Who does what?

We have some clues, for sure - the Quietus interview with Rob about L-Event, the division of responsibilities on the Untilted and Quaristice tours.

 

But they also try to obscure this as much as possible, and often speak of impersonating each other.

 

Want to hazard a guess?

  On 4/5/2016 at 5:07 PM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

rob turns the computer on and then sean presses spacebar to make it go bleepy bloop bloop

 

Gotcha.

i can imagine sean grinding weed and rob rolling the spliffs

might be the over way round tho

If they've had a few brews and realize they've ran out of Rizla, I've heard it's Rob who does the BMX trip to the 24hour Esso

I have kind of always assumed that Sean primarily does the percussion and Rob does primarily does the pads / melody kind of stuff. This is just me assuming stuff based off interviews, Sean seems to be more straight to the point and rigid. Rob seems more softly spoken and reserved. Both of which remind me of the respective sounds.

 

If you look at pics of them live from when they were using more hardware they did change it up a bit between who is on the Synth vs who is on the Samplers / Mixing.

  On 4/5/2016 at 5:47 PM, digman said:

I have kind of always assumed that Sean primarily does the percussion and Rob does primarily does the pads / melody kind of stuff. This is just me assuming stuff based off interviews, Sean seems to be more straight to the point and rigid. Rob seems more softly spoken and reserved. Both of which remind me of the respective sounds.

I've always thought the other way round for some reason - Sean being the experimental and pad-y/environmental side of ae, Rob bringing the percussion and hip hop vibe.

 

My reasonings for this being: The interview with Hafler Trio Sean did on that radio station a while back, him being the one behind the BBC Micro experiment that didn't materialise and the sets like this that are just from the one person:

 

https://soundcloud.com/timelife-methrave/tunnel-dive-no-043-feat-autechre-all-notes-off

 

Complete conjecture though !

Reiterating what sweepstakes said about the L-Event interview implying Rob had the major hand in M39 Diffain

And in the AAA Sean told the story of Tac Lacora, with the mail man hearing it or something, implying he had a major hand in that one

So that seems to fit with the often assumed roles of Rob = more textural and Sean = major beat fuckery

 

Also rob's more hip hop leaning always lead me to think Goz Quarter (or atleast the turntablism in it) came from Rob

But I think they have also said they occasionally try to emulate each other's styles sometimes

So who knows

I don't reckon either has specific roles in the sound seeing as sean said in the aaa that only about 1/3 of their tracks are non-solo. I can't really see any split in their tracks that suggests one did this batch and the other did these, so i'm guessing they both just do everything.

pretty sure they've talked about this on the Panama Papers-sized AskAEAnything

  On 4/5/2016 at 7:36 PM, misc said:

I don't reckon either has specific roles in the sound seeing as sean said in the aaa that only about 1/3 of their tracks are non-solo. I can't really see any split in their tracks that suggests one did this batch and the other did these, so i'm guessing they both just do everything.

 

this. iirc this was a real bombshell in the Q&A, but that does lead us to another fun question: who MADE what? i'll throw some wild mad guesses:

 

rob = Altibzz

sean = Ipacial Section

rob = bladelores

rob = Bronchusevenmx24

sean = Rotar

sean = Latent Quarter

sean = Surripere

rob = Recury

rob = Krib

 

if i were to guess, i think the collaborative Ae tracks would be very creatively varied, with ideas being thrown around and tuned together in lots of strange ways. in general, i think most of the Album Closers are at least partially rob+sean (they seem to put a lot of emphasis on these, in terms of presentation) as well as the main/opening tracks on their EPs (i.e. i don't think they'd club together and release an EP of Gantz Graf unless there was some particular breakthrough or something going on in that track).

 

a few other guess on what is joint rob+sean: Cipater, Tilapia, Cap.IV, Cfern, Pen Expers, P.:Ntil, Simmm, 777, and probably everything on the Key Nell EP.

  On 4/5/2016 at 8:45 PM, Rhombix said:

 

  On 4/5/2016 at 7:36 PM, misc said:

I don't reckon either has specific roles in the sound seeing as sean said in the aaa that only about 1/3 of their tracks are non-solo. I can't really see any split in their tracks that suggests one did this batch and the other did these, so i'm guessing they both just do everything.

 

this. iirc this was a real bombshell in the Q&A, but that does lead us to another fun question: who MADE what? i'll throw some wild mad guesses:

 

rob = Altibzz

sean = Ipacial Section

rob = bladelores

rob = Bronchusevenmx24

sean = Rotar

sean = Latent Quarter

sean = Surripere

rob = Recury

rob = Krib

 

if i were to guess, i think the collaborative Ae tracks would be very creatively varied, with ideas being thrown around and tuned together in lots of strange ways. in general, i think most of the Album Closers are at least partially rob+sean (they seem to put a lot of emphasis on these, in terms of presentation) as well as the main/opening tracks on their EPs (i.e. i don't think they'd club together and release an EP of Gantz Graf unless there was some particular breakthrough or something going on in that track).

 

a few other guess on what is joint rob+sean: Cipater, Tilapia, Cap.IV, Cfern, Pen Expers, P.:Ntil, Simmm, 777, and probably everything on the Key Nell EP.

 

 

could you put this into a pie chart, or graph format?

  On 4/5/2016 at 8:49 PM, pyramidpanes said:

 

  On 4/5/2016 at 8:45 PM, Rhombix said:

 

  On 4/5/2016 at 7:36 PM, misc said:

I don't reckon either has specific roles in the sound seeing as sean said in the aaa that only about 1/3 of their tracks are non-solo. I can't really see any split in their tracks that suggests one did this batch and the other did these, so i'm guessing they both just do everything.

 

this. iirc this was a real bombshell in the Q&A, but that does lead us to another fun question: who MADE what? i'll throw some wild mad guesses:

 

rob = Altibzz

sean = Ipacial Section

rob = bladelores

rob = Bronchusevenmx24

sean = Rotar

sean = Latent Quarter

sean = Surripere

rob = Recury

rob = Krib

 

if i were to guess, i think the collaborative Ae tracks would be very creatively varied, with ideas being thrown around and tuned together in lots of strange ways. in general, i think most of the Album Closers are at least partially rob+sean (they seem to put a lot of emphasis on these, in terms of presentation) as well as the main/opening tracks on their EPs (i.e. i don't think they'd club together and release an EP of Gantz Graf unless there was some particular breakthrough or something going on in that track).

 

a few other guess on what is joint rob+sean: Cipater, Tilapia, Cap.IV, Cfern, Pen Expers, P.:Ntil, Simmm, 777, and probably everything on the Key Nell EP.

 

 

could you put this into a pie chart, or graph format?

 

 

With animations and anti-aliased graphics, please. Thanks.

I also remember in the AAA thread Rob gave some details about how Maphive 6.1 was all made with one specific hardware piece, with a photo of it, and talked about what a pain it is to compose on

From this I will assume Maphive6.1 is a Rob solo

I've asked them myself, and they told me that Sean adds the fucking and Rob adds the cool to their tracks.

  On 4/5/2016 at 11:23 PM, Joyrex said:

I've asked them myself, and they told me that Sean adds the fucking and Rob adds the cool to their tracks.

 

For real?

Rod does the cooking, Sam does the dishes

 

or the other way around in Sundays

  On 4/5/2016 at 6:24 PM, fizzkinz said:

in the AAA Sean told the story of Tac Lacora, with the mail man hearing it or something, implying he had a major hand in that one

So that seems to fit with the often assumed roles of Rob = more textural and Sean = major beat fuckery

 

Also rob's more hip hop leaning always lead me to think Goz Quarter (or atleast the turntablism in it) came from Rob

This is kind of how I perceive it too. It's not so much beats vs. pads as it is different flavors.

 

I think Rob does more stuff that's maybe kind of cheeky or corny but it sticks in your head and is maybe a bit more soulful, and also textural. More things where he's kind of feeling out the edges of stuff in an intuitive way.

 

Where I think Sean is geekier and more analytical and digs a bit more into the science of things, so he gets more of the trippy mind-bending, morphing, fast, hard-edged stuff.

 

I'm kind of divining this from interviews and extrapolating that into what musical results I'd expect from the somewhat different approaches. For example, Sean said with the current Max stuff, he tends to spend a bit more time on building patches and Rob tends to spend a bit more time testing them. Or how Sean was talking about sorting his musical library by tempo and creating playlists that gradually get faster.

 

I imagine there is a ton of overlap though, and they're probably at least as similar as they are different, especially since they often mention emulating each other. Like they are semi-intentionally training themselves to be aesthetically more like the other.

  On 4/5/2016 at 7:36 PM, misc said:

I don't reckon either has specific roles in the sound seeing as sean said in the aaa that only about 1/3 of their tracks are non-solo. I can't really see any split in their tracks that suggests one did this batch and the other did these, so i'm guessing they both just do everything.

 

this. iirc this was a real bombshell in the Q&A, but that does lead us to another fun question: who MADE what? i'll throw some wild mad guesses:

 

rob = Altibzz

sean = Ipacial Section

rob = bladelores

rob = Bronchusevenmx24

sean = Rotar

sean = Latent Quarter

sean = Surripere

rob = Recury

rob = Krib

 

if i were to guess, i think the collaborative Ae tracks would be very creatively varied, with ideas being thrown around and tuned together in lots of strange ways. in general, i think most of the Album Closers are at least partially rob+sean (they seem to put a lot of emphasis on these, in terms of presentation) as well as the main/opening tracks on their EPs (i.e. i don't think they'd club together and release an EP of Gantz Graf unless there was some particular breakthrough or something going on in that track).

 

a few other guess on what is joint rob+sean: Cipater, Tilapia, Cap.IV, Cfern, Pen Expers, P.:Ntil, Simmm, 777, and probably everything on the Key Nell EP.

Rab floats into the AI crystal chamber while Shane goes for a spacewalk and tris to reason with the equipment

I find it funny that they still work in a pair like some shitty over-produced techstep drum-n-bass. Pan Sonic is no more (clearly they lasted as much coz they stopped talking to each other at some point), Mouse on Mars has shitloads of solo Jan Werner on the side and kinda half-ass anyway. Plaid and Matmos are gay couples? BoC are brothers or a cult or whatever, they aren't prolific. FSOL didn't last etc.

The FSOL boys put out something last week you silly goose - http://www.fsoldigital.com/product/blackhill-transmitter-album/

  On 4/6/2016 at 1:11 PM, Amen Lare said:

I find it funny that they still work in a pair like some shitty over-produced techstep drum-n-bass. Pan Sonic is no more (clearly they lasted as much coz they stopped talking to each other at some point), Mouse on Mars has shitloads of solo Jan Werner on the side and kinda half-ass anyway. Plaid and Matmos are gay couples? BoC are brothers or a cult or whatever, they aren't prolific. FSOL didn't last etc.

I want to mark this post "Mark Solved" just for the lolz

  On 4/6/2016 at 5:06 PM, Joyrex said:

 

  On 4/6/2016 at 1:11 PM, Amen Lare said:

I find it funny that they still work in a pair like some shitty over-produced techstep drum-n-bass. Pan Sonic is no more (clearly they lasted as much coz they stopped talking to each other at some point), Mouse on Mars has shitloads of solo Jan Werner on the side and kinda half-ass anyway. Plaid and Matmos are gay couples? BoC are brothers or a cult or whatever, they aren't prolific. FSOL didn't last etc.

I want to mark this post "Mark Solved" just for the lolz

 

He forgot "the aphex twin's are usually hidden behind silly masks or helmets whatever and Square and Pusher are really the same guy"

Rancho saddles the horses, Sanchez feeds them carrots