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

[Sean Ae]

 

 

What did you think of the sound FX design in the new Transformers movies?

it sounds like it looks, like piles of rubbish fighting each other

 

 

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

 

 

So you really manually adjust every single bit of the track by envelopes? That surely needs a lot of patience (or motivation).

 

 

yeah but not editing by hand, changing according to conditions

 

 

So you mean like AMP envelopes (or gates etc) in MAX or a DAW - not volume envelopes per each track (?)

 

yeah usually people are asking us about transients and it will just be a really radical amp envelope

So this little game called 140 came out on steam a few weeks ago, and I immediately thought how awesome it would be if something along these lines was done with you guys and your work. It's basically a rhythm platformer where all of the obstacles move around in time with the beat, with ever-increasing complexity. Would you guys ever consider doing something along these lines and try dabbling in interactive/procedurally generative track writing?

 

 

yeah - if we had time to properly get into it i reckon it could be really good

does seem like it would be tricky but then i never made a game with things that actually move around

[Guest WNS000]

 

 

 

What did you think of the sound FX design in the new Transformers movies?

it sounds like it looks, like piles of rubbish fighting each other

 

 

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

 

 

So you really manually adjust every single bit of the track by envelopes? That surely needs a lot of patience (or motivation).

 

 

yeah but not editing by hand, changing according to conditions

 

 

So you mean like AMP envelopes (or gates etc) in MAX or a DAW - not volume envelopes per each track (?)

 

yeah usually people are asking us about transients and it will just be a really radical amp envelope

 

 

Thanks man, I really appreciate having opportunity talking with you about things I am interested in.

Edited November 4, 2013 by Jev

[thehauntingsoul]

 

So this little game called 140 came out on steam a few weeks ago, and I immediately thought how awesome it would be if something along these lines was done with you guys and your work. It's basically a rhythm platformer where all of the obstacles move around in time with the beat, with ever-increasing complexity. Would you guys ever consider doing something along these lines and try dabbling in interactive/procedurally generative track writing?

 

yeah - if we had time to properly get into it i reckon it could be really good

does seem like it would be tricky but then i never made a game with things that actually move around

 

You really, really should. Get TDR on board to do the design and hire someone to do the game programming.

[Sean Ae]

ok i gotta crash i'm fading

back tomorrow

[awepittance]

When you found out that the Skinny Puppy remix album you were going to be on would feature 50% nu-metal is that when you guys decided to make a very abstract/noisy skinny puppy remix?

[Guest WNS000]

ok i gotta crash i'm fading

back tomorrow

 

Bye!

[Adamovich]

 

 

 

it sounds like piles of rubbish fighting each other

 

 

 

That's what some people have said about Fol3 to be fair :)

 

 

haha shit man you're right

oh well

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuaXqa660KI

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J2gv80ttK8

 

 

Hey! I like Fol3

 

ok i gotta crash i'm fading

back tomorrow

see ya then

[Rob Ae]

Hello Rob and Sean. Been listening to your work for maybe 10 years now (I've never thought about it that way - crazy to say). I have a very specific question about a single track. Surripere. It has been my favourite since Draft came out and seems to have a narrative to it, a story almost. Do you remember the process? Or could you pick a track you could give some more meaning to? (Surripere to me is an alien train on a doomed path).

 

I imagine your tracks as pulsing and moving visual objects or scenes, do you ever think of them visually?

Surripere was something pretty heavy as it turned out to be 'that long one' on that lp, i think at the same time we knew if we got it right it would get to be a really good part. There wasnt a descriptive narrative as such but it was mostly down to getting the relay of quite a few events to work into each other well. I guess its got some visual sense of flow and then some still, then turbulence and such.

[Blir]

 

 

 

 

it sounds like piles of rubbish fighting each other

 

 

 

That's what some people have said about Fol3 to be fair :)

 

 

haha shit man you're right

oh well

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuaXqa660KI

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J2gv80ttK8

 

 

Hey! I like Fol3

 

 

I wasn't criticizing. I love fol3. I love fol4 more though!

[awepittance]

would you guys be willing to give out BPM values for some of the tracks on Oversteps?

[zleep]

another question, do you guys read magazines or website related to science or math the like to see the new or current technology maybe applicable to your music?

 

Since I liked your music, I have been reading a lot about math, programming and interesting science stuff, haha , no other musician get me to do that, and I think that is a wonderful experience, your music really make me learn a lot, and I start to experiment my own generative stuff now and that is fun! thank you autechre!

[soma333]

 

 

Do you know any sound design that you liked in movies?

yeah pretty much every little detail on Alien is amazing

might just be context but we used to really fetishise it all

 

oh and THX 1138 and star wars, i mean i don't wanna be boring but ben burtt was seriously a big figure to us as kids

the making of empire strikes back where he's hitting the cable to get laser sounds made a huge impression on me

Me fuckin too man, it was a major head slap moment when it was revealed it was a cable sound!

[Guest WNS000]

Rob, I asked this already but I understand not every question from that huge pile can be answered:

 

How big role plays a mastering engineer when it comes to the vibe of the records. Is he only supposed to make sure the mix of the album is consistent by light touches here and there or were there any situation when he really pushed a track sound to another level?

[Rob Ae]

Do you guys dig slow drone/ambient/minimalist type stuff?

 

Perlence Subrange 6-36 was certainly a step in this direction, would ever consider doing more stuff like it or was this just a dabble?

since we got access to DAT then CDR then AIFF / ways to record long pieces, programmed or jamming, weve been doing stuff along these lines quite a lot.

[gmanyo]

What is it like balancing kids and music? Did having children change your view of creating music, or how you prioritize it? Would you consider your main job to be raising a family, and that music supports that, or does it work differently?

[gabrielconroy]

Do you both mainly listen to sequenced electronic/synthesised music, or are you also into hand-arranged sample layers stuff? What do you think of Burial, for example?

Edited November 4, 2013 by gabrielconroy

[Rob 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?

i once had grilled green chilli peppers with a fried egg, and sea salt crystals. at a smart joint, and was like, hey this is posh truckers food. is she into truckers?

[Rob Ae]

Rob,

 

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

sorry no that was a three point misunderstanding, i don't know any. i said to a journo recently something about caspar Brotzmann, and i think the Skype went weird

[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?

i once had grilled green chilli peppers with a fried egg, and sea salt crystals. at a smart joint, and was like, hey this is posh truckers food. is she into truckers?

 

 

Hey, I'm asking the questions here.

[Rob Ae]

yeah his stuff is a little more blended I suppose. He's a good example of someone, I'd put him sort of in the realm of Mark Snow but far better. I just recently found out the ridiculous (but good) choral patch-laden Nightmare on Elm St 3 : the Dream Warriors soundtrack was by Badalamenti, worth checking out.

dope, i didn't spot that 16yrs old! i'll rewatch it

[o00o]

I keep asking about harmonics as you guys do it so well you give the most abstract sound a soul by adding harmonics to it that still send shivers down the spine 10 years later. You say you can not play instruments well so how do you create these great melodies? Are they all max generative patches or do you just jam and harmonise everything after? All your records since the first sound like you really know what you are doing with your melodic / harmonic content while for me its really hard to nail the expression in a way you just seem to do with ease. Any suggestions where to start? A book? A tool? technique?

Edited November 5, 2013 by o00o

[Guest WNS000]

See you guys. Promised myself that I will sleep properly today.

[Bob Dylan]

 

 

 

it sounds like piles of rubbish fighting each other

 

 

 

That's what some people have said about Fol3 to be fair :)

 

 

haha shit man you're right

oh well

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuaXqa660KI

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J2gv80ttK8

 

 

 

Why is the first link Amon Tobin's ISAM?

[Rob Ae]

I keep asking about harmonics as you guys do it so well you give the most abstract sound a soul by adding harmonics to it that still send shivers down the spine 10 years later. You say you can not play instruments well so how do you create these great melodies? Are they all max generative patches or do you just jam and harmonise everything after? All your records since the first sound like you really know what you are doing with your melodic / harmonic content while for me its really hard to nail the expression in a way you just seem to do with ease. Any suggestions where to start? A book? A tool? technique?

i dunno, i mean even when we first started doing tracks being new to working with each other, we hadn't really learned anything by then, we'd do bits of tunes separately and they turn out to be in key with each other - or if not - something that really worked in interesting ways harmonically.

[roasty]

I don't have a question to ask right now. But Sean/Rob can you please validate my existence?