Music

Tunes :: Bands / Projects :: Bill's Gear

Yeah, I dabble in the arts, I guess

What kind of music ? Electronic stuff, some fast, some slow. My fiancée is a pretty awesome operatic soprano, which really just means I have no idea how to mix her voice :/ But eventually, I'll use her on a track.

What defines a Billco track ? A big dumb trance breakdown right in the middle of the tune! ;) Hey... game music doesn't have breakdowns, so let me have my fun goddamnit! My music relies on loop-driven, groove-dominated melodies that get stuck in your head. I also use a few subliminal tricks and a bit of math geekdom like the golden ratio, just because... well, I'm a fawking nerd, that's why!

Tunes

Click the track title to download it (MP3 ~192kbps VBR), or click the player above to stream the tunes in your browser (~96kbps).
(Über retarded high quality MP3s are available upon request, in case you wanted to hear all my mistakes :P)

Faded Days, by FukdebasS (22-Mar-2010)Downtempo / Drum & Bass Here's another tune I composed in one sitting, and mixed the next day. It starts out very mellow, then jumps into hyperdrive half-way through. The concept is that I'm depressed out of my skull, but there a part of me jumping and kicking to break free. It's in the same bloodline as "Lying to Myself". It has been selected for the new FukdebasS album, due out later this year. Hardware & Software used: Reason
Moon Buster, by Billco (26-Aug-2008)Light Bouncy Trance This one turned out very niiiiice :) Simple, happy, spacey trance that's easy on the ears. It only took me about 5 hours, most of it spent fussing with Cubase's FX routing to nail those floaty echoes and a few other complex effect chains - stuff that's embarrassingly easy to do in Reason. Hardware & Software used: Cubase, Nexus, Stylus RMX, Z3ta
The Aftermath (Billco's Club Mix), by Xevious Something (Summer 2008)Progressive House Finally! Bitburn and I have been working on "The Aftermath" for nearly two months. It started out as a smooth trance track, now here's a very different-sounding prog house mix, and I'm quite intent on cutting an elektro mix as well :)

Vocals: Roxxy Hardware & Software used: Reason, Cubase
The Aftermath (Billco's Club Mix v2.0), by Xevious Something (Summer 2008)Progressive House Just a subtly darker mix, to suit my own tastes. That little high-pitched synth was getting on my nerves...
Calculated Risk, by Billco (Summer 2008)Cheesy freakin' club ? This was a weird failed idea. Try very fawking hard to imagine a computer developing feelings for a human, you know... kind of like that terribly awful-but-awesome 80's movie Electric Dreams (which is being remade, by the way). Rest assured, it doesn't sound anything like Human League. Nope, not even close! Hardware & Software used: Reason
Lying to Myself, by Billco (Summer 2008)Ambient and dark I put this track together in one sitting, playing around with Cubase. Hardware & Software used: Cubase, Nexus, Stylus RMX, Z3ta
Power Management, by Billco (Summer 2008)Chill out / IDM I needed a little time-out from working on The Aftermath, so I decided to do something simple and fun. This is the result, not bad for an hour's work :) Hardware & Software used: Reason
Jesus Built My Casio, by FukdebasS (Summer 2008)Quirky Prog House Bitburn was riding my ass to produce tracks for our FukdebasS project, so I decided to pay tribute to my first musical "instrument" ever, the awesome Casiotone VL-1. This one's fun! Hardware & Software used: Reason, Casiotone VL-1 (yep, I still have it!)
Parking Nazi, by FukdebasS (Summer 2008)Trip-hop Fun with breakbeats and ridiculously loud bass! I was inspired by the worthless ticket-laying neo-con scumbags of the City of Ottawa. Because, you know, someone's gotta pay Larry O'Brien's goddamned strip club tab. Hardware & Software used: Reason
The System Has Failed Again, by FukdebasS (Spring 2008)Techno / Trance Ohhh boy... this was the first track I produced for FukdebasS. What a mess :$ I took Bitburn's cold-sounding "The System Has Failed" (which you hear at the beginning), ripped out most of the parts, added some nice warm buzzy synths and then went completely weird halfway through with a shameless rip-off of "Sweet Dreams". Ah, whatever! It is what it is; considering it's the first thing I've produced since 2001, I could have done much worse. Hardware & Software used: Reason

Bands / Projects

Well, it's quite simple, I'm either working solo, or with Bitburn. Our styles of music aren't particularly suited for traditional bands, since everything is done with computers - well, almost everything: Bitburn is an experienced guitar player. Me, I'm good at clicking things with a mouse... can't play an instrument to save my life.

Project: FukdebasS (2008) Glitch / House / Ambient FukdebasS was Bitburn's idea, and it's the first official collaboration between us two. He's been producing ambient music for years, under the name BlueTonicWorld, but he wanted to try something different, gritty and dark. I started by remixing one of his tracks, "The System Has Failed"... not my greatest work by a long shot, but it was the first time I produced any music in over six years, since losing all my work and "signature" sounds in a big ugly system crash, back in 2001. Later tracks are much more polished and consistent, as I continue to refine my composition and mixing techniques. Producers: Bitburn and Billco
Billco (2008) IDM / Trip-Hop / Funky Minimal Techno / Whatever What you see is what you get! I'm still experimenting, getting back into the swing of things, so I haven't really started a coherent project yet. Producer: Billco

Bill's Gear

Almost everything is done on my PC Crush. I use a lot of cheap gear because it doesn't matter all that much to me, as long as it sounds good coming back out.

Hardware

Software

Process

I wish I had something insightful to say here, but I'm an idiot savant when it comes to music. I never studied music theory, but I've had headphones practically glued to my skull since I was a little kid. I usually start out by digging through my loops, or sometimes I'll lay down a simple melody or bassline and build up from there. It's all very spontaneous and experimental, I never really know what I'm going to do until it's almost finished. I often take my old unfinished or unreleased tracks and change the tempo or mash them up into something new. Bitburn's always ready to lend a critical ear, though I sometimes question his tastes ;)

My first few tunes were made in Reason, and I feed the resulting mess into Cubase via Rewire to do the final mastering via Waves L3, Maxxbass and whatever else I need. My later tracks, starting with "Lying to Myself", are done entirely in Cubase. Frankly, I wish the Reason designers would stop sucking their own dicks and add proper VSTi support, like all of us have been asking for since the very first release back in 2000. Cubase could also learn a few tricks from Reason, like easier FX routing, better keyboard shortcuts, and less UI clutter - seems I'm constantly having to shuffle windows around to see what the hell I'm doing.