Music producers these days live in a world where they’re absolutely surrounded by equipment choices. There’s truly no end of software, hardware and VSTs to pick from – indeed, the sheer abundance of choice is probably one of the reasons why producers don’t produce as much as they could.
So for anyone creating something for producers to use, there’s always the question of how to make it stand out above the rest. Do you include a special feature not available anywhere else? Do you stick in a bunch of freebies for anyone paying full whack for the goods?
Or do you simply cover your software offering in a questionable font choice? If your name is Richard David James, you basically do the first and the third in good measure. James – known professionally as Aphex Twin – has got together with his engineer pal Dave Griffiths to create Samplebrain. It looks like this…
Opinions are a little divided on this one. On the one hand, the idea of blending samples together like this to create something utterly unrecognisable is an interesting one – Ears To The House firmly believes producers who use samples need to start being creative again with how they do it.
On the other hand, a few people don’t seem to understand the use of the Comic Sans MS typeface. High-minded types are getting very annoyed about its use – and are clearly unaware that Aphex Twin has been trolling people since before trolling became a thing. As far back as 1993, he made ridiculous claims to music journalists that he only made his tracks using synthesisers he had personally created.
No, we can’t help but suspect the choice of font was deliberate. Aside from successfully winding up snobs who don’t like it, the typeface harks back to a time when its use was more commonplace – remember that the idea for this first came around back in 2002. We approve – the music world could do with taking itself a little less seriously sometimes…
