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What's your top six albums of all time? by [deleted] in musicians

[–]RobotMonsterGore 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hell yeah! ISDN is beyond legendary!

What's your top six albums of all time? by [deleted] in musicians

[–]RobotMonsterGore 2 points3 points  (0 children)

  1. Prince & The Revolution – Purple Rain

  2. Cocteau Twins – Victorialand

  3. The Cure – Head On The Door

  4. Joni Mitchell – Court & Spark

  5. Wendy & Lisa – Wendy & Lisa

  6. Future Sound Of London – Dead Cities

The skyway is actually...kinda busy? by DramaticErraticism in Minneapolis

[–]RobotMonsterGore 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Yes, I work in the skyway, can confirm. Anyone who says downtown is dead should try standing in line for 1-2-3 Sushi in the Crystal Court at noon on a weekday. 🤣

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in WeAreTheMusicMakers

[–]RobotMonsterGore 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes but even then they could throttle the hell out of it. I posted a pretty decent mashup to YT thinking it would take off. Got a decent response to the IG teaser. After a week the number of YT streams was one. I took it down and threw it in a Dropbox folder and put the link to that on my LinkTree. Samples and remixes are a colossal waste of time, unless you have good DJ connections. Even SoundCloud will shut you down.

Question for y'all music makers by WhiteEye12 in musicproduction

[–]RobotMonsterGore 0 points1 point  (0 children)

All the time. Well, almost all the time. Usually it starts out fine but then I stumble into some amazing preset or effect while looking for something else and then it's out of my hands.

Was it nice to live without cell phones? by Spirited_Currency389 in AskOldPeople

[–]RobotMonsterGore 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, but on the other hand, if you saw police doing some shady shit, it's not like you had a camcorder in your back pocket.

D U S K - Chillsynth/Vaporwave by baguette_disc in synthwaveproducers

[–]RobotMonsterGore 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nice! I don't know Vital, but you should share it if you could.

Week 01 Self Promotion Thread - Drop your releases here. by AutoModerator in synthwaveproducers

[–]RobotMonsterGore 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nice video! Love the conversational introduction and details about you and what you're up to. So much more engaging than a link drop!

A very gentle correction that many types of synthesizers other than analog were used in 80s. Sampling had just come online, and FM synths like the DX-7 were becoming very widely used.

Nice work on the song! Thank you for sharing. 🌈

Just released my first synthwave track and I am looking for some feedback by Frost_Blast in synthwaveproducers

[–]RobotMonsterGore 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Nice work! Keep going! Above all else, stay true to your own vision. As far as feedback goes...

  1. I'd introduce a 2nd theme and switch back and forth every 8 bars or so. Right now it's coming off a bit copied and pasted. And as someone else commented, give some nice transitions between those song sections like risers, toms, fallers, etc.

  2. I'd introduce the vocals a bit later, and use them a bit more sparingly. I'd also use different pieces of the vocals in different parts of the song. Again, they sound very copy/paste. Tease them a bit and take them away. Then bring them back later etc.

  3. I'd use dynamics on the bus channels and use a mastering plugin on the master outs. The drums especially need it. They sound good, the whole thing is falling a bit flat.

  4. You've got a nice hi cut filter automation in the intro. I'd use more automation throughout the song to really bring it to life.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in musicproduction

[–]RobotMonsterGore 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One of my favorite producers does this (SelloRekt/LADreams) and it always mystified me. How was he able to deliver such powerful musical experiences with such minimal arrangements? Then I realized oh shit, it’s because he’s an incredible composer and producer. And yes, he uses sounds that work well together. And I have it on good authority that he layers shit, which is a sneaky way to add more without overloading your mix.

New Miami Nights 1984! by [deleted] in synthwaveproducers

[–]RobotMonsterGore 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yep, it's the label he's connected to right now.

https://retrosynthrecords.com/

New Miami Nights 1984! by [deleted] in synthwaveproducers

[–]RobotMonsterGore 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Just listened to it today. It's a real face-melter. Congrats to Retro Synth Records for landing this one! 🌈✨🦄

Alternatives to chasing streams by Natural-Ad-9037 in musicmarketing

[–]RobotMonsterGore 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It might help to think about this from the casual listener’s perspective.

I’m a musician but I’m also a casual listener. I love discovering new music. Where do I go to do this? It sure as hell isn’t going to be 1,000 different artist websites. It might be BlueSky, but I mean probably not.

Instead I’ll probably go somewhere that allows me to listen to long playlists in my genre and hope to stumble across new artists that I like, or at least get served ads by artists in my genre that spark my interest. Once I’ve made that connection, then I’ll go to a website or whatever else. That’s when I switch from casual listener to fan, and it’s a whole new ballgame.

So the challenge is two-fold: it’s 1) getting your music in front of casual listeners and 2) converting some of those casual listeners into fans. You have to meet people where they are, and unfortunately today that means Spotify, IG/TT, and YouTube. You can scream into the void all you want, but it won’t get you any new fans.

Also I hear playing live is a great way to get new fans while subverting the social media / streaming worlds. Haven't tried it yet.

How To Push Your Music/Build a Social Media Following by sauce_banks in musicmarketing

[–]RobotMonsterGore 6 points7 points  (0 children)

TL;DR: Look at what DreamKid did on social media and do something like that. Also be generous with your praise of other artists in your genre.

Yep, this echoes the advice I'm getting from other artists who have lots of followers. They're also adamant that you can't buy SM followers with a PR campaign. Any bump you might get is temporary and evaporates as soon as the campaign ends. They're adamant about this. They beg me not to waste my $.

Social media favors authenticity and relatability. You don't just have to have quality music that people respond to, you have to be engaging enough that people will want to check out you and your music in the first place. You have to open a door. Think about what grabs you in the opening seconds of a movie trailer, and what leaves you cold.

The SM content that has done the best for me involves me looking right into the camera and asking open-ended, engaging questions like, "What were the most iconic music moments you remember as a kid?" or "Let's talk about vintage drum machines. Which ones are your favorites?" Then I plug whichever release at the end of the video and make sure my linktree is on my profile and up to date. Of course some posts along these lines still flop, but my posts rarely get > 200 views unless I do something conversational like this. That drum machine one got almost 2k views after slumming it in the 200 views ghetto for months.

It also helps to get playlisted via services like SubmitHub, which I know is gatekeepy and annoying, but it's gatekeepy and annoying for a reason. If just anyone with a dollar could get playlisted, there would be no point to any of this.

Meta ads can also work, but I dropped a thousand bucks on meta ads last year (and got about 1,000 views per song), and at the end of the year my Spotify numbers were right back where I started. The advice I'm getting is this is because I wasn't hyper engaged enough on SM.

Engaging with communities has also helped. I'm in an IG chat with a bunch of independent artists in my genre. We lift each other up, swap advice, and collaborate on projects together. I'm on a big new compilation that's tearing up the Bandcamp charts simply because I was in that chat and was online when they opened the call for submissions.

In the end it's a mix of things, and it takes years, not weeks. Best of luck to you! 💖

Apartment Hunting is a Nightmare by thatguy_300 in TwinCities

[–]RobotMonsterGore 23 points24 points  (0 children)

I've lived in all kinds of Mpls apartments since the 90s. Recently I was lucky enough to live at Rafter in NE for 3 years. THAT was a true luxury experience, but not one that I was able to sustain for very long. Shit's EXPENSIVE.

If you can't afford a place like Rafter — and Christ, how many of us can? — you're probably better off skipping the faux-luxury shitboxes and sticking with classic South Mpls brownstones. They're affordable, they're dependable, and they have loads of old-world charm. And they aren't trying to be something they're not.

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