what is going on in your musical life

I finished mixing my drum duo album and had sort of internally decided against trying to pull anything off live. Buuut there just might be a chance that we could do it at an artsy festival in Europe next year, which is something I've always dreamed about.

So now I'm furiously googling gear and trying to think of how we might pull it off, without spending much money. Probably a topic for another thread but the one thing I want to avoid is playing drums to a backing track or loop with a strict tempo -- it's always too hard to get the monitoring and balance right, especially for multiple people, and it kinda sucks anyway. So instead I want to be able to do some live dubbing of the other drummer (like one mic going into my mixer & fx unit), and a way to trigger samples, preferably via drum pad (pads, one-shots, and some loops that I can re-trigger every few bars). Hopefully without spending $$$ on the industry standard Roland pad that everyone uses. I'm really kicking myself for selling my SP404, that could have worked fine, but looking into the tablet sampler app + midi controller pad option (even though I love a simple self-contained tactile piece of gear that doesn't involve a computer or smart device). Blah blah blah.

omg i hope you get to realize that dream jordan!!!

lmao @ being called "the neil peart of the band"

faith/void song is sick. jordan that sounds way too complicated for my brain but i hope you can figure it out.

my band/recording project is still slowly chugging away at recording. we've gotten into a semiroutine of getting together every couple of months to record the drums and bass for four songs, then later i go to a rehearsal space to record guitars, then finally we add vocals and other stuff at home. for the first time we're aiming at recording more songs than we need (the target is 16) and then cutting down to a cohesive 10-12 track album, and maybe saving some of the others for an EP down the road.

it's going pretty well but the mixing is getting to me, i don't have great ears and am not confident/experienced with doing that stuff on the computer. part of the point of doing this as a recording project (other than that we don't have the time or energy to play live any more) is that we can make each song sound however we like with multiple guitar parts or keyboards or extra backup vocals and not have to worry about replicating it live. but yesterday i was listening to an album our old band made where it was songs we had played out a bunch of times and it was recorded mostly live to 8-track with just vocals and some lead guitar overdubbed, and it sounds so good. i miss being able to record things like that. plus tape (even cassette tape) sounds so much better than digital, maybe it's because i'm old but also it's true.

I had my last home project mixed by my friend who is a personal and it was so worth it

but yeah I miss analog recording, there's something about it

Maybe a lot of it is natural compression that's occuring? I definitely think you need to work extra hard to get the vibe going with digital recording & mixing, although luckily there are so many amazing analog-style plugins today available for free or nearly free. The thing I like about digital is that there can be so many creative workarounds, I've done things that felt like cheating (like creating multiple copies of a track that are processed and EQ'd differently) and only learned later that it's considered a standard technique. I love mixing now as a set of puzzles to solve, but it still takes soooo much time, so much listening on multiple systems and tweaking and listening and tweaking.

Love the Faith/Void track Ivy - love the drum breakdown around 2.30.
I hear some Quicksand in there!

omg chinaski thank you, hearing any quicksand at all in our music is huge for us

and thanks everyone here for saying such nice things about it <3

I just put out a new single for Bandcamp Friday.

https://chrisirregardless.bandcamp.com/album/daisy-clocks-and-time

going on tour???? if you're in any of these places, come say hi.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/f42d05b451106547731929b0c43ff073/718e4c566df6d8f2-34/s2048x3072/c2c79df51274db9ea7cf974097213d4ad3e53ed3.jpg

Awesome flyer.

that's so rad

Those Omni magazine covers are fantastic - great flyer

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/A1Yh5422kvL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg

super cool flyer!!

Turned it around tonight — sat in on gongs/small percussion w some friends at a venue I love/have played at multiple times and they had never been to. And we had such a good time. I love the last minute invite bc I don’t have time to get nervous or overthink anything. We rehearsed once earlier today and performed 5 hours later. What a week.

Also love the flyer Tyler and have fun on your tour!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf_az1PyXj0

another new faith/void song!!! containing what are probably the most uhhhhh "personal" lyrics i've ever written??? it is about needing to go on hrt even though/because(???) the world is ending. like and subscribe

On Sunday, I sang in a benefit concert for a local charity that provides counseling and support services for people impacted by gun violence, including those who have been injured, the families of those who have been killed, and those who have served jail time and are attempting to repatriate into society. I did two sets of songs; the first was three art songs by Robert Schumann (Mein schöner Stern, Widmung, Du bist wie eine Blume) and the second three were spirituals (Swing Low, Sweet Chariot; Deep River; Ride On, King Jesus). I thought it came out pretty well:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ycmq25i1mnlpd7eqdtxu8/IMG_8018.MOV?rlkey=gdo0psf0u116v4r1mjou29mvt&dl=0