i wasnt asking for information on how to search for him...
I listened to mu-ziq and Aphex Twin in late 90's to 2001 or so... stlll think they're amazing (and they always will be)... but, I am constantly looking for new music, and new musicians so I haven't paid attention to either since... which explains why I didn't know about planet-mu... but thanks for the info.
are you angry about "mu" btw? or is it just another misunderstood web-forum post (on my part)?
how come everyone always mentions aphex twin but no one ever talks about mu-ziq?... that is, with the greek letter "mu"
because of the number of albums?.. or what?
also, I think mu-ziq is the other guy in that "Milton-Bradley" lookin picture, but not positive.
It sure is Mike Paradinas that is "Mike" on the Mike and Rich album. Fantastic album IMHO. Fun and interesting.
I agree that Mike is very underrated as few has heard of him. He derserves to be up there next to Richard D James IMHO. Great producer and "knob twiddler" ().
Great thread btw. I wasn't into electronic music in the 90's but agree that limitations bring out creativity and (IMHO) better results. DAWs are great but yeah.. Something was lost.
4 tracks tape or a basic cassette tape , hardware samplers ( early roland and casio ) , ms20's , dx7 , a roland d50 maybe , sh101 , 303 and so on , all colliding at once through a compact mixer ( probably an old tascam or teac or something ) Its a certain sound that was never really beaten for this form of music.
There is something about a mix caught on the fly that's lost when you start to multi track to daw no matter how good your ad/da or summing , something is lost , live mixes using a nice compact set up and where your made to work on the sound at source and where its then captured to tape or even dat somehow have a feel i lost when i went to daw and i tried every way to get that sound back and you cannot without that older setup / workflow and mentality
Todays daw mixes largely sound like ' Ocd victims music ) to me now , its actually really rare to find good sounding electronica now due to vst / vsti and edit / compress / eq / limit / master fixation .It all sounds to well made , to pure , over eq'd , compressed , its been worked to much a lot of it.
The older sound is due to none of that.
Everyone's so fking obsessed with sound quality , eq , Mastering , back then it was all about the energy and way more spontaneous .There was also less need to impress , not sure why but now everyones out to impress using edit skills and production and it lacks soul due to that superficial mentality or reason for creating.
Most music scenes now look like '# wnking competitions ' , who can eq the best , get the most clean harmonic mix.Its penis stuff.
Sequencers come into this also , most daw midi ones are shite and laggy on the timing , they drag and sound kind of weird or do not have the snap for drums in particular , sequencing with an atari whilst a bit like stepping into the stone age does have a unique feel , it seems to encourage a unique set of results.
Daws are Shite ( i use them daily for work and fking hate what they did to music , the sound of it now , the Obsessive compulsiveness they bring out in people and the only bigger skidmark than them is the fixation on masturbatory / mastering '#
most releases back then were not mastered
they sounded better for it i think or felt better , more raw .Everything sounds flat now or just hyper edited and separated and even with the greatest mastering it still sounds like a ' great mastered record ' and the electronica back then did not as it was not mastered or most of it ( i was releasing then and also knew many labels and really we lost it with the daw and this mastering mentality
every man and his dog now thinks he is an Audiophile and acts like one , some then become mastering engineers , tell you = you must never mix and master your own music ( as its all money driven in that scene and they want your money and job and cling onto some ego trip that they are or ' Masters ' of hearing ) and its all bollocks.
It all went downhill when compulsive daw editing / software and the rise in ' mastering ' music kicked in.
I was releasing in the early 90's and no one even mentioned mastering and by no one i mean people who sold 1000's of copies of music and some of you still regard as making classic old music .
So why the fixation now ? its got in the way.
go back and look at what people were doing in the early 90's and do it like that if you like that sound , you can polish a turd but it will always be one and 99% of music now is a polished turd ( its souless computer editor wank that sounds like a lesson in how to eq perfectly and compress ) being over polished by obsessives and people who should be data analysts and kept away from creative processes where Flaw / Error / Harmonic / Grain / Spontaneity are the key.
Music did not evolve , we all just became more mentally unwell and fixated on method and higher and higher degrees of Control over editing / perfection.
The music as a result now sounds like the work of politicians or likes its actually written by mastering engineers
Of course, the guys who put out recordings made on shoestring setups had no problems moving to more elaborate rigs (whether ITB or not) as soon as they could afford it.
Fans might think it was a step backwards but the creators didn't seem to
The "live to DAT" aspect is significant, but not because of the DAT. Today, you could easily record live to 2 tracks of a DAW, and get identical results. Or better results, as DATs weren't the most robust things on earth. Just treat the DAW as a 2-track recorder, and capture a live performance.
Back in the olden days of the 90s, effects were used in a VERY non-subtle way. Aphex Twin didn't have 18 different Quadraverb instances, with the send levels mixed down very low to "glue" the mix together. There was 1 Quadraverb, and it was right up front, with a cavernous reverb time. I doubt that the musicians could have afforded to use hardware for subtle, "you only hear it when it is gone" uses. Quadraverbs weren't $50 back then, like they are now. If you bought one, you wanted to HEAR it.
The overdrive from cranking up the preamp gain of a Mackie mixer is fairly distinctive, and was used a lot in these older recordings.
most people i knew and followed weren't multi-tracking, that was always the next investment. and when they did make the investment, it was either 8 track ADAT or DAT. many of the classics were recorded on a 16 channel Mackie 1604 straight to DAT.
Of course, the guys who put out recordings made on shoestring setups had no problems moving to more elaborate rigs (whether ITB or not) as soon as they could afford it.
Fans might think it was a step backwards but the creators didn't seem to
It would appear this final statement is false with regards to Richard d James in particular, as he did indeed move back to older style production methods.
Homework had more than 4 samples. I'll try and dig up this YouTube clip where they go track for track and some of the stuff they sampled they essentially either pitch shifted or did nothing at all to the sample and played over it. I was shocked to say the least
I've seen that video, it's scary. I think Discovery had 4 samples "only." Haha. That's what they claimed in that article, anyway. Man, I try not to think about it too much with Daft Punk or Led Zeppelin because then I start to get kind of depressed about their best songs. Lucky for Zeppelin the tables got turned on them and THEY got sampled by the next generation, payback.
I lived the dream all through the 90's in London, but I don't agree entirely that DAW's have ruined the music, they are just another tool, I actually love the hard edged sound of that squarepusher video, plug in's or not, couldn't care less, besides if y'all want to sound all 90's again, the gear is available on e-bay for next to nothing, I'm sure the sale of your Macbooks would pay for the cost of an old Atari and Marantz cassette deck...what are you all waiting for..?
Saying the sound of today's music is worse due to the tools it was written on is somewhat a cop out, they are just tools, pretty sure plenty of beautiful non rhythmic chilled ambient has been knocked up in DAW's..
perhaps a bigger question is what were the Orb, Orbital, Test Department, FSOL, Eat Static and all those other yummy psychedelic acts recording to and what gear were they using..?
I know Alex Paterson was a gear junkie...come to think of it so were Eat Static..!!
I find the whole world of today to be quite comical. Kind of like standing across the street watching a crowd of people stare up with their smart phones pointed at the piano falling from the 10000 story tall building about to land on their heads. Oops, too late.
perhaps a bigger question is what were the Orb, Orbital, Test Department, FSOL, Eat Static and all those other yummy psychedelic acts recording to and what gear were they using..?
I know Alex Paterson was a gear junkie...come to think of it so were Eat Static..!!
From what I remember certainly the Orb and FSOL had a prog approach, and used bigger desks and tape multi-track in london studios. They worked in a similar way though, mixing down to 2 track and choosing the best 'jams'.
The "live to DAT" aspect is significant, but not because of the DAT. Today, you could easily record live to 2 tracks of a DAW, and get identical results. Or better results, as DATs weren't the most robust things on earth. Just treat the DAW as a 2-track recorder, and capture a live performance.
Back in the olden days of the 90s, effects were used in a VERY non-subtle way. Aphex Twin didn't have 18 different Quadraverb instances, with the send levels mixed down very low to "glue" the mix together. There was 1 Quadraverb, and it was right up front, with a cavernous reverb time. I doubt that the musicians could have afforded to use hardware for subtle, "you only hear it when it is gone" uses. Quadraverbs weren't $50 back then, like they are now. If you bought one, you wanted to HEAR it.
The overdrive from cranking up the preamp gain of a Mackie mixer is fairly distinctive, and was used a lot in these older recordings.
"Live" to DAT is kinda overstating it a bit, a lot of it was well sequenced already. DAT was often more for archive and transport.
by the mid90s people could use tons of effects. Sneak into schools to use their computers, **** around in TurboSynth or SoundMaker or SoundEffects or Hyperprism or SoundEdit 16 or Composers Desktop Project or SuperCollider or Csound all day, record it to tape or DAT load it in a sampler and sequence from an asq or mmt8 or something. I remember processing stuff on computer at home over and over and sequencing other stuff while I waited and waited and waited. Or bounce 2 tapes back and forth between a hardware reverb. In order to cover the noise floor of the overall mix i remember making lots of sounds like that to put into the background. Or you sampled stuff that already had reverb and effects.
tbh, I don't think 90s mixes sound "rawer" or less polished, on the good stuff, the spacial positioning and mix sounds more thought through to me. If anything, a lot of people were more anal about working with samples and sequencing, I think. There's not much I hear today that couldn't be done then with some more work and elbow grease and often times it's sounds like less work in the composition and mixing.
Everyone today seems big into saving time and working faster and being "productive". It's ridiculous to me that kids getting into making tunes are talking about "workflow", you're supposed to **** around, figure stuff out and play it too loud. What's 24, 48 or 72 more hours in the grand scheme of things.
I think part of the problem that people run into with "itb" is there isn't any separation between sound creating/shaping, composing sequencing and it gets tiring at least for me, I have to switch it up.
Also, I think sample clearances have messed stuff up. I think listening to stuff to sample and listening to where people you like found samples helps develop taste. With commercial sample packs I don't think people take the same pride in doing justice to the sample.
and here's the other parts of that interview series:
You're right, that's the one I meant to be say, the 85-92 but I got the mixed up
Volume 2 has a much cleaner sound. I think most artists use the nicest recording gear they have access to at the time, which is usually for the best. Well spotted on the Dat glitches, I didn't notice myself but then I've not owned one. The closest I got was a Philips DCC (digital compact cassette) remember those? They used digital compression before MP3 was invented. Minidisk was similar as it was also compressed. I remember the audiophiles fussing about the loss of detail in the high frequency band like it was the worst thing ever.
I agree with some others that the best Aphex was generally from early on, before it became a micro programming exercise. However, he's had lot's of great tracks throughout his discography so the mojo must still be there, even if you have to dig for it. PS, I loved Analord, pity it's only available on MP3. (yes I know it's on vinyl... but it's not available though is it.)
perhaps a bigger question is what were the Orb, Orbital, Test Department, FSOL..
FSOL had a pretty traditional set up, loads of hardware synths, Quadraverb and Akai especially heavy use. Mixed down on Soundtracs IL3632 to you guessed it DAT. At least in the Life Forms - ISDN era (my favourite). Life Forms to me is a masterpiece in sampling.
SOS had a article from '94 about them, shit 20 years ago!
Already documented, even some youboob vids with them in studio. Their interviews were kinda strange in that I was never sure if they're having at it or not. drugs
Funny how that looks not far off some GS'ers gear pics..
man I love "Chime." That article was great, very inspiring. Yep, live to cassette. This is a cool new way of working I had never quite considered until this thread.
4 tracks tape or a basic cassette tape , hardware samplers ( early roland and casio ) , ms20's , dx7 , a roland d50 maybe , sh101 , 303 and so on , all colliding at once through a compact mixer ( probably an old tascam or teac or something ) Its a certain sound that was never really beaten for this form of music.
There is something about a mix caught on the fly that's lost when you start to multi track to daw no matter how good your ad/da or summing , something is lost , live mixes using a nice compact set up and where your made to work on the sound at source and where its then captured to tape or even dat somehow have a feel i lost when i went to daw and i tried every way to get that sound back and you cannot without that older setup / workflow and mentality
Todays daw mixes largely sound like ' Ocd victims music ) to me now , its actually really rare to find good sounding electronica now due to vst / vsti and edit / compress / eq / limit / master fixation .It all sounds to well made , to pure , over eq'd , compressed , its been worked to much a lot of it.
The older sound is due to none of that.
Everyone's so fking obsessed with sound quality , eq , Mastering , back then it was all about the energy and way more spontaneous .There was also less need to impress , not sure why but now everyones out to impress using edit skills and production and it lacks soul due to that superficial mentality or reason for creating.
Most music scenes now look like '# wnking competitions ' , who can eq the best , get the most clean harmonic mix.Its penis stuff.
Sequencers come into this also , most daw midi ones are shite and laggy on the timing , they drag and sound kind of weird or do not have the snap for drums in particular , sequencing with an atari whilst a bit like stepping into the stone age does have a unique feel , it seems to encourage a unique set of results.
Daws are Shite ( i use them daily for work and fking hate what they did to music , the sound of it now , the Obsessive compulsiveness they bring out in people and the only bigger skidmark than them is the fixation on masturbatory / mastering '#
most releases back then were not mastered
they sounded better for it i think or felt better , more raw .Everything sounds flat now or just hyper edited and separated and even with the greatest mastering it still sounds like a ' great mastered record ' and the electronica back then did not as it was not mastered or most of it ( i was releasing then and also knew many labels and really we lost it with the daw and this mastering mentality
every man and his dog now thinks he is an Audiophile and acts like one , some then become mastering engineers , tell you = you must never mix and master your own music ( as its all money driven in that scene and they want your money and job and cling onto some ego trip that they are or ' Masters ' of hearing ) and its all bollocks.
It all went downhill when compulsive daw editing / software and the rise in ' mastering ' music kicked in.
I was releasing in the early 90's and no one even mentioned mastering and by no one i mean people who sold 1000's of copies of music and some of you still regard as making classic old music .
So why the fixation now ? its got in the way.
go back and look at what people were doing in the early 90's and do it like that if you like that sound , you can polish a turd but it will always be one and 99% of music now is a polished turd ( its souless computer editor wank that sounds like a lesson in how to eq perfectly and compress ) being over polished by obsessives and people who should be data analysts and kept away from creative processes where Flaw / Error / Harmonic / Grain / Spontaneity are the key.
Music did not evolve , we all just became more mentally unwell and fixated on method and higher and higher degrees of Control over editing / perfection.
The music as a result now sounds like the work of politicians or likes its actually written by mastering engineers
Possibly the best post I've ever read on GS. Although I'll have to disagree with you on the amount of releases that were mastered in the late 80s/90s. Cutting completely un-mastered tracks to vinyl would render half of them unplayable.
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23rd July 2014
DAT was often more for archive and transport.
