How do AE make those sounds? : the Thread

How so? I see a bunch of people who want to actually discuss the techniques & tools, and a few saying basically that this discussion/exercise is pointless or misguided. Am I missing something? (Sincere, non-rhetorical question)

I read the questions in your previous post rhetorically. Guess I misunderstood you, then.

I did use those two questions rhetorically, which is why I clarified just now. Those questions represent the only reason I can think of to advise against analyzing Autechre, basically to protect someone from their own delusions about the accessibility of those sounds.

  On 9/2/2012 at 5:17 PM, sweepstakes said:

Does anyone actually believe in the cargo cult idea that owning the same gear Autechre uses makes you magically sound like them? Or that if you were actually trying to imitate them, and not just enrich your understanding of both Autechre and your gear (and audio techniques in general), that you should start by acquiring the same stuff they use?

From my experience, I bought a Machinedrum because I wanted the same kind of flexibility with (drum) sounds that Ae achieved with Untilted. Once I had it I quickly found that everything I was doing with it was a vague attempt to rip Ae off. A LOT of my older work is based around that. Only over the last few years have I actually been delving deep enough into the Elektron gear to do my own thing with it, and artistically I find what I'm doing now much more rewarding that what I was doing back then, most probably because I'm not comparing it to other work and saying "Hmmm, it doesn't quite sound like that".

Having said all that, I can't wait for a few days time when I've got my Elektrons up and running again and can do some Ae-like demos of just the MD and MnM for this thread. You can make a ton of Quaristice rip offs with those two boxes alone.

http://forum.watmm.com/topic/38482-elektron/page__st__50

somewhere in the middle of the thread

so, I decided to give autechre more of a chance because I wasn't a fan of much of their work (I like their old stuff... amber... incunabula)...

I found a few tracks I really like.

Are there any other songs that sound like "90101-5I-I"? What a beast...

I was just listening to the Tunnels ov Set remix yesterday and now I think that is mostly MPC as well. Just lots of chops, hip hop style, with some onboard MPC processing. Of course I could be wrong.

I always thought the reverb was some kind of crazy Monomachine reverb automation with parameter locks, but yesterday it seemed like it was mostly just a dry sample and reverbed out sample of the main synth line, chopped up and maybe choking/muting each other.

Also, the swirly panning effect near could be chops -> delay -> auto-panner.

  On 9/5/2012 at 3:19 AM, StephenG said:

so, I decided to give autechre more of a chance because I wasn't a fan of much of their work (I like their old stuff... amber... incunabula)...

 

I found a few tracks I really like.

 

Are there any other songs that sound like "90101-5I-I"? What a beast...

pen expers.

it's the ae essence.

  On 9/11/2012 at 12:37 PM, crivella said:

  On 9/5/2012 at 3:19 AM, StephenG said:

so, I decided to give autechre more of a chance because I wasn't a fan of much of their work (I like their old stuff... amber... incunabula)...

 

I found a few tracks I really like.

 

Are there any other songs that sound like "90101-5I-I"? What a beast...

 

pen expers.

it's the ae essence.

maybe try the live sets?

  On 9/11/2012 at 7:46 PM, soundwave said:

  On 9/11/2012 at 12:37 PM, crivella said:

  On 9/5/2012 at 3:19 AM, StephenG said:

so, I decided to give autechre more of a chance because I wasn't a fan of much of their work (I like their old stuff... amber... incunabula)...

 

I found a few tracks I really like.

 

Are there any other songs that sound like "90101-5I-I"? What a beast...

 

pen expers.

it's the ae essence.

 

maybe try the live sets?

thanks guys

  On 8/31/2012 at 10:07 PM, sweepstakes said:

  On 8/31/2012 at 5:22 PM, zemudene said:

All those sounds could easely be made on one synth with two oscs and some modulation possibilities. And reverb.

I guess that depends on how closely you're listening - there's a lot of processing going on beyond "And reverb".

 

  On 8/31/2012 at 9:11 PM, futureimage said:

Both the Monomachine and the Machinedrum do that whole bandpass-acid thing really well due to their kick-ass variable bandwidth/shelf filters. Probably my favourite digital filter, out of the ones I've heard.

 

I'm not disputing that the drums are MPC or not, but the Machinedrum could do all that hi-hat spaz out very easily - a lot of the Untilted/Quaristice stuff abuses the UW sampling facilities so much. Some of it is beyond imagination, but it's clearly UW, it just sounds like it. There's so much automation/LFOing/general FSU-ing that makes is Aewsome

Yeah the part that made me not so sure that the drums were MPC was in the middle with that Untilted-style post-reverb stutter effect on the drums. I guess that could just be pre-reverbed samples getting retriggered.

 

One of the tricky things about this kind of analysis is that we tend to think of how this stuff could be done live, from soup to nuts, especially since the tools available are so advanced at doing all that now. But there's still lots that can be done in pre- or post-production that can't be done purely live, at least not easily. And this is a recording, like a movie, so techniques like that are certainly available, especially when we're talking about samplers.

 

And it's also a matter of sensitivity. Surely some of us don't give a shit about the differences between this filter and that one, just that it's a bandpass, or of things residual details (or lack thereof) resulting from differences in workflow. Some aren't into going deep and investigating and analyzing, and are just happy to get the general idea of the track, or that of one specific sound in the track

In CONFIELD and UNTILTED hte sound is so defragmented... it's like they put everything into a container like MAX.

  On 8/31/2012 at 1:55 AM, vamos scorcho said:

You know what I mean? What are they using on Quaristice? Some of those sounds are astounding. The hi hats on the middle third of the album, some of the "thwacks" - how are they doing that, ya'll?!!!

i would guess envelope controlled filters or oscillators

i just reverse engineered the ae catalog. not much to report, they're obviously just using samplers, beats, synths, max, pads, glitch and machine drum. in that order.

one thing of note, they use cool edit in order to get that signature ae kick drum. here's how:

go to cool edit > open recent > "ae kick" > press play

Yeah, obviously this is kind of a silly exercise since you almost never know how they really came up with these sounds.

But I personally very much enjoy this sort of reverse engineering, imagining connections and processes based on a result. I have since I was an 8 year old with piles of Lego pieces, trying to build miniature versions of vehicles and buildings spotted from the back seat car window.

That's my perspective and if that makes me dorky, corny, hammy, naive, self-indulgent, pretentious, or all of the above, well, I'm neither completely oblivious to it nor am I going to allow it balloon my self-consciousness to the point that it spoils my fun.

don't worry man, I'm not hating. There's nothing wrong with nerding out about Ae and gear!

I'm just being a wanker

As a hopeless fanboy I always appreciate your piquant commentary even if I sometimes take the good-natured smirking a bit too personally.

lol

my commentary is most successful when it reveals the extent of my fanboyism. tbh I hope one day sean will read one of my ae posts, see all the cryptic references i make to tracks, interviews, etc and pm me with his number.

I, too, harbor this poignant dream, Alcofribas.

  On 9/15/2012 at 7:20 PM, Alcofribas said:

one thing of note, they use cool edit in order to get that signature ae kick drum. here's how:

 

go to cool edit > open recent > "ae kick" > press play

irl lol

this little program is pretty AE

https://sites.google.com/site/analogbox2/

lol so my ABox2 vids are going kinda viral right now, Richard Devine posted one of mine up on his Facebook account last night

Kudos!

  On 9/20/2012 at 8:51 AM, futureimage said:

lol so my ABox2 vids are going kinda viral right now, Richard Devine posted one of mine up on his Facebook account last night

Lol I downloaded it last night because of this twitter post

Here's my take.

I think they use a ton of granular techniques (e.g. take a sample, loop a very small portion of it, play it at various speeds, filter it, modulate it in various ways, etc).

Honestly, I think that accounts for a good portion of the insanity.

For instance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1RrVa_axRY

And obviously they do plenty of familiar techniques as well.