Aphex Twin Aphex Twin's mixing process/tools

[Adieu]

is it possible that there were internet knowledge bases in the 90's where he might have picked up some experience as an engineer?

 

Sound engineer? Probably. Electrical Engineer? He went to school for and supposedly finished according to wikipedia, but other stories I've read he dropped out.

[Guest skibby]

Yes, I do mean audio engineer. there is quite a lot to learn, a very steep learning curve really. and at the very least, one has to know someone who knows a professionally trained audio engineer to do any audio at all. Audio just won't work at all without the cooperation of AES and the IEC.

[Ragnar]

I think he makes his own synths using one of those radio shack circuit board learning

 

edit: this http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2102914

[ZoeB]

Judging by how harsh his first few albums sound, including nasty clipping, I'd say he's self taught at most of this stuff. It took him a long time to steadily progress his skills from quirky-interesting-outsider-art to well-produced-great-music, and the music was good a long time before the mixing was. As it should be.

[CharlesWatkins]

i thought he went to art school

[marf]

I have no idea what he did use, and don't think it particularly matters. I know various ways you could achieve the effect, so I'm happy. Maybe he didn't program the track into a DAW and play it over MIDI, but if not, it probably took much longer to make than it needed to, for a barely perceptible timing improvement.

 

If you want some good TR-808 style sounds, I'd recommend the Analogue Solutions modules for their versatility (eg the SD88's decay knob). Whether he used those here, I have no idea. The noise sounds to me like a Doepfer A-117, but then again you can achieve a similar effect with Thor, or for that matter, using sample and hold.

 

im just intrigued at how you can fit different xox sequencers in a track and make it feel intentional. i think perhaps start/stop triggering is the way to go if you dont want to put it all in the box, ie..sample everything; there are people that think you cant really sample the 808.

 

i talked with an engineer who worked with richard and he said rich was playing a 909 from an rs7000 via midi. On what tracks who knows

[Adieu]

 

I have no idea what he did use, and don't think it particularly matters. I know various ways you could achieve the effect, so I'm happy. Maybe he didn't program the track into a DAW and play it over MIDI, but if not, it probably took much longer to make than it needed to, for a barely perceptible timing improvement.

 

If you want some good TR-808 style sounds, I'd recommend the Analogue Solutions modules for their versatility (eg the SD88's decay knob). Whether he used those here, I have no idea. The noise sounds to me like a Doepfer A-117, but then again you can achieve a similar effect with Thor, or for that matter, using sample and hold.

 

im just intrigued at how you can fit different xox sequencers in a track and make it feel intentional. i think perhaps start/stop triggering is the way to go if you dont want to put it all in the box, ie..sample everything; there are people that think you cant really sample the 808.

 

i talked with an engineer who worked with richard and he said rich was playing a 909 from an rs7000 via midi. On what tracks who knows

 

 

On analogue heaven he said it was better to sample the drum sequence rather than single hits if I recall correctly.

[ZoeB]

He did indeed. He also talks about flanging by using two TR-808s simultaneously. (I'm guessing he does this with TR-909s too, which would explain that bit in one of the Bodmins.)

[Ragnar]

probably a lot of 303's controlling other synths like that pikacid video I posted once

[Guest skibby]

has he ever used windows? it's always had the lions share of audio software development.

[Audioblysk]

has he ever used windows? it's always had the lions share of audio software development.

in live shows up till about the mid to late-2000's he always used lil pc laptops or at one time a viao.

 

who knows, something tells me the dude has quite a bit of gear in most every department. Wouldn't you?

 

I bet he used the shit out of the system 700... mmm dat sequencer.

[Guest skibby]

i have been trying to study Aphex Twin's production techniques on Drukqs. So I tried to make a copy of Vordhosbn.

https://soundcloud.com/zhaozhou/vordhosbn-cover-a-few-days

[Lane Visitor]

i have been trying to study Aphex Twin's production techniques on Drukqs. So I tried to make a copy of Vordhosbn.

 

https://soundcloud.com/zhaozhou/vordhosbn-cover-a-few-days

 

dude, this is really nice! great replication of the orignal! must have taken forever.. even the space, panning, tone is pretty close. wow im impressed.

[awepittance]

nice cover, sounds pretty close. The only thing overtly missing are the tight glitches he does through out the track. at 3:22 I hear it a little bit. The synths are missing a little bit of twiddling action as well. overall good job though.

[ZoeB]

Wow. Nicely done!

[awepittance]

i heard he used a DX21 or something similar on the come to daddy EP (and possibly other stuff)

 

what did he use in terms of FM? surely he had a DX7 or two, right?

I always just assumed that he was very computer centric at this time, and if there were FM synths being used on Come to Daddy they came from Max/msps FM objects, the same ones that Autechre were so fond of during LP5 and EP7. Funny Little Man especially sounds like one of his most software centric later songs besides Windowlicker, the autotuning in it pre-existed antares though so he could have been using a pitch stepper on somehting like an eventide fx unit for the voice (funny little man)

[ZoeB]

One thing that took me absolutely ages to notice is how the distorted bass drum and bassline are actually the same instrument, it's just a question of how long the note's held down.

[Guest skibby]

i'm pretty sure he used the boss dr770, cause i kept finding convenient matches, and im not sure how old the mda soft synths are but the jx10 seemed to create the pad sound almost without teaking any knobs. i kept wishing i was using sonic foundry acid for the quantisation... i was wishing hard that blood overdrive functioned in my DAW but it does not... (i suspect that was used somewhere...) i'm still not finished cause it still sucks compared to the original. its an epic battle versus lazy and it does cost quite a lot of time to do this. but its for science.

[MisterE]

great cover, skibby!

[awepittance]

<p>one thing that really impresses me about Aphex all around and that very few of his imitators (or any other electronic musicians for that matter) do is effect drums in ways that compliment or even create the melody. The way he comb filters the acid lines and breaks in the monkey drummer song (forgot which drukqs song this is) are fucking amazing. It's the familiar Drukqs 'buzzsaw' effect.  Its just so tastefully done and sounds great. At one point I think it might have been EOD posted his own re-masterings of a bunch of unreleased AFX tracks (including Rushup bank 12 and synthecon before they came out) and one of them just sounded like a really bad ass breakbeat comb filter jam, it was a pisstake but it sounded really goddam good. Anybody have a copy of that track still? Fairly short, and just a crazy modulated delay/stutter in an RDJ style. <br />

<br />

edit: I should clarify that he doesn't only do this to drums, in Monkey drummer it sounds like he's doing comb filtering on the acid line that sounds musically matched with the acid line melodies. <br />

<br />

[awepittance]

i'd be interested to find out what he used in this also

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9XxVdZLyp4

it has that familiar trademark semi phased sounding almost FM like acid bassline. I think there was a discussion here a while back on this patch he's used on a bunch of tracks. IT makes appearances in Hangable Autobulb 1 and on Confederation Trough

[Guest skibby]

i'd be interested to find out what he used in this also

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9XxVdZLyp4

 

it has that familiar trademark semi phased sounding almost FM like acid bassline. I think there was a discussion here a while back on this patch he's used on a bunch of tracks. IT makes appearances in Hangable Autobulb 1 and on Confederation Trough

thats brilliant sounding, thanks for that.

also, yeah thats an fm bass i think. i especially like the 'new' style that's being used to sort of "strum" or "scrub" these fm-y sounds. let me see if i can pull up an example:

 

from 2:07

[awepittance]

that track sounds more like Monolith than the Tuss, isn't that a fake?

[Plarkreluke Banloboh]

<p>one thing that really impresses me about Aphex all around and that very few of his imitators (or any other electronic musicians for that matter) do is effect drums in ways that compliment or even create the melody.

Yeah, great point. He seems to have such skill with pitched element in percussive sounds and noise. Through comb filtering but also in reverbs and I reckon he uses a vocoder as a subtle dub effect on reverbs (in addition to the more obvious vocal vocodering). The more aharmonic the source sound is though, the more that pitched element is going to dissonant, or subjectively harmonic if you like, so I doubt he would think in terms of 'does the way this reverb is effected fit the scale of this part of the song?' He's probably just good at listening and tweak knobs to find those sweat spots.

[Plarkreluke Banloboh]

*sweet spots