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

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:00 AM, Rob Ae said:

 

  On 11/4/2013 at 11:41 PM, Jev said:

 

  On 11/4/2013 at 11:32 PM, Sean Ae said:

 

  On 11/4/2013 at 9:53 PM, billybrown said:

Have you used Beap? It's a modular environment for Max/MSP. List of modules is great (continually expanding), has the +/- 5 volt eurorack standard, CV can be controlled via MIDI, and other nice features.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtTZsZ5hn2Q

 

https://github.com/stretta/BEAP

 

https://github.com/stretta/BEAP/wiki

no i've never seen it

it looks a bit high level, but it's a cool idea for people new to max i suppose

  On 11/4/2013 at 11:31 PM, Rob Ae said:

 

  On 11/4/2013 at 11:26 PM, Jev said:

 

  On 11/4/2013 at 11:18 PM, Rob Ae said:

 

  On 11/4/2013 at 11:10 PM, John Ehrlichman said:

 

  On 11/4/2013 at 10:40 PM, Sean Ae said:

 

  On 11/4/2013 at 6:23 PM, MisterE said:

related to your reply to i believe it was awe's question about the NSA to which you said it (spying) was a necessary phase-

 

so in the nearish future when brain implants, chips that allow you to connect your brain directly to your computer are available, will either/both of you say 'damn the torpedoes' (in this case the torpedoes being the american gov and possibly other govs recording every thought you have in a secret facility somewhere, and organizing all the data into various cross-referenced, instantly searchable databases, to be used in who knows what ways), and go ahead and get one so you can control your max patches directly with your brain waves? assuming you don't already. is that what you meant by saying the NSA stuff is part of a necessary phase? that all of this is inevitable, that all of our brains are going to be under direct monitoring by gov/commercial entities but that we have to accept that if we want the cool shit like robot servants that bring us our tea when we think about tea, or being able to compose tracks with our thoughts like raymond scott wanted to do?

nah

i don't know why everyone is focusing so much on the nsa

everyone's at it, all spying on each other

it's not like some nice neat pyramid, it's like a web

 

in the future we're gonna be so much more networked than this, even the concept of monitoring will be totally antiquated

what do you think of this quote by raymond scott

 

  Quote

 

 

• "Perhaps within the next hundred years, science will perfect a process of thought transference from composer to listener. The composer will sit alone on the concert stage and merely 'think' his idealized conception of his music. Instead of recordings of actual music sound, recordings will carry the brainwaves of the composer directly to the mind of the listener." —Raymond Scott, 1949

Haha, god yeah that could get well messy. Nice sentiment though, but i like the spot we're at right now, i like ppl climbing into the bass bins at gigs, and ppl on balconies jostling for the best sweet spot.....

Sweet spot on a balcony where all bass cumulate into mud and mids bounce like crazy? Sweet spot is definitely a subjective term then! :D

Yeah theres something for everyone when u throw a huge acoustic space into the scenario.

or an outdoor space

Yeah I mean, with abstract music (your music) one can really benefit from inaccurate acoustics - interesting experiences may occur. I have unfortunately never been to your show so can't tell but I was pretty disappointed how most of my favourite bands sounded live. Sometimes I was even unable to recognize what track is playing at all and it was not because of them jamming unexpectedly - it was shit mix and acoustics basically.

Well say if you were drunk on booze, that wouldve smashed yr hearing at loud levels in addition to the shit rig/space. Getting pissed spoils things a lot. Not saying you were btw, just saying how most gigs come over to a lot of ppl.

 

Haha, no sorry, I have never been drunk in my life. I dunno some of my musical friends say I care too much about music and how it sounds but I simply cannot help myself (and that is definitely a part of the reason I love your production so much - you are basically spot-on almost everytime. Sometimes really cant believe what I am hearing).

Anyway, as I have written recently, I have been to shows that were fantastic so I can compare. It simply does not work for me mostly. Dunno.

Thanks Sean. I'll pm you pics of the result.

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:06 AM, John Ehrlichman said:

It's kinda too bad not many composers followed in his footsteps ie: the total recall soundtrack. It seems like most orchestral/electronic music fusion after that point took a nose dive into the shitter. I've never heard anyone after Goldsmith be able to so seamlessly throw synth/electronic elements into a traditional orchestra sound

i think badalamenti does it really well but it's maybe not as overt

yeah his stuff is a little more blended I suppose. He's a good example of someone, I'd put him sort of in the realm of Mark Snow but far better. I just recently found out the ridiculous (but good) choral patch-laden Nightmare on Elm St 3 : the Dream Warriors soundtrack was by Badalamenti, worth checking out.

What did you think of the sound FX design in the new Transformers movies?

  On 11/4/2013 at 11:57 PM, thehauntingsoul said:

How do your parents/extended family rate your music. Do they enjoy it or are they really confused why you make it and why anyone would buy it?

my mum likes amber

i guess that's predictable though

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:02 AM, Sean Ae said:

 

  On 11/4/2013 at 11:57 PM, John Ehrlichman said:

never noticed it in dial, first time a fractally timbre really stood out to me was in Y7. It's a fun mind-fuck to try and figure out how you guys achieve sounds like that, and I try to guess how (most of the time I'm probably wrong).

 

what's most amazing to me about this point in your musical trajectory is how much shit is going on at once, that if a typical musician tried to attempt it the mix would sound muddy, things would lose transients, it would sound like a flat mess in the wrong hands. You're one of the only artists doing sounds this crazy that also seem to have a high level of audio engineering skill to work with all the elements.

 

for example if someone tried to reverse engineer Tac Lacora to what appears to be it's individual elements, a reverse order approach would be the only way i could see getting it to sound as nice and slamming. It makes me wonder do you guys jam out some of these more crazy 'full' sounds, record them and then later refine them through audio engineering tricks like clever use of sidechain compression and eq, careful multiband compression, parallel compression, etc?

 

 

 

in the case of tac lacora it was mostly like that as it went down in realtime, but yeah there was a ton of bus compression happening

apart from that it's mostly in the envelopes

 

So you really manually adjust every single bit of the track by envelopes? That surely needs a lot of patience (or motivation).

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:12 AM, soundwave said:

What did you think of the sound FX design in the new Transformers movies?

it sounds like it looks, like piles of rubbish fighting each other

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:13 AM, Jev said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:02 AM, Sean Ae said:

 

  On 11/4/2013 at 11:57 PM, John Ehrlichman said:

never noticed it in dial, first time a fractally timbre really stood out to me was in Y7. It's a fun mind-fuck to try and figure out how you guys achieve sounds like that, and I try to guess how (most of the time I'm probably wrong).

 

what's most amazing to me about this point in your musical trajectory is how much shit is going on at once, that if a typical musician tried to attempt it the mix would sound muddy, things would lose transients, it would sound like a flat mess in the wrong hands. You're one of the only artists doing sounds this crazy that also seem to have a high level of audio engineering skill to work with all the elements.

 

for example if someone tried to reverse engineer Tac Lacora to what appears to be it's individual elements, a reverse order approach would be the only way i could see getting it to sound as nice and slamming. It makes me wonder do you guys jam out some of these more crazy 'full' sounds, record them and then later refine them through audio engineering tricks like clever use of sidechain compression and eq, careful multiband compression, parallel compression, etc?

 

 

 

in the case of tac lacora it was mostly like that as it went down in realtime, but yeah there was a ton of bus compression happening

apart from that it's mostly in the envelopes

 

 

So you really manually adjust every single bit of the track by envelopes? That surely needs a lot of patience (or motivation).

 

yeah but not editing by hand, changing according to conditions

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:14 AM, Sean Ae said:

it sounds like piles of rubbish fighting each other

 

 

That's what some people have said about Fol3 to be fair :)

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:11 AM, John Ehrlichman said:

yeah his stuff is a little more blended I suppose. He's a good example of someone, I'd put him sort of in the realm of Mark Snow but far better. I just recently found out the ridiculous (but good) choral patch-laden Nightmare on Elm St 3 : the Dream Warriors soundtrack was by Badalamenti, worth checking out.

o rly

didn't know he did that, cheers for that

the envelopes thing is intriguing because it seems like the whole concept of an envelope follower has been taking to the extreme in a lot of new AE compositions. like using env lpf type sounds to squelch the drums. I love how fwzE sounds like the whole song is going through some kind of really tasty wah-pedal type filter, seemingly using some kind of drum controlled envelope.

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:15 AM, Sean Ae said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:12 AM, soundwave said:

What did you think of the sound FX design in the new Transformers movies?

it sounds like it looks, like piles of rubbish fighting each other

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:13 AM, Jev said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:02 AM, Sean Ae said:

 

  On 11/4/2013 at 11:57 PM, John Ehrlichman said:

never noticed it in dial, first time a fractally timbre really stood out to me was in Y7. It's a fun mind-fuck to try and figure out how you guys achieve sounds like that, and I try to guess how (most of the time I'm probably wrong).

 

what's most amazing to me about this point in your musical trajectory is how much shit is going on at once, that if a typical musician tried to attempt it the mix would sound muddy, things would lose transients, it would sound like a flat mess in the wrong hands. You're one of the only artists doing sounds this crazy that also seem to have a high level of audio engineering skill to work with all the elements.

 

for example if someone tried to reverse engineer Tac Lacora to what appears to be it's individual elements, a reverse order approach would be the only way i could see getting it to sound as nice and slamming. It makes me wonder do you guys jam out some of these more crazy 'full' sounds, record them and then later refine them through audio engineering tricks like clever use of sidechain compression and eq, careful multiband compression, parallel compression, etc?

 

 

 

in the case of tac lacora it was mostly like that as it went down in realtime, but yeah there was a ton of bus compression happening

apart from that it's mostly in the envelopes

 

 

So you really manually adjust every single bit of the track by envelopes? That surely needs a lot of patience (or motivation).

 

 

yeah but not editing by hand, changing according to conditions

 

So you mean like AMP envelopes (or gates etc) in MAX or a DAW - not volume envelopes per each track (?)

Are r ess and t ess xi related in anyway? What about other tracks with similar namings?

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:15 AM, Obel said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:14 AM, Sean Ae said:

it sounds like piles of rubbish fighting each other

 

 

 

That's what some people have said about Fol3 to be fair :)

 

haha shit man you're right

oh well

Do you know any sound design that you liked in movies?

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:16 AM, John Ehrlichman said:

the envelopes thing is intriguing because it seems like the whole concept of an envelope follower has been taking to the extreme in a lot of new AE compositions. like using env lpf type sounds to squelch the drums. I love how fwzE sounds like the whole song is going through some kind of really tasty wah-pedal type filter, seemingly using some kind of drum controlled envelope.

yeah tbh it's prob the result of listening to old hip hop radio tapes while tripping

you get all that extra texture, and the whole track being fucked, i dunno we're just really into it

Can Exai be read as ? Searching around, I found this wikipedia article on phonons, which give rise to sound, and states:

The positions of the masses are denoted by , as measured from their equilibrium positions (i.e. if particle is at its equilibrium position.) In two or more dimensions, the are vector quantities.

I may be reading too much into things, so here's a secondary question: Any interesting wikipedia pages you have read as of late?

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:19 AM, salvaKPO said:

Do you know any sound design that you liked in movies?

yeah pretty much every little detail on Alien is amazing

might just be context but we used to really fetishise it all

oh and THX 1138 and star wars, i mean i don't wanna be boring but ben burtt was seriously a big figure to us as kids

the making of empire strikes back where he's hitting the cable to get laser sounds made a huge impression on me

What's your favorite older or proto 'ambient' musician that existed previous to Eno coining the term?

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:20 AM, Sean Ae said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:19 AM, salvaKPO said:

Do you know any sound design that you liked in movies?

yeah pretty much every little detail on Alien is amazing

might just be context but we used to really fetishise it all

 

when i first saw this deleted scene I immediately thought Autechre

  On 11/4/2013 at 11:33 PM, YELLOW said:

Could you recommend an essential record in your opinion that most of us might now know?

Not sure if youre after something more obscure, but an all time mind blower for me as a schoolkid quite new to more grown up hiphop electro. the bit that rolls in from 3'04" is one of my favourite moments in popular electronic music.

any preference in weed strains?

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:19 AM, Taciturn said:

Can Exai be read as ? Searching around, I found this wikipedia article on phonons, which give rise to sound, and states:

 

The positions of the masses are denoted by , as measured from their equilibrium positions (i.e. if particle is at its equilibrium position.) In two or more dimensions, the are vector quantities.

 

I may be reading too much into things, so here's a secondary question: Any interesting wikipedia pages you have read as of late?

funny, coincidence

err

here's one

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheeler–Feynman_absorber_theory

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:17 AM, Sean Ae said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:15 AM, Obel said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:14 AM, Sean Ae said:

it sounds like piles of rubbish fighting each other

 

 

 

That's what some people have said about Fol3 to be fair :)

 

 

haha shit man you're right

oh well

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuaXqa660KI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J2gv80ttK8

So this little game called 140 came out on steam a few weeks ago, and I immediately thought how awesome it would be if something along these lines was done with you guys and your work. It's basically a rhythm platformer where all of the obstacles move around in time with the beat, with ever-increasing complexity. Would you guys ever consider doing something along these lines and try dabbling in interactive/procedurally generative track writing?

alien transmission sound design was ben burtt. the rest was jimmy shields. weird thing was i definitely remember seeing that scene when i watched it on vhs as a kid and it disappeared on the DVD.