Autechre

"If we're disregarding any computers here just for this Q, I would give the mpc1000 a good exercise with its JJOS now n then. Our RS integrator is a worthy distraction too. DMX has always been there for me too."

Rob Brown on WATTM AAA

"If we're disregarding any computers here just for this Q, I would give the mpc1000 a good exercise with its JJOS now n then. Our RS integrator is a worthy distraction too. DMX has always been there for me too."

Rob Brown on WATTM AAA

Incredibly lush sound. Digital but warm, deep and very open ended. The Machinedrum has bass, it really delivers. I've made some of the lushest kick drums on it; they really cut through a rig in a live situation. The physical modelling in the Machinedrum is really odd and unique I think. Very useable, way better than the standard set you hear everywhere. I’m also having a lot of fun with the RAM machines in the Machinedrum UserWave. Done tons of stuff with them and I still see loads of potential for new applications. The Machinedrum is also the tightest sequencer we've got in here.

Sean Booth talks about the first gear he and Rob Brown used in this November 1997 interview with Sound On Sound magazine.

"The first stuff we had was a [Roland TR] 606, a [Casio] SK1 and SK5, then a Boss delay unit. Then we got our [Roland MC] 202, a Tascam 244 4-track and a Juno 106. It's grown so slowly that we're totally au fait with it all. But you can't forget, especially with the amount of software that we've got now, that it's very easy to get into a specific way of working and to forget what it's like to use an analogue synth, to have to deal with 40 controllers at once, for instance."

A forest of Digital Performer automation and MIDI controller data gives some clue as to the detail that goes into Autechre's programming and sound editing.

"I like the 202 sequencer. It's like playing dominoes or something." – Sean Booth

"It's more like working with Legos I think." – Rob Brown

via Sound On Sound

"We replaced our NS10s with these because we thought our music was suffering."

In this photo, Rob Brown of Autechre can be seen playing the Ensoniq ASR-10.

Everyone thought the [Yamaha] DX100 was amazing to do bass lines, but we didn't do that for ages. It seemed like there was so much more to them to explore, like they're good for brassy, reedy sounds. You could be working for five years with a crappy drum machine and delay unit and still find new things in there.

During a November 1997 interview with Sound On Sound magazine, Autechre talk about the internals of their Casio SK-1.

"See this chip here? If you connect any two of these points together, it crosses the samples together. You can get ring modulation, flangers, delays, and all this other timed-based stuff. So we're going to try and get a switch fitted on the back that can move across the points, that way we can adjust it in real-time in a live situation."

via Sound On Sound

Autechre said in their Sound on Sound interview, "In 1988 a friend in Rochdale let us use his studio, where we began using an Atari and Cubase".

Unsurprisingly, Autechre have dozens of programs on their Macs, including Peak, Audio Hijack...

Sean Booth talks about the first gear he and Rob Brown used in this November 1997 interview with Sound On Sound magazine.

"The first stuff we had was a [Roland TR] 606, a [Casio] SK1 and SK5, then a Boss delay unit. Then we got our [Roland MC] 202, a Tascam 244 4-track and a Juno 106. It's grown so slowly that we're totally au fait with it all. But you can't forget, especially with the amount of software that we've got now, that it's very easy to get into a specific way of working and to forget what it's like to use an analogue synth, to have to deal with 40 controllers at once, for instance."

In this photo shared from Autechre's website, you can see a Clavia Nord Modular on the left side of the table.

Apart from trackers and our Atari. On the Monomachine I’m well into the drum sounds. Odd choice, I know but they’re dope. A really tasty selection.

Autechre's hardware samplers include the likes of the Ensoniq ESR and EPS, Kurzweil K2500, Emu E-Synth, and Casio samplers like the FZ1, FZ10, SK1, SK5 and SK100

Rob from Autechre said in a Sound on Sound article, "a couple of months ago we bought the Kenton Pro4, and our old Korg MS20."

In an article from Sound on Sound, Autechre is noted for using Emagic Logic Audio as part of their diverse music production setup.

Autechre comments "We replaced our NS10s with these because we thought our music was suffering." this shows that the group did at one point use the NS10s

AUTECHRE ON ENSONIQ SAMPLERS

Sean: "We use modified software on the sampler for live work. We found some nerd in America who writes interesting software."

Rob: "We were then able to take the sampler input and convert it to a thru for a start. Then we were able to use the software to write our own effects in the EPS."

Sean: "It's even better than the [newer, more powerful] ASR-10. You can select samples independently from the sequencer, which means that as the sequencer is running you can select your sample and edit it, turning it into a synth really. It's already got a decent OS in there, but it's really easy to modify as well.

Rob: "It's really only the American manufacturers, Ensoniq and Emu, that turn their gear into synths and not just sample playback machines."

Sean: "The EPS is just like using the Prophecy really. Everybody beats on about how smart the Prophecy is but we've been able to do that with samples for years. Much of the multiple LFO routings and the assigning of controllers to modulate controllers and so on, we can do on the EPS -- setting up quite elaborate patches on it really quickly. It's weird that Ensoniq is getting ignored in preference to Akai, which admittedly is a tighter more accurate sampler, but it still lacks a lot of scope for exploration, you can't really do a lot with it. With the EPS and the ASR-10 we're still finding things, like changing aspects of effects that you're not supposed to be able to alter."

Although when you originally bought the EPS you obviously didn't know what you know now.

Sean: "No, we bought it because we got a good deal."

Rob: "And it had on-board effects. We thought, 'it's only got two outputs but then it does have effects -- f**k it, we've only got this much money'. Before that the only sampler we had was 1.4 seconds worth on our Boss delay, so anything on top of that was a luxury."

Sean: "By necessity we've struck up a good working relationship with our samplers. The only current sampler that we would get, knowing what we know now, is probably the Kurzweil. It's the only thing that I've used that intrigues me.

Rob: "Emus as well, they seem to have a lot to them."

Sean: "Just in terms of the editability if you put a sampler into a synth you know you'll be buying all those synth facilities, whereas if you're just buying a sampler then that can be limiting. I think a lot of manufacturers still see the sampler as being limited in those respects, which is bullshit, considering the amount of DSP chips that they pack in there. There's so much you can potentially do with them."

Autechre uses the AKG C1000 mic

What are you up to at the moment? I hear a lot of noises in the background. In the studio working on bits of our live set. Fine tuning. We’re using the Elektron SPS-1UW and SFX-60 alongside a Nord modular G2 and an Akai MPC1000, with a bitstream controller. It is a similar setup to what we used to use back in 1993, but slicker basically and a lot more capable. We used laptops for a while, between 1996 and 2002, and we had tons of crashes. Home made sequencers we would modify on the road and which would always be pretty buggy as a result of that didn’t help. There were other factors obviously: OS and driver updates, club conditions, heat and humidity.

In the list "SOME OF THE AUTECHRE HARDWARE" in their Sound on Sound interview it said that they use the Alesis Quadraverb.

In an interview with Sound on Sound Autechre said, "We're still using the Nord Lead 1".

Autechre's hardware samplers include the likes of the Ensoniq ESR and EPS...

Autechre is listed as using the Yamaha SU10 Sampling Unit in the Autechre Gear List curated by Mike Baas.

In an interview with "Sound on Sound" Rob and Sean say that they use the Roland Juno 106 Synthesizer.

In a user-uploaded photo, the Phonic SM-1000 DJ Mixer is listed among Autechre's recording gear in the January 1995 issue of Future Music magazine.

This interview describes Autechre's use of Max/MSP. "Cycling 74's Max/MSP allows them to take the same creative approach in software, designing and implementing their own controllers, connections and sound generators."

Autechre's hardware samplers include the likes of the Ensoniq ESR and EPS, Kurzweil K2500, Emu E-Synth, and Casio samplers like the FZ1, FZ10, SK1, SK5 and SK100. "Changing them is brilliant fun," remarks Booth about the latter three, "get the backs off them and a few bits of wire and have an amazing time. We mess around with electronics, and have loads of broken half-bits of gear lying around. I learned some things at college and can use a soldering iron."