All Digitone 1 this week (through an Analog Heat). I still find the DN1 so creative and fun. Though once I start juggling too many locks on a track, it gets hard to mix. Which, given my propensity for mixing the life out of songs, is probably a feature, not a bug:
D.N.O.G.
The latest in my weekly beats tracks.
This time we are moving on in my game themes to the PS2 Era and a JRPG style theme.
The setting is the main character adventuring into a Crystal Cavern (Inspired by Vanilla Dome from Mario). The twinkling synth represents the sparkle of the crystals.
The flow of the song represents exploration, being discovered by the monster an ensuing battle and then finally escape.
The track was made on Bitwig mostly using Synapse Audio the Legend Hans Zimmer synth for the epic Moog style bass and cinematic pads.
There a few bits of Diva, Repro (The excellent organ sound), and Pianoteq layered in with the synth.
Generally I’m quite happy with how this turned out, especially the chord change and more intense post rock section at around 2:10 which is very influenced by “In a house, in a heartbeat” from the 28 Days Later soundtrack.
Video made in Vizzy with the help of Gemini Veo.
Love how this builds in the chord change. It starts out with a Vanilla Dome feel, like you say. But that B part starts giving me FFVI vibes. Like Returners or something. It’s cool!
Thanks chap yeat thats very much the idea.
The intension is to tell some kind of story as the level progresses.
The end going all post rock kind of took me by surprise 
Oh that goes hard.
Love that plucky sound.
It’s cool that you got all that out of the Digitone 1 solo.
Doomy cover of folk song “The Wayfaring Stranger.” This one uses a lap harp/plucked psaltery plugged into some pedals for a lead, a long Ebow drone, synth percussion, and an FM lead in the bridges
Here is mine for this week.
Just started using Pianoteq and wow does this thing sound impressive.
Good stuff !!
This is my favorite of yours so far this year! Exactly the energy I needed this Monday morning 
Pianoteq (and Organteq! If you’re in to that sort of thing) is so amazing. That we’ve gotten to the point where we can use simulation to replace gigs and gigs of raw samples and get more expression from the result blows my mind.
Weekly beats is great! Cannot pull a song/sketch daily in January, but weekly maybe!
Having almost everything in one machine helps with focus:
Back to ROMplers and back to JRPGs. Just as FM always drags me towards Genesis/Megadrive-style tracks, the JV-2080 always sounds like PlayStation/Dreamcast era music to me.
Pirmor
Awesome, thanks chap!
I’m glad you enjoyed it. I was a bit unsure about it at first, but it’s grown on me.
I thought I’d move away from the chip tune into something a bit more organic.
I’ve been havering about buying Pianoteq for a while, but I’m really glad I have as it sounds super inspiring.
I love these JV-2080 tracks, like you say they have such a vibe.
I got the D-50 and JV-5080 plugins in the recent Plugin Boutique sale and I’ve been thinking about trying to do an all Roland ROMpler track for a while.
I was struck by how approachable the D-50 was once you have a UI, but the 5080 is just a monster.
Even on a computer it’s way too intimidating for me to try and create patches. Have you ever tried to program the 2080?
I have! In fact, I learned Roland’s “4 partial” JV-era engine by messing with a 2080. In some ways, I think that helped a lot, actually. It had a much bigger screen and better navigation than the 1080, but still forced you to focus on a single thing at a time. In an effort to be helpful, the plugins show everything at once and it’s very overwhelming (and it doesn’t help that Roland’s software is… finicky at times).
At this point, I’m much faster making sounds using “all on the screen” software editors, so I get it. But I don’t know how anyone learns with these.
My best advice is to turn off MFX, chorus, reverb. Then turn off Tones 2, 3, and 4 so you can focus on just #1. Dive into TVA (amp + env) and TVF (filter + env) just enough to open your envelopes wide, and then spend some time in WG, just loading and playing different PCMs.
Envelopes are worth a special mention. They’re not simple ADSRs. They each have 4 stages, each “L” value sets the Level the envelope will get to in that stage and each “T” values sets how much Time it will take to get there. Here, the pictures offered by the plugin really help!
Then start adding amp and filters again. Start adding FX back in to taste. You really only need to learn Structure, Matrix Control, etc. when you’re bored and want to get weird. And they’re really complicated. So just ignore them until you load a preset, wonder “how is it doing that?” and have already checked all the usual suspects.
Once you start getting comfortable with making patches this way, it’s time to start layering them. Everything you just did with Tone #1, above, you can also do independently with the other three Tones and layer them on top. If you only want some Tones to play depending on velocity or where the note played, visit “Velocity & Key Range”.
Oh, and if something doesn’t work, it’s because of the routing. Because there are 20 ways to route any given thing on these boxes. ¬_¬
Oh yeah!
This track has such an awesome misty over the water exploring a spooky area vibe.
Absolutely top, instant PS1 vibes.
What witchcraft is this. Is it the new Syntakt sample thing?
Does anyone know why there is such a disproportionately large number of M8 users on Weekly Beats?
I think of it as quite a niche device, but seemingly about 50% of people seem to use it.
the guy who created and runs Weekly Beats also created the M8. So there’s a lot of overlap in those communities.
That makes perfect sense.
I was like surely there can’t be this many people with an M8.
You nailed the jrpg vibe here, amazing work. I used to have a 2080 and loved all the sounds, I should buy the plugin…
Edit: it’s a monthly fee, damn you Roland