what is going on in your musical life

congrats CGLDI! cool stuff, i like it too

i'm working on recording more songs with my recording project band. this batch is the first time we don't have any analog in the chain (we used to record rhythm tracks to 4-track but it finally died) and i'm having trouble getting things to sound like i'm used to them sounding. otoh we can now actually mic the drums properly bc we have more input options.

i'm also taking a break from the songwriting class/workshop i had been doing. it was fun and it was good to force me to write something every week, but it was also expensive and the teacher was starting to get on my nerves, lecturing about kinks songs for half the class instead of letting people play their songs and get notes. i might go back to it later.

Now I want to be in a periodic producer's workshop where we all present demos and get feedback. Might have to pursue this!

NA have you tried using analog preamp and tape emulation plugins to get that sound? There are so many great cheap/free ones these days, I spend much of my time doing that (I would grab all the Analog Obsession ones to start with).

stuff like that makes me feel dumb but i'll take a look at it, thanks

not a tape emulator but i've found this helpful to warm and fatten up tracks or even on the master bus

https://www.soundtoys.com/product/little-radiator/

soundtoys stuff is really great, simple, focused for a purpose

I love that one on tambourines. :)

This is my current go-to "duh, make it sound better" plugin for drums
https://bedroomproducersblog.com/2023/12/21/baby-audio-beat-slammer/

And I always put a touch of the BPB Saturator on basically everything.

CGLDI this EP is amazing, wow

yes chris this is great!!! also i love "gnarled doll" as a song title

I'm really touched by the positive reception that my music has gotten here and in other places. Thank you all very much. There will be more of it coming soon. Oh, and that comp I was talking about is now out.

https://scarlethall.bandcamp.com/album/pond-frozen-over

listened to the final mix of the album this afternoon. really happy with it. if we can get things (mastering, artwork, new band photo) rolling in the next week or so... might have a single out in april

all the insecurities i had about my performance during recording are gone, i drum the hell out of this record

That's great, congrats!

I spent a couple hours practicing the other day and trying to record a decent video of some bop soloing (mostly because that really shows me if I can play something or not, if the red light's on and I can get through without an embarassing hiccup), and it was humbling. But I identified a few things that were causing issues (like a tendency to pause before starting the next phrase, which can be cool but meant I was consistently starting phrases on beat 2, and it was repetitive and making it unnecessarily difficult to fit in some of the phrases). And the next day I listened to Philly Joe Jones and Max Roach all day and told myself to focus on simple & clear ideas, and everything was better. The hot licks can come out naturally as connective tissue, which works better for me than saying "ok I'm going to play the hot lick now." Anyway that's all to say I'm trying to work seriously on this stuff rather than hoping for the best.

I don't do these much these days due to a lack of time, privacy, and equipment, but I recorded this for my brother's wedding, which is next week.

I cut it in about two hours and there's little mistakes I wanna fix later but overall mostly pleased

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA-sHFemgJM

Yes, I have made more noise for your pleasure: https://chrisirregardless.bandcamp.com/album/the-final-third-of-my-life

yesss thank you for this chris

https://i.imgur.com/Lsedhcv.png

also... our album is done

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8wJU5DbzRQ

we've been covering "it's the end of the world as we know it" since 2018 and we decided to record it at the end of tracking in january. we were so tired and this was my worst performance of the day, but i wanted it that way, i wanted it to sound exhausted and full of fuck-ups

YESS

whoa that is a fun cover! your band sounds great ivy. i have never played with a rock band that loud and it sounds like fun :)

There are a few things going on in my musical life, none of them esp exciting but definitely more hopeful than the last few years in there is something going on at all:

* my gongs being featured on my coworker's EP, we took promotional photos and video and it was fun

* band i've been jamming with for ***3 years*** finally has date to record in july -- finally!!

* I put together a playlist of my most recent solo recordings. They def could use a mastering (recorded in my basement) but if you like the Dusseldorf school of German rock music from the 70s, the album Moebius/Plank/Neumeier album Zero Set, weird solo synth music by women like Dorothea Raukes/Deutsche Wertarbeit DO I HAVE THE PLAYLIST FOR YOU. My faves are BB Music, Good One, and Explosive Sampler https://on.soundcloud.com/iX6z8KCsHDL7CJDn6

sorry the official title is Exploding Sampler

I have a new single up for Bandcamp Friday.

https://chrisirregardless.bandcamp.com/album/i-have-a-snake-thank-you-very-much

love to hear a la lechera update, especially when it involves gongs

meanwhile, our bassist finished the album art today and it's so good. (front and back cover are here.) we're doing a very very small run of vinyl, realizing a dream of mine even though it's so expensive and we'll prob never do it again

that's hot

By chance I came across instructions on Reddit earlier this week about how to recover data from broken HDD’s via HDDSuperClone. I had a go last night on my main production HDD that broke catastrophically (or so I thought) right in the middle of a few key projects in 2008, which I refused to bin just in case.

12 hours later and I’ve managed to rescue almost all of it. It’s like a time capsule, all my dubstep masters I thought were lost together, hundreds of ‘320 dubs’ I never burnt, flyers for all my gigs, clips of my tracks on Rinse / the Breezeblock etc.

Tbh it feels like a dream, I genuinely thought all this stuff was gone forever and now I have all the stems and Ableton projects etc to actually remaster and commission some modern remixes etc. Happy af right now :)

Amazing!

that rules so much willl!!!!

That is wonderful!!

Yeah, that's great!

excellent news!

Lol Ivy 5318008

my new band finally has a name and thus an Instagram page (I guess this is pretty much required now)

anyway, Field Hospitals with a brief snippet of a song

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5hHBAXvlda/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

that sounds freakin great!!!

Sweet! I've been shedding to record a tricky jazz version of the Zelda dungeon theme this weekend, with a band that does not have a good name.

thanks ivy and Jordan!

coming up with band names is the worst, we settled this by online poll with the 4 members, ranked choice balloting lol

I feel like it's maybe a decent name but at least not actively bad where it could hold you back

Omg — please don’t make me talk about the band name spreadsheet. We have a spreadsheet and we still can’t agree on something. I’d share my side of the story but it’s too long — the lack of decisiveness is making me lose faith :(

Nice UMS! That sounds great can’t wait to hear the whole thing

Its so hard to find a name that isn't taken these days unless it's something like Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her (which IIRC is taken).

I think if you can get just the name as an IG handle you're on the right track.

it really is the hardest thing, I do recommend setting up the poll thing where everyone picks their three favorites in order, it forces a decision

actually ivy, Faith/Void is such a great name I'm jealous

the path to a great band name is to steal it from a friend who is never going to form a band (his original idea was “faith void split” and i’m glad we ditched the “split”)

Yeah it’s a great band name

All I’m doing these days is “new set, new songs”. Was distracted for three weeks in rebuilding my rig to make it multi-channel. It was a productive dead end. Solved the problem and realized I didn’t like the results as much. Tore it up and went back to stereo

Interesting! I'm in the final stages of obsessive mixing for this drums-only record I'm working on (a collaboration with my main early drum teacher, which is a really nice thing). Getting to like "v14" for some tracks. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel though, just tweaking a few more tracks. I had a big breakthrough the other day when I remembered the existence of parallel compression/processing (exported five tracks of drum kit that I had processed to death down to one, brought it back in, took most of the processing off the original tracks, and blended the two).

Meanwhile I did this session, it was basically a sight-reading/first rehearsal/recording session deal. It had been a long time since I've been in an "everyone recording live" situation. I wish I had been able to play a little more freely, but after a couple takes you don't want to be the one who fucks it up when it's going ok. I only made one mistake that will haunt me the rest of my days on this one!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaFC3kAXjKg

I only made one mistake that will haunt me the rest of my days on this one

real!!!! you sound fantastic tho

meanwhile i'm going through a very intense unwound phase so i've decided to learn a bunch of unwound songs on drums. discovering that my drumming goal specifically in my band is "play more like sara lund"

great goal ivy. i did not realize that i followed one of your bandmates on letterboxd (and previously on twitter/bluesky when i was on there)

sounds hot jordan

Hornado!!

Great drumming jordan

Thanks guys <3