Do you think they took a long time sweating over it? Or just in one day or two. Not talking final master just original laydown.
I dunno, I guess it varies a fair bit.
I imagine some of the drum programming on Drukqs took fucking ages to figure out, whereas a lot of the analord series probably came together a lot quicker.
As for BoC, I dunno, a lot of sampling going on, so probably took a fair while with sound design, but composition probably less time consuming.
I dunno tho, could be completely wrong.
Aphex has said in interviews that he rarely spent more than a day on a song in the earley nineties… Drukqs was all made on a computer and took forever though.
All of the tracks on Syro were live takes with just two channels from his mixer directly into the computer - all to avoid getting stuck in post production.
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I think Aphex Twin was very quick in his early days,
at least to get the basics of his tracks.
It was really interesting to hear the tracks he released later
on soundcloud. there you can hear what sounds/instruments he was
into at certain times. seems like he took out quite a bit from “jams” to make albums out of it.
don´t know how much work he put into getting his unique style, but I think it was a lot.
their songs
i would rather say — ballads!
The quote that inspires and makes you want to give up in equal measure: The day I purchased the DAT recorder was a productive one, I remember recording about 15 tracks within a few hours, “Late Night“ among other Waveform Transmission Vol.1 tracks were created on this evening Jeff Mills
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It’s a very effective strategy, I’ve found. The results may be less refined but the raw intent of the track comes through, regardless.
Good monitors help so much as you really have to nail the mixdown prior to recording.
But in the end, less stress.
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It might’ve taken years of messing around in order to write one of their tracks in a day.
Or many versions of the same song before ‘recording’ the released version.
And it probably depends on the track style.
And syro was mastered separately, so you aren’t listening to exactly the same thing ‘that came out his speakers ‘
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My theory is that when Aphex gets out of bed for his morning wee, whatever random tune he whistles at the time will become the foundation of his track for the day. The whole thing is generally done by afternoon teatime.
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Yeah but that was back in the days before people got so picky about needing to split individual tracks out to a DAW and spend months polishing a track.
Same deal with early Aphex I reckon. Stereo mix to DAT (or cassette?), jam it out, done. The style was pretty minimal though. Think about how many of his tracks don’t even have a bass instrument, just a kick filling out the low end. Amazing stuff really.
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…and it even has not to be mixed or mastered, yawn
Yeah probably the bulk is done very quickly (isn’t that the case with everyone though?) then a bit of finagling to get the variations/sections, then roll the tape?
Back in the early 90’s I used to rent a studio with some analogue gear (all the usual stuff) and some days would end up with 5 or 6 finished tracks in 8 hours. Wish I still worked like that TBH, but maybe I still will again at some point.
Most of that stuff was released on vinyl or CD, this clip of one is from back then, coming out on vinyl this year.
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I remember reading in an interview around the release of Syro that he he different complete setups in different rooms of his house. So that has to help to do direct mixes when you’re not switching different gear for each song.
I’ve got a few different setups.
And if I were launching an album or something I’d probably claim ‘ I’ve turned my bath into an analog reverb ‘ or some other slightly possible story that helps make it more memorable than the other 1000’s of releases coming out that week.
I’m feeding my beats into a blender.
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my guess:
write: 10 minutes per major section.
edit, arrange, finetune: 16 hours
no insult either on the “10 minutes” - all excellent work (esp. aphex).
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Killer hats, gawddamn.
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…it’s pretty common beyond all genres, that the “best” tunes/tracks/songs write themselves within minutes or half a day max…
U get channeled…
ideas are in the air…
u “only” got to tune in and “write” it, “nail” it down in some kind of realtime flow…
the less hesitation…the more result…
all there is… and only is…u got no clue at all…or…u know exactly what ur doing…
most of any inbetween mindset remains pretty shaky…
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