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 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:

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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.

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

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.

New tracks tagged #Roland SC-7