to celebrate the 1yr anniversary of penpal, home away from home presents:
missgene + prior self remixes
1. randomgenes (psdj remix)
2. gorgeous (missgene remix)
3. gorgeous (missgene remix :: prior self dub)
out now on bandcamp + nina
thanks for listening!
* artwork by @jaykemaddison
april radio guest: missgene
/ this month's radio programming comes courtesy of label alumn @_missgene , with 7hrs of new age ambience, hypnotic jazz, life affirming techno, minimalism, and classical. a mostly beatless journey with moments of effervesescence throughout
tune in via the player at hafh.online
* graphix by @jaykemaddison
Rich Gang and Bill Evans on the same playlist 🫰 hafh radio for march '26 is now live, with 4hrs of music from guest selector & resident graphic designer @jaykemaddison . Expect dub, contemplative house, electronica, etc.
Also includes: a continuation of the exploration into the Expanding Records back catalogue, international folk music sounds, and more trip hop (always with the trip hop).
Site has been updated so you can now listen on the homepage, or tune in via the mini player at radio.hafh.online 🍃
Graphic by Jayke M *
Audiomulch 2.2.5 (1997-2016), Audjoo Helix (2008), Ohm Force Ohmicide (2007), melodie32 by elin & KNFLD
Testing out a few things here, maybe not the best demo but interesting.
Helix is a soft synth by Audjoo in the vein of Massive, Serum etc. It has some really nice built in saturation and clipping effects.
Ohmicide is a multiband distortion/convolver.
melodie32 is a standalone MaxMSP step sequencer with separate note, velocity and gate lanes. Each lane can be sequenced randomly per phrase independent of each other, and the clock can also be randomly shuffled. Notes are quantised to a scale.
Audiomulch and Soundflower route it all together, and I'm using a midi controller to automate macros within Helix.
newsletter 04: jan '26
the latest newsletter went out at the start of the month, where I wrote a little bit about the great work that @elin.sound from .DSP/archive and @mypandashallfly have done with their respective archival projects for PowerPC mac music software, and specifically elin's writing on the subject (which can be found on the .DSP/archive medium account)
radio.hafh.online got an update for the month of Feb, featuring music from Asphodel Records, Merck, and an extended look at the @memetunestudio Expanding Records back catalogue. buy music club list is now embedded in the player🫰
also included: detritus from the internet archive, listening recs
now archived at hafh.online/blog
drool_string_ukelele 1.5 (2004), standalone MaxMSP algorithmic sequencer by Shawn Hatfield (Twerk), running on Mac OS X 10.6.8
No crop this time. Also trying to be intentional with sound design. There's a lot of opportunity for interesting rhythms with dsu and CamelToe which has sparked ideas for a future project based around loops cut from these recordings.
It's really easy to make dsu run out of headroom and start to break up the signal - if you push any of the gain sliders above 75% it hits the ceiling. It sounds really pleasing though, not harsh at all.
Granulùf 3.4 (2006), standalone MaxMSP granular workstation by Mils (Bertùf/echotone), running on Mac OS X 10.6.8
As I work with these old tools more I'm starting to be able to parse some of the more esoteric UI design. It's both a product of Max 4 and broader design trends of the late 90s-mid 00s. In earlier videos I'm just pushing buttons to see what happens, here I have a bit more of an idea and was able to get some very usable results.
I take back what I said - Granulùf is remarkably similar to drool_string_ukelele, right down to the FFT send. The main difference is the full x0x pattern sequencer for the 8 sample slots, in place of dsu and CamelToe's algorithmic sequencing. The two keyboard modules near the top hold whichever key you press, acting as granular drone machines.
The top section loads a sample, loop points can be trimmed, and there's a pen tool which allows you to draw information into the buffer (I don't really understand what's happening there). The output can be resampled back in. This all runs through the filter on the right which can be motion recorded.
I really love the FFT and resonator sends which I absolutely did not clock previously. The motion recording xy pad is quite fun as well.
The only thing I'm not really using here is the 'mini synth' on the bottom left, which is just a basic subtractive synth. I'm going mouse and keyboard in this session, but it does allow for midi mapping. I haven't bothered trying to save presets or patterns, so maybe the next step is to try and build up a bank for some kind of performance.
CamelToe 1.2 (2004), standalone MaxMSP algorithmic sequencer by Shawn Hatfield (Twerk) running on Mac OS X 10.6.8
An elevated/streamlined (organised?) version of Twerk's drool_string_ukelele patch. 8 sample tracks, 8 loop tracks, 2 x0x-style tracks, delay send, panner, and a slot to load in a VST. The sample tracks, delay, and panner are all sequenced algorithmically, the loops just run and you can adjust the buffer size, playback speed and loop points.
The readme advises that midi implementation in this version of Max is broken and sure enough it's mouse only, as with dsu. I don't know how much of CamelToe is just dsu with a nicer gui but it feels snappier and a little less chaotic. Really hate the name (and the app icon... jesus christ).
This concept of a VST send, or being able to load one VST into this standalone patch is... strange? Granulùf and drool_string_ukelele also do this, so I wonder if it's a limitation/implementation of Max 4, a design choice, or just the ceiling of what these CPUs could handle at the time.
CT has the ability to spin off into chaotic noise or polyrhythms if you want, here I'm just trying to prove to myself that you can make something listenable (😂) by getting into chugging textural techno territory.
season two is here with australian artist @priorself who's incredible contemporary productions evoke beautiful emotions and span across different subgenres of electronic music.
here is what he had to say about the mix:
This mix was recorded at the end of a week of intensive experimentation, testing out a raw & dirty hybrid Ableton DJ set loosely based on an original set I performed at Nimbus in early Oct ’25. Loose, hands on, and most importantly fun. I tried to pick tracks that reflected that mood with new music from locals @2touchworld , @iti______ , @scalymoth69 and @rydeenetc , as well as a few of my favourite club tracks from the past year or two.
graphic by @d.jurkschat
drool_string_ukelele 1.5 (2004), standalone MaxMSP patch by Shawn Hatfield (Twerk) running on Mac OS X 10.6.8
Algorithmic sequencer system with 8 sample tracks, 4 loop tracks, 2 x0x-style tracks, delay send, VST send, panner, and some weird FFT filter send (top). The sample tracks, panner, and delay are all algorithmically sequenced, and the samples can be loaded individually or at random. The x0x tracks are, I think, intended to be for kick/snare duties and provide a bit of structure to the chaos (if that's how you want it).
drool_string_ukelele clearly inspired Granulùf (see earlier post), but the sequencing and FFT processing make dsu a bit more interesting.
In this recording I'm still figuring it out but the results were interesting enough that I thought it was worth sharing. Just using the included samples and the same random assortment of splice sounds I grabbed for Granulùf.
Background: some old Hi8 footage of a Gaika show I filmed 2015/2016
Audiomulch 2.2.5 (1998-2016) + JONO (2012), running on Mac OS X 10.6.8
Audiomulch is a DAW and modular DSP environment developed by Ross Bencina, and JONO is a standalone MaxMSP synthesizer inspired by modular synths developed by Jonás Gruska.
Mulch is really interesting, it has a small number of native effects ("contraptions") that are completely novel and hyper specific, but the software environment itself is quite utilitarian. It's intended to be used for live performance and has a couple of unique features like a project setlist, and the 'metasurface' for morphing between snapshots (the green XY pad pictured in slide 1). Snapshots are global(!) which means you can modulate your entire patch, or just specific parameters.
This was the first DAW I made music on back in like 2008-2009. Revisiting it now is so funny, because I clearly had no idea what I was doing then and remember being so confused by the design. Really only scratching the surface with it here, the included demo patches are great examples of what it can do.
I'm using a weird trial version of JONO here but I've since discovered the full version is now freeware courtesy of @lom.label
