what is going on in your musical life

Yeah a lot of this conversation resonates with me, and putting it in these contexts made me think about my responses above as a listener (and as someone listening who also makes) and i think that personal thing in your song Karl is amplified not only by the fragility of your voice but by the very "here is a song" 3+ mins long, standing alone- in comparison to 2 lengthy organ pieces or LL's drumming. These two I can let drift over me, engage with them in focused listening or just in the background - but an individual song presented in the way yours was kind of asks "listen to me closely, because I will stop soon." Whereas I think if it was 30 mins of songs with that dreamy jangle and I could actually approach it as I did with the other two???

exactly! i feel like i know exactly what you mean by that! and for similar reasons i think that's why the majority of my listening consists of things i can walk away from and not feel like i'm missing something.

in a slightly different way, i think that i could just quickly scroll through 20 different finished product paintings and think "nope. nope. nope. nope." as i went, but if there was a recording of someone painting those same compositions, or was just presented less as a final "thing" and more like "this is what the thing is like, sort of, as it comes into being" i'd be way more interested and would watch for much longer. (maybe i'm off on that - i'm not even sure what i mean by that, but it seems right)

one more thing that seems relevant: what's interesting to me is that when i go about writing a shorter, 3-minute-esque "song", it will take me forever. the fact that is has a clear beginning and ending and that there will be repetitive elements of the song that are recognizable even during the first listen, leads to so much more attention being paid to it, compositionally. whereas when i record longer things, i'm so much more open to letting the "performance" of it stand, warts and all.

the reason i mention that i think there's an interesting difference between the two compositional forms in terms of how they represent the raw music that's inside of everyone. the shorter structured song brings out the obsessive, foreground conscious decisionmaking, while the longer forms seem more primordial and real in some ways.

(i recognize that's not true of everyone - some people really, REALLY labor over super long drone recordings in the same way that someone is sitting there chewing on a pencil's eraser trying to figure out a better inflection for the last syllable of a two-verse song, while others (robert pollard?) seem to just crank out short-length songs without worry

...more like "this is what the thing is like, sort of, as it comes into being"

yeah this interests me as a maker/player in terms of music too and its the main reason this board is so nice. I lurk a lot (because hah,I usually think anything i could say about the world wouldn't be meaningful or maybe yeah feeling incapable of producing something that would be meaningful to others0 and just find the smallness and openness in terms of process, sharing, approach here rewarding to read and occasionally join.

Anyone try this thing yet?

https://www.jamkazam.com/products/platform

no but it’s very interesting — I’d try it!

https://endlesss.fm/

this just launched yesterday too

ok keen to hear experiences?

id give it a go but i'm me

bandcamp page for my weird organ music - https://cutternumbers.bandcamp.com/

sounds great! your organ is awesome. I love how each of the three has a very different sound, too.

yeah i am listening while i try to focus on a very boring task and it's making me feel like i am hurtling through space while i do it
into it!

thanks!

it's weird how when i do song-oriented stuff i'm pretty confident about knowing when i've made something worthwhile or good but when i do more experimental/formless stuff i have so little confidence in it, despite having listened to that kind of stuff for a long time and played versions of it for a while too.

your organ is awesome

ahem

NA I'm listening to your organ record and I figured it would be, y'know, cool and all, but it's REALLY good.

thank you!

enjoyed this

its such...so good.

i mean just sgo ood

Emily, I'm still listening to your wonderful SoL record lots, and enjoy singing along :) Bought it yesterday. My gf said it reminds her heavily of The Au-Pairs, which is meant as a big compliment!

I soldered for the first time ever, a new 9v terminal on a vintage Fender Blender fuzz I bought not working from a pawn shop and let sit for two years.

Oh, LBI, I missed your post, thank you so much!

I've been writing and performing/recording jingles with my wife and kids for her read-aloud series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4DfCOUCNdI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bEvrhEYtos

I mostly finished a stompy ambient track in ableton, re-learning how to do everything all over again

DJI those are fantastic! Are the full stories up too? Is this a storytime in the time of COVID-19 thing?

Thanks, Tib! We had fun making them. My wife is an elementary school librarian so she’s been doing these for the lockdown.


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


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ouZKrOwpHE

Thanks. These are good. I've seen some really bad ones! Usually when the book is tiny and held in the hands of someone too far away from the camera.

I do think the voice audio could be a bit louder on the reading in the sideways story one though.

i listened to all of the sideways chapters (parts 1-3, I mean). i used to adore that book when i was a kid - haven't read it since

among others, the one that really stuck with me is the chapter about the student who keeps tightening his tie, and keeps looking better and better and getting compliments every time he does it, until he can no longer breathe. i really do think about that story all the time

New single came out Friday:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-dls67jTU8

And also, my wife and I made a theme song for the Apocalypse:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVpyLf8H3LM

Have been reluctant to out myself, but whilst my Working Stiff Old Man Student Jazz Band is on hiatus I have been taking Skype guitar lessons from Sund4r to work on my finger picking and such and it is really helping a lot. He is as good a teacher as one would expect: really organized, calm, focused and clear and, as you know, he knows a ton about the guitar and all kinds of music.

Ha, glad it helps!

As I’ve gotten back into making tracks under quarantine, I’ve also slipped back into staying up until almost 3am with my headphones on.

Just listened to a couple of tracks I made with my dinky rig from 1998 or so (in the college radio station’s newsroom, over the summer when nobody was using it, and I was the program director so I had one of the keys) and remembered why it is that I really like having my unbothered hours late at night to fiddle around. Now if only I had PROPER gear back then, etc

amen brother

So many good ideas, mixed like shit on weak monitor setups, with no multiplex compression

NO TIME TO DWELL ON THE PASHT

I need to figure out Acapella tonight so I can record myself singing a 4-part a capella arrangement of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" I put together yesterday for Sunday's church service.

I was the recording engineer for this piece last summer. The composer put it out on Youtube now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nbzv1XYzDw8&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR1RrQEpt5gB4-0PFYb-4MAFYwoZjSPUNM36-FBoqIPe19kEAcXgyoguGpc

https://youtu.be/Nbzv1XYzDw8

hi all,

i want to start recording music at home, and i have zero experience doing so. i find the world of software, plugins, DAW, etc., a bit intimidating, though i could overcome that if i need to.

but i read this today in an interview with Phoebe Bridgers and i wondered if this might be something i should look at buying and using, and i wanted to hear what y'all think, if you're willing? From an interview with Guitar World:

What setup are you using for home recording?
“I’ve been recording through the Izotope Spire. It’s so sick. It’s this little at-home thing with one giant button in the middle. If you’re not a gear head and you want it to sound normal without trying very hard, it’s great. I do all my sessions on them.

"It’s like glorified voice memos and it means I’m not having to work on my laptop. It’s only eight tracks, which is great for me, because it stops me overdoing it. Then you can plug a mic into it - recently I’ve been using this AKG C414 B-ULS - and it’s a great preamp. Since I’ve been doing that, it sounds so much better and I feel like I took my glasses off.”

Anyone have any experience with this thing or something similar? Could it be a good place to start for a beginner?

I meant to ask Sund4r if he used iZotope Ozone to record that piece he posted earlier.

Personally I get frustrated with interfaces that are designed for one-track-at-a-time recording. Because I play lots of different instruments, it would mean a lot of plugging and unplugging.

My best home recordings have come when I have everything I might ever use plugged into a mixer (in my case an el cheapo 8-channel Behringer). The tape outs from the mixer go into an equally cheap two-channel USB interface (Edirol maybe?), and thence into a computer running Audacity or NTrack or maybe Reaper.

I can get fake separation with careful panning.

It's possible I will revise this rig as things get easier and cheaper? Still, as I need to mic a drum kit I will almost always need more preamp, more channels, etc.

if you’re trying to record a room with decent sound and little hassle, spire is a good option imo

I meant to ask Sund4r if he used iZotope Ozone to record that piece he posted earlier.

Ozone is mastering software. I wouldn't use it to record. I used Logic Pro and a basic Focusrite Saffire interface, with two ribbon mics.

Right. I thought I was getting that confused, thanks.

maybe i can turn this into more of a "help me figure out my next steps" direction ... and btw, thanks so much in advance for any/all help.

what i basically want to do is to be able to record ideas on guitar or keys and then try to build from there - adding guitar/keys, vocals, maybe a synth or something. not much. maybe my old mbira if i get inspired.

as for percussion ... well, i don't play drums, so i imagine i'll be using none for now OR possibly a canned beat on a keyboard or whatever. i'm not too worried about that part of it.

and eventually, of course, i'd like to be able to move stuff around ... like "oh, this little bit should maybe go after this instead of before it ... and i'll double it!"

i'm completely unconcerned at this point with sound quality ... in fact, i quite like lo-fi stuff in general.

any thoughts or guidance (or follow-up questions) is much appreciated. i'm no tech wizard but i'm not a total Luddite and i've been working on computers for 25 years, so i can muddle thru a basic setup, i'm sure.

spire would probably better for demo recording, i used it to record demos with my old band. I imagine it will be harder to multi-track than just plugging into a focusrite with guitars or keys.

spire could be useful for drums, i guess

I used Logic Pro and a basic Focusrite Saffire interface, with two ribbon mics.

Incidentally, the composer was originally not that happy with how I recorded it. Iirc, he wanted a more distant, roomier sound, without ribbon mic colouration. I guess he came around to it enough to put it out there.

alpine static, I'd recommend you just get Logic, a sound interface, a couple of microphones, and a pair of good studio headphones.

For sound interface, get an Apogee Duet-- the preamps are really good in it, you won't need anything else. If that's too expensive, get a Focusrite.

For microphones, the AKG 414 that Phoebe recommended is a good workhorse mic for everything. Except vocals. 414 isn't good for vocals. Get an SM7 for vocals, it's cheap and makes everyone sound good.

If you want to get a stereo pair of mics, everybody has different opinions about it. I use these active Rode ribbon mics but they're not for everyone.

Do you use the Rode NTRs? I would be interested to try those. I used the AEA N22 ribbons for that recording (and for a piece of mine that was recorded in the same session, that I shared last year). Tbh, since I stopped working in a studio, I've usually just been renting mics - music stores rent them out p cheap, which I might recommend as an option, alpine.