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is it true Go Plastic by Squarepusher featured no computer wizardry?


PhylumZunami

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I don't doubt that it can be done, but I really think he was using more PC during that time than people on here want to admit. It was released in 2001, right before Drukqs, which is more than likely all computer/laptop based compositions besides the piano pieces. ..

 

I have a hard time believing that being mates with Aphex and that lot that he was still low-teching it that hard.

 

Nah, man.

 

The heavy processing is done through an Eventide processor that he was renting at the time. I think he owns a couple of them now and a lot of his stuff is still processed through them. They're dedicated dsp boxes and can still probably do things that you won't hear from a laptop/desktop. It's like having one of those Kyma systems. They're fucking beasts. There's nothing low-tech about it is what I'm getting at.

 

The first album he used a pc on is Do You Know Squarepusher? He used Sonar to do bits of granular synthesis on that and I don't know what else.

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what I find quite funny is that he used Sony Vegas of all things for editing stuff on Ultravisitor. like 50 cycles which apparently took him months to make and had an insane amounts of edits in it.

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eh, the footage of "him" using reaktor and cooledit and stuff is obviously stock footage sliced in in this interview

.

 

he's stated a few times that go plastic was made using the qy700, fs1r, tx81z, s6000 and eventide orville+dsp4000. the eventides are pretty damn powerful, especially when you start to control various parameters over midi. it doesn't sound that impossible to me that he did it without a computer.

wait so you think this isn't him using this and MTV dropped in their own stock footage of Reaktor and Cooledit 2.0?

it doesn't sound 'impossible' but its extremely improbable100% probability he used at the very least a DAW wave editor to stitch together the effects passes from said Eventide

Edited by John Ehrlichman
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There's nothing low-tech about it is what I'm getting at.

 

actually there is, when working with MIDI automation the Eventides (at least most of them) are fairly low tech, try automating more than 3-4 parameters at once and things start to become very fucked, the machine can't keep up with the values. These machines while they do produce amazing sounding quality of effects, aren't as magical as you guys are making them out to be. You cannot stich together hundreds of tiny automated effects bursts and start them on cue with midi automation alone, had to have been eventually put together in a wave editor. If he used a hardware sampler to stich them together it would be an extremely time consuming and counterproductive act, in other words it would make no sense even for someone as hardware centric as Squarepusher

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if someone wants to demonstrate otherwise who has access to an eventide effects box, please try to make a demo for us of midi program changes and automation being sent to a box (without the aid of a wave editor at all) that sound like a full Go Plastic track and I will pay you $1000 (probably I won't, but the point is that its not possible without editing).

Vytear had an eventide live setup going for a while and he's gotten very close to achieving this, but when he performs it live it sounds more like an individual effected bridge section from a Go Plastic track, not like a whole track with all the changes. You cannot simply switch between two different effects patches on an eventide and have it be seamless, like a lot of digital gear there is a fairly long delay in between program changes, hence the need for post-editing with the recordings (aka a wave editor, or a tape if you want to continue to be a real myth building asshole ). There will be some wise guy in here who will say 'wait, but he could have used an Orville or an h8000' the latter being an 8 channel processor with ability to load different effects on the different channels. I guess technically this is possible, whatever

Edited by John Ehrlichman
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I posted in the other thread already but I agree with JE on the general substance of these questions. It’s not the sound generation or “the effects” that is unbelievable, but the edits. I agree that it seems very hard to imagine how one would trigger or arrange so many complex edits without a computer.

 

But, that skepticism is outweighed by the fact that for whatever reason, I feel like TJ is being honest here. I mean, if he programmed Hard Normal Daddy on a DR-660, then he could certainly harness the same insane/OCD powers to… something, for Go Plastic.

 

Also, he is so open about how the other tracks and albums were made—why wouldn’t he say that a computer was involved if one was? I feel like he’d just say it.

 

As I mentioned in the other thread, is it possible that he could have just PLAYED the edits, kind of like doing a dub? If you listen to the “Girl” version of My Red Hot Car I think you can hear that the edits and effects are not quite as extensive as they seem like they are at first. At lot of the funky syncopations and stuff are actually in the sequencing.

 

Anyway, I think it’s pretty clear that he used Reaktor for the Go Plastic live tour, like on the live CD and whatnot. All the grain stuff on there sounds like Reaktor to me.

 

Also remember, it’s not necessarily that TJ wasn’t using Reaktor or a computer AT ALL during the time of GP, but that for THAT ALBUM he did not use them. Turns out, a lot of Squarepusher albums have a “gear theme” where there’s some cut-down or idiosyncratic setup involved in the recording. Think of how stripped down Hello Everything is, or all the 909 on Shobaleader One, etc.

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i'm gonna side with JE here because even though i've never used any eventide stuff, the 3-4 parameters at a time automation limit seems pretty consistent with midi stuff i have used and i was about to make a comment about it myself. those tracks just have too much going on, too many changes in the DSP happening too fast to have been sequenced all to play out like that, live in a single pass through, as you hear in the final product. maybe multiple eventides/samplers could be used to jump back and forth between bits, but at that point it's pretty arbitrary to go that far out of your way to avoid using a PC DAW just so you could say you didnt use a computer, even though you actually still did use several pretty powerful computers. it'd be more time consuming, and less smart than just using a DAW to edit, which would be the best tool for that kind of job.

 

i wouldn't be surprised to see RDJ or SP saying they made an album by programming it entirely in machine code while they were asleep, and i wouldn't be surprised when half their fanbases believed it

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There's nothing low-tech about it is what I'm getting at.

 

actually there is, when working with MIDI automation the Eventides (at least most of them) are fairly low tech, try automating more than 3-4 parameters at once and things start to become very fucked, the machine can't keep up with the values. These machines while they do produce amazing sounding quality of effects, aren't as magical as you guys are making them out to be. You cannot stich together hundreds of tiny automated effects bursts and start them on cue with midi automation alone, had to have been eventually put together in a wave editor. If he used a hardware sampler to stich them together it would be an extremely time consuming and counterproductive act, in other words it would make no sense even for someone as hardware centric as Squarepusher

 

 

I wasn't aware of midi problems/limitations with the Eventides, so I can't disagree with you about that. You probably know more about this than I do, but wouldn't the granular shit only need two automated functions for most of the stuff on Go Plastic? Something like the cycle length and on/off. The drums are triggered from the S6000 and sequenced in the normal jungle fashion while being sent through the Eventide for processing which is automated through the QY700. Then you're recording entire tracks instead of short bursts. He's been doing a similar thing live since the album came out, though he's usually sending the entire track through.

 

This is the sort of thing I'm talking about. About 2:10 in.

Edited by Oscar
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All I was saying is that there is more PC fuckery there than people want to think, I don't doubt it can be done without a PC at some point, but for that age of technology and how much more sleek it sounds than 'music is a rotted one note' makes me think there was some DAW/Reaktor/Cool Edit stuff going on as well as heavy hardware work.

 

What about him using a Boss DR-660 as a sequencer when everyone else was using an Atari with Cubase or Notator? Is it hard to believe as well?

 

Not at all. :shrug: I just like how there is video from that time of him using Reaktor and Cool Edit and all of you are still trying to convince yourselves that he just picked that up for the tour or they randomly showed a program little to no musicians would care about just to fake out. I can see how he utilized the DR-660 and eventide stuff, but I don't think this record was entirely OTB is what I'm saying.

 

Sorry

Edited by Audioblysk
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lol u change ur avatar as u change shirt

 

Thank you. Do you like Peas?

 

He must like peas. Anyone that keeps an avatar for that long is obviously a pea connoisseur! (wow i totally didn't need spell check for that unbelievable)

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Well, I thought we could actually have an interesting discussion about this, but it’s turned into another “well I think it is TOTALLY OBVIOUS” penis-measuring contest with no actual interesting points being made. Oh well.

 

I hardly think it’s “trying to convince ourselves” of something when the artist himself has said “this is how it is”. Any discussion has to start with the actual facts, and TJ saying supposedly EXACTLY WHAT GEAR WAS USED to make the album seems like a pretty logical place to start the discussion.

 

I’m not arguing that TJ “picked up Reaktor for the tour” at all. I’m saying it’s pretty clear that he likes to make albums with cut-down “thematic” setups of all the gear he presumably owns. It’s perfectly possible to be a Reaktor user and make an album without using it, either purposely or accidentally.

 

Half this board has like, RDJ-PTSD, where any time any musician says anything, we automatically assume they are lying. Kind of lame, if you ask me.

 

But oh well. Does anyone know when the Shobaleader full band tour starts?

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lol u change ur avatar as u change shirt

 

Thank you. Do you like Peas?

 

He must like peas. Anyone that keeps an avatar for that long is obviously a pea connoisseur! (wow i totally didn't need spell check for that unbelievable)

 

you knows it! and good work on the spelling. i'd have to run it to check if you're right,

besides i dont really know what he's on about, I've only seen it once

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Well, I thought we could actually have an interesting discussion about this, but it’s turned into another “well I think it is TOTALLY OBVIOUS” penis-measuring contest with no actual interesting points being made. Oh well.

 

I hardly think it’s “trying to convince ourselves” of something when the artist himself has said “this is how it is”. Any discussion has to start with the actual facts, and TJ saying supposedly EXACTLY WHAT GEAR WAS USED to make the album seems like a pretty logical place to start the discussion.

 

I’m not arguing that TJ “picked up Reaktor for the tour” at all. I’m saying it’s pretty clear that he likes to make albums with cut-down “thematic” setups of all the gear he presumably owns. It’s perfectly possible to be a Reaktor user and make an album without using it, either purposely or accidentally.

 

Half this board has like, RDJ-PTSD, where any time any musician says anything, we automatically assume they are lying. Kind of lame, if you ask me.

 

But oh well. Does anyone know when the Shobaleader full band tour starts?

 

hey, yeah you are right to say that stuff. SQPr does like to use restrictions and limitations it seems (based on youtube videos, online interviews and whatnot) and he is pretty mega at programming so it wouldnt be too much of a stretch to think he would and could do this without starting up Windows. I vote him telling a truth on this. If you had done it this way then you'd want to mention it for people to appreciate the skill involved, otherwise it wouldnt be such a feat eh?

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I'm a little pea

I love the sky and the trees

I'm a teeny tiny little ant

Checking out this and that

 

I am nothing

So you have nothing to hide

And I'm a pacifist

So I can fuck your shit up

 

Oh yeah I'm small

Fuck you asshole

You homophobic redneck dick

You're big and tough and macho

 

You can kick my ass

So fucking what

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Haha, Flea's poignant lyrics have made me realized I was maybe a little too cranky with what I posted earlier. THE POINT IS, it's interesting to think about how this album was made. Arrangements aside, I think we can agree that there are no computer-based sound sources on the album, which is itself pretty awesome.

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what I find quite funny is that he used Sony Vegas of all things for editing stuff on Ultravisitor. like 50 cycles which apparently took him months to make and had an insane amounts of edits in it.

 

Yeaaah Vegas represent! Using video editing software to sequence audio is the way to go. I started making the iddums on Vegas because it's what I already had, but it's crazy that an established artist would be using that program so late in the game. I just used it because it happened to be the program my friend pirated to make recordings with my first band. It still has the coolest time stretch/condense feature of any progam I've used --shift/drag.

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