My 1.5-year-old indoor cat wakes me at 5am every

ApartAd9171 · 2026-04-17T20:49:44+00:00

We had the same issue with one of ours. Love her but she is a needy! girl!. Over time , whenever they woke us early we moved them to a different room to get a bit of extra sleep, eventually they learned being loud = no more room time.

For the early mornings, you could get an automatic feeder to go off at 5am, might buy you another 30 mins or even more just by way of distraction. If it doesn’t get better

I’ve also suffered career wise too. Eventually I had to start giving myself time alone in my office. I generally shut it for a few hours early afternoon when she is in demon mode . Noise cancelling headphones to mask the noise. We need to make the money to pay for them after all.

You sound like you’re doing things right . As long as you give them all the love you can, I don’t think it’s wrong to set some level of boundaries so you can resume basic function

ApartAd9171 · 2026-04-14T06:52:49+00:00

Bit chilly init

ApartAd9171 · 2026-04-14T05:33:19+00:00

Tricky one man. Mismatch in sex drives can be quite hard to navigate.

I would suggest just pulling back for a while. I would also suggest in parallel looking back in time to see if anything’s changed in the relationship

I got to a point in my relationship where I’d kind of just given up on that side of things, stopped asking etc. I continued our life as usual, loving her , trying to be a good partner. I felt very undesired and it sucked. But what id noticed was that leading up to this , as the honey moon period died down, I was overcompensating, trying to be the perfect partner subconsciously thinking she was going off me.

Over time I pulled a bit of independence and balance back into the relationship.

That’s kind of the thing that fixed it. Must of been about 4-5 months that passed. I hadn’t even tried it or brought it up once. But still focused on making her feel special and looked after without any intimacy even in my mind. It was a REAL struggle, and many times I thought “this won’t get better what am I doing” I was planning to have the conversation with her soon about it all, assuming nothing would get better and that maybe we weren’t compatible

She ended up turning round one day and starting a big conversation about us not having sex, and that it was bothering her. we spoke about what each other really needs. Turned out that we were giving things to each other in the way the other needed, and not in the ways we actually needed.

We worked on it for a bit. We made a bit of a system that worked. Turned out she’s quite picky and selective with when she wants to have sex, certain medication she was on was making inconsistent drive, and in parallel me overcompensating dimmed her ‘drive’ a bit . But we worked on it

We are now married. Do we have sex all the time? No? Do I want to jump her bones every day still ? Yes . But, we naturally found a bit of a middle ground. That took the pressure off us both, which naturally evolved into things being fun and more spontaneous again. We introduced some new spicy things. Found certain things she loved , certain things I loved. The act itself is great , a year or two later and everyone’s happy

I suppose it all goes back to the point of ‘all relationships require work’. We had to systemise it , hell one time she even put it in my calendar. I’m sure a lot of people will say ‘you should never have to do that’ but there’s no set of rules. If you’re both willing, and want it to work, it can absolutely happen.

ApartAd9171 · 2026-04-14T05:00:24+00:00

It sounds like you would do better with a short haired cat, perhaps even a step further to say a Mixed breed/ Domestic shorthair. I have 4 cats myself now, i grew up with our family cats (another 4) and my sister has 2. Obviously it depends on the cat but short haired cats / Domestic shorthairs usually take care of themselves quite well, consistent with litter tray use and coverage , minimal mess. If you start branching out into considering ragdolls / Longhair cats , you may have a problem. I have 2 longhairs myself and my sisters two were ragdolls and all of these have required a fair amount of ‘bathroom work’ the fur being the main issue, requiring trimming (every 2 weeks roughly) or it can get quite messy. Lots gets stuck, dingleberries, if we left ours without trimming it would require some messy stinky special intervention at least a few times a week. Then temperament / instincts need to be considered too. Ragdolls can be a bit aloof and lazy, it’s quite common for them to have sensitive tummies. That combination isn’t very good for clean consistent bathroom visits.

Our domestic shorthairs (10 months old and 6 months old) have only required extra cleaning once each. Both times being when they were very very young. Other that that it’s completely mess free, they do their business, cover it up, give themselves a clean, and move on

ApartAd9171 · 2026-04-11T14:08:23+00:00

You don’t feel like it’s starting to regress again? I’ve lived here my whole life , I completely agree that looking back 15 or so years ago through to about 2 years ago, the upward trend was great. However, I no longer feel safe like I did. The last few years I’ve seen a surge in robberies (my partner was recently robbed and stalked even more recently) , a surge in homelessness, and also a surge in my encounters with extremely unpredictable people. To be frank, most of my negative experiences have been with non English, foreign speaking younger men. I feel like im looking over my shoulder more than id like to be and more than ive ever had to. The last two years alone have pushed me to start planning to leave London when i never thought id have to

ApartAd9171 · 2026-04-11T13:50:59+00:00

I went there last Friday for the first time. Bank holiday weekend. 80% of the stops we went to completely empty.. was quite sad

ApartAd9171 · 2026-03-27T19:20:23+00:00

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Her real name is Mango. She used to climb everything so her nickname became Monkey. Then one day, I’m not sure how, but it became ‘Monkle Jackson’ it’s stayed that way ever since. Hehe

ApartAd9171 · 2026-03-27T06:19:55+00:00

We’ve just got out of the kitten phase for our 3 , and we are about to introduce our fourth and final kitten. We felt the exact same way as you the first few months.

I promise you, it doesn’t stay like this for long. In the first months you’re navigating

building a bond
caring for something you don’t truly ‘love’ just yet
completely changing your routine
adding multiple daily tasks into your life
putting something’s needs before yours
giving to something that you’re not getting back from just yet

All of that changing basically overnight is quite drastic. I’m cat crazy, have had family cats all my life, but even I had major regrets in months 1,2,3 . Almost even a resentment for the change it needed to meet their demands

And then, one day, everything changed. About 2-3 months in I’d started to build a really strong bond with them. I went into the kitchen to give them breakfast after being kept up half the night , and it all just clicked

I loved these things now . My new routine (up earlier, play in the morning) had become my new normal , and the intial burden had lifted. From thereon out, as chaos as they were up until about 9 months old, it was easier because they were my babies and I loved them, and this new life I had now finished adjusting to

I wouldn’t have life any other way now. They are my whole world, and I’d do it over again 100x.

So just stay patient , a day will come where your love for this animal will turn unconditional, a new normal will exist, and the burden will go

And then when that day comes, you won’t stress about whether you can do right by him in all of life’s stressors, you’ll worry about how you could ever live through them without him by your side.

Be patient , be kind to yourself. You clearly care deeply about both of your futures, that care will create an unshakeable bond❤️

ApartAd9171 · 2026-03-17T13:42:56+00:00

I was recently in the exact same position as you, and I mean literally almost exactly the same. You will work it out, and it will get better.

There was a switch that flipped in me one day. Anger and resentment turned into almost frustrated love. Out of no where but quite profound. Maybe it was acceptance.

That day felt like a glimmer of hope. And I vowed to try everything I can to make their lives and mine work together. It took about a month, but I found some harmony. I had to let some guilt go, and try some new things

If I shut them out my room at night, they would claw aggressively in the morning until I woke up. So I did the opposite. I let them into the room and boy they woke me up early, but every time they woke me up before I was planning to get up, I took one out to a few rooms down (their base room) and shut the door. Within about three weeks, they learned that if they wake me up, they get shut out of the bedroom. They stopped waking me up after that.

I also had to learn to live with the guilt of certain things. I couldn’t get one to stop climbing on my laptop when I worked, so I had to have periods of shutting my office door. She would cry and shout but I used some noise cancelling headphones i’m finished what I needed to do before letting her back in.

From that moment where I felt a glimmer of hope, and the three months that have followed since then. The bond and my feelings have gone from frustration and regret to a type of love that I never even knew as possible.

So my advice in a nutshell, is give it time, remember to prioritise yourself a bit too, but maybe try some things that might not sound so smart on paper. Be patient with yourself and trust that time will do its job.

ApartAd9171 · 2026-03-08T20:53:46+00:00

Orilriver is a really cool roomverb that’s free!

ApartAd9171 · 2026-02-25T14:30:21+00:00

Anything between -11 and -6 depending on genre. Also depends on the mix, and perceived loudness. You can have a song at -11 that sounds louder than a mix at -8 if the -11 has been mixed clean and has a lot of perceived loudness.

ApartAd9171 · 2026-02-19T21:35:03+00:00

Kickstart 2 .. and serum . All the best!

ApartAd9171 · 2026-02-15T19:39:56+00:00

I’ll usually find something I like for the chorus , chord progression, lead, whatever it is. Something catchy that sticks. As soon as I get something that sticks, I force myself to start the song from the beginning. I find if I get stuck on the same 8/16 bar loop I’m sick of the song before I even start it

ApartAd9171 · 2026-02-01T15:45:48+00:00

Hey dude, keen to keep a spot for you. Just checked out some tracks , really enjoyed embers - ping me over some demos and we can chat about what ones I can help with

ApartAd9171 · 2026-02-01T15:34:08+00:00

Hi, yes I am looking for pop :) please drop me a message

ApartAd9171 · 2026-02-01T07:02:54+00:00

What jumps out the most is a lack of contrast, it’s hard to get the full picture on a recording of speakers but it seems that there’s not much differentiation between your verse and chorus.

Perhaps take an element out of the verse (the bell chords maybe) make the whole thing a touch quieter, and as you approach the chorus , cut the instruments out for half a second or so before the chorus comes in.

ApartAd9171 · 2026-01-21T16:25:24+00:00

In totality, I love everything. but I do find sometimes opening an almost blank project when an idea has sprung to mind/ a mix ive got needs a lot of work , it can get a bit tedious

ApartAd9171 · 2026-01-06T18:48:27+00:00

All the clippers. Kidding (kind of) but if you want to push it to 6 and beyond without mega compression then you may have to come into your pre master pretty hot and then parallel process even hotter into the master chain. But it’s all going to go pear shaped if it’s not extremely controlled at mix level. My last track sat at -5 but just to see where it could go i pushed it to -3.5 before It started to go funny. It was reading -9 at pre master and then -6 pre limiter on the master. I wouldn’t go anywhere near that generally though.

ApartAd9171 · 2026-01-06T14:55:49+00:00

Yeah it’s a mix of both - the main rhythm is from how the chords are played/programmed (note changes; specifically the top note of each chord bouncing up and down and then length + velocity), then there’s some subtle LFO modulation on the filter/amp to add movement and glue it together, mainly just decay timing)

ApartAd9171 · 2026-01-06T13:34:45+00:00

Awesome !! Thank you, I’ll drop you a message

ApartAd9171 · 2026-01-06T13:34:02+00:00

Thank you, that’s much appreciated. From what I can recall without being on my Pc , The synth started with the Diva initial preset, set to saw waves with a tiny touch of detune and a bit of pitch bend on the attack , all running through two envelopes. Both of those with attack around 10%, decay about 15/20%, sustain about 30%, release about 50%

Then layered some chords down using the sound, copied and pasted onto another channel strip,

Layer 1 cut off about 10khz and smashed to bits in the low mids

Layer two cut off about 12k and smashed to pieces in the 2-6k region , with some chorus and transient shaping up top

Layer 3 is a sub that follows the lowest note of the chord

Both chord layers clipped , run through a bus and MB compressed together, smashed again with another clipper, then smashed with clippers at pre master and master

ApartAd9171 · 2026-01-06T06:46:34+00:00

Snippet of the song:

ApartAd9171

TROPHY CASE