Or
Lots of cash and modular gear , synths , processors , fx etc
Likely going into a daw for more editing and production duties
Probably ‘easiest’ in software though still not easy.
I think the production I hear that I find impressive is largely in the box ( telefon tel aviv, funckarma / roel funcken , nine in nails , speedy j / public energy).
Not necessarily. If you think about it all comes down to a number of sound sources/fx, envelopes, vcas, sequencers so on and so forth. It’s just a lot of them and all expertly entangled. People like Richard Devine and Surachai have it in hardware.
Nope.
Nope. 
I think people keep saying that Autechre are all software and ITB these days, but I am not too sure.
Why is that so hard to believe? They’ve been saying it in interviews for years; do you think they’re lying?
Which is not to say they don’t use external bits or bobs occasionally (I’m under the sneaking suspicion they use external gear for processing…NTS and Sign sound too good for purely digital. If not then these are watersheds in digital mixing). I could’ve sworn I read somewhere they used a field recording for something. It’s just Max is pretty much it.
This interview from 2013 says they used to use hardware, but have basically moved onto just using computers (though maybe they mix and match whenever they want to):
The first bit of this quote: “Before we were making music on computers we had computers organizing music being made on synths and samplers, outboard gear basically. And before that it was all outboard gear wired up, either in parallel or in series – one thing triggering another, or just two things running off simultaneously in a mix.”
And about Eurorack: “To be honest the only thing that puts me off is the weight and the size to building modular gear.”
No doubt they’ve got an extensive sample library that they still dip into.
I just find it odd that there is a belief that music can’t sound good without hardware. Don’t get me wrong, I love my gear, but literally any sound is possible 100% in software these days. I may not be right in terms of Ae’s mixing processes (or the mastering; are they still using Frank Arkwright for the recent stuff?) but I don’t see why it’s so hard to believe that people are making lush music entirely in software. I haven’t heard that opinion since the early 00s!
I am very convinced you can make 100% electronic music with software, no doubt and most probably Autechre are doing so to.
In terms of process though, I found very boring using just software/computer for electronic music.
Infact I personally moved away from 100% music made ITB to an hybrid set-up to just using only hardware.
I’m not saying I don’t believe they do only ITB Im just saying for how good it sounds, from my knowledge, that level is only achieved using outboard processing gear. I haven’t heard a modern record yet that sounded great that wasnt at some point run through a deluxe SSL or something.
But as in all things in life I leave open the possibility I am mistaken. If I am, every ITB producer needs to take notes. Cause these records sound absolutely glorious.
The most interesting and beautiful thing they said in the interview is this:
Rob Brown : In the old days, we’d get a piece of hardware and get it open, get it working, and most things would be quite native or instinctive. Then after that you’d get the manual and you’d read it and see things, but none of that would’ve sunk in if you’d read the manual first, 'cause you don’t have the muscle memory from using the thing.
Well said James!
I love this bit too (very inspiring for all those picking up an Elektron or whatever else for the first time):
Sean Booth : I used to have a thing where if I had a keyboard or drum machine, I’d try to make tracks only using that. Even though it was a bit shit and I didn’t know what I was doing, it forced me to learn every single thing it could do because I needed to use it for every single part of the track. That’d open it up for me. Back in the day I’d take advice from other musicians, like people would say “buy a DX-100, they’re really good for bass sounds,” because that’s what everyone had used them for. But if you make life difficult by making every sound in the track with the DX-100 you’d end up figuring out all these other things it could do. So I do have that attitude: just rinse it, figure out everything, by not allowing yourself to do anything else and really concentrate for a bit.
For me, this is the only way Elektron devices make sense. I’ve learned so much more sitting with them by themselves And trying to make it sound like a full track than anything else.
Yes, 100% agree Craig:+1:
That’s bc you don’t know it well enough, …max or something like supercollider. Once you enter that world and you go deep enough into it, it starts to talk back to you with music you never heard before, and probably you’re the first person to hear it and it starts to feel like a world in itself that’s endless, that opens more and more like a dream, and it’s too sweet to abandon it and no plain synth can match it for you anymore ever again. At that point imo all of us would put our boxes aside.
Yes I am sure I would
People aren’t saying that…Ae are 
