Drum programming/ Jungle/ Aphex Twin

Here is another cool technique for DAW

https://splice.com/blog/programming-drums-aphex-twin-style/

The third idea, where they put lfoā€™s on the sample selector works also great in the octatrack. I do this a lot.
Take a sample chains, one with kicks, one snares, one hihats, noises, glitches etc. Slice to single hits and route the lfoā€™s to the start parameter. You can get crazy stuff this way. I also put then lfoā€™s on retrigger, pitch (especially on hihats or glitches), decay of snares, hihats and noises, on sample reduction of the lofi effect etc. Love this stuff on the octatrack.
I used this technique on this beat (sorry for the self promotionā€¦). Just the snare stays constant.

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very cool stuff @Unifonoā€¦love it when the melody comes in.

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Sorry the other video was a remix so I hope this one was really made with an Atari by Aphex Twin :

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Thank you!!

For me a early specific Aphex Twinā€™s trick was a kind of progressive 64th drum roll made in drum edit maybe with Atari and Cubase, something like that :

You can do it with Ot with retrig and attack (ATK < 64).
I use random LFOs modulating a LFO Designerā€™s Speed in order to change the Retrig RTIM randomly, but only with musical values such as 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, etcā€¦

Edit 2018 : Retrigs donā€™t repeat amp page envelope unfortunately.
You can use LEN parameter to make sounds shorter, and retrigs softer.

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Have to come back to this old thread.
Many of his tracks still sound so fantastic in slowed down versions and while listening to these Iā€™m blown away more then ever by this crazy detailed drum programming and arrangement.
When slowed down itā€™s easier to follow and to grasp how much things are going on there. And what a great organic groove these beats have slowed down.
Programing, mixing and arrangement pure genius.





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Can you do it 150% faster now ?

Hard to listen Aphex at 75%ā€¦

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I donā€™t know if youā€™ve heard this version of the album- but it feels almost like an entirely different record

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Yes it does. I might even prefer it. Iā€™m not the biggest fan of RDJ album. Itā€™s quite cheasy at timesā€¦ some great tracks, but around that period come to daddy ep and especially druqks are my favourites.
But yeah, crazy how the tempo change results in a completely different listening experience.
The detail is just so stunning

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Can this type of glitched drumming be done on a Digitakt???

Seems hard without the sample slicingā€¦

Chopping an Amen or any drum break in the Digitakt itself is a complete nightmare. (and No i donā€™t have a DAW that I could do it in! Lols Daw-less!)

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DT can go in this direction, but slicing and timestretching are two things that are really missing for these purposes.
Octatrack is suited much better. But to get this level of detail, you have to be very talented I guess :slight_smile:

I really like this tutorial for the DT to get some basic ideas:

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Thems fightin words :slight_smile:

Out of curiosity which parts? Fingerbib never ceases to blow my mind and Iā€™ve heard it a thousand times.

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The lead synths in 4 (which is a great track though) and in Fingerbib. Goon Gumpas. Parts in Girl boy song.
I donā€™t know, I donā€™t love the sound aesthetics of the sample based stuff too much, like the string parts for example.
I used to, but now I prefer his synth heavier stuff. My favourites on this are Cornish acid and Peek 824545201. They have the vibes of the Come to daddy EP, which I love.
I also prefer the To Cure A Weakling Child Version on the Come to daddy EP.

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:rofl: One of my favorite aspects of the album. For his ā€œPopā€ album, a master melodist and prankster approaches the stuffy arena of Classical music by irreverently creating Baroque pop from samples of a single string instrument. Magnificence juxtaposed with expertly arranged Jungle and your have yourself some insane genius.

Also amazing. Whole thing is amazing.

I am hesitant to admit that as the proper ā€œfollow-upā€ to RDJ, I was hurt way back when, and didnā€™t pay it the attention it deserved and have not since gone back to it. I am ashamed even writing this and promise to make amends soon.

Iā€™m convinced he used a tracker for RDJ album; either way, he definitely used one for drukqs. 90s trackers donā€™t have slicing and timestretching! Everything was manual in those days, and is definitely possible to make with the digitaktā€¦ youā€™d just use up a lot of patterns :smiley:

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Yes he used this pp tracker for the breakbeat tracks on druqks

Iā€™m sure he used a tracker for everything from Hangable Auto bulb to Druqks.

Didnā€™t know that, never used a tracker. But in my blind fanboyism I sometimes try to convince myself I have to learn renoise.
On this website he commented that PP was his favourite tracker, but he still often uses Renoise.
Some people say the Octatrack is a bit like a hardware tracker.

Renoise is great! Iā€™ve been using trackers for over 20 years and have settled with Renoise as my favourite tracker. Itā€™s really next level in terms of it extending the tracker philosophy into something modern. It does have slicing, but timestretching is still a manual thing (actually not that hard to do manually).

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I watched some tutorials and Iā€™m curious to learn whatā€™s the great thing about that tracker interface compared to linear DAWs.
I read people saying it can be a really fast workflow.
For someone unfamiliar with this interface, it looks crazy complicated and unintuitive :slight_smile:
But Iā€™m sure it has its advantages

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Iā€™ve almost bought Renoise multiple times- I really canā€™t fathom how you can make crazy breakbeat with a trackerā€¦

Perhaps it would be beneficial to try it out with Sunvox?