what is going on in your musical life

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

I was briefly in a(n all-male) duo called "Sarah"!

haw

possibly touring in the summer with the black/doom band, havent been out in a long time bc our guitarist lives a couple hours away, so we havent been as "active" in general. mostly an east coast thing, possibly all the way to canada, where i have never been

come to Atlanta!

I have been recording bits and pieces for an eventual cassette release. I've also been asked to do a split release with a local drone act. AND my band is recording stuff. So hopefully soon I'll have lots of physical stuff to give out at shows!

I've heard good things about getting cassettes made through National Audio?

Yeah National Audio is great, I've done a couple things through them.

guitarist in one band left us cuz he moved out of london :( which is a shame. was looking forward to recording those songs. we'd played 5 shows or so. it was going well. oh well. i have a decent recording of the last practice, guess i'll stick that on soundcloud if i can be bothered to mix it.

started a new thing with the same guys, got a new guitarist, and he rules! he's a bit older than us, used to run a drone and kosmiche club. had a practice on sunday and ended up with 16 little things to work on, 3 or 4 fully formed songs just happened, so looking forward to this band. krauty space rock with big OTT vocals and thinking i'm gonna bring an edp wasp and delay pedal into the equation. will prob play a show in the next month or two. my drumming is really rusty tho, need to get back on the practice pad before they kick me out!

tracks sitting in the computer way into the 100s by now, mostly experiments with the ridiculous synth collection that lives in the studio where i live. none of the synths are mine, but i'm free to use what i want and i've set up a synthesizer room and got everything patched up. pretty sweet. currently obsessed with the doepfer modular and making new presets for the matrix 1000- that's a seriously powerful bit of kit but the presets that come with it are crap.

playing classical guitar again, got my nails all purty, think i'm going to try and start performing too. maybe get some restaurants gigs.

have also been digging my uni pieces, trying to put together some sort of composer portfolio. surprised myself by how good some of those pieces are. the goldberg ensemble performed some of my string pices, which was very cool, had to ressurect an old hard drive, thought i'd lost those recordings for good!

Why is having good nails important for playing guitar? I don't play with my nails. I guess if I had long nails it would be difficult but...

if you play fingerstyle you get more control over your sound, you can also play louder and as everybody knows louder = better

It's a really fundamental part of classical guitar technique. Your nails are the tools you use to create and shape your sound.

Do restaurants in the UK hire classical guitarists??

What are you putting a composition portfolio together for, CB? Graduate schools? Grants/gigs?

*Show us your scoressss*

making new presets for the matrix 1000- that's a seriously powerful bit of kit but the presets that come with it are crap.

surprised to read this, mine is coming back from service today but from the little i got to play with it before it went in i thought some (though yes far from all, or even most) of the presets were absolutely lovely. insta-BoC!

i believe they ran a competition so the 1000 presets are all from users of the matrix 6 (which has identical innards) those patches are just a bit uninspired imo! but yeah totally get the BoC thing- if that's what you're after, they're perfect!

x-post, i'll up some stuff on my soundcloud and mayyybe post some stuff up here when i've got it all sorted, but i'm a bit shy about my own music, esp the stuff i've spent a lot of time on.

and just doing a portfolio for.. err.. i don't know really. i've seen a few bits of paid work recently, such as composing some piano pieces for an audio walk in london. i'd have probably had a chance of getting that if i had some music organised and online. unfortunately the only stuff i've written that's even half listenable i did at uni ages ago, since then i've just been obsessed with synths, microtonality, learning to play drum kit and never finishing things.

Do restaurants in the UK hire classical guitarists??

yeah, you can make pretty good money (read: actually make *some* money) doing functions/events/restaurants/weddings etc. i'm thinking some satie, beatles arr. for classical guitar, cheesy spanish stuff, play through a little amp. will be good practice anyway.

I played two harsh noise sets this week and someone who saw both of them posted that this city is "a patriarchal cesspool" on FB immediately after leaving the show tonight & now I'm irrationally worried that she's talking about me

don't worry about it

- offered up my sound work exp to a newly forming fairly hip arts council for my neighborhood in an advisory capacity. wondering how quickly that will turn into "hey i know it's 4 pm on sunday but the slam poetry competition needs you to come down and turn on their wireless mic."
- related to my endless pedal thread, but the fact that i am getting deluged with new pedal line offers is some strange mixture of feeling like the prettiest girl at the prom and huge stress wrt money allocation and decision making.

Hello this thread. I have a track out! Well, it's a remix actually. But it is my first official non-self release after almost 30 years of dabbling in production.

It's a remix of Neon Pumps' 'Work From Home' and I'm actually kinf of chuffed with it:

https://neonpumps.bandcamp.com/track/work-from-home-charlie-stoic-remix

Support contract did not get picked up, so I am going to be looking for a new position and will probably go on the dole for the first time ever. One of a few bright spots from being able to get out of the wage slave clock even if for a short time is that I am going to be able to have a couple days to finally get my studio rebuilt.

I've been practicing music for the last couple years like a mf'er and I'm about ready to start recording some stuff.

Since I had the stuff from my band when we had a studio to record and practice and all and this old hard disk recorder, I think I am going to go back to my future and set it up and just record on the board and mix outside the DAW. Basically live mix to a 2 track on the PC.

I have a rack item that I can get paired up with an 8 channel preamp that I used for recording and could use it remote with a patch pannel that I can put into my old hard disk recorder and use the analog mixer for 16 channels.

Just do a trio of guitar, bass and drum machine with a bit of looper maybe thrown in. Work it up and then just live mix it.

I look at GD computers all day, the last thing I want to do is stare at the void of a DAW anymore.

All hail the new lords of mid-fi! Their past is your future. ha.

Sorry to hear about your lost contract earlnash, but glad to hear you’re getting into studio stuff

I am so the opposite re: workflow, I want to be able to do everything at my computer!

I’m currently debugging my new front-end application for live performance— it’s a Max app. The hardware will be ready on Sunday and I want to make sure it’s plug-and-play

xxxpost dog latin that is great

On my way for my Mark IV rig’s first test flight. Praying to the gods of data and wiring and Mackie Sound Protocol that I got my numbers right.

Asked my brothers in our group chat what I should call the rig and my waggish elder brother said “The Compensator” lmao

Just uploaded my latest batch of obnoxious tracky techno to Bandcamp: https://wascal.bandcamp.com/album/t-t-k-k-009

fgti, is the Max app the main thing, or how you're controlling the hardware? Like what's the actual interface while you're playing? Just curious.

Sounds like some peak time business, Willl.

Basically, my 2017 build (Mark 3) was centred around an 8x8 matrix mixer that allowed me, using presets and internal LFOs, to create a flexible set that could use effects in any order— I could use an H9 to process incoming sounds into a looper on one preset, and then on a subsequent preset use that same H9 to reprocess the looper material with another effect.

I ran into some obstacles over the past couple years— specifically that I was limited by my number of presets, and my sets are data hungry— I could only leave the house with 17 songs before I needed to do some arduous backing up and rearranging, I wasn’t really able to mix things up on the fly, and I struggled to freely create new material.

Matrix mixers need synapses to work— an 8x8 matrix has 64 possible connections, and that’s a lot of audio to process. The one I was using only could access 16 synapses at a time. Basically I spent much of 2024 and early 2025 investigating new methods of rebuilding, but kept hitting dead ends. In May 2025 I’d effectively given up, and elected to just “stop playing shows” and focus on collaborations and film scoring.

But then I took a trip to Finland to play a couple shows, using my Mark 3 rig. I interacted with some brilliant electronic musicians over there who heard my concerns about my current rig— and were already impressed with the capabilities of my Mark 3– and they urged me to keep working on my new build, and pointed me in the direction of Reaktor, which they told me was robust and could basically do what I wanted it to.

Working in Reaktor, I was able to build what I wanted, but it created a couple of issues— first, I’d have to have a large (at least 12x12) sound interface on stage, and second, that my computer was having to process (up to) 144 channels of audio to manage the synapses of the matrix.

A couple of friends tipped me off to the Fireface and RME’s TotalMix front end. I was eventually like “why am I working in Reaktor when Max is RIGHT THERE”, as I’ve spent years programming in Max and find it far more flexible.

Essentially what I build is this: I use the Fireface’s 12 I/O as my matrix ins and outs, but then use its fairly incredible digital capabilities to break out all the inputs into MADI, which is then looped back, and then assigned a fader in TotalMix. Effectively I have 64 faders of audio, all controllable with MIDI (or OSC), that control a 12x12 matrix mixer (with 64 possible synapses).

My Max patch needed me to experiment and do some annoying math to be able to replicate the methodology of my Mark 3 build. For example, I needed to set a dB value (-3 dB, for example), and have Max translate that number to a MIDI value, which would in turn be sent to TotalMix, which in turn would be translated to Mackie Protocol and sent to the Fireface. dB scaling has a trio of log curves (basically -oo to -6 is one curve, -6 to 0 is a second curve, 0 to +6 is a third curve) and I had to get Max to map each dB level to a curve appropriate to its range, translate that to MIDI.

And there were a lot of added concerns— ensuring there was drift so values didn’t snap in ugly ways, throttling the values so they maxed at 50ms per fader to limit the amount of data Max was throwing at TotalMix, ensuring that the last-value-sent took priority, etc. etc.

I build LFOs in Max and applied them to these values, build a patch storage system so I could save sets (with essentially infinite numbers of presets), and away we went. The best part of all is that this build allows for a 4-channel output, so it’s not quite “surround” but it’s 360 sound.

The important part is that my audio stays within the Fireface and never traverses the USB cable. All my Max patch (and computer) are doing is controlling the Fireface with incoming Mackie values from TotalMix. The digital loopback is just a MADI cable plugged into itself, and it hasn’t locked up even once (it did, before I got a proper MADI cable and was using a coaxial as an alternative, but it’s fine now).

My effects processing remains decidedly “retro” at this phase— H9s and Pigtronix loopers— I just haven’t found any more recent boxes that necessitate replacing either of those objects. The Empress ZOIA is in the mix effectively as a Nord Modular replacement— primarily using it for sound generation, I smack the instrument and the transient creates a synthesized hihat sound, for example.

Hey fgti - cos im interested by technically lost -can i ask if you could explain this less in terms of the tech but more in terms of what it allows you to do musically? (What instrument inputs for example... is this for you and a guitar in performance or a band? A string section...? )

more specifically what i might hear happening?

xxxpost dog latin that is great

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, 21 February 2026 20:09 (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Thank you! I'm dead proud

Thanks for that fgti, very interesting & wild.

In May 2025 I’d effectively given up, and elected to just “stop playing shows”

This is the part I relate to, lol. After spending so long making an album with a very specific sound world, I'm just not up to trying to approximate it live anymore. My setup is very desktop/studio-bound and I'm not trying to buy any more gear just to play DIY shows that no one is asking for. The last time I did it was very stressful, even though it was relatively simple in the grand scheme of things (two drum kits, a drum trigger pad with loops and one-shots, a Zoom with some textural stuff from the album, a mixer, and a Kaoss Quad that everything is running into, including a contact mic on one of the drums). I just want to either play drums with a live band or make records at home...would love to play with someone who is more technical and could handle the electronic side live though!

I haven't played much of anything lately. Dusted off one of my guitars last fall with the intention of taking it back up again, but didn't spend much time with it. Had another guitar that I wanted to refinish, but I only got about halfway through stripping the paint before the weather got cold enough that I didn't want to spend any more time outside.

But last week I got a weird idea to play trumpet. I've never tried any brass (or wind) instruments before! I've always loved horns in music, but never thought I could see myself playing one, for some reason. I don't have a trumpet and didn't want to just splurge on one just yet, so I just bought a mouthpiece. Just been walking around with it in my pocket and messing around with embouchure and buzzing when I get a chance. Not sure if I'll graduate to a whole-ass instrument, but I'm having fun for now.

I got booked to play a set in two weeks time, pay is not great but I can finally dig for an occasion!

My choir is doing an edited performance of Hansel’s Solomon and I am going to do the bass aria. I’m really excited/terrified

anyone start to string some chords together for a new song and realize "shit im just doing [song x] arent i, no wonder i thought it sounded good"? i did this last night and once i put the capo on at 2 i was like, shit this is "sometimes" by mbv lol

No— my ears generally are on the detecting side of this, and I’m oftentimes ruining a client’s vibe by indicating melodic and harmonic correlations to existing material

That said, I did recently score a film that was entirely analog-electronic (think Stranger Things, Challengers), and the temp for one cue was a fairly chintzy-bad Tomita-style adaptation of Grieg. They told me they’d ripped it off YouTube. I googled it up and saw that Tomita had never adapted Grieg, and as this YouTube version was so chintzy, I thought it’d be fair game to adapt the temp. I did so, part by part, lovingly rendering an analog orchestra— it took me ten hours of real work.

I showed it to a film composer buddy like “isn’t this cool?” and she replied “when’s the last time you watched The Social Network?” So basically I wasted a day doing something Atticus and Trent already had done

it truly do be like that sometimes

Did another music thing for Bandcamp Friday.

https://chrisirregardless.bandcamp.com/album/the-last-nature-sounds-you-will-ever-hear

Well, this album of New Orleans brass band arrangements of M. Jackson tunes (Michael, not Mahalia) is finally out after starting it ~14 years ago:

https://digdown.bandcamp.com/album/brass-jackson-the-music-of-the-king-of-pop

(only one tune on streaming so far, but it's all on Bandcamp)

we booked a little spring mini-tour (boy it's a lot of work trying to book out of town shows), but these should be really cool. been a few years since i played out of town. place in Milwaukee is a (relatively) new venue I think, supposed to be cool.

Thursday May 14 Milwaukee, WI @ MKeUltra w/ Apollo Vermouth & Florida Brothers Band

Friday May 15 Chicago, IL @ The Hideout w/ The Shape Of (ex-Joan of Arc) & Doug McCombs (Tortoise)/Michael Valera Duo

Saturday May 16 Kenosha, WI @ The Port w/ stuDies & Tourniquets

that rules, love a little tour <3

place in Milwaukee is a (relatively) new venue I think, supposed to be cool.

Great venue name, at least! Good luck on your sojourns!

McCombs/Valera! That sounds like a sweet gig.

boy it's a lot of work trying to book out of town shows

ha yeah, it really sends me into a spiral of "why am I even trying to do this" ... but the shows are almost always fun.

I am being roped into singing “When You’re Hood To Mama” again for a Mother’s Day fundraiser being put on by my church. This time I’m not going full drag, though.

thanks all, should be a fun jaunt, would have liked to make either Madison or Eau Claire work but couldn't get it done

also, I WISH venues would just write back promptly with a straight no instead of not replying

awesome, gonna try and make the chicago show. i love the hideout

i've been trying to book LOCAL shows to no avail. i have no connections at this point, hardly any friends in bands any more, and our streaming numbers are bad right now since we haven't released anything in a bit

i hate thinking about the fact that all those digital metrics probably do count as part of a booking agent's process now :/

i'm sure if a band that they've never heard of before contacts them, that's the first thing they look at (if they bother looking at all)

I emitted some more music for Bandcamp Friday, an album comprised of the last three singles and two new tracks.

https://chrisirregardless.bandcamp.com/album/honeycomb-ghost-logic

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.

― na (NA), Friday, January 9, 2026 10:37 AM (three months ago) bookmarkflaglink

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)

― ron zertnert (flamboyant goon tie included), Friday, January 9, 2026 11:44 AM (three months ago) bookmarkflaglink

I wanna check in on this. Did you record these yet and were the songs better off for it? I'm doing some vocal recording for my stuff now and struggling with what my final take should be. I am not an engineer but I have a decent mic (Shure SM27) running through a decent pre-amp. Recently I've been cranking the gain and backing off the mic more when I sing. I *think* it's helping? I have a friend planning to mix and master the songs, but I'm still a little lost performance-wise as to what should constitute a final take. I'm doubling the vocals, adding lite-reverb, harmonizing, ect. I guess I'm more curious on how that feedback works. Like, what were they looking for and did they get it?

I had my 2nd live practice/recording session with my noize friend this Wednesday...
― vague facial gymnastics (sleeve), Friday, January 9, 2026 3:51 PM (three months ago)

our debut gig!

https://testdelete123.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/IMG_8640.mov

I wanna check in on this. Did you record these yet and were the songs better off for it? I'm doing some vocal recording for my stuff now and struggling with what my final take should be. I am not an engineer but I have a decent mic (Shure SM27) running through a decent pre-amp. Recently I've been cranking the gain and backing off the mic more when I sing. I *think* it's helping? I have a friend planning to mix and master the songs, but I'm still a little lost performance-wise as to what should constitute a final take. I'm doubling the vocals, adding lite-reverb, harmonizing, ect. I guess I'm more curious on how that feedback works. Like, what were they looking for and did they get it?

― Heez, Saturday, May 2, 2026 2:45 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol i honestly don't remember any more? my memory is not good. we didn't solicit or get any specific feedback on vocals, but i just meant that the act of imagining someone else listen to it highlighted the work we still needed to do on vox. my guess is we did a combo of rerecording whole takes, rerecording certain parts, and deciding that some stuff was actually fine. i mostly focus on performance, it can take me a lot of tries to get takes that have decent energy AND stay on pitch (our other singer (my wife) is better at this though i occasionally provide some feedback on vibes/tone). i used to do a lot more doubling of vocals and guitars but it started to feel like a crutch so i've tried to move away from that when i can.

lol ok. I really just want someone to listen to my songs and say, that vocal sucks, but that one’s fine to get me out of this indefinite loop of re-recording vocals