figured i'd offer my thoughts on that customizable, changing connectivity on syro. 

it's not really important to me whether something is more complex or interesting than what someone else has done. i get that is part of the charm of aphex, how cutting edge his productions have been. but at this point on this board we can probably always take the approach of knocking down one artist's work because someone else did more complex stuff. i don't think "spirit of eden" or "laughing stock" were breaking new ground in studio history but they are absolutely beautiful examples of studio process and how those records came to be such unique albums for the band way down to the lighting and incense mark hollis insisted on using. the fact that richard might be treading ground other people have done/are doing is fine with me - there's still a craft involved and imo syro has some incredible moments where that craft really shines.

[Alcofribas]

i honestly think this sums it all up and i don't see how there can be disagreement on the matter.

On 1/21/2021 at 11:53 AM, Alcofribas said:

Aphex Twin: The Album

the man has set up his synths. they've been calibrated, their tuning procedures are in order. linked together by midi (or in some cases cv, or "cool voltage") they are set up so that when he presses "run" or "play" or "start" on his vintage Rolandos sequencer box what will transpire is music by Aphex Twin. for the most part, this is dance music, electronica, and is based on beats that he does on drum machines rather than real drums. one of his signature styles is how the beats will not just be a straightforward loop but they will have intricate fills and in some cases even display "fuckery" (this is largely done on the computer, sometimes even for a laugh on a laptop in the car with his mates). if all goes according to plan there will be a distinct sense of "wow, this is doing my head in" but balanced with an overall presence of lushness and emotions. the latter will entail feelings of melancholic nostalgia, a longing for something you can never have, but as well a feeling of inner peace and increased sense of depth to your being. there will be basslines which will often be "acid" and quite fast. rarely will there be a bass guitar, the listener can almost bet the bass will be "synth." as for equipment, well of course there will be the Rolands and the Korgs, this goes without saying. but Ricard will also be unable to help himself and will surely include some obscure synth no one else even has called something like the Logan Electrocomputer or Leopard Digitatrix 51 (rack mount). no one can truly say what these sound like but we suspect some of the lushness as well as the fuckery might be coming from these. the signal path will go through some high end channel strips such as SSL or Rubert Neve. he can afford such luxuries because he was a pioneer of Rave and featured on MTV. i've also heard rumors he was payed by madonna to do intricate background music for her practices in Kabbalah and Mysticism. richard does not believe in these Religious Arts but he supports the paths of Mystery in general and is suspicious of the secular world of conspiring politicians and corporations. of course, one or two "leads" will be performed on the EMS SYNTHI 100 which only jack dangers will be able to recognize and i am sure he will find these parts in particular quite agreeable. once the sequence is done, richar will likely go to his computer and bounce the mix to mp3 and bring this with him on a plane. he will of course leave it there in signature "for cash" fashion but because of Covid warp will not release 26 of these tracks due to disagreements with ric's refusal to follow safety protocols of the united kingdom of great britain. these will remain unreleased for years, decades even. no one will hear from rocard during this time. people will post online about the drum programming of "flim" and wonder what this great man is up to. meanwhile, he will be producing more tracks in the "aphex" style and will eventually release the many years old music on the internet over the course of several highly caffeinated "web sessions." fans will be so grateful and the press will document that this is taking place. he will write brief comments from time to time which will provide a sense that he is relatable to his fans and in some ways kind of like their friend. upon his death it will be learned that he has 100 million hours of unreleased music and elon musk will by the archive which he will launch into space so that it will perpetually orbit the planet earth playing into the permanent silence of outer space.

[auxien]

i made this i hope you like : ) : )

Sabirfocla.mp3

[Alcofribas]

lush

 

[auxien]

than k

[YEK]

To quote a new dmx krew interview

Quote

It’s not the kit. I mean I used loads of kit and the tracks would have sounded different with different kit, but they would still have been my versions of those songs. It’s what’s between the headphones that counts. That might be against the spirit of this feature but it’s what I believe. People are fetishising gear way too much. I can make a record on analogue synths or an MPC or Reason or Ableton.