what is going on in your musical life

I am getting very strong FACS vibes from this, which is a very good thing IMO

I've also put out a new ep.

https://chrisirregardless.bandcamp.com/album/no-hope-of-a-new-world

I'm playing my first music show since moving to Portland, put together three other acts to play short sets, but am still fearing that only 10 people will show up at a venue that holds 80. It's that math of knowing 50 people total who might come, then figure 25 might think about going, and 10 ultimately end up doing so.

we just played our record release show, the bands we booked to play with us were so fucking good and so stoked to be there even though we were playing in a hot pit/back room of a bar on a muggy 90 degree day in new york, and we played SO WELL i mean we rehearsed a lot but it was really amazing to notice how much we were clicking, and also someone ive had a crush on for forever was there and we made out after the set :) best night of my life, play music with your friends

hell yeah

xpost thank you so much djp, love facs

that's awesome ivy!!!

I'm collaborating with a vocalist that I have massive respect for and it's going well I think, just trying to generate lots of material and then pan for gold. Definitely have to quiet a little bit of imposter syndrome but all I can do is keep making things. Thinking about how I wouldn't have been ready for this until now, I learned my lesson years ago when I felt too precious about 'wasting' 'good' ideas/time and was super stressed about the end result. Now I feel much better about throwing as much at the wall as possible, and if *any* of it ends up coming out as a record I will be stoked.

that's the attitude to have
who is the singer?

xpost Christine I got (I think your first?) synth EP on Bandcamp and have really enjoyed it

i am performing solo at camp for an audience of my peers and a big bunch of 8-16 year olds in a school gym. tough room! i am prepared though and i dress-rehearsed my set last night. exactly 30 min!

tomorrow

nice, my daughter will be there, as you know

eazy i was listening to your old album a few weeks ago after accidentally figuring out one of your songs, it holds up

i'm in a bit of a creative malaise as we're waiting on external factors that will impact scheduling of our album release and trying to figure out how much promotion to bother doing. thinking about spending a lot of money on new gear to spark creativity

I saw her yesterday but didn’t embarrass her by saying hi. She was busy w friends tootling down the hallway.

good luck ll!!! sounds like a fun gig

by mostly happy accident we had like three photographers at the album release show, so now i suddenly have more pictures of myself drumming than i ever have before

https://i.imgur.com/EPMY5gH.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/vPBkV0a.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/vm0JtEZ.jpeg

Great pics! I didn't know ddrum made acoustic kits (yours?).

ums, I don't really want to say publicly (mostly for jinxing reasons) but can email you if you're curious.

not my drums, the venue's backline!

god bless you for using the venue's kit

love,
band members the world over

God bless that venue for having a backline kit

it seems like that would have to be just about mandatory in NYC, though i don't really understand how bands work in NYC (in terms of having practice space, getting gear to shows, etc.)

i have played venues without a backline kit, it always sucks ass. i am still very lucky in that one member of the band owns a car

my neighborhood has a devoted music practice space, ton of rooms full of gear, also feel very lucky that that exists even though it can't possibly make money and must be a front for something

It does suck ass! I’ll do it but you have to be some kind of nuts to want to tote your own kit somewhere you do not need to tote it.

The drummer's dilemma, haul your own kit (sucks and increases changeover time, but you're comfortable) vs use the backline kit (which usually has beat up heads, stripped stands and throne that you can barely adjust, feels weird).

Backline is extremely rare here, reserved for festivals (to get that trademark Festival Tom Sound (TM)) and a couple jazz clubs. I think for rock shows there's that weird negotiation where one of the drummers need to volunteer to let everyone else use their kit.

best are the bands that show up without a kit or bass amp and just assume they can use yours

Heh.

One time I went to Dizzy’s at Lincoln Center and overhead the drummer for the late show being asked why he didn’t bring his drums and saying “well, I can just use the other guy’s.” Except the other guy from the first set didn’t let him so they had to go and find some old beater set for him to play.

my band has a new album coming out next month, there are three preview tracks up now on our bandcamp: https://shreddedsun.bandcamp.com/album/wilding
i'm really happy with how it turned out, we made some investments in some really basic gear (like some better mics and those mic stands that clip onto the drums themselves) that i think helped with a more consistent drum sound, and we stretched out our songwriting beyond our standard 3-minute bangers on some of the songs

Did you end up mixing this in the box?

yup
something you said about mixing on ilx actually stuck in my head, about how a lot of times a good mix involves having an element of the song being mixed "too" loud. it was helpful, i definitely think i used to focus more on everything being equally audible, now i'm more comfortable pushing elements that i want to emphasize way up to the front. the opposite sometimes too, mixing some parts "too" quiet leads to more dynamics. lol this all sounds so basic when i type it out

i guess i never really thought about it much in the past because i've traditionally gone for more of a "live" sound where things are more stripped down and the levels stay pretty consistent, but with this recording project i can be a little more creative in arrangements and mixing

I agree with all of that. Tracks sound great NA

yeah this sounds really good!!!

Love to hear that, yeah it sounds great.

My musical life feels like it's exploding lately - working on two records (trying to get up a an hour or two early to get some music time in before work, since I don't have much other time during the week), getting some video and live show prep together for an all-drums album that's coming out in a couple months, practicing.

Played a last minute sub gig yesterday with a New Orleans r&b guy who was in town, felt pretty good and it was fun to bring out all this Zigaboo/Clyde/Earl Palmer type of playing that I love but don't get to do very often.

With mixing I also stopped trying to aim for everything being the same volume. Now I go for audibility. Like that synth in the background is there and as long as the listener concentrates on it a little, they can hear it. Partly I did this out of practicality - ear fatigue while mixing makes trying to get everything the same volume a tedious chore. But also I love records where some instrument is a little bit hidden in the mix and I don't notice it's there until I've heard the song a few times already.

I need to get better at this, and to take my own advice more often. Sometimes when I keep turning something down in the mix, I take that as a cue to mean that it may as well not be there, and I do like mixes with only a few elements where everything gets room to breathe frequency-wise. But I think I also need to do more of what you're describing, tucking little subliminal things in the mix that you feel more than hear, sometimes that can really add depth and keep the ear engaged.

With mixing I also stopped trying to aim for everything being the same volume. Now I go for audibility. Like that synth in the background is there and as long as the listener concentrates on it a little, they can hear it. Partly I did this out of practicality - ear fatigue while mixing makes trying to get everything the same volume a tedious chore. But also I love records where some instrument is a little bit hidden in the mix and I don't notice it's there until I've heard the song a few times already.

― you gotta roll with the pączki to get to what's real (snoball), Monday, August 5, 2024 11:43 AM (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

an engineer i've worked with a lot also taught me a nice trick -- say it's a little keyboard or guitar overdub that's going to play during the verse, if you raise it up in the mix a bit before the vocal comes in, you can pull it down while the vocal is there and psychologically you've already established it for the listener so they will continue to notice it even at a lower volume (it's very possible this is common knowledge too, i just didn't know it)

also the Cassini record is out! I played my very own record on my very own turntable :)

https://echodelickrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-cassini-promise

PSA: Sweetwater, Adorama and Alto have the Klark Teknik 76-KT on sale for $150 (not an affiliate link or anything like that):

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/1176KT--klark-teknik-1176-kt-classic-fet-style-compressor?mrkgadid=&mrkgcl=28&mrkgen=gpla&mrkgbflag=1&mrkgcat=proaudio&acctid=21700000001645388&dskeywordid=&lid=58700008696010903&dsproductgroupid=&product_id=1176KT&prodctry=US&prodlang=en&channel=online&storeid=&device=c&network=x&matchtype=&adpos=largenumber&locationid=9030985&creative=&targetid=&campaignid=21160912466&awsearchcpc=&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwzva1BhD3ARIsADQuPnVo7j_U7OFHR5E6Uor5e4rtpJ0RrxS9_-Sbw9_v0M46R6MXuMTS_JMaAuKiEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

This is down from $349. A real Universal Audio 1176 reissue is $2999.99 new.

I took a chance the last time I couldn't resist a Klark sale (KT is Behringer, if you don't know) on their Roland Dimension knock off (a stereo BBD chorus). I think it was $79.99, and well worth it, though its a subtle effect and probably isn't the most phase-legal outboard you could find. I've never used this KT-76, but have used the real 1176s and probably would never buy a real one just due to cost. Thats a good price though if it's any good whatsoever. We will see!

oh I should add that it's backordered but they're still accepting orders that wont ship for several months.... but honoring the sale price.

That is tempting, I've never used a hardware compressor and I'd love to know if it would add something that I'm not getting from plugins. But I fear I would be too lazy to set up the routing every time and just use one of my many great vst compressors.

I recorded a bunch of hi-hat tracks the other day (incl. different stacks of crash cymbals on the hi hat stand), and remembered why I record everything but hi-hats at home. I think that there's nothing to expose a not-so-great sounding room more than hi-hats -- short, sharp, and metallic. I get surprisingly decent results with everything else in an untreated basement (drums, percussion, ride cymbals) but hi-hat sounds just drive me insane. May have to either use samples or re-record in a makeshift blanket fort.

Pls post pics if you go the blanket fort!

My band is finally going into the studio to shed the songs we’ve been slowly working up since 2018. Covid put a 2-year damper on stuff and we’re generally all busy adults etc etc

but i don’t 100% know how I feel about laying down songs that were written in the throes of a love affair that ended over 5 years ago, political stuff inspired by spring 2020, & all that. I should move faster but my bones are creaky. Probably nobody will notice the political stuff much, and tunes about a doomed affair have no expiry date, but it all just seems so … old.

Very typical, as soon as I have 10-12 unrecorded songs I get total writers block until they’re recorded at which point the floodgates open again. Maybe I should look at it less as an album and more as a creative enema.

I have yet another collection of bangs, drones, and hums available for your listening displeasure.

https://chrisirregardless.bandcamp.com/album/practicing-magic

my band's new album is out today: https://shreddedsun.bandcamp.com/album/wilding
i'm happy with all the songs. i don't know how cohesive it is as an album but i just think of it as the white album of diy indie rock

(mostly in terms of the diversity of song styles represented across the album but also in terms of it being a generation-defining classic)

two of the three reviews we've gotten for the album so far mention Yo La Tengo, a comparison we've also gotten in the past. i love YLT but i don't think we really sound like them, they're a lot jammier/loose. sarah's theory is that we get compared to them because we're an indie rock trio with one woman, which i think is true but also we're middle-aged so that's another shared factor (though they're like 20 years older than us).

Also married couple + another guy (the roles don’t map perfectly but the makeup does even though you don’t really sound like then imo)

*them

oh yeah good point

Do you have keyboards sometimes but not all the time? Cover 60s garage songs? Genre hop to an extent?