I dug out some old electronic stuff I produced about 1 - 2 years ago. I don't know exactly how you'd classify it.... IDM, downtempo, midwest softcore, chaotic breakcore, whatever. "Genre-izing" music isn't too important anyway. Either it's good or bad. But I digress.

These tunes were all made using cheesy synth samples and inadequate software [1]. I hacked together wav files and made things happen with what I had at the time. The drum samples ain't so bad though. Here they are in approximate chronological order:

• Travel (5.8 MB) - This was my first shot at trying anything, and I just had a few loops and samples to play around with and slice up. Don't let this one cause you to not listen to the others, because I think it kind of stinks.  Lots of happy atmosphere in this one.
• Awktowbur Mourning (4.9 MB) - this one is just chaotic, angry, and fast. With a little experience under my belt I figured out how to create some more complex drum parts with the tools I had. Not too bad for a 2nd track.
• Above (5.5 MB) - Believe it or not I was actually inspired by an Angina P tune when I came up with this one. It's kind of a downtempo-groove thing. I actually really like this one a lot. The synth samples I used weren't the greatest but they fit better than in some of these other tunes.
• Outnumbered (6.3 MB) - on this one I experimented a lot with a synth plug in to generate some of my own synth sounds (rather than using synth samples). The opening growly-bass thing you hear is one example of that. I was still doing things ass-backwards given the tools I had, but it kind of made me realize that there were better ways to do things. Anyway, this one is a bit long and I don't really care for a lot of the samples (again) I ended up using. If you have good subs in your car, you'll like the section at 2:50.
• Method (5.8 MB) - This is the last thing I worked on before we had Eva and before I started using FL Studio software. Kind of a downtempo groove thing. This one is a bit quirky because it doesn't really have a very rigid form at all, and there is some very subtle, strange phrasing happening between the drums and other parts. But overall I think the entire tune flows well together and sounds good. Lots of interesting little ambient things happening in the background. Oh, this is also where I started using automation for the first time where I programmed EQ and other effects using my own envelopes in "design time".

Stay tuned for a new track I hope to release in the next week or two. Finding time these days to work on secondary music projects is impossible, and it's usually done in 15- minute increments. 15-minute increments also makes it impossible :) Anyway, I'm excited about it and I'll post something when its out.

[1] I was using Cakewalk Sonar v1. I still use that software today, but mainly for acoustic and amplified music. It's not too bad for electronic stuff if you've already got all of your parts cut into loops, but I was trying to create my drum parts from scratch in it and also create melodies with the samples.