AAA - Ask Autechre Anything - Sean and Rob on WATMM!

Don't suppose you know why the AM doesn't work properly on VGM Music Maker? (I noticed you love Megadrive sounds) Is there any kind of fix anywhere?

  On 11/6/2013 at 4:53 PM, sergeantk said:

do you enjoy Nutella spread?

 

do you enjoy listening to your tracks over anyone elses'?

yeah too much, that stuff's deadly

nah i wouldn't say that, but they sometimes fill a void that seems to present itself

  On 11/6/2013 at 5:05 PM, hoggy said:

Don't suppose you know why the AM doesn't work properly on VGM Music Maker? (I noticed you love Megadrive sounds) Is there any kind of fix anywhere?

never used that, is it a sega tracker thing?

i only ever played the console i never tried to make tracks with one

Hey guys. First up thank you for answering all these questions. Rad!

You have mentioned a number of artists you rate in this thread and over the years in interviews.

I was wondering if you could give a little detail about what you rate about them; technically, creatively or aesthetically. What you think it particularly tasty, and what you think might be of value for other people here producing to take note of.

Maybe a production process, use of certain tech or certain headspace, texture or flow they achieve.

And if its not asking too much some rough pointers to tracks that you think might highlight this best.

For example, maybe some of these producers/bands/artists that you have mentioned:

1. Mantronix

2. Depeche Mode

3. Bomb Squad

4. Human League

5. Keith Leblanc

6. Bernard Parmegiani

7. Aldo Marin

8. 808 State

9. Aphex Twin

10. Tod Dockstader

11. RZA

12. Roland Kayn

13. Kraftwerk

14. Wendy Carlos

15. Marley Marl

16. Robert Hood

17. Farmers Manual

or any others you think people here might really enjoy.

Thank you

  On 11/6/2013 at 4:57 PM, Rob Ae said:

 

  On 11/6/2013 at 4:17 PM, triachus said:

 

  On 11/6/2013 at 4:12 PM, Sean Ae said:

 

  On 11/6/2013 at 4:07 PM, Obel said:

Do you have track titles for the live tracks you do?

not usually

but like, when we get handed a PRS form to fill in we make up a ton on the spot

so there are a lot of PRS listings for weird tracks that are only parts of live sets and that we subsequently forgot the names of

 

Do you still have such list? Can you show it to us? Sounds it would be good for a laugh.

 

i have oversteps list here, but not sure if you'll like them lol plus its not fair on sean cos he doesn't use words.

 

Even if I don't like it, my curiosity will at least be satisfied, so don't worry about that. And screw Sean, he named my guitar Squarepusher. That's not fair. And it's not even a bass. :'(

Bit of bumpage:

Do either of you have any thoughts on Wiliiam Basinski's 'Disintegration Loops'? Specifically surrounding the notion that appropriated emotions from a catastrophic event (9/11) negatively pushed the music beyond whatever the listener could hope to independently perceive for themselves - due to the heavy burden of sentimentality laid on by Basinski (stills from the smoke emitting from the two towers adorning the sleeve art, bringing up the mythology of how the music came to be at that time during interviews, etc)? Was being in the 'right' place/time (I use that in the loosest possible sense) justification enough for Basinski to legitimately apply such a tragedy to his creative work?

Have you heard any of the vocaloid music (created using advanced vocal synthesis) that came out of Japan in recent years? Does the software itself, or even just the idea of it interest you at all?

Favourite William Gibson book, if any?

Sean (another Max/MSP question, sorry!) -- you mentioned on another forum years ago that SuperCollider has, what Rob said is a 'deluxe' sound 'out of the box' and that over time you've worked out what MSP objects have that sound.

Can you mention a few which you currently consider to be the best sounding for your regular use?

  On 11/6/2013 at 5:04 PM, nth said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpFwCN3TTEE&list=PLC37AC9E52F3C505F

  Quote

 

1. There is a chance on releasing this in good quality without people? start in 4: 37 but also full would be cool;)

2. If there are other versions of songs from the Exai I mean Quaristice (Versions) only, that for the Exai 3. may in the future I will let your album or ep, I'd like the names for them;)

 

iirc jamie did record this set but he did a mix of soundboard and room mics, so no basically

i heard that sean has polish roots, is this true? // (+come to poland lol)

  On 11/6/2013 at 4:37 PM, Wurstwasser said:

Thanks Sean/Phoenix for cat name suggestions. Its a real problem, everybody calls his cat Lacora nowadays. Phoenix, don't take it personally, the mighty fanboyism forced me to accept only a seany name.

Kein problem!

Say, Sean and Rob, do you guys have any questions for WATMM?

do you guys implore a lot/any numerology in your tracks/programming. i.e.: golden ratio or anything like that?

  On 11/6/2013 at 5:09 PM, Retosik said:

i heard that sean has polish roots, is this true? // (+come to poland lol)

mostly scottish, with a few irish, a few less welsh, and a tiny number of poles

who told u that? p sure i only told like 3 people ever

  On 11/6/2013 at 4:41 PM, Wurstwasser said:

Can you still hear the hf noise (a sine at maybe 18 khz) in Piezo clocking in at 00:13? For me, it got lost rather suddenly. I remember it well, but now I'm 40+ and once I got back to Amber, it was gone.

Nooooooooo!

  On 11/6/2013 at 5:06 PM, Sean Ae said:

 

  On 11/6/2013 at 4:53 PM, sergeantk said:

do you enjoy Nutella spread?

 

do you enjoy listening to your tracks over anyone elses'?

 

yeah too much, that stuff's deadly

 

nah i wouldn't say that, but they sometimes fill a void that seems to present itself

  On 11/6/2013 at 5:05 PM, hoggy said:

Don't suppose you know why the AM doesn't work properly on VGM Music Maker? (I noticed you love Megadrive sounds) Is there any kind of fix anywhere?

 

never used that, is it a sega tracker thing?

i only ever played the console i never tried to make tracks with one

 

Have you tried Speculoos (aka Biscoff) spread? Perhaps even deadlier...

  On 11/6/2013 at 5:11 PM, jules said:

do you guys implore a lot/any numerology in your tracks/programming. i.e.: golden ratio or anything like that?

not nitpicking - but golden ratio isn't really numerology

  On 11/6/2013 at 5:11 PM, cebec said:

 

  On 11/6/2013 at 5:06 PM, Sean Ae said:

 

  On 11/6/2013 at 4:53 PM, sergeantk said:

do you enjoy Nutella spread?

 

do you enjoy listening to your tracks over anyone elses'?

 

yeah too much, that stuff's deadly

 

nah i wouldn't say that, but they sometimes fill a void that seems to present itself

  On 11/6/2013 at 5:05 PM, hoggy said:

Don't suppose you know why the AM doesn't work properly on VGM Music Maker? (I noticed you love Megadrive sounds) Is there any kind of fix anywhere?

 

never used that, is it a sega tracker thing?

i only ever played the console i never tried to make tracks with one

 

 

Have you tried Speculoos (aka Biscoff) spread? Perhaps even deadlier...

 

no but i will

where do i get that from?

  On 11/6/2013 at 5:12 PM, Sean Ae said:

 

  On 11/6/2013 at 5:11 PM, jules said:

do you guys implore a lot/any numerology in your tracks/programming. i.e.: golden ratio or anything like that?

 

not nitpicking - but golden ratio isn't really numerology

 

true, how about number theories, ratios, etc.

funny that came out at 11:11 which i love.

  On 11/6/2013 at 5:06 PM, Sean Ae said:

 

  On 11/6/2013 at 5:05 PM, hoggy said:

Don't suppose you know why the AM doesn't work properly on VGM Music Maker? (I noticed you love Megadrive sounds) Is there any kind of fix anywhere?

 

never used that, is it a sega tracker thing?

i only ever played the console i never tried to make tracks with one

 

Yeah it's a Megadrive sound chip emulator/tracker. If you like Megadrive sounds you might like to know that there is detailed info about the sound chips easily available online - including instruction codes, register addresses etc.

  On 11/6/2013 at 3:42 PM, Moon said:

The Stereolab remix is awesome, how did it come about? Are you fans of theirs or did they approach you or what?

Curious about this.

  On 11/6/2013 at 5:08 PM, cebec said:

Sean (another Max/MSP question, sorry!) -- you mentioned on another forum years ago that SuperCollider has, what Rob said is a 'deluxe' sound 'out of the box' and that over time you've worked out what MSP objects have that sound.

 

Can you mention a few which you currently consider to be the best sounding for your regular use?

tbh since they went 64 bit this is a moot point, i get better sounding stuff out of max these days

might just be my programming chops, i've been using max a lot longer

  On 11/6/2013 at 5:11 PM, cebec said:

 

  On 11/6/2013 at 5:06 PM, Sean Ae said:

 

  On 11/6/2013 at 4:53 PM, sergeantk said:

do you enjoy Nutella spread?

yeah too much, that stuff's deadly

 

Have you tried Speculoos (aka Biscoff) spread? Perhaps even deadlier...

 

Yes, very deadly. If you're ever in Belgium again, look/ask around for Lotus Speculoos pasta

  On 11/6/2013 at 5:15 PM, Moon said:

 

  On 11/6/2013 at 3:42 PM, Moon said:

The Stereolab remix is awesome, how did it come about? Are you fans of theirs or did they approach you or what?

 

Curious about this.

 

they approached us, are/were fans

i used to like their energy, the way there would just be people on a stage all staring at the floor just concentrating on the sound, i really get that

  On 11/6/2013 at 5:11 PM, Sean Ae said:

 

  On 11/6/2013 at 5:09 PM, Retosik said:

i heard that sean has polish roots, is this true? // (+come to poland lol)

 

mostly scottish, with a few irish, a few less welsh, and a tiny number of poles

 

who told u that? p sure i only told like 3 people ever

 

i found it accidentally on a polish site by googling autechre

http://www.muno.pl/dj-art/autechre/

[...] Rochdale. To właśnie tutaj w połowie lat 80. ubiegłego wieku poznali się Rob Brown i potomek polskich emigrantów Sean Booth [...]

(if you are too lazy to use google translate:)

~[...] Rochdale. Here in the mid 80s of the last century Rob Brown and descendant of Polish immigrants Sean Booth met each other [...]

strange

  On 11/6/2013 at 4:52 PM, thehauntingsoul said:

 

  On 11/6/2013 at 12:42 AM, Rob Ae said:

 

  On 11/6/2013 at 12:30 AM, thehauntingsoul said:

What's a day in the life of Ae?

 

Any interesting stuff you can say about any of these tracks? Theme of sudden roundabout, iera, cfern, nuane, latent quarter, 777, netlon sentinel, perlence, they're a few of my faves.

 

Can you name my oxygen 49?

 

Space, deep sea or Antarctic?

 

Android or iOS?

 

Cheers, thanks again for this q&a session, it's been a great show!

will get to this tmoro

 

You broke my heart by not delivering, Rob. I'm going to run away and cry now.

 

wait come back :o

- 1x cupasoup

- fukin all them tracks? i want to but i won't. thanks for the props, oh yeah always felt like Cfern was written by us as a conduit for Ron Grainer's spirit.

- Ice Cube

- deep sea

- iOS atm

  On 11/6/2013 at 5:02 PM, KunoMerit said:

you ever see this video?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwidT13MNBA

 

really turned me on to the nord lead.

 

really still holds up as a va.

I mean, isn't this possible with a lot of other different VAs? I don't hear anything special there.