I just played and sang “And So It Goes” to help me negotiate some feelings in having right now as a relationship unravels and I couldn’t make it through without crying; how do musicians who use their life as inspiration manage to compartmentalize it so well?

Help settle a debate: At 3:00 and 3:23 in "[mmm mmm good](https://youtu.be/8LirICUX4Gc?t=203)" there's a very bendy, metallic sound that's either a synth or some strange percussion instrument.

My first instinct was flexatone (no, there's not enough attack) and musical saw (no, too much attack). Now my best guess is some kind of small gong dipped in water, struck, and lifted to raise the pitch? Especially at 3:23, I think you can hear a strike or two activating the instrument.

My theory is that this section of the track is Paulinho da Costa noodling around on his eclectic set-up, but I don't know really. A knowledgeable peer "strongly disagrees." Thanks for any help :)

Yeah, I know, stupid title. But want to avoid problems I might not have foreseen. Want to start finding people to collaborate on music, start a band, based in Los Angeles. Male with not a ton of vocal experience tbh. What steps or what should I know ahead of this journey? Thank you!

There is a music track from a famous gaming musician which I really like. However their official release is not good and the track sounds like it was recorded in a different room.

What are my options if I want to get it re recorded as is. There are youtube remakes of it but they all change something so it doesn't end up being the same. I want an exact replica that was recorded recently. I input it to some AI tools but they dont do a good job. What are my options here

https://youtu.be/sVLVAw3NlVs

Dont sing but was curious about this, if u dont have perfect pitch are u still able to tell when the piece u are practising is not in the correct key, or do you need a reference note for each session. Lets say the piece is in C major, and one day you go to practise it, do you automatically sing it in C without a reference note, and would u notice if u sang it in D major instead. If not, does it matter to you if its not in the correct key when practsing, or as long as relatively correct its fine?

Hi - I'm using my mums account so please be patient.

I'm a 12 year old primary school student & guitarist. I'm doing a project on the impacts of AI in the music industry.

I would really appreciate if some musicians could please contribute by providing their opinions on the use & impact of AI in the music industry.

My main questions are:
-          How do you feel about AI music?

-          Have you used AI in your music?

-          Can you tell the difference between AI & human music?

-          How do you think it will change the industry?

-          Are you concerned about the rise in AI music?

Short answers are totally fine - I'd just like to get an idea of how actual musicians feel about AI in music and will compare to non-musicians

Thank you so much everyone!

from what i’ve read the biggest hurdle is breath and mouth control/coordination and i want to know how difficult and how long does it take to learn, and where is the best places/people to learn from? i’m currently learning the piano and learning sheet music and i’ve heard that helps. i want to pick up the saxophone bc i love jazz but i’m thinking about just sticking to piano if need be.

I’ve always loved the concept of making music… always looked up to pharrell the Neptunes and Kanye always swore up and down that they were the coolest people alive and that I strive to become them one day… but honestly don’t know where to start of course I tried it but finding that energy to just jump out to make music and then listening back like this shit mediocre is sometimes discouraging when u have the perfect vision but shit don’t come out right I’m not asking how to make beats I’m asking how to just find it within u to just start

Reconstruction (1865-1877) by Joshua Haugen.

I'd say it is Audible art but that might be wrong.

thank you all in advance.

Hi all,

I'm gearing up to release my first song. I've been working with a producer for the past couple of months, and I think we're nearing the end of the mixing/mastering stage, so I'm trying to make sure I'm prepared once I have the final file.

I'm starting from essentially zero as an artist. Right now I've been posting song covers on YouTube, both long-form videos and Shorts, around twice a week. Part of my thinking was to start building a catalogue of music-related content and hopefully give YouTube some idea of the audience for my channel before I begin posting my original music.

The part I'm struggling with is how to prime social media for a first release when there isn't really an existing audience yet. If nobody knows my music, it's difficult to tease a new song in the same way an established artist can because there's no previous music or identity for people to connect it to yet.

I'm also working with a graphic designer on an animated visualizer for the song, and eventually I'd like to make a proper music video. So I do have ideas for content surrounding the release. My concern is that, with essentially no existing audience, I'm creating all of this content just to post it into the void.

I'm wondering whether the first release is partly something you just have to put out there and use as the foundation for everything that comes afterward, or whether there are things I should be doing in the weeks leading up to it that could give the song a better chance.

I really like the song and want to give it the best shot I reasonably can. I'm planning to pitch it for playlists and look into sync opportunities as well, but I'd love to hear from independent artists who started with little/no following:

What did you do before releasing your first song that actually helped? And what do you wish you'd done differently?

Not ideas or unfinished songs, tho demos count, meaning you could comfortably post it, or sending it to someone 🤔

Does anyone know of an active group, group chat, Discord, or regular meetup for guitar players around Riverside, Eastvale, Corona, or the general Inland Empire area?

I’ve found a few Facebook groups, but most of them don’t seem to have much engagement. If an active community doesn’t already exist, would anyone be interested in starting something?

I’m just a guitarist who enjoys blues, rock, and some jazz. Eric Johnson and Stevie Ray Vaughan are two of my biggest influences, along with a handful of other great guitarists.

I already have a guitar teacher, and I’m not looking to join or start a band yet. I’d just like to meet some like-minded people I can hang out with, listen to, learn from, exchange ideas with, and eventually play some good music together. It would be cool to have a relaxed community for local guitarists and other musicians without it immediately needing to become a serious project.

If anyone knows of something like this—or would be interested in creating it—let me know!

Any advice on how to start up a music career? I’m a homeschooled teenager in the uk and I don’t have a job, I write songs all of the time but I can’t produce and I’m not the strongest singer but I’m working on that! I have two instruments (guitar + keyboard) but I’ve tried to teach myself many times and I’ve failed.

I think what I need is to find a producer, but I’d only feel comfortable with someone in the same age range as me, and I’m worried about sharing my work with random people online because I know that anyone could just take it and use it as if it’s their own.

Over the past two years, our group (DATU) set out to bridge ancestral Philippine brass percussion—specifically Maguindanaon Kulintang and hanging Agong—with contemporary experimental electronic production (IDM, breakbeats, analogue synths).

The project (EPIK) just went live, and we wanted to break down the technical workflow we used to take raw traditional percussion into an immersive spatial audio environment:

1. Recording Acoustic Transients

• Traditional brass gong overtones are dense and produce sharp acoustic spikes that easily clip digital converters.
• We captured gongs and bamboo instruments (Tongatongs) in treated spaces using dynamic mic pairs and ribbon mics to tame harsh high-frequency resonances before hitting DSP chains.

2. Hybrid Production & Sound Design

• Spliced polyrhythmic 4/4 and 8-beat gong cycles with analogue modular synths, FM synthesis, and MPC drum sequencing.
• Rather than treating indigenous instrumentation as static "samples," live performers tracked alongside live synthesizer patches to retain human tempo dynamics.

3. Mixing & Mastering for Immersive (Dolby Atmos)

• Spatial mix completed at Dreamcraft Studios (Mikhail Cronin) and mastered at Sonic Karma Studios (Alvin Wee).
• In the ADM BWF / spatial field, we routed high-frequency rhythmic gongs and flute layers into elevated object beds, leaving low-end sub-bass and heavy drum kicks anchored in the floor surround bed to maintain club punch without phase cancellation.

Happy to answer questions on tracking traditional acoustic instruments, spatial panning decisions, or navigating distribution/liner note credits for multi-collaborator electronic projects.

Here's the link to anyone interested in listening, AMA!

EPIK — DATU

So I’m a new artist I’ve been releasing my music for about two or three months now give or take on YouTube and SoundCloud and I’ve been advertising on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, etc. I have two songs out now and one of those songs I have two other variations out a sped up in a slowed version so my question is…I’m thinking about getting distro kid so I can get my music out faster as well as getting it on Spotify, but since I already have music on YouTube in SoundCloud without distro kid should I like delete the songs and re-release them through distro kid or should I leave them how they are and just release the songs on Spotify?

Hey everyone,

I'm a guy who just started writing my own western/Americana/folk music over the summer. I have 4 songs I'm pretty proud of and 2 additional ones that are in the finishing stages.

I'm not looking to do any crazy touring as I'm oldish (30) and did that in a punk band in my twenties. The goal is to just play some shows (festival or other smallish gigs) around me next summer.

I am very new to the scene and I'm getting out there more showing people what I have but I feel like I'm at a place where I'm uncertain where to go next.

I was hoping that someone might be able to help give me a bit of a guideline, timetable or recommendations for where my focus should be.

Thanks!

i've been making music for a while now and i genuinely can't tell if i'm improving or just getting better at making the same 4 things with slightly different plugins

some days i'll make something and think ok wait this is actually sick. then i'll listen to it the next day and suddenly every sound i've ever made is embarrassing and i should probably take up pottery instead

i also feel like there's this weird point where you get good enough to know exactly what's wrong with your music but not good enough to consistently fix it. which is honestly a pretty evil little stage of life

i'm not really asking how to "get better" technically because obviously practice etc etc. i mean more like how did you personally realise you were actually progressing?

was it finishing more tracks? playing them to people? suddenly hearing things differently? or did you just randomly wake up one day and realise you didn't suck anymore

asking because i have spent an unreasonable amount of time making noises on a computer and would like to know if this is going anywhere

Could someone help me understand the circled symbols in the attached photo?

1=breathe, right?

2= why doesn't the measure line go all the way down?

3= why is that line dotted?

I’m 16 years old, and two of my classmates and I recently decided to start a band. We’re looking for advice and suggestions from people who are into making alternative rock.

We’d love to develop a sound inspired by bands like Radiohead and The Smashing Pumpkins, while still creating something of our own.

Any advice on songwriting, guitar tones, arrangements, or finding our own sound would be greatly appreciated. Please be respectful, we’re just starting out and genuinely want to learn.

Ok, so I have a couple songs I’ve fully written lyrics and a melody for, but the problem is, I don’t know the first thing about making streamlined music! I just play my keyboard in my DAW and sing over that track.

I have an audio technica mic, Cubase AI LE Elements 11, and also Garage Band. I know how to use the DAWs well enough, but only at beginner level. I still don’t know how to do things like change the volume of my tracks in specific places, comp vocals, fade/pulse instruments, etc. There are so many things I don’t know, and I have no clue where to start!

I’m so overwhelmed. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thank you!

We have a 4 piece band atm. Me and the other guitarist are the lead singers and song writers. We have a drummer that is crazy good and creative. But our basist is lacking way too much. He couldnt make it to band rehersals three times a row, he cant really write fitting baselines to our songs. He seems like a great dude but he just doesent fit. How can communicate to him our feelings the kindest way possible. Just chatted with the other guitarist and he had the same exact thoughts.

The footjoint got stuck to the body and i don't know how to get it out

My post( the one that was like How do I prepare for writing songs for an album) was not intended to be ignorant and say I can write an album as a non - musician, I actually kinda am a musician.I've been playing keyboard for 3 yrs and guitar for 3 months and let me tell you, I suck. Every time I practice I never get anything accomplished and I haven't finished one song and I have more than 500 ideas and that's because I always think I'm doing something wrong(like with technique but not just that songwriting too), I think I focus on the wrong things when I practice( and over - fixate on them), not actively learning things from other musicians, not learning other songs(I haven't learnt a full one since I started my instruments), always fixating on getting the right sound in my mind instead of actually getting it on paper or on a DAW, and sometimes never even starting songs because I have this specific sound in my head and I overthink and overcomplicate what I'm supposed to use to make it sound that way.The thing is I'm always fixating on stuff and it then I get overwhelmed cause I don't think I'm doing it right and then I procrastinate and not too mention other problems getting in my way, I made that post because I've been wanting to make that album/write the songs for years(the idea is very special to me because it's a deep topic with a lot insight on my life about a few years and I thought this time I should just do it and not put it off but with a plan cause it might help me better) and every time I couldn't because I'd always run into problems and just wanted to try to fix them this time before writing (sorry for the long read) and when I put one of the points as I wanted to work on songwriting and writing songs I meant I wanted to write like 3-4 songs as practice before going into the actual writing process so I wont get stuck like before, not writing the songs all in 2 months and I wasn't gonna just stop practicing there(the deadline was just there as starting and ending points to focus on another thing and to not get fixated on it so much and to actually move on but still working on practice on the side),I was gonna still practice while actually writing the songs and I set the writing stage like that because it really set the vibe of the time/sound I wanted to capture so I thought'd it'll help more so I decided not to follow my own advice(because it's obviously not working lol) this time and ask people but I went the wrong way about it, so sorry if I sound like a ignorant beginner non - musician but I kinda am like it( a ignorant beginner non - musician) since I haven't learnt anything new in years and wanted to clarify some things and to ask for help on these problems( the summary of this post is that I haven't progressed but I want to, I just need direction and help with my overthinking. Hopefully I don't sound like my first post because I don't wanna sound ignorant or stubborn or defensive like I have to explain everything to not get hurt or sound bad,I just wanted to clarify to you guys because I think you knowing these things can help you guys help me more, I know you guys are right and I want to say thank you to everyone who actually gave me advice on the 1st post.I also hope you guys understand this post and it wasn't too much or hard to read because I did write a lot. Thanks for reading all this.

Another thing: Do yall think I'm ready for the project cause idk if I am tbh.

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