what is going on in your musical life

I have the bones of a song I feel pretty good about right now and am recording the parts little by little. I pretty much have a demo-worthy piano track done (it's a very rhythmic piano part so I'm kind of building around that), and some of the lead guitar parts laid down. I've learned to have a sort of zen discipline around the fact that I may only get an hour or two a night of time in between everyone going to sleep, getting the dishes done and the house in order, and one of the kids waking up and needing attention or something, and some nights there's no spare time, so I'm just trying to be ok with moving at a plodding pace. I need to decide whether to wait til I can record the V-Drums in the daytime or just risk the neighbor getting pissed at night (or play very softly, which might mess up the feel).

Once it's done, not really sure if I'm going to try to re-record it with a better performance and try to get a good sounding mix, or maybe just rent some studio time and do it on acoustic instruments -- may only be able to get a limited result with a Yamaha digital piano, v-drums, and my amateur self recording through garage band. I have contacts at a good studio where my band previously recorded (and that has done records for big name indie acts). Hard to decide whether my time and money is better invested in better home equipment/learning to do shit myself vs going somewhere where I can get a good sounding result more immediately but don't come away with anything I can reuse on other projects.

Also it's going to be hilarious when I try to record the vocals using a makeshift combo of couch/cardboard/thick comforter as my booth.

I've learned to have a sort of zen discipline around the fact that I may only get an hour or two a night of time in between everyone going to sleep, getting the dishes done and the house in order, and one of the kids waking up and needing attention or something, and some nights there's no spare time, so I'm just trying to be ok with moving at a plodding pace.

this has been my musical life for the past six years. i saw this tweet recently and was glad to see someone else dealing with it: https://twitter.com/twwalsh/status/758698734985314304

I typically do everything but the drums in those after-bedtime bits, then do the drums last, in the daytime. I'll start from a guide track (drum machine, acoustic guitar, scratch vocal), then start adding real instruments. At the last minute I delete the guide track then add vocals and drums.

Paying for studio time to do tracking as a solo act sounds like it would get pretty expensive. If you're on good terms with the studio, why not get it mostly finished (all the instrumental tracks, say) and then bring your tracks to the studio just for vocals (or just vocals and drums)?

A good engineer can take the individual tracks you've already recorded at home, make them sound better with plug-ins and such, and mix them intelligently with anything you end up playing in the studio.

still lookin for a drummer :(

Lol NA.

I guess it's been my life for a few years except what I've changed is my attitude, like I'm learning to accept that it may be six months start to finish for one song I'm happy with, but at least I'll have that song instead of a grab bag of stop and start ideas and snippets and frustration.

my wife and i have a recording project with our friend who plays drums, and the recording process isn't too hard in re: managing time with the kids and other responsibilities. but we've been talking about trying to actually play a show, but we have 4 kids between us and our friend's wife is pregnant and we all have real full-time jobs and anytime we play together either his wife has to watch all the kids while we try not to play too loud in the basement or we have to get a sitter and drive to a rehearsal space and it just doesn't seem realistic

Yeah being in a band that practices let alone performs is so incredibly time and labor intensive for such a minimal product, much moreso when you can't do it regularly. My wife basically gave me a talk about this that helped me a lot, like "look you've been banging your head against the wall about wanting to be in a band, but face if, you don't have time to be in a band. Focus on what you can actually do."

Because I'm working entirely in iOS with a variety of virtual synth and sampler/rompler apps, and without vocals, i get a couple of thirty minute sessions in during work while hiding in a stall in the men's room (everyone here knows I have Crohn's disease so it is not remarked upon, lol) and another 15 to 20 minutes on the train home with my headphones way too loud. And I try to arrange it so I have 30 minutes in the morning before I leave. And if my wife goes out with friends I jump on that time.

I played guitar for a good thirty years before injuring my elbow and definitely had a 'style' despite largely failing to form bands or finish concrete projects; this is my third year of working via touch screen and I feel like I've gotten to the point where it sounds like it's coming from the same place my guitar playing did but with the chance to sidestep a lot of the limiting tics I developed on guitar.

It delights me and makes me feel alive in that old way but of course I am also in touch with the fact that there could hardly be a more banal and unexceptional story than middle aged amateur musician makes electronic music.

that's why you pretend to be younger and invent an interesting backstory

YMP: the main problem is I'm recording a digital piano and digital drums direct to approximate acoustic sounds. They're decent, midrange instruments (Yamaha piano and Roland drums) and I'm pretty good at EQing them to a sound I like, but I still doubt that I'll ever get them to a sound I'm happy with, so at some point I may just want to record live piano and live drums. Although, tbf, the V-drums have the advantage of sounding very "pro" and sort of masking imperfections.

I gotcha, man. I've used an electronic kit for rehearsal and apartment jamming. Occasionally for e-drum sounds and eclectic percussion.

Somewhat perversely, I find that Roland drums sound too good - too "pro" (as you say), too clean, and thus fake. They don't sound like me, they sound more or less like what they are: extremely good recordings of drums, not a creaky actual kit being played by an amateur in a room with a couple of microphones.

Yeah, p much. Actually I find they almost sound like *real* pro studio drums (I have a TD-15, which is the midline engine), but there are just certain elements/moments that sound off in an uncanny valley sort of way. Playing to avoid those is kind of its own skill to learn. I also mess with the settings on the sounds a lot. It actually sort of works for what I'm recording right now, which is 70s AOR-ish and needs to sound very clean, but there are a lot of dynamic and color limitations. So I'm thinking this is probably not going to get better than demo quality no matter how much I perfect it. Nonetheless, it's a very easy way to get like 90% of the way to the sound I want, whereas doing it in the studio would probably be time/labor/skill intensive.

lol last night it hit me that I had very slightly ripped off a moment from "Goodbye Stranger" by SuperTramp. It's weird too because I don't even like them, and I never owned any of their records.

I don't much like them either but that song does have some magical sonic moments in it. Whatever you think you ripped off is probably fair game - it's not like Supertramp invented pauses, counterpoint, flanging, or electric piano or whatever.

Yeah, it's def fair game. I came up with a chord progression that turns out to be very close to the opening chords, but it comes late my song, and they certainly did not invent that harmonic device (p sure it comes either from jazz or romantic era classical).

If you want to talk embarrassment, I once improvised a whole verse of nonsense that my band mates later told me was the melody of "like a Virgin"

But that verse and pre-Chrorus melody does work in a punk context. The chorus not so much.

6 songs fully tracked, 3 songs left to finish overdubs and one left to cut, then I am going to take a week off work and mix it all.

Missed this but holy shit Emily, that rocks!

what is a good analog synth? anyone have any experience with the Sub Phatty?

we used electric sound of jim's on a throbbing gristle cover once, sounded good. if you want that moog sound - the filter, primarily - it's a winner. sub 37 has bigger keyboard and lots of the parameters that are hidden as 'shift' controls on the sub phatty directly on the front panel... but it's double the price.

what sounds are you looking to get?

I have no idea. I just have a friend who's looking to borrow one and was considering picking one up.

Anyone in NY have one I could borrow ? I can provide collateral

Voice lessons rule

first live gig in a long time tonight, reminded of how annoying the cascade of texts & DMs asking "where's the show?" (says it on the fb event you accepted) "what's cover?" (have i ever invited you to a show i was playing that was more than 10$?) "can i get on guestlist?" (no!) "what time's yr set" (just show up at 9) is

playing microkorg in a synthpop duo my friend and i started as a just-fucking-around summer project before he moves away in september. the songs are really simple and kind of silly (i was learning how to use my microkorg as we were jamming them out) but i'm somewhat proud of them in a weird way, and it's a low-stakes loft show feat. a friendly crowd & other amateurish bands

Ha, yeah, unless someone has a really good reason for not being able to attend the whole thing I'm just "what, you don't want to support the show? You want everyone else to play to an empty room? That's really mean". Other people probably find this attitude obnoxious, to be fair, but it irks me if someone who claims to be part of the music scene can only be bothered to support friends and is snotty about watching people they don't know.

I'm pretty relaxed about being asked about guestlist (even though the answer will probably be "I only have one space and I already gave it away"), though I have met a few super-entitled people who just think they should get in to everything for free.

Where can one buy an analog synth in nyc?

Control in Brooklyn

http://www.ctrl-mod.com

But are they artisanal synths?

Are they organic?

they're free range.

Sweet thanks!

B and H has stuff iirc but not modulars

Rogue Music in NYC deals with quite a bit vintage analog synths.

I almost bought a microKorg at guitar center...might pull the trigger tomorrow

want to buy mine? v. reasonable.

i'm opening for Colin Stets0n a week from tonight, which is my big solo show this year.

How did this go?

My piece from a few years ago "Locks and Ripples" was accepted to the Toronto International Electroacoustic Symposium in August.

I was really nervous but I think it went OK. There was some very favourable reaction, which was heartening. I've been feeling more and more like this kind of processed guitar music should be more of a focus for me, like it might be the thing I do that I'm most satisfied with recently. I've got projects already on the go, though: want to finish off the string quartet and record the classical guitar piece and probably write a paper before I could really make it a focus. Just don't feel like I can or should drop those things.

it was really great, thanks. i was reasonably happy with my set and it was pretty special to watch Colin & Sarah in a small space like that.

maybe the most interesting part was watching his (very) lengthy soundcheck. they were using all 16 channels for a sax & violin duo, and i think at least 12 - 14 of those were for him. it was cool to learn the details of his setup, all the contact mics coming out of the horn (and throat), and to see how exacting he was about the EQ for everything.

then i get up there and i'm like "yup, sound is coming out of everything, i'm good "(although admittedly there wasn't much time left for soundcheck, but still).

<a href="https://www.facebook.com/barnsessions/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1449205908429401";>pics here</a>

oops

Would love to see a Colin Stets0n soundcheck!

super interesting, jordan, cool

think my band is turning into surf rock + banging 808, which is ... unexpected

Tfw you had something v short and straightforward but nice enough basically completed in July, spent 2.5 months, when you had unprecedented precious time on your hands, making it more and more complex but never quite getting it right, and then realise that you probably had it right in July.

tfw when you're creating shit, no matter what it is and what's going on

Almost finished doing my first ever remix, OMG. It is... not very like the original song at all. I hope they like it, argh.

ah, but does it sound like you?? always thought that was partly the point of remixes

well, that and to make it bang in the cluuuurb, obv

I think I'm going to put up something on bandcamp for the first time soon. I've been way too eclectic in my activities this year but enough pieces of a certain strain have accumulated that I think they'd make a nice EP/short album.

Something is nagging at me though. Do you guys think of the built-in speaker of the iPhone as the new 'car radio test' when you're mixing/mastering? Because sometimes my wife asks me to play her something I've done from my phone and when I do it just sounds like garbage nonsense to me. Do you guys at all try to mix and master so that your shit sounds okay coming out of a phone as well as great on speakers and headphones? I THINK I could mix so that it'd sound good in that environment, but not without doing real violence to what I want the music to sound like... IDK

ah, but does it sound like you?? always thought that was partly the point of remixes

― Executive Ball Clicker (euphemism) (haitch), Monday, September 26, 2016 7:07 AM (six hours ago)

well, that and to make it bang in the cluuuurb, obv

― Executive Ball Clicker (euphemism) (haitch), Monday, September 26, 2016 7:28 AM (five hours ago)

Ha, yes, it sounds very me, which sadly precludes it from being a club banger. I'm still super shit at beats. My approach was to take micro samples and build an entirely new weird track out of those, rather than lifting melodic phrases and reordering them/making them bang.

Went into the studio for 5h yesterday and did a bunch of takes of my classical guitar piece. I was doing it all myself so I kept running between the recording room and the control room, ha. Might have taken half the time with someone else. A few takes were useless because one track wasn't armed to record, ugh. Should be able to piece something together in a week or two, hopefully. I used a couple of these mics. I hadn't used them before but I feel like they sound pretty good. They do a great job on the sound of me opening and closing the recording room door.