PEN EXPERS

[Guest quadramoray]

I'm more of a lentic catatchresis person, myself.

[kaini]

your use of fontage shows that you are different and interesting

[Guest]

Pen Expers is the very <i>idea</i> that an MP3, 7:10 in length, could be perfect.

What about aac, vorbis, mpc, etc.? Lossless - flac, tak, wavpack ... ;)

 

Pen Expers is a piece of history, telling you that, even though modern music is mostly shit, someone will make a perfect piece of music, and sell it, no matter how horrible it initially sounds.

Yes.

 

Pen Expers is absoloutely, mind-bendingly, ear-poppingly fucking AMAZING.

That is all.

Oh yes. One day, Pen Expers (don't forget Lentic Catachresis) will be remembered as the thing which made all world Religions unnecessary.

Edited December 21, 2009 by Guest

[Salvatorin]

HELL YES GOVERNOR

[AJW]

good song

[Sam]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HciB3SMwGqU

 

Have to say, on first listen, i thought 3:58 was verrrrry cheeky of bibio.

[ignatius]

necro bump for Pen Expers appreciation.  just played this in the studio and hadn't listened intently in a while. when the synths start coming in and out and in and out wtf.. if i focus on the synths and that wee bass line in there i get a little dizzy for a sec. 

great tune. 

[kausto]

When i got boss rsd10 and was messing with its pitch input i found that Pen Expers was made like this:

Oberheim DX -> RSD10 -> Y-Cable -> RSD10 Pitch Input

                                                             \  > Mix

[ooqpoo]

What's the story behind the title, skilled at using pens?

[jules]

it’s just an expresen...

[GAK]

On 2/12/2020 at 6:22 AM, kausto said:

When i got boss rsd10 and was messing with its pitch input i found that Pen Expers was made like this:

Oberheim DX -> RSD10 -> Y-Cable -> RSD10 Pitch Input

                                                             \  > Mix

drums sounds like Casio RZ-1, but could be wrong due heavy processing... ODX isn't that gritty imho

[Amen Lare]

17 hours ago, GAK said:

drums sounds like Casio RZ-1, but could be wrong due heavy processing... ODX isn't that gritty imho

I recall Sean Anthony attributing that track to DMX drum machine hacked (not his exact word) in some way. Can't find the exact quote.

On 2/15/2020 at 10:06 PM, ooqpoo said:

What's the story behind the title, skilled at using pens?

I won't find it either, but there was an old Max/MSP forum discussion on Autechre methods circa Confield and Sean Anthony came there pissed and wrote something along the lines of "does it really matter which type of pen was used to write a suicide note". So it may be a jab at those who loved to attribute their sound to particular programming environment. Maybe a coincidence!

[fizzkinz]

45 minutes ago, Amen Lare said:

I recall Sean Anthony attributing that track to DMX drum machine hacked (not his exact word) in some way. Can't find the exact quote.

Around the 8min mark in this interview he says Pen Expers was made with a minidisc and pausing a DMX drum machine: 

 

[oscillik]

That was only for the "weeeeeeOOOOOWwooooooo SPONG" bit at the beginning, tho

[cern]

How can u make music with a minidisc? 

[EXTRASUPER81]

On 8/20/2021 at 2:02 PM, fizzkinz said:

Around the 8min mark in this interview he says Pen Expers was made with a minidisc and pausing a DMX drum machine: 

 

Damn never heard this!

[Soloman Tump]

On 8/20/2021 at 3:39 PM, cern said:

How can u make music with a minidisc? 

Same way you do with a tape or CD.  Sampling, playback manipulation, skipping, glitching....

[usagi]

peen experts

[EXTRASUPER81]

On 8/20/2021 at 3:39 PM, cern said:

How can u make music with a minidisc? 

It's cos there's no time between tracks, so say you cut up a break into separate tracks, then shuffle, it will play them concurrently. I think. That was (somewhat, although Seam says it has a flow when played in the standard way) the idea behind the Gescom Minidisc release.

[fizzkinz]

I just have a hard time believing the drum pattern is just some samples on random shuffle 

I mean, I may be wrong, but I just struggle to believe it

[zlemflolia]

>they calculated advanced mathematical curves to approach deep cosmic ratios

>no you idiot they clearly used psychoacoustic analysis to calculate the beat pattern most likely to sound that way

>are you kidding me? if you don't realize how obvious it is that that's a multi-dimensional fractal poisson emission, you're clearly just new to ae

sean: we just hit shuffle on the minidisc and it sounded cool

[toaoaoad]

I'd guess that they probably generated a bunch of material from the minidisc but then still edited it into the (relatively) coherent beat that it is now. I think the minidisc shuffle idea is brilliant but yeah I don't think it would generate such an even beat (consider the placement of the snares etc), unless they had set up parameters to make it work out that way - which is possible but borders on "generative" which he's saying it isn't. I'm guessing more of a randomness -> controlled kind of process. Also that interviewer needs to stfu and stop talking over Sean, pls. 

Anyway Pen Expers is one of my top Ae tracks of all time. Legendary and unrivalled even today. One of the main tracks I've ever used to try to introduce people to them, it was on all my friends' mixtapes in highschool lol

[auxien]

2 hours ago, fizzkinz said:

I just have a hard time believing the drum pattern is just some samples on random shuffle 

I mean, I may be wrong, but I just struggle to believe it

it wouldn't have to be drum patterns arranged on a random shuffle, it could be drum patterns on a well-defined playlist. 'programming' a song like that seems a bit tedious maybe but also they've also done shit like write the entirety of Maphive on this tiny thing:

 

[toaoaoad]

^ those piano pitchbends on Maphive (another alltime favourite)

[cern]

Sean: Pen Expers was made with a minidisc and pausing a DMX drum machine.. I could go on but it's like dead interesting. 

FANS: This is the most interesting! Lolz