Aphex Twin break sample spotting/ID

[Guest Gloom Nox]

I hear you.

[Guest skibby]

aphex has historically layered a lot more than SP has, with regard to said break loops.

 

SP has had an apparrent affinity for the break loop, whereas AFX has shyed away from the aesthetic.

 

/opinion

[Ivan Ooze]

wtf is going on there in sweden

[Guest dylanmcknd]

I'm like 90% sure that RDJ uses this break on Rushup Bank 12 (first opening 10 seconds)

 

That's cock/ver10 right there.

Seriously.

[modey]

 

Did anyone figure out the break(s) in Polynomial-C? I thought it was a few breaks layered...

 

yeah mixture of little bops and hits, listening to the end part of the track, with just the break running, I can definitely hear snare slices of James Brown funky drummer in it.

 

Yes, but it's so much clearer here, which suggests that the layering may in fact not be RDJ's work:

[Guest skibby]

ok let me rephrase it, i personally remember SP using a lot of straight up break loops for extended periods of time, whereas i do not remember the same thing with AFX.

 

so my attempt was to contrast the styles and suggest that AFX hides his usage of break loops a little more.

 

*reaches for crack pipe*

[awepittance]

 

 

Did anyone figure out the break(s) in Polynomial-C? I thought it was a few breaks layered...

 

yeah mixture of little bops and hits, listening to the end part of the track, with just the break running, I can definitely hear snare slices of James Brown funky drummer in it.

 

Yes, but it's so much clearer here, which suggests that the layering may in fact not be RDJ's work:

 

yes i think some of the early breaks Aphex used were pre-layered by others, who i have no idea. I've heard the same loops in early Prodigy, Acen and other old school hardcore and rave music. I think Aphex uses a layered breakbeat (not originally made by him) in Didgeridoo. I could be absolutely wrong and it's his own break but I suspect not. These pre-layered breaks also had a brief popularity in stuff like Lords of Acid and other bad commercialized rave music of the early 90s (before it was re-marketed again as electronica) I only know this because i made the curious purchase of a 2xLP soundtrack to the hilarious movie Virtuosity

 

I'm less interested in identifying those ones. The ones that really appeal to me are the sort of amen sound alike ones, that have similar 'ping' to the snare and crash/ride cymbal use-age.

[awepittance]

 

I still think it sounds less compressed than a break.

that's because he uses a lot of single oneshots of the drumbreak on top/besides and together with the orginal break! that makes the beat seem a whole lot more "played" and improvized instead of just a simple retrigged loop of an old drumbreak... (and this whole "feel" & style are impossible to be made within the patterns of a drummachine, no matter how "complex" you program it. To get the beatstreet-beat you play stuff into a linear midi seq and edit and add stuff in the editor for this extreme detailed and lively beat...

 

exactly, it took me a while to realize and learn that the best way to use a break is this way. You can never get the same expression that Squarepusher or even Vibert does by simply using say 1/8th or 1/16th segments of a loop .

Recycle cuts down some of the work, but even Recycle gets it wrong a lot of the time and needs to be manually adjusted. The part in Recycle that makes it easy is when you export it does it in numerically ordered slices from beginning to end with a midi file. Abelton's drum-racks and slice to clip option tries to do the same thing but Recycle sounds about 2x tighter with better transient detection.

 

From there you would take that midi file and trigger a sampler with those slices across the chromatic keyboard. At first it often doesnt sound great, my technique is to quantize it straight 16th notes, and then if i want that more funky feel I'll re-add swing using midi instead of maintaining the swing of the original loop. This is how I believe Squarepusher did Beep street. They could all be one hit samples being 'played' with a drumachine or a daw sequencer. Either way he's virtually reconstructed the original break in midi form so that he can expressively manipulate and play it while still sounding somewhat like a live drummer

[psn]

Well, there's this interview where he mentions owning one at the time and using it for complex drum and bass patterns. I still think it sounds less compressed than a break.

 

SP used the Boss DR660 for sequencing those patterns, yeah. Not for sounds.

[ZoeB]

I think a lot of rave acts back in the day used a few (illegal) sample CDs. Not to mention Ultimate Breaks and Beats.

[joshuatxuk]

I think a lot of rave acts back in the day used a few (illegal) sample CDs. Not to mention Ultimate Breaks and Beats.

 

Yeah I was going to mention that. It was just how so many producers sampled and edited breaks back then. In fact, the availability of the original samples of the most famous breakbeats, especially in .wav, is quite a luxury now.

 

There's a thread in EKT where a watmmer was trying to find a breakbeat from a Global Goon track and actually got a hold of Global Goon via email, and he said that all of his breakbeats were sourced from a cassette RDJ used. I've always been under the impression that very few producers in the 90s sourced samples directly, and bootlegs and 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc generation copies were common. Hell, the "Tramen" break is a breakbeat standard in jungle and it actually samples 3 different songs. FSOL's classic "Papua New Guinea" sampled 4 different loops for it's distinct drum break,

 

One of the most noticeable traits of the frequent use of the Ultimate Breaks and Beats release and likewise copies of it, is the fact that the Amen Break was slowed down for that pressing. Most early uses of the Amen Break, especially in Hip-Hop tracks, were therefore based off a loop of it playing at 33 1/2 RPM and not 45. There's plenty of other examples, the most infamous and legally messy being when the Prodigy sampled from a Jedi Knights track (the break in question was the Apache break).

 

Also, I've noticed in a DJ set that RDJ segue "Cardboard Lamb" into S&F II's track "Factory" - the latter track samples the former. He seems quite apt at trainspotting samples himself. I can only imagine he has always been very self-aware of the samples he's used throughout his career.

[awepittance]

great post, yeah the last thing you say i've thought myself as well. I remember the opening track to I Care because you Do really wowed me the first time I heard it because it was using what sounded like a 'new' cutup drum break. Im still not sure if thats a chopped up loop or not, but what drew me to it is it sounded like he was intentionally trying not to sound like other people. I think the only other band i heard at the time that i dug who was equally as sample-concious was Meat Beat Manifesto, that guy uses a lot of obscure breaks. many of which i've never heard on anything else (just even his first 2 albums Armed Audio Warfare and Storm the studio)

[psn]

That's cock/ver10 right there.

 

Seriously.

 

 

[ZoeB]

Also, I've noticed in a DJ set that RDJ segue "Cardboard Lamb" into S&F II's track "Factory" - the latter track samples the former. He seems quite apt at trainspotting samples himself. I can only imagine he has always been very self-aware of the samples he's used throughout his career.

 

Yeah, it makes sense that he's conscious of that. I always thought that the third Melodies From Mars track sounded like a cross between the themes of Grandstand and Rainbow, which I would have shrugged off as a coincidence, except then I read here that he'd slipped the Grandstand theme into a DJ set, so clearly he does like that track. Though listening to them side by side, they don't sound that similar, so I'm not sure exactly what gave me that vibe originally...

 

Anyway, tracks sampling each other lend themselves well to being mixed in together, segueing to one another. It's just a shame people aren't making more completely original tracks, seeing as by definition the people making things are supposed to be fiercely creative and original... :)

[ZoeB]

I remember the opening track to I Care because you Do really wowed me the first time I heard it because it was using what sounded like a 'new' cutup drum break. Im still not sure if thats a chopped up loop or not, but what drew me to it is it sounded like he was intentionally trying not to sound like other people.

 

That's an important lesson to take from hackers (in the broader sense of people using things in ways they weren't supposed to be used): it doesn't matter so much what equipment you can afford or what samples you have, so much as if you have an ability to think laterally and use them in bizarre new ways. If anything, his music is good despite using some of the same equipment as other people, because he's doing such odd things with it all. Lots of people have samplers, but no one else has made anything close to, say, At the Heart of It All (at least, to my knowledge).

[Guest sonnyskare]

Both remixes of box energy samples this heavily (This might be relatively obvious I'm sorry if you guys already knew this);

 

Think 3.wav

[andihow]

 

anyone know the one that comes in at 3:20 in meltphace 6? such bootiful snares

[encey]

 

anyone know the one that comes in at 3:20 in meltphace 6? such bootiful snares

 

Could it be this?

 

[th555]

What about this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLlBPKjB1KY

2:20

IZ-US

[Herr Jan]

^ That track is from 2002?

[th555]

Then obviously Bowie sampled Aphex :D

[Ingwe]

those are live drums on the bowie track, not a sample.