what is going on in your musical life

I found Ned Rush's use of follow actions pretty interesting. Definitely a different way to construct beats that never would have occurred to me.

I'm going to dig into some of these Learn Live videos because I feel like I'm constantly struggling against the UI. I need to learn more shortcuts and ways to manage stuff better so it feels like less of a slog.

Also, does anyone on here use a Push? What are your thoughts on it?

My current controllers are an APC40 and a cheapo midi keyboard. It feels pretty clunky and I barely use the APC40 these days. Not sure if a newer controller would be beneficial or not.

Fun snare drum tricks/sound ideas for LL's class:

-Getting different tones out of the cross-stick depending on the position of the stick, you can play 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' or simple melodies (let me know if this makes sense)

-Turn the snare upside down and use a stick on the snare wires to do DJ scratches (some how this is the only video I see on this, but I first saw Matt Wilson do it ages ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmKxZ3FJx-8)

-Turn the snares off and use a hand/elbow/foot to change the pitch while you play with the other hand (or both hands, if you're getting a foot up there)

-Use all manner of objects on top of the snare to change the sound, or hit it (I like playing it with car keys in one hand and a stick in the other, and you can make rhythms involving dropping the keys and picking them up)

-All the normal functional ways of hitting a drum - near the edge, in the center, rimshots with the full stick, rimshots with just the tip, playing with your hands, etc

this is something I need to be talking about so I'm gonna bring it to me ilxor chums with gratitude that you're here. as the lead singer in aerosmith I have now, since March 2020, spent longer offstage, and at home sleeping in my own bed, than ever before in my grown-up life. that's about to end when we get back out on the road to play such classic tunes as "walk this way," "toys in the attic," and "lover alot" from the universally beloved Music from Another Dimension! anyway, being home has been groovy in many ways though I've also deeply missed, you know, actually earning a living at the trade I'm good at, and the pleasure of playing music with my bandmates. I'm super excited to make music again, can't really overstate just how amped, but i'm also scared! because the nightly process of what we do, what I think of as an energy exchange, it's very intense -- incredibly taxing, emotionally unmooring. my mental health, after a year and a half at home, is really pretty fuckin good! whereas on the bus we call the Smithwagon I am likely to be found sobbing because my brain is all listing-ship after not having slept more than two hours, or trying to find one corner where reading a book is actually possible. my mental health is reliably extremely dicey out there and i have to guard it zealously or I end up in a super pit where the only good part of the day is the hour plus on stage... but also, I have, like, nightly epiphanies, that time on stage is more than I could reasonably ask for from life, it's a blessed job! but the mania and cliff-dive inside the brain every day is hard, and every day start date gets closer and it's a lot of feelings to hold, so that is what is up with me. koritfw

<3 u steven tyler of the rock band aerosmith

you'll do just fine aerosmith!

one idea would be to start the concert with a "hold your breath contest" with the crowd. i did this once when struggling with a group of misbehaving school children overseas and they HATED ME for it. but maybe you hold your breath too, and the band, and then you improvise a little musically with how it feels, and then a big sweet release all together, and start. it's fucking over. it's over, poooooooof. downside of plan is you have to have everyone sign a waiver on the way in

hahaha

the thing is, I know the shows will be great. every time we got together to play over the past year-and-a-half, it's been just fire. I'm just anxious about the prospect of having to sort of accept that I'm 'Crazy Steve' again during my waking non-stage hours. I have taken a liking to 'Not Cryin' Quite So Much Steve'!

You should give yourself a new stage name!

i have no idea how relevant this is to your situation, since you're the lead singer of aerosmith you are obviously much higher-profile than any of the bands featured here, but i found this documentary diverting and entertaining and there might be some relatable stuff as far as stress of the road goes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agUS6GnZr_U

xp

steven ty$

i am getting ready to "perform" in some nature in the next few months. i'm not sure what that means exactly but it will be my first time on stage since 2006, if it ever happens. just 15 years!

i plan on punching a wall beforehand and screaming into a mirror until i can't figure out which side i'm on

Do you want your drums back? Please don’t punch a wall.

Also XP TO JORDAN thank you VERY much 🙌

JCLC - wishing you best, i can imagine a year and a half of not doing somethings that's taken up a lot of your life must be strange, can only imagine the feeling

just try to remember why you got into this business in the first place: to honk bobos

ZS, I would pay to watch you punch a wall & scream into a mirror until your ego dissolves. Super idea for a performance.

what's weird is i think i could pull off the screaming part (at least, if i were by myself. i'm not sure i could do that in front of people)

punching a wall is only a metaphor for me, though. i am the kind of person who reflexively goes "OUCH!" upon barely bumping into something. i used to be in taekwondo and i failed to break the first board i kicked. it was really thin, i just didn't hit it hard enough, i guess. i got a bone bruise on my heel that had me hobbling for months after that! and i was terrified to punch a board after that.

it's sad to say, but that's probably what kept me from punching walls all my life

Punching walls is gross — you don’t want to be that guy imo. I have seen people do it and it’s never agl. I have faith you can do more effective performance art!

i have busted a few walls and have never felt good about it. it's not wise.

I just make the wall feel bad about itself by bringing up its shortcomings.

same. really give that wall something to think about

thank y'all for the kind words btw it's intense right now!! appreciated

You'll be grand, JCLC. I recognise the mania/cliff-dive thing (even though I have never toured anywhere near as much as you) - it's a lot of work keeping the old brain stable, but it is worth it to do that thing you love.

And good luck, Z!

amazing how much irregular sleep patterns just tear through all the defenses you've built up in your head, brain just wants to consume itself, it's rad. i have never been on tour and fear it for this reason, as much as shows are objectively awesome. psyched you're going back on the road jclc and i hope maybe the stability you've reached had home can be exported to the tour somehow

my band is playing our first show next month and we got one of my favorite bands to hop on the bill and not only do i love playing shows, i love playing the best shows ever with bands that rule

our first show since the pandemic* i mean

Good luck Steve Ty. I was talking to a friend who's band tours Europe a few times a year, he was feeling anxiety because he's become extremely attached to his daily routine over the last year and a half. It definitely seems like a wild leap to go from being home all day every day > going on tour, compared to going back to the office or whatever.

BradNelson is the other band the Buff Boys competition

I've got a cute gig next week for a friend's mom's 60th birthday party. Apparently she's super into yacht rock, David Benoit, Steve Winwood, Go West, etc and we're playing a corresponding set. Her taste makes sense given that her two sons are bass & piano virtuosos along similar lines.

I used to play with them a ton in college, so I can't wait to play with some excellent musicians without any backing tracks, lol. Looking forward to the rehearsal as much as the gig. It's been fun to learn the tunes even if I hate most it (looking at you Steely Dan), lol.

BradNelson is the other band the Buff Boys competition

― not up to Aerosmith standards (Neanderthal), Tuesday, July 13, 2021 7:54 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

sippin' mai-tais at the rochambeau

(currently superstitious that if i name the other band they'll abruptly drop off the lineup)

lol understood - no need to namedrop!

jordan that gig sounds like a blast!!!

good luck everyone! i am confident that you will all RULE

(i don't have a gig or anything planned. i do have the idea that i would like to be one of the many who attempt to carry on laurie anderson's torch in some way. so i've been thinking about that. i could probably skip the work and just get myself a gig at the ren. faire as the buffoon who gets dropped into a tank of sludge if you can throw a tomato into his face)

km let me know if you want to collab on something. i love laurie anderson and while i don't really have the energy to spearhead my own projects at this point, i could probably handle being a mysterious contributor to someone else's project.

yeah that sounds fun! it would be great to get together in LL's basement again if she's up for it!

i have a bunch of other (non-drum) equipment that i would like to play with, too

I’m still learning to play the piano. It’s still hard. Probably nobody has ever done it.

Agreed I'm pretty sure it can't be done

Catching up, that backing track gig sounds like a nightmare, Jordan. Why was it necessary to play to a backing track in the first place?

Oh nm, I just realized you probably meant that there were backing tracks audible to the audience that everyone had to be in time with, not just that you had to be synchronized to a track in your ear.

Yeah exactly, all the Prince drum machine parts, plus half the keyboard parts & backing vocals that the band can't be relied upon to have covered/execute depending on who's there, lol

It will forever haunt me

you could take your mind off of it by undertaking the unbearably tedious and dull task of composing a DJ mix in ableton, as i have!

i'm gonna finish this, eventually, but i swear i will never do another mixtape in a DAW again. god i need to get some new decks, this sucks.

I doubt I'll go back to doing them, but I feel like I got a pretty good workflow going for ableton DJ mixes after a couple tries a few months back

i'd be curious to hear if you wouldn't mind elaborating a bit. all i'm doing dropping files into 2-3 audio channels with EQ and time-fx on the sends. getting the automation just right has turned out to be a slog... i should probably setup a controller and map it, duh.

i also realized just a few minutes ago that it's even more of a slog because the mix i'm working on isn't the vibe. i've been planning it for a while and think it'll be good when i finish it, but it's just not the vibe for this moment. gonna put it on the backburner and work on something more joyful.

Big thing for me was getting everything warped and set to similar gain levels first before trying to mix them together.

I added EQ 3 to both of my tracks for the mix and use a lot of the parabolic curves for bringing EQ and volumes up and down.

Those are the main things but could possibly answer other questions.

thank you, moodles, for the nice reply. our workflows are very similar! i check gain levels thru a meter as i add tracks into the mix, and automate volume to adjust. maybe i'll reconsider that. drawing in all the automation curves is what takes a long time for whatever reason (probably overthinking), and that gets frustrating when i know i could feel the fades out very easily with a proper DJ mixer & decks. working in the DAW lets me overthink the track sequencing, too.

one rly cool affordance of this fiddly way of doing it, though: having multiple tracks let me make quick/EZ edits to shorten tracks or program mixes better. probably what's killing me is that i'm overthinking the sequencing a lot. i want to top my last few mixes, which i think are my best in 20+ years DJing, and that sets the bar perhaps unfairly high for myself.

moodles, how do you go about measuring gain for yr tracks? i'm just looking at... i think it's RMFS, or the measurement for perceived loudness, at a few points in the track

Make sure track faders are always set to the same position and then either use the visual cue of the track volume control meter or you can look at the track peak dB, which can be reset to 0 at any point by clicking on it. Then adjust the clip gain until the track is hitting your preferred max dB.

As far as drawing curves, you can highlight an automation lane, right-click and then get a menu of curves. For DJ mixes, the parabolic curves will almost always suit you best. I'll typically put a curve on either track volume or a particular eq band on one track, then put the opposite curve on the same eq band on the other track, then adjust as needed.

ty ty

DAW mixtape workflow just feels so... unnatural. i DJ'd out for the first time in like 18 months, tonight, and i think it was a personal best. and it would've taken me probably several long days to do it in Ableton to my satisfaction, so probably i'll take a shot at recording a mix proper on CDJ decks. if i can find them. my studio-mates were supposed to provide a DJ controller/mixer for our space. so i'm gonna harangue them to follow through with that, and i'll come back to the DAW if it doesn't work out.