Autechre Autechre - Oversteps (WARP210) [The MegaThread]

the comparison is the same as other releases that had a cd quality release and a 24-bit quality release. what are you looking for exactly?

edit: and yes it is "perceptible", but by no means do i have a generic sound setup.

i mean, how does it sound different? i can't possibly imagine it being more dynamic, since it's pretty flat, volume wise. ie. i don't really understand how it would benefit from 24 bit resolution. i want to see a direct comparison/analysis to see what i'm missing out on, if anything. and since i don't have the 24 bit wavs, i can't do it myself.

  On 5/11/2010 at 2:25 AM, modey said:

i mean, how does it sound different? i can't possibly imagine it being more dynamic, since it's pretty flat, volume wise. ie. i don't really understand how it would benefit from 24 bit resolution. i want to see a direct comparison/analysis to see what i'm missing out on, if anything. and since i don't have the 24 bit wavs, i can't do it myself.

i guess you didn't notice the quiet fade in on r ess?

with the 24bit WAVs you can hear it fade in at least 29.7% quicker than if you were listening to the 16bit WAvs (or the CD).

if you have the vinyl though, you can hear the fade around 40-70% quicker than any other format.

at least in the listening tests i've conducted.

lol

  On 5/11/2010 at 10:44 AM, oscillik said:

  On 5/11/2010 at 2:25 AM, modey said:

i mean, how does it sound different? i can't possibly imagine it being more dynamic, since it's pretty flat, volume wise. ie. i don't really understand how it would benefit from 24 bit resolution. i want to see a direct comparison/analysis to see what i'm missing out on, if anything. and since i don't have the 24 bit wavs, i can't do it myself.

i guess you didn't notice the quiet fade in on r ess?

 

with the 24bit WAVs you can hear it fade in at least 29.7% quicker than if you were listening to the 16bit WAvs (or the CD).

 

if you have the vinyl though, you can hear the fade around 40-70% quicker than any other format.

 

at least in the listening tests i've conducted.

what ? i think i've played the vinyl 2 times & dont plan to spin it again, i think the 24bit WAV sounds way better.

  On 5/11/2010 at 1:13 PM, k h o v said:

  On 5/11/2010 at 10:44 AM, oscillik said:

  On 5/11/2010 at 2:25 AM, modey said:

i mean, how does it sound different? i can't possibly imagine it being more dynamic, since it's pretty flat, volume wise. ie. i don't really understand how it would benefit from 24 bit resolution. i want to see a direct comparison/analysis to see what i'm missing out on, if anything. and since i don't have the 24 bit wavs, i can't do it myself.

i guess you didn't notice the quiet fade in on r ess?

 

with the 24bit WAVs you can hear it fade in at least 29.7% quicker than if you were listening to the 16bit WAvs (or the CD).

 

if you have the vinyl though, you can hear the fade around 40-70% quicker than any other format.

 

at least in the listening tests i've conducted.

 

what ? i think i've played the vinyl 2 times & dont plan to spin it again, i think the 24bit WAV sounds way better.

  On 5/11/2010 at 1:46 PM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

in my experience vinyl is best suited for albums that were mixed and mastered on analogue material. I don't really see the point otherwise.

spare us the and elaborate perhaps

  On 5/11/2010 at 1:58 PM, verticalhold said:

spare us the and elaborate perhaps

  On 5/11/2010 at 2:19 PM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

agreed. imagine an album being mastered in 24 bit then pressed to vinyl. might as well listen to the 24bit wavs. unless you're after a nice big cover, or the smell of vinyl makes you feel fuzzy.

my post was a joke...

it was a pastiche on the elitism that obviously went over your heads. modey got it though, so he gets cake.

you two get none.

  On 5/11/2010 at 2:22 PM, oscillik said:

my post was a joke...

 

it was a pastiche on the elitism that obviously went over your heads. modey got it though, so he gets cake.

 

you two get none.

HUH? I'm aware of the elitism; I end up in tears with my foot in my mouth a lot of the time

i finally found my crt monitor speakers so now i can hook them up to my onboard sound card....WHY CANT I DISTINGUISH 16BIT from 24BIT CAN SOME HELP PLZ

I realize I'm way behind with this first impression but I played Oversteps for the first time today, I couldn't decide whether to order from bleep for the WAVS or not, but then I just bought the CD when I saw it on the shelf on saturday. I only knew the bit that was on German radio before.

Honestly, I'm not getting the album at all, yet.

  On 5/12/2010 at 1:07 AM, Terpentintollwut said:

I realize I'm way behind with this first impression but I played Oversteps for the first time today, I couldn't decide whether to order from bleep for the WAVS or not, but then I just bought the CD when I saw it on the shelf on saturday. I only knew the bit that was on German radio before.

 

Honestly, I'm not getting the album at all, yet.

I think you will eventually - immediacy doesn't form part of the Ae oeuvre

  On 5/12/2010 at 1:07 AM, Terpentintollwut said:

I realize I'm way behind with this first impression but I played Oversteps for the first time today, I couldn't decide whether to order from bleep for the WAVS or not, but then I just bought the CD when I saw it on the shelf on saturday. I only knew the bit that was on German radio before.

 

Honestly, I'm not getting the album at all, yet.

it took about 3 listens for me before it started to click

I think I've only properly (dark room, headphones, no distractions) listened to this album twice, although I did listen in the car a few times in February. Now that my initial excitement has worn off, I think it might be my least favorite Autechre now, although I need to listen again to be sure. I believe that I didn't listen to it once, at all, in the month of April.

I think it's a technically impressive album, but it seems to embody an acquiescence for Autechre that disappoints me. I think the turning point was when I saw the flickr pictures and the only recognizable, non-midi-controller-audio-interface-mixer-boring-glue piece of equipment was a Nord Lead 2X. I mean, I get it. It's 2010. Everyone uses computers, it makes a lot of sense for so many reasons to have everything on the machine and have the glue hardware instead of a bigass pile of heavy, expensive, non-duplicable drum machines, synths, effects, etc. There is no practical reason to use a centrally hardware setup anymore except to give your eyes a break from the ubiquitous computer screen.

They have possibly exhausted the grainy, crunchy, DSPed-out, all textures of utterly indeterminate origin aesthetic. Well, I really fucking liked that aesthetic. I liked listening to the same album every day and feeling like I still hadn't absorbed all the details, like it was impossible to do so. I'm sure there are details in Oversteps I'm missing out on, but they seem auxilary to the main point of paring down the textures to focus on the other elements.

But I find the melodies kind of icky. Either schmaltzy or baroque. I can get on board 100% with the very end of...oh shit what is that track called? The one with all the stupid, truly random-sounding, slow chords throughout most of it. Maybe the composition is the point now, and I just don't really dig their feel for it. Coincidentally, I recently find myself consciously wanting to avoid melody in my own music. To go back to rawness and distortion and crusty ass junk samples. The hiphop-industrial-punk-noise.

I think someone on here said it's their most mood-dependent. Maybe that's all it is. I guess I haven't been in that mood since early March. Someone also said that there's always the next Autechre album. I hope you're right. I feel like a geezer saying it but dammit, I miss the old Autechre. What happened to the noise, the b-boyism?

Anyone else feeling this way too, or is it all love?

  On 5/13/2010 at 2:59 AM, sweepstakes said:

I think I've only properly (dark room, headphones, no distractions) listened to this album twice, although I did listen in the car a few times in February. Now that my initial excitement has worn off, I think it might be my least favorite Autechre now, although I need to listen again to be sure. I believe that I didn't listen to it once, at all, in the month of April.

 

I think it's a technically impressive album, but it seems to embody an acquiescence for Autechre that disappoints me. I think the turning point was when I saw the flickr pictures and the only recognizable, non-midi-controller-audio-interface-mixer-boring-glue piece of equipment was a Nord Lead 2X. I mean, I get it. It's 2010. Everyone uses computers, it makes a lot of sense for so many reasons to have everything on the machine and have the glue hardware instead of a bigass pile of heavy, expensive, non-duplicable drum machines, synths, effects, etc. There is no practical reason to use a centrally hardware setup anymore except to give your eyes a break from the ubiquitous computer screen.

 

They have possibly exhausted the grainy, crunchy, DSPed-out, all textures of utterly indeterminate origin aesthetic. Well, I really fucking liked that aesthetic. I liked listening to the same album every day and feeling like I still hadn't absorbed all the details, like it was impossible to do so. I'm sure there are details in Oversteps I'm missing out on, but they seem auxilary to the main point of paring down the textures to focus on the other elements.

 

But I find the melodies kind of icky. Either schmaltzy or baroque. I can get on board 100% with the very end of...oh shit what is that track called? The one with all the stupid, truly random-sounding, slow chords throughout most of it. Maybe the composition is the point now, and I just don't really dig their feel for it. Coincidentally, I recently find myself consciously wanting to avoid melody in my own music. To go back to rawness and distortion and crusty ass junk samples. The hiphop-industrial-punk-noise.

 

I think someone on here said it's their most mood-dependent. Maybe that's all it is. I guess I haven't been in that mood since early March. Someone also said that there's always the next Autechre album. I hope you're right. I feel like a geezer saying it but dammit, I miss the old Autechre. What happened to the noise, the b-boyism?

 

Anyone else feeling this way too, or is it all love?

This is by far my favourite album (and that's saying a lot, because I really love all the other albums). You mentioned that you were wondering if it's about the melodies or the structure? Well, I don't think it's about either. I think it's primarily about the interplay between different voices. This is, in my opinion, a predominantly contrapuntal album. I really enjoy it, but I come from a classical music background, so I think I might be looking for something different in autechre than most autechre fans are.

  On 5/13/2010 at 4:09 AM, Root5 said:

  On 5/13/2010 at 2:59 AM, sweepstakes said:

(Omitting my original post cos it's too damn long, sorry...)

 

This is by far my favourite album (and that's saying a lot, because I really love all the other albums). You mentioned that you were wondering if it's about the melodies or the structure? Well, I don't think it's about either. I think it's primarily about the interplay between different voices. This is, in my opinion, a predominantly contrapuntal album. I really enjoy it, but I come from a classical music background, so I think I might be looking for something different in autechre than most autechre fans are.

That's possible. I'm definitely NOT from a classical background. I've got good ears but I can't read music; what little theory I know I learned from classical/jazz oriented friends in school. I remember when I first heard it I was all excited about counterpoint and I dusted off my copy of Switched on Bach and I thought I was hearing all this new stuff in it. Then maybe because the warm weather just started aI want to hear something rawer, more structurally simple and maybe more texturally complex, or maybe just crustier/dustier.

Or maybe it was just too much effort for me to try to intuitively/autodidactically figure out this counterpoint thing. I don't think I want to learn too much theory beyond the descriptions of fugues in Gödel, Escher, Bach. Not my style really, not what I'm after, so for now I relegate myself to not getting it.

FWIW my faves are probably, in descending order:

Quaristice

Chiastic Slide/Envane

Amber

Draft

Cichlisuite

Garbage

the Flex set (I'm pretty sick of Tri Repetae but I really, really dig this deconstruction of it)

EP7

As I hinted at in my first post, I think it has something to do with their interaction with the machines on these albums. There is an improvisational feel to these that seems to be lacking in the rest. Maybe this is just a sign that I need to seek out more jazz, noise, improvisational stuff to get the detail fix I used to get from Autechre.

  On 5/13/2010 at 5:24 AM, sweepstakes said:

There is an improvisational feel to these that seems to be lacking in the rest. Maybe this is just a sign that I need to seek out more jazz, noise, improvisational stuff to get the detail fix I used to get from Autechre.

that's strange, i'm of the opinion that this is probably the most 'composed' autechre album, in terms of melodic structure.

  On 5/13/2010 at 5:37 AM, modey said:

  On 5/13/2010 at 5:24 AM, sweepstakes said:

There is an improvisational feel to these that seems to be lacking in the rest. Maybe this is just a sign that I need to seek out more jazz, noise, improvisational stuff to get the detail fix I used to get from Autechre.

that's strange, i'm of the opinion that this is probably the most 'composed' autechre album, in terms of melodic structure.

I certainly agree. Sorry if I was unclear.

I mostly agree with you sweepstakes, I listened to draft after oversteps and all the grainy textures and beats were really refreshing. But the live bootlegs from this tour are completely badass, I don't think that computer setup really has much to do with the album's focus on melodies.

  On 5/13/2010 at 6:03 AM, sweepstakes said:

  On 5/13/2010 at 5:37 AM, modey said:

  On 5/13/2010 at 5:24 AM, sweepstakes said:

There is an improvisational feel to these that seems to be lacking in the rest. Maybe this is just a sign that I need to seek out more jazz, noise, improvisational stuff to get the detail fix I used to get from Autechre.

that's strange, i'm of the opinion that this is probably the most 'composed' autechre album, in terms of melodic structure.

I certainly agree. Sorry if I was unclear.

oh! oops, i misread your post!

modey, no worries. With my admittedly sprawling couple of posts, I assumed that my point got lost in all that ramble.

  On 5/13/2010 at 6:15 AM, spraaaa said:

I mostly agree with you sweepstakes, I listened to draft after oversteps and all the grainy textures and beats were really refreshing. But the live bootlegs from this tour are completely badass, I don't think that computer setup really has much to do with the album's focus on melodies.

To be fair, I haven't given any of the most recent sets a listen or two. I seem to remember that somewhere about 70% of the way through is another one of these Oversteps-type melodies that seem to have one too many, er, colors in them for my taste.

One of the things that keeps springing to mind for some reason is tea. I like black tea. I like green tea. I like yerba mate. I sometimes like these with a little sugar or honey, in the case of black tea a little milk and in the case of yerba mate a little mint. But I'm mostly repulsed by spice tea. Especially the kinds with orange, where it feels like all these spices are vying for attention. And that's what I'm hearing in these melodies...this sort of clashing, battling, colors that can't blend. Anti-drone. Rather than a refraction or filtering of a single source of light, it's this sort of unnatural juxtaposition of colors that don't occur in nature. Doesn't go down well for me.

But maybe that's the, er, point of counterpoint?

Ack. Sorry for all the synaesthesia blather. That's the best I've got.

Also, I'm definitely more of a coffee guy. Black coffee.

  On 5/13/2010 at 8:40 AM, sweepstakes said:

modey, no worries. With my admittedly sprawling couple of posts, I assumed that my point got lost in all that ramble.

  On 5/13/2010 at 6:15 AM, spraaaa said:

I mostly agree with you sweepstakes, I listened to draft after oversteps and all the grainy textures and beats were really refreshing. But the live bootlegs from this tour are completely badass, I don't think that computer setup really has much to do with the album's focus on melodies.

To be fair, I haven't given any of the most recent sets a listen or two. I seem to remember that somewhere about 70% of the way through is another one of these Oversteps-type melodies that seem to have one too many, er, colors in them for my taste.

 

One of the things that keeps springing to mind for some reason is tea. I like black tea. I like green tea. I like yerba mate. I sometimes like these with a little sugar or honey, in the case of black tea a little milk and in the case of yerba mate a little mint. But I'm mostly repulsed by spice tea. Especially the kinds with orange, where it feels like all these spices are vying for attention. And that's what I'm hearing in these melodies...this sort of clashing, battling, colors that can't blend. Anti-drone. Rather than a refraction or filtering of a single source of light, it's this sort of unnatural juxtaposition of colors that don't occur in nature. Doesn't go down well for me.

 

But maybe that's the, er, point of counterpoint?

 

Ack. Sorry for all the synaesthesia blather. That's the best I've got.

 

Also, I'm definitely more of a coffee guy. Black coffee.

in terms of music, particularly in synthesis, using the term colour/color is a synonym for timbre, which in my understanding is nothing to do with melody at all. it is to do with the actual sound itself. like the difference in sound between the plucking of a guitar string, to the knoll of a bell. so maybe your problem isn't with the melodies necessarily, but the sound pallette. more credence is given to this because you mention about their current setup.

just saying.

  On 5/12/2010 at 6:10 PM, reimdont said:

I think you will eventually - immediacy doesn't form part of the Ae oeuvre

  On 5/12/2010 at 7:39 PM, theSun said:

it took about 3 listens for me before it started to click

First listen was in the dark on a huge speaker system. My 2nd was yesterday outside on the bike with little headphones and grey crappy weather. It actually did a lot more for me yesterday. I never look at track titles before I have my own associations with the tracks, but I like the 3rd track now and the 7th I think, the one with the crazy higher pitch scrapey melodies. I think it's getting somwhere, like I was hoping - Although there are albums that I still haven't got till this day (LP5)

  On 5/13/2010 at 9:39 AM, oscillik said:

 

in terms of music, particularly in synthesis, using the term colour/color is a synonym for timbre, which in my understanding is nothing to do with melody at all. it is to do with the actual sound itself. like the difference in sound between the plucking of a guitar string, to the knoll of a bell. so maybe your problem isn't with the melodies necessarily, but the sound pallette. more credence is given to this because you mention about their current setup.

 

just saying.

I do think that the timbre is part of it. I understand the timbres on this album to be more geometric - more of a shape than a texture, i.e. vector vs. raster. And this was confirmed in interviews where they said they were consciously trying to avoid swapping large chunks of audio and instead swapped Logic and Max files, which were more MIDI- or code- dense than recorded-audio-dense. So the data used doesn't isomorphically represent samples but instead is mapped to parameters in Max or outboard synth patches (do you call them patches in Max? programs, maybe?)

But I'm pretty sure that by "color" I was talking about melodic content. I know it was a confusing choice of words - dancing about architecture, etc.

Probably the simplest and most likely explanation is that they drastically changed the approach of the last 2 albums, just like they did with Untilted. Before Oversteps came out, Untilted was my least favorite, although I wasn't as disappointed in it because there was still a lot of enjoyable flavor, though again the melodies were mostly pretty dull. Then Quaristice felt like they had refined the Untilted process. I loved Quaristice immediately and it's still one of my favorites. It was probably the same with Confield vs. Draft. Not sure if I can go any further back but 10 years is pretty far. Which means that if this pattern is continued for the next album, I will probably really appreciate it...and I might be even more disappointed in the one after that.

That said, reading recent interviews about their new process makes me curious about taking a hip-hop/MPC approach with drum pads and chopping but using Reaktor/Max/SC patches instead of samples. Not that it hasn't been done by tons of people already, I just haven't really tried it myself.