I have just uploaded "No Synths!" to Spotify, and will also be uploading a couple of Mindprobe albums soon. Make sure to follow me and check that out! Click here to visit my Spotify profile . In addition, I have also added quite a few playlists that I created, organized by music genre. If you are curious about what kind of music I listen to, follow those too. I plan to update and refine them regularly, as well as add new ones. Enjoy!

We finally reached the end! Have a taste of "Horse", the last track from my upcoming album "No Synths!"! This is a remix and remaster of the original song written in 1997 using Fast Tracker 2 on a Pentium PC and a very amateurish sounding sample library. All channels have been exported from the original XM file, and no new sequences have been recorded. The song structure was edited heavily though, cutting almost 3 minutes away since it was way too long. Of course, modern mixing and mastering techniques have been applied for the rest of the production. This is the original version: And this is the new one:

Here's some more acid house for "Destroyed Brain", the penultimate track from my upcoming album "No Synths!"! Only one left now! This is a remix and remaster of the original song written in 1997 using Fast Tracker 2 on a Pentium PC and a very amateurish sounding sample library. All channels have been exported from the original XM file, and no new sequences have been recorded. The song structure was edited heavily though, cutting almost 3 minutes away since it was way too long. Of course, modern mixing and mastering techniques have been applied for the rest of the production. This is the original version: And this is the new one:

Approaching the finish line now. Here is "Planetarium", the sixth track from my upcoming album, "No Synths!". This is a remix and remaster of the original song written in 1997 using Fast Tracker 2 on a Pentium PC and a very amateurish sounding sample library. All channels have been exported from the original XM file, and no new sequences have been recorded. The song structure was edited heavily though, cutting almost 3 minutes away since it was way too long. Of course, modern mixing and mastering techniques have been applied for the rest of the production. This is the original version: And this is the new one:

We're halfway there. Here comes "Euphoria", the fourth track from my upcoming album, "No Synths!". This is a remix and remaster of the original song written in 1997 using Fast Tracker 2 on a Pentium PC and a very amateurish sounding sample library. All channels have been exported from the original XM file, and no new sequences have been recorded. The song structure was edited heavily though, cutting almost 3 minutes away since it was way too long. Of course, modern mixing and mastering techniques have been applied for the rest of the production. This is the original version: And this is the new one:

Only three more to go after this one. Here is "Seagulls", the fifth track from my upcoming album, "No Synths!". This is a remix and remaster of the original song written in 1997 using Fast Tracker 2 on a Pentium PC and a very amateurish sounding sample library. All channels have been exported from the original XM file, and no new sequences have been recorded. The song structure was edited heavily though, cutting almost 2 minutes away since it was way too long. Of course, modern mixing and mastering techniques have been applied for the rest of the production. One interesting fact is that the original song did not actually have a bass line, so it ended up sounding way too thin. To fix this, I took a note from the 5th stabs that start at 2' and got it heavily processed until I turned it into a bass note. Then I created two bass sequences from that note. This is the original version: And this is the new one:

It is now time to listen to "Extasy Device", the third track from my upcoming album, "No Synths!". This is a remix and remaster of the original song written in 1997 using Fast Tracker 2 on a Pentium PC and a very amateurish sounding sample library. All channels have been exported from the original XM file, and no new sequences have been recorded. The song structure was edited heavily though, cutting almost 3 minutes away since it was way too long. Of course, modern mixing and mastering techniques have been applied for the rest of the production. This is the original version: And this is the new one:

It is now time to listen to "Occultus", the second track from my upcoming album, "No Synths!". This is a remix and remaster of the original song written in 1997 using Fast Tracker 2 on a Pentium PC and a very amateurish sounding sample library. All channels have been exported from the original XM file, and no new sequences have been recorded. The song structure was edited heavily though, cutting almost 5 minutes away since it was way too long. Of course, modern mixing and mastering techniques have been applied for the rest of the production. This is the original version: And this is the new one:

As promised, here's "Re-Evolution", the first track from my upcoming album, "No Synths!". This is a remix and remaster of the original song written in 1997 using Fast Tracker 2 on a Pentium PC and a very amateurish sounding sample library. All channels have been exported from the original XM file, and no new sequences have been recorded. The song structure was edited heavily though, cutting almost 5 minutes away since it was way too long. Of course, modern mixing and mastering techniques have been applied for the rest of the production. This is the original version: And here's the new one: Please let me know what you think about it in the comments!

After approximately 6-7 months of hard work, "No Synths!" is finally complete and ready for release. This album contains remixed and remastered versions of 8 songs I composed back in 1997 with just a Pentium PC and no synthesizers of any kind. Not hardware, not software. Only Fast Tracker 2 and a pretty crappy library of samples. By the way, the screen in the album cover is showing exactly that, with the original project for "Re-evolution" loaded. The challenge I decided to take for this album was to make every song as good as I could, without recording any new material of any kind. Given the amateur nature of the source material, this was not an easy task. I was, however, allowed to rearrange songs and in fact I did cut a lot of minutes from them. After that, everything would be mixed and mastered just like if the material was new. Tracklist: I will be releasing one song per week starting with "Re-evolution" on Saturday 5/11! In the meantime, I'll be making arrangements to have the album available on all digital stores.

If you want shorter, but more frequent updates on whatever it is I'm doing, you can now follow me on Twitter here: @madbit. For example, I'm now almost halfway mastering my upcoming album "No Synths!". I'll keep providing small updates on it until it's finished, and then there will be another blog post right here.

A while ago I had mentioned in this same blog that I wanted to make a selection of some of my tracked music made with Fast Tracker 2 on 1997, and produce modern versions of each song. The idea is to take all original tracks and then rearrange, remix and remaster them. But with an added challenge: I can only work with the source material. No new content may be recorded under any circumstances. I'll just be allowed to remove or edit what doesn't work and find a way to polish those sounds into the best I can. In the present, trackers have become complex editors that provide the possibility to use software synthesizers and a broad range of effect processors, with all the flexibility that this implies. But back in 1997, a tracker was just an extremely basic sampler that could just play 16-bit, CD quality samples. And that was about it. There were no equalizers, no filters, no compressors, nothing. Getting a well balanced mix was an absolutely artisanal task, and it was very, very difficult to create "professional" sounding results. There were a few tricks to simulate things like filter sweeps, but they were very limited. However, it allowed you to compose music at home, using a below average computer and nothing more than that. For these reasons, the new album will be called "No Synths!". I am currently finishing production of the eighth and last track. Once I complete that, I intend to make an extra polish pass on each mix. And finally, I will master all tracks and publish them gradually until the album is fully released. I now present you the original versions as they were published back in 1997, so that you can appreciate what the starting point was for each of them: Believe me when I tell you: they have changed a lot. Especially regarding length. For the love of God, why were my tracks SO long back then?