The sounds are a mixture of synthesized, recorded, and samples. The drums and percussion are one hit samples that I layers and piece together into the beat I want. The guitars are recordings of me playing whilst the things like bass and keys are synthesized. I usually play them in using a midi keyboard. In that first track, the steel drum sounding instrument (actually a Hang) are one note samples which I played in real time with an MPC. Things like vocals are of course samples. I also use samples for textures atmosphere. I'll usually stretch them and add all sorts of effects to turn them into pads and ambiance etc. I did intent for the pieces to be somewhat relaxing so I'm glad they had that effect There's a screenshot of what the first track looks like inside the software; there's also another 10 layers I couldn't fit. For reference, all the blue blocks are audio (recordings, samples, one hits ) and all the green blocks midi parts for the synthesizers.