Autechre Autechre - Oversteps (WARP210) [The MegaThread]

[khov]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc2q_46m6tQ

 

& he did not even received the vinyl yet !!!

[sysyphus]

that guy just goes on and on and on bish bosh? ding dang dong? WHAT IS HE EVEN SAYING

 

in other news, i've stopped listening to oversteps until bleep releases their files. i can't stand this low quality stuff, especially when you can TELL that there's things going on in the background. it's gonna be hard to stay away from known(1), oy!

Edited February 12, 2010 by sysyphus

[acroyear]

What the shizzle is wrong with that nizzle?

[thehauntingsoul]

Why do you guys keep goin on about bad quality? I was sent the 320 mp3's but I'm almost certain the original m4u file was 320 because it sounds leaps and bounds better than when I chopped it up in ableton and had to convert to 128. Like srsly, I can't see how listening to it at a semi-lossy quality could possibly spoil it. In my experience it's nearly impossible to tell the difference between 320 and flac anyways so I'm guessing about half of you who are holding out for the 'high quality' files are just doing so to be pretentious.

[Guest]

CROSSFADES

[berndspring1974]

not only the crossfades. it sounds too compact, the reverbs don't really work, no depth etc. compare the quaristice reverbs (maybe on plyphon) with the leaked oversteps sound.

Edited February 12, 2010 by panz0r

[Guest]

it's true, also the lo-fi previews on normanrecords sound more lush in a way...

[Guest]

or not?

[baph]

that guy just goes on and on and on bish bosh? ding dang dong? WHAT IS HE EVEN SAYING

 

in other news, i've stopped listening to oversteps until bleep releases their files. i can't stand this low quality stuff, especially when you can TELL that there's things going on in the background. it's gonna be hard to stay away from known(1), oy!

 

Motherfucker supported.

 

The sound quality is pretty pisspoor, Mr. Hauntingsoul. Obviously it'll sound even worse if you transcode it down to 128. The crossfades, if nothing else (oh yeah, the fucking file corruption) make this way too unsatisfying for me to approach and appreciate.

Edited February 12, 2010 by baph

[sysyphus]

i don't think it's a matter of being pretentious, it's a matter of getting the best sound quality for what you paid for. i have a pair of KRK8's, and i can remember the first time i played the cd version of quaristice over the speakers. it was a night and day difference from the leak. granted, most people listen to music on their $30 pair of headphones over their computer's built-in sound card. in that case, it won't matter what quality the source is. i don't mean to come off sounding like a deranged audiophile, but i strongly believe that autechre sets a precedent for sound quality that is rarely matched in today's music. and i KNOW there has to be more crazies on this board that agree.

 

edit: also, what panz0r said is right. listen to plyphon at high volume with studio monitors, and it's sort of like upgrading zelda's wooden sword to the master sword.

Edited February 12, 2010 by sysyphus

[baph]

I totally agree. I don't have a crazy audiophile set up by most standards, but I've got a really nice Apogee DAC with a great headamp stage and some pretty nice Sennheiser and Grado headphones and semi-decent studio monitors, and the Oversteps leak sounds incredibly. . . squashed and flat through all of them. Even stuff like sound staging, which is usually very impressive in Autechre's work (even Quaristice) sounds really dull. The sound design is pretty much ruined, and until I hear the physical/WAV copy sound this bad, I can't really believe that Autechre of all people would go this route with their sound.

 

Basically, it just seems like whatever captured the original audio feed wasn't really a very professional piece of equipment. It's not completely horrible, but it's really doing a disservice to some of the best aspects of Autechre-- and you can sort of tell those aspects are there, just not represented properly.

 

Edit: that's not to say that other people can't dig what they've got now; it's just not working for me.

Edited February 12, 2010 by baph

[baph]

Ah, fuck, I sound like a twat.

[kaini]

Why do you guys keep goin on about bad quality? I was sent the 320 mp3's but I'm almost certain the original m4u file was 320 because it sounds leaps and bounds better than when I chopped it up in ableton and had to convert to 128.

 

the m4a is very clearly transcoded to a higher bitrate than the one it was recorded at

[Guest wagon]

i have a feeling that the leak audio was captured from itunes with audio hijack or similar program, in some kind of effort to circumvent the watermarking

[thehauntingsoul]

Alright well I'll contend that I'm a bit of an audiophile too and would certainly prefer the higher quality rip, but in the mean time this is all we have and it is perfectly acceptable to tide me over until I get the wavs and the CD. Perhaps I just don't have a good enough sound system to notice the difference between >128 quality versus flac/lossless. My headphones seem to be good (skullcandy Ti's) and my speakers aren't great but they get the job done. The car is where I can notice the dip in quality the best. Perhaps it's time to invest in some better listening gear though.

[Guest]

My headphones seem to be good (skullcandy Ti's)

[baph]

Audiophile Party Foul

[thehauntingsoul]

My headphones seem to be good (skullcandy Ti's)

Hey now, man, I'm not made of money. Also, I've recently paid for my plane tickets to fly to the UK for the Brighton show, so it'll be a little while till I can even begin to plan to save for something like decent headphones.

[Guest rezz]

My headphones seem to be good (skullcandy Ti's)

Hey now, man, I'm not made of money. Also, I've recently paid for my plane tickets to fly to the UK for the Brighton show, so it'll be a little while till I can even begin to plan to save for something like decent headphones.

There are good headphones at the same price point, though. Grado makes what they call the "high-end of the low-end market" iGrados, and for just a bit more you can grab the SR60s which are (rightly) considered possibly the best headphones at the $80-100 range. AKG makes some nice ones and so does Sennheiser, all at around $50-60. Which I'm assuming is about what you paid for your Skullcandy phones.

Edited February 12, 2010 by rezz

[Guest bardamu]

i don't mean to come off sounding like a deranged audiophile, but i strongly believe that autechre sets a precedent for sound quality that is rarely matched in today's music. and i KNOW there has to be more crazies on this board that agree.

 

+1. I have a good room/decent speaker setup out here in the suburbs. Some krk6s too, but I rarely listen to music for pleasure on them. I used to think my sennheisers were the ultimate listening experience, but ae LOUD on a good system is 10x better, I think. The fascinating textures really come out when you can FEEL the air being moved! I'm dreading moving back into an apartment later this year.

[baph]

Yeah, the SR60s are kind of universally considered great entry level audiophile headphones. The Sennheiser PX100s are also cheap and good, and even more portable. Neither of them isolate, though. But closed headphones are usually pretty terrible until you get to the mid-to-high end Denons, although I've heard the Shure SRH440s are decent.

 

Obviously there's a lot of snake oil shat about at places like head-fi.org, but getting a nice clean source with decent amplification and decent headphones is really all you need. The payoff for stuff like Autechre is pretty huge, if you want Bine to sound like an alien winged multipenis tearing into your parietal lobe, which you TOTALLY DO.

Edited February 12, 2010 by baph

[Guest theSun]

if you want Bine to sound like an alien winged multipenis tearing into your parietal lobe, which you TOTALLY DO.

 

um duh how could that be undesirable?

[Guest Astroturf]

A Linn Classik into an old pair of SR-80s or some cheap but good speakers is the best sound quality available to me.

I use Sennheiser PX200s for travelling; I like the way they sound. Obviously you lose detail but it doesn't really overrepresent any part of the music.

 

My friends use WESC or Skullcandy headphones and the bass feels so crudely pumped up and muddy that it makes me want to vomit whenever I try them.

[jules]

 

 

edit: also, what panz0r said is right. listen to plyphon at high volume with studio monitors, and it's sort of like upgrading zelda's wooden sword to the master sword.

 

 

 

awesome.

[springymajig]

a lot of this album reminds me of gamelan music. which is not necessarily a bad thing.

I got that vibe too. Awesome thing is I'm attending a Gamelan workshop 8 days after the album's release. So pumped for that. March is gonna be one hell of a month.

 

Lucky!

 

The bamboo gamelan is possibly even more beautiful:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK_V-xnzakw

 

Personally I didn't get a gamelan vibe on Oversteps but certainly on Maphive6.1 and Gaekwad.