A lifetime of synthesizer addiction
I began my journey into the world of synths in the 80s, starting as a kid with a humble Casio CZ-101. It wasn’t long before I leveled up to a Roland Juno-2, and my obsession really kicked off when I got my hands on the Yamaha TX81Z, a multitimbral powerhouse inspired by the DX7. From that moment, I was hooked—it became my mission to save up for an Atari 1040 ST, which became the core of my setup, soon joined by a Kawai K4 and a Boss DR-550.
That was just the beginning. I tumbled headfirst down the rabbit hole of synthesizers, and there was no turning back. The Roland JX-8P was my dream machine, though it was only the first of many JX models to come. Fast forward to today, and I’m still creating—though the tools in my arsenal have changed and evolved over time. I’ve had my hands on nearly every sampler and synthesizer out there, and each one has contributed to a track, or more recently, a YouTube video documenting my sonic adventures.
Synthesizer and sound escapist
Bitley can be found on Spotify, YouTube, and many other platforms. I specialize in creating high-quality sound banks for Reason, Kontakt, and a variety of both hardware and software synthesizers. My work includes developing presets for Arturia (easily searchable by developer) and I was instrumental in inventing the Nord Micro Modular for Clavia, where I also designed numerous presets that were included in the Nord Modular V3 update. Additionally, I’ve programmed many factory sounds for Reason, originally by Propellerhead, now Reason Studios.
With years of experience in music production, my influences span legendary acts like Pet Shop Boys, 808 State, Kraftwerk, and JM Jarre, alongside ABBA, as well as more contemporary electronic pop and dance music. My work is characterized by a blend of classic inspiration and modern innovation, aiming to provide producers and musicians with sounds that stand out and inspire creativity.
Reason
Fairlight CMI Legacy II+
Fairlight XXL
Fairlight Platinum
Way Beyond Fairlight R2
Way Beyond Fairlight R2X
Way Beyond Fairlight X
Way Beyond PG-8X and more
Kontakt
Way Beyond Fairlight R2
Hardware
Yamaha Montage Series
Kawai K4 and more
A very rough and incomplete listing from a very productive Mr Bitley
Albums
Landscapes
Landscapes is a collection of more mellow and sweet Bitley tunes such as “A Tribute Or An Attribute” performed exclusively on a JV-1080. Also the multitracked Alpha Juno and Oberheim Matrix 6 tracks are here. It is coming up on Spotify, Apple music etc but the first iteration of the album is out now on Bandcamp.
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https://bitley.bandcamp.com/album/landscapes
1986 Super JX Polyphonic Synthesizer Dreams
As the name so blatantly suggests this is a collection of tracks made with the Roland JX synthesizers.
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Moment
Moment collects all the tracks created together with Jens “Kallback” Källbäck and Marcus Fjellström, as well as bonus tracks including a few collaborations with my childhood friend Mats Kangebo. Tools here were Reason as well as Cubase VST 5 on Marcus Fjellström’s tracks. Instruments: “Der Neilac” was almost exclusively using the original Yamaha DX7. “Artyrua” features the Arturia Minibrute on bass, leads. Other instruments are WBF R2 as well as Roland D-20 and D-50, JD-990, Juno 2, JX8P and a TX81Z on “Hardwaar”. The release contains 28 tracks so it offers a couple of hours with different shades of experimental electronica enjoyment. The piano additions were often inspired by the great jazz piano legend Jan Johansson.
Both Jens and Marcus ultra-tragically passed away in 2017.
RIP thread on Kallback (99musik, swedish, login needed)
The Sounds Of Zanzibar? Of Zaurds The Sonsibon!
The WBF R2 user Kelly Cielinsky became a friend and we met in real life for a Reason session where she asked me to create something from the ground up. This became “Lucia”, a story about Kellys italian Greyhound dog where Macintosh voices are combined with vocoded and real vocals. The second collaboration on the album is “Sunburst” which was inspired by Mike Oldfield’s Distant Earth album. The track was made together with my dad Roland Fridh, who mainly worked as a guitar teacher in Gnesta outside Stockholm during his career. My dad had a stroke a couple of years ago and has had to re-learn playing. Guitar overdubs were made by both of us, but we also used sound libraries like WBF R2 and Omnisphere. Two older hardware (Ensoniq EPS 16 Plus) demos finish this otherwise Reason-exclusive album and vocal & instrumental tracks are combined. So is swedish and english; the first track is a swedish pop track about the covid issues with meeting our loved ones. “Stop Buggin” was a kind of duet I made with myself using lots of Neptune voice processing.
Lincoln In A Lincoln In Lincoln
The album cover of Abraham Lincoln flying or riding in a Lincoln car inside Lincoln delivers a mix between completely new tracks made in 2021 as well as a number of Bitley classics such as the multitracked JX8P soul vibe which had thousands of playbacks when it was on Soundcloud prior to becoming mastered and released. Styles on this release includes house, deep techno, Art Of Noise inspiration and a bit of synth pop & calmer moments as well. “Be One Nation” was using the EPS 16 Plus exclusively – this includes the vocals.
Jenezeta & Jenezeta II
The Jenezeta albums (several are waiting in line to be released) contains some of my happiest moments of growing up (in Gnesta, Sweden, thus came the creation of the fantasy location Jenezeta) and getting familiar with synthesizers. Almost all sequencing here was done on the Atari 1040 ST with Cubase 2, but KCS and Ensoniq EPS 16 Plus sequencing spice this up a little. Harmonicum, for instance, was programmed in KCS to save polyphony as it relies exclusively on a Kawai K4 in multi mode. The gear list on these releases is a near complete who’s who of samplers, drum machines, mixers, effect processors and synthesizers including Kawai K4, Roland TB-303, Yamaha R100, Casio RZ1, Alesis Midiverb III, Roland M-120 and M-160, Roland SH-2, Roland Alpha Juno 2, Roland JX8P, Boss DR-550 and 660, Akai S700, Roland SC-55, Korg DW-6000, Yamaha TX81Z, Crumar Bit 01, Yamaha RY-30, Casio VZ-1, Mackie 1202, Roland JV-1080 with Dance, Techno, Vintage and Session expansions, Roland Juno 60, Ensoniq EPS 16 Plus, Oberheim Matrix 1000 (Dreamscape 9), E-mu Proformance/1, E-mu Proteus 3 / World, Ensoniq SD-1, Roland MKS-70 and Super JX key, Roland D-550, Roland TR-505, 626, 727 and 707, Roland PG-800 and PG-1000 and more. A nice game might be trying to guess what plays what.
Sampling The Fairlight CMI Refills
All the demo tracks from the Fairlight CMI refills are now compiled into an album release. Or just about all of them. Perhaps the album will get a sequel if I can find more relevant tracks.
Singles / EPs
The Traveller
Larnaca where I visited with Gustav, Malin and Viktor in 2022.
Lowrange / Yellow Orange
KFK 1 – Digital Hardware Sequentics
Bring The Water!
Asleep In A Shuttle Above Okinawa (Ambient, performed on Roland D-70 digital synthesizer)
Summer’s Coming Up
Countach performed using the Matrix sequencer in Reason with piano samples from Emagic Logic.
20 21
Midnight In Chicago
Groovekissing Inc. together with Richie K house DJ
Chinese Restaurant
Pardon My French
3l3v8ted Insomnia
Thank You Grandma Valborg 1924-2021
Blomma
Stay Alive
Remixes
Dpend – Bitley Oh 80 Remix (Niels Nielsen)
Dancing With Tears In My Eyes – Bitley’s Poporama Remix (Rimheden / Lidbo) – Bitley’s Dancing With Dub In His Eyes remix
Bitley Scritti Politti remixes on Youtube
With Groovekissing
Collab with DJ Richie Kay on Shadow Of Da Sound, released on Beatport
Miscellaneous
About KBC Keyboard City on 99musik (swedish) Keyboard City had two stores, one on Götgatan and one on Fleminggatan. Very big synth stores during the 1980s and 1990s. I was working at the Götgatan V2.0 store together with my long time friend Simon D who I got to know there (he hired me).
Spotify & more: Sampling The Fairlight CMI Refills
Sampling the Fairlight CMI refills is a new album release of all the relevant in-house demo tracks that were created over the years. We hope you will smile, love and enjoy it; this is probably the best way we could present our sound libraries, really. Real music, from the real major music channels of today. Working? Working. You love Art Of Noise, Pet Shop Boys, Yello? Welcome friend!
Note as well that the link below contains info for how you can release your own music on all the main platforms, for free. Amuse is a muse you can use.
Check it out