Mastodawn

Last February, I did a thing, which I called #Movuary, in which I sequenced a new track (almost) every day of the month of February with my then relatively new Ableton Move groove box.

Most days, I actually tracked a new thing, but a few were previous sequences that got slight touch-ups.

That was a lot of fun, and got me to think about things in ways I otherwise wouldn't, so I think I'll do it again this year.

If you're curious, here's a very boring index page with everything I did last year, including Ableton bundles for you to play with in your own Move, Ableton Note, or Ableton Live.

BTW, I have still never actually used Ableton Live. Maybe I'll get around to that one of these days.

http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2025/

If anyone else here wants to do the same, posting a new track produced with Ableton Move every day in February using the #Movuary hashtag, let's make this a movement, or something.

Index of /audio/movuary2025

Welcome to the first day of #Movuary, in which I will post a track created with my Ableton Move every day for the month of February.

Starting off with this thing I actually made in October, and revised this morning.

It's called "Happy Saw Times", because it's ridiculously bouncy, overly excited to exist, and is based on a stupid little saw wave riff that wouldn't leave my head at the time.

This is not the sort of thing I would normally write, but I can't promise something like it won't happen again in the future. IT's just very unlikely.

HQ download:
http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2026/01%20-%20Happy%20Saw%20Times.flac

#movuary 02: the Dead Battery Song

This is a very silly thing based around the MacinTalk 'Pipe Organ' voice, found on Mac OS and iOS, which sings to the tune of 'Funeral March of a Marionette', composed originally for piano by Charles Gounod in 1872, and orchestrated in 1879, though many will recognize it from 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' from the 50s and early 60s.

Someone here (and I can't remember who now) made a comment that they had their iPhone using that particular voice singing your battery is about to die" when the battery reached a certain level, so I kind of extended this concept a bit, even going so far as to make a custom MacinTalk voice to carry the melody further.

With apologies to Charles Gounod, 'Alfred Hitchcock, and the creator of this version of MacinTalk, who I believe is no longer with us, but can't remember his name now.

I sampled myself playing my Suzuki Melodion into Move's built-in microphone twice, then filtered the result. Some things are not quite in tune, but hey, what can I say? Things get a little bit weird when you've got low voltage, I guess.

HQ download:
http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2026/02%20-%20The%20Dead%20Battery%20Song.flac

#Movuary 03: Icy Roads

This is a track inspired by a recent drive on streets with patches of ice. It's rough, uneven, slightly chaotic, and trying it's best to keep itself together, but can't quite manage.

Fun fact:
I composed this entire thing without using Move's screen reader, and just used the four random sounds it gave me when starting a new set.

HQ download:
http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2026/03%20-%20Icy%20Roads.flac

Unfortunately, my instance will not let me attach the file directly. I'll edit this post if it is fixed.

#Movuary 04: Pluribus

This, compared to some other stuff I've done, is pretty simple. I sampled Dave Porter's 'Pluribus' theme from Apple TV into Move using the USB-C port of my phone, pitched it up slightly, then put drums, bass, a rohdes and some strings behind it.

Eagerly awaiting season 2, by the way.

HQ download:
http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2026/04%20-%20Pluribus.flac

#Movuary 05: Fly on the Wall

I wrote this in August of 2025, just after the release of the autofilter effect, and some new sliced loops were added to Move.

It's in the key of F, and features a sampled e-piano, synth bass, which I think actually came from a drum kit, drums, and one of the stock sliced loops.
This song also has some built-in summer heat and humidity. No, it really does.

HQ download:
http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2026/05%20-Fly%20On%20The%20Wall.flac

#Movuary 06: Traveling Nowhere

Originally sequenced in May of 2025, revised today, because I am not feeling all that inspired to make new stuff. This, too, shall pass.

Key of F major, with drums, saw bass, fake strings, and a vibraphone. It just kind of meanders around and never really goes anywhere, especially the bass part, which is why I called it Traveling Nowhere.

HQ download:
http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2026/06%20-%20Traveling%20Nowhere.flac

#Movuary 07: It's Nothing Special

This is a hasty thing I put together based around one of the acoustic guitar sliced loops that comes with Move. It's called It's Nothing Special because the phrase of the guitar kind of says "it's nothing special" to me, over and over again.A flat miner, with two drum kits, including a muted jazz bass, a Rhodes kind of sound, and the above sliced acoustic guitar loop thing.
It's all pretty rough and minimal.

#Movuary 08: Unusual Sunday

Today has been weird for multiple reasons, but mostly turned out alright. This little sequence reflects that.

#Movuary 09: Careless

What happens when you just slap something together and don't really care? This, apparently.

There's a section where I forgot to quantize part of one of the clips. I was going to fix it, but it was a careless mistake, and it's called Careless, so yeah, I'll just leave it in.

HQ download:
http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2026/09%20-%20Careless.flac

#Movuary 10: Terrible On Purpose

I feel terrible tonight, and just didn't feel like coming up with something new. So, have something old and bad instead.

HQ download:
http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2026/10%20-%20Terrible%20on%20Purpose.flac

#Movuary 11: Running Late

I missed my deadline for posting before midnight EST. Oh well, it's still February 11 in a tfew timezones.

This is a loud, annoyed sort of thing with lots of steppy things, delays that won't get out of your face, and annoying synth chords that seem out of place. Really, I hate this thing. I'm putting it here as a punishment to myself.

HQ download:
http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2026/11%20-%20Running%20Late.flac

#Movuary 12: Throw a Doob

Sometimes, sequences don't have to be complicated to be fun. This is a prime example. It's based around a two osc square wave patch with some delay and a flanger, a filtered sawtooth bass, a sawtooth synth part, and some drums.

HQ download:
http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2026/12%20-%20Throw%20a%20Doob.flac

#Movuary 13: Cheap Plastic Autobahn

Here is a beautifully inaccurate rendition of a small part of Kraftwerk's 1974 hit Autobahn... Well, it was a hit in Germany in 1974, but was on American Top 40 in the summer of 1975.

There is no way I could possibly re-create the sounds of all those old synths, drum machines and plate reverbs used back in those days on a groovebox, so this is the best I can muster.

HQ download:
http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2026/13%20-%20Cheap%20Plastic%20Autobahn.flac

Just realized that almost every post in this thread was marked as unlisted. Well, oops. That's what I get for not looking.

#Movuary 14: Too Much

It was a day that just felt like it would never end. Everything went wrong. I got bad news from all fronts. It just sucked, so I made a sequence about it.

HQ download:
http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2026/14%20-%20Too%20Much.flac

#Movuary 15: Woova

This is actually a thing built on a set I made in December of 2024 for a project. I wanted something very low effort, so I sampled a bunch of vocal and synth noises in a wash of 100% wet reverb, stuck a bass line I recorded over a year ago in it, played some junk using the pads, not trying too hard, and stuck a beat on top, with some slight automation.

It's called Woova because that's what I named the set back then. It has no other meaning.

HQ download:
http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2026/15%20-%20Woova.flac

#Movuary 16: the Samsung Song

This is totally a cop-out, and I realize it, but, seriously, the world order has changed in a fundamental way, and I need time. That's even almost not quite exaggerating.

As a placeholder, I give you a swingy, poppy version of the Samsung washing machine song, otherwise known as Franz Schubert's Die Forelle, and the shortest thing I have ever posted under the Movuary hashtag, either this year or last.

HQ download:
http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2026/16%20-%20Die%20Forelle.flac

#Movuary 17: No Matter What

When you create a new set on Move, it throws four random sounds at you. Despite none of these sounds being ones I would probably ever use, let alone together, I was determined to make something semi-interesting, thus the title, No Matter What. Honestly, I kind of hate it, TBH.

HQ download:
http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2026/17%20-%20No%20Matter%20What.flac

#Movuary 18: the Wrong Move

Let's do something entirely different. This is not at all a musical thingy. Not really. It's mostly a thing where I turn a bunch of knobs, make a bunch of noise, layer more noises on top, and just zoik out, whatever zoik means.

Weird noise warning.

HQ download:
http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2026/18%20-%20the%20Wrong%20Move.flac

@BorrisInABox This could almost be some sort of sci-fi or alien ambience.

Jonathan Feb 18

@BorrisInABox This is actually kinda cool imo.

Kara Goldfinch Feb 18

@BorrisInABox I haven't heard it yet but after seeing the title I thought "Is he doing Boyzone covers now?"

@KaraLG84 wouldn't that be weird?

Kara Goldfinch Feb 18

@BorrisInABox Just a bit.

James Scholes Feb 18

@KaraLG84 @BorrisInABox Ronan Keating loves a distorted tom.

Andre Louis Feb 18

@BorrisInABox I think everyone should do a 'No Matter What' it's challenging.

@FreakyFwoof yes, and sometimes, it can even be satisfying. Certainly not always though.

@BorrisInABox lol the ending killed me for some reason

@Bri @BorrisInABox Haha me too.

Day Garwood Feb 17

@BorrisInABox So wish I could reprogram my washing machine to use that instead of its own monophonic beepy version. Haha.

Izzie G 🎹🎸🎙️🎛️🎚️♾️👨‍🦯🌕Feb 17

@BorrisInABox Yay! my Mum's old washing machine has a beat to it now! :d

@BorrisInABox Please transfer that to my Samsung washing machine and dryer immediately as what they play just about makes my ears bleed after three years 🙂

Xander Fwoof Feb 17

@BorrisInABox hey, I've heard this afore!

Izzie G 🎹🎸🎙️🎛️🎚️♾️👨‍🦯🌕Feb 16

@BorrisInABox Wow, this is awesome, and trippy. I'm here for it.

Andre Louis Feb 15

@BorrisInABox This is full of Arpfies.
I'm challenging you to recreate the Bad Gear theme on Move and extend it for one of your Movuaries.

@FreakyFwoof You know, the funny thing about that is I thought about Bad Gear as I was making this. So, yeah...

Andre Louis Feb 15

@BorrisInABox I could hear it. I thought of making the theme on Move myself. I know he already did for his video but still.

Kara Goldfinch Feb 15

@BorrisInABox @FreakyFwoof I like the Sid-style pulse with modulation.

Kara Goldfinch Feb 15

@BorrisInABox @FreakyFwoof Oh and the arps. :)

Kieran L Feb 15

@BorrisInABox Sounds like it belongs in a 80's cop movie.

ground024 Feb 16

@BorrisInABox That was the jam. Bad news makes good music I guess.

Kara Goldfinch Feb 14

@BorrisInABox This is incredible.

Kara Goldfinch Feb 14

@BorrisInABox Honestly they should distribute some of your sets as demos rather than the shite it comes with. I still can't get over how bad those demos are.

@KaraLG84 They really do rather suck, don't they?

Kara Goldfinch Feb 14

@BorrisInABox Some of the worst gear demos I have heard.

Noel Romey Feb 10

@BorrisInABox I gotta get me one of these here Ableton move thangies!

@ner They're fun little devices. Tell ya what.

@ner @BorrisInABox Oh yes you do! I think you, being a programming type, would have way, way too much fun with this thing. You can ssh into it! I need to set up an ssh key so I can play with this.

Noel Romey Feb 10

@arfy @BorrisInABox Hey, I could use this as a cw key when I add support for it in JJ flex. Yes, ssh it all to hell.

@ner @arfy Well, you don't even need SSH for that. It has MIDI out. Just give it basic MIDI support.

@BorrisInABox @ner I wanna play with @simon's NVDA remote bridge thing.

@arfy @ner @simon As do I, if nothing else for the auto-reading pin thing. Granted, I don't have to put a pin in very often anyway, because everybody has a reserved IP. I've gone a few weeks without having to do that, anyway.

Simon Jaeger Feb 11

@BorrisInABox @arfy @ner The pairing code situation will be interesting because the code gets set once, and never changes until something gets it right and authenticates. So speaking the code will be useful, until you miss it the first time and you have to reboot to get another code.
There are a lot of potential solutions to this, but one of them will probably involve writing to a file with a user-defined name and storing the PIN there whenever it changes. That will take away the dependence on NVDA remote.
In the future I might make a separate web interface to configure wi-fi and other useful things, but I'm trying not to let my brain run away with itself too much.

Noel Romey Feb 10

@arfy @BorrisInABox @simon Same here. I respect those who take the little that's given us to support hardware and run with it. Wait til you hear fart mode on JJ Flex cause it exists. Love making easter eggs. I doubt that Flex Systems Inc. will be pleased.

@ner @arfy @simon Fart? That's what FFT stands for, right?

Noel Romey Feb 10

@BorrisInABox @arfy @simon Exactly. I've actually been studying it lately. I want to make sure AI is doing a proper fft when it sonifies spectroscopes.

Noel Romey Feb 10

@BorrisInABox @arfy Oh hell yeah. It's now on the roadmap. Already planning a keyboard based iambic and straight key, why not use middle C to transmit and G 1 to dit or dah or both.

Xantastic Feb 9

@BorrisInABox it says 1991

@cordova5029 well, sea sharp major has always been a 1991 kind of key, so there is that.

Xantastic Feb 9

@BorrisInABox oh hasn't it? sometimes it's strings and clarinets in almost d, but close enough to c sharp, oh and guitars and mandalins

@BorrisInABox This kit again?

@BorrisInABox oh, it is that sequence. OK

@Bri Yep, that kit again.

Andre Louis Feb 5

@BorrisInABox Resample time?

@FreakyFwoof No, not in that project.