the Autechre technique?

jbuonacc · Post by **jbuonacc** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 5:04 am

've been getting heavy back into Autechre over the past month or so. listening mostly to the later stuff and live sets from '98-05. from roughly the Chiastic Slide period onward their sound has evolved considerably, and i've always been particularly fascinated at how the timing of certain patterns seems to stretch and shift all over the place.

i've never really been able to figure out how they do it. the Max/MSP patch did nothing for me really (not that i really studied it) and i knew that it must be more than just programming drum patterns that change signatures, etc at certain points and time-stretching bits here and there. i'm not too keen on generative software, but that's been stated as playing a part in it (as evidenced by their use/dissection of another user's generative patch). on the other hand, they've always denied this, saying that everything is more predetermined than everyone assumes. also, they're evidently able to recreate this sound using Elektron gear, a G2, and an MPC so reliance on a complex programming environment like max/msp doesn't seem to be the case.

any theories on exactly how they do what they do?

anyway, i've been toying around more with the Nord G2 the past few days and think i've stumbled onto something. i'll post more in a bit, but it has to do with running audio through wet delays set to different clock-sync'd quantization amounts (from whole to 64th notes for example, with triplets and dotted notes in between) and basically sampling and looping itself while modulating the delay times. maybe this is rudimentary grain synthesis of sorts? if you set it up so that this varies rhythmically it sounds pretty wild. listening more to them over the past few days, i think that's exactly what's happening (among other things). seems constant resampling and realtime/programmed adjustment of loop quantization plays a big part in it.

more later.

plaster · Post by **plaster** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 12:51 am

polyrhythms are one of the techniques they use.
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YAMAHA TT350

joshkowski · Post by **joshkowski** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 11:25 pm

There isn't much figuring out to do here, these guys are fucking wizards. I'm listening to them right now on some really nice headphones all the music is telling me is " don't even think buddy"

Autechre are amazing. Nobody else makes beats like this and nobody will ever hit the height of their experimentations when it comes to fucking shit up. I'm guessing it's easier to make music sound intense with speeded up drill and bass loops and beat slicers...but autechre have something that is purely their own creation and it cannot be touched. For example you never really hear drum samples in their music...you can never pick up on a snare hit or any kind of traditional hit in any case. All you hear is CHUNKS of sound splashing and cracking. They somehow skulpt heavy sound into shapes and place it all together in a very complex way.

Anyway i think these guys are on some insane platform of musical wizardry and there is no easy way to try to hit an autechre-ish sound...unless you are autechre.

ExitEuXa · Post by **ExitEuXa** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 1:34 am

Well joshkowski that's the reason why Autechre is still my favourite electronic band ever since they started. And a big fuck you too all those wannabe copycats.

Infinite E · Post by **Infinite E** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 2:09 am

In Live, open a fresh operator and sculpt each of the four oscilattors to a punchy, drum-type sound (have some made of low pitched sine, some from high pitched noise, etc) Map the repeat rate for each oscillator to a knob on your keyboard and lay them in the horizontal algorithm so each sound can play independent of anything beneath it. Instant polyrhythmic drumkit, whch you control by turning knobs. Doesn't sound Autechre-good, but it's great fun to play with and can sound pretty cool when you mix it up with sampled loops.

Cupz · Post by **Cupz** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 11:35 am

ExitEuXa wrote:..a big fuck you too all those wannabe copycats.

I agree! Nobody even gets CLOSE to the greatness that is Autechre.

jbuonacc · Post by **jbuonacc** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 11:27 pm

well, they're one of my top favorites also, but you can figure out what they're doing if you break it down. the early stuff (even some stuff up through Confield) was really quite simple.

here's some interesting stuff that one of the guys from em411/e-m came up with:

http://www.lightningmp3.com/live/53381_faektehc.mp3

http://www.em411.com/show/release/777

i should've really stressed that what i'm talking about is an effect that i think has popped up quite a bit in their music over the past ten years or so. it may actually just be more of a traditional delay effect or a different way of sending trigger events.

here's a couple examples i did a few nights ago. the base patterns themselves aren't very 'autechre-ish', i just dropped in something from another patch to test it out. i'll be working more on the sounds and composition over the next few days.

http://www.soundclick.com/util/download ... F899D398-B

http://www.soundclick.com/util/download ... F899D398-B

here's a screenshot containing a few of the cutdown devices i've made for this. much work to be done still though, this is its' most basic form.

let me know what you think, i could be way off. obviously this is just one trick though, any other theories on other methods are plenty welcome if just for something fun to talk about.

mechanismj · Post by **mechanismj** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 11:40 pm

jbuonacc, what program is that? It looks fucking FUN!

jbuonacc · Post by **jbuonacc** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 12:36 am

it's the software editor for the nord modular G2:

i've tried to get into Reaktor but it's not as easy for me to get my head around as on the nord. of course, i didn't come up with idea myself but just modified someone else's patch for my own uses.

joshkowski wrote:
Autechre are amazing. Nobody else makes beats like this and nobody will ever hit the height of their experimentations when it comes to fucking shit up. I'm guessing it's easier to make music sound intense with speeded up drill and bass loops and beat slicers...but autechre have something that is purely their own creation and it cannot be touched. For example you never really hear drum samples in their music...you can never pick up on a snare hit or any kind of traditional hit in any case. All you hear is CHUNKS of sound splashing and cracking. They somehow skulpt heavy sound into shapes and place it all together in a very complex way.

i see what you're saying for sure, but if you wipe the stars out of your eyes (ears?) for a minute some of their stuff is pretty sensible. 'can never pick up a snare/traditional hit...'? early stuff is full of roland tr606 and r8, their oberheim DMX is pretty obvious on Confield and Draft, and Untilted has a good handful of 'traditional' sounds. as was said, many of their percussion sounds are done with FM synthesis, no real wizardry there. i believe their *sounds* are actually pretty simple, but what they do with them is something completely else.

Cupz · Post by **Cupz** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 11:11 am

Are you suggesting its a random composition by combining filters and effects?? I don't believe that

jbuonacc · Post by **jbuonacc** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 9:19 pm

that's not what i'm implying, where did you get that?

while i do think there is some randomization involved, i believe how it's injected is in their hands. there's a lot of ways to control random events.

____twoism

the Autechre technique?

the Autechre technique?

The only way to sound autechre = if your autechre