Do you think any Aphex songs could do with remastering/re-mixed?

Flim needs a drop

People who think drukqs sounds 'thin' have never tried to put that many details into their music or compose anything nearly as intense as the harder moments of drukqs.

Leave it as it is. Mixing/Mastering is a never-ending learning process that is as individual and personal in ideals as the person creating the music. Mr. James seems to be getting better and better with age even though his hearing is going to shit (something I'd imagine a good deal of electronic performers share) he's still a badass.

Drukqs is not thin at all. Something not having booming bass at all times doesn't equal 'thin'.

fight

I find he tuss mastering matured to perfection in all levels. Let´s pray for the hearing health of richy, we need at least 10-20 more post tussesque EPs.

  On 5/17/2014 at 5:05 PM, feartherush said:

I don't really mind it either. RDJ album kind of bugs me though.

I would say so but I think the RDJ album has a lot of personality and sounds refined for Richard's standards, i'd only change it due to difference in personality/tastes, whereas I think Drukqs could do with just some tweaking on some songs, it's a double album and there's always something that's gonna suffer.. That being said I think Drukqs is the best produced double album since The Wall.

  On 5/18/2014 at 12:30 AM, HexagonSun said:

I find he tuss mastering matured to perfection in all levels. Let´s pray for the hearing health of richy, we need at least 10-20 more post tussesque EPs.

Completely agree, I actually The Tuss almost sounds too good for modern times in terms of the mix/master quality, Confederation Trough keeps growing on me each year.

Sorry for double post, edited too many times.

  On 5/18/2014 at 12:05 AM, Audioblysk said:

People who think drukqs sounds 'thin' have never tried to put that many details into their music or compose anything nearly as intense as the harder moments of drukqs.

 

Leave it as it is. Mixing/Mastering is a never-ending learning process that is as individual and personal in ideals as the person creating the music. Mr. James seems to be getting better and better with age even though his hearing is going to shit (something I'd imagine a good deal of electronic performers share) he's still a badass.

I agree to an extent, i'm normally really against remastering etc but I think Drukqs could benefit from how far RDJ has come since 2001, 2001 RDJ is still lightyears ahead of many top engineers but a newly polished cut of Drukqs could give a few people a second chance at getting into it.

I think a newly polished/remastered Drukqs could also be a great way to promote himself before dropping a new album, and of all the Aphex Twin albums I think Drukqs would be the one that deserves to be reproduced due to how misunderstood it was/is.

It could be presented as an alternate version, and not an "updated" version which makes the original seem inferior.

The only thing I could think of would be a remastering of SAW 85-92. Of course they came from shitty tapes and probably will never get any better

I'd rather have rich looking forward than backward. The music is what it is, and we like it that way, otherwise we wouldn't be here.

  On 5/18/2014 at 2:48 AM, totemcrackerjack said:

I'd rather have rich looking forward than backward. The music is what it is, and we like it that way, otherwise we wouldn't be here.

I really like what you said totem.

Anyway the earlier records on Rephlex were all mastered and cut by George Peckham so they cannot get any better, it's not humanly possible. I actually like the mastering TBH.

  On 5/18/2014 at 12:05 AM, Audioblysk said:

People who think drukqs sounds 'thin' have never tried to put that many details into their music or compose anything nearly as intense as the harder moments of drukqs.

 

Leave it as it is. Mixing/Mastering is a never-ending learning process that is as individual and personal in ideals as the person creating the music. Mr. James seems to be getting better and better with age even though his hearing is going to shit (something I'd imagine a good deal of electronic performers share) he's still a badass.

aww cmon man, thats not necessary. obviously i'll never make anything as good as anything on drukqs, and chances are you won't either. so what? i can still have an opinion about it. i never said it was a bad album. i suppose i could have added the words 'a bit' in front of 'thin', since i don't really mean to say it's absolutely thin. i just think something about the sound could be a bit beefier or have a bit more depth.

i think it's fine as it is, but if there were another version i would check it out. i'd like to hear a good vinyl rip just to compare.

For what it's worth, the unofficial Drukqs remaster I was thinking of was called the "Hard Tracks Remaster" by Lonny Lord. Here's the .txt that came with it:

"Hi,

I love this record, and the original master. But after listening to it a few
(too many) times I started to really hear the typical "Warped tin can" sound
that Warp almost always has on thier records. Sounds really flat and stale.
None of the tracks really sound like they go together as much as they could.

So I pulled out all my tricks on this one. Pre-emphasis, gentile stereo image
enhancement, bass shuffling, multiband dynamics processing, and a new trick I
found called MaxxBass (www.maxxbass.com) Using it, the clarity of the bass in
the recording has been greatly improved. Besides the bass sounding better on
small speakers, these play (way) louder before distorting and have more punch.

'Gwety Mernans' & 'Orban EQ Trx 4' were already distorted, fixed what I could.
This is pretty funny, Orban is the name of a Pro Audio company that makes high-
end DSP units for the radio industry. (www.orban.com) I wouldn't pay us$8500
for something that adds distortion to any of my tracks, would Aphex? Probably!
m o n e y t o b u r n

I hope you enjoy these tracks as I do,
Lonny Lord"

The Tuss stuff is so incredibly mastered everything else does sound a little unpolished.

  On 5/18/2014 at 6:27 AM, MisterE said:

 

  On 5/18/2014 at 12:05 AM, Audioblysk said:

People who think drukqs sounds 'thin' have never tried to put that many details into their music or compose anything nearly as intense as the harder moments of drukqs.

 

Leave it as it is. Mixing/Mastering is a never-ending learning process that is as individual and personal in ideals as the person creating the music. Mr. James seems to be getting better and better with age even though his hearing is going to shit (something I'd imagine a good deal of electronic performers share) he's still a badass.

aww cmon man, thats not necessary. obviously i'll never make anything as good as anything on drukqs, and chances are you won't either. so what? i can still have an opinion about it. i never said it was a bad album. i suppose i could have added the words 'a bit' in front of 'thin', since i don't really mean to say it's absolutely thin. i just think something about the sound could be a bit beefier or have a bit more depth.

 

i think it's fine as it is, but if there were another version i would check it out. i'd like to hear a good vinyl rip just to compare.

 

I'm just saying that trying to do all that drukqs did in some tracks while keeping it a pumping phat-ass mix is near impossible for anyone. I feel like 'mastering depth' was sacrificed somewhat for just pure composition and AFXisms. You want it a bit fatter? Throw that shit through an EQ/comp/pre-amp and tailor it to what you want, but there is probably a reason the album sounds a little 'thin' to some.

I really want to remix drukqs. The best are the breakbeat/idm tracks. They have very good track progression and polyphony. Melodies are probably in the same key, and he made good melody variations and progression. Transitions between the different instruments are very smooth. I've found that modulation and melody/harmony transitions are the most difficult to do well.

  On 5/18/2014 at 1:28 AM, YELLOW said:

The only thing I could think of would be a remastering of SAW 85-92. Of course they came from shitty tapes and probably will never get any better

i wouldn't change a thing about SAW 85-92. the tape-yness and mixing is what makes it so magical. like the really loud bassdrum in xtal for example.

  On 5/19/2014 at 6:07 PM, Mcdergbit said:

i wouldn't change a thing about SAW 85-92. the tape-yness and mixing is what makes it so magical. like the really loud bassdrum in xtal for example.

 

This - it's perfect.

  On 5/18/2014 at 1:28 AM, YELLOW said:

The only thing I could think of would be a remastering of SAW 85-92. Of course they came from shitty tapes and probably will never get any better

http://www.discogs.com/Aphex-Twin-Selected-Ambient-Works-85-92/release/1303737

"clear version"

The mastering on Analord makes a ninja wanna fuq tho

  On 5/20/2014 at 1:42 AM, Klopjob said:

The mastering on Analord makes a ninja wanna fuq tho

 

Truth

  On 5/20/2014 at 1:42 AM, Klopjob said:

The mastering on Analord makes a ninja wanna fuq tho

I think that they fok over there more than fuq. Probably makes him want to fok as well though, but then again given what he's faced with, there probably aren't many things that don't make him want to fok or fuq or whatever i'm pedantically calling it today.

heh ;-p

  On 5/18/2014 at 8:17 PM, Audioblysk said:

 

  On 5/18/2014 at 6:27 AM, MisterE said:

 

  On 5/18/2014 at 12:05 AM, Audioblysk said:

People who think drukqs sounds 'thin' have never tried to put that many details into their music or compose anything nearly as intense as the harder moments of drukqs.

 

Leave it as it is. Mixing/Mastering is a never-ending learning process that is as individual and personal in ideals as the person creating the music. Mr. James seems to be getting better and better with age even though his hearing is going to shit (something I'd imagine a good deal of electronic performers share) he's still a badass.

aww cmon man, thats not necessary. obviously i'll never make anything as good as anything on drukqs, and chances are you won't either. so what? i can still have an opinion about it. i never said it was a bad album. i suppose i could have added the words 'a bit' in front of 'thin', since i don't really mean to say it's absolutely thin. i just think something about the sound could be a bit beefier or have a bit more depth.

 

i think it's fine as it is, but if there were another version i would check it out. i'd like to hear a good vinyl rip just to compare.

 

I'm just saying that trying to do all that drukqs did in some tracks while keeping it a pumping phat-ass mix is near impossible for anyone. I feel like 'mastering depth' was sacrificed somewhat for just pure composition and AFXisms. You want it a bit fatter? Throw that shit through an EQ/comp/pre-amp and tailor it to what you want, but there is probably a reason the album sounds a little 'thin' to some.

 

i dont agree at all, because tuss has a lot of shit going on, particularly death fuck which is fairly drukqsesque in some ways (but like an updated cyberfucked drukqs), like the fact that it has tons of shit going on, and every sound still has thickness and fluidity to it, and a sense of space/depth, whereas on drukqs it's just flatter. i'm not saying drukqs sucks, i just think tuss sounds better, 'sound quality' wise, even though in some cases it has just as much shit going on.

honestly i'm suspecting it's a lot to do with the sound sources. tuss being like advanced evolved analord tracks, he seemed pretty obsessed with using super high quality sound sources only, by that point in time. i think with drukqs he still had more of a devil may care attitude with that stuff and used lots and lots of dsp and sampling of lofi sounds and lots of digital mangling in general. just one example of the difference, and one that really stands out for me, is the claps in tuss tracks. they are fluid as hell, and it seems like a different clap every time you hear it. perfect reverb, and a really analog sound to them. they could be some advanced digital thing but whatever it is, it's very high quality. a clap on drukqs could be from just about any old drum machine he had lying around, maybe glitched and dsp'd to death in some spots. never sounding anything like a real acoustic or analog sound source.

so my personal current theory is that the difference some people perceive between these two groups of tracks is due to the cumulative effect of drukqs being tons and tons of elements per track, many or most of which are very very digital, often lo-fi, in nature, vs tuss just having almost exclusively, slick analog or very high quality digital things going on.

I think you nailed it pretty wll there, MisterE.

Another thing about Drukqs is that while I agree that is it sounds "a bit flat" and "bandwidth limited", the whole record sounds amazingly cohesive for having such a vast variation between the tracks. There are purely analog tracks, purely DSP tracks, crazy beats, etc. I'd guess that the album was mastered very decisively (and maybe even brutally) in order to have all the tracks come together sonically. In other words - some fidelity was probably sacrificed in the name of cohesion.

yup, drukqs is very cohesive and Tuss has better sound quality/mastering than drukqs. drukqs is mostly about the composition rather than sound quality. You don't have to sacrifice fidelity for cohesion, just blame laziness. Albums are usually made through separate tracks. Nobody said you can't build a single track album that's one hour long. I'm sure people have, probably very rare. I made a 16min track that I will come back to over and over again to build it, might release it as an album when it reaches like an hour length or so.

@pafr: Not sure if laziness applies. What I meant was that when the source material or individual tracks vary greatly in fidelity/definition/polish, then the least common denominator approach to mastering might be needed in the name of cohesion. Ie it's more feasible to lower the fidelity on the "shiniest" tracks, than doing the opposite.

  On 5/19/2014 at 7:25 PM, feartherush said:

 

  On 5/19/2014 at 6:07 PM, Mcdergbit said:

i wouldn't change a thing about SAW 85-92. the tape-yness and mixing is what makes it so magical. like the really loud bassdrum in xtal for example.

 

This - it's perfect.

 

I had not seen this thread already, but yesterday, just for fun, I tried eqing Xtal a little bit. Well, the basso is booming for sure and some eq could bring some clarity to it. When I switched the eq on and off I could definetly hear the difference, expecially in the snare. But then I realize that I was taking away the magic from it. It works, and it works well. When listening to Aphex you should take into account that you are listening to things that he wanted to sound in that way. He would not have released otherwise. He surely does not think in terms of "correct mix" or "mastering"... I bet it's all about the sound. If it sounds how he meant it to sound, it's good, despite what you can call a good mix, or a good mastering.

As of Druqks... it's perfect as it is. If you listen close, you know it is so.