Spoilers: his son is steinvord
I teach children computer stuff (any kind of creative tinkering on a computer that I can help them out with). Currently we’re using Renoise (among other things) if they want to start producing music, because it’s (1) the only decent music producing software out there which is at least somewhat functional in the free demo version (it’s volunteer work, we don’t have much budget) and (2) by now I know how to use it pretty well (though 1 was the reason I started learning Renoise in the first place, great decision in hindsight, with my demoscene background and love for low-level DSP tinkering, I might not even be making music today).
Anyway, if you don’t work with children (or have children yourself) it might be hard to estimate what kids of a certain age can and can’t do.
Let me say this, there’s no way a five year old kid can use Renoise on their own without supervision and constant (yes, constant) help. Not saying this story is entirely untrue (although AFX is well-known for making up ridiculous shit during interviews), but if it is, he’s had to have sat with his son during production 100% of the time. If it’s a 9-year old (mayyybe 7-8 if they’re super clever prodigies, I’ve seen them), you could cut that down to 75%. When they get older (again, depending on abilities and talent, but in general from 11-12 onwards, assuming they’re motivated) you can leave them alone most of the time, only prompted when they need something new, have a specific question (or I just feel they need a slight nudge in the right direction) (great exercise in practising restraint, for myself :P).
Renoise, in all its awesomeness, is really quite a pretty hard piece of software to learn for children. Now my kids have a slight disadvantage, being Dutch, and at that age they can hardly read English, but on the other hand, Renoise doesn’t have that much words in its interface, and the parts that are, are probably quite technical for native English kids as well. It’s just a very dense interface (which for me, also makes it so awesome).
But even if the kid is a genius child-prodigy who happens to have RDJ as a teacher.
Fact of the matter is, language or intelligence aside, 5-year old kids don’t even yet possess the motor-skills to use a mouse properly (at least in my experience: 6 or 7, and they need a lot of practice–then, half a year later they’re suddenly masters at it. But not a 5-year old, no way). Let alone a typing keyboard. This is one of the reasons why tablets are so brilliant. Even 3-year olds grok them immediately (I’ve heard a charming story about a 3-year old that loved playing with her parents’ tablet, at some point being given a glossy magazine, she tried to swipe it, got angry because this thing was obviously defective, hahaha! welcome to THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY).
Now this makes me wonder though, if the story is at least partially true, it means RDJ has had to sit with his son producing music in Renoise all the way, explaining it to him and most importantly simply taking care of all the tiny details (simply navigating a filesystem to find instruments or samples is quite a challenge for most kids–especially if they’re used to tablets or other devices that tend to hide this nowadays). And that means our beloved AFX must be quite skilled in Renoise himself? Otherwise why would he recommend it to his son? IMO there’s music software out there that’s way more intuitive for young children than the hexadecimal Renoise, even Fruityloops. and unlike me, Aphex can afford, too–so it’s a weird choice even if AFX is an avid Renoise user himself. Kinda makes me doubt the whole story. If I had a 5yo kid, and money, I wanted to teach music, sorry but that’s just not what Renoise is good at. It’s best at geeking around over little details, which is what I love about it, a joy of which is something children don’t quite discover until they’re 12 or 13 (pay attention to the difference of stuff they build in Minecraft, for instance). After that though, some of them turn into true Hackers. Beautiful.
My son could use a mouse pefectly when he was 4 so , absolutely don’t agree.
My little brother makes avant garde glitch pop in a Max 7 beta 
no, seriously, he uses his ipad, but i doubt he can teach renoise himself, and is a smart boy-
I believe richard isnt a father, he is making fun, but he knows renoise or sure!!!
But, nice to know that a five year old can pick up Renoise, even if it means having RDJ at his side.
My eldest son (now 8) started using Renoise when he was about 6 years old. I taught him the very basics and then he advanced. I’ve never seen someone use as many LFOs as he does 
He’s published some of them on SoundCloud as well: https://soundcloud.com/axelholtenas (experimental noise?)
Today’s kids have a great advantage compared to what we had when we we’re in the same age.
He’s using Google Translate to translate web pages in english to swedish so that he’ll understand them. Amazing really.
One would have to look up every single word in a hardcopy dictionary back in the 20th century.
This cracks me up. 
part 1 and 2, a lot of unrealased tacks, and lotssss of gear porn, crazy
My son could use a mouse pefectly when he was 4 so , absolutely don’t agree.
I’m not going to argue or disagree with you, but I will say that is impressive. Many kids I work with have a lot of trouble with doubleclicking in particular, because you have to keep the mouse still between clicks (which is extra hard if the mouse is larger than your hand).
But it can very well be that I am underestimating the power of many hours of practice. For a lot of them, they don’t get much time to play with a PC at home. Also if there’s nobody to guide them (not all parents know computers that well), it may not be a lot of fun and it’s easier to grab a tablet or play a video/game.
My eldest son (now 8) started using Renoise when he was about 6 years old. I taught him the very basics and then he advanced. I’ve never seen someone use as many LFOs as he does
He’s published some of them on SoundCloud as well: https://soundcloud.com/axelholtenas (experimental noise?)
Today’s kids have a great advantage compared to what we had when we we’re in the same age.
He’s using Google Translate to translate web pages in english to swedish so that he’ll understand them. Amazing really.
One would have to look up every single word in a hardcopy dictionary back in the 20th century.
I just clicked through a few of those tracks, those are pretty amazing! It took some blinking until I figured that part of that stream are reposts from others, and which are his own work (I couldn’t believe the acid bassline in Fotosyntes). But the ones that are his, original and interesting! Tell him this random Internet stranger says to keep it up 
I also like how most of them are tagged “Dubstep” even when they clearly are not
Can you maybe share some about ways how you taught him? What did you start out with, what did you explain, etc? Any particular easy-to-use VSTs you found are useful for children, effect chains, presets, templates, such things? Does he use a regular PC keyboard, or also a MIDI controller? (And what’s the easiest way to share to soundcloud? Does he just upload the raw rendered .wav?)
To both of you: Your kids are lucky to have cool fathers like that! As well as living in an age where computers can do this, and have the world’s knowledge at their fingertips via the Internet.
More today on FACT Magazine
http://www.factmag.com/2014/11/03/aphex-twin-syro-son-stream/
In a new interview between Aphex Twin and blogger Dave Noyze, we get to – allegedly – hear the tracks that Aphex Twin’s six-year old son has been making.
As ever with Aphex, you never know how much is true and how much is myth-making, but he claims here (as he has in past interviews) that his son has “already made an album on Renoise and published it on Bandcamp.” “He was five when he did most of it and all”, Aphex claims, “and I never showed him a thing, he worked it all out himself, mind boggling.”
Fortunatly, I had the time to read the article last week, and also to put a hand on some of the soundcloud stuff linked in the page… It seemed to be removed now (both article (Dave Noyze ) and soundcloud’s stuff). (https://soundcloud.com/richarddjames)
Thanks you for sharing it at the right time geoffroy.
lol …are you serious .
How can you hear with what sequencer an album is made ?
Yes there are a few tracks on the album that have some pitch slide effects …in fact …it’s exactly the same melody ( one of the circklon tracks and syro track ) exactly the same pitch slide …on one track just an octave higher , that could be a tracker but not perse
Sequentixcircklon is used heavily on a lot of tracks …just read the above interviews
you`ll see it in the ads.
lol …are you serious .
How can you hear with what sequencer an album is made ?
Yes there are a few tracks on the album that have some pitch slide effects …in fact …it’s exactly the same melody ( one of the circklon tracks and syro track ) exactly the same pitch slide …on one track just an octave higher , that could be a tracker but not perse
Sequentixcircklon is used heavily on a lot of tracks …just read the above interviews
Particularly true for how much hardware he uses, I do know of someone that can do weird things like recognize music made in modplug by the sound of it’s resampling algorithm, but most DAWs don’t really have a sound if you avoid native plugins a little
My eldest son (now 8) started using Renoise when he was about 6 years old. I taught him the very basics and then he advanced. I’ve never seen someone use as many LFOs as he does
He’s published some of them on SoundCloud as well: https://soundcloud.com/axelholtenas (experimental noise?)
[Offtopic] BTW your kid commented “grym” on one of my tracks on Soundcloud 
(probably clicked cause I liked one of his). I had to look up the Swedish word We have the similar term in Dutch “wreed” (assuming it’s used similarly to “cool”), though I do really like the Swedish spelling too
If anyone didn’t know it yet: there is a handfull of releases ( 228 tracks by now ) on his unofficial soundcloud.
Full of 90’ stuff and more recent work also.:
http://soundcloud.com/user18081971
Have fun.
In the topic of young kids being or not being able to use Renoise, I once came to a friend’s house and saw his 6-year old daughter standing in front of computer (didn’t need to sit as she was so small) with headphones covering most of her head. I came closer and noticed that she is playing a real time strategy game! When I came even closer, I saw quite a clickfest - a depressing morale of that visit was that a 6-year old could absolutely smash me in an RTS game! So yeah, they’re definitely capable
argh all these damn links are broken.
And I’m sure dick uses renoise sometimes since you guys added OSC and scripting, he’s very awesome guy.
and since they dont
just want to weigh in here guys and let you know, while I doubt Syro made much if any use of trackers, RDJ is no stranger to trackers. Drukqs was made mostly w/ a tracker. (the fast tracks).
Yeah, according to Richard’s comments on soundcloud he used Playerpro on drukQs
"most of computerised tracks, yeah, laptop and headphones.
mostly written in Playerpro for the mac, my fave tracker, wish it would be brought back, had some amazing features and i helped code a bunch of top dsp fx for it"
Cool! IMO Drukqs is his best work.