this track was made with a single instance of A0's DK1 drum sampler. 16 pads only, loaded up with drum hits, breaks, basses, fx and pads! it was a challenge and came out pretty crunchy.

Sea Gate

forgot to upload this, a request from a friend. came out pretty cool! i tried to make a second section using leitmotif from the zero 4 theme, mainly heard in the tracks 'esperanto' and 'holy land'.

Megaman Zero 4 Cyberspace Remix

another experiment track. technically unfinished, but it's in enough of a state for me to share. made with breakbeats and cessynth, a free and very limited old vst

A short introductory song, loosely themed around the cyclical feeling of waking up in the thick of pandemic times, facing the same day as yesterday and the day before ad nauseum.

The experiment here is trying to portray a simple feeling of how it feels to live where I do (bay area CA). I used NI's Giant piano through reverb and granular delay, on top of ambient recording of a rare rainstorm behind my apartment.

The wide voicings really hooked me when I was feeling it out. For example, the first chord is (G-D-E-B-E-A-B-C); imo it has a bright but ambiguous sound, especially next to the lush and slightly darker third chord (E-D-F#-A-B-E-A). Notating them is tough, tho...

One way considering all notes would be Am11/G-Dm11-Bm11/E, another with basic functionality would be CM9/G-Am7/D-Bm7/E. Afterwards, the progression is transposed down a whole step two different times. Chords in the beat are simple enough: 2x(DbM9-EbM9)-2x(Cm11-Gm11).

Awake Again

Not only an effort to write a vocal track, but to write using a synthesized vocalist. Synth V has a ton of potential and the phonemes sound a lot more natural than any Vocaloid to my ear, but alas, there is only a single english vocalist so far.

With this track, I wanted to see what would result from shamelessly smashing some of my favorite sounds together underneath those synth vocals- those elements being dense pad samples, lush chords with neat modulations, bitcrushed breaks, granular delays, and gritty bass, all wrapped up in a quick halftime tempo and a lovely artificial aesthetic. The mix is rather dense and it turned out to be a bit challenging to decipher some of the lyrics, but you know, I am strangely proud of the result.

Chords in the verse are Em11-C#m11-G/A-Fmaj7. With the spices removed it might resemble a descenfing thirds motion, Em-C-Am-F in E phrygian; but the second chord is replaced with the chromatic mediant C#m, which immediately adds chili powder to the adjecent chords and may cause stanky face. Though what really gets me is the G/A to Fmaj7, the G/A has a suspended feeling that resolves in such a pretty way- I urge you to try them out and steal the cadence for yourself.



Cheesy Lyrics Below:
(verse 1)
tossing and turning, no outlet discerning / my ocean is churning, i can't say
maybe, then knowing when i'm done and limbo ends / then all the days won't just feel the same
a thousand roads point from home, asking since long ago / begging me not to say 'someday'
i can't seem to find the road, the sentiment is growing old / and you can't seem to wait another day

(chorus)
and still i'm waiting for my mind to make itself / no point in rushing while it's comfy in this cell

(verse 2)
tossing and turning, an outlet deserving / heard voices of yearning you can't say
thoughtless, disturbing, those words of discerning my / efforts, my progress still feels the same
reaching out through the dark, hoping to find the spark / i promised myself to find someday
friends all seem to pass me by, it asks me why i even try / to rationalize the thoughts another way
(repeat chorus)

Ennui [ft. Eleanor Forte]

An experiment making fakebit for GBA loosely in a water level aesthetic. There are some short samples from GBA games, some longer samples from 90s sample cds, some simple synthesized chip sounds, and a cool slap bass from a korg triton, all ground into paste with a bitcrusher to simulate that very cheap and crunchy DAC. With cool artificial slap bass riffage!!

Pelagia

A bonus remaster of a track from 2020, since it hasn't actually been released. This version feels a lot thicker. This was an experiment to switch between a driving 4/4 techno beat to a grinding halftime backbeat, and a test song to mix with NI's SSL mixing plugins- they have a pressurized and somewhat knocky tendency with the sound.

Vari Shift [2021 Remaster]

A coarse attempt at making a darker atmosphere with a lot of color. And groove. This was created in the midst of a jungle bender, so it is very breaky. Everything but the drums were patched in NI's Massive as a sound design exercise. I was also messing about with changing bitcrusher settings to morph the texture of the song as it goes, especially with the switch back to mono at the end of the B section.

Grayscaling

I did a quick (1-day challenge) cover of a friend's track after getting inspired by it! I added a spicy chord in the progression too, in an effort to add some more harmonic tension to the vibe. Hope you don't mind, sent. :3
Go follow him @soarinsilence on tweeter
Leaned heavy into the piano, as I couldn't find another suitable lead sound for the vibe. Kinda fast for my usual tempo, at 190; it reminds me a bit of sewerslvt.

MYDEMONSARETHERE (soar cover)

A quick remix of the dress-up music in pokemon x and y. I hadn't heard it before and was kind of surprised that it came from a 3ds pokemon game, as it doesn't really feel like pokemon music. I pretty much just wanted to hear it with a more active beat and with a bit groovier a bassline, so enjoy? :3

X & Y Boutique rmx

messing about learning how to program guitar libraries and create my own tone. writing proggy is fun. i tried to keep it sensible enough to maintain its value as a soundtrack piece, though

Untitled metal practice

A collaborative EP between myself and Qteku (https://soundcloud.com/qteku), following the vibe of racing game music.
'Gear Select' and 'Night Drive' were started by vert-⬡ and finished by Qteku; 
'Speed It Up' and 'Final Stretch' were started by Qteku and finished by vert-⬡.

Qteku & vert-⬡ - Gear Select

Qteku & vert-⬡ - Speed It Up

Qteku & vert-⬡ - Night Drive

Qteku & vert-⬡ - Final Stretch

Felt like jumping out of the rut by joining OSC on its last two days! It definitely got me moving, though I wasn't able to dig into the sound design with as much nuance as I wanted (especially since the khs fx were legal!) Perhaps it's for the best. Today I bring some practice writing synthy rock and then noodling with it at dnb tempo. There wasn't enough time to really polish it or solo over it, but I'm still happy. If the mix sucks that's my excuse :D

All sounds generated from 20 instances of ONE. Despite the name, it's... a polysynth. The saws sound pretty good and I would reach for this for chords and distorted leads. Though, creating all the sounds with it seems to make it feel a bit fuzzy and murky, especially when leaning heavily on the onboard FX and unison. A byproduct of using turbo hyper saws for every instrument!

Speaking of FX, most instances use both the chorus and delay. kHs' own Essentials, Slice EQ, Snap Heap and Multipass plugins are used in mixing, mostly some broad EQ and compression to make things gel more instead of using them as creative effects. Except on the drums, where I have kHs Disperser beefing up the impacts. It's tremendous.

Merely One [One Synth Challenge 169: kHs ONE]

Still alive! Dipped out of my last day job so I have a little while to crack down. Though I got busy at the end of the month and didn't leave myself enough time to finish exploring all the ideas I sketched. So here's a menu-style theme! Maybe I'll remix it another time. This month's synth was a *mostly* straightforward subtractive synth, but it had tons of odd limitations that were fun to work around. Excellent for pads and reeses but annoying for drums, at least on my time crunch.

14 instances of ExtraBold, mixed with simple eq and compression.

Timebound ~ File Select [One Synth Challenge 187: ExtraBold]

Jas wasn't alone this month cooking some hit em (5/4 time, 212bpm). I think the proposed style is better with a wash of breakbeats and distortion, but I did my best given the synth at hand. It was tough. I struggled with making a spread of decent percussions so I had to keep em mostly foundational. Please enjoy the weirdness!

SixTraq was strange to use as a vst. It took a while to get my head around the point of the workflow- likely audibly so. I mostly ignored the agonizingly hardwarelike arp/record layer functions and kept it mostly like a layered polysynth. But, it has quirks, kind of like a misshapen cousin of the Prophet 600. Props to Full Bucket for having the interest and persistence (and patience) to wrangle the code for such a thing. Also I didn't really have any bugs except for the undo thing.

-24 instances of Full Bucket's SixTraq in FL Studio.
-Mixed with Variety of Sound Plugins (BootEQ, Density, ThrillseekerVBL, TesslaSE, epicPlate, NastyDLA) and a smidge of OTT on the master for good luck.

Apophenia [One Synth Challenge 188: SixTraq]

galaxyman the sequel: galaxy harder
Legacy arrangement from 2016. Mix is a bit smooshed but the energy is there! Left up here due to popularity.
arranged to be a pinch theme for mmbn3d

original composition by: Yu Shimoda

Galaxyman (Pinch Theme)

Legacy arrangement from 2016. Mix is a bit smooshed but the energy is there! Left up here due to popularity.
Originally created for MMBN3D's soundtrack.

original composition by: Yu Shimoda

Galaxyman

Alriiiight bon diggity I made some rock for that EXE3D project!
I'm pretty happy with how this one came together.
Original comp. by Yusuke Beppu, arrangement by me.

Navi Clash!

Another track, done. Truly defying the odds. 
So! The Qyooo was a challenging plugin to use! Took me a while to wrap my head around its workflow. It's reeeally tough to use for percussion, but it was a blessed and humbling exercise in sound design. My filter game has strengthened. The oscillators are pretty simple, most of the focus is on the filter modulations.

Texturally, it's a bit simple from the chiptune mindset, so I went much more melodic than I usually go to compensate. Learned a bunch, but I'm not sure if I'm satisfied... Kind of fits together strangely.

I used 39 instances of Qyooo, but 11 are for either doubling or lazy modulation, so it's really more like 28. FX used: Fruity PMEQ2, Fruity Limiter and Fruity Reverb 2 on most, with the addition of Maximus on bass bus. In the box, bay beeeee

I, Q (OSC 123 Entry)

Just upload your consciousness already.

Hi, it's been a while!! Joined this comp kind of late, but finished a song in record time. It's a short song, maybe suited for a menu, but it's a song. Hope I can stay productive this way forever. 

Syncla-X has been met with some technical criticism, but I had a pretty good time with it. Percussion is always the kicker with synths that lack pitch modulation, but luckily we had a self oscillating vcf to come in clutch.

As always, all sounds made from scratch, with 22 instances of Syncla-X. Mixed with stock FL plugins. Ever wake up drenched in reverb? Me too.

Transfer Protocol (OSC 131 Entry)

A self-imposed one synth challenge using only FL's very own 3x Osc, percussion included! It was fun to use some aliasing artifacts as some digital glitter effects. It's not the best reese machine, but you know, the single-cycle wave sampler is fun to sample and resample. I got some great key sounds by processing some sines through its ring modulation a few times via edison.

Written Feb 2020. Stock FX only!

Cloud Computing (3x Osc - One Synth Challenge)

An experiment with pso2's lush atmospheres. Man I want a JV2080 like Kobayashi-san. and also a rappy suit

Connecting (PSO2 DnB Bootleg)

Made some cool racing music. This stuff is really fun to do!!

It was an experiment testing out some analog mixing plugins. Kick and all synth sounds were created in Massive; mixed mostly with NI's Solid Mix series. The solid state eq was a challenge for sound design, as it's not quite as surgical as digital parametric eqs.

Vari Shift

Remix made for HeatPhoenix's fangame Vikavolt, released today!
https://heatphoenix.itch.io/vikavoltius

Done with Massive, Fabfilter ProQ and Saturn. And breaks, of course. There is another 'secret' preview track I'll upload here later, once the cat's out of the bag.

Sinnoh Elite 4 (Boss)

My first release of some experimental cyber-jungle! I really hope to do more of this style soon, so please enjoy!

Download link: https://vert-hex.bandcamp.com/album/gateway

This is an EP I produced using a few ancient vst plugins by the developer Bojo. All synth sounds come from Impulse, a free 3osc virtual-analog with a brittle, somewhat digital character. Breaks were chopped, processed and layered manually with FL's sampler. Effects come from instances of Bojo's own Overdrive, LoFi, Ring Modulator, Wave-Changer 3, Tremolo and Flanger. Mixed gently with Fabfilter plugins.

Stasis Stream

Impulsive

Sense of Self

from a twitter chain by @ThatAndyGuy on twitter. I figured it would be a good practice sketch to ease back in from hiatus!

https://twitter.com/ThatAndyGuy/status/1348701578685894659

4ever

Cyber music with a love for all things synthesized!
commissions here: vert.hexx@gmail.com
https://twitter.com/vert_hex
https://vert-hex.bandcamp.com/

vert

Popular tracks