Polygon Window intro

nice reading Zoe.

there are so many things you can do with effects boxes. you can double, pan and phase very easily. Like the eventide stuff.

  On 1/10/2013 at 5:10 AM, marf said:

sounds like a phaser to me

Hmm, possibly, I can't really tell if it's proper doubling or just phasing. Still, it's only done to some of the hits, which is the bit that impressed me, that attention to detail when it's something so arbitrary. No one would think it wrong if he didn't put in that level of effort, and it arguably sounds more wrong once he did, but it also sounds better.

  On 1/10/2013 at 5:47 AM, LimpyLoo said:

Nicely done, Z-bomb.

  On 1/10/2013 at 5:52 AM, LimpyLoo said:

P.S. Zoe as a result of your analysis, how often do you experiment wtih specific RDJ production/mixing ideas?

  On 1/10/2013 at 1:53 PM, tokn said:

i read your article, man what a hell load of work. you really want to continue? anyway good read and some new insights for me.

  On 1/10/2013 at 2:41 PM, marf said:

nice reading Zoe.

 

there are so many things you can do with effects boxes. you can double, pan and phase very easily. Like the eventide stuff.

Thanks everyone! ^.^

I've been getting really into doubling lately. I'm working on a remix at the moment, and the first version of it I made (that I'm not happy with, so I'm going to redo it from scratch) has 36 channels. This is why I don't get the reel-to-reel tape love, hehe... Yes, you can also achieve a similar effect with an effects unit, but I'm starting to get a sense for when it's good to do it for real and when it's good to fake it with an effect, which can sound slightly different but good in its own right. The same kinda way I use a spring reverb for a specific kind of organic sound, and a digital reverb for actual proper reverb, heh....

Yeah, I'm far too verbose with this stuff, overanalysing things, but I find it helpful, so I'll probably finish it at some point. It's actually the "second era" of James' work that interests me the most right now, so what I've published so far was the stuff I was kind of "getting out of the way" to work up to that... I just love figuring out how stuff works as much as I love interesting music, I guess. It's fun to map out systems of pretty much any kind.

Though really I'm more concerned with this sort of mini treatise on electronic music I'm writing, which draws inspiration and examples from a bunch of different artists in different styles. As much as I love James' music, there are some things he doesn't do well, and some he doesn't even try to do at all. Analysing the output of any one person would only help you to emulate that person, not to make an original, unique combination of ideas from all over the place. You could, for instance, analyse how Underworld or Orbital grew their skillsets over several albums. (The former especially has an interesting stream-of-consciousness vocal thing going on. Check out the Dubnobasswithmyheadman beta version that's floating around online to see the work in progress and compare it to the finished product. It's fascinating to extrapolate how people refine their work. Most of writing is rewriting. This doesn't just apply to music, either. Check out the '96 draft of The Matrix and compare it to the shooting script. Note how the Wachowskis refined their ideas. Doesn't that just inspire you to make something good right now, knowing it doesn't need to be perfect the first time, because you can spend a long time rewriting it until it's great?)

As far as emulating James' techniques goes, I touch upon this in the linked article, but it's worth repeating as it's an important point. The main thing he does is innovate, ignoring what everyone else is doing and making something unique. To try to copy his style is to miss the point. You have to copy his desire to make something original. (Although emulating the style of your idols is always tempting to do, and I do slip into that sometimes, it shouldn't be your main driving factor. You need to develop a unique voice that's true to yourself.) The main thing I've learnt was from reading his 1993 interview in which he talked about sampling scrap and making use of the limited equipment he had. It (ironically) reminded me to stop just analysing things so much, and to also trust my intuition again like I used to in my tracking days, when I'd hit some old metal and sample it for percussion because I didn't know about sample CDs. Sample whatever objects you want to. Wire up the kinds of patches that you want to hear. If you're using samples of synths, don't try to hide the fact. Make use of your ability to play atonal sounds back at different pitches. (I'm pretty sure If It Really Is Me features a sample of a TR-808 rimshot played at various different pitches. It took me a while to work out why it sounded familiar to me. Back in high school, my best friend and I made a track in which we did the exact same thing. It's fun to simply muck around creating things like that.) Basically, sample household objects or anything else you have to hand, wire up patches that don't sound like instruments, and be proud to make beautiful music out of a messy ghetto rig of homebuilt modules. There's a whole world of sounds out there, and we all have the technology now to make music out of everything. Stop trying to copy other people, and start trusting your own instincts, your own sense of what sounds good.

Sorry, it's late, and I have more music to make... I'll stop rambling now! ^.^

haven't had a chance to listen to what you talked about but might it be just a case of fannying around with the panning on the portastudio given that that would be one of the few variables to fanny around with in a simple studio setup

maybe i misunderstood the point of your post

do you guys really think he spent that much time on 8 bars of hi hats, working his fingers to the bone like the fucking mona lisa?

  On 1/10/2013 at 10:31 PM, CharlesWatkins said:

do you guys really think he spent that much time on 8 bars of hi hats, working his fingers to the bone like the fucking mona lisa?

lol

this. and what LUDD said. imo. :

im sure rich has worked his fingers to the bone on some tracks, but Polygon Win sounds like a one off live style track

sounds like an 'on the fly' tweak/knob twiddle to me.

even more so because it doesn't happen throughout the rest of the track. so is more likely to be just a little live tweak.

Maybe what we hear is the 'phex hitting an actual hi-hat, but that would be crazy right

You can record real time tweaks to almost every parameter of every sample on the Roland R8 with its data slider. Polygon Window = R8/606 + Samplers for percussion. You can hear him do that with all kinds of percussion in his earlier work, its a pretty handy trick to add variety to an otherwise ordinary sounding bit of a track.

/debunked

  sirch said:

/debunked

  On 1/13/2013 at 2:04 AM, Diao said:

You can record real time tweaks to almost every parameter of every sample on the Roland R8 with its data slider. Polygon Window = R8/606 + Samplers for percussion. You can hear him do that with all kinds of percussion in his earlier work, its a pretty handy trick to add variety to an otherwise ordinary sounding bit of a track.

This makes sense because I'm pretty sure he uses some real time envelope amount and octave parameter effects towards the end of Audax Powder. I only know this because I stumbled upon them while doing a song of my own and later recognized it in the song.

Yeah, little subtle changes can make for heaps of difference when you are listening/making something repetitive. Aphex is a master at this.

  On 1/18/2013 at 4:26 AM, Diao said:

Yeah, little subtle changes can make for heaps of difference when you are listening/making something repetitive. Aphex is a master at this.

Yes! This is what electronic music's about. The timbres can drastically change as you're playing, so the actual music becomes repetitive to accommodate this and let the timbres themselves take the spotlight. If you forget this, and make music that's repetitive without changing the timbres, then it becomes boring...

i've been listening to saw II every night for a while now as i sleep and i've noticed how every sound is constantly tweaked/changing. it's really that that keeps the music interesting.

  On 1/19/2013 at 6:41 AM, yek said:

i've been listening to saw II every night for a while now as i sleep and i've noticed how every sound is constantly tweaked/changing. it's really that that keeps the music interesting.

Exactly. The more repetitive the music itself is (pitch, rhythm), the more variation the timbres need because you need to have something interesting and new happening with some aspect of the music all the time. With ambient music in particular, it's all about the repetition, the subtle sublime distortions and imperfections introduced by long delays, and, well, expert knob twiddling. For that matter, acid is also about repetition of music with variation of timbre.

This is why, as much as I think it'd be nice to make a bunch of one-hit samples of my monosynth, I can't bring myself to do it. It's too much fun and sounds too good to wire up a new patch each time, and tweak it while it's playing. Now I can't play it any other way, and the music sounds better for it.

wow at this thread.... guys if this avatar was male you'd rip the fuck out of him...........

such double standards... and sexism... yes sexism works both ways. somebody should just say.

ohhh no... but........

  On 1/30/2013 at 7:08 AM, sirch said:

wow at this thread.... guys if this avatar was male you'd rip the fuck out of him...........

such double standards... and sexism... yes sexism works both ways. somebody should just say.

 

 

ohhh no... but........

Are you in the right thread?

totally. dude u r not even on the right forum. let alone 'thread'. wat r u! lol