Bubble League is my electronic music band. I’m the only member of it, so maybe it isn’t a band. I compose and produce all my songs in Ableton Live 7, which is a software studio for Mac and Windows operating systems, using synth plugins and other sound generators to make the sounds. I don’t use premade loops other than the occasional percussion loop. My real interest is combining a bunch of sounds so that they sound good together; sound design rather than musical composition or live performance.
The following is a listing of some of my projects with songs for download. I like to organize my music into “projects” or albums. The most recent ones are at the top of this list.
The Remonstration Project
Thirteen original songs, over 35 minutes of vocal-free synthpop, made by Bubble League in one month for the 2008 RPM Challenge. As you might guess, it’s not the best or least-repetitive music in the world, but if you appreciate the infinite subtleties of sound and rhythm rather than the very finite and boring obviousnesses of melody (as in songs by Daft Punk or Gorillaz), you might put some of these songs on repeat once in a while.
I encoded the music in both Apple AAC and Ogg Vorbis at very high bitrates to ensure maximum fidelity to the original 24-bit WAVs.
DOWNLOAD THE ALBUM NOW AND START LISTENING TO THE MUSIC!
- The Remonstration Project (Apple AAC (m4p) encoded at 256 kbps, 64.5 MB ZIP)
- The Remonstration Project (Ogg Vorbis encoded at Quality 6 ~192 kbps, 47.3 MB ZIP)
If you want to download MP3s or listen to the songs online, visit Bubble League’s The Reclamation Project page on last.fm. Or visit the Bubble League profile page on the RPM Challenge website.
Reclamation EP
This is an album I made for the sake of organizing some of my songs into a mostly-polished whole. I’m not completely happy with it, due to monetary and time constraints that kept me from making certain elements *cough* vocals *cough* as good as they could be. Also, there are volume variations between the songs because I was trying out different mastering and production methods.
I spent way too much time making the songs on this album to train myself in music production and composition. But I’m really happy with them. At some point, I may post links to some of the songs.
And now, a short Q & A about Audio File Formats:
What’s the difference between AAC and OGG and MP3?
AAC is the best compression format for music. Just so you don’t wonder about it, Apple AAC encoding, which is what I use, produces AACs with the “m4a” file extension.
If you are a rabid open-source evangelist, you should choose Ogg Vorbis-encoded music to avoid hypocrisy, because Ogg is open-source. One plus of Ogg Vorbis encoding is that it results in relatively small file sizes.
MP3… grrr. MP3 is inefficent and meh. Both Ogg and AAC are superior to MP3. Incidentally, Windows Media Player (the worst media player ever) does not play Oggs or AACs or 24-bit WAVs.
Why is “AAC” all-caps and “Ogg” is not?
I think AAC stands for “Advanced Audio Coding” and Ogg stands for “Ogg”, which doesn’t mean anything.
How do I play AACs?
For your computer, obtain a high-quality software audio player such as iTunes, QuickTime (which comes with iTunes), VLC, or MPC. Many hardware “MP3″ players, such as the iPod and Zune, can play AACs.
How do I play Oggs?
For your computer, get Media Player Classic (MPC) as part of the CCCP (Combined Community Codec Pack). (An unrelated reason to use MPC: It renders the subtitles of fansubbed anime videos perfectly, unlike VLC.) Or, if you’re nostalgic, get Winamp. Most hardware music players, such as the iPod and Zune, cannot play Oggs.