Who Runs Banjotown? @mayor@banjo.town

Well, as lousy as the streaming model is for artists I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t neat to see my music in the iTunes store. About 24 hours after submitting it to #distrokid, not bad. From what they say, other services will probably take 1-2 weeks plus. #FediverseMusic

@Jazzaria @BalooUriza @kubikpixel I had been using #mastomusic and/or #musiciansofmastodon but there never seemed to be much there.I like #FediverseMusic and have started using it; I'd love for a single, central hashtag to get traction as a way for musical artists to find and support each other on the fediverse. @luka is doing a great job with Sonomu.club but there are definitely other people scattered all over.

@Jazzaria Oh sure... I don't think most people actually care about liner notes, and there are plenty of bands I've been listening to my whole life where I wouldn't be able to name a lot of the personnel on any given recording.

DistroKid actually has a pretty good per-track metadata support. The UI is still a bit clunky and actual support for that data is limited and varies from platform to platform, but according to them services are starting to use more metadata.

One more listen through before I go eat something and have a beer (or perhaps a whiskey) to celebrate and wait for midnight.

Transients sound pretty harsh on small speakers, which I think is partly a banjo problem in general but also definitely a recording quality/headroom problem. The one track that was actually recorded with a good mic and interface definitely sounds better. #audio #recording

The complete lack of standardized support for album / track credits in digital music tells you everything you need to know about what the industry (and by that I mean the gigantic corporations that sell music like a utility) think about the artists and technicians who make their product #recording

Album uploaded to #distrokid, so in theory it will be available most places online (except Spotify) within a week or so.

My expectations are low and I'm vaguely distrustful of the vast distribution machinery, but it's a pretty affordable year-long experiment.

[itshappening.gif]

In what world is this cool, useful, or profitable to me? I guess if someone uses your music Instagram sticks a little badge in the corner, but being instagram you know damn well they're not going to make it a link somebody can follow to actually buy music from me

Really quite excited to release this, the music itself is a little bit warmed over for me but releasing a finished, cohesive, sort-of professional EP/album has been a daydream pretty much since I started taking electric guitar lessons 30+ years ago. It’s taken a long time to put a lot of pieces together in terms of equipment, recording experience (not that Keedysville is very well recorded), mixing software and experience (long way to go there) and getting the hell out of my own way... so, a bit of a milestone that represents more than just the songs on this release.

It’s also a way for me to maybe put the Antietam Early Banjo Gathering to bed five years after its demise... the five times I was lucky enough to attend are some of the best memories of my life, and I still miss it a lot... but it’s not coming back.

I just signed up with DistroKid for the purpose of putting music out there on some digital services, but for real, fuck spotify sideways https://www.brooklynvegan.com/rems-mike-mills-to-spotify-ceo-go-fuck-yourself-more-artist-reactions/?fbclid=IwAR3HjzRgXs6JjbKrhdm2APMgJsNtuAHv4_2hrw-CLGTNVORKuuCYK_w47-0

Alright! Ready to mash that publish button at midnight.

(I am almost certainly going to fuss more with the cover image between now and then, and I would love to put together an honest to goodness PDF "booklet" but I do need to do actual work today)

#bandcampfriday

Went back to the well and found two more tracks, so it's back to 13 overall.

With the help of some folks over at mastodon.technology I was able to programmatically sort the tracks into two theoretical sides of nearly-identical duration (within four seconds of each other.) A bit silly considering this will almost certainly only ever be distributed digitally, but I wanted to reserve the right to get myself a lathe cut vanity EP someday.

With that, I *really* need to stop screwing around, finish up my liner notes, and get this ready to drop for #bandcampfriday. #audio #recording

wow, I love Audacity for some things but it is really terrible for non-linear editing

Reluctantly axed one more track from the project, the original recording was clean but just too hot - Probably recorded before I was clued in to the fact that you can and should leave yourself a *lot* more headroom when recording digitally. (Analog habits die hard.)

And, in general, percussive spikes are a bit of an issue with banjo; it is not an instrument known for its dynamics.

On the plus side, I burned a copy to old-school audio CD and it sounds pretty damn good on a real stereo, all factors considered.

#audio #recording

I've heard mixed things about DistroKid but seeing as this is more of a vanity project than a "I'm gonna be the hot new thing on Apple Music" endeavor, I'm going to give it a shot for a year... Especially since they gave me a 35% discount when I abandoned the signup process yesterday.

*immediate* stumbling block: They're very cagey about public domain music, which all of the songs on this project are, unambiguously (none more recent than 1886). They don't really have a solution, saying "call yourself the songwriter but use first name: Traditional and last name: Music" which is some dystopian bullshit, but at least they acknowledge it and provide a workaround.

In my 19th century niche I don't really anticipate any problems (other than, perhaps, their acoustic fingerprint matching algorithms flagging my stuff because it sounds exactly like somebody else's low-tuned solo fretless banjo recordings of the same tunes, which has happened to me on youtube at least once) #audio #music #recording #digitaldistribution #distrokid

Thinking about becoming a deranged craigslist seller who lists used gear for like 25% more than MSRP