Tobias Erbland is an electronic music composer from Switzerland. He started composing chiptune music on home computers and progressed to modern software synthesisers through the MIDI and hardware synthesiser age. His style is minimalistic and experimental, and the roots from the home computer time are still present in his tracks.
All started composing music for the Commodore 64 home computer. Its chip that generated the sound only had three voices to play; each could generate sinus, triangle or rectangle waves - or produce white noise. This limitation was a challenge to explore the limits of music on this system. Tobias even wrote his music composing software, later called “The Atlantis Composer”, to push the boundaries even more. Check out his album “C64 Chiptune Tracks”, where you find a small selection of his composed songs.
Even with a few years of piano, drums, and guitar training, electronic music kept his primary focus. With the age of hardware synthesisers and MIDI, and later, sampling and software synthesisers, he experimented how he could create soundscapes and moods in a minimal style. You can find a small selection of pieces from this time in the album “Digital Moods”.
His wife is always a great inspiration and giver of many great ideas. There are several pieces dedicated to her.
Like during his early time in the home computer era, Tobias often composes short pieces, which only exist as background music in videos, games or other multimedia productions.
Values and Projects to Support
Tobias supports projects which match his core values: Equality for humans, independently of origin, gender, sexual orientation or level of education. Curiosity and learning new skills and knowledge. Protection of nature and the environment.
Find a small selection of projects he is supporting from the earnings of his music below:
- Helvetas – is committed to a just world in which all people live independently in dignity and security, use natural resources sustainably and take care of the environment.
- GRA – fights against racism and antisemitism.
- Wikipedia – provides valuable knowledge for everyone.
- ILGA-Europe – is committed to equality and human rights.
Contact
Please get in touch with Tobias for any inquiries by email: