Autechre Rocking MPC1000 Live

Apparently Autechre have ditched their laptops and Max/MSP stuff in favour of this stripped back set up:

MonoMachine, MachineDrum and mpc1000.

http://www.livejournal.com/community/id ... 0#t1506390

You can't see it in these shots, but someone who was there says they woz using one. I heard a clip of it.... sounded pretty freaky/funky.

NICE!

It's so inevitable man. Hardware so ISN'T over. Which is why Jack O'Donnell was no doubt delerious to acquire Akai.

Sometime in the 80s everyone started off-loading all their analogue Roland, Korg, Moog, Oberheim, Sequental Circuits (etc) stuff. Because digital synths like the Yamaha DX7 were "better" and they made sounds that sounded more like "real instruments", and that was "better".

The same thing will happen with hardware. It's a long cycle but eventually everyone will realise computers are tools (and great ones at that) and not musical instruments. And that unlimited power, memory, software, or in other words, "unlimited choices" isn't just implicitly "better" either.

Personally too many choices gives me creative constipation.

Jim

Autechre rock, saw them once years back at Leeds Uni...Good to hear there using a 1k...

jellyjim i agree hugely - up to a certain point.

i believe the idea of music making softwaare will only compliment hardware. it will make hardware better and stronger. hell, the 1k is a fukkin' beast with a laptop. those two together and you have a phenominal setup.

as of now though music making software is in its infancy-or maybe it's a toddler at ths point... there just aren't enough outboard controls yet. i'll never like clicking a mouse to draw in a drum hit. never.

the idea of an mpd though has great potential - using a computer as a sampler and trigger different ish off it--that's a good idea.

personally i'll always like hardware better. i've been producing since i was 12. i'm 19 now. just in december i bought my first mpc - and god, i love it so much. for me, hardware is so much better.

Personally too many choices gives me creative constipation.

^ very true. art itself is creativity under certain rules. rhythm, melody, paint, clay - all rules and mediums. constraints.

I lovew hardware. I started off with a korg es-1, and a boss 532 4 track about 2 1/2 years ago. Then A year ago i bought my first pc, and was on that trip with all the software (reason 2.5, acid 4, and etc.) Bought after a while trying to build drum beats just didn't have any emotion to it I guess. I just purchased the mpc1k about 2months ago, to go along with my laptop, and I luv it, with my pc or with out it. I think its a great machine.

ilove that autechre are using the 1k, but it seems a bit weird to me. the group that sounds the most spacey uses something completely not. i've noticed a multitude of non-hip hop producers using the 1k. pretty interesting. mpcs get tossed into the hip hop category alot, but it's great how prevalent they are. that kylie minogue record a couple of years ago had mpc all over it.

Antonym wrote: ... i believe the idea of music making softwaare will only compliment hardware ... as of now though music making software is in its infancy

For sure.

The other issue is the operating system. The MPC OS is designed for one task. A computer OS isn't. There was an attempt at a computer OS built from scratch and designed exclusively for handling audio and video media. It was called BeOS. It hasn't caught on. It's the idea of a general purpose tool vs. a tool for a specific job. A guitar is made for playing music. Not playing music and opening a bottle of wine for instance. A guitar with a corkscrew on the end. Tough luck for the guitarist half way through a burning solo when somebody grabs the other end to open some vino. And who'd want to open a bottle of wine with something as large as a guitar?! Or in other words, what musician needs an OS that checks for email every 5 minutes whilst trying to send 32 channels of 24 bit 192Khz audio across the PCI bus?!

Antonym wrote:the idea of an mpd though has great potential - using a computer as a sampler and trigger different ish off it--that's a good idea.

Yes. But quickly the boundaries become blurred. How much computer, how much control surface? An MPC is actually a computer with a control surface and a dedicated OS anyway!

Antonym wrote:art itself is creativity under certain rules. rhythm, melody, paint, clay - all rules and mediums. constraints.

The French have a word, "bricolage". It means, "something made or put together using whatever materials happen to be available"

Jim

excellent points. all this is why i think i am going to strip my main pc of all but dedicated sound editing programs and use my laptop for everything else from now on.

thanks man that really put me in a good direction... peace...

i am totally torn between keeping my 1k or not at the moment. I have definitely decided to get a lap top and to use it live because i need to flexibility and functionality that something like Ableton provides, but I think I will be keeping the 1k just cos it is so dedicated to what it does. I think one of the reasons a lot of people who make complex music (autechre, jamie lidell) are using a 1k in their set up is cos it is a very stable sequencer with great midi options - and of course, those pads.

I've been using live with my mpc lately and I think they go really well together. The mpc is great, but there are some things it can't do, same with live. They complement each other very nicely.

i didnt see a 1000 in any of those pics

like i said, you can't see it, but you can't see what the blonde one is doing anyway.

someone who was at the gig said they was using one.