It's with the greatest pleasure and appreciation that we welcome @Sean Ae and @Rob Ae to this second round of Ask Autechre Anything! They have made themselves available to answer questions in this thread until April 17, 2025 (wrapping up UK evening time on that date). Please try to ask interesting questions and be respectful of their limited time*. They will choose which questions to answer, and really a massive massive thanks to Sean and Rob for stopping in and supporting the keyosc.

A couple of ground rules to make the thread go a little more smoothly. If you have questions that you want answered specifically by either Rob or Sean, please tag them as such. Otherwise, no tags necessary - we don't them to be completely overwhelmed with notifications!

Please also only ask questions. I know it's hard not to fanboy/fangirl out, but we don't want Rob and Sean to have to dig through pages of praise to answer the questions. To that end - non-question posts will be removed.

Finally, @jasondonervan has already started the spreadsheet for the AAA² so a big thanks to him for getting that ready to archive this special event!

*This means no asking to name your gear!

How often are you meeting up together in person these days for putting your sounds together? Has that routine deviated much in the last few years, and if so, have you seen any specific benefits/negatives from how you operate now compared to 5, 10 years ago?

@Rob Ae , this one's for you. What tape deck did you use to rip for the stuff you made at Daz's studio was it a nakamichi or something?

Edited April 15, 2025Apr 15 by Airfix

How different would things be for ae right now had covid not happened?

You guys tour far and wide, so any plans to play South/South East Asia? Have you guys ever visit this side of the world in your personal lives?

Thanks for doing this.

What are your honest opinions on the recent Manchester show?

The 'technical glitch' did make the crowd get a bit heated, but you blew us all away afterwards.

Thank you.

  On 4/15/2025 at 8:01 PM, jasondonervan said:

How often are you meeting up together in person these days for putting your sounds together? Has that routine deviated much in the last few years, and if so, have you seen any specific benefits/negatives from how you operate now compared to 5, 10 years ago?

not loads, usually when i'm in manchester we kick about for a bit and don't do any tunes. most of it's online now.

You seem to be big fans of golden age NY boom bap, but beside that do you listen to other styles like southern rap or even classic west coast stuff or 2000 coke rap like The Clipse ?

do yall have anymore plans with russell/oscar or diagonal?

Are there any songs you’ve released where you incorporated/re-appropriated unused ideas that you’d held on to or rediscovered long after their inception?

I just did my taxes yesterday and every year when I do I listen to Robert Rich’s “Open Window” because it calms me down. Do you have any albums that you tend to go back to for specific purposes or in specific scenarios?

Drane3 when?

Who wrote VLetrmx? Cheers

Hello Sean and Rob, I am a massive fan of your work. I'm wondering if either of you have heard of the legendary Japanese ambient musician Hiroshi Yoshimura?

Hi Sean and Rob

Are there any plans to release any more Gescom material! There was an Amks broadcast a few years ago by Gescom, and that set was then shared, but is anything else planned?

Do you believe the mapping between dissonance/consonance and emotion is something innate or learned? In your music it feels like you're tapping into something universal, but academia at least doesn't seem to have a good hold on what's going on with this topic.

  On 4/15/2025 at 8:01 PM, ashill said:

How different would things be for ae right now had covid not happened?

idk if it would be mad different but prob somehow different? not thought about it tbh. wasn't really lifechanging for us the way it was for a lot of people

are you guys planning on collaborating with more artists in the future?

Do you guys feel like you have a mostly intuitive understanding of the software/hardware you use? Or are you constantly learning new technical things as you work on new music?

About early era (1994-95) - sorry!

1) Do you recall using both EPS16+ and ASR-10 Ensoniq samplers at the same time or you switched the first to the latter at some point?

2) Do you recall using extensions card on Roland R-8?

Edited April 15, 2025Apr 15 by timewind

  On 4/15/2025 at 8:02 PM, damo said:

You seem to be big fans of golden age NY boom bap, but beside that do you listen to other styles like southern rap or even classic west coast stuff or 2000 coke rap like The Clipse ?

mainly listen to the stuff i grew up with, which is 80s stuff. i sloped off a bit from like 88-93 and then rza showed up and i got back into it.

• Starting with Exai, the artwork for your releases went in a more minimalist direction (squares, circles, overlaid shapes, blurred shapes/gradients) – could you share some of the thoughts/ideas behind this graphical style?

• What’s your strategy for long-term digital data storage?

  On 4/15/2025 at 8:03 PM, Fourier said:

do yall have anymore plans with russell/oscar or diagonal?

doing some gigs with russ later this year, other than that i don't have any plans. we don't plan things much in general though they just sort of happen.

Hello Sean and Rob, welcome and thank you for doing this!

@both: During the livestream release of Sign all those years ago I got the impression that the first couple of minutes of the track were like loads of snippets of sounds from your previous albums all pinging around in a massive space and colliding with one another before coalescing into that lush opening chord. Did you use any samples from older records on that part of M4 Lema (and in your current live sets) or do you think that's just because you have a distinctive sound character (if that makes sense)? (and PS thanks for that livestream, it hit hard during the Plague xx)

@Rob Ae do you use your MPC1000 for jamming out any more conventional (for want of a better word) hip-hop or electro jams using the pads and controlling other synths etc. or do you mainly use it for something else (if at all)?

How do you guys even begin to find motivation to place out the drum pattern individually in FL studio? The randomize button produces garbage… do you take turns or is it just coffee?

  On 4/15/2025 at 8:03 PM, ill avian elk said:

Are there any songs you’ve released where you incorporated/re-appropriated unused ideas that you’d held on to or rediscovered long after their inception?

yeah some, but idk if i think of anything as being unused.

  On 4/15/2025 at 8:04 PM, Causto said:

Who wrote VLetrmx? Cheers

i did that