Free and open source, for anyone making music.
01 / 04
Formant Synthesizer Virtual Rack, the Yamaha FS1R rebuilt from its firmware
The 1998 Yamaha FS1R as a plugin and a standalone, its firmware logic rewritten in C++: four parts, 32 channels, the filter, both LFOs, the effects, the factory banks and Fseq playback, with an editor for every parameter the unit has.
James Hansen
Zhiyuan Wan
Wouter van Nifterick
v0.8.3Windows, macOS, LinuxVST3, CLAP, VST2, AU or standalone
02 / 04
The whole of MilkyTracker, as a plug-in
MilkyTracker, the Fasttracker II tracker, running unchanged inside a DAW as an instrument. It follows the host's tempo and transport, or plays patterns from the keyboard, and the song is saved inside the host's project.
Plugin Version
Original MilkyTracker Authors
Peter "pailes" Barth
Christopher O'Neill
Dale Whinham
Leon van Kammen
Tom Rees-Herdman
Johannes Schultz
Eric Price
gecko
Henri Isojärvi
nyanpasu64
Clayton Wells
congusbongus
James Cowgill
lammas
Lasse Mattila
Kowalski Dragon
capehill
vst1.0.0Windows, macOS, LinuxVST3, CLAP, VST2, AU or standalone
03 / 04
An enhancement layer for Native Instruments FM8 on Windows and macOS
Gives Native Instruments FM8 what it never got: the arpeggiator can play your other instruments, the morph square follows your mod wheel, the arp runs free of the DAW tempo, the interface scales up, and there is finally enough output gain. VST2, VST3 and standalone on Windows, VST2, VST3 and Audio Unit on macOS.
v1.0.9Windows, macOSfor FM8 v1.4.6, and v1.4.1 on Windows
04 / 04
Light up more than just 4 keys
The Casio LK-S250 can only light four keys at once, which makes two-handed practice in Synthesia impossible. This cycles the lights through the notes fast enough that the whole chord reads as lit.
v1.0.0Windowsfor Synthesia 10.9 and the Casio LK-S250
More music code on github.com/musicastudio, and talk about any of it on Discord.
Every track here was composed and produced by me, from electronic music through to orchestral soundtrack work, 2004 to 2021, restored and reworked from the original project files. Everything that used to live at music.jameshansen.com, metropeak.com and qjimbo.com, now in one place.
A short sketch, trying my hand at blending classical and electronic elements into something interesting. Picking up composition again after being dormant for a few years.
Created nearly entirely with FM8: lots of FM layers, rhythms and funk-inspired chords. It starts slow but once it gets going the layers pile up. I had planned a live version with a SEGA Genesis playing some of the FM parts, but never had the hardware.
Metropeak Studios, Surrey BC, then qjimbo.com: a Novation Ultranova, Reaper, FM8, and chip experiments on a Game Boy and a Genesis.
Made using voice patches from Emerald Hill Zone in Sonic 2. Left as a work in progress.
The first big piece of music I completed using my Novation Ultranova synth. A funky electronic-house kind of beat, heavily inspired by Naofumi Hataya's soundtrack for Sonic CD (EU/JP).
One of those tracks that basically wrote itself once I started. A variety of techniques to get chippy sounds: some from my Ultranova, others from the NES VST, combined with some bitcrushing.
Work in progress track from a work in progress album. Downtempo electronic chill-out goodness.
An unfinished run at dubstep from the Metropeak sessions.
A 44-second sketch from the Metropeak sessions.
Melodic electronic dance/house with an experimental ambient solo. A sample went up on metropeak.com in February 2012; this is the finished May mix.
A pop-rocky chippy track, put together over the course of several months. This is the finished January 2012 mix; qjimbo.com only ever carried the earlier work-in-progress cut.
A spooky sax lead takes us on a short musical journey.
Fast-paced hooky electro action. An oldie, reuploaded to SoundCloud in 2015.
Rhythmic orchestral march.
Dramatic track mixing electronic and orchestral instruments: synth sounds combined with strings and deep filtered bass.
Ambience inspired by the music in Knytt. A short piece with acoustic guitar that serves to set a tone.
Cakewalk Home Studio and EWQL Symphonic Orchestra Silver, from the first site at 17 through the Kingston years.
Part of my final composition assignment for the BMus at Kingston University.
Another Battle of the Bits compo entry.
Entered in a Battle of the Bits chiptune compo.
A wintry take on Sonic's Green Hill Zone, written for the proposed Christmas Chaos fan album.
This track has been described as sounding like a cop show theme, but in reality it was inspired by the music from Spyro 3.
Quick electronic composition.
Bernard Herrmann style modernist orchestral composition. One of the highest graded pieces of music I wrote during my degree.
Autumn Into Winter Suite, part 3
Part three of the Autumn Into Winter Suite, and definitely my favourite of the three. If you only download one, make sure it's this one.
Autumn Into Winter Suite, part 2
Part two of the Autumn Into Winter Suite, the bridge that mixes the themes of Autumn and Winter Blast.
Autumn Into Winter Suite, part 1
Part one of the Autumn Into Winter Suite, my mini experiment with themes: parts one and three fit together because of part two, The Transition, which mixes themes from both. Cover art by an old friend, Rosi.
Originally composed for a contest to write music for a remake of Sonic Xtreme.
For the final scene in Episode 6.
Closing end credits theme for the cartoon.
Evil Josh and Billy is a great cartoon to write music for! For the opening and closing titles, the creator wanted a 1960s Mission Impossible jazz sound, much like the music in The Incredibles. After some deconstructing I built a base for that style, and went on to write the entire soundtrack for each episode from Episode 7 onwards.
One of a set of original orchestral compositions, quite bombastic. A friend of mine called Zeck described it as sounding like Beethoven, not sure why.
A piccolo lead, a mysterious melody, simple orchestral layering.
The result of listening to the music in NFS: High Stakes and writing something in a similar style. The style in the game is electro but this track is more techno.
A piratey swashbuckling track with some interesting broken chords. First posted on music.jameshansen.com as Captain Sam.
A remake of a classic tune I made for Theaspor, an RPG a friend was building back in 2003. Not a major rework, just tidied up a bit.
I found my interest in composition through film soundtracks and video game music. I took piano lessons as a kid, and in high school I became devoted to composition, staying behind after class to experiment on the music room keyboards. After a diploma in Music Technology I completed a BMus in Music Composition at Kingston University, London.
My influences run from film composers like Danny Elfman, John Williams, Bernard Herrmann and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, through late-romantic composers like Mahler and Prokofiev, to electro, progressive rock and the soundtracks of the 16-bit Sonic games. I'm British-born and live in Vancouver, BC. Finding time to make music is an ongoing challenge alongside my day job as a software developer.
All music here is © James Hansen. Apart from the tracks marked ★, everything is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0. Use it in non-commercial projects with attribution, and remix or adapt it however you like.
★ Project music (Evil Josh and Billy) is only for use in its respective project and is not covered by the Creative Commons license.
Questions, collaborations, bug reports, or somewhere a track of mine turned up. Anything at all, this reaches me.
For help with one of the projects, its channel on the Discord is the quickest way to reach me and everyone else using it.
EvilDragon
Dezzo
