Some folks say it's just a phase

By CatchinAshes on January 4, 2026 7:32 am

I really miss WeeklyBeats — but I’ll admit, the break was nice too. Now that we’re here again, I’m genuinely excited to see what this year brings. I’ve already spotted a bunch of new faces in the Discord, which is always a great sign. There’s something special about Week 1: that mix of excitement, rust, and possibility.

For this week’s track, I started by writing lyrics — the idea for Gray Cartridge Club actually popped into my head while I was hearing Pink Pony Club playing in a department store. From there, I worked out how I wanted to sing it and then tried to build the music around that vocal idea.

I’m still figuring out how to make that workflow really click, but I’m sure it’ll come together with more practice. If anyone has good resources on writing music to fit vocals, I’d love to check them out. The track didn’t land quite how I imagined, but honestly, I still had a great time making it. That’s what Week 1 is all about — shaking things off and getting moving again.

And once again going to bring back intros at the request of Orange Drink and SQF

Audio works licensed by author under:
CC Attribution Noncommercial No Derivative Works (BY-NC-ND)

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Tags: chiptune, vocal, week 1 2026, View by:CatchinAshes

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January 5, 2026 4:47 am

FrogCity

Haha that was great. Loving the wb spirit

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January 5, 2026 5:31 am

Jamatar

eyyyy vocals! happy 26 WB! nice start!

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January 5, 2026 8:48 am

cTrix

You animal! This is what WB is all about hahahaha. Great to see ya on NYE!

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January 5, 2026 10:37 am

ONE HIT KILL

How do you process your vocals? genuinely curious, even though i recognize your voice it 'sits in the mix' in terms of fx, eq etc.

Keen to see your vocal tracks really develop this year.

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January 5, 2026 11:15 am

Tweaklab

Those VOCALS! The poppy chord structure... This deserves a Blink-182 pop punk cover and I will happily oblige sometime this year.

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January 5, 2026 12:50 pm

Leo

Made me smile. Good vibes only at the Gray Cartridge Club!

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January 6, 2026 7:21 am

Kedbreak136

Happy new year 2026! Good to see you back.

I like that mix of singing and chiptune, it just works! Looking forward to more tracks!

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January 6, 2026 10:59 am

CatchinAshes

ONE HIT KILL wrote:

How do you process your vocals? genuinely curious, even though i recognize your voice it 'sits in the mix' in terms of fx, eq etc.
Keen to see your vocal tracks really develop this year.

So this isn't my strong suit and I know my workflow isn’t always “standard practice,” but honestly—if a process works, I stick with it.

For vocals, I start by creating a click track at my project’s BPM, using both 4‑step and 12‑step patterns. I record my vocals in Audacity because it’s still the fastest tool for me when it comes to chopping and editing. Since I’m using an Audio‑Technica AT2020 XLR mic, I record in mono. After tracking, I split the stereo file and duplicate the left channel onto the silent right channel so everything stays balanced.

Once that’s cleaned up, I bring the vocal into my DAW. For this track, I ran it through autotune for pitch correction, then processed it with Cymatics Voxity and XVox. After that, I used Spread to widen the signal and push the vocal further across the stereo field.

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