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

  On 11/5/2013 at 5:00 PM, Sean Ae said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 4:58 PM, soma said:

 

What's the oldest thing you own?

ooh good question

but I'm not telling

 

edit: actually i can tell u cos i just realised it's not what i thought it was

 

a first edition of 'the power of sound' by edmund gurney

What is the thing you were thinking of? :D

  On 11/5/2013 at 5:01 PM, mcbpete said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 4:59 PM, Sean Ae said:

i don't have any faves the only casios we had were an sk1 and an sk5 and i can only rem the demo on the sk1

it was shit

Though the drums on the SK-1 were wild:

 

 

The Gasman ( Christopher Reeves ) seems to use them lots back in his early stuff...

 

 

yeah have u ever heard that track 'energy' by robot and the dj?

 

theres a drexciya track with them on as well

 

(disco pattern, both tracks)

  On 11/5/2013 at 5:03 PM, soma said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 5:00 PM, Sean Ae said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 4:58 PM, soma said:

What's the oldest thing you own?

ooh good question

but I'm not telling

 

edit: actually i can tell u cos i just realised it's not what i thought it was

 

a first edition of 'the power of sound' by edmund gurney

What is the thing you were thinking of? :D

 

 

ah you'll never know

  On 11/5/2013 at 5:02 PM, MastaN8 said:

Today is my birthday. What should I do?

 

get wasted with all your mates

i never programmed before (i know some max, not the real programming tho) and i've just started with the supercollider (bought the book; reading) and although i'm a fast learner i'm struggling with sc a fair bit cause my right brain is refusing to back up. i didn't know the programming is this difficult...at least for me. could be i'm just overly impatient.

 

- can u give me an advice how to learn it quicker? any other advice regarding sc?

 

- have u tried [sc3~] and what u think about it?

  On 11/5/2013 at 4:50 PM, joshuatx said:

It's pretty clear that compact cassettes played an essential part in your early work.

 

- I was wondering how you felt about the slow but steady revival of cassette tapes recently, both as a release format and as a recording aesthetic...do you find it interesting or intriguing or perhaps just a bit gimmicky?

 

- Has digital technology completely superseded your interest in tape as a recording format...is it a "good riddance" sort of perspective for either of you?

 

I ask because many producers have used magnetic tape to very deliberately shape the sound of their work recently, or completely gone with lo-fi and cheap analog equipment to make their music:

 

Couple examples:

 

 

 

http://youtu.be/d6mq_FJYfEk

 

- Do either of you return to analog or obsolete digital formats (DAT, old sequencers) very often anymore? Or is something you've moved on from?

 

- Finally, any particularly beloved mixtapes or prerecorded cassettes in your collection, particularly from the 1980s when you both started making music?

 

Last set of questions from me, thanks again for doing this!

yeah i love VHS and tape, always will, it has remarkable tolerance towards clipping or other misuses.

 

but as far as using it as a crutch or to wave a flag or pose in a fashionable type stance, mbe if i wasn't there first time.

 

as for DAT as obsolete digital format, it kills master tapes as it fails so badly that we won't go near it, no real need as the anomalies aren't as tasty as analog formats. old sequencers, yeah but problem is most don't work anymore, literally perishing as we speak most of them.

  On 11/5/2013 at 5:05 PM, Sean Ae said:

yeah have u ever heard that track 'energy' by robot and the dj?

Aye, the drums are just so distinctive huh. Even when heavily circuit bent you can't get away from SK1 sound

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 4:58 PM, soma said:

What's the oldest thing you own?

u mean like gear?

what do you think of Flo Rida's Beamz? would you ever consider incorporating them into your live show?

What do y'all think of current Graf scenes? Y'all keep up any?

  On 11/5/2013 at 5:02 PM, MastaN8 said:

Today is my birthday. What should I do?

ask Autechre.

  On 11/5/2013 at 5:10 PM, Rob Ae said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 4:58 PM, soma said:

 

What's the oldest thing you own?

u mean like gear?

I'm curious about both, gear and general things.

Are you familiar with echospace (the label and the guys behind it)? I think they do the best modern dub techno today.

Sean and Rob still answering questions heheh trippy.

 

Excellent work.

 

You know Uncle Beerwolf would buy you a beer!!

Edited November 5, 2013 by beerwolf

  On 11/5/2013 at 5:10 PM, mcbpete said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 5:05 PM, Sean Ae said:

yeah have u ever heard that track 'energy' by robot and the dj?

Aye, the drums are just so distinctive huh. Even when heavily circuit bent you can't get away from SK1 sound

 

 

 

I am not a musician, do no know anything about gear but Philip Jeck always uses that little synth on stage, it should not be that bad.

  On 11/5/2013 at 5:13 PM, azatoth said:

Are you familiar with echospace (the label and the guys behind it)? I think they do the best modern dub techno today.

That label's records are blind-buy for me! Love all of it.

do you have any good methods for creative brainstorming?

are you liking aleksi perala's new music?

apparently its all based on explorations on some scales/microscales: "the colundi sequence"

really good music. the theory seems real, but I just can't believe anything grant w-c says no more

Edited November 5, 2013 by rekosn

  On 11/5/2013 at 4:50 PM, joshuatx said:

It's pretty clear that compact cassettes played an essential part in your early work.

 

- I was wondering how you felt about the slow but steady revival of cassette tapes recently, both as a release format and as a recording aesthetic...do you find it interesting or intriguing or perhaps just a bit gimmicky?

 

- Has digital technology completely superseded your interest in tape as a recording format...is it a "good riddance" sort of perspective for either of you?

 

I ask because many producers have used magnetic tape to very deliberately shape the sound of their work recently, or completely gone with lo-fi and cheap analog equipment to make their music:

 

Couple examples:

 

 

 

http://youtu.be/d6mq_FJYfEk

 

- Do either of you return to analog or obsolete digital formats (DAT, old sequencers) very often anymore? Or is something you've moved on from?

 

- Finally, any particularly beloved mixtapes or prerecorded cassettes in your collection, particularly from the 1980s when you both started making music?

 

Last set of questions from me, thanks again for doing this!

 

 

it's slightly gimmicky cos the thing with tapes wasn't buying originals it was they they let you make your own, either compilations, taping stuff off mates, off the radio (v important) or doing your own edits if you had a decent (non servo) pause button

the radio thing is what no one seems to get when they do retro music. things just didn't sound anything like they do nowadays. everything was really brutally compressed and out of tune. you can't learn a thing about how music sounded in the 80s by listening to digi re-releases

 

nah i love tape, it allows you to make things louder (peak normalisation) and it actually sounds nice to my ears anyway, i like hiss sometimes (it was like our generation's version of dither)

 

i still use tape sometimes but not for a while

last thing we did that used it heavily was 'all tomorrow's linoleum'

 

mostly old radio tapes tbh, lee browne and stu allan are the ones i have the most of

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

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 4:57 PM, 21B said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 4:47 PM, Sean Ae said:

 

well - i'm past the point where it actually bothers me but the whole 'how do you usually make a track?' thing got old pretty fast

 

 

here's a high ball then. what comedians do you rate?

 

 

stew lee, louis ck

daniel kitson sometimes

 

 

caught stew last month for some comedy animal action. he's head and shoulders above everyone else and just gets better, interested to see how much of the tour material will make it to tv. kevin eldon live is also terrific but i thought his series was disappointing despite serious good will. difficult transition it seems.

  On 11/5/2013 at 5:17 PM, bronchuseven said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 5:13 PM, azatoth said:

Are you familiar with echospace (the label and the guys behind it)? I think they do the best modern dub techno today.

That label's records are blind-buy for me! Love all of it.

 

Yeah, thinking about it, there isn't really a dud on there. Of varying quality sure, but still pretty damn nice. When they do create quality pieces they hit it out of the park completely. Beyond the Clouds is a masterpiece.

  On 11/5/2013 at 4:57 PM, sweepstakes said:

OK, hope I'm not abusing my question count but here's a somewhat more banal one.

 

When you work with FM with a sine carrier, at lower modulator levels there's some juicy stuff going on but the carrier sine is very audible, which can be annoying. I've tried adding an inverted sine to this and it doesn't seem to work, probably something to do with the relative amplitude chaning. Of course you could use a skinny/steep (e.g. Butterworth) notch filter and just carve it out, but that can remove some nice harmonics close to the carrier frequency. It seems like there's a more elegant solution. Any ideas you're willing to share?

 

have u looked at a spectrogram of it? u sure the freq is where u think it is?

  On 11/5/2013 at 5:21 PM, 21B said:

 

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

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 4:57 PM, 21B said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 4:47 PM, Sean Ae said:

 

well - i'm past the point where it actually bothers me but the whole 'how do you usually make a track?' thing got old pretty fast

 

 

here's a high ball then. what comedians do you rate?

 

 

stew lee, louis ck

daniel kitson sometimes

 

 

caught stew last month for some comedy animal action. he's head and shoulders above everyone else and just gets better, interested to see how much of the tour material will make it to tv. kevin eldon live is also terrific but i thought his series was disappointing despite serious good will. difficult transition it seems.

 

 

i can't get past thinking eldon is a real nasty fucker underneath

i used to like simon munnery as well but not seen him in years

do you have any old pause button edits you can post?

What's the chances of Richard or BOC doing a similar type Q&A?

 

It's okay, I know the answer to that lol

  On 11/5/2013 at 5:18 PM, rekosn said:

are you liking aleksi perala's new music?

apparently its all based on explorations on some scales/microscales: "the colundi sequence"

really good music. the theory seems real, but I just can't believe anything grant w-c says no more

 

not heard it

I've got a lot of admiration for you two guys, making music for so long and not sounding like anyone else I've ever heard. The way that you transform your sound in each release is great -

 

- How do you maintain a sense of flow to your creativity?

- Do you find working collaboratively helps with the process?
- As for the tracks that end up on your releases; do you see these as 'sketches'; an exploration/observation of a certain idea/pattern as opposed to a cohesive finished track?

 

As a visual artist myself I find your aesthetic really pleasing too. Looking forward to hearing where you take your sounds next.

  On 11/5/2013 at 5:12 PM, soma said:

What do y'all think of current Graf scenes? Y'all keep up any?

nah i'm brutally out of touch these days

i still think case 2 is cutting edge