DIYDSP, aka Noah Vawter, will perform a live MIDI DJ set of demoscene music and 80s-period tunes. This mix will be performed on dual floppy-based MIDI players from the 80s. These Roland “music tutors” were originally designed to help musicians practice classical music—but in this performance, Noah will hijack their tutor features to create twisted, lo-fi, surreal interleavings of demoscene jams, 8- to 16-bit home computer music, and 80s pop classics… all filtered through the charming (and often campy) lens of General MIDI.
Noah didn’t set out to make music with a MIDI player. The idea sparked after decades of sitting at office desks, scrolling eBay during 3PM insulin dips, procrastishopping, and fantasizing about setting up a quaint, adorable MT 90S next to his monitor to blast cheesed-out renditions of his favorite songs. Then, one fateful afternoon, he overrode his inner anti-hoarding coach and “pulled the trigger”—never guessing it would awaken his inner musical mad scientist.
The first time he fired up a 3.5″ disk that came with the unit, he realized these machines had hidden depths. What looked like cute little practice boxes revealed themselves as note-spraying oddity engines—capable of gentle showers or full-on turgid MIDI fumigation, all delivered with signature Japanese precision. With features like looping, transposing, tempo shifts, and individual channel mutes—all accessible via dedicated key presses—they’re surprisingly expressive. Okay, yes: the labels are in Kanji, and certain operations require awkward multi-button combos that challenge his currently splinted finger… but once he saw the digital tempo display on that LCD, he was hooked. A second unit was quickly acquired—another undervalued gem—unlocking seamless transitions and dual-deck chaos.
As for the music: MIDI isn’t the native format for most demoscene material, so he’s had to wrangle a quirky toolbox to convert C64 SID tunes, Amiga MODs, and PC .XM files into something playable. Naturally, the sound changes. In some cases, he’s corrected for conversion quirks; in others, he’s looped raw bits like audio collage. And just to twist your temporal lobe: this entire set could have been performed exactly like this 30 years ago.
