Aphex Hardware Live Set

I remember seeing a picture a while back of Richard playing live with some synths and an mpc60. How long ago since he last did one? Quite a few artists have been taking their modulars onstage recently (with varying success), would be most excellent if he did a set with some drum machines and modular to show them how its done.

I agree.

The hardware liveact he did was just him playing his minidisc while hiding behind gear. today he plays from laptop while hiding behind screens. so even if he would bring the hardware you would not see him actually do something with it as its not really possible to recreate the music he does in a live context on a modular synth for example. On the other hand there are autechre who do live shows with gear on a regular basis so it seems to be possible for them and he might be able to do it too even so I do not remember him doing it.

did somebody just fart.. from their brain? :P

me? tears

i was actually just thinking about this last night. you beat me to it lol.

he shouldpress synth buttons

  On 5/8/2012 at 9:41 PM, tompty said:

me? tears

no dude not you. the post above my post was a bit like thinking out loud, like a brain fart. - not you. :)

  On 5/8/2012 at 8:20 PM, o00o said:

The hardware liveact he did was just him playing his minidisc while hiding behind gear. today he plays from laptop while hiding behind screens. so even if he would bring the hardware you would not see him actually do something with it as its not really possible to recreate the music he does in a live context on a modular synth for example. On the other hand there are autechre who do live shows with gear on a regular basis so it seems to be possible for them and he might be able to do it too even so I do not remember him doing it.

Ceephax does it, he could do it Analord style.

I might see aphex this year, but I'm seriously wondering if it is indeed worth it. does he normally dj;mixing his and others' music? or does he ever do a straight 'set'? you know, doing all the hits

if it's just him checking his gmail account I'll have to pass on general principle

  On 5/15/2012 at 1:39 AM, spprw said:

I might see aphex this year, but I'm seriously wondering if it is indeed worth it. does he normally dj;mixing his and others' music? or does he ever do a straight 'set'? you know, doing all the hits

 

if it's just him checking his gmail account I'll have to pass on general principle

I don't really see the allure to him doing a hardware live show other than to drool over choice pieces of gear. Maybe if it was all in the vein of Analord and the whole stage was filled with gear. For me, at the end of the day with the complexity of some of his music you are either playing stems and doing some tweaking or you are pressing go on your sequencer and controlling pattern changes. Hardly a 'live' performance beyond the logistics of setting it all up, not that that isn't an animal of its own.

Reminds me of groups like Crystal Method touring with these huge racks of equipment on stage, yet all they seem to be doing is cueing phrases on a master keyboard and jumping around for the crowd.

That said his DJ sets are pretty impressive and he mixes a lot of random stuff together succinctly. Definitely not a case of watching him check his gmail. The AV component of his recent shows is pretty badass, I'd go just to see that!

  On 5/15/2012 at 1:39 AM, spprw said:

I might see aphex this year, but I'm seriously wondering if it is indeed worth it. does he normally dj;mixing his and others' music? or does he ever do a straight 'set'? you know, doing all the hits

 

if it's just him checking his gmail account I'll have to pass on general principle

sarcasmo strikes again. read the fucking op

g- male

aphex twin on a festival is the best festival

*decides agsinst making a hotmail joke*

the av did look pretty interesting. it involves the crowd most of the time, right? he has a cameraman

ooze what did he play when you saw him? does he use mostly his own music?

  On 5/15/2012 at 2:07 AM, spprw said:

*decides agsinst making a hotmail joke*

 

the av did look pretty interesting. it involves the crowd most of the time, right? he has a cameraman

 

ooze what did he play when you saw him? does he use mostly his own music?

no he didn't most tracks i never heard, he played some old slow afx acid, then some brain melting experimental stuff and a track made at a butchery with some scat, he played come to daddy as a last track and put the needle of it at half the track

I seen hundreds of "bands" and i must say that da aphex twin was worth hellfucking it! see or die!

spprw, see or die!

Yeah his DJ sets are awesome. I don't really understand why people go to his shows and don't dance though, since his sets (and Autechre's as well) are definitely geared towards dance music.

That really frustrated me when I saw him in March, I was trying to dance but there were so many people around me just standing still.

  On 5/15/2012 at 3:18 AM, modey said:

Yeah his DJ sets are awesome. I don't really understand why people go to his shows and don't dance though, since his sets (and Autechre's as well) are definitely geared towards dance music.

That really frustrated me when I saw him in March, I was trying to dance but there were so many people around me just standing still.

lol, when I saw Autechre the entire venue transformed into the Zion scene from the second Matrix movie. Then again, I was tripping. But still, everyone around me was dancing.

if you know anything about making electronic music, you realize that it's near impossible to do the analords live without spending ages reprogramming/setting up new parameters/repatching stuff between each track. i'm fairly sure the Analord tracks were recorded 100% live from track to track, but the amount of time and effort it takes to set up between each track would make a "live" show pretty much impossible. Ceephax is able to do it because he uses a workstation with the ability to save patches/presets & midi, then uses converters etc. etc., as well as "rawer" beats, sounds and fx chains in general. even he has most of his sequences pre-planned and ready to go, it seems.

Still, one can do things "Live & Raw" as opposed to "Studio & Meticulous".

you can, but is it necessarily a good thing? i don't think there's some sort of magic that'll make it good simply based on the virtues of 'live'. there's a LOT to discuss when it comes to this, especially when it comes to composing for live situations and the trade-offs (putting effort into music you're practically able to reproduce in a live setting vs just not caring about that and doing whatever you want, enjoying less inhibitions). personally, i don't think a lot of artists benefit from actually doing a live hardware show, although there are a few that pull it off really well because of the way they work in the studio. a lot of these shows seem way too 'compromised' musically, though, at least for my taste.

Would be cool to see something like this again.

With live and raw, you lose something, but you gain something else. Look to other genres - a lot of improvised music is crap, but when something is golden it is truly golden.

I'm sure Mr James would pull it off nicely and that it would be worthwhile.

  On 5/15/2012 at 10:09 AM, compson said:

Would be cool to see something like this again.

Isn't there a DAT player under his table?

Idk, I thought it was a live set.