ever since listening to the thinner (ye olde netlabel) releases, dub house / dub techno was one of my favourite genres. I am still a learner, and this album (sometimes more clearly, sometimes not) shows my journey, with "reeboatgnist" being from around 2000 and "Just to quickly follow up" being one of the latest from 2018. I have been focusing on live performing and live streaming which is why there's no recent release in this album.

If you want to support me and my music, and you want to posess remastered, high quality copies of the tracks, I'm selling this Album on Bandcamp:

https://halfbyte.bandcamp.com/album/blue-triangles

Buy on Bandcamp

Blue Triangles

Weekly Beats 2024

Finally, some music I feel confident enough to upload.

This track wants to have some vocals, I feel, but I definitely don't feel confident enough for that.

The track is my first track built from start to finish in Ableton 11 which feels like a really solid release. (No comping used, haha)

Probability Zone

Just a dubtechno experiment. The voiceover is more or less a placeholder with a lot of blabbering that will hopefully replace with me having something to say soon.

voice of reason

Another demo arrangement of our #tagtoolmusic session with @benjaminrabe and Fabric Lenny. 

kniffke

Born out of some improvisation with my Korg Montron combo, an original Monotron and a Monotron Delay. The basedrum you hear (and the noisy hihat-ish sound in the background, which is just a filtered version of the original) is the filter of the Monotron self oscillating, fed through the Monotron Delay and then recorded and looped in ableton.

The grit of the Monotron Delay gives the whole thing a lot of character, quite typical for dub techno beats.

Originally the thing (as it was an LFO fed filter sweep) was straight four to the floor, but I decided that this was not what I had in mind and I built a drum rack out of different parts of the original beat filtered to the desired frequency range.

The dub techno stab is a sampled single shot played with the Monotron (also fed through the delay, which creates these weird off beat sounds) turned into a proper stab using simpler, an auto filter, a ping pong delay and a reverb (and some EQ for good measure).

The bass sound uses an Ableton Simpler with the exact same sample looped and filtered.

The synth effects are pure Monotron Delay, freely recorded and then somewhat chopped up and put into place.


Monotronic

no silver bullet (Weeklybeats #13)

Surphin Surplus

Weeklybeats 2024 is starting and I wanted to get something done quickly as I knew I wouldn't have much time left during the rest of the week.

This is built around a simple melody on Klevgrand's Speldosa. I absolutely love the sound of it but it is so. hard. to. mix.

I find the track slightly boring, as there's not much happening chord progression wise but I ran out of time in the window that I had.

In the end probably more a sound design exercise than a song writing exercise.

WB2401 It Makes A Sound

Unfortunately I had to skip last week due to some health issues. This week was a bit busy so again, this is more a sketch that shows the potential.

The name is a nod to the all time classic Mango Drive from Rhythm&Sound, which in turn is a remix of Mango Walk.

I don't see this as a sort of reproduction or even remix but more of a study of the spirit and the techniques of the original. 

Produced using the Ableton 12 Beta, but hardly using any of the new functionality (I used "strum" for the second guitar-ish synth chord)

It would by quite easy to stretch this to 5-8 minutes with some melodic variations and some proper dub style echo automations but I ran out of time as I won't have much time during the weekend. (Writing this on friday)

WB2403 Mango Sykkel

This week I stood in my own way, started way too late on Thursday and then ended up with something completely unusable. I thew away everything melodic, just kept the beat and started from scratch.

The sounds are a bit stereotypical, but I like the anthem-ish sound of the super saw synth.

Again, sloppy arrangement, but at least this one has a couple of transitions if a bit random.

WB2404 Drilling Through

No idea what this is. The groundwork, including parts of the pads in the background, the bleepy melody and the two drum loops were done on the OP-1, but then I pivoted to Ableton Live as I was getting nowhere on device.

I tried to add more to this but the song actively resisted.

WB2405 Clamshell

I went into the week thinking that trying to do some minimal techno could be fun. I then unexpectedly had time over the weekend, as I was trying to get rid of some cold viruses. 

This became a fun excersise in time and space with various different time signatures running against each other and constantly changing amounts of reverb on the main pieces. I also had a bit more time for arrangement so not only is this the longest beat this year so far, it probably also has the best breaks and transitions.

If you can't tell, I am quite happy with this one :)

WB2406 Drain The Groove

Another surprisingly long one. Heavily inspired by listening to too much Von D, but hopefully able to give it my own spin and atmosphere. Lots of different delays and reverbs, definitely not skimping out on the post processing.

It is developing slowly but I wouldn't have it any other way in this case.

WB2411 This Is Not a Cake

I wanted to do this for a while, sort of to prove myself that I'm able to do it. I am somewhat ambiguous towards the lofi genre and do enjoy listening to the Girl's stream from time to time, but I didn't have to create this to figure out that most of those tracks are relatively low effort.

Still, it was fun to play around with some nice chord progressions and the lead melody. 

WB2412 Stereo Type

Just a quick lofi remix as the chords lent themselves very well to it. Basically the track you would expect when the chords start.

Waiting for departure (lofi recapitulation)

Still made with relatively little time, but at least I took the time to properly record and edit a more complex lead improv. I did not play this in via a keyboard, though. Instead, when I recorded the adlibs, I just scatted along with the chords and then used "slice to MIDI" in Ableton to turn it into MIDI, it then took quite a bit of editing (I am not a good singer as can be heard in the end of the song, where I offer you a glimpse into the process). 

I started this with a completely different set of chords and then had to go back to some preset chords of the latin variant to turn it around because it wasn't working at all. Then I processed the beats a bit more and was reminded of the Underdog Remix of Risingson by Massive Attack. The switchup in that remix is obviously much more refined, but I liked the idea of going double tempo in the middle of the song.

WB2426 Sand In My Backpack

When playing around with Pigments presets, I came across this lovely lush pad that instantly reminded me of Goldies "Timeless". This track is clearly inspired by Timeless, one of my all time favourite drum and bass songs. It is still a weekly beat so it lacks a lot of the finesse and the storytelling that makes Timeless so compelling, but I think it works for a tribute of sorts.

WB2445 Callback

Had very little time this weekend, so I thought it might be time for another low effort lofi track. Quite happy with the result, took me about an hour net.

WB2447 Klimperei

Had almost no time for music making this week, so this is a beat I had lying around half done from last week and I turned into ... well ... something. I really enjoy these excercises around some chords (To be honest, I often snatch them from Scaler2, I suck at chord building). It started out as an experiment to play around with the recently aquired RC-20 effects processor which is great and gives a ton of control to the various lo-fying techniques. (and also looks really cool)

NGL, I am looking forward to being done with Weekly Beats for this time. It was fun, but also really exhausting sometimes.

WB2450 Boom Clack

Had to ease myself back into Weekly Beats on my home turf. Had the idea for the glitchy delay effects on the main stab this morning and am somewhat happy with the result. I'm wondering if I maybe overdid the compression on the main stab a bit, but I do like the aesthetics of it.

Mostly Ableton stock, except for a bit of processing and the fill drums.

I'll try to live stream my weekly beats session next week, see https://halfbyte.org/ for details and schedule.

WB2601 Next Cross Over

As I close out the January Dub inspired cycle, I wanted to try some "real" dub. I would've loved to turn an existing track into dub, but that gets kinda complicated with Copyright, so I made my own.

I didn't have much time this week so this is a very rough mix, with some very basic automations, but that's Weekly Beats for ya.

WB2605 Salivation Dub

I was struggling this week, hard. Started with something completely different but failed to get it anywhere. Then just dropped an interesting sample into Granulator III and tweaked it a bit and ended up with this. It is very unfinished, too short for my taste, but it is a submission and I am happy that I pushed through. 

WB2606 Sample My Theorem

This is a remix of scy's "Pensive" as released in week 6 for Weekly Beats 2026. With kind permission. On his track I commented how much I liked his restraint in not putting the usual distorted drums on it, so obviously this one has a lot of drums. 

Well. I am a bit embarrassed how long it took me to realize that the main synth line is just playing 5ths.

This remix is obviously inspired by Kuedo's Severant, an album that is still, 15 years after its release, in heavy rotation here.

WB2607 Pensive - halfbyte's re-contemplation

This track really had a life of its own and went places I didn't intend it to go.

The end result is somewhat of a banger, I hope. 

It would go great with UK drill lyrics, but since I don't have a rapper at hand, you'll have to trust me on that.

On second thought: https://youtu.be/4G0Tlbihoho

WB2608 Ok Lets Go

I was planning on doing a bit of music during a short vacation but somehow that didn't pan out as planned. I did sketch out the basic idea on my way home in the train and then it took me another 1 1/2 hours or so to refine it into this. It's deliberately slow moving with very few elements. 

WB2609 Drones Everywhere

On one hand I am quite proud of this one, a lot of the sounds have been made from scratch - The breakbeats, for example, are done in a separate project, in a typical slower tempo, heavily altered with RC-20 and other measures, then resampled and sped up, chopped and used. The reese is a quickly thrown together Peak/Summit preset, then sampled and the used and looped in Amigo for extra crunch and 90's authenticity. 

On the other hand, this track resisted finishing quite heavily and was extremely challenging to mix and I am still not really happy with it. 

The end result is ok, I guess? 

WB2610 Warp Back

Alright, let's do this. I sing. I am nervous about what y'all might think about this. I poured a lot into this. Partially mantra, partially pushing myself beyond my limits. That being said, it came to me, almost instantly, after finishing last weeks beat and I am stunned by that.

In contrast to this, this was a bitch to finalise, it didn't want to comply. I think I somehow ended up in an okay place with quite obvious weak parts, but it is still a Weekly Beat, even though this one, much more than most of what I've ever delivered on this website, doesn't feel like it.

It reuses a bunch of sounds from last week including the break, which is not pitched but timestretched to the correct tempo this time, and the lead sound which is a heavily distorted version of last weeks reese.

I am happy every week as I deliver yet another thing, but this one feels special.

WB2611 Gone Be Alright

Somtimes spontaneous ideas work out, sometimes they don't. I am still not sure which one of those this is.

This feels like it's a bit too many ideas or parts in one track, or rather, the parts are a bit too disjoint to really fit together.

Still I ran out of time and tried to force this into a somewhat coherent track.

One thing is for sure, this track is audibly exhausting. It was hard to mix, because it was exhausting to listen to for longer periods of time. I don't necessarily think there's anything particularly wrong with the mix (maybe the hihats in the beginning are a bit loud and maybe the snare is too harsh), but it's simply a lot.

I guess next weeks track is going to be a bit less violent.

I do continue to have fun with making my own drum loops and are, once again, quite happy with the result. 

The reese is adapted from a track from 2024, funnily enough.

WB2612 Across The Fence

Definitely more mellow than last week's entry. Happy with the result, even though this was a rather quick one. Could do with a bit more variation in a final mix outside of WB.

All in all, nice little row of different DnB genres and eras this month. Let's see what the next month brings. Happy to listen to something else than sped up breaks for a change.

WB2613 In Spite Of The World

Given that the original has some latin flavour, I had this idea to pick up this weird brazil funk trend of slowing everything the fuck down.  The end result is kinda cool, I think. Not like Justin Bieber in Paulstretch cool, but kinda nice actually. I love the crunchy breaks.

In Spite Of The World (SLOWED)

WB2614 Unknown Fungus

I'm a little annoyed at this one, as a bunch of unforced errors on my part lead to this being very much unfinished, but it's Sunday now and I have to leave in an hour and I cannot do anything meaningful to it.

Technically, I have half written lyrics for this, but they're trash and I didn't find any thyme (get it? I'm hilarious, I know) to record them anyway. 

It's a pretty cool bop, though, and it is CC, so if anyone wants to make anything out of this, knock yourself out, please.

WB2615 Back In Thyme

Originally I was planning on something a little a little more abstract but after a bit of experimenting in the beginning this track basically made itself.

The base sample is an E-Piano loop I recorded (or rather: bounced in Ableton) and then slowed down to 50%. As usual, a lot of XLN RC-20 and Cymatics Origin involved in getting the sound as crunchy and noisy as possible.

All in all, this took about 2 hours start to finish and I am happy with the result. Could I have taken a couple of extra passes on the noodling or at least make it a tiny bit more quantized? Sure. Do I think it would've helped? Probably not.

WB2616 Several Instances

I'm unhappy with this one but I also sunk way too much time into it, so it is what it is.

It's a bit bland, I guess, I could've chopped a bit more creatively.

Samples https://dig.ccmixter.org/files/jlbrock44/35050 and uses https://freesound.org/people/dcaudio/sounds/17117/, both released as CC-BY

WB2617 Spring Walk

Very little time as I wrote this on vacation, and a short one at that. I wish I had the time to actually write a proper guitar line on top instead of just slightly rearranging it around the piano notes, but well.

We had a couple of awesome days at the north sea coast, much warmer than anticipated and incredibly sunny weather. Still, with everything going on right now, it felt a bit like borrowed time, hence the slightly somber mood of this.

WB2618 Beach Please

This was one of those weeks where, several hours into one track, you have to abandon it because it simply does not speak to you anymore. So I started from scratch and came up with this Garage thing.

I'm happy with the strings that work quite niceley against the e-piano just by inverting a couple of notes on the chords. 

WB2619 More To The Groove

desktop muzik

After listening to the tune again, I found it to be one of the best pieces of music I ever created - And that's why I wanted it to be on soundcloud.

I made this tune around 2000 in Heidelberg (stayed there for 6 months on an internship).

(This track is now part of my "Blue Triangles" album available on bandcamp.)

Reeboatgnist

Just do it.

A rage track inspired by dumb people.

Wear Your Bloody Mask

Our monthly livestream this time had some deep dub vibes.

half/byte

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