jam710

Show off original scores and recordings made with Linux!

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jonetsu
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jam710

Post by jonetsu »

Reading comments about when a song is finished, I felt compelled to post this one to illustrate somewhat. It was 'done' very early on acoustic guitar. The rest consists of arranging pieces and components, which is mostly about how to dress the original inspiration.

Still 'unfinished' as far as cosmetics are concerned.. A bit rockier, undoubtedly. Uses the approach of mixing acoustic guitar and synths which is generally speaking humans and machines.

Warning: this is a work mix, not a final mix by any means. You might have to turn up the volume. What I like are the harmonics 'slaps' happening here and there.

https://soundcloud.com/nominal6/jam710/s-J2llI

Cheers.
jonetsu
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Re: jam710

Post by jonetsu »

It's funny how the 'flow' happens. You post one song, "jam300", it gets comments, and then you post another, this one, that has much more work into it so far, and nothing. Maybe there's too much acoustic guitar in a non typical acoustic guitar context ...
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Re: jam710

Post by milo »

Not sure how I missed this before. This forum seems to have gotten busier in the past few months - more unread posts to wade through. Your jam is like the needle in the haystack, and somehow I just didn't see it until today.

I like the sound you're getting on this jam. It is a good mix of synths and acoustic guitars. The steady backbeat gives the whole thing energy and movement. Nice guitar riffs and melodies.

It just occurred to me that your sound reminds me of Luna: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQMLflV ... dV&index=6. This was one of my favorite albums in about 1996-97, and I still like the sound. Maybe that's why I like your music so much. Thanks for posting!
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Re: jam710

Post by jonetsu »

Thanks, and thanks for the link. I've listened only to two Luna pieces and like it so far. It sounds like indeed there's some resemblance.

Cheers.
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GMaq
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Re: jam710

Post by GMaq »

Hi,

First the music!

I like this one, all of your stuff is great to listen to and zone out on (in a good way). Your best stuff always takes the listener on a 'aural journey'. I like the bass line on this one a lot it has great motion how it bounces back and forth between the root notes, it reminds me (in a not literal way) of my favourite bassist from Motown James Jamerson who always pedalled notes like that, it gives a real energetic 'bounce' to things. Again you have a great blend of warm organic drums and acoustic guitars with 'cold' synth sounds, I like the textural differences..

Now as far as "flow".. the following is a pep talk to myself as much as you...lol

Obviously everyone is living and balancing busy and increasingly distracted lives today so at level one to have anyone take time to listen and then comment on anything any of us post here is an increasingly precious gift. I have friends and family trying to put music out there in the "career" sense and regardless of whether their works took 5 minutes with Garageband or 6 months of ditch digging blood sweat and tears most of it crashes and burns into the modern cock block of a "newsfeed"... Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, whatever... corporate social media, not corporate social media and even our nice little forum here.. We're all clamouring for peoples time and attention on a downward sliding timeline that nobody can keep up with, the more 'friends' and interests you follow the less likely you can give any one thing much of your time, that's if you're lucky enough to have noticed in the first place.. So there's that whole paradigm, I don't know if that's good or bad in the big picture but it makes getting your stuff seen and heard uhm... err...challenging.

Now then the puzzling phenomenon of what people end up 'liking'. I have also posted original things here and elsewhere that took literally hours and days of work, as I've posted them I've rubbed my hands with excitement "oh they're going to like this one!!". You post and then the sound of crickets, if you're lucky some of your regular acquaintances will comment after a few days out of a sense of reciprocal duty and God bless 'em for it! Weeks later after the bruised ego is feeling up to another kick at the can so you post some offhand ditty maybe even a cover of something that took 20 minutes to start and finish and people just lose their shit and LOVE it!! Like many of us I have stuff on YT and Soundcloud and I laugh out loud that the 30 second drum loop of my AVL-Drumkits is creeping up on 20000 plays and the software tutorial video I did on YT has 10 times more plays than every song I poured my heart into.. :lol:

I hear your question loud and clear and empathize!

I don't know what the answer is and if there is one at all... random right time right place seems to be the formula
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Re: jam710

Post by milo »

Well said, GMaq. Social media, and online life in general, has turned into a sad, sprawling bazaar in which the main bartered commodity is attention. It's a mess, and a disaster. Back in the early days of the web, content was king. All you had to do to get traffic was make something good, and it almost didn't matter how connected you were. Oh, for those old days!

Just for fun I looked up some numbers to share. Six weeks ago I posted my opus magnum, an album that I had been working on for nearly 15 years. I spent hundreds, maybe a thousand hours watermarking that album with my blood, sweat, and tears. Guess how many hits the album page has had? As of right now, 141. Half of those were probably me. :lol:

By comparison, in 2017 I wrote a little throwaway article about my Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 and how I got it working on my Linux system. It's not a very useful article in my opinion, but it gets about 500 hits a month without any promotion on my part. Honestly I would much rather have people listening to my tunes.

Now, I should acknowledge that I'm not really promoting the album in a serious way, and I didn't have any goal beyond just finishing it. I have an awesome day job, so I'm not hoping to make any money, land any gigs, sign any deals, etc. I made the album for an audience of 1, and my biggest fan is really happy with it. But I can also admit that part of of my attitude here is "sour grapes," and that I would love the positive attention if it flowed easily to me.

That's why I don't look at my stats very much. If you live by your stats, then you die by your stats. And in today's distorted attention economy, the merits of your work in no way guarantee the attention it deserves. Your music is awesome. The hardest part is not being too disappointed when other people seem to not care.

Like GMaq, I'm writing as much to myself as to you.
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Re: jam710

Post by psyocean »

Interesting combination of instruments, alchemy of sound-design. But, imho, melody-line so smoothing, for focusing attention it need accentive solo. Nice for background playback. It can a good soundtrack for TV, video-staff, news, etc. Sounds quite professional :wink:

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Guitar and synth tales... https://www.youtube.com/user/Psyocean/
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Re: jam710

Post by ufug »

jonetsu wrote:Still 'unfinished' as far as cosmetics are concerned.. A bit rockier, undoubtedly. Uses the approach of mixing acoustic guitar and synths which is generally speaking humans and machines.
I quite like this one. Something about the acoustic guitars makes it come alive, and I can't keep my tapping foot still--the groove is really effective. Looking forward to seeing where you take this tune. Lots of potential for melodies here.
GMaq wrote: Now then the puzzling phenomenon of what people end up 'liking'. I have also posted original things here and elsewhere that took literally hours and days of work, as I've posted them I've rubbed my hands with excitement "oh they're going to like this one!!". You post and then the sound of crickets, if you're lucky some of your regular acquaintances will comment after a few days out of a sense of reciprocal duty and God bless 'em for it! Weeks later after the bruised ego is feeling up to another kick at the can so you post some offhand ditty maybe even a cover of something that took 20 minutes to start and finish and people just lose their shit and LOVE it!!
Seriously! It's really hard just getting people to listen. I'm totally guilty of the same as a listener. I get into maybe one or two new albums or artists a year, and listen to them over and over. I'm a slow digester. And when I have a chunk of spare time, I'm more likely to work on making music than to listen to it (probably the same for most of us here).

I can't keep up, but I love hearing the stuff folks post here. The range of work shared on the forum is unusual because for the most part, we forum members don't necessarily have anything in common musically--our bond is just a technical detail. I'm totally onboard with reciprocal commenting when its sincere. That kind of interaction builds our community. I would probably never check in on the LMF if was just posts about computer stuff.
milo wrote: Just for fun I looked up some numbers to share. Six weeks ago I posted my opus magnum, an album that I had been working on for nearly 15 years. I spent hundreds, maybe a thousand hours watermarking that album with my blood, sweat, and tears. Guess how many hits the album page has had? As of right now, 141. Half of those were probably me. :lol:
This is a case in point. Alan, your record is in my personal top 5 of projects shared on the forum over the years. I've had it pinned in a tab for weeks but right now I'm finally giving it another listen on proper headphones. It's truly a beautiful record. You have your own thing going, but I hear some Nick Drake + early Cake...
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Re: jam710

Post by jonetsu »

Thanks for the comments !

Trying to predict the listening behaviour could be a bit like crystal ball material. Although there's one recurring theme or so it seems. Which is that oftentimes the least worked up piece of work is the one that gets more attention. As if there was a sense of freshness that's bulldozered by too much work ? Could it be that people get way too much involved in 'making it nice' ? Or is it nevertheless crystal ball stuff again and vain attempts are predicting an outcome ?

Cheers.
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Re: jam710

Post by milo »

Yes, I think that's true. Another theme is that useful content gets more exposure than purely artistic content. My article, and GMaq's AVL Drumkit videos, are useful to people. Search engines bring in traffic, and other pages link to it. The trick is to somehow leverage that traffic to get people interested in your art. I haven't figured out how to do that.

Let me know if you know how!
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Re: jam710

Post by tseaver »

Interesting parallel with my wife's experience as an independent visual artist: she sells through a couple of outlets, including the arts center she rents her main studio space from, but finds that the "best" sales (bigger, more expensive paintings / works) come only from people with whom she has built relationships by *being present* in that space repeatedly over time: they come back time and again, chat with her, look at her work, and eventually end up buying it. Almost none of her larger stuff sells to folks with whom she hasn't built such relationships.

I'm pretty sure that most music sales / revenue is going there, too, For instance, one feature of recent Grammy wins by Billie Eilish is that she has worked hard to end-run the promoters, streaming services, etc. to build her relationships with her listeners directly.

Dunno what this means for me: I'm never going to put the effort into building that kind of community for my stuff, as I can barely muster time / energy to produce it.
Ubuntu, Mixbus32C; acoustic blues / country / jazz
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Re: jam710

Post by lilith »

Sounds great! How did you manage that the bass and drums sound like real acoustic instruments? One can hear that a lot of work flew into this track. The arrangement is quite complex with a lot of changes. I think the mix is already great as it is (it's almost mono)... just a bit more volume.

I usually read in 3 forums where people post tracks, so it's hard to keep up with all the tracks. :)
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Re: jam710

Post by jonetsu »

lilith wrote:Sounds great! How did you manage that the bass and drums sound like real acoustic instruments? One can hear that a lot of work flew into this track. The arrangement is quite complex with a lot of changes. I think the mix is already great as it is (it's almost mono)... just a bit more volume.
Thanks for the comment !

Drums are real drum loops which are cut and pasted as the song goes. No machine there, only audio clip manipulations. The bass is IK's Modo Bass, Modern J-Bass, with the position of the fingers close to the bridge as this is how I often like to play on a real bass, and then with some other mods, and a bit of muting. The rest is balance and mixing between drums, percs, and bass. There's also some bass doubling here and there from the LinPlug Morphox synth. I like thew LinPlug synths. Too bad he closed business last year, but just before closing I got the synths.
The saxophone on other pieces is often the LinPlug SaxLab2.
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