Aphex Twin Failure Is an Option: Why Music Students Are Jealous of Aphex Twin

[karmakramer]

so you can't edit sequences?

 

Sure, but editing has been a standard part of compositional practice since the invention of notation. Maybe I'm missing your point..

 

record a load of busy sequenced analogues synths on tape

record the tape as hi res audio files

chop it all up on software

mix and match

 

my point being in the digital age its more about the spaces in between than what you throw on the canvas

 

if you dissect analord you'll find most of it is just short motifs all in the same key with the occasional offset hence why a load of apparently unreleased or rather new bonus tracks appeared which due to their familiar sound were obviously from the large library of audio snippets from studio sessions Mr J did a long time ago arranged into variations and new tracks

 

Do you think RDJ masterminded and preconceived the whole series on paper then painstakingly then meticulously programmed it all on an MC-8 without the help of any digital editing or rather complied a lot of cool sounding audio snipptes on his analogues when stoned in his studio then spent ages arranging and editing with his Mac later on his sofa with a good cuppa char?

no, i think he chained a bunch of things together and wrote individual patterns on them and then then fading things in and out on a mixing board, adding effects while recording a live mix... that's why youd have a bunch of different versions of the same thing cause youd do a bunch of different mixes once you've got the material there. and then then block editing.

 

that seems like a massively easier/more fun/obvious way to do it rather than just generating audio and then making music after the fact. if you were going to do it all after the fact on a computer it's not quite the same as doing a live mix/jam of stuff. surely that's the main difference between something like analord and all his digital-era stuff. analord seems pretty obviously a bunch of a small patterns on different things. pattern writing and then doing a live mix rather than linear writing from A to Z in the track. that's also what i think differentiates the tuss to my ears. if i was going to guess i'd say the "idea" of analord was mainly doing stuff as a live mix with a bunch of patterns on different gear. i think itd have less about being 'analogue' and more about that being different way of writing music - especially after doing the exactly opposite to that with drukqs i guess.

 

the tuss has a similarish sound to it i guess, but the mega main difference to my ears it sounds much more sequenced in a more macro way ie. writing a whole track from beginning to end and specifying every little event and change before the fact.

 

quality post

[Guest hahathhat]

yeah, analords don't seem very collage-y to me. seems like he programmed up the machines, did a few takes, then whittled it down a bit on the computer (if he did any computer editing at all).

 

i think soundwave is viewing the situation through his own compositional style. :)

[Guest Masonic Boom]

yeah, analords don't seem very collage-y to me. seems like he programmed up the machines, did a few takes, then whittled it down a bit on the computer (if he did any computer editing at all).

 

i think soundwave is viewing the situation through his own compositional style. :)

 

Absolutely. Analords is pretty much the least collagey and most straightforward sequenced back to basics stuff he's done in ages.

[sinesurfin]

yeah, analords don't seem very collage-y to me. seems like he programmed up the machines, did a few takes, then whittled it down a bit on the computer (if he did any computer editing at all).

 

i think soundwave is viewing the situation through his own compositional style. :)

 

Absolutely. Analords is pretty much the least collagey and most straightforward sequenced back to basics stuff he's done in ages.

 

But still a step forward in music. Its not like his old stuff.. its definitely evolved.

[Berk]

so you can't edit sequences?

 

Sure, but editing has been a standard part of compositional practice since the invention of notation. Maybe I'm missing your point..

 

record a load of busy sequenced analogues synths on tape

record the tape as hi res audio files

chop it all up on software

mix and match

 

my point being in the digital age its more about the spaces in between than what you throw on the canvas

 

if you dissect analord you'll find most of it is just short motifs all in the same key with the occasional offset hence why a load of apparently unreleased or rather new bonus tracks appeared which due to their familiar sound were obviously from the large library of audio snippets from studio sessions Mr J did a long time ago arranged into variations and new tracks

 

Do you think RDJ masterminded and preconceived the whole series on paper then painstakingly then meticulously programmed it all on an MC-8 without the help of any digital editing or rather complied a lot of cool sounding audio snipptes on his analogues when stoned in his studio then spent ages arranging and editing with his Mac later on his sofa with a good cuppa char?

no, i think he chained a bunch of things together and wrote individual patterns on them and then then fading things in and out on a mixing board, adding effects while recording a live mix... that's why youd have a bunch of different versions of the same thing cause youd do a bunch of different mixes once you've got the material there. and then then block editing.

 

that seems like a massively easier/more fun/obvious way to do it rather than just generating audio and then making music after the fact. if you were going to do it all after the fact on a computer it's not quite the same as doing a live mix/jam of stuff. surely that's the main difference between something like analord and all his digital-era stuff. analord seems pretty obviously a bunch of a small patterns on different things. pattern writing and then doing a live mix rather than linear writing from A to Z in the track. that's also what i think differentiates the tuss to my ears. if i was going to guess i'd say the "idea" of analord was mainly doing stuff as a live mix with a bunch of patterns on different gear. i think itd have less about being 'analogue' and more about that being different way of writing music - especially after doing the exactly opposite to that with drukqs i guess.

 

the tuss has a similarish sound to it i guess, but the mega main difference to my ears it sounds much more sequenced in a more macro way ie. writing a whole track from beginning to end and specifying every little event and change before the fact.

Yeah, I think he sort of made it like that as well. The tunes sound like they have been made that way. There's some edits though - for example when he reverses those drum hits and stuff - that look difficult to do live. It can be done live with a sampler though of course.

[o00o]

 

So the real difference between James and music students is that when making music, and working out which elements to keep and which to throw away, he seems to judge something's worth by how good it sounds, whereas they tend to judge it based on if it's "right" or not, something the listening and paying public doesn't care one iota about. If he wants something to sound scary, he's not afraid to break the rules in order to achieve that effect. If he wants something to sound pleasant, it may take him a little longer to work out how to do that, but he certainly gets there. And his music is never, ever bland. Sometimes painful, but never bland.

 

 

no the difference is that they want to go somewhere else because they know it would make no sense to become a second aphex twin and instead they go pop (which was the basis for aphex twins fame of today).

[soundwave]

yeah, analords don't seem very collage-y to me. seems like he programmed up the machines, did a few takes, then whittled it down a bit on the computer (if he did any computer editing at all).

 

i think soundwave is viewing the situation through his own compositional style. :)

 

Absolutely. Analords is pretty much the least collagey and most straightforward sequenced back to basics stuff he's done in ages.

 

or maybe he made it so it appears this way?

 

dont get me wrong I'm sure he had a general idea of the sort of track he wanted to do when he recorded the analogues and although some of the simpler tracks show signs of being done all in realtime (sudden sequencer stops with the decays/releases intact) you must be a little technically naive to think he did the more complex tracks in the fashion and make things harder for himself for no reason with the virtues of modern digital editing at his fingertips? Its just like a film director taking as many shot of an action sequence to give as many options as possible so ever intentional and unintentional moment is captured and can be arranged later.

Then again will we ever really know?

 

will we fuck LOL

[marf]

hi,

 

 

Aphex is user name panflet on analogue heaven. You will see there that he has a shitlaod of equipment..Not just an mc-8. He usues everything

[marf]

I would like to know how he makes the druqks stuff. The analod stuff is obvious. Im more interested in the more extensive sequencing. Probably cubase and pro tools or something with something like a volta contraption, nords and sample sets. Im guessing drukqs was done in this way

[o00o]

yeah, analords don't seem very collage-y to me. seems like he programmed up the machines, did a few takes, then whittled it down a bit on the computer (if he did any computer editing at all).

 

i think soundwave is viewing the situation through his own compositional style. :)

 

Absolutely. Analords is pretty much the least collagey and most straightforward sequenced back to basics stuff he's done in ages.

 

or maybe he made it so it appears this way?

 

dont get me wrong I'm sure he had a general idea of the sort of track he wanted to do when he recorded the analogues and although some of the simpler tracks show signs of being done all in realtime (sudden sequencer stops with the decays/releases intact) you must be a little technically naive to think he did the more complex tracks in the fashion and make things harder for himself for no reason with the virtues of modern digital editing at his fingertips? Its just like a film director taking as many shot of an action sequence to give as many options as possible so ever intentional and unintentional moment is captured and can be arranged later.

Then again will we ever really know?

 

will we fuck LOL

 

 

and this was 15 years ago!

[Cryptowen]

I would like to know how he makes the druqks stuff. The analod stuff is obvious. Im more interested in the more extensive sequencing. Probably cubase and pro tools or something with something like a volta contraption, nords and sample sets. Im guessing drukqs was done in this way

 

I think a lot of the Drukqs sounds were created by putting things inside his midi controlled piano & recording it with natural reverb (not just on the piano tracks, of course).

[ZoeB]

I would like to know how he makes the druqks stuff. The analod stuff is obvious. Im more interested in the more extensive sequencing. Probably cubase and pro tools or something with something like a volta contraption, nords and sample sets. Im guessing drukqs was done in this way

 

As far as the manic percussion in the Richard D. James Album, Drukqs and Rushup Edge goes, I think it has a lot to do with spending hours upon hours making painstaking edits in the piano roll of a software sequencer (or, at a pinch, tracker software :D ) and pretty much nothing to do with the equipment used. It just takes a lot of effort and patience, I think.

[TwiddleBot]

See, this is what I was afraid they'd be like. This is my own fault for writing something I don't know about (music lessons at universities). So most people here are saying they're better than I imagine, they give you good groundwork to build upon, and if I get this right, you're saying they're actually worse than I imagine, that they only teach out of date styles too?

 

This sounds about right from my limited knowledge of educational systems in general. I gather when I was in primary school, I learnt some dance on the side, and discovered that their idea of "modern" dance and mine were not exactly the same...

 

So do these places vary a lot, and which one you go to makes a big difference, or is it that they all teach ancient principles and everyone's got a different opinion on how much they apply to modern songwriting?

 

If I want to learn to write better music, is it worth me looking into anything formal or should I just read The Ravenspiral Guide and Alan Belkin's A Practical Guide to Musical Composition and have done with it?

 

Huh.. hard to answer this with a sound bite response so here goes..

 

Yeah, these places do vary a lot.. be sure to shop around. What you need to look for is a school that has a program you are completely interested in, and professors you like, when you check the places out, they aren't just interviewing you, you are interviewing them. Even within an institution a music department can vary wildly as most people seem to be singular in their musical interests--you'll have your classicalheads, jazz cats, etc.. I wanted to study modern and electronic composition when I went to uni and had to look all over Canada as most schools in this country teach that as a boring side dish at the undergrad level... but I did find two schools in Montreal (Concordia, McGill) that were more up my alley.

 

I mainly lucked out because I had a few good profs. When I was forced to retake music theory and thought I would be bored to tears, my theory prof luckily was a bit of a troublemaker. he'd come in and instead of playing motets would put on cds of ragas or techno and have us write rhythmic exercises.. i sat there each class trying to restrain my schadenfreude watching the (usually smug and elitist) classicalheads squirming uncomfortably. The thing is in two separate institutions I have attended, the electronic music students (and profs!) were the badass outcasts which was actually fun, you develop a bit of camaraderie along the way

 

To be clear I don't think educating yourself is ever a bad idea, it just depends on what you intend to get out of it. Some people really change after they learn music theory and I'm not sure why.. for me it was just an additional tool in my toolbox, more pattern recognition capability.. not a religious conversion. But if you just want to learn a bit of music theory, you don't really need to go to school, just find a good piano teacher (preferably one who knows some jazz theory as well so you will learn a bit of somewhat modern harmony and chord technique), as most can teach you a few levels of theory, and honestly, to learn theory properly you need another human who can correct your mistakes

[ZoeB]

Thank you, TwiddleBot, that was very useful.

[soundwave]

I would like to know how he makes the druqks stuff. The analod stuff is obvious. Im more interested in the more extensive sequencing. Probably cubase and pro tools or something with something like a volta contraption, nords and sample sets. Im guessing drukqs was done in this way

 

As far as the manic percussion in the Richard D. James Album, Drukqs and Rushup Edge goes, I think it has a lot to do with spending hours upon hours making painstaking edits in the piano roll of a software sequencer (or, at a pinch, tracker software :D ) and pretty much nothing to do with the equipment used. It just takes a lot of effort and patience, I think.

REX + cubase and a lot of spare time methinx

[soundwave]

yeah, analords don't seem very collage-y to me. seems like he programmed up the machines, did a few takes, then whittled it down a bit on the computer (if he did any computer editing at all).

 

i think soundwave is viewing the situation through his own compositional style. :)

 

Absolutely. Analords is pretty much the least collagey and most straightforward sequenced back to basics stuff he's done in ages.

 

or maybe he made it so it appears this way?

 

dont get me wrong I'm sure he had a general idea of the sort of track he wanted to do when he recorded the analogues and although some of the simpler tracks show signs of being done all in realtime (sudden sequencer stops with the decays/releases intact) you must be a little technically naive to think he did the more complex tracks in the fashion and make things harder for himself for no reason with the virtues of modern digital editing at his fingertips? Its just like a film director taking as many shot of an action sequence to give as many options as possible so ever intentional and unintentional moment is captured and can be arranged later.

Then again will we ever really know?

 

will we fuck LOL

 

 

and this was 15 years ago!

 

and most of that was for show as folk weren't as technically saavy back the and gigs were the best way to get your shit out there back then before the tinternet

 

RDJ is a studio artist and DJ

[ZoeB]

and this was 15 years ago!

 

Don't most people have less tangible synthesisers now, what with moving to softsynths for convenience? (Total recall, mmm.)

[Guest Masonic Boom]

and this was 15 years ago!

 

Don't most people have less tangible synthesisers now, what with moving to softsynths for convenience? (Total recall, mmm.)

 

Exactly. When it all happens inside a shiny silver box, who knows *what* is going on, it's all subject to our own interpretations & imaginations.

 

We've all seen this, right?

 

 

So we all know that all he actually does when he plays live is press "start" and play videogames on that thing for the next hour and a half, underneath the desk.

 

 

 

EDIT: oh wait, no, projection again. That's what *I* do at work...

[ZoeB]

We've all seen this, right?

 

I'm pretending I haven't. Guys look so dull with short hair. :(

[Guest theSun]

and this was 15 years ago!

 

Don't most people have less tangible synthesisers now, what with moving to softsynths for convenience? (Total recall, mmm.)

 

Exactly. When it all happens inside a shiny silver box, who knows *what* is going on, it's all subject to our own interpretations & imaginations.

 

We've all seen this, right?

 

 

So we all know that all he actually does when he plays live is press "start" and play videogames on that thing for the next hour and a half, underneath the desk.

 

 

 

EDIT: oh wait, no, projection again. That's what *I* do at work...

 

you play video games under a desk at work? sounds like a nice jorb

[Guest Masonic Boom]

We've all seen this, right?

 

I'm pretending I haven't. Guys look so dull with short hair. :(

 

One of these days I'll do a chart tabulating, like, Mr D.James's hair length with productivity output.

 

Just think about it... the last time he had short hair was that fallow period between Windowlicker and Drukqs. And then this recent period of non-productivity that he seems to be breaking (with live material at least) since growing it back.

 

Perhaps he is like the electronic music equivalent of Samson!

 

(Or perhaps when he's too busy making the musics he doesn't have time for anything so mundane as the care and cutting of his pretty hair...)

 

((Or perhaps, indeed, I have way too much time on my hands and need a better job where I don't spend all day playing videogames and mucking about on the internet and coming up with wacky theories.))

[karmakramer]

all of the above

[marf]

this thread has lost the plot. Its turned into every other aphex wank fest of miss communication. How does he makes the crazy beats? Piano roll and patience. Um, that wasn't the question. It was nice to know that he doesn't stick to music theory guidelines and changes keys and stuff, that was interesting, the rest can be chucked out.

[marf]

the trick with this kind of music is how you get midi, cv, din sync, and many others. All these different proprietary syncing mechanisms to keep time together. Its not easy to control these beasts. They all want to go their separate ways. The guy at innerclock can tell you. Drukqs I'm sure is not all in the box. As soon as you introduce another system like CV with Midi you have a challenge of timing. How he stops and starts patterns. Ive always been amazed at how much control aphex has over his music. Thats all really.

[karmakramer]

he maintains his intent by adapting the tech to his needs