Talk:Analord

slicing, until you delete the trivia about the source of the name "analord" due to it's lack of evidence, do not impose your restrictions on my trivia.

That trivia isn't presented as fact. I revised your trivia slightly to be presented in the same light, but the comment about "cool" and "badass" is totally unnecessary. Slicing 19:39, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

fair enough, although your sense of humour seems quite dry

Types of sound, genres

Regarding edits made by 67.86.123.141 on April 19, described as "cleaning up": I'm very unhappy about several relevant details being erased. When the paragraph was written, the idea was to point out specific phases in James' body of work which are examples of or counterexamples to the style of music he's working on with the Analord series.

It is unhelpful to erase the following:

...(as is characteristic of James' stronger acid techno and of his drum experimentalism on druqks, 2 Remixes by AFX (2001), and elsewhere)...

...and then replace it with:

(as is characteristic of James' stronger acid techno and drill n bass work)

There was a five-year period between the release of the Richard D. James Album (1996) and the release of druqks (2001) during which time James made music that was very different from the sound of either release, and it is the sound from these middle years, along with the music of the RDJ Album and of ...I Care Because You Do (1995), that does not appear on any of the Analord releases so far. To simply refer to James' "drill n' bass work" is to ignore the three distinct types of drill n' bass he has molded (one type from the RDJ Album, the next from the songs "Flim" (1997) and "Nannou" (1999), and the latest kind from druqks)

If anything, what needs to be clarified is which acid techno releases are similar to the new Analord tracks. To erase the very specific references to druqks and 2 Remixes by AFX lumps all of James' drill n' bass music together, which is very misguided. The drill n' bass of the RDJ Album is orchestral trills and squelches, almost fluid, while the drill n' bass of druqks is much harder, a half-second slower, and used to form beats rather than waves of melody and sound. The difference is the same as that between the rhythm of a zipper unzipping and that of a drummer on speed. The Analord series does not employ such high-speed drum sequencing of either kind on any track so far.

Why scrub away these observations? :(

Tarnas 22:07, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't think the different types of "drill and bass" matter in this article. Drill and bass is a fan created phrase for Aphex Twin's extreme version of drum and bass. This is the *Analord* article, and Analord is based on a real genre of music: acid house. I don't think irrelevant details and trivial comparisions should be magnified and written about in this article. Especially not in longwinded, nonsensical, gibberish English. Joyrex 22:59, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I thought the descriptions were very clear, if longwinded. As for "drill and bass", why would you say what you've just said? The term is obviously legitimate, fans and critics make up genres of music all the time regardless of whether the artists like it or not, and "drill and bass" just so happens to stand for various types of "fast drum and bass". How is "acid house" any more real than "drill and bass"? And how is Analord based strictly acid house? The sheer speed of the drumming (on "Fenix Funk 5", for instance) and the melodies ("I'm Self Employed", many others) are very alien to standard acid house but very reminiscent of the classic "drill and bass" work (ha!) on Richard D. James Album or even drukqs.
     This wasn't even my concern though, my point in the above discussion was, if anything, that much of Analord relates more to James' acid work (by way of his "drill and bass"), and that the simplification of James' music into plain old "drill and bass" is misleading, that this genre label is a cop-out that does not indicate the real differences between his musical releases over the past ten years and the separate techno styles that they've explored. Which is to say, I could care less about "drill and bass" as a genre, except so far as it disguises the relevant differences between James' distinct musical styles. Where should the place of Analord in James' body of work be discussed? I think this is the primary article for it. —Tarnas 03:13, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

---

POV

Users my complain about this, but it just seemed inappropriate to have the following in this article:

...yet are still marked by the fast, choppy, multi-layered drum sequencing he has perfected from the album drukqs (2001) onward. The Analord tracks are almost all driven by very distinct drum machine beats, not couched in static but instead surrounded by waves of shimmering melody, murky synth and raw lasers, claps, and unmuddied bass. The longer cuts, such as "XMD5A" or "Crying in Your Face", are unique among James' body of work by virtue of their tight composition, akin to "Vordhosbn" from drukqs or to James' beatsmithing as "Brad Strider" on Bradley's Beat (1995) and Bradley's Robot (1996).

It's a poor point-of-veiw, especially if you're unfamilier with RDJ's previous work, and you have no idea what the hard-to-find Bradley's Beat sounds like, or if you havn't heard drukqs yet. I have revised it to reflect more on the types of instruments used and focused on it's uniqueness, rather than compare it to previous works. --Insomniak 03:15, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Looks like someone reverted it. How can something be unique in Aphex's body of work if it sounds like something else in Aphex's body of work? Pure nonsense. I reduced it into a sentence or two. I hope nobody reverts this nonsense back.Joyrex 14:42, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Insomniak: Your edits are not constructive

Insomniak, I like that you wanted to include information about the equipment James used to make Analord, but I couldn't disagree more with the way you went about these edits:

1. You deleted wholesale what was already written. Couldn't you have just added your comments to what was already there? I think that would have been more constructive, and then others could follow your lead and start looking more into the methods James uses to make his music.

2. You claim that you fixed the point of view, and yet there are no unusual, unverifiable, or strongly emotional opinions expressed in the text that you deleted: in fact, comparing the present work of an artist to the artist's past work (which is what the deleted text did) is what usually goes on in a summary or review essay, and is an essential part of the more complete Wikipedia entries for albums, books, and other artworks. If anything, you're guilty of improper point of view: your point of view is apparently that the description of this music should focus only on the types of instruments used to make it, while what was previously written focused on describing the sound and its relationship to past works. The way to solve this constructively would be to combine the viewpoints, not to replace the earlier one with your new one.

This is what you write above about what you deleted:

It's a poor point-of-veiw, especially if you're unfamilier [sic] with RDJ's previous work, and you have no idea what the hard-to-find Bradley's Beat sounds like, or if you havn't [sic] heard drukqs yet.

This is very misguided: what you deleted included detailed descriptions of the Analord sound without reference to past works, so people unfamilar with Aphex Twin wouldn't need to listen to any other albums first to get an idea of what the music is like. For instance, you deleted the descriptions: "...marked by the fast, choppy, multi-layered drum sequencing..." and "The Analord tracks are almost all driven by very distinct drum machine beats, not couched in static but instead surrounded by waves of shimmering melody, murky synth and raw lasers, claps, and unmuddied bass."

The text you deleted also included references to past works, which is exactly what REFERENCE media like Wikipedia is all about: the connections between different things, how one thing is connected to another, or how they are different. The reader doesn't need to have heard Bradley's Beat, but if Bradley's Beat is never mentioned no one will know that James has made music like Analord with similar pace, structure, melodies, and simple drum machine beats, except he did it ten years earlier! Same goes for the relationship to drukqs.

Then you say:

I have revised it to reflect more on the types of instruments used and focused on it's uniqueness, rather than compare it to previous works

First off, the text you deleted described Analord as very unique: out of all RDJ's music, the only really similar tracks are from the highly esoteric Bradley Strider releases. It's clearly you're point of view that it's better not to compare new works of art with older artworks, but how is this unbiased of you? Come on.

3. What you end up writing needs a lot of improvement. Your first sentence, "albiet more oriented for the dancefloor than for listening (a common characteristic of his material released as AFX for Rephlex)" is a very unique point of view... have you danced to these Analord songs? They are not very dance-friendly, and the same goes for other AFX releases, being breakneck mixes and static junk tracks (2 Remixes by AFX (2001) or Smojphace EP (2003)) or ambient and acid tracks (the Analogue Bubblebath and Hangable Auto Bulb series). Then you go on and spend two sentences speculating about what drum machines and other equipment James used:

Most of the songs are based around tight Roland TB-303 acid melodies, which are notoriously difficult to program. Other instruments that have been used possibly include the Roland TR-606, TR-808, and TR-909 drum machines, a Roland MC-4 sequencer (possible in addition to computer sequencing), and various synthesizers, including a Roland SH-101, a Fenix Modular Synth, a home made polysynth, and countless unknown others that James has collected over the years or borrowed from collegues. [Emphasis added]

The only machine sound generally agreed upon (in more than two magazine reviews) is the TB-303, the rest we can't confirm. The Fenix Modular Synth seems reasonable since one track has "Fenix" in its name, but do you know what this machine sounds like? Is it actually used, and is it used in more than one track? I can't tell, and you don't explain yourself. Did James use any computer sequencing? We don't know. Did he really use any analog? How do we know he isn't using software drum machines with sampled classic sounds? We don't, and there's no place for rambling about it here, especially after deleting text that isn't 50% speculation.

Please be more respectful of what others have already written. Try to modify it or make your own contribution before you completely delete something, especially when it has been so vigorously explained. You did a similar thing before with the Battersea Power Station article, other people had to come back and restore the old information alongside your new input. Why so destructive, Insomniak?

Tarnas 10:02, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm not going to respond to Tarna's comments until I've returned from what was supposed to be a relaxing vacation. For future refrence, if you have a problem with my edits, please take it up on my user page discussion, not the article discussion. Thank you. --Insomniak 02:59, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Tarnas: Your comments are NOT appreciated

Let's take things from the top, Tarnas. You claim that my edits were "not constructive", when, in fact, your own edits were just as bad. My first goal with any Wikipedia article is to conform it something I would expect to see in a professional encyclopedia (you may want to refer some of these articles: 1, 2 ). Indeed, this should be the goal of all Wikipedians. If you are suggesting that my efforts to clean up an article are destructive, then I think you should objectivly rethink your position. Provided below are counterarguements for your comments.

Nothing is truly deleted in an edit. As you should know, the history of the pages will be there to extract any removed information (however trivial it may be).

The text you deleted also included references to past works, which is exactly what REFERENCE media like Wikipedia is all about: the connections between different things, how one thing is connected to another, or how they are different. The reader doesn't need to have heard Bradley's Beat, but if Bradley's Beat is never mentioned no one will know that James has made music like Analord with similar pace, structure, melodies, and simple drum machine beats, except he did it ten years earlier! Same goes for the relationship to drukqs.

At the time of this comment, there is no article on the Bradley's Beat release by Richard D. James. Refering to it in an article when an average reader, who has in all likeyhood not heard it, is bad form.

As well, the following "information" is still on the Analord article:

The Analord tracks are almost all driven by very distinct drum machine beats, not couched in static but instead surrounded by waves of shimmering melody, murky synth and raw lasers, claps, and unmuddied bass.

All very vague terms. In the context of electronic music, what is a laser? A clap? What kind of bass are we talking about here? As far as a uninformed reader is concerned, "unmuddied bass" could refer to a bass guitar, or even an Upright bass! And how exactly do you define "Shimmering"? Why don't we just put the Context Cleanup tag on the top of the article? These terms were removed for these very reasons.

3. What you end up writing needs a lot of improvement. Your first sentence, "albiet more oriented for the dancefloor than for listening (a common characteristic of his material released as AFX for Rephlex)" is a very unique point of view... have you danced to these Analord songs? They are not very dance-friendly, and the same goes for other AFX releases, being breakneck mixes and static junk tracks (2 Remixes by AFX (2001) or Smojphace EP (2003)) or ambient and acid tracks (the Analogue Bubblebath and Hangable Auto Bulb series). Then you go on and spend two sentences speculating about what drum machines and other equipment James used:

Have I danced to these Analord songs? As a matter of fact, I have! Futhermore, I enjoyed dancing to them; It's hard not to bob along and groove out to "PWSteal,Ldpinch.D", or any other track on the series. Your comments there are clearly biased, and not very open-minded at all. I don't mind you saying that the edit needs improvement, but outright removal is not appreciated.

The only machine sound generally agreed upon (in more than two magazine reviews) is the TB-303, the rest we can't confirm. The Fenix Modular Synth seems reasonable since one track has "Fenix" in its name, but do you know what this machine sounds like? Is it actually used, and is it used in more than one track? I can't tell, and you don't explain yourself. Did James use any computer sequencing? We don't know. Did he really use any analog? How do we know he isn't using software drum machines with sampled classic sounds? We don't, and there's no place for rambling about it here, especially after deleting text that isn't 50% speculation.

The Roland TB-303 has long been a staple of James' work, so we need not debate over that. As for the Fenix synth, the creators of this fine instrument are proud to have James as one of their users 1. As for confirmation of James' use of analogue equipment, Mike Paradinas has been quoted as saying:

"Richard's completly analogue now. Luke (Vibert) played me some of the hundreds of tracks earmarked for this Analord series and they are beautiful. More like SOSW & CW. But really good clear production. Lots of acid lines, but also a lot of melody & pads... Mostly analog(ue): 303, 606, 808, 909 and his collection of synths (a nice bit of chunky doepfer acid) but a few with breaks too." And this was back in Summer 2004. Older updates to what used to be http://www.richarddjames.com displayed a collaged picture of his equipment, wich clearly had photos of most of the equipment I described above. This was my source for the previous edit.

Now you're probably going to say "What if those photos wern't taken by James, and what if those arn't realy his machines?" It should be obvious by now that when paired with Paradina's statement and the fact that Richarddjames.com not redirecting to Rephlex Records, that they are his equipment. Unless you can proove me wrong, of course.

Please be more respectful of what others have already written. Try to modify it or make your own contribution before you completely delete something, especially when it has been so vigorously explained. I took your comments as a Personal Attack, and I have a zero-tolerance policy towards that sort of behaviour. I highly suggest you re-read the Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines before making comments like this again. --Insomniak 20:52, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Analord planet mu post.

http://www.planet-mu.com/phorum/read.php?f=1&i=166092&t=165057

A long forum post written by Richard D. James about analogue music equipment. After pretending to be "Richard's girlfriend", Jess the co-owner of Planet Mu records revealed that it was the Aphex Twin. RDJ is good friends with Mike P, the owner of that label, having released music by MikeP since 1993 and RDJ often DJ's Venetian Snares and Hellfish and Producer tracks. The writing style of the post is quite unique, in a similar style to RDJ's Feed Me Weird Things prose, his own album liner notes, and the poorly spelt and grammar checked e-mail interviews he has given over the years. Also the subject matter is unusually detailed and intelligent compared with the usual posts from that board. The post was signed "Richard." Everyone in the thread believes it's the Aphex Twin (even Jess, who knows Aphex Twin personally). Aphex Twin posted on messageboards when drukqs came out, and quickly disappeared. He did this on the old Warp messageboard and on the old www.joyrex.com Aphex Twin fan site messageboard. Edit: Oh look at the main page of this article. Luke Vibert's Analord records was released on... planet-mu records.

Here's a kind of summary of the post:

The price of Roland equipment when he bought it. The differences between analogue and digital audio equipment. Virtual synths should be called 'pretend synths'. Fake reverb can not beat real life reverb. Different soundcards each have an idiosyncratic sound. "Then there is the question of the physicallity of the instrument this affects the way a human will emotionally interact with it and therfore affect what they will actually do with it!" Analogue synths etc etc, until he says "im quite drunk cant be bothered to type anymore..."

This is a fascinating article nearly equal to Squarepusher's quite recent essays. Some kind of quote from and link to this post belongs in the Analord article. Deleting a link or quote of this from the analord article is vandalism in my opinion. If an editor would prefer a different quote from the article, please go ahead and choose something more relevant. In the trivia section of the Analord article, this is the perfect thing to link! Joyrex

Some guy keeps deleting a quote from this article and arguing in the edit summary box. If you must delete a quote, please pick something you think is more suitable from this article and post it here to see if other people think it's useful. Jones5