Gozom (4.6 Mb)

    One of a few bits of music I made exclusively with a software synthesizer, in this case Seer Systems' Reality. The sequencing was done with a copy of Cakewalk Express Gold which came with a long-dead soundcard. It was far easier to create many little changes and variations with Cakewalk than the TS-10's sequencer. The piece is positively riddled with controller data. For but one example, listen to "Gozom" with headphones and note the wild panning going on, then pay attention to other, more subtle elements of control. Also done in 5/4 time. Once in a while I'd pick a less common time signature to get away from the typical EBM 4/4 formula, just for a little variety.

A Night at MacLaren's

    I was very fond of synthetic plucking-type patches for these more sentimental pieces. Beneath those glittering sonic snowflakes lie a warm bed of deep sawtooth pads. The seven eighth note arpeggios prompted many people to describe this one as "Japanese-sounding". Well, a layman's view of the orient perhaps! Named for a bittersweet memory.

Winter Cozy

    Among my first pieces of music, Winter Cozy was written way back in 1996. In spite of its age, and stupid title, I think it's one of my better works. If I recall, all the patches used were from a retro sound library for the TS-10. Lots of nice, plucky squarewaves, and soft, gentle sawtooth pads.

Darkened Field

    Like "The Fading Light", this piece also uses simple additive sounds. There's also a similar sense of melancholy here, but more sparse and eerie.

The Fading Light

    A late CREON track, and one of a very small number of pieces I wrote that I can honestly say I like, "The Fading Light" is a morose little tune featuring simple additive sounds made on the Ensoniq TS-10. Unfortunately, the TS-10's poor polyphony was severly taxed, and there is audible note stealing which affects the end result. Sure, I could have used sampled additive sounds, but then it would have suffered from that obvious resampled quality. I wanted to use all individual partials being controlled separately, with long decays unaffected by sample length. In spite of the technical limitations, I still think it turned out nicely.