This… how i can incorporate my experience of getting a cochlear implant. Some ideas I have never thought about here, will need to expand on those ideas and see how I can make it work.
PondRacer
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Everything in the world is a story. In the simplest it has a beginning, development and end. Think about what you really want to tell your listeners.
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This is my album, made entirely in VCV Rack. There was just a challenge for me to make a patch\track with just a single sine wave oscillator. I believe I made around 60 patches within 2 months but save only 5 just because they fit together.
I just want to say that you should consider it as a game sometimes and you will feel better for sure and IT MUST BE FUN to do.
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Your comment makes me think of Eno’s story around inventing ambient music, being immobilized after an accident with a record of harp music just out of earshot while it was raining and he couldn’t change that soundscape. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/how-brian-eno-created-a-quiet-revolution-in-music/
I don’t know how you want to structure an album - that’s super personal of course - but I agree with the comments here along the lines of: music composition takes your experiences and ideas, and packages them in a way that they are communicated through a set of unexpected sounds to whoever wants to listen. On the very rare occasions I’ve written music people liked, that seems to be the key - there’s something I want to express or some idea my collaborators and I have, and we find a way to communicate that through an unexpected rearrangement intermediated through music.
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Very intriguing, the Brian Enos story.
Makes me think I could use ambient sounds to communicate, and it doesn’t have to be just music.
PondRacer
1 Like
The one thing that I would love to do is a video/audio album using vcv rack into an LZX setup, but right now I have no access to the LZX goodness.
Maybe a collab between myself and my deaf wife.
PondRacer
2 Likes
As someone who is/was signed to multiple labels, screw that! Unless you got someone on the inside of a major who will magically push you, and let’s be honest, you don’t, I don’t, only the A listers do, they’re gonna give you a pretty meager deal and keep every cent for themselves, because you’re extremely unlikely to make more than the minimum threshold needed for them to pay you (it’s always one of the scammy points in contracts), assuming you’ve already covered any costs that may be involved. Damn, what a sentence. 
I’ve just seen so much bullshit and grown tired of the industry.
Forget about labels and money and put it on Bandcamp, use Distrokid to get it on Spotify and all those platforms, and just get it out. You’ll be the label, have total control and you only have to deal with yourself, such as remembering to report your taxes correctly if you make money off it. Just make it about the music itself, use a platform that you control. You might have to front like 20 bucks for a year, there should be no other cost involved other than the time you spend to promote yourself. That’s the real challenge, but people have been successful that way.
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I think self publishing and distrokid looks like the way to go too. That what’s i’d do if i release anything. I guess 20 $ isn’t too hard to get to get back your investment, so you’re almost pushing out your music for free
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Another benefit of self releasing is that you get to see all the stats, which are lost if a label releases. They can be invaluable in understanding your audience and promoting. This was the main reason we moved from a label to self releasing.
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Agreed, and in fact, this is what I just did. I signed up as Augment Element (because I thought it sounded cool, considering that my left ear is ‘augmented’ now, aka, cochlear implanted). I like the idea of being an indie label unto myself, not under the likes of Capitol or EMI or what have you.
PondRacer
3 Likes
Good luck and enjoy!