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Life’s getting busier (in a good way), and holding everything back for one big album isn’t going to work anymore. I’ve always loved the challenge of making monolithic projects, which I’ve done year after year, but now I’m going to release singles.
Actually hyped to return to a time when I used to upload tracks one by one as soon as they were fresh!
This all came about after I released One With the Fractal in January and I asked myself: do I really need to make album number 14? Is it going to be the one? Probably nah.
So please come and listen to my new single Reckoner! Xenharmonic electro (8edo)
Bandcamp / Spotify / Apple
I’ve been developing my virtablism – turntablism but entirely done virtually with samplers in the DAW. You’ll hear that on Reckoner, but I’m still improving my tech quickly so I’m hoping next time you hear my scratching it will be better.
Beatmonger is the drum machine VST I made using Plugdata/Heavy. It’s an 808 soundalike with some changes and I also gave it a quijada sound like the one from the MiniPops. The VST exposes all kinds of parameters to tweak the sound of each drum in a way you can’t do with sampled drum sounds. Each drum sits on its own audio output so I can easily apply different processing to each sound in the DAW. Why did I spend every evening one week in December 2024 to make this drum machine VST? Because I wanted something I could reuse again and again, in the spirit of oldskool drum machines, but with my own sonic stamp on it. Beatmonger is not publicly available but there are plenty resources online to DIY your own stuff in Plugdata!
Make some music, it will keep you out of trouble!
This is my first ever finished track with the 8edo tuning. I always found it really tough to make it work. The trick here was not to think harmonically, but pure melody and rhythm.
You’ll also hear that I’m using timbres that feature overtones that are aligned to 8edo. This is one way to smooth over the sound when you’re using a tuning that doesn’t align well with the harmonic series. I actually produced loads of these timbres as loopable wav files that I could easily load into a sampler, for various different edos. Each wav is a pseudo-harmonic series but the partials are aligned to an edo. But 0 of you may ask, how did you make them loopable, as edos are inharmonic and thus the sum of overtones would be aperiodic? I actually approximated those inharmonic overtones using harmonics of a very low fundamental frequency that is tied to the duration of the wav file. In this way, I’m using harmonics that approximate inharmonics that approximate harmonics. It works ok enough. Again, Plugdata was used here, mainly to automate the setup and recording of these loopable wav files for each edo. I spent an evening going from idea to complete sample pack. I’m willing to make these public, but I don’t know if anybody really wants to mess with them. They’re slightly unpleasant with a “bell organ” kinda quality, so you actually need to incorporate them into a sound design – they’re not good standalone sounds.
Crucial tech used on Reckoner: TAL Sampler, TAL Bassline-101, Dexed, Airwindows ToTape6, TAL Dub-X, Beatmonger v2, Linux, Bitwig Studio etc.
Thank you massively for the continued support!
Scale Workshop is a web app to make musical scales and tunings. It tunes synthesisers to microtonal traditional scales, historical scales and xenharmonic scales. People who are new to custom tunings can learn a lot by loading up some preset scales in Scale Workshop then mashing the qwerty keys to hear what these things sound like!
As of writing, Scale Workshop is developed by Xenharmonic Developers, lead by Lumi Pakkanen. Many others have contributed new features and fixes over the years. The project was originally started by me (Sevish) and in this article I just wanted to share some of my personal thoughts about the early days of the app.
Scale Workshop current version – hosted on Plainsound with the latest features
Scale Workshop 2 – stable SW2 version hosted on sevish.com
Scale Workshop 1 – original old school version is still available here
At Freiburg in south west Germany a few musicians were gathered around a dinner table next to the venue where a concert was about to happen. EUROMicroFest 2017. Michael H Dixon and Donald Bousted were discussing how they were getting things tuned properly on their MacBooks. Of course, Scala came up. Now Scala is perhaps still the most feature-rich scale/tuning software out there. But one thing I noticed is that people had the exact same trouble getting Scala working on a Mac. It got me thinking that it could be possible to recreate some of Scala’s basic functions in a web app that runs on any browser. The idea wasn’t to replace Scala, but to just implement the absolute basics in a convenient web app.
A few realisations hit me in a row.
It seemed like JavaScript could do all the tuning calculations and could even assemble tuning files that would download straight from the app. (Tuning files are one method that software synths can be retuned).
I learned about the Web Audio API and it seemed possible that such a tuning app could let the user play the scale with a built-in synth.
When I became aware of the Linnstrument, I realised a qwerty keyboard could act like a similar thing, i.e. as an isomorphic keyboard for note input. It seemed only needed two parameters would be needed, vertical and horizontal, to get a variety of different isomorphic keyboard mappings.
I realised that scale data could be stored as URL parameters, so that a bookmarked link would bring you right back to the scale you had worked on earlier. I knew that the online tuning scene (the Xenharmonic Alliance Facebook group, Discord server, and Wiki in particular) would use these URLs to quickly share tunings with each other.
If such a project had a permissive software license, I realised that music tech developers could reuse some of the Scale Workshop code to improve the tuning functionality in their own synths. (As far as I know, this did happen at least once).
And by following an open source model, others may want to contribute bug fixes and improvements so that all users of this free app could benefit.
So at this early stage I had a forming image of Scale Workshop in my head, along with an idea of what tech challenges would need to be overcome. Though, it was something completely unrelated to music that actually got my to execute on my plans! I was seeing a lot of jQuery going around at my day job and I wanted to make sure I understood it better, so I decided to start a side project to practice my jQuery and JavaScript in general. I started to build the one thing that I already had in my head, Scale Workshop!
(Of course, jQuery is extremely old hat now and we don’t use it anymore in recent versions).
Getting Scale Workshop working, bit by bit, became my obsession for a while. Every little success and next challenge kept me interested. I remember boarding a bus for a long journey and thinking “by the time I arrive, I want to have the isomorphic keyboard working.” And I barely did, though it was quite broken, I had managed to get the difficult bits done.
Even when my code works, it’s ugly. I don’t go into personal projects with all the logical stuff worked out in advance. I just kinda guess whether things will work or not, then hack things together until they do. In the case of Scale Workshop, this lead to a lot of “sevishcode”, most of which had to be refactored over time!
Eventually some really cool things started happening. Music teachers started using Scale Workshop in the classroom to teach music theory concepts. Tuning heads were generating scales on the bus and pinging them into Discord for later deep dives. And while I’ve now completely stepped away from the project, other developers joined in the effort to build Scale Workshop, which is still under active development.
Big thanks to all the users and developers of this tool. Happy tuning!
I just added some more of my fractal artwork to the gallery page. Go check them out!
My new album Morphable will be available on 5th August 2022. Nine new electronic microtonal beats from the harmony hacker.
If you want to hear one of the tracks today then you can! Yeah Groove can be played on youtube:
Gleam is perhaps the iconic Sevish track (or so I am told), but have you ever wondered how it was made? Lumi’s recent video analyses Gleam from a music theory perspective, explaining how I used 22-tone equal temperament (22ed2) to make a catchy piece of music.
The British Library sound archive seeks to collect sound recordings that can be preserved for generations to come. They are home to one of the largest collections of vinyl recordings in the world. They also curate a library of digital recordings. The collection includes not just music but also drama, literature, field recordings, and oral history.
A representative from the library reached out to ask if I would donate some of my recordings to the sound archive. Of course I was happy to do that. It’s fun to wonder what some futuristic person would think if they discovered early 2000s xenharmonic bangers.
Project OutFox is a rhythm game simulator that brings together over 15 styles of gameplay. The OutFox team have just released Serenity Volume I, a community pack of songs which you can now download and play for free. The pack includes the Sevish track Some Things Must from the album Bubble. It also contains music from Aspid Cat, Drazil, Jack5, Matduke, mmry, PizeroFox and Seo.
Newcomers to OutFox/Stepmania are advised to check online for setup instructions. A (probably incomplete) summary for first installation is below:
It might surprise some to know that I got into Konami’s Dance Dance Revolution and Andamiro’s Pump It Up some time around 2001 and it was some people on the DDRUK IRC channel around 2003 who convinced me to start making my own electronic music. I quit playing rhythm games for a long time but I got a high quality DDR pad in early 2021 and the obsession has well and truly returned.
I started a small project where I take existing Sevish tracks and adapt them to different musical tuning systems. It is called Re-Tuned and is available from my Bandcamp page to stream or as a free download. In this project, you’ll hear many tracks with altered tunings. Many of these are originally written as microtonal pieces that are re-tuned to standard 12 equal!
Why have I done this‽ The project originally started out as trolling youtube videos which rendered familiar microtonal tunes in 12edo. It turned out to be an effective demonstration that 12edo is just another tuning with its own character, and that this kind of retuning subtly or dramatically altered the feeling of the music. I then started to produce microtonal retunings, for example Desert Island Rain (originally in 313edo) is rendered in 24edo, 19edo, 14edo and 9edo.
My musical philosophy is that music is a fun craft to be involved with and I’m glad it exists. When expressing yourself through music there are various tools in the toolbox – for example dynamics, timbre, tempo, tuning – though tuning is often forgotten about. I hope Re-Tuned makes the case that deliberate use of tuning is one more powerfully expressive and aesthetic parameter that musicians can use to hone their craft further.
Cover artwork by Juha Penttinen.
A new original Sevish album is coming out next month…
Terra Octava is a collaboration album from the collective at STAFFcirc.
Sounds of digital fusion, chiptune, jazz and electronic music in a variety of equal tempered tunings.
Featuring Cryptovolans, Reuben Gingrich, Jaq, Chimeratio, petet, manfish, STC_1001, STC_1002, STC_1003, STC_1004, Vince Kaichan, Hunter Van Brocklin, Tancla, Emelia K., Abd al-Mahdi, Themnotyou, Sintel, 0x70457465, limeboiler, clown core, b-knox, amimifafa, ordinate and Sevish.
The microtonal tunings include 34edo, 22edo, 19edo, 16edo, 10edo and others – but also the tiny ones like 6edo, 4edo, 3edo, 2edo, 1edo, 0edo!
My track Fuschiamarine in 7edo is on there.
I’m actually blown away by what everybody was able to achieve here. They’re all deep into their musical craft – and some of them are pros at tuning already – some are trying microtones for the first time. Hope you’ll enjoy the listen!
Release date: January 1st, 2021
Available on Bandcamp and major streaming services
The new Sevish album will be called Bubble. It is a continuation and refinement of my own little musical world. You can expect microtonal wonky melodies and harmonies with IDM flourishes throughout. The album has a mix of styles – drum and bass, midtempo groovy jams, techno. The album closes with something very warm and fuzzy.
If you’re looking for more music like my previous albums Harmony Hacker, Horixens, Rhythm & Xen, Sean but not Heard and Golden Hour – this is it!
Bubble will be available January 1st 2021 on all major streaming services. Digital downloads will be available on Bandcamp for £5.
If you want to hear Bubble one week early, I will host a listening party on YouTube where you can hear the album in full. Simply join the link on December 26th starting 8pm (UTC) and enjoy some new sounds. I’ll be present in the live chat so come and say hello!
Update: the listening party has already happened and it was a big success, thanks everybody :)
Influencers, disc jockeys, bloggers etc. — please request a press pack via my contact form and I will send you a full album download plus a copy of the press release.
The album uses microtonal tunings like 22edo, 7edo and just intonation.
All tracks are new, written in 2019/2020, using Bitwig Studio on Linux (KDE Neon).
8 tracks / 42:12 duration.
Thanks to the blessing of YouTube and Spotify’s suggestion algorithms, plus a helpful mention from Adam Neely, last year I saw my audience grow faster than ever. Almost 20,000 of you are now subscribed to my music on YouTube and nearly 20,000 Spotify users streamed Sevish last month.
There is a lot of music in the world and yet you’re tuning into mine – so I want to thank every one of you!
