This is kind of a tricky one as there are a whole load of processes that result in the glitchy sound. I guess what you are effectively asking is 'are glitchy sounds on certain records produced by accident (software fucking up) or design (software designed to make that noise)'.
The original noises themselves on a lot of these records are often the results of various effects plugins pushed beyond their normal parameters, but the way the hits are sequenced into a glitchy pattern is often done using various pieces of software written for just that sort of effect.
You can physically chop up WAVs into very small portions and reorder them yourself to get a glitch effect, but this takes ages and there are a lot of sequencing tools that chop up sound (sometimes to a granular level) and can then re-order them to produce a very clicky/glitchy sound. A lot of these sound-mangling programs seem to be written with the more glitchy sound of later 'IDM' specifically in mind.
Occasionally you hear a track that does seem to be simply a recording of a computer fucking up resequenced slightly, and there's been a few times where I've timed out my computer and the glitchy noise it produces is almost coherent, but unless the tracks are made by a real tech-head who knows the software they're using absolutely inside out, you'll probably find a lot of glitchy stuff is done on software specifically catering for that sort of sound.
Although I don't make much of that sort of stuff myself, and I could be completely wrong on this, it seems to me a lot of the more out-there glitchy records are the result of the producer pushing sounds and sequences through various 'glitch' MAX/MSP/Reaktor etc software programs (or even through more normal programs pushed beyond their limits - whatever they find that produces an interesting noise really), and then editing and re-ordering the results into a more coherent whole through a sequencer. A mixture of accident and design then.
Hope this helps, Dan.
quoted 17 lines Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2003 23:59:47 -0500
>Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2003 23:59:47 -0500
>To: <idm@hyperreal.org>
>From: ":m. zero" <mzero@ecesis.org>
>Subject: spit out bits
>Message-ID: <001201c32f0d$2f04a620$686b5ad8@euclid>
>
>ok, so nobody tells me to take this to the idm-writing list, i'm just
>curious if more of the click and glitch and really
>minimal stuff is done with/by pushing hardware too far or software trying to sound like hardware fucking up? i like the
>idea of it being based on being 'the music of systems failing and spitting out an error signal', but that seems like an
>awfully expensive hobby for people who probably don't have the greatest commercial value in the world.
>
>maybe i've got the whole idea all fucked up. let me know. if i'm
>ignorant of this, i'd rather understand.
>
>:justin
>http://posthoc.org/ | http://ecesis.org/
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