Hello, hope you're good!
A question
Before we get into it - Is the rate of Patreon posts (from me) fine for you? - when things are busy, multiple videos a week, news to update, some exclusives to post it feels like I've got more posts to make than days in the week. What I don't want is for them to become something you'll turn off from, as it's too much. So feel free to comment and let me know.
Also ... is this post too long? Do you see all the text and think .... yeah, maybe I'll read that later ... or not at all? If so - how can I tackle that better for you?
New monthly newsletter (and your feedback on it)
I'm going to use the Patreon free tier to start a monthly newsletter. We've discussed this as a community a few times and importantly while a monthly round up is great for those less active and engaged in the community to see what they might have missed, it won't just be a round up of the month. I want it to be a useful thing for this community first and foremost and also then a free simple way for anyone else to sign up to the free tier and see what's going on.
This will be one newsletter per month, I'm thinking with added synthesis, patch, music and/or production tips under the BETTER BLEEPS banner. I'm also thinking of adding a prompt, a human prompt, of something to try on your system for those that want a a little nudge to get started with something to try. BETTER BLEEPS is my technique led series on YouTube (something else I intend to do more of) so I think crossing the naming makes sense.
I think anyone that signed up for the free tier will get an email when I make this first post (in the near future, I've never made a free tier post). I also think anyone on the $1+ or $5+ tiers will also get an email about it unless you've changed your notification settings - you can let me know if you get it when the first post goes up.
If there's anything you'd like to see in a newsletter like this - random studio pictures? A stupid face for you to question what you're looking at? - do let me know! I want this to be something to look forward to and get something from, if it's not you're always welcome to feed that back that to me, but more positively than that - let us know what you want from it.
20 Questions
I used to run a blog alongside running a label and been more heavily involved in the promotion of music ... as a side note, does anyone remember Hype Machine? Getting your track trending on there, or your blog featured regularly, seemed like everything in the dance music and indie scene years back.
Anyway I've been wanting to get more on my website and on the blog, which you might have noticed with my interviews and 'story time' posts alongside demo videos. For those that have been around a much longer time you may also remember I used to run a monthly modular magazine called "DivKid's Month of Modular" too (not sure why that came to mind).
I've just started a new interview series called 20 QUESTIONS. This is the same set of 20 questions for makers in our community. The first one is online now on website HERE and it's with Lavendel Kranz of Schreibmashine.
Coming up
If you're still reading, thank you I appreciate it.
NEW VIDEO // There's plenty to come as usual, first up will be a video tomorrow on two new modules, one a fantastic filter that oozes character and plays on ideas (I can't speak for where their inspiration came from) we've seen recently with cross filter FM and feedback options and the second module (both in the same video) is a handy small function generator.
2 NEW EXCLUSIVES VIDEOS // I'll then be posting two exclusive videos for the $5+ tier supporters from the 2019 d'Voxx interview sessions I had with them. You may have seen I recovered some files and publicly put up the video on Mastering with world class engineer John Webber and also an interview about production, mixing and the recording of modular made music in the past few weeks. Well the next two exclusive ones are based on releasing music, finding a label, home and format to suit the music and then how once you've made an album out of your modular patches how you might go about performing that album live. d'Voxx have a new album coming on the 20th of February that excited for, watch out for that and check out their debut Telegraph (which these are based on) if you haven't.
MASTERING FOR & WITH THE COMMUNITY // I have another track mastered for community member Cwilla as we look to put an EP of his together for release. This was a project I got into in our Discord and the offer to master a track for you - at the moment for free, paid mastering and/or mixing slots will open up in the future - is still open. So you can talk to me about that if you wish. These free slots however are based on me building up a knowledge base that we can share and discuss as a community. I've been taking detailed notes about my thoughts and the processes throughout doing the mastering and these will continue to be shared with you all, with examples to learn from. The first set of notes and audio examples were posted a while back and can be found HERE. There's another large mix and mastering project on the go with Janky Jams too I'm looking forward to diving into and sharing the results of.
INTO FUTURE // beyond the things above Synth East is coming up in a couple of weeks, I'll see you there if you can make it (ask me for some stickers!). Next week Joranalogue is released Walk 4, which I'll have a video for and there's plenty more planned out beyond that as we start to get into that feeling of racing towards Superbooth in May.
Thanks for checking out the update, I really appreciate your interest and involvement. Lots to come, loads of new ideas to explore and I'll see you in the Discord!