APHEX TWIN - Ageispolis - How Was It Made?
Вставка
- Опубліковано 21 вер 2024
- My new track - I poured my heart and soul into this one - open.spotify.c...
We all want to make magical music, but what can we learn from Ageispolis by Aphex Twin?
Breakdown and analysis of 'Ageispolis ' by Aphex Twin
Get 1-1 coaching here - gyubeats.uk/
Support the channel by joining the Patreon here - / gyubeats
I think that you hit upon a really valid point in this video. A lot of older electronic music sounds like people using machines to make music, whereas the newer stuff (to me) just sounds like machines making music; it's all too clean and technical.
Yes! That's something I'm really trying to get away from.
I think it's a good thing actually. If I wanted human sounding music I'd go listen to something else. But also, my fav Aphex is Drukqs.
I don't understand, modern music is made by AI?
@@pb913_ People who dont explore modern electronic music past surface level artists notice it sounds formulaic and structured. Because every genres surface level is flooded with formulaic and structured music
@@pb913_ great pfp, I think they're the perfect example of what we're talking about; they don't use AI but their music is perceived as being machine-made without human intervention, especially their latest output
Richard: Pushing buttons, sounds good
Analysts: Musical genius, scales and semitones
scales and semitones are the most complex parts of music theory
@@blvrrimg hard disagree
@@DamnSmoker what would you say are more complex theories?
@@Loadeh not theories, but yeah scales and semitones is just the entry to music, not particularly hard to grasp. Learning to manouver inside and outside chord changes (which may not all belong to one scale) and following rhythm patterns is much more difficult and it's this that creates the music learning curve. All my opinion of course
RDJ himself said that he basically gets hella drunk, pushes some buttons, and when he sobers up he has a new song.
The bass drum on this track wised to shake every part of the room.
I think the bass being so loud in the mix enables the listener's perception of the melody to shift throughout the track. When the bass enters the higher notes in its register it leads the music just as clearly and distinctly as the staccato synth melody at the beginning. When layers like these are then played at the same time it gives the effect of multiple melodies weaving in and out of each other, creating angular semi-harmonies and moments of polyrhythmic intrigue
I think that's a great take
I always love playing this track on the biggest sound system I can esp when playing out live
Spot on.
While this might be the beautiful result, ain't no way afx thought of polyrhythms or any of those things while making it lmao.
Aphex twin forever!!! He was the catalyst to my musical journey, I hope to have a fraction of his creativity that he had at some point in my life
same, and same
the ambient works stuff is my favourite aphex work - totally unpretentious and natural. great video
The envelope and reverb on the synth track for this song is what rocketed my interest in music. I'm a crazy aphex fan boy.
The recreation is really impressive on this one. It really does sound pretty close.
Love love love this track! Thanks for this.
Re the tuning: This is what happens when you tune by ear alone. You might end up with a just intonation rather than equal temperament, especially when your octaves are so far apart.
As for the bass being so loud, it's being used as the main melody voice, which is also unusual, but there's no rule against it.
And the weird manual fades are usually a telltale sign that a track was a live jam.
uh, not true.. uh, not true on the tuning.. it was done intentionally for a certain feel. intonation/equal temperament are not even related , you are misusing the words in ways that make no sense
@@MElixirDNB er you sound so certain, yet provide no explanation.
@@Spherical_El He's right about just intonation/equal temperament: these describe the relationships between the intervals of a scale (e.g. whether the frequency of a perfect fifth is 3:2 of the root, or whether it is 7 lots of equal-sized intervals, each of which is 1/12 of an octave). Tuning the instrument up or down by x cents moves each of the notes up/down by the same amount, it doesn't change the gaps between them.
@@Spherical_El simply put, intonation is how accurate a ptich is, equal temperament is the standard 12 notes in a scale spacing, they are totally unrelated yet he garbled them together to pretend he is smart when it makes no sense
@@owenspottiswoode5936 Yes, but I think what they are saying is that the bass, pad and lead are in different octaves, and by tuning each part by ear you might end up with relationships between notes in different parts that are closer to just intonation rather than equal temperament.
Only my take, but I think the de-tuning works here because 1) we're less sensitive to pitch deviations in lower octaves. For most of the track, the bassline is staying lower down, and I guess this just creating a small bit of irresolution that flies under the conscious radar, but helps with the forward momentum 2) When the bass line does move to the higher pitched phrase then the detuning becomes quite noticeable. But then this creates an amazing emotional tension that works with the bass melody and how it functions in the track. It's a kind of slow "yearning" melody and this part sits in contrast to the tight clipped higher pitch melody and more propulsive bits of the track - the detuning kinda emphasises that, and emphasises our need for it to resolve.
Having said that - you couldn't use this as a recipe. It's clearly done by feel and by ear. He does detune a lot, but I'd guess it's only semi intentional, like a heuristic in the toolbox.
I'm curious whether the detuning is actually intentional, or if this is just an artifact of lots of independent devices with their own characteristics, being recorded on cassette tape, by a composer that is more concerned with getting the idea out of his head than whether all these electronic toys are tuned to the same pitch, and to the pitch of previous tracks coming from tape.
I can totally see either -- meticulous screwing-up of sounds to make them more interesting, or a complete disregard and "f- it" attitude to whether any of it matches.
@@nickwallette6201 He used microtonality his whole career so it wouldnt be out of character for him to experiment with pitches
I detune most things I make to some degree, I just tweak it til I think it sounds good. That's so bad ass that aphex twin has been doing the same thing. I had no idea!
You noticed the little human touches that Richard puts on his tracks. The little things like starting a pattern in the middle as opposed to the beginning is what always got my attention.
honestly i think he recorded all of his early stuff live and on casette tapes. Things like that might not even be intentional, he just pushed a button to late or something
Music theory can always describe anything that sounds good, but if you only fit yourself within the bounds of the music theory that you know then you’ll never get the feel for why certain aspects of music theory are more applicable to your style. Music theory can be an invitation to experiment or it can help you communicate with others and figure out why some "wrong" thing worked for a certain artist, but whether something sounds good should always come first. Maybe there’s something in tuning theory that explains why the "detuned" synths sound better in this track, but the fact is that they do sound better in this track and that’s the most important thing.
Good to see this series back- great stuff as always!
You pretty much nailed the warmth and tone of the original - awesome work!
Wow, thanks!
Great vid as usual, thank you for this! I remember hearing this for the first time all those years ago, and getting goosebumps!
That's what it's all about!
The tuning on Hedphelym is all over the place, gives a great nighmareque quality.
Blown away you completely replicated this track, well done!
Ah thanks!
Hahaha.. Ageispolis is actually what got me into making music back in the day. I'm not brilliant like RDJ but a have a full NI Rig now.
Main issue I run into is trying to keep things simple (and avoiding CPU limit barrier).
This track was responsible for me getting into Aphex Twin all those years ago 😊🎉
Superb as always! Thanks so much for this. I’ve loved this track since I first heard it.
Thanks for watching :)
6:15 Maybe it results in major 7th kind of sounds? Which I personally like a lot :) And it doesn't necessarily have to sound that dissonant, especially if the interval between bass and lead is large enough (extra octaves in between).
And especially when the bass notes are cleverly chosen along with the melody, it can result in nice sounding combinations I can imagine.
It wasn't the first time I heard this tune but very memorable was approaching a squatted Church in St. John's wood on Christmas Day 1992 (I think!) where Mixmaster Morris was set up in the main hall and playing Ageispolis. There was a full on rave round the back in another building, of course.
I miss raves! Cool story :)
Wow brilliant man. I wish your channel popped up more on my notifications! Glad I caught this !
Glad you liked it!
The analog filter he used on the DX7 is (far as I know) the filter on the Korg MS-20 ; so he bypassed using the synth itself and patched his DX7 into the filter. In an interview he stated that almost all his gear is modded EXCEPT for his MS-20 because he loves the way it sounds so much already. And speaking of my memory of hearing this the first time... i literally remember the first time I heard this and noticed how he starts the 808 off at a subdued level, and then it jumps up to being way too loud, and I immediately thought it was awesome
Ah that's great to know. I could have used the MS20 filter in the ableton autofilter and got a bit closer...never mind
Instinct Ambient and THIS tune was my intro into this genre- perfect choice for “putting the humanity” into electronic music.
Eagerly awaiting your next release of an EP, LP or new track……bigUPs!
Ah thanks! I recently finished a track that I'm really pleased with. I'll try to get it out soon :)
@@GyuBeats ah YAY that’s fantastic! ThankYOU
Awesome video! Definitely one of the early electronic albums that inspired me and an all time favourite.
In terms of the tuning, later on Aphex got into lots of microtonal tunings, however I believe here it’s just how he tuned the hardware synths by ear.
It’s an interesting point that in this day of software synths and autotune the default settings are for everything to be perfectly quantised. You now have to purposely add the imperfections.
thanks for adding Ukrainian subtitles in my language, it’s hard to find such content, you managed to convey the sound perfectly👍
i think it’s an automatic translate of autogenerated english subtitles - i don’t seem to see any hand-made subtitles for this video
@@MarkTheCat Yes, you're right. I'm glad they seem to be fairly good!
How's it going over there?
@@HubbardiumKing war ain’t fun, but the russians failed to destroy electrical systems of the country, cities near the front still suffer from artillery strikes, but we hold our ground and don’t let russian forces to advance. while they die at insane rates everyday, we are waiting for mid-april or beginning of may for tanks and new trained soldiers to come back from the training and begin our big counter strike, presumably at multiple fronts. this counter strike is supposed to begin the next, and i hope, the ending phase of the war where the russian troops will have to retreat and at the worst hold on to Crimea and at the best leave Ukraine’s territory completely.
@@MarkTheCat stay safe. God bless
Thanks for giving such fantastic insight into the best Aphex Twin song.
The lead is quite chiptuny so, gated envelopes are a must. You could imitate it with the highest attack, the quickest decay, and for a little, less harsher sound without using reverb, sustain at around 10% or less and some release. That will give a “fake reverb” feeling without cluttering the mix. It is much used in the tracking scene and Richard D James is quite an acomplished tracker composer.
How might this be achieved with envelope follower in Ableton? And what would it be mapped to?
@@deprime9521 i’m an Ableton user myself, but l’m not really sure what device you mean when talking about the envelope follower. Is that an Ableton 11 exclusive?.
Anyway, you just need to use a synth with almost “gate on/gate off” volume envelope, like in chiptunes and very primitive organs (a Casio style beep). In a sense, you could pass any signal through a noise gate configured with very fast attack and very abrupt decay, low threshold, then adjust release time to taste. In a way, a noise gate is an envelope follower “mapped” to the signals amplitude/volume.
@@lagunagfx Yeah envelope follower is a stock ableton plugin. Would I put that noise gate on the same channel as the synth I'm affecting?
@@deprime9521 Yes, though it would be much easier just to edit the synth’s amplitude envelope as explained. I don’t see the need of using an external effect unless the synth sound is uneditable.
Damn. You really nailed this one dead on. Well done. If you are up for a challenge try some Autechere 2nd Bad Vilbel. That drawn out droning sound has always intrigued me. I would love to see and hear how it was created.
I wouldn't know where to start!
@@GyuBeats I hear you there. Some of their work makes my brain melt just trying to figure what they have done to a particular sound.
@@GyuBeats Maybe Nil would be easier? :)
I love the slightly out of tune warblyness of it.
ua-cam.com/video/hfTAv8htci8/v-deo.html
I have listen to this song extensively (I discovered it just recently) and love it so much and everything you said in this video and explained makes me understand why! It’s such an amazing song!
Ah that's great to hear! Thanks :)
The opening 1/2 minute was utter excellence in what the Idea of music Real music is meant to be.
He's back! Class stuff. Xtal would have been my pick but Ageispolis is great.
Great to have you back making these videos. Nice choice here. One of my faves.
I know nothing about music production but as a lifelong Aphex Twin fan this was awesome to see you recreate, thank you!
I remember like 10 years ago when an old friend of mine who was quite the audiophile installed some high end sound system in his car and explained how dual channel amplification worked to me. He asked if I knew any songs that would test his setup. The first thought i had was to play this song. I think we may have shifted the tectonic plates that day. Such a beautiful song in so many ways.
Awesome 🙂
Context: It was mid 90's, Costa Rica, I came home running after smoking weed to record a tv show in VHS called Oxigeno (oxygen), they use to program early electronic music (Banco de Gaia, Peter Lazonby, FSOL, Da Hool, Yum Yum, etc)...I opened the door and my mom was still awake, so I asked her if it was ok for me to use the TV to record whatever they program and she said "-of course", I set up the VHS cassette and hit record, this track comes out and I was mesmerized! (And high AF!) I remember falling in love with the video and sound, it's a very cherish memory of me and my mother together, late at night, just chilling...the future was bright, no worries at all, not bad for an endless summer night in paradise
Nice
Great job on one of my all time favorite Apex Twin tracks!
Whilst he does break a lot of rules on purpose, I think the different tuning is related to the fact that the album was recorded on tape and constantly played (also there is something related to his cats fiddling with the tapes, but I can't not correctly recall all the details), therefore warping the tape.
Yes that's a really good thought
I’m sure the cat thing was Richard playing games with us. The tuning thing boggles my mind though!
ah, you get so precise with such simple tools, very inspiring!
Thank you very much!
This is such a classic... Cheers. Been really loving your channel the last few weeks.
I like your analyses.
Gladly also a little longer and dive deeper.
Great vid Gyu, some really great points about breaking the rules and adding in the human element…keep them coming!
Thanks! Will do!
Thoroughly enjoyed this. I think your message and sincerity is needed in music, especially electronic music today. Loved it. Can’t wait to subscribe and see what comes next! Would love to see more SAW85-92 breakdowns!
Man you totally nailed that - out of all the tunes I could of asked you to do you picked this.
This us like my all time Swan song, the one for my funeral lol.
I never would of cracked that detuning myself and I was about to try a remake with this track.
That tuning is unreal, so thanks man, for that alone.
Unbelievable.
Thank you for this amazing comment!! I'm so glad you enjoyed the video :)
@@GyuBeats I'm a new sub so you totally pulled me in. I've been DAWless for over 10 years but just bought a new 2nd hand Windows 10 machine so I'm back on the mouse. Reaper.
Yours looks like a great channel 👍
@@Spherical_El Ah nice one :) I have a dawless setup also
I have that nostalgic feeling with The Girl With The Sun In Her Head by Orbital. That heartbeat intro and then that warm meandering melody, it’s totally bliss. The whole In Sides album by Orbital is one of my all time favourites. I still remember sitting in the back seat of the car in the summer of 1996, driving through the south of france. On holiday with my family. With this album on a tape in my walkman, sun in my face, wind through the open window, watching the landscapes go by, simply enjoying life. Good times.
Thanks for sharing. I love hearing things like this :)
I also remember really loving that at 5he same time. Still classic.
As someone who has tried to recreate Polynomial C, I really appreciated seeing your deep take on this.
Killer track. You are always choosing the tracks that defined my discovery of music. Awesome. This track just envelopes you in soft warm power.
Love this series so much! Cheers Gyu Beats
Seeing your passion for the song really sold this video for me. Incredibly helpful to see this song broken down, gave me a few ideas!
Another great one, thanks so much Gyu
Love iyour breakdowns Gyu! I was there on Sundays down at the Bowgee club, Newquay with Richard James before he was Aphex, i had one of his first mix tapes, lost forever.. such a great sound
Thank you! That is really cool :)
This channel (and you) is such a gift. Thanks for sharing, it's appreciated.
I appreciate that!
The difference is, he did it 1992 and you did this here in 2023. He knows my music and he´s pretty chilled. He´s about learning something, while making music. Most people just want to compose, but he´s about learning something new. He´s very simple and just about learning, thats the answer, why his music sounds like that. Most other people just play with beats and melody, so he´s going a different path.
Awesome. I found your channel today with this video, very impressed with how much you've dug into this track. I know Aphex Twin was experimenting microtonality even this far back but I didn't realise this track had such wild tuning! I'll be digging back through your uploads 😁
Very impressed with this thorough analysis and recreation of AFX’s track! I’ve been listening to selected ambient Works, particularly this track for the last several months, sometimes almost daily, because well I really love it that much. This really made my day watching this.
Awesome, thank you!
One of the best channels on UA-cam, good to see you back :)
Wow, thanks!
Amen. Put the humanity into the music! 100%.
🙏🙏🙏
this song is just perfect and i REALLY loved hearing the rhythm deconstruction you did in this video.
So happy i found your videos. These are gem pieces of advice
this is an example of a perfect video. this is what youtube is for. absolutely amazing
This is an example of a perfect comment! :)
subscribed after the first 30 seconds, great opening that was, never thought of it that way. i already like you
I vividly remember playing this album over and over and over, In 1992.
The 90s were such an amazing decade for electronic music.
This track has been making me feel warm and fuzzy for over 30 years
loved this breakdown Gyu, more Aphex something like Tha would be fantastic , keep up the good work 🔥👌
Thanks for this! Even as an absolute beginner this was super useful
I'm so glad! I love that people find these helpful.
yes yes, an annual definate listen, never bettered this album. super vid thanks
This was the tune I listened to when I first got stoned back in 1993 aged 15…. Maybe one of my favourite tracks ever.
I bet that was a good time :)
One of my favourite tracks, what a genius. And an amazing job recreating it! 👏
playing WoW when i was a teenager and it made the game that already felt like a real place transcend dimensions in my teenage kid brain, TY RDJ
I feel like the detuning was happened upon from the use of analog equipment. Temperature and humidity can change the way stuff putting out analog stuff because part of the magic is the fact its just making sound with a straight electrical signal.
You also get this effect by using two different tape machines that aren't calibrated perfectly, such that one plays slightly faster and thus produces a higher pitch. I used to have a crappy tape machine that would play back slightly slower than it recorded. Overdubs/multitracks would naturally be "out of tune" even if the instruments were in tune with each other.
I definitely agree when you say we aim to recreate a feeling that we have felt from other electronic music. I saw nathan fake live and the hypnotic quality of his music is something I aim to reproduce in my music
Really enjoyed this, thanks! What a track too ;)
Thanks for watching!
I only noticed just now that it was you who reacted to my MC303 ageispolis video! I've been subscribed to your channel for a while now, lol! Nice work on the breakdown of this awesome track!
Ah nice one :)
Great vid, think Pulsewidth is my fav off the album but they're all great. An iconic album and artist.
i love the note on the tuning. jackie mclean played slightly sharp. i love the idea of tweaking tuning and seeing how out you can get something to stay in.
great video (makes me feel a lot more positive about my productions) thanks
Great remake. Really enjoyed this thank you.
Thanks for this, belief that sticking to sounds that feel good and trusting the ear allows me to make my music, rather than be lead into making something that’s trying to sound like something I’ve heard.
Yes! More power to you!
Some of these broken rules are the kind of thing you encounter when you DJ. If you pitch a tune up by 5% you basically raise it by a semitone, and it's quite common to pitch something by 2 or 3% and find it's "almost in key" with another track as a result, which can be harmonically interesting. Similarly with the bassline not coming in perfect phrase. I think a lot of this album was produced by RDJ manually raising volume sliders to bring in tracks on the mixing desk, which is similar to DJing where you start to fade a track in so sounds become audible mid-bar.
Yes, great points :)
This track has those sort of "happy accidents" that probably occurred quite often with hardware analog gear back in the day, but that don't really happen by accident with DAWs and soft synths in the box. You actively have to alter the tuning and go off grid to create the randomness... but most of us (including me) don't bother. I'm very impressed with Gyu getting so close with his reconstruction. I find it incredibly frustrating trying to reconstruct oldies when they go out of tune or out of time. Modern digital software (and my perfectionist brain, for that matter) is not conducive to recreating "flaws", even though it was those flaws that created the magic in the first place.
thanks man, you are great 🤘
Rich hears traditional tunings differently, and so his own tuning preferences are bound to deviate somewhat. Another great video sir x.
Yeah that's really cool
I think the pad chords at 14:20 are going Fm (full triad) to Bb (sort of a second inversion, without the root-which is hinted at by the bass)
one of the best tunes Aphex Twin ever made.
Very inspiring, thank you for doing these analyses!
Haha, I remember where I was when I first heard this tune. Stoned at midnight on a college night and I put on a cassette copy of this album that my mate coloured totally silver and my 16 year old brain thought I was listening to alien music.
He's creating this inherent tension between the bass and higher parts, it's nearly in F as you said. There's nothing drawing attention to that tension your ear hears it as basically in tune? Something like that maybe.
I'm not a music pro but I love to watch and listen to your content.. thanks 😊
I appreciate that!
Great video as always dude
Love this video mate, your breakdowns are really interesting, even to someone long in the tooth like me… the kids can learn a lot from this!
Quick one on the chords… you are right on the voicings, etc, but the track is a basic F Dorian jam… the chords are Fm to Bb, which is the classic Dorian I to IV vamp.
Loads of tracks do this, but Pink Floyd’s Breathe and Any Colour You Like (on Dark Side of the Moon) are the ones I always think of as classic examples of this.
Especially Any Colour You Like… I’ve always thought of Ageispolis as being Aphex Twin’s take on this… maybe, maybe not.
Anyway, keep up the great work. 👍
Great knowledge! Thanks for sharing it :)
Excellent breakdown..
Much appreciated :)
I love what you said about putting the humanity into music
Really nice walk through, thank you!
brilliant, honest video.
Great video! I think a lot of the points on imperfection, such as the fading in at odd points, was due to doing this sort of thing on hardware. You sat there and faded things in and out, did it by ear and as it felt good. Very different to mapping it all out on an arrangement page on a computer.
awesome breakdown. in love this tune
Great vid thank you!
Repetition,Interest,Surprise,Contrast,Imagination
"if it sounds good, it is good" - I agree 100%
Awesome video, thank you! I recreated Ageispolis with my music teacher years ago, when we found out that the pad was de-tuned we were shocked! Then, my teacher realized that's probably the reason why such a cool lead has such low volume on the track, namely to not clash too much with the other instruments, given the different tunings. I think I can perceive more the detuning on your track than on Aphex's though... I don't have access to our project now (it was done all inside Garageband, we uploaded a video on youtube), but if I remember correctly each note is detuned differently, something -8 cent, and something close -30. In our version, each note on the bass is detuned exactly as that same note on the pad; however the bass line is layered with a second low volume bass line +1 octave. I can look up the project (find link to the video below if you're interested). Again, kudos for the great work!
ua-cam.com/video/ym2r-5mMb2Q/v-deo.html
Also, it's curious that it's a pentatonic scale but plus the 6th (an aeolian mode without a 2nd), which is an interesting choice by Richard.
Great recreation!
@@GyuBeats thanks!