Chip jam with MEGAfm, Elektron Syntakt, and Meris Polymoon

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A live, semi-improvised track performed entirely on hardware.

A member of my Patreon community was selling his MEGAfm by Twisted-Electrons, and I really had to try it out for myself. I get why he was selling it: the MEGAfm is a noisy, dirty synth that makes a certain set of sounds, and they either work for you or they don't. It's made of two of the same chips that were installed in the Sega Genesis, and as such has an alternate-reality-where-chiptune-was-FM feeling to it. While FM doesn't make a lot of sense to me, the MEGAfm's panel mode and extensive knobs and faders made it easy to design sounds in a very different architecture than I'm used to. I'm not sure I could use the MEGAfm for that much of my music, but it is undeniably full of character and unique from the other FM offerings out there.

To play the MEGAfm, I used my trusty Arturia Keystep. And to give it some space and movement, I ran the MEGAfm into the Meris Polymoon, which adds space, dimension, and feeling to basically everything it touches. I love its contribution here.

I ended up writing a piece on the Keystep and realized I was going to need some accompaniment. I tried a couple other things first, but then realized the Elektron Syntakt would be the perfect fit. Like the MEGAfm, the Syntakt can get grimy and chiptune-adjacent, as well as having some really nice warmth from its analog engines. And with some tweaking to step resolutions and pattern chaining, I quickly made a song arrangement even though the Syntakt doesn't have a formal arranger. Of the three small black boxes from Elektron, I think the Syntakt might be my favourite.

Performed and recorded live to two stereo tracks (Syntakt and output from Polymoon), with EQ, compression, and limiting on the master.

https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com