Sockpuppet.

Logic Pro I/O labels

I recently updated the firmware on my Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 3rd Gen to run Focusrite Control and was surprised to find that the input mappings changed on me, which was pretty annoying. Previously ADAT 1-8 happened to map to inputs 11-18, which was easy enough to remember, but now they map to 13-20 because the loopback interface moved to 9-10, pushing all of the digital inputs down by two.

After a brief conversation with Focusrite support, they pointed me to a feature of Logic I didn’t know about (even though I’ve been a Logic user for over 20 years now): I/O labels! This lets you set custom names for your audio inputs and outputs.

However, managing the preferences can be really annoying (and it’s very easy for the mappings to get lost, for example if Logic crashes), but fortunately there’s Logic I/O Labels Utility which lets you save and restore label sets pretty easily.

Anyway, learning about this has been quite helpful because now I can just permanently label my drum kit’s microphone channels instead of having to consult easily-lost notes or figuring it out on the fly every time, and of course I can also now properly label my various other mics and inputs which makes it easier to keep track of everything.

I guess even after using a piece of software for over two decades you can still be surprised about functionality that’s been there the whole time! (Or at least since version 7, which is where I started using it full-time, and is the earliest full manual I can find online.)

Shapes

(Inspired by a tune sent to me by my friend Aldrinor)

NHAMFest26

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Radio Free Fedi, in partnership with NHAM, hosted another summer festival to celebrate independent musicians who are active on the Fediverse! The Sockpuppet portion of the festival was streamed from our Owncast instance, and plenty of people followed along with the entire festival as it galavanted across everyone’s small and self-hosted streaming platforms of choice.

The VRChat portion of the show was also open to the public, and was hosted by our good friends at Tune Together. Doors opened a couple hours before the Sockpuppet set and a bunch of us watched the previous two bands together as well! A good time was had by all.

Quick note re: elasticStage

You might recall that I was pretty positive about elasticStage since they allow small musicians to do one-off or small-run vinyl record production and their quality was pretty good given the price. But there’s a few reasons I cannot currently recommend them and have taken my various links and reviews down:

  • Even though they have difficulty keeping up with the manufacturing demand for actual musicians, they’ve gone into supporting AI musicians, and are (as far as I can tell) the manufacturing partner behind Suno Vinyl
  • They have had a huge uptick in quality assurance problems and miscuts; I’ve had to get some of my personal copies recut and the process for getting them replaced was pretty difficult, and I cannot in any good conscience require that listeners have to deal with them in case things go south
  • They’re heavily leaning into Boy George and his awful, culturally-appropriative, anti-Palestinian AI slop “music” and I cannot in any good conscience support any company who would make that decision

Other folks might still be willing to work with this company in light of this but I personally am not.

If there are other short-run vinyl manufacturers who have a better track record and a reasonable price, I’d welcome suggestions. (I already know about Kunaki. They’re a bit expensive and their reviews for vinyl are pretty bad, unfortunately.)

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Symphonic followup

Over on Reddit, someone asked about TooLost, and I mentioned that I used to use them and to avoid them like the plague and I said that I’ve been using Symphonic. They had some followup questions for me and I felt that my answer was detailed enough that I should also post it as a blog post here for future reference.

This is sort of a followup to my previous review about them; nothing has really changed but I’ve had more encounters with their support side of things that I have a more detailed picture on what it’s like to work with them day-to-day.

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Bandcamp alternatives

Just when I was starting to think that Songtradr’s acquisition of Bandcamp was turning out to not be the big problem everyone predicted, they’ve gone and shaken everything back up by laying off the remaining Bandcamp engineering team.

This, uh, is not a good sign.

So, anyway, while I’m not planning on dropping Bandcamp entirely just yet (and will still be uploading my new releases there for the foreseeable future), here’s some of the other places I sell my music.

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