news archive
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jaxcheese in the real world
11-21-2024
upcoming: in january I'll return to MAGFEST, where I will possibly play with a few different groups (stay tuned for breaking updates) and otherwise probably buy some CDs, play some shmups, and hang around the jam sessions. in march I'll be playing drums with magnificent at BOSTON BITDOWN, which is shaping up to be really special. I'm sure I'll be in the audience for the rest of the festival... if you attend either of these things I'd like to meet you! just send a message.
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ZERORANGER!!
9-28-2024
check out my track "hold on / stall out" on the new zeroranger official arr album! really pleased that I got an invite to join this incredible lineup and make a contribution to a real milestone of an album. my track is a medley of a few themes with similar harmony and one of the longer things I have ever made. I wanted to play to my strengths for this album, so I worked in a few styles that I'm extra-comfortable with. you can also listen to a segment on ptweb. thanks to preta and MB for their encouragement, and to all other album staff and contributors. a really special experience!
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new PXTUNES: CAVE STORY arr. album
9-23-2024
for cave story's 20th birthday we made the biggest pxtunes album yet!! we all knew this was going to happen eventually and this occasion was the right excuse for it. I arranged a jazz-rockin shuffle version of gestation but my time spent on the organizing side rivaled my time musicking for this one, I think. this album is really huge and full of surprises. soon I'll be streaming a playthrough of the game with our remixes in place of the classic bgm on youtube. please look forward to that and enjoy the album!
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drums on FURIOUS FOCUS
9-5-2024
I played drums on the final, all-acoustic track of goji's thrilling new album on iiiypad! after working on this track the rest of the album really shocked and amazed me. full of exciting sounds! the track I played on was a little bit of a new and unique challenge for me.
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demo track for COBVOICE DX
9-4-2024
ptvoice master cob is back with a new and improved ptvoice pack and it includes a new demo track by me! lot of fun new sounds to work with in here and I didn't even get to use nearly all of them. the other demo tracks by damifortune, myupicks, ehm, and of course cob, all good pxtone pals of mine, are all really fun too and show the limits these sounds can be pushed to and the breadth of stlyes they can cover...
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did a track for MIDNIGHT SYNDROME
8-11-2024
I arranged a favorite track from the silver case for kodamasounds' cool grasshopper manufacture album. the harmony of "cauliflower" has inspired/puzzled me often since I first played the silver case. I was really happy to get a chance to explore it more here.
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MAGDAN on tour!
7-31-2024
New England's Premier VGM Brass Band Magnificent Danger is on a tour of the northeast with the rest of the world's premier vgm band, discocactus!! catch us in philly, nyc, boston, and sanford ME.
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PXTUNES: TONEYQUEST
5-11-2024
the latest PXTUNES is out, and it's our most ambitious yet. what started out as a soundtrack for a fake game turned into a pretty complex interactive live event; as the album premiered on discord, listeners followed a story with lots of artwork, made choices that ultimately affected the order of the tracks on the album, and completed musical puzzle "battles". the hugest thanks go to my pal and pxtunes veteran neozoid, who did a ton of the writing and design, and without whom this project would not have taken on such an ambitious scope. for those who missed out on the live event, a game manual comes with the album download that gives you a taste of it. for my part, I was mostly occupied by writing dialogue and descriptions of dusty shops in the end, but I did manage to contribute some plot-important jingles and a credits song. TONE POEM was inspired by my love for nonsense sentimental ending vocal themes like "wish..." from shenmue, "dreams dreams" from nights, and "I am the wind" from symphony of the night. I wrote lyrics for it and intended to sing it, but I was unhappy with my rushed vocal takes in the end. maybe I'll revisit it someday!
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SELECTIONS #9
4-23-2024
a new SELECTIONS compilation has arrived. lots of cool stuff over the past ~16 months, collected in one place for your listening convenience. should be on spotify shortly! see you next selections...
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SQUARE on srxd
4-6-2024
theway123, who previously charted my tune "triangle" for the rhythm game spin rhythm xd, commissioned me to write a brand new tune purpose-built for rhythm gaming! it's called "square" and celebrates his 4th anniversary of playing the game. the chart looks super tricky! you can watch a video of it being played here. a fun new experiment for me. check out the track commentary on selections #9 for more about the composition.
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VGM JAM SESSIONS BOSTON
3-26-2024
I sat in with the house band at two jam sessions in february and earlier this month, and the videos are starting to come out now! these vgm jam sessions started up last year and have been going strong. the horn section is made up of some friends from magnificent danger. I love playing drums with these guys, and I also love the opportunity to bring in some of my favorite obscure vgm tunes for them to jam on. here's the beta music from the sonic advance 2 trailer, transcribed for this group by me. big groove!! follow this youtube for more coming soon.
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LSSQ 15th anniv opening
3-7-2024
I wrote a new jingle for longtime friend & collaborator lsupersonicq, accompanying a cool logo animation to be used in some special videos celebrating 15 years since the creation of his channel. check it out in e.g. this video. when I make new sounds for lssq I always try to incorporate some elements of the theme song I wrote for him back in 2016, maybe you can spot them here.
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LOVE IN A BOTTLE demo out now
2-5-2024
you can check out a free demo of the cute unique visual novel I've been working on some tunes for!! a lot of my music shows up in the demo but there's even more coming when the game releases in a couple months. please look forward to it! to celebrate I shared one tune on ptweb. the bgm is all a mix of fm sounds, square waves and old-school rompler drums n samples... my little twist on old-school pc98 visual novel tunes. some homages paid to umemoto of course, which you can hear in the demo if you're listening for it!
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jaxcheese at magfest??
1-21-2024
I went to magfest for the first time! if you were there you might have seen me jamming out with magdan in the jamspace, blasting TRIANGLE at the chiptune open mic (no idea if there's a vod of this floating around somewhere) and cheering on some other pxtoners, playing my viola on the floor and in the front row of the community orchestra, or failing miserably in the second round of the monkey ball tournament. hopefully I'll be back next year and I can meet more of you internet people! see you then... (or if you live around boston, check out a magdan gig or the vgm jam sesh sometime! I'll be there!)
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MEGA SERVAL at agdq! wow
1-20-2024
this year the cute mega man/kemono friends fangame that I did sfx for appeared at agdq! that's so cool... I was a dedicated viewer many years ago but these days I don't have the time to keep up with it. I hope everyone enjoyed my bleeps and kerpows!
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SECRET PORTA returns
12-24-2023
pxtunes' annual holiday cover exchange is back for a third year. too many great highlights to describe this year... many treats for old fans of pxtunes! I pulled triple duty this time and got to work with a lot of fun tunes. (you can also check my entries on ptweb.) cure did a really charming cover of a recent ohb of mine "uneasy" (will be on forthcoming selections #9) with some cool new ideas. and, wow, a bunch of the entrants surprised me with a collab-cover of a pretty old and special tune of mine "next year" that appeared on the very first pxtunes (dubious claim) and again on 2021's 5th anniversary album. I love pxtone!!
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new PXTUNES out now!
9-2-2023
for the latest pxtunes we all picked favorite tunes from classic (and some new) game boy games to make fresh arrangements of. the album is as always really fun and varied. some of your favorite games are here as well as some you've never heard of. for my part I covered 7 tunes from kaeru no tame ni kane wa naru, an early totaka masterpiece and one of my favorite soundtracks ever. it's all organized into a single suite towards the end of the album; I guess this is "one of my longest tracks ever", but only because it is actually several tracks. in any case it was a ton of work and involved some new experiments, so I hope you'll enjoy! some parts can also be examined on ptweb.
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BLOG #5 published
7-5-2023
my latest blog is about "preserving" vgm and computer music, and the ways people have been doing that on the internet. it's my longest one yet and approaches the topic from a lot of different angles, informed by my many years making and collecting this music and my recent library science studies. thanks to everyone who has enjoyed these in the past! more coming next year probably...
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TRIANGLE featured at spin rhythm xd tournament
6-25-2023
theway123 approached me a while back about adapting one of my tunes into a playable chart for the rhythm game spin rhythm xd. we settled on "triangle" since it has plenty of little rhythm quirks. he really did something cool with it! a ton of the details come through in the chart. it's apparently also quite hard! enough so to get picked up for the final round of a recent tournament. thanks to theway123 and to the players and organizers, this was real cool for me to watch.
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demo track for COBVOICE
6-16-2023
a new pack of designer ptvoice instrument patches for pxtone is now available!! designed by recent pxtunes contributor cob. me and damifortune wrote new demo tunes for this release, using only cobvoice instruments. it was fun! there's a lot of good sounds in there. pxtoners can download COBVOICE here, demo tracks included. you can also check out my track "the voice of cob" on ptweb!
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drums for "DISTANT ISLANDS" by hunter van brocklin
6-2-2023
my friend hunter van brocklin aka damifortune released a fantastic new album of experimental snes chiptune on premier weirdo computer music netlabel IiIypad. he invited me to record some live drums for a new glitched-up, refreshed iteration of his microtonal swing jam "welcome to dragon airlines". that's track #3 on the album but the rest comes highly recommended. over on my youtube I also uploaded a video of me playing!
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"PADDY'S PORTAGE" for ludum dare 53
5-2-2023
spacespy invited me to make some music for his entry to ludum dare, a "game jam" competition where you make a game based on a theme in just a few days. the theme was "delivery" and we made a little game about a bird sneaking around with a big crate. art by ianthebee! my contribution is pretty much just one jazzy spy tune with a few little variations. made with pxtone, of course. the game is pretty cool! scoring for the competition is not done yet but people seem to like it. you can check it out for FREE!
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SAMPLE PACK CONTEST XVIII
4-29-2023
I wrote "indignant dance music" for sample pack contest, a recurring event where a bunch of people make music with the same limited set of samples. I always find these pretty inspiring so I'm glad I got to do it again. this was made with pxtone but it is quite a genre experimentation for me... as you will hear. check out the sample pack contest website to listen to some other entries and also read a much lengthier comment about my tune. you can also listen/watch on ptweb.
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crab
3-19-2023
crab.
the newest pxtunes album is out now... and it is "crab". featuring lots of creative computer music as usual and my first ever proper microtonal tune. please enjoy! -
SUPER CAKEBOY has returned!
3-16-2023
this small free game by my pal syaxamaphone was originally made to appear as a bonus game in "war girl". now it's getting a special standalone release! in addition to the tunes I and zerethn wrote for it some years back, I whipped up one fresh new chiptune and some sfx for this occasion.
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new remix for MONOLITH: 5TH ANNIVERSARY
1-15-2023
a new MONOLITH remix album has been released in celebration of the game's 5th anniversary. I wrote a wacky pxtone-prog remix of the tune "gone fishing" for it! the original music was made by my old pal garoslaw using pxtone, and a bunch of us also remixed it a couple years back for PXTUNES. a truly great soundtrack! it was honor to join some great composers on this special tribute album.
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check out SUPER SECRET PORTA
12-22-2022
the latest PXTUNES is a sequel to last year's holiday cover exchange, featuring many new artists and lots of mindblowing tunes! I got to write some crazy prog rock for a cover of a great tune by stardiscs, and metoria did a lovely cover of a jaxcheese classic "welcome nowhere". happy porta day!
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SELECTIONS #8!!
12-16-2022
new ALBUM featuring assorted tunes I made in 2022. a lot of this stuff is very special to me! it was a good year... thank you for listening!
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MEGA SERVAL is out!
11-30-2022
the latest syaxamaphone game is a free mega man-like featuring characters from the "kemono friends" game/show. I made some chiptune-y sfx from scratch using famitracker! including recreations of a couple iconic lines. it is very cute and FREE!
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new halloween PXTUNES!
10-31-2022
the latest PXTUNES album is full of original spooky tunes, just in time for halloween. as always great diversity of styles and lots of creative ideas on this one, including a lot of vocals! applied in various ways. we had so much fun making this one, please enjoy...
you can also examine my contribution to the album on ptweb. -
DREAMREND music out now!
9-12-2022
some more old work that I am excited to share! I worked on this one 2019-2020. it was a special opportunity to work on something with a story and lots of cool characters/symbols/themes etc. and to experiment with genre a little! this one is less chiptuney and has some guitars and some jazz and even a little bit of microtones in one tune. fun stuff! the game was also shaping up to be something really cool and unique and I'm looking forward to what this developer will do next... listen here.
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YAN'S WORLD soundtrack is out!
9-2-2022
I worked on yan's world ~2016-2020, using famitracker in a certain configuration to mimic the virtual boy, after which this game was styled. later in development the great Baycun joined in to contribute some additional tracks. most of the music went unreleased until now, since the game has been in an uncertain state for a while. this release compiles a ton of music, including some stuff that was cut from the game and some bonus sketches and alternate takes. listen here!
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special intro tune for new LSSQ video
9-1-2022
the latest LSuperSonicQ video is a special collab with Sakura Stardust and features a new opening animation by CC Short + a new jazzy remix of my old LSSQ theme! I'll put this one on the next selections release, stay tuned...
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new PXTUNES out now!
8-13-22
the latest PXTUNES album from the pxtone discord server is here! we did new arrangements of music from daisuke amaya's freeware shmup GUXT. this is another big, varied, incredibly creative release. my main contribution was an umemoto/pc98 pastiche-arrange of the "game over" music, which you can also check out on ptweb.
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MECHANISMS out now!
7-30-22
new little weird side project released today: a series of experiments in digital minimalism using pxtone. the goal was to use pxtone's delay effect to make tunes that contain very minimal "event data" but still develop in interesting ways over time. lots more info on how this works and downloads on bandcamp; also check my ptweb to check out the ptcops for yourself.
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RYU UMEMOTO fanpage launch
6-17-22
today I released the first version of my ryu umemoto fanpage, dedicated to the work of a groundbreaking game composer. so far it's mainly a chronology of everything he worked on up to YU-NO, compiled from around the net, with some commentary. I hope this helps more people discover some of my most favorite music! I think much of this info is little-known; some of it may even be new observations. many of the available listings of his work are incomplete or contradict each other. this stuff has long needed a close, comprehensive look and I'm glad I got to be the first one to try it. see the page for more details...
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collab w/damifortune in SPRING TRACKS XI
6-4-22
me and damifortune aka hunter van brocklin made a tune "in full bloom" together for SPRING TRACKS XI on battleofthebits. we collaborated in real time using ptcollab (thanks sidedishes)! it was a joy to work with such a creative partner and I got to experiment with lots of new things here. also listen/download on ptweb. the track won gold in pxtone and 6th place overall!
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website launched!
5-4-22
I made this website as a project for one of my library school classes. but I like it a lot! so I'm going to look into getting a nice url soon so I can share it with the world. you may not be reading this until after that happens...
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made a little tune for a LUDUM DARE 50 game
4-4-22
got invited to work on DATEGAME for the LUDUM DARE 50 game jam by a couple of friends-of-pxtone-friends, aeon and cyber. we started late so it was a bit of a time crunch. the jam's theme was "delay the inevitable"; in the game you are on a date and have to delay your date's enragement and departure. originally we planned to have layers of the music disappear as she became angrier, but we didn't have time to implement this. the tune will be released on "selections #8" sometime in the future.
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"ASTRONAUTILUS: DEEPSEA CUTS" is out
3-30-22
today my pxtone pal neozoid released their beautiful, challenging undersea shoot-em-up ASTRONAUTILUS. because many of us at "pxtunes" were big fans of the game and its made-with-pxtone soundtrack, neo and I organized a new PXTUNES remix album, also available today. in fact, if you play ASTRONAUTILUS enough you can even unlock these remixes as alternate soundtracks in-game. I also helped a little with some audio editing for the game. this is a very special project, please enjoy!
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blogs #3 and #4 published today
2-23-22
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"Selections #7: Selectricity" is out!
2-2-22
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"SECRET PORTA" is out
12-22-21
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new blog "gongon with the wind" published
10-30-21
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"PXTUNES 5th Anniversary" is out!
10-16-21
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"JAXTONE HISTORY" vols. 1-3 out today
10-14-21
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10 years of pxtone!
10-10-21
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my first blog!
9-23-21
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check out "Beetlemania"
7-11-21
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"MONOLITH Remix Album" is out!
7-10-21
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"Confrontations" premiered
5-9-21
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"Kero Blaster" stream w/ remixes
2-6-21
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"Kero Rhythm Fan Arrangements" is out!
2-4-21
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"Ice Demon" is on steam now!
1-7-21