@retropetet
Edirol Hyper Canvas

I wanted to write a piece for the EDIROL PC-80, the clunky MIDI keyboard with speakers that occupied the better part of my childhood.  But it's locked away in storage at my parents' house, or maybe we donated it to charity, and the bundled software doesn't even run on anything newer than Windows XP.  I'm pretty sure that Hyper Canvas uses the same soundset, but if you're able to play back the MIDI file on a PC-80 and pour out a drink at the same time, do that and be sure to let me know about it--it would make my day!

STAFFcirc vol. 9 - MIDI MODULE FANATIX

🎵 whats this 🎵

petet - we were here once before

@jacob-greenmount
Alesis Quadrasynth

I had a great time writing this track as I've never used an Alesis Quadrasynth before. This track was inspired by the countless amazing demo tracks written for arranger workstations and home keyboards.

Jacob Greenmount - Coming Back From There

@pngsequence
Roland XV-5080

This song was written using the faithful XV-5080 cloud virtual instrument, and played back on real hardware for an authentic sound. This module has one of, if not my favorite library of synthesizer patches. Long live the 5080!

pngsequence - Phase Shift Grenade

@blitzlunar + @cryptovolans
Yamaha MU100 + PLG100DX

This song's life began as a solo work, however since I ran out of steam with working on it, Cryptovolans volunteered to pick it up, and had free reign to take it in a different direction and put their own spin on it. Cryptovolans didn't have access to the Yamaha MU100 & PLG100DX I was using, instead using the S-YXG50 soft synthesizer as a close approximation, so I remained involved in the sound production & recording for the song. There was back-and-forth with us bouncing ideas off each other, me making mix/instrument/DSP adjustments on our behalf, recording takes and sending them back, and adding a few extra musical parts of my own.

 -- Dave / Blitz Lunar

Match Grip - Pleochroism

@chimeratio + @janglerr
Yamaha PSR-225

Our track was written for the Yamaha PSR-225, this is one of the first musical instruments I owned as a kid in the 90s. While there was some appeal in pushing something usually seen as more of a cheap beginner's instrument to make strange sounds, it was actually chosen over other Yamaha MU series stuff with the same sounds for a practical reason. While it's incredibly cut down compared to the MU series it's based off of, it actually recognizes things like rapid changes in volume/panning/etc very tightly compared to these alternatives. This allowed for us to make a very textural MIDI doing types of sound design we wouldn't have been able to approach on something more "advanced" as cleanly.

It was made using jangler's wonderful tracker-style MIDI sequencer called "Faunatone", which is designed around accommodating microtonality in this format. There were actually a number of idiosyncrasies that popped up relating to both the PSR itself, and chaoticness of the stuff we wrote, which required jangler to update it with new features even! Quite a bit of time was spent troubleshooting until it played exactly how we had intended. I'd be a fool to not mention what a profound contribution they did by making the entire piece of software we used to write this in the first place---even updating it just for this track. Thank you jangler!!!!

While this track isn't actually dominantly microtonal, the fact that Faunatone is built around making that easy certainly made it natural for us to use odd tuning in many parts. The non-12edo stuff is mostly either 48edo or just arbitrary detuning.

 -- Chimeratio

Chimeratio & jangler - tunnel7_r35b

https://magicalmop.wixsite.com/kenichi-koyano
Roland SC-88 Pro

曲はDTMマガジン時代に制作した「Cascade」の大幅改編版。Roland SC-88Pro１台で製作し、実機ステレオアウトからの信号をマスタリングしています。今回のリメイクにあたり、全てのトラックに修正を加えています。リズムとベース・トラックはすべて刷新。キーもCからDへと上げています。

The song is "Cascade", which was composed during my "DTM Magazine" era. It was made with one Roland SC-88Pro, and the signal was mastered from the stereo output of the actual machine. For this remake, I made modifications to all the tracks. The rhythm and bass tracks have all been reworked. The keys have also been raised from C to D.

Kenichi Koyano - Cascade rev.2023

@cryptovolans
Roland SC-88 Pro

Written at the end of 2022. It was born from the desire to use an “in your face” Insertion Effect (EFX) that drastically changes the timbre instead of the more subtle EFX I usually go with. I went with a lo-fi insertion effect, and the song evolved as I randomly shopped for new patches underneath the effect. I stumbled into an inspirational timbral space previously explored by Yasuyuki Suzuki.

Cryptovolans - DATA - DREAM - DESIRE

@doctorn0gloff
Roland SC-8850

Inspired by the fusion style of Takayuki Negishi, as heard in Cardcaptor Sakura and Tokyo Mew Mew! A throwback for me in more ways than one, as this piece began taking shape way back in 2021.

doctorn0gloff - Sponsored Sauces for a Daring Future

@robynmod
Yamaha DOM-30

30 Domcaster St was composed with an obscure midi module from around 89-90 called the Yamaha DOM-30, which was kindly gifted to myself by dusthillresident. I wanted to compose something atmospheric and summery, it was lots of fun!

Robyn A1200 - 30 Domcaster St

@thingojira
Roland SC-88

writing this song was really hard in Ableton because sforzando kept glitching, but Viravax was super nice and made it possible. pretty much just a run of the mill uplifting speedy-pop thing I usually do, with all the Roland rompler patches instead of what I normally do. the eponymous shinji is a reference to shinji hosoe because I like him and his megaman and street fighter tracks had a big influence on me.

crazygoji - shinji on the bells

@tancla
Yamaha PSR-E303

at the time of writing Ruins of the Forest Temple i was obsessed with Cryptovolans' album Passenger and the Panzer Dragoon soundtracks, i think you can really hear the influence hehe. it also was my first time doing a track with a physical module, and despite having a big pool to choose from (kind staffcirc colleagues let us render our tracks in their modules) i still wanted to go with my old Yamaha. it's the keyboard i grew up with and the one i learnt music with as a kid, so i feel this was the least i could do to repay my debt :')

Tancla - Ruins of the Forest Temple

send demos and mail to sexytoadsandfrogsfriendcircle@gmail.com

Jacob Greenmount - Coming Back From There

STAFFcirc

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