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

I'm not sure if you saw the question, but ()

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Yamaha FS1R?

hey rob, I noticed you clicked on my profile. I'm just going to assume it wasn't one of those accidental clicks and you were intending on sending me a soundboard or a cool photo for my house. thanks man.

do you turn up the volume when they play in the air tonight on the radio in the car

is the matrix the third member of autechre?

how many kickdrum rushes are there in Phylopn?

So at the end of The Thing, Macready and Childs are alone in the snow, with everyone else seemingly dead, drinking whisky. Which of them is an alien and which is human? Are both still human?

Also, are you John Carpenter fans? Love his 80's films, and the soundtracks him and Alan Howarth were doing are great, are y'all fans?

Do you use digital/analog feedback ever in your tracks? It's one of my favorite tricks to breathe life into tracks...I started doing so often digitally when I got comfortable with AudioMulch (which if you've never heard of, is a pretty nice little prog).

What was the last track that you remember scratching with actual turntables on? Who did the scratches in Goz Quarter?

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

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

i've seen mentions of how those two titles are sharing some meaning but they're not.

tracks like bronchus's are from an imaginary series, we add to when they sound like from the same cannon - in our way of thinking about them, or used to be, thats a kind of habit thats not happened in a while.

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:22 AM, Rob Ae said:

 

  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.

 

esp. as a similar passage had occurred once already (2'20") but with less added

sorry this megathread killed my browser for a sec, missed out the link

is parental advisory recommanded with an autechre release

does phylopn have the most basskick rushes in the world?

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:43 AM, Jev said:

Rob, I asked this already but I understand not every question from that huge pile can be answered:

 

How big role plays a mastering engineer when it comes to the vibe of the records. Is he only supposed to make sure the mix of the album is consistent by light touches here and there or were there any situation when he really pushed a track sound to another level?

yeah sorry i saw it and wanted to answer but sometimes the best response isn't the immediate one, cos i know what i mean, but it may not articulate to be worthwhile.

noel summerville,he's the only guy that could actually cut draft 7.30 to vinyl (yeah think thats the right lp). we weren't happy with the first few test presses we got from another plant, so we got warp to throw the premasters to all the cutting rooms they trusted.

noels' TP was spot on given that Draft was heavy on the really quick transients, wooden mids, tight and and rubbery bass - hard to commit to vinyl and get it loud without limited to mush - and keep all the air in the tracks. since that we went in there every time, sit with him talk about our thing. he gets it, suggests often simple transparent approaches he'd like to try, explaining why, and the outcomes etc. we get into it and its done.

Seeing that you are both into hip hop, did you ever get into the southern Chopped & Screwed type stuff? Three Six Mafia?

There was a bit of a Timbaland thread going on here recently, are you fans of his work?

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:56 AM, gabrielconroy said:

Do you both mainly listen to sequenced electronic/synthesised music, or are you also into hand-arranged sample layers stuff? What do you think of Burial, for example?

where would u put burial in the above categories?

Rob! I know I asked this earlier but I have to know haha. Can you name drop a few tracks that were exclusively you and exclusively Sean? For science!

  On 11/5/2013 at 1:23 AM, jules said:

hey rob, I noticed you clicked on my profile. I'm just going to assume it wasn't one of those accidental clicks and you were intending on sending me a soundboard or a cool photo for my house. thanks man.

ok cool. quaristice or untitled? ;)

how much did it cost to get the drummer of Nile in plyPhon

Cipater is my favourite Ae track. The beats transforming and the bassline that comes in halfway through still gives me goosebumps after a million listens.

Do you have amy particular memories of making this track?

  On 11/5/2013 at 1:25 AM, auxien said:

So at the end of The Thing, Macready and Childs are alone in the snow, with everyone else seemingly dead, drinking whisky. Which of them is an alien and which is human? Are both still human?

 

Also, are you John Carpenter fans? Love his 80's films, and the soundtracks him and Alan Howarth were doing are great, are y'all fans?

 

Do you use digital/analog feedback ever in your tracks? It's one of my favorite tricks to breathe life into tracks...I started doing so often digitally when I got comfortable with AudioMulch (which if you've never heard of, is a pretty nice little prog).

 

What was the last track that you remember scratching with actual turntables on? Who did the scratches in Goz Quarter?

i'd say human, triumph over alien scum.

yeah big fans of carpenter

yeah big feedback fans, haven't used audiomulch

u mean which track of ours did we last scratch on or which track ever did we last scratch on?

not sure if i should say - we can both scratch

Hey Rob, I'll ask this again too, even tho it's a boring gear question. did you ever check the octatrack? i remember reading once that you initially weren't over enamoured by the MPC when you switched from ensoniq. After the elektron heavy untilted and quaristice I thought you'd both be all over it when it finally dropped but it was nowhere to be seen on yr live sets. I've read mixed reports about it as a whole, was just interested if you had a take on it.

  On 11/5/2013 at 1:54 AM, thehauntingsoul said:

Rob! I know I asked this earlier but I have to know haha. Can you name drop a few tracks that were exclusively you and exclusively Sean? For science!

no

we like knowing just for ourselves, when its all over someone can cut us up for science then and only then all will be revealed.

  On 11/5/2013 at 2:00 AM, Rob Ae said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 1:23 AM, jules said:

 

hey rob, I noticed you clicked on my profile. I'm just going to assume it wasn't one of those accidental clicks and you were intending on sending me a soundboard or a cool photo for my house. thanks man.

ok cool. quaristice or untitled? ;)

quaristice pls. no one will know.

thanks

  On 11/5/2013 at 2:00 AM, Rob Ae said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 1:23 AM, jules said:

 

hey rob, I noticed you clicked on my profile. I'm just going to assume it wasn't one of those accidental clicks and you were intending on sending me a soundboard or a cool photo for my house. thanks man.

ok cool. quaristice or untitled? ;)

Oversteps!! 3 quarters into the melbourne set was this killer machine gun bass kick track over all sorts of fucked up synths and reverb space noises. I would kill to hear that in good quality again :)

Do you attempt to record a lot of the live set songs to craft them into structured album tracks, or do these still only exist as components to jam to play in the live setting ?

  On 11/5/2013 at 2:07 AM, Colani said:

Hey Rob, I'll ask this again too, even tho it's a boring gear question. did you ever check the octatrack? i remember reading once that you initially weren't over enamoured by the MPC when you switched from ensoniq. After the elektron heavy untilted and quaristice I thought you'd both be all over it when it finally dropped but it was nowhere to be seen on yr live sets. I've read mixed reports about it as a whole, was just interested if you had a take on it.

no not tried it, my initial disappointment with mpc1k vanished when i got JJOS as it dealt with most post Ensoniq issues, by the time octatrack got out, we were heavily software only. i might mess with one given the time - have to get one first tho'

I've seen mentions of tracks being edited jams; are they recorded in multitrack for maximum editing possibilities or do you just work with a stereo mix? This is one of the biggest hurdles for me when I jam with others. Sometimes one of us would be on to something awesome and then the other comes in with something that totally destroys everything. Do you guys just generally record long enough stretches of everything so that editing out a mistake/unwieldy experiment won't matter too much?

I kind of feel like the same person did uviol, os veix3, tankakern and tuiniorizn. but thats just me messing around with stuff when listening

  On 11/5/2013 at 2:16 AM, modey said:

I've seen mentions of tracks being edited jams; are they recorded in multitrack for maximum editing possibilities or do you just work with a stereo mix? This is one of the biggest hurdles for me when I jam with others. Sometimes one of us would be on to something awesome and then the other comes in with something that totally destroys everything. Do you guys just generally record long enough stretches of everything so that editing out a mistake/unwieldy experiment won't matter too much?

with jams, on a good part find a kind of holding pattern which the others can come in on, then they do the same, and u come in with mods to your thing etc etc…after a while if its all going well things can get risky and more interesting as u know what is likely to work well. its ok if u have enough time to space it out and keep good bits to trim back down, or trash the stuff thats not working.

if u mean real jamming like all at once then u need to get a quicker feel for things. i mean me n sean have been jamming since day one so we can fit quite well.

the unwieldy bits are usually the fresh ones.

Quoting isn't working for me at the moment, but I was asking what was the last released Autechre/Gescom track in which either of you scratched? I think there was some speculation about a track in Draft maybe, but it's been a while since that was discussed and my memory is shit.

What time signature is Fold 4, Wrap 5 in? Just regular 4/4, eh?

Is Fol4 a fucked up version/call back to Fold 4, Wrap 5?

Have you heard any of the fake leaks? If so, did you get a good laugh at my attempt at Ae impersonation on the tac Lacora fake? (here: http://ge.tt/70Z4ePt/v/o) Or is that sort of thing just an actual hassle for you guys to deal with every round of releases? (if so, sorry! we just like to have fun with it)

what's your opinion on the increasingly loud & less dynamic range loudness wars? It seems like everyone wants to get a vinyl cut at 45rpm at the hottest level possible, making it actually difficult (bass causing needle jumps, etc) for someone with a normal low end turntable to play it instead focusing on a DJ with a properly weighted turntable.

I noticed EXai is at a comfortable volume but not overly loud, it also has a relatively conservative amount of bass (even for an autechre album).

edit: also what do you guys think of the Matmos philosophy of trading off 'concepts' each album where Martin defines the direction for one like 'Supreme Balloon' and Drew defines the direction for the other like 'Rose with teeth'. Have you ever done anything remotely like that?