what is going on in your musical life

Practice diary: a work trip brought the revelation that practicing with a *mirror* is exactly what I needed. It's insane how different your hand & stroke look from above than from the front, and a mirror will tell no lies about the differences between your hands. Can't believe what a massive effect it's had in a couple days (just in time to play some serious snare drum at a brass band festival in Asheville).

Also expecting to get the masters back on a dance single that a label is putting out. I think it has the most of my own drumming of anything so far, which is satisfying.

I recently upload this to the IA along with a lot of other stuff https://archive.org/details/organic-beats-mike-hanley

I ordered a Korg Opsix during that big sale. Came out of the box with a dead screen (was pretty common in this batch). Finally got it back from the shop (fixed under warranty).

this thing is cool to play with, but i'm having trouble getting sounds that are actually usable not just wacky knob twisting, so many different parameters i don't understand.

Cool! Let me know when you eventually decide to sell it! ;)

Haha will do

How beginner are you with synths? Envelopes are the most important thing to understand when starting IMO

Pretty beginner, I have synths but only really used the presets

lets hear some blues on those synths

FM synthesis is a whole other thing though, you can't follow the normal subtractive process of oscillators etc.

I like the black box nature of FM (unless you really know what you're doing obv), just messing with operators until it sounds cool. That's why the hands-on aspect of the Op Six seems very appealing.

Oh right sorry I forgot the op six was their fm synth. I was thinking of the poly six

this is what I've done so far this year

https://archive.org/details/2022-system

Worked really hard on transcribing this little Tony Rice intro and felt like I really had a breakthrough in terms of speed, fluidity, articulation, etc. Really enjoying this process

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Ck2MGjUjjHF/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

So nice!

what do you do for listener fatigue for something you're working on? i have to keep listening to these recordings bc i want to finish them but also i feel brainfried by them and like i hear something new that needs adjusting every time i listen. i know the answer is "take a break from the songs and come back with fresh ears," and i did take a break over the thanksgiving week but even just the past few days of getting back into work on them has me feeling burnt out again. usually i'm pretty happy just to get something "good enough" and move on, i don't know why i'm feeling the pressure this time.

i kind of want an outside opinion (not on the songwriting but someone to tell me "hey the vocals are too loud here" or "this bit sounds weird") but i'm not sure who i would ask for that and i feel intimidated by bringing in an outsider. my bandmates are too nice about everything since i'm doing all the recording/mixing/arranging, i don't think they want to give me that kind of feedback.

ugh, remember that feeling. I do feel like an outsider is best, but it has to be someone you really trust.

can you reference it against a track you like that has a similar sound and arrangement?

that's not a bad idea. i've seen that as advice a lot but i don't know that i've ever tried doing it.

I don't do it enough either, but when I have it's been extremely helpful for general balance (ie is the bass present enough or too overpowering, is the kick drum coming through, is the vocal loud enough or too loud).

Also my favorite bit of mix advice is that all good mixes have one element that's "too loud" (or else they're just boring).

yeah it's taken me a while to figure out that "you can hear everything equally well" isn't necessarily the same thing as "a good mix"

i know i'm the one complaining, but i think something else that has helped was going back and listening to older stuff i recorded and mixed to remind myself of my personal mixing pitfalls to avoid. eg i tend to mix vocals too low and the bass too loud, so i'm making myself mix the bass a hair quieter than i think it should be and the vocals a hair louder than i think they should be.

Isn't it wild how loud the vocals are on most big pop records? Vocals and drums extremely high in the mix, everything else much lower.

I'm also guilty of wanting everything at the same level in a mix, which isn't really a mix (unless the arrangement is extremely minimal). If I find myself burying something in the mix, I usually just take it out entirely.

I think this comes from listening to New Orleans brass band records so much, where I really do believe that each element is as important as the others.

If I end up liking too many parts (which I usually do) I will wiggle the volume envelopes so that they come into and out of prominence at different places.

I am notorious for never quite thinking there are enough different guitar parts, and the result can get mushy. Like, there's an acoustic all the way through, plus an arpeggiated electric, plus a power-chord electric. They can't all star at once, so I try to give each one a chance to step out a bit and then go back into the general mush.

I used to also do a lot of panning trickery - one ear would have a strummed steel-string and the other ear would get fingerstyle nylon. Then have them ever so gradually switch ears, so that now they're on opposite sides.

I used to do more of that stuff too, but it started to sound distracting and 'fake' to me, I'd much rather have as few instruments as possible with each one able to take up more room.

feel a lot better about this project now. i mostly probably just needed to step away from it that day bc i was not in the right frame of mind, but ultimately what i decided is i would focus on one song at a time and make sure each one was "perfect" before moving on to the next one. i also pushed my bandmates for more input and they made some helpful suggestions. 10/12 songs are basically finalized now but the last two are going to take a bit longer.

That's absolutely normal. I don't know why, but there are always a couple of songs on an album that take much longer to get right than all the other tracks.

yeah and one of those is a song that we're totally changing the sound of in midstream, so it involves rerecording parts. that's going to be the lagger.

I've always found listening to mixes in mono as a good perspective on relative loudness of tracks

Feel like if it hangs together in mono, doesn't have to be perfect or anything, you're on the right track

And isn't it weird how your perception of what the best songs are changes based on which ones turn out to be the best mixes (which is in turn likely rooted in which ones have the best arrangements)?

I'm featured on a terrible song and now the artist wants me to promote it on social media, he's a very friendly, kind of lonely person who promotes his own stuff incessantly

I want to help him but I'm honestly ashamed of this collaboration

I'm not good at saying no

I made this in August with Logic (and Audition to edit the samples). Might do more of this in 2023.

https://soundcloud.com/burningambulance/grawlix-pushing-the-boat-out

From the practice diaries, I think I'm on the verge of a real breakthrough in terms of drumming technique. But I'm now fully convinced that it's about physics and not raw finger speed (which I don't have). I had gotten away from the 'bouncing ball' feeling in my weak hand, because every time I accessed it I was relaxing my entire hand so much that I would lose my grip on the stick (it would slide back so that eventually I would just be gripping the tip). Basically my fulcrum (thumb and some portion of the first finger) was falling apart.

So now my approach is to not care about wrist vs fingers, but to access that weightless, bouncing ball, travelling with the stick feeling in my back three fingers WHILE maintaining enough of a fulcrum (without squeezing) to keep the stick in place. It all seems a bit obvious in retrospect, but had just never clicked until now. I haven't totally internalized it yet but I can tell that it results in a level of speed and relaxation (and control, and sound) that I wasn't sure if I'd ever be able to attain.

Weckl talks about this exact thing here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdeqV0hz05E

But the weird thing is that it doesn't really look that different compared to bad technique (like if you have a too-tight fulcrum and you're forcing everything with too much tension), it's just a radically different feeling in the hand.

Also I don't know if I subconsciously couldn't make the shift until I had a break between gigs, or if it just worked out that way. But it's good because when I started working on this a few days ago I literally couldn't hold onto the stick until I figured out a new fulcrum (and I'm glad I have a few weeks before I have to play in public again).

finished mixing the album discussed upthread, got it mastered. trying for once to, instead of just releasing the album right away, holding on to it for a bit and trying to line up some promotion before release, mostly like independent radio and blogs. it's so embarrassing and dumb, but also i figure i can't complain about no one listening to our album if i don't put any effort into getting people to listen to it. otoh when no one still listens to it it's going to be extra frustrating lol

Are you sending promos to bands you like who are active? Sometimes other bands are the best advocates, can't hurt to have some allies. You can't expect anything, but you never know, at least musicians know what it feels like to want someone to listen to your record.

hmm interesting thought

here's a little jam that is mostly Pigments and Ableton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90a-95X4wlg

Very nice, I've never done a whole track jam like this but I haven't even used a hardware synth or controller for awhile, gone back to mouse and automation entirely.

Good things are finally happening with my weak drumming hand, things are opening up after 6 months since I started working on full/rebound strokes. It took a long time to diagnose everything, but I was not 'accepting the rebound' at all and my single stroke mechanics have been messed up since I started playing. And I was going nuts thinking about things like "which fulcrum am I using", "why does the stick keep slipping", why can't I get decent finger control, etc.. And that all started going away once I started relaxing my fingers and letting the stick just rebound up into the fulcrum position, with the other fingers following it. Idk it's hard to explain, but I was too focused on gripping the stick and simulating what a good stroke looks like, without actually using any of the physics involved. And of course relaxing is scary when all the mechanics aren't there, you'll drop the stick or won't be able to play. Still working on internalizing everything of course but I kind of can't believe it's actually starting to feel good.

Fantastic! I attempted to do some drum practice and rudiments a few months back and realized that I had pretty much lost all ability in that area over the years. I wish I had the motivation to improve, but now I'm pondering packing up the drums and replacing them with more synth gear.

Even though it is nice and very attractive, I don't really like the Push 2, it feels quite awkward to me. Not sure there is a better controller for Ableton though. I'd like to get more into some amount of live performance, but it would probably be focused around hardware rather than the Push.

My shed studio/office renovation just finished and i finally have a place to play and record again. got a drum kit, nord electro 3, OP-1, two electric guitars (strat/gretsch), and acoustic martin, and a fender precision bass all in the same room. also mics. looking forward to singing again. i was looking at some of those reverb/harmonizer pedals for vocals. has anyone messed with those? looking for a little extra something with my vocal performances. my voice is fine, just doesn't have much depth to it.

this has been a dream of mine since i started living in apartments in my 20s, but i'm now in my 40s and feel a little like i'm having a midlife crisis. i just want to make music all day

that's awesome, i dream of living somewhere where i can have a dedicated music space, especially one big/isolated enough to include drums of some kind. right now all my gear is in the corner of my daughter's bedroom. in our last apartment we used what was supposed to be the pantry as a very tiny and narrow "office"/"music room"

I am going to jam with Jorma Kaukonen's son tomorrow

As one does

!!!

No way! Actually now that I think if it, I have a friend from the DC area who is friend’s with that kid’s mother, I think.

Are his initials ZK?

Mom died of cancer several years ago, used to work in an Arlington public school with my friend’s wife. Don’t think JK was a particular good family man at some points. Of course you will be tactful enough not to bring any of this up, even if I was not tactful enough to refrain from typing it. Who can throw stones.

JR, yeah he's a Z but I'm not sure what last name he uses. It's a hyper-local connection, totally.

I am a promiscuous collaborator - at the expense of promoting my own vision or trying to do anything in particular.

Basically, when someone asks me to do something, I say yes. As a result I have played with some very fine musicians, including some notable ones... as well as some people who really had no business being up on stage at all. I just like staying active and performing.

Feeling that.

Update: Zach is a shy young man who is quite skilled at playing guitar, but needs encouragement to play live more. Fortunately he has fallen in with the right crowd.

My friends and I are collaboration sluts; if there is an unoccupied stage in the tri-state area we will contrive to put together a temp supergroup and make noises for anyone who will listen. The scene is vibrant.

Can I object to the usage of sexual language to describe musical collaboration? This is the second time. The first time I thought about saying something but didn’t want to get into it. This time I’m saying something bc it’s language that conjures a type of human interaction that isn’t accurate/appropriate for the conversation and, for me, is strongly unwelcome. If someone described me like that I would be horrified. Not bc I’m prudish but bc that’s not what making music is about and there are other words. It’s also language used by people who aren’t hurt by language implying promiscuity.

In sum use other words please please please. That’s it I’m done. I’m glad you’re getting opportunity to play a lot. I wish I were!

ll otm