AAA - Ask Autechre Anything - Sean and Rob on WATMM!

[Sean Ae]

i've noticed recently in your music there is a 'fractal' like quality to some of the sound manipulation.

 

for example those high end pad sounds on Y7, the bassline sound on Treale and most recently that twirly little white noise sound in Osla for n. Was this a conscious decision to somehow create an audible sound that conveys a fractal pattern?

Have you ever attempted to use a shepard tone like LFO controller to control parameters of sounds/synths/effects?

 

I'd love to hear a track of yours which is a bare sound in this vein, like some kind of barber-pole shepard tone drone AE track.

 

edit: and side question, what's your favorite thing to make a tuned/melodic delay on? Nord? they seem to be particularly good for that. Glad to see this sound making a come back on tracks like Spl9 and Tac Lacora.

 

there's some shepard stuff on that .dial track off gg (u prob noticed already tbh it's pretty obvious)

 

ha well if i do anything like that i'll fire it over

 

i've been using msp for that cos as u prob know i like shoving things in the feedback path

used to use the desk and whatever crappy delays we had around but i like being more in control of it if you get me

[Guest 30equals]

 

Do/did you play any 'traditional' instruments like guitar, drums, etc... yourself before you started with electronic gear ?

Not really, just the kind of stuff primary schools put in front of you.

 

Thanx!

 

Well i was just wondering if there was a defining moment that you said to yourself 'fuck that, let's go electronic' - Like the guy from OMD had after seeing Kraftwerk (as seen on this docu

)

[Sean Ae]

 

various ways, sometimes it's all programmed step by step, sometimes played in, and sometimes defined in advance and then run off in realtime (i guess you could call that algorithmic)

 

my spellcheck was turning realtime into teatime then

 

How hard is it to hit the spot, just a feel thing? Or trial and error?

 

 

both really. trial and error, feel to make decisions

 

 

Do/did you play any 'traditional' instruments like guitar, drums, etc... yourself before you started with electronic gear ?

Not really, just the kind of stuff primary schools put in front of you.

 

Thanx!

 

Well i was just wondering if there was a defining moment that you said to yourself 'fuck that, let's go electronic' - Like the guy from OMD had after seeing Kraftwerk (as seen on this docu

)

 

for me it was electro that did it, seeing people scratching and realising i could do that

and seeing tomorrow's world with the emulator, and then seeing an sk-1 in dixons for 25 quid

[Guest 30equals]

How hard is it do decide when a track is finished ?

[Rob Ae]

Are you familiar with early Belgian electronic music like Front 242, Neon Judgement and did it influence you in any way ?

I was a bit averse to it tbh, only later more recently did i give a shit. My uncle left me some 12"s decades ago, more along the newbeat end of what i would've thought as disco. I liked that stuff but i didnt associate it with bands like front 242.

 

Ill look up neon judgement thanks

[Sean Ae]

How hard is it do decide when a track is finished ?

 

i dunno i just realise i can't think of any way to improve it, so it gets shelved for a bit

come back to it later see if i feel the same way

[Guest WNS000]

 

how much influence if any did Farmers Manual's work have on you guys?

I know the terms 'idm' and 'glitch are rather crass these days but are there any pioneers of this genre that you feel laid important ground for future music?

 

i'd say less than ramon

i dunno i mean no one i know uses that term so i don't even know what artists qualify. i always think of general magic tho when someone says it

really i guess it means yasunao, which i mean, well he's fucking brilliant isn't he

 

 

Have you used Beap? It's a modular environment for Max/MSP. List of modules is great (continually expanding), has the +/- 5 volt eurorack standard, CV can be controlled via MIDI, and other nice features.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtTZsZ5hn2Q

 

https://github.com/stretta/BEAP

 

https://github.com/stretta/BEAP/wiki

 

no i've never seen it

it looks a bit high level, but it's a cool idea for people new to max i suppose

 

 

 

 

 

related to your reply to i believe it was awe's question about the NSA to which you said it (spying) was a necessary phase-

 

so in the nearish future when brain implants, chips that allow you to connect your brain directly to your computer are available, will either/both of you say 'damn the torpedoes' (in this case the torpedoes being the american gov and possibly other govs recording every thought you have in a secret facility somewhere, and organizing all the data into various cross-referenced, instantly searchable databases, to be used in who knows what ways), and go ahead and get one so you can control your max patches directly with your brain waves? assuming you don't already. is that what you meant by saying the NSA stuff is part of a necessary phase? that all of this is inevitable, that all of our brains are going to be under direct monitoring by gov/commercial entities but that we have to accept that if we want the cool shit like robot servants that bring us our tea when we think about tea, or being able to compose tracks with our thoughts like raymond scott wanted to do?

nah

i don't know why everyone is focusing so much on the nsa

everyone's at it, all spying on each other

it's not like some nice neat pyramid, it's like a web

 

in the future we're gonna be so much more networked than this, even the concept of monitoring will be totally antiquated

what do you think of this quote by raymond scott

 

 

• "Perhaps within the next hundred years, science will perfect a process of thought transference from composer to listener. The composer will sit alone on the concert stage and merely 'think' his idealized conception of his music. Instead of recordings of actual music sound, recordings will carry the brainwaves of the composer directly to the mind of the listener." —Raymond Scott, 1949

Haha, god yeah that could get well messy. Nice sentiment though, but i like the spot we're at right now, i like ppl climbing into the bass bins at gigs, and ppl on balconies jostling for the best sweet spot.....

Sweet spot on a balcony where all bass cumulate into mud and mids bounce like crazy? Sweet spot is definitely a subjective term then! :D

Yeah theres something for everyone when u throw a huge acoustic space into the scenario.

 

 

or an outdoor space

 

 

Yeah I mean, with abstract music (your music) one can really benefit from inaccurate acoustics - interesting experiences may occur. I have unfortunately never been to your show so can't tell but I was pretty disappointed how most of my favourite bands sounded live. Sometimes I was even unable to recognize what track is playing at all and it was not because of them jamming unexpectedly - it was shit mix and acoustics basically.

 

 

yeah the last tour was completely dry nord stuff so we were mixing it differently every night to make the room give us the reverb and echo, every room sounded different

 

 

That is a great approach. Wish more bands do that. The best sounding concert I have ever heard live in person was Porcupine Tree in Krakow and then few years later again in Vienna (both places were concrete halls). I reckon it is because of sound engineer/audiophile background of their front man. It was loud and heavy yet very clean, very "readable". Every instrument had its place in the mix. Nothing came close to this yet.

 

It is sad - most of the musicians knows nothing about sound. To be honest I gave up on live shows basically because of this issue - it is just not worth it. Mostly just painfully loud, muddy and often without (prohibited) much needed liquids to drink. I am not a kind of guy who would try to defend purchase of a ticket no matter what so I am just waiting to see you guys and Tool but that's it for me.

[Friendly Foil]

How hard is it do decide when a track is finished ?

This is a good question. I can never quite decide on that myself.

[Redruth]

name the children's book that had a particularly large effect on u as a child

did u know that we eat an average of 1 kilo of bugs each year, ground in prepared foods, hiding in salad or whatever?

have u ever held yr hand up, wiggled yr fingers and asked yrselves, wtf is going on? who am i really?

i love the future sound of london from the archives series - can u name several tracs u consider highlights?

have u listened to the jack dangers peristaltic wave trac?

do u have a secret place were u like to go, that no one else knows about?

would u name something u consider to be of interest within yr immediate vicinity, where u r right now?

if u could eat anything at this particular moment, what would it be?

in the motor vehicles, who is the speedracer between the two of u?

when flying on the airplanes, have u gotten into any noteworthy conversations with the passengers?

name one thing u would change about the educational system in the uk

did the both of u choose to remix the falling trac or did mick choose it for u?

do u believe in electro magnetic fields? if so, do u believe they have a negative effect on the human body?

what's for breakfast tomorrow?

will u name one thing u have found near yr home which u consider interesting?

would u plees name one ambient music recording which u fancy?

[awepittance]

never noticed it in dial, first time a fractally timbre really stood out to me was in Y7. It's a fun mind-fuck to try and figure out how you guys achieve sounds like that, and I try to guess how (most of the time I'm probably wrong).

what's most amazing to me about this point in your musical trajectory is how much shit is going on at once, that if a typical musician tried to attempt it the mix would sound muddy, things would lose transients, it would sound like a flat mess in the wrong hands. You're one of the only artists doing sounds this crazy that also seem to have a high level of audio engineering skill to work with all the elements.

for example if someone tried to reverse engineer Tac Lacora to what appears to be it's individual elements, a reverse order approach would be the only way i could see getting it to sound as nice and slamming. It makes me wonder do you guys jam out some of these more crazy 'full' sounds, record them and then later refine them through audio engineering tricks like clever use of sidechain compression and eq, careful multiband compression, parallel compression, etc?

Edited November 4, 2013 by John Ehrlichman

[thehauntingsoul]

How do your parents/extended family rate your music. Do they enjoy it or are they really confused why you make it and why anyone would buy it?

[Sean Ae]

One more thing. With a track like treale did you have a good idea earlier on about its trajectory?

 

It builds harmonic tension throughout and then that sweet little melody at the end is a pure release and blissful. Just wondering if it kind of just happened or was more stategic?

 

it was strategic but only after we had put down a load of sequencing, it kind of revealed itself as a possibility with all the bits we had available to edit together

[Bob Dylan]

I see you guys mention Jerry Goldsmith, always thought the mid80's sound of his Yamaha DX-7 (that and the dozens of other synths he used throughout his career) was way before it's time. Stuff like Legend or Total Recall or Hoosiers, Damnation Alley or the awesome stuff on Star Trek : The Motion Picture.

Edited November 4, 2013 by Philip Glass

[awepittance]

I see you guys mention Jerry Goldsmith, always thought the mid80's sound of his Yamaha DX-7 (that and the dozens of other synths he used throughout his career) was way before it's time. Stuff like Legend or Total Recall or Hoosiers, Damnation Alley or the awesome stuff on Star Trek : The Motion Picture.

 

ahem, I'll just quietly put this here (all of Jerry Goldsmiths electronic/electro-orchestral stuff in one mix, no hoosiers though, thats the only one of his soundtracks i just couldn't hack and I even like Rambo 3, which has jarring high pitched FM stabs galore over patriotic battle orchestra music)

 

https://soundcloud.com/media-roots/media-roots-music-goldsmithing

 

edit: 39 minutes in the mix is the part Sean just mentioned from Total Recall

Edited November 4, 2013 by John Ehrlichman

[Rob Ae]

 

 

Have you used Beap? It's a modular environment for Max/MSP. List of modules is great (continually expanding), has the +/- 5 volt eurorack standard, CV can be controlled via MIDI, and other nice features.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtTZsZ5hn2Q

 

https://github.com/stretta/BEAP

 

https://github.com/stretta/BEAP/wiki

 

no i've never seen it

it looks a bit high level, but it's a cool idea for people new to max i suppose

 

 

 

 

 

related to your reply to i believe it was awe's question about the NSA to which you said it (spying) was a necessary phase-

 

so in the nearish future when brain implants, chips that allow you to connect your brain directly to your computer are available, will either/both of you say 'damn the torpedoes' (in this case the torpedoes being the american gov and possibly other govs recording every thought you have in a secret facility somewhere, and organizing all the data into various cross-referenced, instantly searchable databases, to be used in who knows what ways), and go ahead and get one so you can control your max patches directly with your brain waves? assuming you don't already. is that what you meant by saying the NSA stuff is part of a necessary phase? that all of this is inevitable, that all of our brains are going to be under direct monitoring by gov/commercial entities but that we have to accept that if we want the cool shit like robot servants that bring us our tea when we think about tea, or being able to compose tracks with our thoughts like raymond scott wanted to do?

 

nah

i don't know why everyone is focusing so much on the nsa

everyone's at it, all spying on each other

it's not like some nice neat pyramid, it's like a web

 

in the future we're gonna be so much more networked than this, even the concept of monitoring will be totally antiquated

what do you think of this quote by raymond scott

 

 

 

 

• "Perhaps within the next hundred years, science will perfect a process of thought transference from composer to listener. The composer will sit alone on the concert stage and merely 'think' his idealized conception of his music. Instead of recordings of actual music sound, recordings will carry the brainwaves of the composer directly to the mind of the listener." —Raymond Scott, 1949

Haha, god yeah that could get well messy. Nice sentiment though, but i like the spot we're at right now, i like ppl climbing into the bass bins at gigs, and ppl on balconies jostling for the best sweet spot.....

Sweet spot on a balcony where all bass cumulate into mud and mids bounce like crazy? Sweet spot is definitely a subjective term then! :D

Yeah theres something for everyone when u throw a huge acoustic space into the scenario.

or an outdoor space

Yeah I mean, with abstract music (your music) one can really benefit from inaccurate acoustics - interesting experiences may occur. I have unfortunately never been to your show so can't tell but I was pretty disappointed how most of my favourite bands sounded live. Sometimes I was even unable to recognize what track is playing at all and it was not because of them jamming unexpectedly - it was shit mix and acoustics basically.

Well say if you were drunk on booze, that wouldve smashed yr hearing at loud levels in addition to the shit rig/space. Getting pissed spoils things a lot. Not saying you were btw, just saying how most gigs come over to a lot of ppl.

[Ivan Ooze]

my eyeballs are popping out cause of this thread

 

do you guys have any thunderdome records

 

[Blir]

I'm cooking dinner for a lady on Saturday night and struggling to know what to do for a starter. What are your thoughts ae?

[Sean Ae]

never noticed it in dial, first time a fractally timbre really stood out to me was in Y7. It's a fun mind-fuck to try and figure out how you guys achieve sounds like that, and I try to guess how (most of the time I'm probably wrong).

 

what's most amazing to me about this point in your musical trajectory is how much shit is going on at once, that if a typical musician tried to attempt it the mix would sound muddy, things would lose transients, it would sound like a flat mess in the wrong hands. You're one of the only artists doing sounds this crazy that also seem to have a high level of audio engineering skill to work with all the elements.

 

for example if someone tried to reverse engineer Tac Lacora to what appears to be it's individual elements, a reverse order approach would be the only way i could see getting it to sound as nice and slamming. It makes me wonder do you guys jam out some of these more crazy 'full' sounds, record them and then later refine them through audio engineering tricks like clever use of sidechain compression and eq, careful multiband compression, parallel compression, etc?

 

 

 

in the case of tac lacora it was mostly like that as it went down in realtime, but yeah there was a ton of bus compression happening

apart from that it's mostly in the envelopes

[Guest WNS000]

Rob,

 

Sean said you may heard some Einsturzende Neubauten. If so did they influenced you significantly (early albums)? Like "oh cool sounds and possibilities"?

[lamourfou]

Do you guys remember the process of each track? What about Surripere? How does Draft feel to you in particular?

[Guest Pennywise]

Do you guys do any artwork?

[Sean Ae]

I see you guys mention Jerry Goldsmith, always thought the mid80's sound of his Yamaha DX-7 (that and the dozens of other synths he used throughout his career) was way before it's time. Stuff like Legend or Total Recall or Hoosiers, Damnation Alley or the awesome stuff on Star Trek : The Motion Picture.

 

i always liked that kuato mind meld sequence from total recall, really nice

Do you guys remember the process of each track? What about Surripere? How does Draft feel to you in particular?

most things

surripere was two tracks originally, the second half was done before the first but the first half wasn't done to go with the second, they were just the same tempo and it occurred to us once we had both bits that we could put them together

 

draft feels skeletal to me, kind of hollow but deep as well

like a ruined city in the distant future

Edited November 4, 2013 by Sean Ae

[salvakkpooo]

How were your personalities as kids?

What cartoons did you watched then?

Edited November 4, 2013 by salvaKPO

[awepittance]

It's kinda too bad not many composers followed in his footsteps ie: the total recall soundtrack. It seems like most orchestral/electronic music fusion after that point took a nose dive into the shitter. I've never heard anyone after Goldsmith be able to so seamlessly throw synth/electronic elements into a traditional orchestra sound

[Sean Ae]

I'm cooking dinner for a lady on Saturday night and struggling to know what to do for a starter. What are your thoughts ae?

 

prawn cocktail

70s style

make sure you use too much of that pink sauce