Steve Mueske

My band Scarlet Winter was playing at a guitar convention in Chicago at the Hemmons Auditorium. 3,000 seat arena packed. We were nobodies, so we had a mid-afternoon set. Kind of a big deal, though, and the auditorium was still packed because it was a non-stop show through 9 at night. It started at noon, I think. Anyway, mid-way through our short set (I think we had 30 - 45 minutes), the stage monitors blew out. Because it was a fairly large place, we had to anticipate the singing because we couldn't actually hear the singing until it bounced off the back wall. The music we could hear because of the amps and stuff on stage. Afterward, I heard the sound engineer joking that he'd forgotten to turn on the fans on the power amp for the monitors. The mains were still running. I was pretty pissed. I mean, accidents happen and whatnot, but to think it was funny. That really got to me. I was terrified of f*cking up in front of thousands of people. I think it was our second or third show.

I think a lot of this depends on whether or not you are a musician or interact with musicians. Every music-oriented person I know loves to explore new music. Many people, however, use music as a means to supplement their routines. They create playlists for working out, for studying, taking road trips, etc. Usually there's a style in mind. Most people, in my experience, don't listen to music in an exclusive sense (that is, for itself, for expanding, or whatever) because they don't have a listening practice. They don't devote time to it. I'm not denigrating them, everyone has areas of focus and interest. And the article itself is a lifestyle piece. It's intended to be consumed without a lot of thought or engagement. It's just the time and space we live in. So much competing for time and attention, and we have limited amounts of each. I will say that This is Your Brain on Music is a brilliant book. I don't think the quote pulled from it for reference in the article does justice to it. It was written by a musicologist and is an extended investigation into why music affects us the way it does.

Yes! Although with some you can start by uploading a seed image. Starryai, Night Cafe, Dall-E 2, and Midjourney are a few. Most give a you a few credits to start with and then you can buy more. IMO, Dall-E provides the most useful images. I used one for my recent album cover.

That's in your agreement, and yes they are hard-core about it. If you are within the window, you have to send the request via registered mail.

Thank you for sharing. This is pretty amazing.

Kinda going down an AI art rabbit hole.

I literally cried most of that night. Don't know why it affected me so much, but it hit hard.

I hear you. I'm focusing quite a bit on Omnisphere 2 and Falcon 2, and I have several boutique libraries. I picked up Westwood's Lost Piano and I'm having more fun with that than I have in a long time. I also bought a ton of Sonic Couture's stuff, and I love everything they make.

I don't have ultimate, just the regular version of 13. I do have a number of libraries, particularly in the stradivarius dept, bought separately. Just don't want to fork over an upgrade, though I would love to have molekular. The Ashlight series seems promising to me, but not sure the upgrade is worth the money.

@johnDid you upgrade?

The most interesting plugins I've purchased recently are Unfiltered Audio's Silo and Devious Machines' Infiltrator.

I'm kind of on the fence. I already have the bx stuff. Might be worth it to get Ozone. I love the play series stuff. Honestly, I find myself using Ethereal Earth more than any other instrument except Kontakt and Battery. I dunno. I bought some Omnisphere libraries from Simon Stockhausen's website and they're awesome.

The track inspector is your friend. It will save you a lot of grief when routing anything in S1.

Not sure if you mean the fanned frets or the type of fretting wire. It's my second fanned fret guitar, and it's a lot less extreme than my 8, so I already knew how to play it. The only thing I don't like is the OEM pickups. I couldn't see spending 700 bucks more for a chambered body and active pickups when I don't like active pickups anyway. Will probably pick up some good alnicos at some point. I love everything else about it.

That's what I meant. 😉

Obviously, Sweetwater. I bet she has balls!

Yes, it's a sickness. My new Strandberg Boden NX7 arrived yesterday. I think I'm going to name her Lilith.

TY, my friend!

Pretty cool music! I dig the message.

My poem "Every Blue Place" was published in Thrush today. https://www.thrushpoetryjournal.com/july-2022-steve-mueske.html

I really dig the old school heavy funky vibe. That riff in the verse is killer!

Ha! I'll have to update this Sunday. I worked on this, but only got a few more measures.

Okay, so I'm testing out (for a Pentachrist software review) the new TAL Drum, for which the developer CEO kindly provided me an NFR. Rather than do my usual boring review type shit, I thought I'd start with practical application & abuse. As of 2:44 EST, this is the first 2 hours of the session I created 2 or 3 weeks ago. I will update this after today's session at the same link. 4 hrs? Listen to Give Me f*cking 30 Seconds (TAL Drum Review WIP) by Pentachrist on #SoundCloud https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/NZaTP @john Why does this not embed? Feeling stupid.

Thanks for your comments and questions. All valid points. I'm getting much better at learning the software and the medium. I'm not really thinking of the videos as self-contained fully-fleshed works of art. I'm thinking of them more, right now, as a means of communication. A means of meta-narrative. I'll continue to grow and learn. Yes, this has definitely changed the way I interface with the world. I feel like a bit of a hack right now, but I'm loving the experience.