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So lets analyse Richards Studio


o00o

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Possibly the most current image we have (from 2011 sonar promotion article)

 

sonar_intro1.jpg

 

 

 

wLnMr.jpg

 

this is a pretty old picture. I see a 2 keyboards one looks like an MS-20, some very large speakers and something that looks like atari? What else? What era is that from? SAW period? later? earlier?

 

This is where I took it from:

 

HBMsX.jpg

 

This shines more light on the blurry image (thx ZoeB):

 

I thought it was about time I wrote to the entire group about my connections with the ApheX tWin - as I continually get sent individual requests for information. Ahhh! Richard (AFX) James has been producing music since he was 12 - I have seen him.

 

He worked in his bedroom in a modern bungalow in Lanner, Cornwall. His setup was bizarre to say the least. Casio FZ10M, DX-100 (missing keys'n'all), SH-101, Quadraverb, Atari 520ST with bust keyboard(!), odd keyboards, bits of old electrical equipment, 8+ turntables, one borrowed mixer(!), bits of audio gear (all cleverly balanced on some lucozade cans, hand-sprayed JBL's suspended from ceiling by industrial strength chain. The list continues...

 

Digeridoo was recorded initially for the benefit of FIZZ-BOMB (at the Shire Horse, St Ives, Cornwall). He DJ'ed with my brother (Tom) both here and at the Bowgie Inn (Crantock, Newquay, Cornwall) - not to mention the numerous beaches around the county. The original Pacman (never released) was recorded off an arcade machine in Newquay

 

The original is 100x better than the choci remix on yellow vinyl. AFX released several of his original recordings on Rephlex Records, London - indeed, Richard himself resampled bits for R+S from these Rephlex Records (or that what it sounds like on the R+S release).

 

Richard now lives in Islington, London, and continues to do work for Rephlex Records (under the name Caustic Window). His first record was a joint project with himself and my brother for Mighty Force Records (Exeter, Devon) - the Analogue Bubblebath EP (En Trance to Exit was Tom's idea!). Tom continues to do work for Mighty Force (he had his Schizophrenia - My Splendid Idea released by them). Tom now works with Mark Pritchard (formerly SHAFT - Rhubarb + Custard) on Evolution Records (run by Tom and Mark). This new label has gained alot of respect in London (indeed their latest release Global Communication - Sublime Creation has received a 5 * rating in MixMag. Just goes to show that good music

 

This is also pretty well known:

 

3189335574_ff64c70952_o.jpg

Edited by o00o
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I only know the beginning and the end of his collection. That and he apparently misses his DX-1. You'd be better off focusing on making your own music than speculating about what someone else uses to make his, of course. It's all in the fingers and brain, not the boxes.

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I only know the beginning and the end of his collection. That and he apparently misses his DX-1. You'd be better off focusing on making your own music than speculating about what someone else uses to make his, of course. It's all in the fingers and brain, not the boxes.

 

Where is that from???

 

sonar_intro1.jpg

 

i have never seen it before

Edited by o00o
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Where is that from???

 

Rockdelux published it on their website. I have no idea if it's an official publicity photo that gets given to magazines, or if it originates from an interview or something.

 

10 korg ps-3300s

 

In all fairness, the Korg PS-3300 does look quite nice... It's a real bugger playing chords one note at a time and multitracking it, and I've grown accustomed to modular levels of flexibility. Something like that would be pretty neat for laying the odd pad into a mix.

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Oh, I can wait! :D Although I'm still tempted to save up and get a Continuum Fingerboard and CVC, eight oscillators, four mixers, four filters and four attenuators... Although that's arguably going completely overboard, it would be very expressive. I bet it'd be more reliable than, say, a Yamaha CS-80, and still cheaper than a Korg PS-3300... But yeah, we'll call it a long term goal after I've licensed out a lot more music. :)

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I only know the beginning and the end of his collection. That and he apparently misses his DX-1. You'd be better off focusing on making your own music than speculating about what someone else uses to make his, of course. It's all in the fingers and brain, not the boxes.

 

I am totally into that as studio time can also be rented. There is no need in owning all that stuff. I know many who instead of learning to play some instrument and to understand how harmonics really work did buy lots of stuff instead. As it is much easier to just buy something than learn something. They think they can buy fame and all is just hardware and one day a finger comes down from heaven pointing at them as the chosen one lol

 

Aphex said recently its 90% hard work and 10% inspiration. You can do better music with just a guitar if you know how to play it well than most of these rich guys sitting on tons and tons of equipment. Sure if you can play its awesome to have great equipment but then you do not need to show this all the time as people will just appreciate the music as it is.

 

Also there is much about promotion and networking. What helps even when you have great tunes and nobody knows about them. In that case some picture like this helps for sure but it does not help a bad tune become a good one

Edited by o00o
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I am totally into that as studio time can also be rented. There is no need in owning all that stuff. I know many who instead of learning to play some instrument and to understand how harmonics really work did buy lots of stuff instead. As it is much easier to just buy something than learn something. They think they can buy fame and all is just hardware and one day a finger comes down from heaven pointing at them as the chosen one lol

 

Aphex said recently its 90% hard work and 10% inspiration. You can do better music with just a guitar if you know how to play it well than most of these rich guys sitting on tons and tons of equipment. Sure if you can play its awesome to have great equipment but then you do not need to show this all the time as people will just appreciate the music as it is.

 

Also there is much about promotion and networking. What helps even when you have great tunes and nobody knows about them. In that case some picture like this helps for sure but it does not help a bad tune become a good one

 

True words indeed. It's best to have some equipment, and also knowledge about how to compose, how to wire up patches, how to produce and so on. At least, in my experience it helps to learn a bit of everything, unless you want to specialise in one area and team up with other people who specialise in the other areas. And, of course, you need to practice a lot. And you're right, all too often people want a quick fix instead of doing hard work. Buying equipment instead of learning and practicing is certainly quicker and takes less effort. Although if you factor in how you earn the money, it's probably wiser to spend your time doing a job you love like making music on cheap equipment than doing a job you don't in order to get that money in the first place, to buy nicer equipment you don't have the time to learn properly. So perhaps that's a false economy there too. But regardless of that, people will still rather listen to someone with talent and enthusiasm and a real love of what they're doing and constant eagerness to learn more, than someone who bought some expensive equipment and mucked around on it for a bit. This is just a flaw of the brain though. It's the same thing that leads to fad diets when everybody knows they need to eat healthy food and exercise a bit, and to the lottery when how much money you make (let alone have the restraint to keep) isn't as important as what you spend your time doing to earn it.

 

And yes, learning to promote yourself and your music is also important. No one will come to you if no one's heard of you, because it's not worth anyone's time to scour obscure places looking for talented musicians no one's heard of. Once your music's good enough, show it to people and get jobs making more of it and licensing it out. Become a useful part of other people's teams, working on their projects with them. Contribute to the economy and culture of society by doing what you love. You become what you constantly think about. That can be a fan or a collector or a hobbyist or a professional.

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I am totally into that as studio time can also be rented. There is no need in owning all that stuff. I know many who instead of learning to play some instrument and to understand how harmonics really work did buy lots of stuff instead. As it is much easier to just buy something than learn something. They think they can buy fame and all is just hardware and one day a finger comes down from heaven pointing at them as the chosen one lol

 

Aphex said recently its 90% hard work and 10% inspiration. You can do better music with just a guitar if you know how to play it well than most of these rich guys sitting on tons and tons of equipment. Sure if you can play its awesome to have great equipment but then you do not need to show this all the time as people will just appreciate the music as it is.

 

Also there is much about promotion and networking. What helps even when you have great tunes and nobody knows about them. In that case some picture like this helps for sure but it does not help a bad tune become a good one

 

True words indeed. It's best to have some equipment, and also knowledge about how to compose, how to wire up patches, how to produce and so on. At least, in my experience it helps to learn a bit of everything, unless you want to specialise in one area and team up with other people who specialise in the other areas. And, of course, you need to practice a lot. And you're right, all too often people want a quick fix instead of doing hard work. Buying equipment instead of learning and practicing is certainly quicker and takes less effort. Although if you factor in how you earn the money, it's probably wiser to spend your time doing a job you love like making music on cheap equipment than doing a job you don't in order to get that money in the first place, to buy nicer equipment you don't have the time to learn properly. So perhaps that's a false economy there too. But regardless of that, people will still rather listen to someone with talent and enthusiasm and a real love of what they're doing and constant eagerness to learn more, than someone who bought some expensive equipment and mucked around on it for a bit. This is just a flaw of the brain though. It's the same thing that leads to fad diets when everybody knows they need to eat healthy food and exercise a bit, and to the lottery when how much money you make (let alone have the restraint to keep) isn't as important as what you spend your time doing to earn it.

 

And yes, learning to promote yourself and your music is also important. No one will come to you if no one's heard of you, because it's not worth anyone's time to scour obscure places looking for talented musicians no one's heard of. Once your music's good enough, show it to people and get jobs making more of it and licensing it out. Become a useful part of other people's teams, working on their projects with them. Contribute to the economy and culture of society by doing what you love. You become what you constantly think about. That can be a fan or a collector or a hobbyist or a professional.

 

The job thing is a good point. The artist makes music and by being successful with it he gets money to buy better equipment. If you just do something else to get to this point than doing music you are kind of cheating. Its the same dilema you can get into with pirated / free music software. Instead of a natural learning curve you start top to bottom what makes you completely unable to handle it.

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The artist makes music and by being successful with it he gets money to buy better equipment. If you just do something else to get to this point than doing music you are kind of cheating.

So if you buy good equipment but are not successful you are cheating? Do I also have to be a successful race car driver to buy a nice car? Do I have to be a world class chef to buy a nice piece of meat?

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The job thing is a good point. The artist makes music and by being successful with it he gets money to buy better equipment. If you just do something else to get to this point than doing music you are kind of cheating. Its the same dilema you can get into with pirated / free music software. Instead of a natural learning curve you start top to bottom what makes you completely unable to handle it.

 

Yeah, I wouldn't go as far as to call it cheating, but I'm very proud of the fact I've bought my current synthesiser using money earned from licensing out and selling my music. If you start with lesser tools to do the job with, it can sometimes help in interesting ways, too. Learning to use four track tape recorders before sixteen track ones helps you to be economical with what you lay down to each channel, for example, although I for one am very grateful to live in an age where I can have practically unlimited tracks.

 

At any rate, it's much more beneficial to make do with what you have than to pine for what you don't have.

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The artist makes music and by being successful with it he gets money to buy better equipment. If you just do something else to get to this point than doing music you are kind of cheating.

So if you buy good equipment but are not successful you are cheating? Do I also have to be a successful race car driver to buy a nice car? Do I have to be a world class chef to buy a nice piece of meat?

 

perfect example actually. If you just buy a professional race car and instantly start driving the formula 1 you will loose. If you start small you will eventually become better and over time win. Same with meat. If you just buy some very expensive meat but do not have any knowledge from before how to cook it perfectly it will taste much worse than it could.

 

sure you can buy both for your own please but do not expect to become the same as a professional in the field instantly just by owing it. same with some expensive piano. sure you can buy that and have fun with it for yourself but then you are not buying it to become a piano legend instantly thats what many people do not understand. they think they can archive that by just buying in.

 

On the other hand you are right good equipment helps a lot if you know how to use it but it will not magically turn your bad skills into good ones

Edited by o00o
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perfect example actually. If you just buy a professional race car and instantly start driving the formula 1 you will loose.

What you've done is just use a gross exaggeration to defend your point. 99.99999% of the world's population will will lose the formula 1 no matter how good a driver they are, so your point is pointless.

 

My point is that people are free to buy whatever level of stuff they want, not need, and suggesting they have to be successful before they spend a more than little amount of cash on something decent is backwards thinking and kind of smacks of jealousy towards somebody who can afford something you can't.

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perfect example actually. If you just buy a professional race car and instantly start driving the formula 1 you will loose.

What you've done is just use a gross exaggeration to defend your point. 99.99999% of the world's population will will lose the formula 1 no matter how good a driver they are, so your point is pointless.

 

My point is that people are free to buy whatever level of stuff they want, not need, and suggesting they have to be successful before they spend a more than little amount of cash on something decent is backwards thinking and kind of smacks of jealousy towards somebody who can afford something you can't.

 

sure they are but they will not by buying become instantly as good as the artist without gaining as much experience first. But many people do indeed assume this. like they could buy fame.

 

pictures like the one above suggest that if you had this equipment you are 50% there. Its just not true as it is not true to win the formula 1 by just buying a formula 1 car. the actual experience you gained over years and the work that is actually put into a result has much more impact than just the equipment used even more in unskilled hands

Edited by o00o
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Calm down, you're talking at crossed purposes. Yes, Rbrmyofr, people can buy whatever they like, even if they don't want to invest the time to learn to use those things well, and that's a great freedom to have. And yes, o00o, buying some very high quality tools to do a job is only a good idea after learning enough of your craft to make use of them more than you'd make use of their budget equivalents. You're both right.

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