How did Aphex Twin get this sound?

Ever wondered how to get those distinctive frequency-bending effects used by artists such as Aphex Twin? In this deep dive into Infiltrator's FFT modules, Rob Jones shows you how.

Download the spectral effects preset for Infiltrator used in the clip:

[FeedmeUk]

This jogged my memory as I spent probably years as a teen looking for a specific effect (it's at 2:21 in Windowlicker) where the vocal turns into what sounds like a high-band bright vocoded smudge. Also in general this sort of filtering reminds me of one of my other favourite pieced of electronic music ever made; 'Do You Know Squarepusher'. Nice VST you got here.

[TheRealAndyR]

As mentioned in the reddit screencap, the Aphex Twin's Windowlicker and it's B-side were made with U&I software's MetaSynth, which has been doing amazing things with FFT since it launched 25 years ago. Infiltrator is a great way to get some of the same sounds though, and it has the benefit of being 1/4 the price, not Mac only, and way easier to understand!

[deepsynth]

Hey bro you still alive. Used to watch your maschine tutorials back in the day

[andrwwaugh]

Ahhh I remember this presenter from Novation videos 15 years ago!

With automap and soft label controllers!

[ozzyml]

Nice vid. I first heard this sound as an artifact of really low bitrate mp3 encoding. Like you said, a weird bitcrusher. Maybe that’s what afx used

[chocomalk]

Infiltrator needs a limiter that can be set and locked for the volume changes between presets.

[Slope]

I used to get that effect miss-using a noise removal software around that time. I think it was in “sound forge”

[markomen]

Cool stuff going on here, but I don't think this is how that texture was achieved in Windowlicker. Try running some audio through Waves X-Noise (or probably any other digital noise reducer) with all the perameters set to extreme and this will get you the EXACT texture you're looking for :)

[mattiasboden]

Sounds like he might be using Digitalis by Aberrant DSP.. Great explanation :) always wondered about the fft effects.

[telkmx]

Idk if you ever thought about it but you could release the FFT modules as a standalone plugin and maybeeee sell hot cakes of it it's amazing and there aren't many.
haha idk i guess but i love the module and always reach for it but would love a standalone version !
Anyway if you never do it its still amazing stuff!!

[dalek]

Sounds like noise reduction, the kind you'd get on Cool Edit back in the day.

[ynfafeusd]

I have no idea what a furia transform is, could this be the transform you’re looking for?