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By the Numbers

My entry for the August 2021 Image-Line forum music competition.

Rules:
Only two samples allowed -- kick and snare. No volume variations.
All other sounds must be made with the Fruity DX10, a 3-op FM synth. No plugins allowed, and no filters.

As a personal rule, I decided to not use any of the DX10 presets, as I figured I'd take the opportunity to learn some FM synthesis. It really is a weird and not-at-all-intuitive process, more akin to riding a dragon than the brainy work involved in something like Harmor. Had a blast, though!

Jacky Jazzbunny

Original: "A trip through the Grand Canyon" by George Stone

If you don't have a clue what this song is, don't worry. I'm just nerding out =)

This song shipped with Windows 3.0 as a flex to showcase its "multimedia" capabilities. For many a poor soul, before the interwebs and mp3:s, it was the only piece of music your Windows PC could reproduce.

As bit of a challenge I decided to reproduce it by ear, using a couple YouTube videos as reference, rather than just dropping the MIDI file into FL Studio. Some liberties were taken with the arrangement, since I really wanted to lean on the guitars more than the tinny FM sounds of the original. I think it worked out well.

CANYON.MID

This is one from the vaults. About 15 years ago, I made the soundtrack for Ragu, an entry to a game competition called Dream Build Play. As is common with hobby projects, I had a lot of creative wiggle room, so I obviously went with the most predictably happy-go-lucky funk soundtrack I could possibly conjure. I regret nothing!

The original was only about two minutes long, so it has been "de-looped" and given a fresh coat of paint. Happy buzzing!

Srekel, the developer of Ragu: https://twitter.com/Srekel

Ragu Soundtrack

Just like with demo music, I'm really drawn to projects where you have to show your intent clearly, and usually without all the presumptious preamble. I also took it as an excuse to dig into my Castlevania fanboy bag of tricks.

This is the soundtrack for the mini-game Brocken, developed by Anders Ekermo for the game jam The Room. Participants would design a single-screen game, with predetermined controls and entrances / exits, and their contributions would be combined into one big Flash game called SoManyRooms. Neat idea.

Oh, and the original was just over 2 minutes long, so it's been "de-looped" with some new stuff.

Anders Ekermo: https://twitter.com/andersekermo
So Many Rooms retrospective: http://blog.almostlogical.com/tag/so-many-rooms/

Brocken Soundtrack

Two hundred billion years ago, I helped out on a track by Radix (Mosaik these days) called "Gone Fishing," which he graciously released as a collab. It had this delicious, laid-back flavor that was the combination of his uncanny sense of harmony and my insistence that "the drums gotta pop, man."

This song is very much an exploration of that musical space, with a robust, chunky drum groove supporting a bouncy, sparkling bed of interesting melodical twists and turns. I really like it, and dedicate it fully to Jakob / Mosaik who's always inspired me to write better.

Gone Fishing Again

Way back in the stone age of digital composing, it was possible for one person to store a musical project in a tiny 500 KB file, send to to a different person halfway across the area code (because good lord dialing long distance was for madmen) and every note, sample and delicious pitch bend would be right there. Kinda neat when you think about it.

This track started its life at the desk of Radix / Mosaik / The One Of Several Names, whose creations have always blown my socks off with their restrained glee and wonder. The man builds miracles just because he can, and doesn't show off -- in stark contrast to myself, whose first instinct on this collab was to add horns, MORE DRUMS and a timbale solo. Of course he was right in humbly suggesting we dial that shit down a notch, and so the track was released unto the world.

With permission from Radix, then, here it is in its restored glory. And the timbale solo is back.

Original XM, released January 1997: https://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/tito/fishing.zip

Gone Fishing

XM remake. Just like with the recent Mooserun remake, this track needed the same intensity but with some semblance of fidelity =)

The original samples were pretty messy, with drums sampled from The Commitments, the guitar I _think_ was from a Blur track, so they had to be redone. I kept the lead trombone in, everything else is remade.

Favorite moment: Creating a not-terrible funk guitar in Harmor. Also, every time I have and excuse to break out the Hammond organ, I'm damn well gonna take it!

Originally released in 1996 (on my 19:th birthday, nonetheless)
https://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/tito/plum/klr.zip

Ken's Living Room

Resurrected from an XM that I made for competing at Remedy 1995. I think it came in second. 

I wanted to give this song a fresh take, since the original arrangement had some dodgy samples, an awkward groove and a pretty shitty mix.

I like this version better.

Released January 2014, Mix updated December 2018

Wild Horses

I have no idea how popular this game actually was, but I played the shit out of it as a young' un. It was brutal, grindy and unforgiving, and since this was the only in-game soundtrack, it's a testament to Nintendo's mercy that they at least made it a legit bop.

The original loop is something like 40 seconds long, so needless to say I had to flesh it out a bit. You know. With a couple solos. And some other stuff. 

Yeah.

Enjoy!

NES Slalom (Teetow's Trial Remix)

XM remake from 1997.

I never really cared for this track. The sounds, sampled off a Roland JV-35, were clean and reasonably punchy but also quite flat and annoying. The lead sound was grating, the solo atrocious, and the melody had a childish, irritating quality that has this track firmly on my shitlist. All the more reason to give it a second chance!

First up was deciding what to do about the lead instrument. After some experimentation I found a tweak to my standard "two slightly detuned saws" that brought a bit more motion to it, something needed for all those sustained notes. I also dug into the organ arrangement, trying to pepper some inspiration into the very monotonous chord progressions.

As always with these remakes, it's humbling for me to hear my musical ideas come out with more clarity and purpose, and as per the rule, this is now one of my favorites. I hope it'll be yours too.

Original XM:
https://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/tito/champagn.zip

Champagne

This remix was made possible by The Almighty Algorithm, as Starlight Festival would show up consistently as a recommendation next to my own songs on Soundcloud. It has such a vibe, and I simply had to drench it in fusion drums and stabby synths. As one does.

Get on Bandcamp

Starlight Festival (by DDRKirby(ISQ))

Originally composed by Gustaf Grefberg
Written by Johan Althoff
🤘Guitars by Rob "Mop" Shelley

The Starbreeze vault strikes again! This time, we're going all the way back to 2003 when we were crunching our way through the final six months of Knights of the Temple -- Infernal Crusade. A lot can be said about its development, tribulations and mad dash to the finish, but we'll save that for the biopic.

As was soon to be an established tradition, I took Gustaf's main theme and ran it through the ADHD blender and out came this monstrosity. All the orchestral parts are Gustaf's brilliant work. 

With the original project long gone, this is a complete remake. Orchestral bits are all from the in-game soundtrack, drums and synthy bits are all new, but the real star of the show is the industrial grade guitars supplied by The Esteemed Mop. Do crank the volume as loud as your local city council has deemed legal.

Knights of the Temple Steam page:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1194610/Knights_of_the_Temple_Infernal_Crusade/

Gustaf Grefberg on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/gustafgrefberg

Rob Shelley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-shelley/

Knights of METAL

Featuring Romeo Knight on guitars
Original song by Moby

The original Elecfunk module has a great human feel to it, and I tried to recreate that atmosphere of a loose, playful jam session. Romeo Knight contributed some great guitar tracks, which helped seal the deal.

Elecfunk

Buelfest Blowout

Buelfest Cooldown

This year's Buelfest submission. It's a cavalcade of tracks I've ran across in my life that are just firmly "in the pocket." Bonus appearance from Teetow Jr in the intro =)

As always, I try to recreate or re-imagine as much of the tracks as possible, so unless it's a real signature instrument, it's my hands. This year I was REALLY happy with the bass, guitars and horns I built in Harmor.

Pocket Grooves

This song is the last notable track I made before leaving the games industry in 2012. As is common with tracks destined for games projects, it's riddled with half-finished ideas and questionable decisions, but it still has that raw energy that comes with late-night inspiration. You won't find this anywhere else -- the in-game version is an even less polished "temp render" I gave to the animators to have something to sync the dance to, and that's what stuck. Once an asset is in the game, you don't change it unless you have a damn good reason to waste everybody's time.

I can't quite remember how I made the vocal sample -- It's obviously made with Vocaloid, likely Hatsune Miku, but the original project is somewhere deep in the Starbreeze archives. We did a lot of experiments with voice synthesis for the DART chip voice. The lyrics, as has been stated elsewhere, are "Syndicate, classic franchise, Persuader, happy minigun" written phonetically in Engrish. Just a little inside joke.

If you have access to the game (or, you know, YouTube) play the Aspari Extraction level and find the club / disco scene to enjoy the song in its surround-reverbed glory. Also pay attention to the brilliant dance moves, mocapped and animated by Frida. Good times!

Oh, and if any EA lawyer finds this: Nyah. My song.

Syndicate - Aspari Extraction

It's just one of those songs you can't get out of your head. The insistent beat, the staccato cello, Robyn's awesome vocals. It struck me that this song was really a sparkly J-Pop wolf in sheep's clothing, and that you didn't even need the acapella -- just throw more synths on it! It didn't take long to map out the song, and once I'd made the B-chorus I knew I had to finish it.

...And Robyn, if you see this: Stay awesome!

Mix updated September 2019

Robyn - Be Mine (Teetow's Sparkle Remix)

Maybe ten years ago, the progresive rock genre entered my radar screen. I've always admired people who can write free-form, symphonic pieces that are both pleasant to listen to, and interesting to analyze.

This piece is my humble attempt at progressive music, and I've held back absolutely nothing. I wanted it to be camp, overthought, ridiculous and overt, and I felt like I got exactly what I deserved =)

Oh, about the name. The intro riff is in 15/16:ths, so it's a sixteenth short.

Sixteen Short

I've always been intrigued by how divisible 6/8 time is, and how many distinct grooves you can make. I also felt it was time to really flex my sound design muscles with Harmor, which makes every sound in the track except the drums and the organ. So I made this track, more as a musical sketchpad than anything else.

By the time I'd reached the Irish folk part, I realized there was little point in restraining the style of the track. Instead, I drew inspiration from Frank Zappa, who seemed to approach his music in a very free-flowing way, keeping the listener guessing as to what would come next. In a way, the last slow-shuffle part is a homage to him, who arguably had the largest impact on my musical life.

For the Thirds

A remake of the song I made for the 2005 Candela demo by the same name. 

The original project was lost in a harddrive crash shortly after this song was made. I've been meaning to do this reconstruction for quite some time, but something in the way the original was mixed made it a bit hard to reproduce. The samples blend with the synth layers in a way that actually hides a lot of funky artifacts and "meh, good enough" edits.

The dobro section in the middle is probably good enough to earn an extended mix at some point in the future.

Fair Play to the Queen

A remastered extended version of the song made for the 2006 Candela demo of the same name.

For once I actually have the old project files around, albeit not usable on my current workstation. I instead set up a WinXP VM with all my old plugins and DAW:s so I could export and reference the stuff I used. The MIDI notes and Kontakt instruments were easily exportable to FL Studio, and the only casualty was the Cubase-specific filter plugin Tonic which I had to replicate as well as I could. I also added back some parts that were cut out of the demo for time, and replaced some drums to improve the mix.

A shout-out must go to the z3ta+ VSTi and its great implementation of Hermode tuning. It's what makes the signature sound of this track possible, having such aggressive distorsion without all the mud that comes from equal-tempered tuning.

Jeff

A medley of some of my released songs. This track is a continuous work in progress, not likely to ever be finished.

The last part (07:30) is an adaptation of Fair Play to the Queen, and was added as a tribute to a dear friend (and a huge presence in the Swedish demoscene) who passed away in May 2015.

Rest in peace, Retro.

Megamix 2010 (Retro tribute edition)

Made for the Sound of SceneSat 4 compilation.

To date, my nerdiest endeavour into fusion land. I go into length on how the song was made on the BandCamp page, but I basically wanted to see if I could develop a feel for quintuples(subdividing by 5) by just gunning it. I kept making beats and grooves until one stuck. It kinda worked -- I probably couldn't play this song in real life, but the groove is there. It gets kinda old after a while, so I played Pattern Tetris in FL studio until I landed on the downbeat, and switched it up to 6/8, and then on to 4/4 for the second overture and the solo. I really wanted to write a self-respecting Cory Henry-esque solo with "high dynamic range," starting from the absolute bottom and climbing as high as my cheese-o-meter would let me. I really am stuck on letting solos get their very own chord progressions now, by the way. It's very liberating.

And the drum ensemble at the end just broke into the studio, holding my Genelecs as ransom while demanding I keep hitting Record. I didn't have a choice.

Bandcamp link with more info:  http://music.scenesat.com/track/paralateral
Buy the album and keep SceneSat running!

Paralateral

Is it possible to write a song that isn't really in a key? I dunno how well this actually worked, but it sure was fun to try. I wanted to keep the melody easy and approachable, but keep the harmonies shifting and sliding. The solo part is in "fake 7/8," meaning it's actually in 4/4 which sounds weird and spooky. 

Enjoy!

Double Augment

Twisted PI

Septagon

Off By One

Chunky funky restoration of the soundtrack for the game The Selfish Birdbreeder. Gave me an excellent excuse to re-create the hardsync sound in Sytrus. The original track featured some sloppy electric guitar playing, so I replaced it with a Harmor patch I've been developing. 

Link to game https://pyweek.org/e/BirdBreeder/

Released September 2009, Re-released May 2019

The Selfish Birdbreeder Soundtrack

Nothing too serious, just an old sketch I decided to finish just to get the damn hook out of my head. Enjoy!

Released July 2019
Mix updated Jan 2023

Neon Glitch

RthR:
https://soundcloud.com/rthrmusic

We're going back! FM slaps, ridiculous snares, and all the brass your ears can handle. Huge shouts to RthR for the original riff and the MASSIVE sax solo, as well as mastering the damn thing.

Mix updated 2023-07-22

Mega Drive (with RthR)

Just a little love letter to a genre that vastly broadened my musical horizons. In particular the early works of Simon Posford (Hallucinogen and Shpongle) had this lasting effect on my approach to writing music. The way he borrowed ideas from anywhere and everywhere really made me feel like genres and constraints are determined by the musician, not the listener, which was a good lesson for young me.

Enjoy!

Last Stand at Dawn

The final installation of the "Robot Trilogy" of Candela demos. In this restoration, I really wanted to just up the fidelity of the mix, and not poke around too much in the original MIDI. Well, I may have fixed a drum fill or two...

The demo itself, if somewhat rough around the edges, really felt like the culmination of the formula we established with Fair Play To The Queen, but with a proper ending. Always nice.

Mix updated Jan 2023

Etch-A-Sketch

Not sure what is this, really. I've had this riff stuck in my head since Christmas, with this blatant Beatles sound, and it's supposed to go over a heavy Fat Boy Slim-type beat. Anyway, here it is, as-is.

BeatLessPhatBoi

I'm just a tiny, yellow ball making funky music.

"Wii sports on crack" -- MorN

"Makes me think of a news station bringing you the most intense news but at a point in time when it's all run by robots and cyborgs" -- RthR

Teetow

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