The Batsh*t Software Aphex Twin Used
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 16. 06. 2024
- Pinned comment with links. PLEASE experiment with this stuff and go wild!
Thanks again to Richard James for not only his transformative work, but his help with sharing this info!
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âĄThose lovely custom acoustic panels in the background: psyacoustics.com
timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
2:17 - Windowlicker EP
6:40 - Bucephalus Bouncing Ball
12:29 - Vordhosbn and Flim
16:50 - Custom Software & Oddities
20:27 - Thank You, RDJ - VÄda a technologie
That incredible work from @digiphex electronics on the Polyend Tracker: czcams.com/video/QVmGnTgyUCQ/video.html
Trevor Wishart's Audible Design PDF (we hugged Trevor's server to death, I'll upload a backup somewhere if I get permission to redistribute đŹ): www.trevorwishart.co.uk/AUDIBLE_DESIGN.pdf
A video of me making linear drum/glitchiness on an old workstation: czcams.com/video/kgGO8cxFB6g/video.html
Okay, big list of things to check out that were more or less ambiguously used. Not for the faint of heart. Please dive in!
Old hard/software:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OctaMED
www.muzines.co.uk/articles/digidesign-turbosynth/2295
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAM_Music_Machine
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Spectrum
www.muzines.co.uk/articles/dr-ts-tiger-cub/451
www.muzines.co.uk/articles/c-lab-notator-logic/5491
www.vintagesynth.com/casio/FZ20M (for timestretches)
sourceforge.net/projects/playerpro/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPIC
Stuff we cannot find much about in 2024:
PDS Soundview (mentioned here www.jstor.org/stable/3680904 )
Stuff you can easily run today:
www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/
www.composersdesktop.com/
www.ircam.fr/
supercollider.github.io/
uisoftware.com/metasynth/
www.iannix.org/en/
inagrm.com/en
THANK U SO MUCH
This is amazing! Thank you! (edit: I still use my Atari ST with the Sonus sonic editor, and Masterpiece sequencer at times...Love this old school stuff!).
At least you didn't make a video about boards of contrived
cant seem to find a link for the first software you used. -- EDIT : found it, im blind, sorry
Awesome. This is a goldmine. I subscribed to your channel for some random non-music-creation videos the algorithm recommended.. and then saw your spotify self-publishing vids at exactly the time I needed them, and I've gradually learned that you have a deep backlog of experience that is so aligned with my ancient pre-MIDI and MIDI explorations. I wrote sound apps on my old 128k Mac, played with giant, wall-sized Moog synths, dove deep in reel-to-reel tape experimentation, got the first MIDI interface available for Mac and went crazy programming sequences ... which led to me designing the "Timeline" interface in AfterEffects (actually the "Sequencer" animation interface for Infii-D .. which was then ported to AfterEffects before Adobe bought CoSA)... then toured full time playing guitar and sax with a jam band, ...and on and on. Now I'm just noodling in Logic, trying to justify myself. This kind of video hits exactly how you intended it to. Thank you for continuing to post great content!! Keep it coming. :)
Brian Eno once said: "A way of doing something original is by trying something so painstaking that nobody else has ever bothered with it.."
That's the way magic works. To accomplish the unthinkable.
He did learn to program the DX7
@@fghjghjfhgjfhgj Touché..!!
Very well said, no shortcuts ever led to good art
Like the guy that makes art in Excel because he didn't want to spend money on art supplies.
Ah the Aphex Twins, great band
hahaha!! ricky & the aphex twins. sweet, sweet violators of souls.
@@fallprecauxionsmusic"sweet violators of the soul" sick band name
Almost as good as The Daft Punks!
Aphex Twin, Richard D James he's one person. Don't think you can class him as a band I would word it more he's an artist and amazing one at that.
No he is in a band with his dead twin â@spaceiswater6539
"...and I realized I can indeed do whatever I want..."
I was in a metal band some 25 years ago. We weren't huge, but had some dedicated fans. To the point at least when we needed to replace our 2nd guitarist we found someone who already knew how to play the songs on the demo. Our drummer wrote all the music. One day he picked me up and he was listening to us in his car. "Isn't it weird listening to your own band?"
"No. I made the songs I want to listen to. If anyone else wants to listen, that's cool."
I realized then that making music to appeal to a certain group of people, be it club kids, or metalheads, hardcore kids, doesn't work. You've already set a limit for yourself, creatively speaking. Play what you want to hear, and the chances are there are other people who want to hear it also.
Absolutely love this! "If you build it they will come" comes to mind. Love artists in any form that divert from the beaten path. Absurdism/Abstractism creates a new path and thought pattern.
This right here. That's exactly why I make music, do arts and just exist. To make the things I wanna hear..speaking of which, do you have any copies of your demo around or (hopefully) transfered digitally?
Musicians in pursuit of success often forget that success will come when they just focus on what makes them want to make music in the first place.
@@buckycore Not readily available. I am fairly certain I have them on an old laptop
five star fuckin take
I love your point about "something WE'VE lost" and it being patience. Recently, having last listened to a record nearly 40 years ago, I decided to capitalize on my 17yo son's sudden interest in vinyl and repaired my old Phillips turntable. Together we've started picking up the occasional new and old vinyl. The experience of sitting down and listening to an entire album from beginning to end was something neither of us had done in a long time and it was great. It's also a nice experience to just sit down with my son and enjoy something together in silence as we just listen.
Yes totally. When I was a lad a cd was like 14 quid which took a while to save for so we chose wisely and listened to all of an album multiple times. Obviously there were loads of records I wanted to hear but couldn't. Nowadays you can hear any album you want ever, for hardly any cash, but we've lost that patience and time with a single album
What I really enjoy are alot of the higher quality 180g reissues and remasters as well. Some of them sound reallllllly nice.
I got the 'I care because you do' Aphex Twin on vinyl and it grew to be my favorite pretty fast.
Collapse EP is really great if your stereo has a powerful sub.
The Come to daddy EP is a 45rpm so you can slow it down to hear the intricacies and flubby bass.
I hear the same sentiment a lot from older millennials and gen Xers. They get busy doing other things and forget how magical it is to discover new music. A trap I'm determined never to fall into myself. I average 50+ new albums every year so I should be safe for a while, it plays too big a role in my life to just disappear overnight.
Personally even with digital music, I listen to albums 95% of the time instead of playlists and single songs. I want the full experience of the album and if itâs not good enough to listen to all the songs, I donât wanna hear any of it.
"my soul was violated" she understands the goal of these sounds
i love how she's just credited as "CZcamsr"
It was actually a DJ set, Rich was playing a track by 74185# called âR**** (Outro)â where you hear the sound of a person crying.
czcams.com/video/YVewGTk3Cf0/video.htmlsi=MDTA1jTL8Q8QcGLA
Yep. Musical witchcraft. iykyk
Well, he did want and eat souls so đ€·ââïž
@@abundantharmony đâ
7:35 Bucephalus was the name of Alexander the Greatâs horse, who in the stories was wild and untamable, until Alexander came along and was able to tame him. I always interpreted the title to be âthe taming of the bouncing ballâ, in that he breaks down the sound of a bouncing ball and uses it to make a million other sounds to create music.
I just assumed he named it that because it's unique and alliterative but I prefer your interpretation. The fact that it's such a *specific and proper noun* adds more weight to your theory
Also for a man who named a project the tuss, that phallus word play probably made him laugh
Bucephalus is also an old iOS app that plays samples with balls bouncing on the screen borders.
Yes, he broke that horse in and conquered the world Richard did.
@@SchemaMusicalis Bucephalus is like 15 years older than that iOS app.
I grew up in Cornwall near Richard in the same era. It was a weird, dark, damp, grey place for much of the year. I get where his inspiration comes from. Love that some of the samples are just things like his mum moving a chair. Brings back evocative memories of youth. It's great to see someone from there inspiring with a global reach.
He lives in Constantine now, I lived in Gweek and used to see him in the pub there. Very nice dude, incredibly down to earth
The Flashbulb doing a video essay on Aphex Twin brings me such joy
Because of his head shape and size?
17:54 âI had the pleasure of chatting with Richard for quite a bitâ đ€Żđ€Żđ€Ż
Just dropping that statement into the video, all casual like đ€·ââ
Ooo man that's so awesome, that's a rarity for sure.
I got to meet Dave Tipper once at a private party on artist Alex Grey's COSM house in New York. They even gave a LSD "talk" at the beginning of the show. One of the craziest things I've ever witnessed.
That's wild
Listening to him pay tribute to Jamesâ great work, he deserves to have spoken to the master
BUT.. the most important question is: Did Benn ask RDJ just exactly HOW to pronounce "Drukqs"?
Working in a music equipment shop in London around 2001, Richard D James walks in.....
We have a brief and direct conversation about ADAT PCMCIA cards for his Sony Vaio laptop, as he wanted to output 8 channels of audio from it. I reccomend a certain product, and manage to slip in I had been learning how to play Avril 14th on piano which had just been released.
Not sure what happened next, maybe because I recognised him, but he said quite frankly. "That's impossible" I said why? I was figuring it out, and... "because it's played on multiple pianos" and left.
I was somewhat heartbroken, but in the years since, reflected on it as a musical hero giving a little insight to the complexity of his craft. It isn't as straightforward as I had assumed, though in that moment he made me want to give up entirely.
He came across at the time, like his music, purposefully difficult..
I'm glad to read something more like this than all the gushing praise. Myself and a couple of friends once smoked a spliff with him and a couple of his mates after a 'secret' gig in Belfast, Northern Ireland at the end of the '90s, so around the same time. They were total dicks. Quite obnoxious, sarcastic and very sexist and condescending. Didn't like them. Everyone has bad days though, and I'm sure he's probably a much nicer person now.
Wouldnât have been in Tottenham Court Road by chance?
Avril 14 can definitely be played by 1 person.
@@sophiophile maybe he meant it has sounds mixed in from different pianos i guess. I should listen to it again ...
@@benfinesilver2250 Turnkey, Charing Cross Road,
THANK YOU! I have been searching for the name of Upic for way over a decade. It was just mentioned in a newspaper article but I have never found that article again so i could not search the software by the people mentioned in the article.
I am so relieved!
Thanks so much for doing this video! You really touched on so many things! I miss the days of old of making the Journey and to tracking down the latest from the Master and fully experiencing it over and over again after bringing it home and sharing it with friends! You're absolutely right that people have lost a lot over the years when it comes to patience. I've been an avid listener and experiencer of Mr. James since around 1997 and have had the pleasure of seeing and hearing him live. He truly is out of this World! Thanks again and keep doing what you do!
*IT'S TIME FOR THE PERCOLATOR*
assuming you know that was Cajmere / GreenV obv xx
đșđș
vwheoowheeeeew
The last time I heard that was in a viral video. Of some girl trying to twerk on a glass table and breaking literally everything.
yes
Over and over, across all the different interests I have, when I look at the geniuses and pioneers and ask, "how did they do that?" the answer is always the same: they did it the hard way.
Idk. If you live and breathe whatever it is that you are doing, it is not the hard way. It's your way.
I'm more and more convinced that, specifically when it comes to art, there's no hard or easy way, just your way, and that's the way that makes you enjoy the process.
I always had this idea that I needed to make music to have others listen to it, but it meant practicing and learning stuff I actually didn't enjoy. Now I'm a terrible bass player who randomly plays some shit or creates some whacky patch on VCV Rack or Pure Data that would make anyone's ears bleed one every month or two, and I simply enjoy it
The secret to being a prolific and happy artist is to love your process.
â@@Sool101I could see it being "the hard way", in the sense that more went in to making the music what it is. It's the difference between a preset in a hardware synth and programming a synth to get your own sound. Or even using a less popular synth. Like using the Bass 1 preset on the DX7 VS the Bass 3 preset on the FB-01. Sure both are FM bass presets. But one is far more popular than the other. So the hard way is using less popular synths and crafting your own sound by programming synths and sampling real world sounds.
Well said
I had no idea that "The Flashbulb: of my childhood has an active CZcams Channel. I am incredibly happy to see you break down Aphex Twin and I'm so thankful for the music that you and Richard provided. I'm glad you braved the waters of sharing your work. My love of Electronica heavily features you and Richard's work throughout my life. Thank you. I'm not at all surprised that you're well-spoken and obsessive. Now I'm going to go listen to Undiscovered Colors for the umpteenth time.
You, Venetian Snares, and Aphex Twin were bangers on Stepmania Online back when I was playing it. Props.
Funk and James are my two favorites artists. Nice.
Being a command line program means that you can script it. You can have it generate hundreds of thousands of random permutations by writing a script to do this for you
*@ECHO OFF*
*REM* Your comment brought back a lot of great (and painful) memories of batch scripting đ
Thank God ChatGPT can write your batch files for you
@@baronvonbeandip I'd install node, typescript, or python. Windows most likely still supports cscript as well.
@@baronvonbeandip just have it create the whole music for you and you can be as unimaginative and bland as everybody else using chatgpt.
@@dascandy If you donÂŽt know what a script does in this process you should just be quiet. Keep AI hate for yourself.
I cant believe I'm alive today to experience the confluence of two of the most important musical figures I had growing up. I dont play music, or even listen to very much of it. When I was growing up, my best friend Dylan exposed me to Aphex Twin. It was so unique, and helped me feel like I was connected to a wavelength not seen in my daily life. Inevitably i stumbled onto The Flashbulb, which I basically exclusively listened to for my entire late teens and early 20's. I even reached out to you by email back in 2004 and you were so polite and actually responded. Years later I discover you are doing CZcams and making the exact type of content I love, and then go on to make this beautiful dive into Aphex. Thank you for this, and thank you to Richard D James for spawning this vein of reality that so many individuals are allowed to reside in.
I'm legit blushing! Thank you!
@@BennJordan you deserve it. Many have been following you since the WATMM days that I let go of a while back.
Benn Jordan is Flashbulb? Wow, I haven't been on WATMM in ages but I've been following this channel for a while and I'm just learning this.
When I first saw the video title I was like I hope he does this subject justice and isn't like some The Aphex Twins casual fan.
I'm trying to recall which mailing list I was on with Ben Flashbulb - 20+ years ago. I remember him being earnest and very dedicated to music production. edit _ Maybe it was the Planet-mu message board actually
@@zampha2065 I am trying to remember a mailing list in the late 90's as well I think called, Skiimo? Or something this like. Could have been a "//" in there too. I remember they had very extensive IDM offerings of all levels. Any idea?
i like the sense and moderate intensity of your humor. also, as an audio software developer, I really enjoyed the video.
you're absolutely right about the way we've lost our focus while listening to music.
thanks!
Love the video, always cool to see a new way to appreciate mad genius. The mention of speed racer talking about house music made me dig up that old Alpha Team record I haven't listened to in years, so thank you for that as well.
"You've got so many machines, Richard!"
"I haven't got that many"
Give us a snare rush!
Classic! đ
Oooh thatâs a nasty sound
đđ€Łđđ€Łđđđđ
The first time I heard Aphex Twin I was around 12 years old living on a small reservation in Montana, half watching an interview with Johnny Depp on MTV and he mentioned he liked Aphex Twin. They then showed a 5 second clip of the Come to daddy video, my ears and head perked up. I had my Dad drive me 45 minutes to the nearest CD store and got the album. It was my introduction to electronic music and almost 30 years later Aphex Twin is still my favorite artist. Thank you for this video Benn. These are questions I have been wondering about the majority of my life.
That is astonishingly sophisticated for a 12 year old.
Haha youâre awesome
From Montana and first discovered Mr. Twin myself around that age. Much love cheers.
That Come To Daddy had me fucked up when I was a kid. That and Rubber Johnny. I was a trance boi and that sorta IDM was too abrasive lol
Thanks for sharing, i had a similar experience but I often forget just how impactful it was for me. I was 14 at a friends house and he had just purchased Drukqs, he had a large sound system in his basement and I was over there with a few other friends. He put on track 2 (vordhosbn) and I was completely speechless and transfixed for 5 minutes straight, I'd never heard anything like that, it was life changing! Still my top artist.
I remember stumbling on your channel a few years ago, and this video came in and i love to see how faru come. Subscribed. Still remeber stories from music engineers telling mythical things about Aphex twin and Autechre software synths. Safe to say that Aphex Twin's commercial work re`ally set the stage for many musicians to come, as it was almost a pop in Russia, because of how much mtv played it. Its actually crazy how much idm was popular in the 90s.
Excellent work here. Enjoyed this immensely, thank you for expounding on the software and the background history involved.
Iâm more of a programmer who loves music and Iâm building a new, extremely experimental, daw thing. Sometimes itâs hard to imagine anyone using it especially if when you show people, theyâll say âjust use Ableton.â Itâs disheartening, but videos like this showing that some people care, keep me going.
Buying Massive changed my life, I'd be happy to try something new. What are you making?
if you ever need someone to demo it, i'm also a programmer/composer and i'd love to check it out!
I've been producing music more than a decade, i'd love to demo your daw
You're showing the wrong people lol. Do you have a demo?
i want demo too
at 20:37 you can see three things I sold to Richard. A quad controller and the 2 touchpads that were made by Josef Mundigl for his EMS Synth AKS in the 70's.
Woah! David Morley! Respect
that's fucking rad.
Yeb !
@@tyromelive2851 đź
Awesome!!
This is exciting stuff and it made me fall in love with Ben Jordanâs channel again. Iâve been on and off with the channel for a while. The Obscure, nerdy and accessible stuff is what a lot of us long for. Many thanks to Ben
As a huge Aphex fan this is fucking awesome. God damn. Please keep em coming Benn. I often talk about bats to people ever since I watched that video you made about them. â€
Bro, I didnd't realize you're The Flashbulb. I saw you open for Dillinger Escape Plan at a show in Maryland many years ago where I believe we were in Virgin store and there was an escalator not far from the stage.
Greg breathed fire and was fined heavily.
I was pleasantly surprised by your set because I had no idea what to expect from you, but I was very familiar with Aphex-Twin, Squarepusher, Venetian Snares, and Kid-606, and our local boy Cex.
Your performance was excellent.
The entire night was one I'll literally never forget.
I saw him with Dillinger in MD back then as well. Last show of the miss machine tour. They broke everything. lol. Iâll never forget that concert
Whoa, IIII am jealous
@@kylecalandrelle7209 I was right at the front with my gf when Greg breathed fire, and I can still remember the un-burnt mist landing on our faces.
It was easily the most intense show I've ever been to, and I've been to a lot of them.
@@drownthepoorI always say DEP are the heaviest bands out there, metal bands could only dream to be that heavy
I had already heard stuff like Venetian Snares and Bong-Ra. But what really tipped me over the edge into loving distorted, hyper-edited breakbeats was the Flashbulb. He never toured with Dillinger here, but that was my favorite band, and it was through being name-dropped by Ben Weinman that I got into the Flashbulb. Now a good 20 years later, my favorite musician is Abelcain, Bloody Fist records defined more than a decade of my life, and the music I make myself is sort of a mix between that type of heavy breakcore and the noisy drone music of Roly Porter and Paul Jebanasam. The Dillinger Escape Plan taking the Flashbulb on tour completely changed my music taste.
Aphex Twin and Squarepusher were the 2 artists that really captivated me in the late 90s. I think Aphex Twin is an artist that has a timeless quality. Back then I thought it was future music, but I think it just defied convention. I love when jazz musicians cover his work, and I'd love for his work to be part of the jazz canon.
Cool video. Thank you.
Well...Loved Aphex in the 90's but was way more captivated by Reload.
Especially in the 1st half of the 90's.
Mark Pritchard and Tom Middleton are so underrated...
Never expected Squarepusher's sound to become so dull over the years. I truly miss Hard Normal Daddy. That was his Come To Daddy.
Of Squarepusher's work, Hard Normal Daddy, Big Loada, and Budakhan Mindphone where the albums that I listened to the most. I do like the jazzy albums of Shobaleader One: d'Demonstrator (it's reminds me of Air a bit) and Just a Souvenir. I'm sure that I heard Mark Pritchard among the various Warp releases that I had heard, but I don't recall listening to Reload at all. I'll give it a go.
Been a fan of your music for a while and never knew that you are also a talented youtuber! The programs you show in the video really give some great insight into RDJ's creative process. Really shows how ahead of his time he was and still is.
Iâm a big fan of your music from years ago (and aphex too)! Really cool to see you making videos like this
Vordhosbn is a damn masterpiece. My friends and I primarily grew up on Metal but Vordhosbn was on all of our Mix CDs and Party playlists. Unreal composition.
I covered Vordhosbn, but with my Modular Synth - it took forever to program the drums but it was so much fun. You should check it out - czcams.com/video/IVB6Yuvtv54/video.html
Haha! Same.
Half my youth was beer and metal
The other half was "VORDHOSBN HAS OVER THREE THOUSAND DRUM SAMPLES!!"
Aphex Twin is a modern day Wendy Carlos. On the bleeding edge of stitching technology and music together.
Wendy Carlos' influence is vastly overrated as well as Aphex Twin's. Now his influence is pretty much non-existant. In my opinion the most influencial modern musician is Thomas Bangalter, since he brought sidechain from radios to music production. In my opinion Aphex Twin's style of merging random sounds with autistic drums, that nobody uses anymore is uncomparable to the technique used always in every genre.
@@Guy-iv2hw Yes for Carlos, the rest i guess it's clickbait, or at least i hope so.
@@unified_method Why? Did Aphex Twin introduce something more revolutionary to music production than sidechain?
@@Guy-iv2hw "autistic drums" Wow, a real christgau in the making. Never forget the time buddy rich screamed incoherently on caravan and shit himself laughing
@@Guy-iv2hw to put in simple words, the feeling he evokes while also being so technical is almost unmatched to this day, i do understand you may not like his music but denying his contribution in music and the fact that inspired quite a few musical styles is just you being deaf on purpose (no offense) :)
I think that Aphex Twin's strategy with a lot of this stuff would be to set the DAT running and then just F around for hours. Then listen back to the DAT and sample the best bits and chain them together.
Interesting
I just watched this all the way through because I have been a fan of Aphex Twin since I was probably 15 and then realized that you made Opus at the end of everything lmao your music is great! Will definitely be tuning in for more episodes :)
They Live "cheesy film score"??? You watch your tongue, boy!
john carpenter's scores are so good
He knows how to troll a comment out of you ;)
watch it cause i'm all out o' gum
Hey Benn, I went to one of yours and Richard's shows at the Abbey Pub way back in '03 or '04. It was great! Your mom was running your merch table and she was seriously so cool! It was really clear how much she supports you and she was so happy to hype you and your music up! I bought the latest Flashbulb CD from her. I can't remember the name of the album but it was great! I'm so happy that you're making these videos in modern day, pulling back a little bit of the curtain behind the magic of the music. My friends and I would always speculate about how you all achieved such unique sounds and we all tried to recreate them in in pirated copies of Reason and FLStudio. Ha! You're the man
Thank you for making this video! I donât produce music, but Iâm a software developer and Aphex Twin introduced me to electronic music many many years ago and I love learning about the software and tools he used in the 90s.
Man, I can't tell you enough how this video really resonated with me. I was an avid tracker head between early 90's up to about 2010.
Really like your style and your music. Thanks for a great vid with such amazing vibes
not only is this video absolutely incredible but im overjoyed to see it spread SO much SO fast. just... wow. thank you so much for putting together this incredible resource/ love letter
"PRAAT" simply means "talk" in Dutch and is also pronounced the way Dutch people would. It was developed by two guys at the university of Amsterdam.
Great video on these various pieces of software!
We used this program when I was studying linguistics, it was great
Do you know of any specific use cases where it may be useful for music production or composition? I've seen it a few times, but wouldn't know where to start when applying it to that. Although I have heard that you can use it that way, people are less than forthcoming when it comes to the specifics of that useage.
@@adamsmith7058 I think it is initially aimed at things such as speech synthesis and voice manipulation. But... if you are looking for another tool to manipulate sound in general, I am sure you can do that too and it seems like RDJ used it for that. It is always fun to simply mess around with software and use it in ways it is not meant to be used. At this point in time, however, there are also lots of other pieces of software that can do similar things. But this software is free and the latest version seems to give you a lot more options than it initially had.
@@adamsmith7058 Search for .praat scripts. Or try to learn to create them. With these you are able to create interface items (buttons, check boxes..) that tie into the praat environment as well. I once found a script that was able to transform spoken words (or any sound) into sine waves. Using this, you were able to choose which formants to synthesise, remove warble and more. The output speech was stripped of consonants: weird speech you could hardly recognize. Makes for a nice effect I guess. However, I wouldn't choose praat scripts for music composition.
Thank you for making this. Aphex Twin has been my favorite artist for quite some time. In any capacity. Movies, Books, etc.
What a gem, this video answers questions I've had since the early 2000's. Thank you so much for sharing this amazing information about such a singular mind like Richard's, and for free!
I kinda want to challenge the notion that Aphex Twin was inaccessible. I loved the whole "Come To Daddy" EP on first listen and it's not just because I'm a weirdo. It got heavy play on MTV. A lot of his stuff was strange, but equally a lot was popular.
if it was completely indecipherable we wouldn't be talking about it. also windowlicker is one of his most accessible tracks.
â@@mdihero Hell it was literally in Grandma's Boy
@@Superabound2 you'd like it if you had robot ears
I think the 90s was the perfect time for weird stuff on MTV such as Primus. There was an appetite for weirdness
He is brilliant for sure. Problem with most of edm/ idm - it tends to be very dark. A reflection of the soul perhaps. Why the obsession with distressing sounds?
Avril14th is beautiful - do more of that.
Oh yes. Richard D James. I picked up my very first Aphex Twin album in I think 1993, Selected Ambient Works 85-92. Blew my fkn mind, then all his other stuff came, MUCH more chaotic and difficult to listen to, but ultimately a huge part of my university years, along with others like FSOL, just mind blowing and weirdly beautiful. Fascinating video, thanks! Syro did indeed feel very different, but I agree it's probably because the world has changed so much.
Thank you for this Benn! Quality
Thank you! Brilliantly put together and presented.
I was in Greece in 1999 when the full length music video for Windowlicker came on. I ran to the store the next day and hunted down the EP. It just blew my mind.
awww ye, Come to Daddy. on a peripherally related note - I'd love to hear you take a look at/talk about Venetian Snares' workflow too, very unique approach and software.
snares has alot of modular synths his setup is wild
his channel is called vsnares he has videos of it
He could spend a million years doing videos on all the second-rate electronic musicians who were basically emulating Aphex Twin, and still are
@@davidemelia6296 You haven't listened to much vsnares if you think all he does is emulate RDJ.
Love the video! I particularly dug your bit about patience. I remember feeling that way when streaming was first taking over. His newer album Syro brought things back to form for me oddly enough. I bought the CD, put it in a proper disc player, got the lonnnnng headphone jack for my headphones, and sat on the porch soaking that entire album in one sitting. It feels contrived to do these days but I think itâs really worth it for a lot of albums.
This video was awesome! Thanks a lot for this Benn.
I've been subscribed to you for a while because I know every time I watch I learn something either really fun, useful or even both.
My favourite Aphex Twin song is 54 cymru beats.
I don't know why I needed to share that, but now you know.
mines probably saint michaels mount and the tuss' h949
allthough i really like 54 Cymru Beats also, I would probably say Girl/Boy Song is my favorite
â@@FPSzkyya death fuck is rly fire
Richard's piano ballad songs are so underrated ( except avril 14th )
54 cymru ending is the funniest moment in his music...pushed me to start using renoise
As an old Octamed (and it's earlier 4 track version) composer, I didn't know I was doing a lot of linear drum programming. Because half the channels were hard panned left and the other right I did occasionally layer drums to improve the stereo depth, but this would mean slipping a drum sound in between an instrument sound on another track.
It also had quite excellent midi control and was the first thing I used to sequence outboard gear, using my Amiga as a sampler until I got an emu box. Even after I'd changed to a "more professional" sequencer I used the Amiga if I wanted that really crunchy sample sound and the kind of ideas that come from having 4 or 8 lanes of audio... Which I suppose is why I've always enjoyed Aphex, and why trackers in hardware form are on the rebound
Iâd not clocked that aesthetic and why it appealed to me until now, I honestly thought it was just nostalgic musical dna...all makes sense now
Being a huge MOD fan in the 90s, when I was a lone computer nerd absorbing everything I could in my bedroom, has definitely influenced my musical tastes ever since.
Really glad I found your channel! I clicked on this video because Aphex twin is one of my favorite artists, but Iâm pleasantly surprised to find that it was made by another one of my favorite artists (well, Arboreal is only album Iâve ever listened to from you, but thatâs a REALLY good album.)
Amazing video.. Thanks for all your hard work putting this together. I will always come back to this video for reference in the years to come.
this is such a great video, i've struggled for years to effectively find VST's and tools for experimental sound design.
Back in sophomore year of high school around 2004-2005 I was listening to The Flashbulb, Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Authecre, Kid606, Cardopusher, Enduser, Sabrepluse, Maladroit & Venetian Snares learning about experimental electronic and breakcore stuff at that time was just epic! Thanks Benn!!!
This video is so well done! Extremely well-researched and presented in a sure-footed, engaging way.
loved this video ! you should make one about Venetian Snares and/or Squarepusher !!!
Seconding this.
I was thinking of Squarepusher too.
Thank you for another interesting, and informative video. As a remark (14:25), trackers in 1995 were quite capable of using 16 bit samples, either through software mixing (with various interpolation techniques) or using hardware like the Gravis Ultrasound. (Both FastTracker 2 and Impulse Tracker were out already)
Had no idea you have a youtube channel and that you're so wholesome! Great video, and you're right, Aphex is an inspiration to all of us who make electronic music.
Wow Benn. Amazing work as always. This was a super deep dive and you nailed it. Kudos mate!
@BennJordan I was controlling external midi instruments from OctaMED (tracker) on Amiga and then Windows from ~1990. it absolutely could have done all of RDJ album, including we worked out how to do 14-bit sound on the 8-bit Amiga audio (by modulating the 6-bit channel volume I'm realtime over the 8-bit samples = 14-bit)... it also was one of the first (first?) trackers to introduce channel mixing, giving 8 channels 14-bit full stereo panning from Amiga's 4 channel 8-bit hard L+R pan, together with detailed external midi instrument control.
Most lowkey flex ever... "I toured with Dillinger Escape Plan..." Wow. Calculating Infinity is one of my all-time favorite records of any genre, and Chris Pennie is a GOD. The drumming on track 4 " *#.. " sounds to me like he was trying to get that Aphex Twin (or Flashbulb apparently?!?! so cool dude) drum feel using delay and his monster chops. GREAT video Benn.
I used to play bass guitar growing up and have no idea how electronic music works/is created. I am a huge fan of Aphex Twin and was always curious as to how he created his music. Thanks 4 taking the time to show how Richard created some of his songs. This was really cool to see some of the old software that was used.
Wow, i literally just listened to music of yours for the first time today. And now I'm watching a video from you? Crazy!
Fantastic video, Thank you Benn and Richard
7:50 a little more about Bucephalus Bouncing Ball is that it was a response track to Autechre's Drane (and after Bucephalus, Autechre made Drane2), where Autechre first used that exponentional delay thingy but in the synth of that song and not with a percussive sample (in Drane2 it was applied to a lot of percussion tho)
Diane 2âs a monster.
@@churlishbeardo Drane2 is a transcendental track
Thank you. I learned a ton more from this video than I did from my room mate in 1999 who introduced me to aphex twin and computer assisted audio production
Thank you for doing this. Best thing Iâve seen in a long time.
As someone who grew up in the 80âs using cheap microphones, cassette players, borrowed stomp boxes, patch bays, sequencers, drum machines, monophonic Casio keyboards, Roland and AKAI samplers, along with the occasional shortwave radio⊠I approve this video. Iâm also unabashedly thankful for Arturia and Sound Toys.
That was a glorious 24 minute exposé of my life long obsession; I've daily'd RDJ since I bought the remix single of "On" back in '93 (Warp Records, WAP 39 CDR). I still can't make music like him for toffee (been trying since my first listen to that CD), his mindset, his creativity and his absolute disregard of creative limitation will likely never be replicated.
This was a brilliant watch Benn!
I started in the 90s with years put into FastTrakker2 and took a similar path of softwares as you described here, which was arcane black magic to everyone else I knew at the time. This was a great trip down memory lane!
Great video, and put together really well. Thanks for sharing.
RDJ and Chris Cunningham both blew my mind in the 90s. Excellent video.
he's my favorite artist
One thing he does so well is owning his own style
his analord series really inspired me to stop pursuing a certain sound and rather just have fun without overthinking. That's where I found my own style comes through the most.
Amazing video! Thanks for showing us what software Richard could have or used. I think itâs fascinating to see how some of that stuff was made.
Great breakdown! Covered not just the technical aspects but the cultural ones as well which, in my eyes, is the perfect video, especially as someone who has listened to some of aphex twin's work but hasn't yet done a deep dive. This inspired me to do so
No one else would make the videos you make. Thank you for this!
Benn, Iâve waiting my whole life for this video. Iâm sure we all have. Thank you!
Thanks for this one, Benn!
Aphex was very influential in my teen years and listened to his work constantly.
They --along with bleeploads of chiptune-- helped me trough a rough period and made me dance in the living room, forgetting about everything. It was meditative.
Ah cool story, I like the image of a person going through a hard time dancing it away in their living room
*He, not "they"
@@SamAndrew27 they, as in him and many others like him.
Awesome video, thank you so much for this!
Man, am I anxious to see this one !
Okay... So you are absolutely correct that Aphex Twins is a genius and everything you say about him is all a huge understatement, that's all true. But The Flashbulb music is some of the most beautiful electronic compositions ever fucking created. Don't ever sell yourself short. You don't have the popularity of Aphex Twins, but you are absolutely as creative and make just as great of music as anyone. You are, imo, the most underrated and underappreciated artist I know.
I don't think he was selling himself short, he was just making a point about how culturally significant Aphex Twin is, and that we won't ever be able to hit that moment of innovation because it has already been done. That doesn't mean that our own music can't innovate in another way, just that we can't be HIM.
there is nothing genius about AT. he was influenced by the dance music of his day and other more 'academic' electronic music. he had the drive to put it together and his noisey version of said styles is probably just down to lack of studio procuction knowhow...i hate fanbois. i like AT mostly the stuff from first half of the 90s.
@@JimmyHandtrixx
who hurt you?
Yo thanks for this absolutely packed video! Super interesting and itâll definitely inform my sound design workflow soon enough
Beautifully done! I learned a LOT! Thank you.
I heard Digeridoo back at an illegal outdoor rave back in 92 and was hooked from then on. Genius doesnât sum him up enough
The illegal aspect only hightens the authticity of the the experience.
@@eadweard. it was the only way to hear cutting edge music back then unless you owned a record store
@@Kung_Fu_Jesus Couldn't you buy it from said record store?
@@eadweard. eventually I found it on a R&S. I lived out in the sticks so pretty hard to get to the good record shops in the large cities. This was way before the internet took off too
thank you, this vid (while not proving to me the genius of aphex twin as i already knew he's out of this world) kept me with wide open eyes like a kid watching new toys through a shop window glass,only instead it's just a 20ish guy going nuts about some old software my sound tech teacher showed me to analyze spectrums and previously didn't care for. Thank u!!!!
I remember being a kid in the early 2000's discovering Aphex Twin (windowlicker was the first video I saw) and I remember sitting in awe and curiosity but it didn't quite click yet. I have to thank you for this video, I revisited that music video and more, and I understand now. I'm going down the path of Aphex, and all the software you listed here! I grew up producing on FL Studio (started on Fruity Loops 7) but switched to Ableton 2+ years ago. I'd love to bring some more experimentation into my production through older software's and less known of software! The way this video simultaneously blew my mind, and opened up my mind is not replaceable. I just feel awe, and so infatuated with Aphex Twin right now. Thank You!!!!!
Great work, great topics. I used to work with Recycle heavily, still remember blue loading icon. No words about RDJ that werent said before.
This whole video is one big rabbit hole system which no man ever will explore entirely. Still it's wonderful to see all these sounds, pictures and information I never saw before even I also started making music with a Tracker in 1998. But clearly Richard took all this to another level. It seems he just had fun exploring all of this. In the end my personal message of all this: Do the music you love and just really don't care about anything. Thank you so much for this video!
Ventolin (Video Edit) was my first Aphex Twin track from a random batch of songs I found when downloading stuff way back. I immediately went out and bought Drukqs (Avril 14th makes me cry every time I hear it and I can't do anything but focus on Vordhosbn when it's on) and ... I Care Because You Do and fell head over heels for electronic music and experimental.
I've been a big fan of Aphex Twin since his I Care Because You Do album came out, and I never really thought about what software he was using, thanks a lot for this video, cool stuff
Been a big fan since I discovered the Lawn Wake songs on stepmania, so glad to see a CZcams channel!
13:59 Speaking of trackers and linear drumming, there's a producer by the name of Ophidian who produced a song on Renoise (a modern tracker software) using only a single track for the entire thing. It's called "Only One".
Ophidian is the "under the radar" GOAT. Up there with richard
ALSO check out Aphex Twin's Samplebrain - it's a sample mashing software that can make some wild ass sounds, designed by aphex twin himself
Hell yeah, getting a newer computer that allows to be used with. Older computers (pre 2020) canât handle the processing
I love your channel.
Excellent work, as usual.
I love the way you have put this video together. Especially the part about 'it is not about the software he is using, but the way he uses it'. I get that segment a lot from this. It is funny though, I remember a lot of tools that came by in this video. While some of them are 'hard' to use. Or they did not connect with me. And then 'trackers' where thrown in the scene... and this one brings back a lot of memories.
I also love the mention of the linear drumming part. This gives me an idea or two... since it has been a while I did such a thing. Since well, with daws these days it is more 'parallel' things I am doing.
I guess the best part of aphex twins back in the day, he was kind of limited in the tools he was using. And he totally got the best out it by using them.