Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural bass playing thread

[lordradish]

instead of the usual "throw my scratch garbage up on Soundcloud" level stuff. Had to redo some stuff after noticing mistakes and artifacts.

That's the line I'm having a hard time discerning, lately. I only recently started putting stuff on SC, as I'm so focused on making a real album, but I'm realizing it's inspiring to share, especially when one gets feedback. That said, I still record my noodlings and jams at the best recording quality I can.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Trying to record some stuff last few days. I'm trying to do it as high quality as possible, for an eventual album release maybe, instead of the usual "throw my scratch garbage up on Soundcloud" level stuff. Had to redo some stuff after noticing mistakes and artifacts. Feel like I've made some progress. Funny how quickly you can get mentally exhausted from doing this stuff. Physically all I'm doing is standing in front of my synth rig and sitting in front of the 8-track recorder, but after about an hour or two of work I need to walk away for a while. It's also hard to avoid getting sick of hearing your own work lol.

Guess why I refused 384848495 times to record my old band's demo or $hit track drums?!?!?!?

Keep it up. I wanna hear some shizzle.
Now don't make toooo clean either.

 

[steubig]

i look at bandcamp, soundcloud and physical product as having different purposes.

soundcloud: one-off sharing things, very ephemeral

bandcamp: low-level releases and open sketchbook; "documentation of process"

physical releases: $hit better be right cause it's a big deal (and you put some money into the product); "documentation of result"

to further the bandcamp thing, i kind of look at it as going into an art gallery or someone's studio. you'll see all different types of stuff, some good, some bad, some indifferent; some avenues with real potential, some dead ends.


the following is musing, not necessarily finished thought:

when recording, composing or listening back to live gigs, i find that i always worry about whether something is "good enough"—but that good enough *now* is not always going to be good enough *in the future*, when i've learned and grown from i've already done.

i think being someone who is invested in (free) improv as a main pursuit has colored my thoughts on this, as i sometimes think people can be more results oriented than process oriented. anything we produce is really just a snapshot of where we are in a moment or over a specific period of time.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

i look at bandcamp, soundcloud and physical product as having different purposes.

soundcloud: one-off sharing things, very ephemeral

bandcamp: low-level releases and open sketchbook; "documentation of process"

physical releases: $hit better be right cause it's a big deal (and you put some money into the product); "documentation of result"

to further the bandcamp thing, i kind of look at it as going into an art gallery or someone's studio. you'll see all different types of stuff, some good, some bad, some indifferent; some avenues with real potential, some dead ends.


the following is musing, not necessarily finished thought:

when recording, composing or listening back to live gigs, i find that i always worry about whether something is "good enough"—but that good enough *now* is not always going to be good enough *in the future*, when i've learned and grown from i've already done.

i think being someone who is invested in (free) improv as a main pursuit has colored my thoughts on this, as i sometimes think people can be more results oriented than process oriented. anything we produce is really just a snapshot of where we are in a moment or over a specific period of time.

IMO, physical releases are dead. Most « normal » people could not care less about having a copy. Youtube, soundcloud and all streaming services are now the « norm ». I hate this, but it is today’s reality.
Except for the few « vinyl » and really big fans of the artist, no one buys anything.

I invested ALOT of $$$ in my cd collection, but now 95% of it is available on any streaming service. I even skipped lunch in high school to buy records. Back then if you I wanted music, that was the only way, buy it or copy your buddies albums on cassette mixtapes.

If I was a kid now, the choice would be easy......spent 5000$ on a small collection or 5$ a month for millions of songs.

With my old band we faced exactly that. The major label and distributor required we provide an X number of required CD copies to them. I was against the idea but was outvoted by the other members. Printing stuff is freakin expensive and not cost effective.

Now they have triple numbers of albums sitting in boxes wherever they are now. I couldn’t care less and hope they keep losing a %^&* load of $$$$.

 

[monsterthompson]

IMO, physical releases are dead. Most « normal » people could not care less about having a copy. Youtube, soundcloud and all streaming services are now the « norm ». I hate this, but it is today’s reality.
Except for the few « vinyl » and really big fans of the artist, no one buys anything.

I invested ALOT of $$$ in my cd collection, but now 95% of it is available on any streaming service. I even skipped lunch in high school to buy records. Back then if you I wanted music, that was the only way, buy it or copy your buddies albums on cassette mixtapes.

If I was a kid now, the choice would be easy......spent 5000$ on a small collection or 5$ a month for millions of songs.

With my old band we faced exactly that. The major label and distributor required we provide an X number of required CD copies to them. I was against the idea but was outvoted by the other members. Printing stuff is freakin expensive and not cost effective.

Now they have triple numbers of albums sitting in boxes wherever they are now. I couldn’t care less and hope they keep losing a %^&* load of $$$$.

People generally prefer new over good, when it comes to laying down the dollars.

 

[Spectrum]

Not expecting to ever make a cent doing this means never having to worry about what format is "dead" or not. If I want to make a run of vinyl records and I'm willing to fund my hobby, then that's what I'll do. I have a friend who runs a small electronic music label and he puts everything out on cassette, usually with downloads available on bandcamp. Nobody's getting rich here and we all have day jobs, so we're free to do what we want I guess.

 

[steubig]

IMO, physical releases are dead. Most « normal » people could not care less about having a copy. Youtube, soundcloud and all streaming services are now the « norm ». I hate this, but it is today’s reality.
Except for the few « vinyl » and really big fans of the artist, no one buys anything.

I invested ALOT of $$$ in my cd collection, but now 95% of it is available on any streaming service. I even skipped lunch in high school to buy records. Back then if you I wanted music, that was the only way, buy it or copy your buddies albums on cassette mixtapes.

If I was a kid now, the choice would be easy......spent 5000$ on a small collection or 5$ a month for millions of songs.

With my old band we faced exactly that. The major label and distributor required we provide an X number of required CD copies to them. I was against the idea but was outvoted by the other members. Printing stuff is freakin expensive and not cost effective.

Now they have triple numbers of albums sitting in boxes wherever they are now. I couldn’t care less and hope they keep losing a %^&* load of $$$$.

sure. just saying it's how i work it in my own life.

that being said, i've been working for people who release vinyl albums that sell out (not the ones i'm on ).

and i know people who are doing cassette releases.

imo, both those media are flawed, i grew up with 'em and i hate 'em. but the kids love them.

but with a major mastering lacquer plant burning down, the economics of vinyl will bear watching.

it'll be interesting to see if people will get tired of the streaming and cloud method. i've know a few people who seem to have lost whole libraries of stuff in the cloud. i could see a swing back to cd.

but yes, i'm an anachronism.

anywho, i'm more interested in *what* and *why* we document than how it's presented to "the public" . . . in general, i'm pretty sure that 99.8% of the planet is not gonna care about anything i do.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Not expecting to ever make a cent doing this means never having to worry about what format is "dead" or not. If I want to make a run of vinyl records and I'm willing to fund my hobby, then that's what I'll do. I have a friend who runs a small electronic music label and he puts everything out on cassette, usually with downloads available on bandcamp. Nobody's getting rich here and we all have day jobs, so we're free to do what we want I guess.

If wanna go vinyl. Go for it buddy.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

sure. just saying it's how i work it in my own life.

that being said, i've been working for people who release vinyl albums that sell out (not the ones i'm on ).

and i know people who are doing cassette releases.

imo, both those media are flawed, i grew up with 'em and i hate 'em. but the kids love them.

but with a major mastering lacquer plant burning down, the economics of vinyl will bear watching.

it'll be interesting to see if people will get tired of the streaming and cloud method. i've know a few people who seem to have lost whole libraries of stuff in the cloud. i could see a swing back to cd.

but yes, i'm an anachronism.

anywho, i'm more interested in *what* and *why* we document than how it's presented to "the public" . . . in general, i'm pretty sure that 99.8% of the planet is not gonna care about anything i do.

Anachronism is my huge cd collection.
Way to invest a crap ton of $$.


(Mini putt hand claps.)

 

[Spectrum]

Personally I love vinyl and am pretty happy to see it make a comeback last few years. I have a modest vinyl collection, some of which stretches back to my teenage years in the 80s.

My CD collection is out of control. I have a few odd cassettes as well, including one I bought new recently from an electronic music guy locally. Given the choice between download-only and physical copy I always choose the latter, although both is nice so I can put digital copies on my phone or mp3 player.

With records I curate my collection to keep it from getting too large too fast; I need to like the whole album and the cover art has to be good.

I have two record players, both used to be my dad's. One is a Garrarrd record changer dating back to the late 60s or early 70s which was made in England. This became my main player when I was a teenager and still is today. It's been serviced a few times, mainly because while it sat in storage the grease on the changer mechanism hardened up and the clockwork stopped running. But it works fine now and I can stack 3 or 4 discs up on it, as long as they are the older thinner variety. These newer heavy vinyl discs sometimes give it some trouble, so I just run it in manual mode for those.

I also have an 80s vintage Technics turntable, which is part of my dad's old stereo system. I don't have room for the whole stereo system in my living room and will probably sell most of it off, but that Technics table ain't goin' nowhere, that thing is sweet.

 

[steubig]

there's another angle on this:

if you're trying to get reviews, mp3s or audio links are not always that effective. at least in my world. (and some crits don't want a cd-r, they want finished product)

 

[steubig]

Anachronism is my huge cd collection.
Way to invest a crap ton of $$.


(Mini putt hand claps.)

when the cloud implodes, you'll have that huge collection to listen to . . or use a flaming weapons against the zombie horde.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Ok. This has to be shared. Classic movie scene!!!!!

 

[steubig]

genius

 

[Flabzilla]

Ok. This has to be shared. Classic movie scene!!!!!

Cornettos.

 

[lordradish]

i look at bandcamp, soundcloud and physical product as having different purposes.

soundcloud: one-off sharing things, very ephemeral

bandcamp: low-level releases and open sketchbook; "documentation of process"

physical releases: $hit better be right cause it's a big deal (and you put some money into the product); "documentation of result"

to further the bandcamp thing, i kind of look at it as going into an art gallery or someone's studio. you'll see all different types of stuff, some good, some bad, some indifferent; some avenues with real potential, some dead ends.


the following is musing, not necessarily finished thought:

when recording, composing or listening back to live gigs, i find that i always worry about whether something is "good enough"—but that good enough *now* is not always going to be good enough *in the future*, when i've learned and grown from i've already done.

i think being someone who is invested in (free) improv as a main pursuit has colored my thoughts on this, as i sometimes think people can be more results oriented than process oriented. anything we produce is really just a snapshot of where we are in a moment or over a specific period of time.

Great insights, but I will admit to being a bit surprised that you even have physical media in the mix. After my last real band, we just decided that it's not really worth the money and effort that it used to be. I'm not kidding when I say that I haven't bought a CD, or even thought about it, in over 10 years. Only way I could even listen to one nowadays is if I dug out an external drive for the laptop. That's not to say I'm not an audiophile, as when I download, I still just DL lossless. Perhaps if I started doing a lot of live shows (hey, remember them, ah, the good ol' days), I might consider a small run, but I'd still sell a lot more download cards, but I'm more or less on the same mindset as @ugly_bassplayer on that. I've gotten rid of all of my vinyl and cds. The vinyl was easy to get rid of it, because a lot of it was the garbage I listened to in high school and would not care if I ever heard again.

I would say that, before I put something finally on bandcamp, I plan on having it sound just as good as if I were to release a physical product.

About your musing, there... I hear ya, but there's also something cool about, when you've been playing a long time, when you start to listen to things you did 10 years ago or even more and it still holds up. It's only been recently where that's been a thing for me. But as to now, yeah, the 'is it good enough' is that monkey that won't get off my back. I think we all talked about this a few weeks ago.

 

[lordradish]

Great conversation, here, just wanted to point out, I don't listen to any of the mainstream streaming services (Spotify, etc). I will listen to Bandcamp/SC, because they're a lot more artist centered. I started downloading music back in 1999 before it was cool, so I pretty much have every album I've ever wanted, all sitting on a 2 TB NAS that I access from anywhere. At this point, I'm sure I have over 3000 albums, all neatly classified in folders. A lot of mainstream streaming services wouldn't have most of what I like nowadays, anyways.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Great insights, but I will admit to being a bit surprised that you even have physical media in the mix. After my last real band, we just decided that it's not really worth the money and effort that it used to be. I'm not kidding when I say that I haven't bought a CD, or even thought about it, in over 10 years. Only way I could even listen to one nowadays is if I dug out an external drive for the laptop. That's not to say I'm not an audiophile, as when I download, I still just DL lossless. Perhaps if I started doing a lot of live shows (hey, remember them, ah, the good ol' days), I might consider a small run, but I'd still sell a lot more download cards, but I'm more or less on the same mindset as @ugly_bassplayer on that. I've gotten rid of all of my vinyl and cds. The vinyl was easy to get rid of it, because a lot of it was the garbage I listened to in high school and would not care if I ever heard again.

I would say that, before I put something finally on bandcamp, I plan on having it sound just as good as if I were to release a physical product.

About your musing, there... I hear ya, but there's also something cool about, when you've been playing a long time, when you start to listen to things you did 10 years ago or even more and it still holds up. It's only been recently where that's been a thing for me. But as to now, yeah, the 'is it good enough' is that monkey that won't get off my back. I think we all talked about this a few weeks ago.

Downlaod cards are awesome.

Easy to bring along at gigs....... i %#%#^ hate the huge box of cds with broken cases.

 

[Spectrum]

Downlaod cards are awesome.

Easy to bring along at gigs....... i %#%#^ hate the huge box of cds with broken cases.

After my band recorded our album 2 years ago we had a batch of CDs made. We went the cheap rout and got them in cardboard sleeves, so they're easy to carry around and no stupid plastic cases to break. It wasn't expensive to get a limited run and gives us stuff to sell or give away every now and then, it has our cover art on it and it's physical evidence that we actually existed. Not ever gonna make the money back; I count it as a cost like gas money. In fact, it cost about as much as two tanks of gas for my truck.

 

[Bob_Ross]

i think being someone who is invested in (free) improv as a main pursuit has colored my thoughts on this, as i sometimes think people can be more results oriented than process oriented.

It's funny, I find myself far more sensitive to the reverse -- musicians who are more process-oriented than results-oriented -- and I also notice that this reverse seems equally distributed between improvisors and the composers: Both camps can often be guilty of proclaiming (overtly or not) "this music is worthy of listening to because it was created by [insert description of some action, plan, structure, premeditated conceit, etc.]" without ever pausing to self-censor because "be that as it may, it still sounds like crap."