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

#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

#Movuary 19: Looking Down

I started this set on a cold day in October of 2025, and just got around to finishing it.

I have a thing for square waves and questionable chord progressions, I guess.

HQ download:
http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2026/19%20-%20Looking%20Down.flac

#Movuary 20: Stolen Melody

This is a very quick, very simple thing I just did mostly to get used to the workflow of using Move Everything modules in a project.

Years ago, @FreakyFwoof did a thing, and that melody has been stuck in my head for all that time... at least part of it, so I shamelessly stole it.

This features an e-piano patch from OB-XD with Junolog chorus and Cloud Seed algorithmic reverb, a synth sound from Access Virus TI, and the drums and bass came from Move synths.

HQ download:
http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2026/20%20-%20Stolen%20Melody.flac

#Movuary 21: Angry Noof

I'm just angry today, about a lot of things, and nothing is going right for me. I started three different sets, and they all broke, so I'm just releasing this stupid thing instead.

I actually made this just several hours after I got my Move on Friday, October 11, 2024, which was about as early as you could get one in the United States. I never intended to release this publically, but now seems like the right time to do it.

I said "NOOF" into the sampler, then made an angry beat around it, manipulating the "noof" sample in many dumb ways. It just reflects my mood right now.

HQ download:
http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2026/21%20-%20Angry%20Noof.flac

#Movuary 22: Dumb

Yeah, at this point, I'm not even trying anymore.

One of the new features of Move 2.0 beta is audio tracks, which you can import loops or just record on. A feature of Move Everything is the inclusion of a vocoder module. So, I combined these things to do something totally stupid and dumb.

HQ download:
http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2026/22%20-%20Dumb.flac

#Movuary 23: Disconnected

I'm two full days behind now. Oh well, so it goes.

This is a track that features two SurgeXG patches, a sort of e-piano sound from a Juno 60 emulator, two drum kits and a bass, all of which are stock Move sounds. I called it disconnected because one of the SurgeXT patches I used keeps saying "disconnected" at me, onomotapoetically..

HQ download:
http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2026/23%20-%20Disconnected.flac

#Movuary 24: the Man Machine

Getting further and further behind. The last couple of days, I have just not been in the headspace for playing with musical things. I'm still not, really. Lots of frustration with life.

This is a partial cover of Kraftwerk's 'the Man Machine' from 1978. I wanted to see how close I could get to the sound of the original using stock synth sounds. I didn't sample from the original for anything. Kraftwerk really doesn't like it when you do that.

I re-created the little percussive click at the beginning with Drift, did a layer/resample for the snare sound, and used a truncated Roland TR-707 kick. Yes, I know, it's not period accurate. Sue me.

I then used the vocoder module from Move Everything for the vocal parts.

There is a lot wrong with this thing. The lowpass filter of drift isn't quite right, the vocoder lacks the resolution of the one Kraftwerk used, and so much more, but it was fun trying to get somewhat close to a sound produced in a studio full of analog gear with a tiny device on my lap while sitting on the couch.

HQ download:
http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2026/24%20-%20the%20Man%20Machine.flac

#Movuary 25: Polygark

This is another one of those sets where I only used the sounds it gave me. No overdubbing or extra modules.

This one plays fast and loose with timing. Polyrhythms and weird turn-arounds galore.

HQ download:
http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2026/25-%20Polygark.flac

Ehhh, it's in C, not F. Not editing.

#Movuary 26: Take Me Home

In December, I, for some reason, wanted to re-create the instrumentation from Phil Collins 'Take Me Home' on Move, so I did the best I could using the included Roland TR-909 samples, a square wave with an envelope on it, and one of the stock e-piano sounds. Since move doesn't have gated reverb, not even in the new modules that I can find, I sampled the 909 clap sound with reverb, then just put an envelope on it to simulate the effect. Now that I can run Dext on Move, which emulates a Yamaha DX-7, I replaced the built-in e-piano sound with that, which is much closer to what Phil used when he recorded this in 1984. I don't think it's quite the right patch. His sparkles a little more.

Since the entire song is basically just Phil and friends singing over one bar of a square wave, two bars of TR-909 drums and a four bar e-piano sequence (there is also a bass and some other things, but that's primarily what you hear), I decided to make it more interesting for Movuary. Thus, I played around with chords, bass, and did things Phil never would have done with his 909.

HQ download:
http://www.borris.me/audio/movuary2026/26%20-%20Take%20Me%20Home.flac

#Movuary 27: 1987

This is a thing that started out as an 8 bar loop in June of 2025 for a recording I made about my own personal brand of synesthesia.

The sounds are not particularly 1987. They are all stock move sounds except for the drums, which came from a Magix Entertainment sample DVD released in 2001, but the style sort of is. I imagine this as something someone from 2067 might right having just read a book about 1987, never having actually experienced it themselves.

HQ download:
27 - 1987.flac

Whoops, there's a stupid error in that sequence. I'm too tired to fix it.

Izzie G 🎹🎸🎙️🎛️🎚️♾️👨‍🦯🌕Feb 28

@BorrisInABox I like this one. What's your synisthesia, if I may ask?

@izziegofficial It's really hard to explain, even to another synesthete. Basically, I hear words or sounds, and they become concepts. Maybe something smells like December of 1996, which is a very specific thing that could only happen in December of 1996, except for when it doesn't. Perhaps today is bime. What does bime mean? Who knows, but I am very much experiencing that on a day I would call bime.

Some entire ambient life experiences -- a particular set of smells and sounds can be associated with some thrown together set of phonemes that don't really mean anything to anyone. For example, the upstairs part of our house smells like gung in the summer time when it gets hot, but the basement at the same time smells like dankey, and dankey is also a particular sort of FM sound, which is also 1986, which happens to be in B flat major. B flat major is also the dead battery key, and smells like pine. I could go on and on. If I take the filters off, things get really weird.

Izzie G 🎹🎸🎙️🎛️🎚️♾️👨‍🦯🌕Feb 28

@BorrisInABox Wow, that's awesome. I like that. Has this been an always thing for you? Or did it start off as one kind of synesthesia? I’ve always had chromasthesia, but as I got older, it seems more kinds have crept in, either that, or I'm just now noticing them. :D

@izziegofficial Oh yeah, that's always been a thing. I never had any vision, so colors are mostly abstract concepts, although some sounds are associated with colors sometimes, even though I've never seen them.

Izzie G 🎹🎸🎙️🎛️🎚️♾️👨‍🦯🌕Feb 28

@BorrisInABox That's interesting. What's an example? I like hearing about other people’s synesthesia.

@izziegofficial The Yamaha DX7 e-pianos are blue, but a lot of the other sounds it makes are stab you in the face pink.

Day Garwood Feb 28

@BorrisInABox Nice. Really like that one.

Kara Goldfinch Feb 25

@BorrisInABox That patch says it to me as well.

Andre Louis Feb 25

@BorrisInABox 1. your Rhodes patch sounds like an XG patch which now makes me wonder whether he could add that as a module too. @arfy... Get coding! lol
2. The metronome as a percussive instrument, yes. I have a track like that too which won't make it to Movuary, because all of mine are now written and in-queue, but may post it afterward anyway.

@FreakyFwoof @arfy Yeah, I realized too late that I sampled the metronome, but I actually liked it in there, so I just kept it.

Andre Louis Feb 25

@BorrisInABox @arfy It's a good percussive backdrop sometimes.

@FreakyFwoof @arfy The reason I didn't realize I sampled it was because the metronome was on and phasing against itself, so I didn't hear it until I isolated it. And, by that time, I had already deleted the original clip. Whoops.

Andre Louis Feb 23

@BorrisInABox OK resurrect 'Dumb and Stupid' on Move.

@FreakyFwoof I'm not sure if I remember what that is. Is that the thing you did with a sound font and phone noises?

Andre Louis Feb 23

@BorrisInABox It was called dumb and stupid.ogg and you used it years ago for a very silly production about RA0 channel 0.

@FreakyFwoof @BorrisInABox It was also used in official bad for you wasn't it?

Andre Louis Feb 23

@x0 @BorrisInABox Yes that was the other one I couldn't remember.

Kaitlynn Feb 24

@BorrisInABox This has been stuck in my head all night and now into this morning. Thanks a lot haha. It's fine though because at least it's catchy and the lyrics are accurate.

Andre Louis Feb 21

@BorrisInABox What track was that from?

@FreakyFwoof Vaircool, or whatever that was. A thing you did in I think Audacity with a Boss VF-1 pitch shifter.

Day Garwood Feb 21

@BorrisInABox @FreakyFwoof I actually really like that. The chord sequence reminds me of something I wrote recently.

Andre Louis Feb 21

@BorrisInABox Haa that thing. I managed to bring in the main vocal from audacity and refactor it using Manipulator years later in Logic.

@FreakyFwoof I thought about doing some crazy junk and making it run with itself with new harmonies, time stretching and such, but I never got around to it.

Xantastic Feb 21

@BorrisInABox @FreakyFwoof oh, oh that's what it was.

Rebecca Legowski Feb 21

@BorrisInABox @FreakyFwoof ooh, I like this one! Sometimes a melody will get me thinking about lyrics I could put to it...and this is one of them. Nice groove and beat to it as well. Loving the synth!

Xantastic Feb 21

@BorrisInABox @FreakyFwoof I should know what this is bassed on, but I can't remember. I know most of onj's pieces, and it's familiar, but damn if I can remember it.

Andre Louis Feb 20

@BorrisInABox There's a bit which gives me Super Mario 3 level 2 vibes.

@FreakyFwoof yeah, who knows? I had a headache and started writing music. What can I say?

Izzie G 🎹🎸🎙️🎛️🎚️♾️👨‍🦯🌕Feb 20

@BorrisInABox Wow, this one does all kinds of crazy things to my chromasthesia.

@izziegofficial Oh, fun. What do you get out of it? for me, it's mostly just a cold floor in a weird, abandoned building where nothing can be trusted. There's a fan on, blowing even more cold air at you, and you can't get to it without endangering yourself, so you just deal with it being cold all the time. And everything is blue.

Izzie G 🎹🎸🎙️🎛️🎚️♾️👨‍🦯🌕Feb 20

@BorrisInABox I get a bunch of greens and browns, yellows and blues. But then since the synths move around in tamber and you got sweeps going on, they fluctuate in brightness. But as far as what it makes me picture, it makes me think of walking down the street in a sidescroller, so I'm looking at myself sideways, and there's tall buildings I'm walking past, and it's raining.

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

Andre Louis Feb 19

@BorrisInABox Magix paper ripping? lol

@FreakyFwoof I kind of figured you of all people would recognize that very specific rip noise. Lol. Thank you for matching my expectations.

Andre Louis Feb 19

@BorrisInABox Freaky Freaky Fwoof!

@FreakyFwoof yeah, that. Hey, you should totally make a move of that. Including all the noises. Go on, find a way. Do the thing.

Andre Louis Feb 19

@BorrisInABox I'm already thinking how to do it.

André Polykanine Feb 19

@BorrisInABox Great background for a horror/sci-fi audiobook.

Izzie G 🎹🎸🎙️🎛️🎚️♾️👨‍🦯🌕Feb 19

@BorrisInABox My brain officially, has melted.

@izziegofficial It happens sometimes.

Xander Fwoof Feb 19

@BorrisInABox hi, this is my brain sometimes.

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.