Aphex Twin

In this photo, Aphex Twin looms over his equipment, including the MPC60 towards the upper-right-hand corner. The drum pads and MPC60 logo can be spotted beneath other equipment, all adorned with Aphex Twin stickers.

From an interview with Clash Music:

CLASH MUSIC: You say you often change your set-up and the way you do things, what did you change and get into for the Analord series?

APHEX TWIN: Most of it was sequenced on an MC4 and other analogue sequencers.

"I don't want to use pre-programmed drum sounds. I've used modified [Roland TR-]808 sounds on Ambient Works, but that's because the tracks are around four to five years old. And the Polygon Window tracks use updated 808 sounds because the original recording quality is so abysmal."

In an article of Future Music Magazine, written in April 1993, the author claims that Aphex Twin used the Casio FZ10 sampler on 80% of his tracks.

Aphex Twin lists the Cirklon Sequencer amongst the gear used in the recording of his 2014 album Syro.

The packaging for Aphex Twin's latest album "Syro" includes an exhaustive list of the gear he used to make the record.

In this Facebook post from Elektron Music Machines, they write:

"Aphex Twin recently got interviewed by Rolling Stone. 'Q: Do you have instruments with you at the hotel right now? A: Yeah, I've got this brand spanking new Swedish digital-analog hybrid drum machine-sampler-synthesizer. It's fucking good.'"

In the comments, Aphex Twin wrote: "but i used things like the super smooth tc electronic 1210 for processing and akg spring verbs, big mixing desk etc".

In the comments, Aphex Twin wrote: "but i used things like the super smooth tc electronic 1210 for processing and akg spring verbs, big mixing desk etc".

This is one of the tracks where it is confirmed the TX16W was used. The TX16W was also used on a Syro track, "S950tx16wasr10" [the title is made up of equipment used]. Aphex Twin confirmed usage of the TX16W in the description of this SoundCloud track.

In the comments, Aphex Twin wrote about Drukqs: "mostly written in Playerpro for the mac, my fave tracker, wish it would be brought back, had some amazing features and i helped code a bunch of top dsp fx for it"

This is also shown in a Vimeo video, where it is one of the DAWs that plays a beatless version of Vordhosbn from Drukqs: https://vimeo.com/223378825

On the list of equipment used to make Syro.

Appears on the equipment list used to make Syro.

Aphex Twin lists the A Designs Reddi amongst the gear used in the recording of his 2014 album Syro.

Aphex Twin lists the Akai S950HXC amongst the gear used in the recording of his 2014 album Syro.

On this page, it is possible to see some of Richard David James's comments on his own SoundCloud account. On one of them, he says: "listening to this reminds me I should release all the patches I made in Supercollider to make a lot of the sounds in this, It was Supercollider 1 though, old school."

Another item that Richard mentions using on his SoundCloud's comment page is the Midas 160: "forgot to say how the modular bit is working, have 10 outputs from the modular into the Midas 160 and 7 outputs from the midas160 into the modular. Midas is really good for this as, I use the group out sliders and the aux out sliders, which are really nice and fast to set on the fly, can play them as opposed to turning a knob which is a slower to do in live situ. Do a little bit of patching on the go but automate a few different routings with the WMDmatrix, I used to use the Alyseum matrix for that but ran out of room, need a bigger case..as always…still its great trying to work with a limited set of modules, wish there was a eurorack matrix module with built in attenuverters per routing like the totally awesome Buchla 210e."

On his SoundCloud's account comments, another item that Richard David James mentions as gear that he uses is the Eventide DSP4000: "Really inspired me, thanks Tom, he gave me some of his patches, awesome stuff, wouldn’t want to use them of course, they are his. He made some synths on them which was some great lateral thinking at the time. Never rinsed my DSP4000 anywhere near as much as he did but I’ve been recently been giving the 8000 a REALLY hard time with the Cirklon! inspired greatly by Tom."

On his SoundCloud's account comments, another item that Richard David James mentions as gear that he uses is the Eventide H8000FW: "Really inspired me, thanks Tom, he gave me some of his patches, awesome stuff, wouldn’t want to use them of course, they are his. He made some synths on them which was some great lateral thinking at the time. Never rinsed my DSP4000 anywhere near as much as he did but I’ve been recently been giving the 8000 a REALLY hard time with the Cirklon! inspired greatly by Tom."

On Richard David James's SoundCloud account named "user18081971", he mentions the use of MSP on the comments: "also loads of you interested in the setup..running a few progs, Traktor/msp and eurorack modular..dont often use Traktor but its ok but pisses me off it doesn’t do multiple bpms per track, come on NI get with the ‘programme’ will put a modular grid config up to shut you all up :)"

Besides being confirmed on Richard David James's SoundCloud page, it also appears on the Syro gear list. "soz not all the drums, sampled loads of sounds in the fz20m, forgot".

On this link, there are (what's left of) Richard David James's comments/replies to some of his fans. In response to the user @kinbotte, Richard not only confirms that he owns the Elektron Analogue Rytm, but also a bunch of other gear: "ive never found one i really liked. i would love to design my own with someone who could build it for me, I dont really want to spend my time building instruments. Elektron RYTM is prob fave right now, although it doesn't sample which is a shame, dsi tempest, RSF SD140, Pearl fightman[needs mods], Pearl sc40,doepfer a112, Dynacord Add one,loads good plugins these days, sds3, Klone dual perc synth. For synth drum sounds, always best to make your own on a modular+imagination, can make more complex and original sounds than any of the above really, just more of a pain to conjure up."

Richard David James seems to enjoy the usage of this piece of gear, as he mentions the Yamaha RS7000 quite a lot. Notably on his SoundCloud page, with comments like "oh , u gotta check it, the midi feedback, you can do stuff like press one key and get a whole load of cascading notes ascending or descending and u can even have the repeitions increase or decrease, lilke bouncing ball or inverse, sounds a bit like a pitchshifter, top 4 a bloody rs7000" and "yo eod, RS7000 has some cool tricks though, i like the user LFO's and the midi feedback parameters!" (these comments can be found on user18081971's [i.e Richard's SoundCloud page] track called "Love 7"), as well as his own appeal to Yamaha on his now-archived-extremely-lenghty Syro interview: "used fz's on many things ,like the kik & snare drum on isopropophlex! Which got used in some yamaha gear like the rs7000! i was so chuffed when i heard it, i was like yeah yamaha got one of me sounds! they even have a description of it in the manual, rs7000's are dope btw yamaha please release the source code for that ffs you bastards!"

On this link, there are Richard David James's comments/replies to some of his fans (back when the account had a different name: "user487363530"). In response to the user @kinbotte, Richard not only confirms that he owns the Elektron Analogue Rytm, but also a bunch of other gear: "ive never found one i really liked. i would love to design my own with someone who could build it for me, I dont really want to spend my time building instruments. Elektron RYTM is prob fave right now, although it doesn't sample which is a shame, dsi tempest, RSF SD140, Pearl fightman[needs mods], Pearl sc40,doepfer a112, Dynacord Add one,loads good plugins these days, sds3, Klone dual perc synth. For synth drum sounds, always best to make your own on a modular+imagination, can make more complex and original sounds than any of the above really, just more of a pain to conjure up."

On this link, there are Richard David James's comments/replies to some of his fans (back when the account had a different name: "user487363530"). In response to the user @kinbotte, Richard not only confirms that he owns the Elektron Analogue Rytm, but also a bunch of other gear: "ive never found one i really liked. i would love to design my own with someone who could build it for me, I dont really want to spend my time building instruments. Elektron RYTM is prob fave right now, although it doesn't sample which is a shame, dsi tempest, RSF SD140, Pearl fightman[needs mods], Pearl sc40,doepfer a112, Dynacord Add one,loads good plugins these days, sds3, Klone dual perc synth. For synth drum sounds, always best to make your own on a modular+imagination, can make more complex and original sounds than any of the above really, just more of a pain to conjure up."

On this link, there are Richard David James's comments/replies to some of his fans (back when the account had a different name: "user487363530"). In response to the user @kinbotte, Richard not only confirms that he owns the Elektron Analogue Rytm, but also a bunch of other gear: "ive never found one i really liked. i would love to design my own with someone who could build it for me, I dont really want to spend my time building instruments. Elektron RYTM is prob fave right now, although it doesn't sample which is a shame, dsi tempest, RSF SD140, Pearl fightman[needs mods], Pearl sc40,doepfer a112, Dynacord Add one,loads good plugins these days, sds3, Klone dual perc synth. For synth drum sounds, always best to make your own on a modular+imagination, can make more complex and original sounds than any of the above really, just more of a pain to conjure up."