Aphex Twin

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.

Key portions of this interview have been reprinted by MusicRadar here for easier search/reading... enjoy!

The FZ-10 and FZ-20M are also listed in the Syro gear list and Richard is still talking up the Casio FZ line more than a quarter century after his first FZ tracks in this archived 2014 interview.

"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 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.

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.'"

The official and extensive Syro gear list mentions "Roland R8/R8M", which stands for two pieces: The Roland R-8 Human Composer and the Roland R-8M Total Percussion Sound Module, respectively.

The official and extensive Syro gear list mentions "Roland R8/R8M", which stands for two pieces: The Roland R-8 Human Composer and the Roland R-8M Total Percussion Sound Module, respectively.

On this 1993 interview, Aphex reveals: "I used to write my own sequencing programs on the [Sinclair] Spectrum, believe it or not."

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.

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

In the 2014 Syrobonkers part1 interview, Richard D James / Aphex Twin mentions using the RAM Electronics Music Machine again.

I did use a RAM music machine for the spectrum before the FZ which is just totally dope, ive bought a load of them recently and started using them again, love the sound qual its 9khz sampling rate , 8-bit and you could get just over a second in memory, so i used to speed sounds up on tape then sample them into that and slow them down, so even more gritty! heres something i did when i was around 15/16 on on one.

Listed in the Syro "gear list", and used entirely in the japanese bonus track of the album "MARCHROMT30A edit 2b 96 [104.98]"

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 James put a TR-909 through it's paces to open his set at the Manchester Warehouse Project, Sept 09, 2019, as seen in this video of the performance at 4:26. You can clearly see Richard rocking the TR-909 in the upper right camera.

Surely, Richard James has used a TR-909 for many songs, over many eras, but here, finally, we have irrefutable evidence.

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."

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".

To the right of him is clearly an Atari Mega ST 2 or 4 with Atari monitor taken from a performance in Paris circa: 1993. Likely he was sequencing with it, but it's unclear what software he might have used as the monitor is turned off.

Listed on the Syro album packaging as being one of the pieces of gear used sometime during the recording of it. The list is not 100% according to Richard (https://web.archive.org/web/20141103131334/http://noyzelab.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/syrobonkers-part1.html) on the 2014 Syrobonkers interview, and many do not believe what he says during interviews due to his reputation of compulsive liar, which is only one of the mysteries that surround the artist.

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 the official Syro album packaging, there is a gear list which shows WHERE, WHAT gear was used in EACH song. One of the entries reads "Musicaid Claptrap x4", which indicates that Richard owns four instances of the very first Clap Trap. The first one was produced by Musicaid and has distinctive knobs, the second one was produced by Simmons, has three distinctive grey keys and is a follow-up to the original. The third and final one is the Digital Clap Trap.

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.

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."

Listed on the Syro album packaging as being one of the pieces of gear used on the recording of it. It is important to note that the list is not 100% accurate, as it is confirmed by Richard on the 2014 Syrobonkers interview by Dave Noyze. Also, not everyone believes what Richard says on interviews since he has been accused of lying excessively on many of them.

Quoted on the official product page.

"Perc is amazing, beaters are really easy to set up! Had them working in a very short amount of time on various drums. It's really well made, about time someone made something like this!."

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

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."

Listed on the Syro album packaging as being one of the pieces of gear used sometime during the recording of such album is the famous Ensoniq ASR-10.

The Item can be seen 12:08 into this video

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 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."

Despite being noted as "not 100% accurate" by Richard himself (source:https://web.archive.org/web/20141103131334/http://noyzelab.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/syrobonkers-part1.html), the list on the Syro album packaging confirms the usage of the Calrec Mini Mixer on the recording of the Syro album.