Flight of the Blue Dove

a blue-colored dove flying during a partial eclipse with clouds in the sky

Jamming on some synths while accompanied by an AI-generated backing track.

Christmas in Rockland

A red bobble next to a tiny evergreen tree in a field of snow

A laid-back but power rhythm leads a Vangelis-esque pulsing bass drone, accompanied by a choir synthetic and sampled voices from around the world. Add a little bit of regal horn and sparkling hand bells, and you’ve set the scene for Christmas in Rockland.

Pyroplastic Heartbeat

blue gloved hands holding a red heart in the moonlight

A driving beat provided by the Yamaha MM6 auto accompaniment, with a stack of studio synths on the melodies along with a smattering of VSTs thrown in.

Jolly Jig of the Organ Grinder

small organ grinder on a backdrop of electrical components overlaid with a spiral galaxy

Auto-accompaniment on a Yamaha YPT-320 with a stack of synths providing a perky melody.

The Eurotech Aztek Choir at Olympus

silhouette of a choir overlaid on waveform background

Pumping auto-accompanied supplied by the Yamaha MM6 with a synth brass chorus melody and chill vibraphone verses.

Monster Drums Mashup

This tune is the culmination of a playtime session with the free Monster Drums VST plugin. After exploring the free kits available (18 at the time of publishing), we settled on Agung’s Futura Kit, which inspired a funky bass line. The rest of the tune was built up around that.

Victoria’s Bouncy Dance

Here’s a holiday weekend creation using a few different arpeggiators together to build the accompaniment to a melody you can whistle along to.

O Christmas Tree

Apple released a new drummers pack for the iOS version of Garageband, so I decided to give one a try with a Christmas classic.

Pan’s Cold Steel

An interesting drum loop laced with drippy-jingly foley followed by a spastic steel drum loop makes for a unique tune.

Bold Eagle Dawn

Landed myself a copy of Spitfire Audio’s “BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover” sample pack. Such beautiful, high-fidelity samples! Looperman artist Eendee’s “Scarydrums” loop doesn’t sound frightening at all when partnered with the fanfare tones of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.