Amiga 4-channel Protracker MOD, composed in 2009 for Up Rough's Megamix #1 (loads of mods mixed straight through in realtime thanks to Yonx's clever memory-juggling). Each musician in the mix took the previous musician's samples so we could sync tempos and do smooth mixes at the start/end of each track - module size limit was 880kb (natch) and mine is 789kb.

Oh yeah - samples Don Henley and Rebel MC. But you knew that. 

Big love to the UP! kids - hopefully the Megamix exe will get fixed and released some day!

Syphus-UpRough_Megamix.mod

A chip cover of Althea & Donna's 1978 #1 UK hit 'Uptown Top Ranking', done a few years ago in AHX Tracker on the Commodore Amiga. AHX has a maximum of 4 voices polyphony, the original module filesize for the tune is just under 4kb and there's been no post-processing/effects/mastering done after rendering it to wav. AHX appeared in the mid '90s as a chipsynth intended to emulate the C64's SID - it does a fair job, but has a character of its own and is great fun to work in.

I made this back in maybe '08 and performed it at a lot of my live Syphus gigs, muting the lead channel and playing the melody on my SH-101 keytar. Vocals were provided on one memorable occasion by the wonderful ne7^Triad (Andrew Lemon)- big up yourself, Andy!

Find more Syphus tunes (mostly originals, some covers) and my last Syphus album at: http://syphus.net

Althea & Donna - Uptown Top Ranking (8bit cover by Syphus)

Free download for Geekosystem readers! Full 3 track mini-album available at http://syphus.bandcamp.com/album/gun-runner-soundtrack and the Gun Runner game for iOS is available for free at https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/gun-runner/id503057619?mt=8

Gun Runner artwork copyright Bruce Morrison (Man Up Time Studios) 2012.

Sanguinary Headband Overture (Main Theme)

First bash at testing all the features of the Teenage Engineering OP-1! I think I used all of the sequencers in this, except perhaps Tombola, most of the synth engines, some FM radio->sampler stuff, various effects, gyroscope modulation and some on-the-fly LFO fun for those awful dubstep wubs :/ There's no record quantisation (which actually makes things sort of fun), so any melodies that it's not possible to sequence have to be played in live, hence the wonky timing in places. But you can go a long way with the sequencers, and the workflow for doing many takes of a live recording is very smooth. I love this thing! Aight, this tune's a bit banal, but seeing as it's only taken me a couple of hours to get 90% of the workflow figured out, expect some better stuff soon :D

OP-1 Trial Run (demo)

A preview mix of the new Syphus album - Selected Covers 2000-2014 - which features 8bit/chip/whatever interpretations of some classic (and fairly diverse) hits. The album is FREE and is available from CalmDownKidder Records right now!

http://calmdownkidder.com/records/releases/cdk062

This is a collection of cover versions made over the last few years for various purposes, but all with affectionate homage in mind. Most tracks can be found in dark corners of the Internet in their original binary module formats, but this free release is intended to provide a convenient format for modern listening, with only light post-production and mastering applied to direct recordings from Commodore Amiga (Protracker, AHX Tracker and HivelyTracker) and PC (MilkyTracker). 

The total filesize of this entire album is 398 kilobytes and most tracks use between 4 and 8 channels of polyphony. 

Shouts to sceners who requested or suggested some of these covers - Spot^Up Rough, Xeron, Evilpaul^AteBit, Glomag - and to James at CalmDownKidder Records for hosting this free download. 

[All rights to the songs reinterpreted herein belong to their original composers/performers/publishers, and while this is a free-of-charge work of affectionate tribute (and occasional parody), I'll happily remove any track(s) upon the request of a rights holder.]

Syphus - Selected Covers 2000-2014 [preview mixtape]

Last month, I was telling my dad that I couldn't find an ancient lyre/harp sample library that I liked and that it would be cool to have a real instrument for recording that wasn't cheap eBay rubbish *or* wildly expensive historical reenactment stuff. So he made me one! We researched some designs - mostly the 6th Century Germanic lyre found at Trossingen and the 6th/7th Century Anglo Saxon lyre found at Sutton Hoo (similar designs which presumably characterise the state of the art at the time) - and, adding some of our own tweaks and experiments, merged a bunch of ideas. My dad did all of the beautiful woodwork and I figured out stuff like bridge position, string type and tension, and tunings.

The tuning hasn't quite settled yet: it's dropped from the F major diatonic I tuned it to last night to Eb major. So six notes on a major diatonic scale gives me an Eb major-ish scale and an F minor-ish scale, though other modes can be implied by accessing the perfect-fifth harmonics. Using the octave and the perfect-fifth harmonics your playing necessarily slows a bit (until you learn to find the harmonics instinctively!) but you have 10 notes on your major diatonic scale to play with - and octave plus two full tones! And the harmonics sound lovely (when I get them right).

Currently just using cheap D'Addario nylon strings, but I'll start experimenting with nyl-gut soon.

When I get time, I'll try to make a usable and interesting sample library from this...although it's so much fun to play, I'll probably end up recording it whenever I need these sounds in a production.

6th Century Anglo Saxon/Germanic Lyre - first test recording

Continuing my tradition of uploading messy single-take tests of new instruments or techniques, here's a wee jam on the Vänkärin (or Shotgun) Polska, written by my good friend and stupendous Northumbrian pipes virtuoso Andy May. My new Fender Mando-Strat, a solid-body electric mandolin, turned up today and I don't care what the haters say: it's tremendous fun.

This is two layers, one take each, panned a bit to the sides, and the mando was going through a Zoom Multistomp with a compressor and some EQ on it. No mixing or mastering has been done, and I know the parts phase towards the end. I'll not fix the bits I fluffed, as I can't be arsed, but I reckon once this has a new bridge on it (so I can do intonation per-string rather than 2 at a time) it'll be lovely to add to guitars or the lyre in recording soundtracks and soundscapes.

Electric mandolin rough test (Vänkärin/Shotgun Polska)

An Amiga drum and bass banger for Sunday afternoon! 628kb Protracker mod, 4 channels, 8bit etc. - no DSP effects, no post-production or mastering.

Turns out Renoise's sample format adjuster is great for bashing down samples to 11025hz/8bit/mono without losing too much punch (Protracker's 'boost' does the rest). 

Syphus - Good Luck

A quick and dirty UKG tune done as a remote entry in the Tracked Music competition at Sundown 2015 (which I sadly couldn't get to this year, again). It's a 438kb 4-channel ProTracker mod, 8-bit samples at 11025hz/22050hz, no post-production or mastering. 

You can get the original MOD file here - best replayed in Protracker on an Amiga, Milkytracker on modern platforms, or 8bitbubsy's Protracker 2.3d clone for Windows/Mac/Linux. Oh, and it's best replayed in MONO - for all the Amiga's divine charms, 100% hard-panning is a crime against humanity.

http://echolevel.co.uk/mods/syphus-too_fool.mod



Syphus - Too Fool (4-channel Amiga MOD)

Live techno/dub/noise jam on PO-12 Rhythm, PO-14 Sub and customised Korg Monotron Delay.

Single take, recorded direct to a Zoom H2; no editing or post-production.



[skyline_adjust]_STE_-_012.wav

4-channel AHX tracker remix of Twin Beam's Jetski (original here: https://soundcloud.com/twin-beam/02-jetski?in=twin-beam/sets/we-can-win-ep). Made in AHX on Commodore Amiga 1200, module filesize 8.5kb. Original song by Oscar and Athol Cassidy, original cover art by Georgia Claire.

Twin Beam - Jetski [Syphus' Amiga remix]

Rainy day Amiga jungle. 4 channels, 8 bits, 574kb filesize (MOD download link below). Some beautiful words from Maya Angelou's poem 'Still I Rise'.

Protracker .MOD file: https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/echolevel-b069e.appspot.com/o/files%2Fsyphus-still_tides.mod?alt=media&token=0bde62de-04a4-4703-b63a-97fb3d8991f5

Syphus - Still Tides

mod.jazzsniffer - 4channel Amiga Protracker module, 8bit/11025hz, filesize - 279kb
Download the mod here: http://www.scene.org/file.php?file=%2Fparties%2F2010%2Foutline10%2Fmusic_oldschool%2Fsyphus-jazzsniffer.zip&fileinfo
Written in 2010.

Syphus - Jazzsniffer

An arrangement of extracts from the soundtracks to two Radio 4 Classic Serial dramatisations broadcast in December 2012. Bodhrán by Louis Bingham; clog dancing by Amy Thatcher; violin, synths, composition and production by me. Fiddle and bodhrán recorded by Oliver Davey at Sinfonik Audio in Newcastle. The first part was used as main theme/credits music, the second to represent the Soldier character in Red Shoes, the third as a mournful motif used throughout and the last as a waltz - starting off sort of respectably and then working up to a messy climax as the protagonist finds herself under the spell of her sinful red shoes :) The composition was commissioned mainly for Red Shoes (a retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's classic), although various extracts were used as incidental music in White Snow (a retelling, obviously, of Snow White!).

The plays are off-air but might be repeated in the future... I believe it's alright for me to post the music here for listening (but not downloading), but if the BBC require me to take it down, I'll do so. Red Shoes - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pgnbt, White Snow - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pnfjp

Red Shoes / White Snow (BBC Radio 4 drama) soundtrack

My cover of The KLF's 3 a.m. Eternal. Made on an Amiga 1200 using AHX Tracker - only 4 voices of polyphony, no samples and about 9kb filesize. It was entered at Sunrise demoparty last year and was going to (might still) be released along with some other KLF covers by other chipmusic superstars, but things have gone a bit quiet on that... We'll see! Anyway, this was terrific fun to make; I used this 1991 (I think?) European release as a guide and stuck to the structure pretty rigidly - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXEOESuiYcA

Syphus - 3am Eternal (AHX cover)

This is my Commodore 64, whose lovely analogue SID chip is being controlled by MIDI via the MSSIAH cartridge. In monosynth mode, it uses two voices as oscillators and the third voice as an LFO. No processing or effects have been used - this is just the straight output from my unmodified C64C with its volume boosted a little. This is much more fun than the Elektron Sid Station (which I owned, many years ago), quite a bit more flexible, and comes in at about 1/8th of the price. Sorry for the highly unmusical live keyboard bashing - I was concentrating more on the controller knobs to see what I could make the SID do. 

C64 MSSIAH/SID Test

Sadhbh

Echolevel is Brendan Ratliff – freelance composer, multi-instrumentalist, software coder, hardware hacker and teacher. By night, with a swoosh of his cape, he is chiptune superhero Syphus. Look out!

Echolevel

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