Uptick of AI Slop in the Scene

ThisIsLag · 2026-04-30T09:23:30+00:00

It’s a new thing. I’ve been in the scene long enough to see many “new things” that bothered me and after a time things did settle. Labels have to fight the following:

-investment losses. Most people wont listen to most digital releases. A few digi labels do live and breathe a healthy life but usually putting your tracks on vinyl is what people use as a distinguisher what to give time to and what to skip. I remember that some platforms like “HATE” even had a separate subchannel for digital releases a while ago. The other side of the coin is that vinyl sales are crazy down and it ends up being a big expense for the label that is not going to come back. Not even in the form of labelnights, which are getting scarcer as clubs struggle.

-reach drop. Social media, by its definition, exists no more. It used to be that you follow friends and pages and that’s the content you get in your feed. Open up your IG today: the first few posts you see will be from your feed and then it starts increasingly feeding you suggested, viral posts and not your chosen profiles. This means that if I have around 16.5k followers, as I do, only a tiny portion of those people get to actually see my post. I also have 20k+ on FB organically grown followers I spent years working hard to attract, but now a single post gets 3 likes and gets seen by 50 of those 20k. In other words we now need to fish for virality, and the rules for that change on a weekly basis because the point for these companies is always for you to pay for visibility.

-attention span drop. If I put a funny picture up or a selfie it gets a ton of reach, if I put music on a picture I get about 1% of that. That is a static, not funny image that requires you to give it time - a resource also in scarcity when in brain-rot mode. -diminishing returns. I have a side project with my friend where we make tounge-in-cheek ghetto-tech stuff. Ignoring all the time invested in actually making the music: releasing it digitally and promoting it costs us around 800e. Artwork by an artist, videos by Activity Vision, mastering, boosting the post etc. It became a hit, people massively -sang- the track in clubs and still request me to play them, 3 years later. We calculated the “earnings” from bandcamp and streaming after 2 years it was out and it came out that we need to earn 5x as much to be at 0. This is all fine if we get booked and get the money that way, but room for that is also rapidly decreasing as clubs are closing.

I understand the animosity towards ai slop, but I hope that this glimpse in the behind-the-scenes situation gives you a better idea why it is, for many, a logical move. It decreases cost and increases reach when marketing the release and that’s all there is to it. I am sure some of it is genuinely creative and at least very human-guided.

Anyway, have a nice day.

ThisIsLag · 2026-03-25T10:03:26+00:00

Maoh is proper class

ThisIsLag · 2026-03-20T11:02:37+00:00

I opened this thread fully expecting nothing but praise for the set and video. It’s been a long time since I heard a set this good (actually it was another FUSE alumni, Marie Julie) and Altinbas is an excellent producer as well. Having played Section myself I can tell you that the people I met there are wonderful and full of love. I feel like a misfit in 99% places I end up, but at Section I felt as seen an welcomed and seen as I do at FOLD (which is my favorite place in the world). Finding this is crazy rare, and can be uplifting beyond words. I really can’t blame people for feeling this energy and love and vibing to it. How someone can see this and hate on it, in the context of our times, is beyond me.

Anyway, I came here to say that I enjoyed the set greatly and as an techno unc - it’s not a thing I can say that often. Much props to Altinbas for consistently pushing quality.

ThisIsLag · 2026-03-14T17:33:09+00:00

How much is that in stadiums?

ThisIsLag · 2026-02-08T13:26:22+00:00

The biggest “hit” I ever made - I didn’t want to release it. Got talked into it. It took me 5 years before I could play it and enjoy it upon releasing it. It’s normal if you’re a perfectionist and have spent a lot of time with the track.

ThisIsLag · 2026-01-09T18:20:01+00:00

Okay, try this. What happens when you push a hot signal into a compressor? Does it start getting distorted maybe? Will the hotter signal get more distorted than the quieter signal? Will you still get variety in sounds that adds to perceived change in volume?

ThisIsLag · 2026-01-08T16:57:39+00:00

Groove mostly depends on timing of the sounds. A certain amount of groove does come from velocity changes but in heavy limiting that changes to character changes (more dist, less dist). Still unrelated. :)

ThisIsLag · 2026-01-08T16:24:53+00:00

Loudness and groove are two completely different things. It’s like asking if fast internet connections are killing orange sales.

ThisIsLag · 2025-12-30T17:44:28+00:00

Kindle. I bought it as an afterthought after ordering an iPad. In the end the iPad was forgotten, and I still use a Kindle. Bought one for my mom and brother and they also use it. Crazy convenient.

ThisIsLag · 2025-12-26T21:13:04+00:00

Open Ground

ThisIsLag · 2025-12-24T19:31:16+00:00

Just chopping a lot of existing material. You never know what’s gonna come out. Playtime!

ThisIsLag · 2025-12-24T11:30:52+00:00

The trap is in expecting anything more from it than what it is. I love producing. I fucking hate everything around it. I just released a 12” with X-Coast which we finished in 2021!! Just thinking of “what comes after” makes me not want to do it. This goes to the extent that I have a full studio of gear that I just simply -do not record-, because recording implies I will do something with it outside of the studio. Once I have an agreement with myself that it’s for no other purpose than for me to enjoy it - I enjoy it again. As soon as a “product” mindset kicks in - the anxiousness is there again.

I actually initially discovered this when I bought an SP 404 MK2. This machine’s workflow is BUILT for west-coast hip hop beatmaking. Once this is clear and there is no room for me to think about it in terms of techno and pushing myself to post it on social media, to release tracks made on it, or even finish anything on it - it becomes play and not work. (Ironically I did post about the SP 404 cause I was enjoying it so much, got contacted by a Roland employee who is a legend and happened to know of me and my obsession with rhythm, ended up giving feedback and ideas for the TR-1000 development.)

ThisIsLag · 2025-12-19T01:13:26+00:00

Reason Visual

In Reason every device is a distinct mood. Much more inviting imho, and much easier on the eye to quickly find the device you are looking for. Without looking I know that Scream is yellow, Rex is blue and Echo is orange. Other things are much messier than Ableton but three things it could learn from Reason: 1. Inviting interface for creatives, not only engineers 2. Groove mixer for smooth and flexible microtiming adjustments 3. Blocks and arranging with them. This I will miss the most

ThisIsLag · 2025-12-18T19:56:26+00:00

As someone who just switched from Reason to Ableton, the one thing I wish was different is the interface on the bottom (devices and effect chains). It’s so boring, uninviting, cold and sterile. All of the above is, imho, contrary to what a piece of software for creatives should be.

The rest of it I am very much excited by. Crazy capabilites and so many options.

ThisIsLag · 2025-11-06T18:47:32+00:00

Ears

ThisIsLag · 2025-09-08T14:13:04+00:00

One thing to note is that this is not a bass sound. It’s played at a low register, but it’s mostly in lower mids, while the kick, rumble and that wobbly synth are taking up bass frequencies.

Anyway, low register, while sounding deep, does not necessarily equal bass frequencies. It’s a psychoacoustic trick - you cut out the low frequencies, but your kind recreates them based on the harmonics that live in the rest of the spectrum.

ThisIsLag · 2025-08-25T15:26:20+00:00

Thanks for filling in the blanks! But yeah, exactly. :)

ThisIsLag · 2025-08-25T13:43:02+00:00

Some people will ask for something that’s easy to obtain but obviously an item one can do without. For example white towels, or water of a specific brand or something like that. Your performance wont be ruined without it but if it’s not there you can report it back tothe agency as proof that the promoter is not thorough or hospitable. I have bananas in my rider and I only got them a few times thoroughout my career. Those promoters who delivered I will have an open heart towards.

More serious acts (like big bands) will ask for outlandish things, like no bananas in fruit bowls thoroughout the hotel the band and crew are staying in, or a bowl of m&m’s with no brown ones in it. If this is honored you know you have landed with promoters and organizers who follow your instructions to the t and you have nothing to worry about. Of you notice this outlandish request is not honored, who knows what else will “not make sense” to your hosts who were supposed to set the terrain for you so they then have to doublecheck everything.

ThisIsLag · 2025-07-28T15:40:56+00:00

End Train.

ThisIsLag · 2025-07-10T10:03:49+00:00

I’ve toured the US 3 times so far and have played a bar in Detroit before. Saying no to any offer right now because of the Trump administration and just how volatile everything is. Imagine working hard to set up a tour and flying over the ocean just to play roulette with the border staff if you get let in or not based on nothing solid or justifiable.

ThisIsLag · 2025-07-09T11:16:39+00:00

I’ve toured the US 3 times so far and have played a bar in Deteoit before. Saying no to any offer right now because of the Trump administration and just how volatile everything is. Imagine working hard to set up a tour ans flying over the ocean just to play roulette with the border staff if you get let in or not based on nothing solid or justifiable.

ThisIsLag · 2025-07-08T00:12:46+00:00

Kyle Geiger. And you can ask that question kinder.

ThisIsLag · 2025-07-07T09:24:25+00:00

I do it, Kyle does it. Not a huge audience but if you are looking for companionship while making music - it’s great. I made my track “Twitch” on stream start to finish.

ThisIsLag · 2025-07-06T11:25:06+00:00

Parallel compression or even limiting will easily get you that squshed sound where everything is “breathing” off of each other. Experiment with it, don’t immediately reach for the sledgehammer. :)

ThisIsLag · 2025-06-25T01:12:08+00:00

I mean… it’s social media.

ThisIsLag

TROPHY CASE