original composition. programmed by myself on 2023-09-05 in Sekaiju for Roland SC-7

do-do-doot-doot-da-doot-doot

original composition. programmed by myself on 2023-09-22 and 2023-09-23 in Sekaiju for Roland SC-7. photo is also mine, taken on a rainy day the previous month.

the rain

This was my contribution to “POWER! GS”, which I composed on 2024-02-14. Please check out the rest of the album at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO3KEwceJTs, there's some amazing stuff in it! There's also a full download there, including the MIDI files.

This is the version from the album, recorded and mastered by @MelonadeM. My cover art here is based on the album cover art, which is also by MelonadeM! This recording is from a Roland SC-55mkII, but I've also uploaded the version I recorded from my Roland SC-7 at https://soundcloud.com/hikari_no_yume/beyond-the-stars-sc-7-version! My comments from the liner notes:

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The recording in this album is from a Roland SC-55mkII, but I actually wrote this song for my Roland SC-7. The SC-7 is the SC-55's obscure General MIDI-only little sibling: smaller and less featureful, but generally sounding very, very similar.

Actually, it has some GS-ish features; this song uses the reverb, chorus, TR-808 drums, and adjustable low-pass filter. I couldn't test on an SC-55 myself, but I hoped whatever I wrote for the SC-7 would transfer well, and thankfully it did! Interestingly, the piano tone is a bit different, but the rest seems to be identical.

If I'm somehow not the only one out there who still cares about this tiny beige box, you're in luck: I included SC-7 SysExes alongside the GS ones in the final MIDI file, just for you. <3

I wrote three different songs for this collab, but somehow it was only this one, written in a few hours on the day of the deadline, that I was happy enough with to submit.

The seed of this song was just me playing around with ninth chords. I love that wide and ambiguous sound! I didn't have a clear mood in mind while writing it, but the sparkly high-pitched arpeggio reminded me of Space Cadet 3D Pinball, and slow melancholy flute parts always make me think of JRPGs and the feeling of adventure, so I tried to come up with a title evoking those themes.

Programmed with Sekaiju. SysEx generated with SoundPalette.

POWER! GS

beyond the stars (POWER! GS)

This was my contribution to “POWER! GS”, which I composed on 2024-02-14. Please check out the rest of the album at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO3KEwceJTs, there's some amazing stuff in it! There's also a full download there, including the MIDI files.

This is a recording from my Roland SC-7 and represents what I heard while composing this. The version on the album is a bit different, because it was recorded on a Roland SC-55mkII and was mastered. I've uploaded that too at https://soundcloud.com/hikari_no_yume/beyond-the-stars! My comments from the liner notes:

----

The recording in this album is from a Roland SC-55mkII, but I actually wrote this song for my Roland SC-7. The SC-7 is the SC-55's obscure General MIDI-only little sibling: smaller and less featureful, but generally sounding very, very similar.

Actually, it has some GS-ish features; this song uses the reverb, chorus, TR-808 drums, and adjustable low-pass filter. I couldn't test on an SC-55 myself, but I hoped whatever I wrote for the SC-7 would transfer well, and thankfully it did! Interestingly, the piano tone is a bit different, but the rest seems to be identical.

If I'm somehow not the only one out there who still cares about this tiny beige box, you're in luck: I included SC-7 SysExes alongside the GS ones in the final MIDI file, just for you. <3

I wrote three different songs for this collab, but somehow it was only this one, written in a few hours on the day of the deadline, that I was happy enough with to submit.

The seed of this song was just me playing around with ninth chords. I love that wide and ambiguous sound! I didn't have a clear mood in mind while writing it, but the sparkly high-pitched arpeggio reminded me of Space Cadet 3D Pinball, and slow melancholy flute parts always make me think of JRPGs and the feeling of adventure, so I tried to come up with a title evoking those themes.

Programmed with Sekaiju. SysEx generated with SoundPalette.

beyond the stars (POWER! GS) (SC-7 version)

This was a song I wrote in November and December 2023 for my Roland SC-7. From the beginning I was hoping to submit it to POWER! GS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO3KEwceJTs), but I was never quite happy with it, so I never did. At the same time, it's more or less a complete track, so it'd be a shame to let it sit on my drive forever. So, here you go: my attempt at writing trance! At least for the first part; I'm not sure what the second part is trying to be, it was just something that came to me.

Unlike my other works so far, this wasn't sequenced with Sekaiju! Instead I used my Yamaha QY70 as a sequencer. (The QY70 has an excellent built-in XG synth, but I didn't use it here.) I decided to write the entire song using the pattern/styles system, which was interesting. It's convenient how I can just input a series of chords and it'll reharmonise my patterns for me, among other advantages. I think it was fun! But I do think choosing to write the *entire* song this way is not something I'd do again. It's pretty ergonomic for a small device — I think I'd rather write a song on this, with its thoughtfully placed physical buttons and carefully designed UI, than on a phone — but I can't deny the advantages of having a big monitor displaying a piano roll for several bars of the song, which I can manipulate with a mouse. :)

tranSCend

Today's little attempt at something jazzy. "Oops! All minor seventh chords." I wrote this in Sekaiju and recorded from my Yamaha PSR-350, because this song deserved the PSR-350's high-quality "Stereo Sampled Piano" voice.

min7imal jazz

Another thing written for my Roland SC-7. I made the first versions of this back in January, intending to submit it to POWER! GS (www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO3KEwceJTs), but I was never happy enough with the ending. This month I finally came up with something that feels okay. At this point I'm just happy to be able to release it.

Programmed in Sekaiju. The filter sweep stuff relies on SysEx which are generated with a tool I made called SoundPalette.

The cover art is a cropped, blurred screenshot from the first episode of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. I don't know if the title fits, it's just… a feeling.

listless daydream

My entry from the collab album ”POWER! SampleMancers”. Participants could make and submit their own samples, and then they could compose songs using any tools of their choice, but only using samples that had been made for the album. Please check out the full album! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzDUVdToq4s
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I made this with an old, pre-Tantacrul version of Audacity over the course of a few hours.

It is a *TERRIBLE* tool for making sample loop-based music. It forces you to give up on your perfectionism, because in this environment, to move forward requires making mistakes and introducing flaws that you can never completely fix. You have no choice but to accept the flaws as a part of the work itself, as a part of the art.

I really hate it at some level, but I also feel a great sense of empathy now with all those kids in their basements who somehow created bangers with just tape recorders and primitive samplers. I hope this will be somehow enjoyable.

POWER! SampleMancers

I HAVE NO DAW AND I MUST DREAM (from POWER! SampleMancers)

...of which I had only a fleeting glimpse.
I have tried to speculate where this might have landed, I must admit however such conjecture is futile.
Still, questions about whose module might one day play my MIDI file are unsettling to me. I know my apprehensions might never be allayed, and so I hit the submit button, realising that perhaps the perfect ending has not yet been written.

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This was my contribution to “POWER! GM Roulette-8”, a collab album project where a set of 8 General MIDI instruments were picked at random, and then the participants could write songs using only those instruments, and with no non-GM features permitted (not even reverb and chorus level adjustment…). It was a truly punishing set of constraints! I wrote this song for the GM mode on my Roland JV-1010. The version of the song I've uploaded here was mastered by HaruMKT. Please check out the full album! It can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_RtmlQHNK8

hikari_no_yume

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