Ray Toler

I help people discover they can do more than they thought they could. I write music. I think Excel is the best thing Microsoft ever produced. I speak executive, nerd, finance, janitor, design, code, and process. I meditate underwater in sixty-minute sessions. I know that “I” and “We” are required at different times for different things. I’m the quiet dude you’ll tell your life story to at a party. I love finding possibilities and putting old things together in new ways. I ride a GSX-R750 when the weather’s nice.

  • Mid-brained, multi-disciplinary, servant-leader.
  • Artistic geek or geeky artist, your choice.
  • Corporate jester, experiential designer, and change agent.
  • Coach. Mentor. Mentee.
  • Perpetual student and explorer. Aspirational polymath.
  • Speaker, listener, cheerleader, and organizer.
  • Writer, editor, composer, remixer, synthesist.
  • Avid reader, gamer, and purveyor of pop-culture references.

Let’s work together on something cool.

Recent Articles

Here and Now

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The last track! I’m normally happy to post anything at this point in the journey and have certainly thrown some “contractual obligation” pieces up. This one, however, is one of those happy times where I not only had a decent idea, but the time and energy to actually produce it.1I’ve…

Agile Gossip

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Another day, another Stepic track. Seriously, this thing is amazing. I’m obviously in that new love phase, but the more I learn, the more capable and deep I realize this thing really is. One of the features I mentioned when I first got it a few days ago is the…

Gold Obelisk

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Remember two days ago when I waxed poetic about Stepic, the amazing new step sequencer I got? Remember how I was fawning over those 80s Tangerine Dream soundtrack bass lines? Remember how I said that you’d likely hear more tracks with that kind of thing? Well, here we are. This…

Leviathan

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The most notable thing about this track may be that it was my third attempt for the night. I’ve done that several nights this month, but sometimes nothing’s hitting. Or it hits but fizzles almost immediately because there’s nowhere to go. But on this project, that initial sound you hear…

Random Strudels

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I bought a new tool. Yes, I buy a lot of tools, and most of them end up gathering digital dust when the newness wears off. In this case, though, I think I may have stumbled upon something that not only isn’t available in any of my other tools, but…

I Don’t Remember

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After a bit of faffing about, I wasn’t getting any traction and decided to pull out the “inspiration bag of tricks” box. Modern software like Scaler and other “AI” type tools has provided a lot of ways to avoid needing any sort of formal music training or theory. I have…

Don’t Look (Remain Idle Cover)

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Cover day. Sigh. I’ve written about my angst surrounding cover day before, so I won’t repeat myself for once. This year, I had my favorite candidate from the day it first appeared and while several other fantastic possibilities appeared during the month, nothing ever knocked this song out of my…

Infiltration

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This piece started off largely as an attempt to come up with a dance, techno, or drum-and-bass type of track, which it still sort of is, but clearly pivoted mid-journey to become another visually-inpired bit of underscore. Instead of the juxtaposition of a slow, forboding piece of music against images…

Unseen Bagel

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A slightly more successful Lo-Fi attempt compared to yesterday, but clearly I was in “it doesn’t have to be good, it only has to be done mode.” I shouldn’t be so down on myself for these types of tracks – there are entire genre stations on the major streaming services…

Apanthropinization

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This is a “throw stuff at it” seat-of-my-pants piece. I know I was initialy going for something in a very early Kraftwerk style, but it ended up being something else. Something hybrid I suppose. It feels a little more 80s than 70s. I probably tried pivoting to a Lo-Fi track…