Every year in the Battle of the Bits community (battleofthebits.com) we have an enormous Advent Calendar event for making music and art. Each day, a new hidden prompt and restriction appears, and you only have those 24 hours to make something for it. This year, a staggering 712 entries were submitted overall!

There is a fun tradition of being a "completionist" for the event - to make something every single day from December 1st and 24th. This is my fourth year of doing so, and these are the songs that were created. (The missing days were for things other than songs, such as the cover art!)

Aside from light mastering, each of these tracks was written in one day during December 2024, a little testament to what's possible in a short time frame. Further details about the tracks follow if you are curious.

~01~
made in Dn-FamiTracker 0.5.0.2
"come up with a word/phrase comprised of note letters (A-H), then use that as a motif in your song"

~02~
made in MuseScore 4: piano, violin, viola, cello, contrabass
"create something freeform that also has a comforting winter feel"

~03~
Roland SC55 MIDI
"compose a town theme for the North Pole’s village of elves; your song must feature a jingle bell and/or a pizzicato instrument"

~04~
made in Bespoke Synth
"a hypothetical season taking place between Autumn and Winter, known as "Silence" ("L'silenzio", in the composer's notes), meant to characterize the period after the leaves have fallen and before the snow has arrived, where all is still and grey"

~05~
YM2608, made in BambooTracker
"craft a song that transitions from the cold, snowy outdoors into a warm, cozy house"

~06~
64 kilobyte .it module
uses only a pack of samples provided on this day

~07~
Gameboy LSDJ
"make theme music for a movie called Murder on the Polar Express"

~08~
Renoise module
uses only a pack of samples provided on this day

~09~
31edo microtonal, made in FL Studio
"compose a tune in the general style of a typical Christmas carol, but with a unique twist"

~10~
made in abandonware PandaTracker
"let's have a BotB ball! create classical or baroque ballroom dance music (waltz, gigue, sarabande, mnuet, etc)"

~11~
PC-Engine/TurboGrafx-16, made in Furnace
[the prompt was an image of a fictional wiki text log about a dangerous cryptid named the SN63A07 Worm]

~12~
.it module
"make a cover of someone else's entry from day 1 of this event" (mine is a song by kilowatt64, "Traveling Minstrel")

~13~
thirtydollar.website meme sound sequencer
"hate everything you love, love everything you hate"

~14~
4 channels of YM2151, made in Furnace
"write a song for a snowy day that shifts from a peaceful calm to a raging storm"

~15~
AY-3-8910 chip, made in Furnace
"boss battle against a giant snowman!"

~16~
OpenMPT module
uses only a pack of samples provided on this day

released January 19, 2025

https://h-v-b.bandcamp.com/album/advent-calendar-2024

☆ all music by Hunter Van Brocklin, except track 12 which is a cover of a song by kilowatt64 (kilowatt64.bandcamp.com)

☆ special thanks to kleeder for starting this yearly event & inviting me to co-host again; to puke7 for running & developing Battle of the Bits; and to all participants of the event who made cool art, helped write prompts, and tried new things!

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