Newsgroup: it.comp.musica
Titolo: (Aphex) Twin Speaks - EQ Magazine Article

intervista del 1997 ad aphex twin pubblicata da EQ magazine, piuttosto 
tecnica e anche un po' spiazzante, copiata & incollata da WATMM.com:
http://aphextwin.watmm.com/articles/TwinSpeaks-EQMagazineArtic.shtml
***
Twin Speaks - EQ Magazine Article
"Techno/Ambient artist Aphex Twin discusses the tools and tricks of his 
trade."
By Steve La Cerra
Warp/Sire recording artist Richard D. James is probably better known to 
techno fans as Aphex Twin. As a leader in the computer-generated music 
field, his 1995 I Care Because I(sic) Do (Elektra) reached number one 
indie status. His most recent release, Richard D. James, is certainly 
unlike anything else you ever heard. Here, Aphex Twin discusses some of 
his computer production techniques with EQ.
--Your music is extremely computer-oriented. What kind of computers are 
you using?
I only use Macs for the moment – I have three – but I am just about to 
get a Silicon Graphics machine.
--Will you be able to run more of the popular sequencing software on the 
Silicon Graphics machine?
I’m not sure, but I don’t think I want to. I plan to use it for 
hardcore-sort of computational purposes – things that a Mac has trouble 
doing.
--What programs do you use?
At the moment I am using software developed at IRCAM. This is a French 
institute of sound that has been going since the 1950s or 1960s and they 
are really awesome. They are totally into their own sounds. They’re a 
big part of the “music concrete” sort of thing and they invented some of 
their own computers in the 1960s because at the time there weren’t ones 
powerful enough. I just got back from Paris where I went to one of their 
conventions and it was full of scientists and totally intense people 
that are really serious about music. I was there for a day and a half, 
and they gave me a CD-ROM of their new software updates so I loaded it 
into my computer on the train and started playing with it through the 
channel tunnel. They write loads of different types of software that can 
do a range of things. The only sequencer-type of program they do is 
algorithm-generation type. The computer generates these different 
algorithms. There isn’t anything in the commercial world that comes 
near. Any of the software they do is just so thought out that I can’t 
name a program that would be as good. The one thing that they are 
terrible at, though, is user-friendliness – the stuff is hard to use 
because it is so complicated. But they have been making a lot of 
changes, like they only used to write for Silicon Graphics or mainframe 
computers. At the end of last year they moved over to Macs, and that is 
when I really got into it. So they are moving towards getting more 
people involved because up until now it has been such a secret society 
using IRCAM’s software.
--Was IRCAM software used to create some of the sounds on the Richard D. 
James album?
There’s some old EMS synths in there, but mainly it’s software synthesis 
running on Macs. I’m running a Power Mac 3400 and an old Powerbook that 
has been souped up and is really fast. I have a six-month-old desktop 
Power Mac, but the old Powerbook is faster than the desktop one because 
I had the bus speed increased.
I found out that for musical applications, a lot of the computer speeds 
are really rubbish. They don’t make any difference. You can get a 120 
MHz Mac – and this probably goes for PCs as well – and it’ll be slower 
than a 80 MHz machine. It’s just how different computers were 
configured. They are fast for certain things and slow on others. A lot 
of the tests for computers are for graphic-sort of programs. For MIDI 
sequencing, I thought that the timing was terrible on a Mac. I much 
prefer an analog circuit, which loses time a lot more gracefully. They 
fluctuate and you don’t hear the digital artifacts. On 100 MHz-plus 
processors, the timing is not as good as that on my old digital drum 
machine, which is terrible because so many people use computers for 
MIDI. I don’t know if many people notice, and if they do they are not 
inclined to do anything about it. But it really bugs me that we’re at 
this stage and we’ve gone backwards. The timing is rubbish.
--Is there anything that a technically inclined person can do to their 
Mac to help it process MIDI software more efficiently?
Yes. There are simple things that you can do without even taking them 
apart, and that’s basically to streamline all the system commands. Get 
rid of all the customized folder icons and desktop pictures and that 
sort of rubbish. Streamline the system down to the bare minimum and that 
will ensure that your computer is running faster. A lot of people have 
all these little folder icons – even that will slow down the finder on a 
Mac. I don’t know about PC, but I am sure there’s equivalent pitfalls as 
well.
--What are you using to sample these days?
I sample directly into the Mac with the IRCAM software.
--On the Richard D. James album there are some interesting drum sounds. 
What are we hearing?
It’s all synthesized in the IRCAM software and generated in the computer.
--Is this command or graphic-programming?
It’s command-type. The arranging and sequencing is all done 
algorithmically so I give the computer loads of instructions in command 
language.
--So it’s not sequencing in the traditional sense where you are sitting 
at a keyboard and entering notes.
I got bored doing that. The pint came about two years ago when I was in 
a pub in London and overheard these three boys who were football fans. 
They were half drunk, had shirts and ties on, and they were talking 
about Cubase. I heard their conversation and I thought, “What the fuck 
is going on?” When I started using Cubase no one had ever heard of it. 
Now I was standing next to these people and it did my head in. I 
thought, “I’ll never use that again!”
--And that pointed you towards IRCAM?
Eventually. I envisioned other ways of doing music that I had touched 
upon in the past. But I had just been too lazy, so it was basically a 
matter of self-discipline. A lot of the programs I have written myself 
and learning about the language was interesting, until I knew all the 
commands and I got bored, so I stopped. Then I started looking at the 
IRCAM stuff, which is really complicated. I like things that you can get 
your head around because that’s when you start writing your best stuff 
with technology. When you get really good at something – a program or 
instrument or keyboard – is when you really start controlling it. Then 
you can make it do what you want instead of being a slave to it. 
Unfortunately, I get bored when I get too good at doing things. I need 
to find something else that’s a challenge to keep my brain in order.
--So the fact that this is an unusual means of synthesis and sequencing 
just serves your purpose all the better.
Yes. One half of me says “this is a nightmare,” but the other half 
remembers when I first used my computer. I used an Atari to sequence and 
I thought it was shit. I had been using a hardware sequencer before that 
and now I had to load in a program and wait, and it kept crashing – 
whereas my little hardware sequencer was ready to go two seconds after I 
turned it on. But then I saw the different things I could do with a 
computer. If I hadn’t got into the computer in those days, then I would 
not have moved forward and discovered all these new things.
--Does the IRCAM sync to Pro Tools?
The only time I really sync Pro Tools is to do an advert, and I’ll sync 
to video tape. Otherwise I use Pro Tools as a tape recorder. I mix to 
both DAT and analog tape and at some point I’ll use anything else we can 
record on. I’m actually looking for a wax cylinder recorder. I have a 
lot of tape machines and all sorts of things just to get certain sounds. 
I really like analog tape, but my big problem is what happens to the 
signal over time. So therefore, if you just record to analog and then 
straight back to DAT, it’s quite nice.
I always try to do things that other people aren’t doing. That’s where I 
get my biggest buzz, really. There’s more and more people making music 
now, but it’s the same thing that makes the gap for me even bigger. I 
feel really hyped up at the moment because people aren’t doing good 
enough stuff and that inspires me. When I hear my friends doing really 
brilliant things, I don’t know what to do.
--Is it true that your studio is in your bedroom?
Yes. I always do tracks in my pants, and I would never do that in a 
normal studio. That’s the most important aspect. I couldn’t do it if it 
was a job, and, basically, having it in another studio would be a job. I 
can’t treat it as work and I can’t have it in another room. I’d rather 
have it in my bedroom or the room I sleep in so I can get up and do 
tracks whenever I feel like it.
I’ve just moved into a big bank and I am in the process of setting up my 
studio in this huge walk-in vault. Just sort of designing it into a 
proper studio with proper acoustics and everything for the first time 
ever. The whole room is cast concrete, which is great. I pissed everyone 
off where I used to live until they basically kicked me out for making 
too much noise with my friends. That’s why I got this place. I thought, 
“With a bank, you can’t really piss anyone off because they can’t hear 
you.” And I’ll be sleeping in there as well.
-- 
email: goldicus1970 AT 
yahoo.it
web: 
http://www.deelan.com



mooooolto interessante....
comunque è troppo fuori....
ho capito bene? si è trasferito in una banca ...?
LéOn

 his trade."
cazzo, nel Devoto - Oli accanto alla voce 'Snob' c'è la sua foto :D
Mk
p.s. non scrivetemi.
p.p.s. sono uscito a comprare IL ferrari.
p.p.p.s per passeggiare il cane.