Questions on Aphex Twin's "de-tune" style

I read an interview where Aphex Twin says that he detunes his music.

Pitchfork: Maybe that's your problem—your pitch is too perfect.

RDJ: Maybe. But it always sounds more right to me when it's detuned. When it's right in tune, it's like there's something slightly off.

Source:

http://pitchfork.com/features/cover-story/9506-strange-visitor-a-conversation-with-aphex-twin/

I've tried it (slightly turning the pitch knob,) but it always makes the track sound worse than it was previously, so I think I'm doing something wrong.

Does anyone here de-tune there music? If you do, could you explain the process and how it helps?

I've done something similar where i overlaid two really long sine waves with off pitches and made a sampler instrument out of the chord that was created and it sounded cool and "detuned" but thats just one way and its fairly limited but i mean there are lots of ways you could achieve that sound. I'm sure someone on this forum can you give you a step by step youtube skrillex tutorial

you might could get decent results using massive automating three sine wave pitches and delicately automate

i dont get how his synths are 'detuned' if he's using microtonal scales anyway. i think there are at least a couple of things 'detuned' can refer to though. one would be just having the pitch of a note tuned a little off of the note. the other is when you have more than one oscillator or sound source, and you detune them relative to each other. that 2nd one could still apply even with microtonal scales being used, but the first one is actually how lots of microtonal scales are made so it seems to me a bit redundant to say. in other words, if you're making up your own scales anyway, i dont think it makes sense to say your notes are detuned to be less than perfect standard tuning, since that's the whole point of the microtonal scale. and in that pitchfork quote, it seems that he's talking about that type of detuning, so to me, it doesn't really make sense.

maybe it's a question of writing melodies (melodies?) that are written in non standard tunings - ie the keyboard is mapped to a different series of frequencies (I wouldn't be sure how to technically do that but anyway) - something I want to try is where my tunes have chords with 2 notes a semitone apart, to replace them with the quarter tone between them

The detuned pad thing is already a cliche thanks to 1000s of people emulating that sound.

Do you really wanna go down that well worn path too?

beyond pads there's neat things to do i think.

the key for convenience is that the instrument needs to support microtuning. there is a list here of some software ones. i think i remember afx described some bits of hardware he used that supported it. some digital synths and samplers and the those big korg ps 3x00 synths, which afaik have full polyphony with a voice for all 48 keys. so there would be a control for each note intended for keeping the synth in tune, but which you could use to adjust each however you like. there's a list of hardware synths that support it here.

other ways you can rough it is to adjust key following amount on an oscillator if you have that option or for a hardware synth you can look around inside and find the pitch scaling trim pot and play around with it. with these two you are sort of adjusting the width of the tuning across the keyboard, so you end up with something that is like regular equal temperament shrunk or enlarged.

for a mono synth you can also individually adjust pitch bend for each note.

there's probably loads of other ways, smarter ways im sure.

ive fiddled a bit with the trim pot stuff and with adjusting scaling on a midi to cv interface for mono synths. it can sound very nice for sure. i wrote a bunch of tracks that i really love and i couldnt figure out why they were so special until i was doing a repair on my xoxbox and realized i had never bothered to tune it when i built it and had been using it as a midi to cv device for ages.

it works best for me when i start writing the track with the detuned bit and then work from there.

yeh but wouldnt it be more appropriate to just call that kind of stuff 'microtonal' rather than calling it detuned?

for sure. in one of the other interviews he bemoaned 12tet... in the two parter i think?

maybe i misinterpreted/over read what the op was looking for.

I think detune options kinda depend on what bit of kit you're trying to detune.

Afaik, the Korg PS synths use divide down oscillators. Basically there is 1 main VCO running at really high frequency which gets run through a series of frequency dividers, one set for different notes, and one set for octaves. The front panel controls allow you to adjust the note frequency dividers, so you can for example set C# to be 20 cents sharp or whatever. This adjustment would affect every C#, regardless of octave. Kinda cool tho, like the PS manual has diagrams for different tunings such as just intonation etc.

You also see divide down oscillators in other old polysynths, string synths also. I think some actually have a frequency divider for every key, so you could actually retune the entire thing.

Other polys like the CS80 or whatever have voice cards, and voice allocation boards. Each voice card will have callibration controls for tuning the VCO, maybe VCF too.. You can detune the individual voices, however it's less predictable since which voice gets played is determined on the voice allocation card, and how you play. Still, it's that unpredictability which helps make those old polys sound so alive.

Other stuff too.. like attenuating pitch CV into a VCO will give you different scale divisions, and you can get different equal temperament tunings. I kinda think of it like fucking the intonation on a string instrument by nudging the bridge about.

Doing similar things in software is kinda tricky, depends what software you're using. Something like Reaktor is really good for it, pretty sure some of those Arturia soft polysynths allow you to do the voice tuning stuff, or their 2600 should be able to do the pitch CV attenuation stuff too.

What'd be really cool would be some kinda midi tool for sending note data into, and nudging it into different tunings. I've seen them for quantizing to a particular scale, but dunno about microtuned options.. bound to be something out there tho.

Also this is a nice example of just intonation vs 12tet

Thanks for all the feedback. I don't own any hardware, so I don't know if I can apply any of the info given on that. But, I'll be sure to give the tips on software a try. Also, I'll be sure to look into mictrotonal scales.

Most softsynths these days have an "analog" "drift" or "error" knob, which introduces pitch variances on each keystroke, from very little to alot, intended to replicate the infamous drift in analog oscillators and a huge part of the aphex detuned sound - the Polysix vst, uhe Diva, Zeta 2, Live's Analog are some that come to mind. Between 10-30% gets you that aphex sound on relatively simple waveforms with long release settings.

You don't want to tune the global pitch, you want the variations and it's hell to program unless you have a setting like the above.

Microtuning is a whole different story, on some of his tunes he has his own scale tunings, which is mostly noticable if you have a good ear or compare with a 12TET tune. It's a very small difference even to the best of ears, most noticeable on Syro, like the piano in XMAS_EVET10, and the reason there's a bit of a duller sound on some of his ambient work. I don't think this is what you're really after, but I really recommend learning FM8 if you want to get into it because it has the most accessible, direct tuning, no messy scala files, no nothing, you hear it directly as you tune it. Polysix vst has this function as well, but you can't hold a key down and tune at the same time, it's better if you already know the basics of microtuning and perhaps have your own system already.

Microtuning is a mess if you transpose your material, there's always a sacrifice to make somewhere, but can be very beautiful if you arrange each key to harmonize with a single key. I made this scale up for my 420hz tune which is a variant on just intonation - classic JI doesn't quite get the minor thirds right which is a big staple of electronic music so I changed the system to emphasize those. It works great if you play bleeps and bloops in natural minor. You're going to notice it sounds less exciting but more pure than 12TET.

1 means root key etc

It's best if you have a clear, saw or sine waveform and play chords/fifths/thirds as you microtune, while looking into a spectrum analyzer, as you can see the harmonics interact with eachother as they phase in and out of tune. The more the harmonics move about when they touch up, the less in tune they are, as you do this you learn to make it out by ear. It's going to surprise you when you find perfect tonal relationships outside of 12TET, and working for a few hours in a song that's perfectly harmonized to your own taste will make most music out there sound discordant and jarring. When you come back to it, however, you're going to notice it feels detuned. This is what aphex is talking about.

anyone know if this would be achievable on the analog four?

for sure, there is a fine tuning knob afaik on it and with an lfo slowly adjusting that you should easily be able to achive this

  On 2/2/2015 at 3:46 AM, ceiling said:

anyone know if this would be achievable on the analog four?

detuning, yes. microtuning, I don't think so. I don't think there are any midi analogs that can do microtuning except the prophet 5 (and maybe 6) and the Marion synths.

Detuning layered drums creates a cool flange effect

  On 2/2/2015 at 5:34 AM, Ingwe said:

 

  On 2/2/2015 at 3:46 AM, ceiling said:

anyone know if this would be achievable on the analog four?

detuning, yes. microtuning, I don't think so. I don't think there are any midi analogs that can do microtuning except the prophet 5 (and maybe 6) and the Marion synths.

It's perfect to do on the A4.

Sometimes it's just nice to write melodies in a sampler by a tune knob with on indication of what notes you are reaching. Just smooth or maybe by stepping numbers which usually do not equalte perfectly to typical tuning steps. You just write what sounds right to you and that's all that matters. You try and play it on a keyboard and realise it's way out of tune. Some notes are completely between notes but when heard as a whole sounds perfectly normal.

Our brain allows for much wider frames of harmony than what standard notes give us.

I wrote a tune on the A4 a while ago and just piled every note available into a chord sequence (2 oscs + two subs x 4 tracks = 16 notes + 1 or two instances of tuned res) and I played it to a mate who said, can you give me the notes of each so I can interpret on the piano and play along. I did and went through it note for note. He is more musical theory geared than I am and he was going "what? this should not work! these notes don't go together and that one is not even in tune" but listened as a whole it just sounded perfect and lush.

  On 2/2/2015 at 11:10 AM, Chesney said:

I wrote a tune on the A4 a while ago and just piled every note available into a chord sequence (2 oscs + two subs x 4 tracks = 16 notes + 1 or two instances of tuned res) and I played it to a mate who said, can you give me the notes of each so I can interpret on the piano and play along. I did and went through it note for note. He is more musical theory geared than I am and he was going "what? this should not work! these notes don't go together and that one is not even in tune" but listened as a whole it just sounded perfect and lush.

sounds interesting, is it online somewhere?

  On 11/25/2014 at 9:10 AM, DerWaschbar said:

there's probably loads of other ways, smarter ways im sure.

I wouldn't know about that, but I've got a slow, tedious, stupid way I tried Ptolemaic tuning once: split a sequence out, one note lane per pitch, record each lane one at a time, and retune the oscillator in between each take. For extra stupidity, I did this using a multimeter instead of a guitar tuner because the latter simply hadn't occurred to me at the time for some reason. Even though I used to tune samples using a guitar tuner all the time, way back.

Zoe could you u/l the tracks so we can hear pls?

  On 2/2/2015 at 11:10 AM, Chesney said:

It's perfect to do on the A4.

 

Sometimes it's just nice to write melodies in a sampler by a tune knob with on indication of what notes you are reaching. Just smooth or maybe by stepping numbers which usually do not equalte perfectly to typical tuning steps. You just write what sounds right to you and that's all that matters. You try and play it on a keyboard and realise it's way out of tune. Some notes are completely between notes but when heard as a whole sounds perfectly normal.

Our brain allows for much wider frames of harmony than what standard notes give us.

Yeah, I sometimes work similarly, just tune stuff by ear a lot by using self oscillating filters and automating their frequencies. It`s hard to keep everything in tune all of the time but whatever, it`s a lot of fun working this way. Here is an example live recording of feeding a tone generator bidule to filters and switching filters and effects on/off on a fly: https://app.box.com/s/cldci28dt9456r38a36h

some interesting vibes in there zemu - reminds me of a couple of old aphex and of some of the machinarium soundtrack

a curious vibe, very hard to define but somehow very evocative

Nah Modey, I have not gotten around to finishing that particular track yet. Still just a bumch of loops and ideas in the A4 and MD. Will get around to it eventually as I still quite like it.

Zemudine: Nice having a listen.

Lovely mate