Christmas in Rockland
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
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
Auto-accompaniment on a Yamaha YPT-320 with a stack of synths providing a perky melody.
The Eurotech Aztek Choir at Olympus
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.
Bird’s Eye View
At 150bpm, it’s not a slow song by any means, but a moderate beat wrapped in an acidy-arp that creates a sweet groove for the melody to play around.