what is going on in your musical life

this can be a rolling thread, maybe. forgive me if one already exists, i didn't see it.

i started taking guitar lessons again! that is exciting

my long term black/doom metal band (argentinum astrum) recorded an album last fall and we're waiting on a label dude to get another label to go in on releasing it? i have no idea how or what that is about. i want it to come out soon because we haven't put anything out in a couple years and i want to tour and am antsy about it.

im learning ableton in order to start doing electronic stuff by myself. that's kind of on the backburner atm tho

one of my fave local bands atm asked me to replace their bassist/harmony singer and i am probably gonna do it. it is kind of superchunk-esque?

i started a band with 2 of my girlfriends and we just had our first practice. guitar, bass and drums. playing kind of 60s-esque poppy tunes so far, but i have no idea where we will end up. i think we are gonna be called "high school"?? please tell me if that is a ridiculous name.

i recorded this local band called Killer Whale who play very crazy surf-influenced punk/metal, i love them and i am excited to record bands and put out records and things tho god it is so expensive to do this

i've been playing in this band with a weirdo that plays only covers of local, small time musicians. i just joined it, but it's kind of a local institution, been around a while with a rotating cast of ppl around this one guy. i don't know. it's fun to play with him , and very fun to choose and learn the songs, but he has a weird value system w/r/t music, ie he doesn't want me to sing harmonies cause i sing "like an angel", which isn't really true. he also has no ambitions (how can you be ambitious with a covers band really tho) and is really skeptical of people who have them. its fun tho.

i dont really have time to do any of this stuff

this band with a weirdo that plays only covers of local, small time musicians

haha i love this

haha its exactly what it sounds like

the first person I contacted about guitar lessons is too busy to take me on as a student but promised to give me contact info for other ppl, which basically means I am back at square one re: finding a guitar teacher

I am currently in the process of tracking down sheet music for a recital of solo and ensemble spiritual arrangements I'm doing as part of a quartet made up of ppl from my church choir (inc. my wife as the soprano) for the Tuesday before Easter; we're also going to take parts of that recital to do as music for the Good Friday service later that week.

I'm also looking over the Dvorak Mass in D major, which I'm doing at an evening Good Friday service in Dorchester; my primary responsibility AFAIK is augmenting the bass section but I believe I'm also going to be doing the tiny solo parts as well. (The other ppl from that include my wife again plus other folks from the spiritual ensemble we sing in.)

Also have a concert with the church choir coming up where we're doing Stainer's Crucifixion; I am not the bass soloist for it (thank God).

i didnt realize you were a bass! it occurs to me that i have never actually heard you sing. i imagined you having a very high tenor voice. haw.

i started a band with 2 of my girlfriends

Me too! We are called Ta1nted Pussy and have played 2 shows so far. We were supposed to have a show next Saturday opening for this weird Dutch guy, but he got detained by the Dutch government and told he can't leave the country without a work permit, so that show was cancelled. I play bass. I have not played bass since I was a teenager. So now I get to have fun learning/re-learning an instrument, plus I get to have fun with pedals. We are all noise/new music ladies, thus lots of fun with pedals. I got a Dr. Sample 202 for christmas! More fun! I kept one of the built-in samples, which is a lady saying "Stand By" for when we have technical difficulties during our sets.

We are planning to tour at some point later this year. L.A., maybe the South?

next month we have a gig opening for Cock E.S.P.

Our singer said, "Why do we always end up on shows with other bands with dirty names?"

having trouble finding time/motivation/energy to do anything too focused or serious over the past couple of years. i was playing with my friend who's a full-time musician but he decided to just play shows solo instead of with a band because the economics/logistics are easier that way. i've been doing some sample-based stuff on reason recently, i like it because it takes me back to when i was learning guitar and didn't know what i was doing and would come up with cool stuff by accident. also occasionally jamming/recording with the drummer from my old band, doing shitty lofi four-track stuff.

i would really like to have a more regular band where someone else bore the heavy lifting of the songwriting and i could just come in and play guitar and play shows a few times a year. but i'm not really connected to any kind of music scene anymore so i don't know how to find that kind of situation.

Band practice tonight. Eagerly anticipating our two track demo bak from being mixed/mastered although worried it might sound bad as we only spent two days on it.
Working on writing and practising our next batch of songs after an initial 6. It's now a concern that we have a 'sound' and aesthetic developing, meaning that we have songs we wrote and quite like that for one reason or another don't work very well alongside the others. Anyone had this problem? It didn't really matter before because we were still forming an identity which eventually formed into 6 upbeat slightly unhinged post punk numbers, but now this next one is a big dramatic sweeping thing with a more serious tone and we're not sure what to do with it.
Also written a reggae song, which I'm please with but need a way to subvert because right now it's verging a little too close to sixth form peace and love bob Marley cliches and I want to put a twist on all that really.
Wrote a sort of fast kinda sung-rap song but my girlfriend said it sounded like flight of the conchords. Not that that's an insult, but I wanted it to aoud more like Haim or something.

i didnt realize you were a bass! it occurs to me that i have never actually heard you sing. i imagined you having a very high tenor voice. haw.

haha that would make my dad very, very happy (he's a failed tenor in a previous life, sang lead in a doo-wop group in college)

I am technically a "bass-baritone" which really means that because most of my singing experience comes from being in ensembles rather than private, focused vocal study, I have no idea how to use my head voice and sing practically everything in chest; I have a sneaking suspicion I would end up being a true baritone or even a low tenor after several years of focused, serious voice training based on how my low range actually sounds, but the flip side is that I can actually croak out low notes even if they're inaudible unless I've been binge-drinking the night before so I dunno. But yeah, I've always sung low.

(which is actually why, in my teens, I realized I was never going to be a pop or rock singer, and why I was so taken by the grunge explosion)

putting the last touches on my new record (doesn't feel new, been working on it for about 15 months now) to send to mastering next week, figuring out how to put it out.

then i want to take some time to switch up my process, shake things up a little. work on some new synth sounds without any goals, try to finally learn ableton, record a bunch of new percussion samples. i want to take some piano lessons too, since i do everything with midi + mouse. i can figure stuff out on piano very sloooowly, so i thought it would be fun to play through some tunes in real time and get some chords under my fingers.

honestly though i probably won't do most of these things and i'll go back to what feels easy & comfortable. :/

I just got our first track back from the studio. I love it and I also cringe a bit because I can hear bits where my voice goes a bit wrong or a beat doesn't quite land how it's meant, and I'm trying to work out if anyone in their right mind would really notice or care.

roxy high school is an amazing band name

this is a neat thread idea.

i've been playing with a couple guys for the last month or so but it's just working out that well. they seem like they really want to sound like real estate or something, which isn't terrible, but a bad real estate impersonation comes out sounding reaaaaally bad, and it's not much fun to play drums to, either!

i've been writing and recording some new tunes, which doesn't sound like much but it's actually been a big breakthrough for me after about a 10 year songwriting/music coma that i didn't realize was a coma.

i'm moving back to chicago in a few months and i'm determined to join up with a good band. i used to be good friends with the cave/bitchin bajas scene so i'm hoping i can be looped back into all that stuff and that someone needs a good drummer

and yeah, high school is good, although i have to say i liked it even more when i thought the name was high school??

haha

whoa z s do you want to be in a band with me?

this is going to be really awkward when you reject me

well, that was easy. sure, let's play!

it's gonna be more like september or so

i think we are gonna be called "high school"??
a
I started a band in college called junior high university. I recorded one song for it and we had two practices and then everyone split up in different directions. that was the last band I was ever in.

have not touched my recording computer since my son was born. I long for a classical acoustic guitar so i can play around the house but I have no money for that now. debating selling an amp or two. I think my creative well has run dry for the foreseeable future.

i'm really burnt out on school this semester & have been slacking off to spend more time doing music stuff. all three bands i'm in are pretty active rn which can be overwhelming at times but is really fun. most notably i went on tour in january and started a new band called l0ud s3x which i am just so, so stoked on. the other songwriter in the band is really prolific and i really want to keep our ratio of songs 1:1. it's been a really fun challenge trying to keep up, he also writes amazing songs so i've had to be really strict about scrapping my tunes if they're not up to par. we're playing our first show at the end of the month & i'm pretty nervous because not everyone shows up for practice consistently and i want it to be spectacular

sp3ctacular l0ud s3x

I am not going to go into any more detail than this but the biggest audition opportunity of my lap literally just fell into my lap; I fully expect it to go nowhere but still, you never know...

would watch n/a z s band

DJP on x factor, it's America has been waiting for
xp

l0ud high school s3x

the biggest audition opportunity of my lap

lol dan

oh no, I've said too much

I am in month 15 of releasing a home-made recording every month. A lot of times I put it off until the month is almost over and then go into crunch mode. But at this point, even though I approach each song as its own thing and wasn't trying to make an album or anything, I can listen to all the tracks straight through and it sounds really cohesive to me, which I think is really cool. I also feel like I get a little better/more efficient at production each time.

I haven't performed onstage in like a year though, which was a conscious decision and I don't miss all of the bullshit that made me sick of doing it, but I do miss being onstage. But I maybe just joined a band that I actually think is really good and is kind of successful locally, which is cool because I don't feel that way about hardly any local bands and also I've never really been in someone else's band. They have kind of a Modern Lovers/Beat Happening/Magnetic Fields/Morrissey vibe. It'll also be neat because I'll be playing synth and I'm not actually a keyboard player at all, I'm a guitarist and songwriter, but that's also why I'll be a good fit for this.

kicking off recording of a new album. finally a chance to properly use all this new synth gear

Hey all - could I get a little bit of constructive feedback on this please? We've had an initial "how's this?" from the studio engineer on one of our tracks. Overall, I think it's okay but it's very difficult to distance myself and listen to it with uninvolved ears.

I'd really like to hear your thoughts, particularly on the mixing/production (we can't really go back into the studio to do any overdubs or retakes so we're working with the raw material we have, for better or worse). Are there any glaring errors on this track or things I should mention before I get back to him? One thing I noticed is that he's been a bit heavy handed witht he gating and compression, particularly some of the vocal parts where the sibilants and plosives are almost non-existent.

I'm only gonna keep this track online for a short while, but if someone could give it a listen and let me know their thoughts, i'd be very much obliged: https://soundcloud.com/doglatin/honolulu-demo-050313

god this sounds like a super harsh thing but i dont mean it that way - do you want/intend the beginning to sound like a 80's nylons style acapella group thing? like exactly like one? because thats what i hear. also some pitchy weirdness in the "so afraid" "yesterday" multivoice responses. again, if these are intentional things, no prob.

Lol, I haven't hear the nylons but it is supposed to be a bit of a tongue in cheek doowop thing and if it comes across that way I guess that's intentional. The song is very much a comment on retro culture and so it's littered with 60s and 80s references. Cheers for checking it out jjjusten, I'll look into the autotune thing. Think the sound guy's gone a bit overboard with vocal manipulation, but then we're not at all trained singers so there's undoubtably gonna be a push/pull thing going on.

song sounds good to me, esp. for a demo. i like it.

Xpost If you're talkin about Housemartins/Flying Pickets, I def see what you mean and kind of don't mind. I (was made to) grow up with that shit, haha.

Cheers n/a

I am making a lil album of songs that are about a min long each, I have about 10 so far where the music is done but I have finished singing over one of them, I've come up w/ vocal melodies for about 3

I am seriously using the dumbest most unwieldy out of date programs to put the songs together because for whatever reason I like how it all sounds more than if I do it in ableton?

what are you using?

I (lol) am using cues in virtual dj to play my laptop like an mpc or w/e (I could slice to a drumkit in ableton and do the same thing I guess, but idk, when I use ableton I spend 3 extra hours on shit) and then editing shit further and recording vocals in audacity, its a forehead in my hands deal, but still

i love stuff like that.

well I hope it lives up to its rudimentary description, I'm starting to embrace it, at least this way I don't end up fucking around with corpus for a week with no results

Good sounding demo, dog latin. I'd get some friends in a room for the backing vocals. And as for your solo performance it's a little too measured, just make sure you're saying "gate" instead of "gay" and make it fast and effortless

I was just in Prague recording with a budget-priced orchestra, stuff for five different clients and some stuff for my own use. There were 30 "pieces" ranging from 45-second long bits of orchestral incidental music to 20-minute marathon workouts. A total of 2.5 hours of music and 24 hours to record the whole thing. I def. got paranoid and overworked but I didn't break. I drove that bus.

It went very well but I instinctively prioritized the work of my clients, taking the time to really get something beautiful out of that shaky orchestra. I left not enough time for my own material. Now I'm futzing.

cheers FGTI - I did the lead vox, the others did backing. I think the engineer's but too strong a release on my vox because yeah, "gaze" sounds like "gay" etc...

i'm listening to spotify

gotta get these tapes out soon (for this band i recorded) but have no idea what im doing! i need to buy a tape duplicator! i need to buy...tapes! i need to figure out how to get this shit onto a master tape! what am i doing with my life! HELP!

i told my mom i was in a new band called high school and she recommended that we call it COOL GIRLS instead. additionally, "i like just a girl's name, like maureen, or mabel, for a girl band"

lmao at cool girls altho tbh i would like it as a name for a coed or all dude band

neverending uti

lol A+

love to hear it ivy!

NA, please post the album when it's done

Christine, i'm a fan of your clangs. track 2 here in particular; reminds me a bit of Tropic of Cancer although quite a bit less dour

holy display name resource ivy, can we poll those? :)
i love records that are sequenced before they’re recorded, or even written! 6-7 song ep’s especially!

Christine, I reeeeaally liked what I heard of your music a while ago! Damn you’ve been busy :O

I've fallen into a period of "light work" with lots of time for R&D. Over the past two years I've been questing for a stable matrix mixer, something MIDI or OSC controllable, with a significant (more than 8) number of I/O, and a significant (more than 32) number of possible synapses/connects.

When I was hanging out with some Finnish friends, they suggested I try building such a setup in Reaktor. I'm loathe to go back into the "computer-processed audio" world, as the stability of that world is just too harrowing and inconsistent. But further research suggested that I could use a computer as a front-end for some manner of outboard digital mixer. I finally settled on an RME Fireface controlled by Max/MSP. It's been over a decade since I did any Max programming but I fell back into it smoothly, and four days later, built a patch that controls 12 analog ins and 12 analog outs. I can route any in to any out with a theoretical maximum of 80+ synapses (looping back digital audio through SPDIF, AES, ADAT and MADI)-- my build settled on 62 regularly used synapses. All connections can be controlled with LFO and/or envelopes, all are saved as presets, and now suddenly I am looking forward to a live set with unlimited number of presets (so I can program as many set list options as I want), and, most saliently, four channels of output audio (instead of the stereo output I've been using for the past eight years).

I did some demoing of this rig and built a few songs and it's working insanely well, being able to extend sound design to an entire 360-degrees (instead of just left and right) has been super inspiring. I sent the Max patch on to some super-user friends and they were impressed. Feeling like a proud programmer today

i do hope to one day understand every word of that post

fgti posts that make me want to learn more audio engineering skills

I'll explain it-- an RME Fireface is basically an audio interface with 12 I/O on the analog level. Connect it to your computer and record into your DAW, that's what it's for.

But it also has digital audio routings-- ADAT, AES, SPDIF and MADI-- four different formats.

So, what I'm doing is doing a "loop back" with the digital audio. For example, analog in 1 (guitar) will be routed to MADI channels 1 through 12. The incoming audio is converted to digital, and then looped back so that MADI 1-12 are identical, all just the guitar.

Then, I route MADI 1-12 to each of the analog outs. I can send my incoming guitar sound to any output I desire.

Added to this, each of those MADI channels has its own fader, so you can effectively direct the guitar to go to any output at any volume you desire.

Added to this, the front end for the RME Fireface is MIDI controllable. So, MADI channels 1-12 can be linked to MIDI CC 102-114 (MIDI channel 9).

Say I want on a preset to have my guitar running to Analog out 1 and 2 at 0 dB (the main outputs). I program Max to send the appropriate MIDI commands to raise the level of MADI 1-2 to 0 dB (and lower MADI 3-12 if necessary).

Next preset, I want to run the guitar through an outboard effect? Max raises MADI 3-4 up to 0 dB (and lowers 1-2 down to -oo dB).

I've programmed LFOs and envelopes, too, so the faders can 'dance'-- whether it's a violin drifting back and forth in the stereo field as I build up a loop (so it sounds lush and stereo), or a chaotic send-to-a-reverb to create instability, or a gradual fade so one loop fades from the front channels to the back channels, it's all programmable.

that's a really cool idea and huge props for understanding Totalmix to that degree. I use a Babyface and the quality is amazing but I find the software really very challenging, myself.

kind of excited, the old City Pages here (RIP) used to do an annual local industry best new bands poll called Picked to Click and it's been resurrected by some former City Pages people (including a former ilxor) and we finished in the top 10 and got a little write-up. back in the day, it was a huge deal kind of like pazz & jop but local

anyway the older I get the more I really appreciate these little moments of recognition and positivity, feels like it's harder to be a band every year especially as you get older, kids, etc etc so I'm honestly really touched by it

https://racketmn.com/picked-to-click-2025-no-10-field-hospitals

nicely done!

faith/void going back in the studio to record an EP this weekend! the whole "going into the studio" part of it has been a bit of a fiasco so far but i'm hopeful we will record our best-sounding record featuring our best songs yet

thanks budo!

excited to hear it ivy

Very awesome to you both!

Reason Compact remains the best app for the iPhone ever made

I’m actually really into Cubasis 3 rn

On phone

Oh man, I sort of can't imagine it. It would be dangerous to have my actual sessions on my phone, if that's even possible storage-wise. I guess it could be cool to make demos when traveling and then transfer them to the computer or whatever?

I made an ambient album that I'm very happy with. Maybe the fastest ever project I've ever done, because it was made out of album b-sides that were already fully mixed (I stemmed them out and reworked them, mostly with the Enso looper plugin, a bit of Cycles, then additional layers with resampled piano/strings/horns that friends had recorded on the main album). I've always wanted to record a whole album just for sample material.

That’s cool, would love to hear

https://chrisirregardless.bandcamp.com/album/silver-gradients-day-off

New single for this Bandcamp Friday.

My yearly Messiah gig is happening this Tuesday at 12:15 PM ET. It will be live-streamed and archived here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz7-OV1WqOs

:)

had my first jam session with one of my oldest friends, he wanted to start a noise band and I am so there. loop pedal vs. lock groove turntable with dual stringed instruments on top for this first round, super fun

Apparently our livestream setup is borked, boo

thinking we're like 90% done with new album, just need to finish tweaking some mixes slightly and get it mastered. then i send it to someone outside the band to listen to it and i can immediately hear everything that needs to be redone, we need to rerecord all the vocals, etc.

relatable

Sorry :)

Tbf, “re-record the vocals” is the most common bit of advice I give to any work in progress. Don’t be discouraged— trying the vocals again and again with different mics, mindsets and moods is non-destructive, you’ll find out new things about the song as you do it

(I get frustrated because my ideal vocal mic on my voice is not one I own— a U87– so re-recording vocals usually means a rental and/or asking a friend to help)

I am suddenly discussing the possibility of running a line of preamp boxes specifically for high-impedance piezo pickups (violins, cellos, upright basses, accordions, banjos, some acoustic guitar pickups). The options on the market are pricey and have too many features— I want a cheap box with the right circuits and a gain knob and a HPF knob and that’s it. Probably won’t be doing it this year but it’s an interesting enterprise to consider

yeah I know I’m overreacting a bit but I do think some of the vocals could be improved

I finally finished a song and have a label run by a friend who wants to release it. Unfortunately I never came up with a name for my solo project and I cannot think of one I like. He was ready to put it out a few weeks ago but I got nuthin

An acquaintance named his short-lived solo project Old Fort and I like the name so much I wish he’d bequeath it

i have a long list of project names i keep, i'll never have enough projects to use them all so you can have one

It’s funny when you think you’ve got a good one, a search of Spotify reveals 15 other people with that artist name

Just pick one you like and add "UK" to the end.

UGKUK

xxp Discogs or it doesn't count lol

otm

I finally finished a song and have a label run by a friend who wants to release it. Unfortunately I never came up with a name for my solo project and I cannot think of one I like. He was ready to put it out a few weeks ago but I got nuthin

― Heez, Friday, January 9, 2026 3:29 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

heez nutz?

call dibs on band names in this thread

haha

Thread titles that would make great band names

I had my 2nd live practice/recording session with my noize friend this Wednesday, we recorded to overdub over our first improv session (after tracking it out and re-listening multiple times) so there was some thematic continuity. Over the 7 tracks we have so far I think only #7 is straight unlistenable garbage, 17 out of 22 minutes ain't bad for two takes. some of these would be well served by ruthless edits to half their og length, we've gravitated towards loop-based improv.

recording with an iphone in the large reverb-heavy basement, one guitar amp w/2 separate inputs (via separate channel mixer thingy) and one big powered PA amp running a mixer with laptops, turntables, and some other weird ipad-type device my friend has that makes loops and noise and such. He has a nice guitar with some Line 6 loop pedal thing on on input, I have lots of random cheap stuff (guitars, keyboard, mics) and a multi-effects pedal on the other.

you can tell we both like Zoviet France lol

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/f9cvji4t3dwmf3levw7h7/JRSB-2026-1-8.zip?rlkey=vdz6xhldrt59wk1m2zq1s6af9&dl=0

work in progress as they say, purely recreational. e.g. for some of this stuff I was slowly dragging the mic on the basement floor while running it through the multi effect pedal.

the last band I was in wrote straight songs, so it is fun to just mess around and explore with some degree of conscious intent.

oh and I tracked/edited/boosted/mixed those using Amadeus (eternal thanks to Elvis Telecom for the tip on that superlative WAV editor)

xxp Discogs or it doesn't count lol

― vague facial gymnastics (sleeve), Friday, January 9, 2026 5:27 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Can I ignore the artist that have the microphone for a picture?

yes

I think I’m going with “Outliar”

rad

🙏

I picked it because I’m one of the 3.3% of people whose legs go completely numb after back surgery. The doc was like, yeah you're an outlier