what is going on in your musical life

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.

Yeah, despite all of my advice, I'm getting better results with a DJ controller and it's less of a pain in the ass and slow process. I'm less experienced, so there will inevitably be fuck ups in there, but I'm still happier because I have so much more control over stuff like EQs and filters, so I can do more interesting stuff on the fly.

learning to mix on a controller/mixer is worth the time. all the little old-school fader and FX tricks i was doing to would be stupid hard to do in a DAW, and it is just flat-out faster.

i'm not using a controller's sync function. it eliminates the attentional overhead of beat-matching and lets you focus on other stuff—but that's IF and only if you have carefully set up the grid of all yr tracks to be on the beat, and i've found rekordbox rly counterintuitive in that regard so i just use my ears. (btw i despise the Pioneer DJ brand for a number of reasons, but that's a rant for another thread.)

anyway i kinda like hearing little slip-ups and imperfections in a DJ mix, even in pre-recorded/studio mixes. DJ mixing can definitely to be too smooth and a few slip-ups are rly kind of endearing if the DJ is good enough to fix them live in the mix.

^^^ i'm not *against* ppl using the sync function

I have a cheap Pioneer controller, working on getting more accurate with beatmatching, but using sync on recordings, and probably would do the same at a gig for now. It's very helpful to have max time for tweaking EQs and nudging tempos. I've actually had pretty good experience with grids in rekordbox, but I'm doing mostly 4 on the floor beats, so that's probably easier to nail down. Maybe 20% of tracks need small grid tweaks, but that's way better than the performance of warp in Ableton, which is always super fiddly.

Good luck tech-heads

My beloved acoustic trio is no more, as the singer has moved to Austin.

I have made some solo appearances here and there, and some side projects. One of these (a country-rock duo) has to fill 2.5 hours at a pub on Saturday, and this is a decided shift from my usual 20 or 30 minute gig. We have worked up like 40 songs, and it is fun but tiring.

break a leg! 40 songs is a nice big repertoire.

Thanks

One thing I'm trying to do is play the bouzouki more. It's fun but weird - jangly and loud. There are some keys/chords that I just can't really play comfortably because of the scale length, so I revert to the mandolin.

I don't like it alongside guitar (too much of the same sonic territory), but it pairs interestingly with bass and percussion.

i work on songs so slowly now that i'm generally working on one song (at the most) at a time. what that means is that from inception until completion, i have that one song in my head most of the time. like a persistent earworm that lasts for a week or two (or longer). not a humblebrag "man my songs are SO catchy!" just the process of thinking about this one song and playing it/recording it/listening to it over and over, while rewarding, can also be very annoying.

I've been feeling increasingly frustrated with Ableton and my current setup. My main gripe is that I spend too much time pointing and clicking and trying to scroll through endless menus of sounds, while I'd rather feel like I'm playing an instrument. I do like some of Ableton's instruments, especially Operator, Wavetable, and Collision, but even with those, it seems like you have to jump through endless hoops to get an acceptable sound. By the time I get there, my enthusiasm is just not enough to get anything completed.

So I'm trying to figure out how to revamp my setup to be more user friendly, get me away from the mouse, and feel like I'm actually jamming. My current setup includes one of the original Akai APC40s and a generic 49 key midi keyboard. I think I could probably replace both of those with something like the Novation Launchkey 25 and free up tons of real estate on my desk without losing much functionality, but I don't know if that would add much either. Would this be a worthwhile change? Does anyone on here have experience with the Novation keyboards?

Once I do that, what then? I've pondered looking into analog synth rigs and drum machines, and just bailing on Ableton instruments for the most part, but I'm not convinced that's necessary or worth the cost and time to learn. Are there other steps I could take to build a more intuitive and interactive experience?

I'm not an Ableton user but what's really helped me in REAPER is having track templates for basic synth/piano/organ/DI guitar/drum machine. That way I can insert a template, play what I want immediately with the minimum of configuration, and then go back and change the sound later.
Even though I'm not much of a keyboard player, I wouldn't swap a 49 key controller for a 25 key one. My current keyboard is also 49 keys, and I've got it under my desk with two A4 file boxes under each end. So not ergonomic at all but I can bring it forward enough to play it and push the keyboard back out of the way the rest of the time. Depending on your desk you might be able to retrofit a sliding keyboard shelf. I've considered doing this but a combination of laziness and being fairly tall (I'd probably be hitting my knees on it) has put me off.

The thing about the keyboard is that I'm not really much of a piano player. I use it only to either dink out little melodies or bang out drum patterns.

Anyway, after all this bellyaching, I started digging into lots of Push 2 videos on YouTube, and realized it does most of the things I'm looking for: it's fairly compact, can be used as drum machine and keyboard, can lookup patches and effects, edit samples, tweak parameters clearly, etc. So I snapped one up on ebay that is supposedly in mint condition. Guess we'll find out soon enough!

re: Ableton workflow

I've been really enjoying the All You Need is Live YouTube channel, his focus is mainly on Techno, but he does many tutorials about how to use racks to streamline your workflow that I think would apply to any type of music. Here's a couple that I'm planning to try out, the comments have links to download the racks.

This shows how to build a master drum rack that holds all your favorite samples for each common drum voice (kick, snare, hats, etc), which you can than very quickly swap in and out with the turn of a knob.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuPHTaG_4LE

This shows you how to build a rack for Operator that randomly generates new cool sounding patches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElMcWEy2xLY

Thanks, those look super useful!

If you've got the money I'd strongly recommend getting a Push for Ableton. Making music using that is so much easier and more fun than using the mouse and keyboard.

https://www.ableton.com/en/push/

Can confirm, even after a couple days, it feels like a massive improvement.

glad to hear :) besides the audio interface, Push is the only hardware i fw anymore

I've started doing a kind of bluegrass guitar crash course. Not sure why this particular bug bit me right now, but (1) it's kind of well suited to learning with a jazz background (some similarities to bebop phrasings), (2) at least theoretically, I like the idea that it will give me a repertoire of tunes that I can expect others to know if I go to a jam, so there's a communal aspect, and (3) relatedly, since it's acoustic, it's not a huge pain in the ass to jam. All that said, of course, the bluegrass jam opportunities in Westchester Cty NY are a bit limited compared to, like, West Virginia or Ashville NC or whatever. But I'm taking some lessons online with a bluegrass guy, learning a bunch of fiddle tunes, and it's a lot of fun.

I woke up this morning to find out that a choir in Australia did an arrangement of Rain In Soho at a Fringe Festival this year:

Love this! You might meet someone who's lost like you https://t.co/OjuAiSxJLS @mountain_goats

— kath norx (@kafnorx) August 9, 2021

last few practices i thought “wow, i can play decently on my electronic kit at home but i suck ass on a real kit, i’m so tired after like two songs.” eventually realized, after kinda hurting myself that second practice, that i was playing too hard. spent the last two weeks recalibrating and played the best practice ever this afternoon. felt good

which parts were hurting after the second practice?

mostly my forearms to my wrists were kinda tired + achey for a while

I played my first show since Jan 2020 this week! Venue required temp checks, vax cards, and masks and people actually came out. Felt great & our ~ 20 hrs of rehearsing paid off. I kept my head on straight even when my ride cymbal took a leap and knocked over bass player’s beer. Woops!

Playing music is the light of my life tbh 💕

That's great, I've been on a real journey with my technique this year (right hand, which is my weak hand even though it's my lead hand usually). The good thing is your body will always tell you when something is forced or unsustainable.

What's been really good lately is that I took a small practice pad to the office since wfm is over, a little Evans RealFeel one with much less bounce than my home pad. Because I don't want to annoy anyone too much or be obnoxious, I'm playing verrrrry quietly. And I know if I can get everything feeling relaxed and fast AND very quiet, well, that's that shit.

xp <3

I went to my first ever bluegrass jam yesterday on the UWS in manhattan - it was very sweet, disproportionately over 60 crowd, all levels. Nice bunch of people, much more enjoyable than playing blues rock with neighborhood dads. I'm totally ready at this point in my life for the kind of jams where you just show up with an acoustic instrument and play, no amps, no pedals, no dialing in settings, no feedback or noise issues, no ear pain, no awkwardness over what to play because there's a common repertoire of tunes.

Felt surprisingly comfortable playing breaks - I've been shedding the stuff, and coming from a jazz background helps me pick it up more quickly.

So, I had always wanted to host a house show and I finally said fuck it and did. My backyard has a kind of natural amphitheater overlooking the patio (terraces with retaining walls) and somehow in two weeks I managed to get an incredible bluegrass band to play, got a PA and lighting together and got a ton of people to show up. It was really fun and I want to do it again.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CTvkPc_sJWS/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Oh man that's great. Outdoor shows are so energizing--have only been to a few this summer, but I played one a few weeks ago and it was astoundingly gratifying and lovely

Holy shazbot...I got a single recorded wit a new group in the Ville. Ole' Earl just needs to finish getting his mix together and get it Mr. Saff to finish it before sending it off into the world, but depending on schedule, probably will be out in October or so.

tryna make a prog house classic. please enjoy my cringe-y spoken-word ramblings, idk if anybody will hear this elsewhere, probably not: https://soundcloud.com/808mixtapes/reiko/s-wfo0zuTcgZU

I enjoyed it! Seemed to be right in the groove.

davey I idk how things work in the proper house world, but that's very well done and def sounds like something that should be getting played out, you should send it around.

I've been sending tracks to one of my fave DJs for awhile now, and finally got one signed! He had really good explicit feedback too, which is so hard to find.