I welcome all critical feedback. Can relicense if you're interested, just ask.

Super last-minute squad represent. Therefore, a minimalistic 31-bar improvisation for Week 31.

› Musings on Rhodes MK7‹ Musings on Rhodes MK7

It's a rare but fantastic outcome when you play on a new flagship piece of gear only to discover you like what you've got better.

I had the opportunity to spend an hour with a brand new genuine Rhodes MK7 with on-board stereo FX. I came to the conclusion that a combo of Osmose 61 with the Pianoteq e-piano is a better Rhodes than an electro-acoustic original. Therefore, you're listening to the latter combo here.

Don't get me wrong, a real Rhodes is such a beautiful machine! It's one of those cases where it's simply a fascinating physical artifact and a piece of living history. But the outputs are somewhat noisy, only the on-board FX are stereo, and the keybed is pretty stiff. You gotta play it pretty forcefully for the metal plates to ring out loud enough to be picked up and oscillate. The more delicate touches end with short metallic pings with no sustain. That's too bad since delicate Rhodes playing with my Osmose is one of my favorite things about it. Turns out it's near impossible on the physical original. You can turn gain up but then you can't vary dynamics too bad or it distorts.

And so I left the store a happy man. Turns out what I already had suits me better.

C-major. Freeform Rhodes jazz improvisation on the Osmose 61. All sound from Pianoteq. No AI used in any part of the process. For this year every cover art is a photo I took. Composed, recorded, and produced in Vancouver BC.

2026 CC0 Creative Commons Zero (Public Domain)

I built some stems early in the week and played with them a bunch to get them to something I really liked. Towards the end of the week and over the weekend I spent WAY too much time attempting to add vocals, and didn't finish the track the way I wanted. My final upload is the instrumental version because I never got the vocals where I wanted them. I think its a kinda cool track, but feels like something is missing. Any feedback is appreciated!

If you're curious, this is the version with vocals:

› VOX‹ VOX

MEGA! (with vocals)

Lyrics:

I don't want the heat

I don't want to cheat

I just want to ba-bang on the drum repeat

I don't want to fight

I don't want to be right

I just want to ba-bang on the drum all night

all night, all night, all night, all night

on repeat, on repeat, on repeat, on repeat

all night, all night, all night, all night

on repeat, on repeat, on repeat, on repeat

I don't want the heat

I don't want to cheat

I just want to ba-bang on the drum repeat

I don't want to fight

I don't want to be right

I just want to ba-bang on the drum all night

all night, on the drum, all night, on the drum

bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, on the drum

all night, on the drum, all night, on the drum

bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, on the drum

boot, load, patch, its all a grind

this passive drudge takes so much time

free to roam, but stuck in a cave

we all really just want to rave

The cover art this based on the sign for a store at the Wildwood, NJ (USA) boardwalk that sold knock off/fake anime merchandise.

2026 Copyright All rights reserved

Speedtrash, but ditty! Banged out the song in 45 minutes, then spent another 30 minutes adding the vocal samples (from How Do You Know It's Love, a public domain educational short from 1950). All original patches, all reused from other projects except for the first lead, which still sounds like another one I did a bit ago. Oh well.

I like how this one came together overall and I'm kicking myself for last-minuting it (just under 10 minutes to deadline now!). But at the same time, if I had more time to fiddle, would it have turned out this well? It's not innovative, or exciting, but it's a fun ditty so I'm happy with that.

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Messing around with a keyboard as midi device to the M8. I'm not very good at keys but thought it would be easier to sketch ideas that way (though I still end up entering the notes in the tracker format as usual after). I at least got the basic setup working alright so we'll see if it helps with future ideas.

Have been so busy traveling but I guess being busy will be the norm for awhile. Still want to make an effort to stick with this and catch up on listening to everyone's awesome stuff though!

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It keeps moving, and I keep making beats somehow on time. Another rest week, been playing way too much ZZZ  for my own good.

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and again.  maintaining the streak.  need to get back into it.

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still losing

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Please don't hurt people. They break in complicated ways and take an awful lot of time to recover.

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I wanted to make a soft track.

The lyrics came when I read a remark online where somebody argued that to truly signal to others that one is safe and means no harm, it doesn't suffice to just perceive oneself as not harmful, one needs to know how one can cause harm to be able to clearly avoid it. This thought resonated with me quite intensely.

Musically, quite different from the last weeks. I liked how the synths layer with each other and my voice. I hope you do, too :)

C minor, 105 bpm.

› Lyrics‹ Lyrics

so still

so soft

so safe

got to know your edges

before it's too late

got to know your weapons

before you set them off

by accident

got to know

how to fight

in order not to

got to know

how to hurt

in order to be safe

got to feed

the demons

lest they break free

so still, so soft, so safe

keep breathing

so still, so soft, so safe

keep living

so still, so soft, so safe

keep loving

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Am sick. Getting this done was grueling!

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