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.)

See more on the Song Fight! Forum!.

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

Here’s some stuff about the specifics that went into producing this show on my end!

I’ve already described my general performance setup, and that should be read as a prerequisite.

Multi-streaming setup

A big part of this particular show is that I had two streams running simultaneously: one in VRChat and one on my Owncast instance. Each of these came from a separate OBS instance; the VRChat one showed my Owncast live chat (so that people in VR could follow the chat), and the Owncast one had my live camera as an inset so that people on the outside could see what was actually happening in my physical space; as much as I love the whole “virtual critter” thing I also want to make it clear that I am actually performing the music live, at least to an extent.

(I would actually put the camera on both streams but unfortunately I’m still using Windows for VRChat and for some reason there’s no way to share a camera across multiple processes in Windows.)

For the VRChat side of the stream I used VRCDN, while the Owncast side used my self-hosted setup, with the Owncast server hosted on my home network and then fronted by my Linode as a caching proxy.

As part of maintaining continuity with the rest of the festival, I streamed the previous and next participant into the VRChat world using a scene that just embedded their respective players and chat. Originally I used the HLS m3u8 but it was much too unreliable, and switched to using the player embed as a browser source.

For the chatbox I used a browser source with some custom CSS:

body {
    background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5);
    margin: 0px auto; overflow: hidden;
}

html {
    font-size: 36px;
}

#chat-container {
    background-color: rgba(0,0,0,0.5);
    font-size: 200%;
    text-shadow: -2px -2px 1px black,
         -2px 2px 1px black,
         2px -2px 1px black,
         2px 2px 1px black;
}

.ChatActionmessage_chatAction__SaAM1 {
    background-color: rgba(0,0,0,0.5);
    font-size: 24px;
}

.ChatSocialMessage_follower__yYsqi {
    text-shadow: none;
}

.ChatModeratorNotification_chatModerationNotification__BNHEb {
    display: none;
}

Gear loadout

Here was my pedal setup for the show:

As usual I was using my lunchbox amp primarily as a power source for my pedal chain. The signal chain is a Boss RC-20XL loop pedal, a Hotone Soul Press II wah pedal, a cheap alphabet-soup-name distortion pedal, and a TC Electronic POLYTUNE 3 tuner. The “loose” pedal in front of the loop pedal is the control switch for my reverb unit.

I also have a couple of other effect pedals in that image that aren’t in the signal chain; the blue one is a cheap shimmer reverb that I’ve been playing with but haven’t found useful for any of my typical live stuff, and the pink one is a cheap reverb+delay+loop pedal which I’ve found adds way too much saturation to the signal.

For this show I used my Epiphone Sheraton II guitar (the blonde one on the left):

For electric sets like this one, I only use the loop pedal as a convenient way to lift my guitar signal to line level. I also have a dynamic mic (on the round-base mic stand) connected to the looper, which is nice for adding hand percussion and glockenspiel to loop pedal performances, but I didn’t use it for this show.

Hand tracking

A bit over a year ago I wrote about my quest for VR hand tracking on my main blog¹. At the time the EOZ Immersive Gloves were not yet available, but since then I have gotten into their early adopter beta program and have been part of their group of testers, which has been a hugely helpful opportunity.

The way the EOZ gloves work is that they install an alternate controller profile to a pair of Tundra trackers, which makes them appear as SteamVR hand input when no regular controllers are connected. They also connect to an external circuit that puts a bunch of IMUs on each finger (rather than using more traditional strain sensors).

I have found that the gloves themselves in their current prototype stage are a bit uncomfortable and constraining, and not great for my grip when playing guitar. But, the alternate controller profile happens to work perfectly with my 3D printed wrist mounts, and while I don’t get finger tracking, getting the general position down is all that I really care about.

It would be nice if there were a way to have the hand trackers just work by overriding the position of my controllers and then otherwise use the controllers for the finger sensors and buttons, but this setup works well enough that I can compromise on the slight annoyance of having to turn my controllers on and off when I need the buttons.

Clothing

The fun with the camera gimmick is that I like to have my physical body dressed more or less the same as my avatar. For that I have leggings and a tunic top (which is what I modeled my in-game clothing after in the first place). And of course I’m wearing some plaid socks (which I think I got on clearance at Target).

Body tracking

My feet have Vive 2.0 trackers, and my hip tracker is my third Tundra. They’re attached using EOZ VR straps, specifically their belt and their foot straps.

Camera control

I have a little script that I use along with sendosc to control VRC’s built-in Dolly Cam function. In this case I have a bunch of camera paths that I recorded with Dolly Cam and moved to a directory specific to this show. Then I have this script that runs in msys bash (specifically I use “git bash” which comes with Git for Windows but any msys distribution should be fine):

#!/bin/sh

export MSYS_NO_PATHCONV=1
echo "$@"

while /bin/true ; do
    for file in "$@" ; do
        echo "$file"
    done | while read file ; do
        realpath="$(cygpath -w "$(realpath $file)")"
        echo "$realpath"

        # stop any current camera movement
        ./sendosc.exe localhost 9000 /dolly/Play b false

        # load the new path and wait for it to finish loading
        ./sendosc.exe localhost 9000 /dolly/Import s "$realpath"
        sleep 0.1

        # play the loaded path
        ./sendosc.exe localhost 9000 /dolly/Play b true

        # let it cook
        sleep 10
    done
    echo looping
done

(The separate for and while loops are both a workaround to how msys tries to “fix” UNIX paths to Windows paths, and also allows me to easily insert a shuf if I want to randomize the order of the camera paths.)

Generally I record and save the camera paths as “local” rather than “world” so that I can reuse them between worlds, although for this show I should have done “world” paths since local positioning ended up causing some problems with the geometry of the world.

It’d be really cool if I could just give someone else remote control of my camera, but unfortunately that isn’t feasible with how cameras work in VRChat (although things like VRCLens can help). Maybe this will improve in the future.

Backing tracks

I maintain a library of backing tracks for my non-acoustic performances. Some of them are just album versions with the lead vocals and guitar omitted, and some of them are all-new versions that I’ve produced specifically for live shows. Many of these I intend to eventually use for an album where I revisit many of my songs in new styles, although I’ll still want to rework them a bunch since I’m using a lot of Logic’s algorithmic “session musicians” for a lot of it.

When I set up a set list I put the backing tracks onto a timeline and order them for flow and musical progression, add in a couple of strategic drink and banter breaks, and then add little title cards to let me know what song is coming up next and any pertinent banter notes (typically things to call out like “second last song” or “shout out Chorus”). I play the video file in VLC, with the window set to float in my VR playspace.

The plus side to this approach is that it keeps my show timing down pat and lets me make sure that I fit in all the songs I mean to fit in. The minus side is I have no flexibility in case of technical difficulties and I cannot take requests on the fly (although I don’t think I’d really be able to accommodate requests in these shows anyway; that’s a lot easier on my totally-live acoustic sets).

This was the set list and the origin of each backing track:

• Behind a Mask: This is the album version with lead vocals muted, and the lead guitar removed past the intro.
• A Long Plastic Hallway: This is just the album version with lead vocals muted; when performing it live I’ll add in more guitar for texture that wasn’t in the original. This is also the only track where I make use of my reverb unit’s switch. This track also has a lyric cue sheet for reference, as I’ve had a hard time getting “off-book” on this song.
• Run Faster: This is a funk version I created specifically for VR performances.
• tw3rp: This is a funk version I created specifically for VR performances. I really should add visual cues because I always forget my auditory cues for when to come in.
• Sometimes It’s Hard to Keep Yourself Moving: This is the album version but with the drums replaced with something with a more “live” sound. This track was new to this show.
• Baby, Be Quiet: This is a funk version I created specifically for VR performances. It also adds an outro that was not in the original song (but which I have been adding into my live performances for ages). This has a few visual cues for when the different sections start so I don’t lose track of the solo.
• Change Is Coming: This is just the album version with lead vocals muted. I perform additional guitars on top of the synthesized guitar in the album track. I tend to mess them up pretty badly. This one also has visual lyric cues because I have a hard time remembering all of the lyrics.
• Material Change: This is a disco-funk version I made specifically for VR performances.
• Bipolar Bear: This is the upcoming album version sans guitar and vocals. This show was the debut of this track. It has visual lyric cues out of an abundance of caution (since the song is so new) but I don’t seem to actually need them.
• Strangers: This is a piano pop version I made for VR performances, although the piano arpeggio is taken from one of the synths in the original track in places (used as a specific leitmotif of sorts).
• Freak Flag: This is the album version. I play guitar on top which wasn’t part of the original. Someday I’m going to make a version based on the 2020 jazz rendition, because I love its energy for a live performance. I also have visual lyric cues on this because I tend to forget verses, which is ridiculous considering how short this song is.
• The War Machine: This is the released single version. I try to play guitar on top of it but I have a really hard time remembering the chords while actually performing for some reason (it always goes well in practice). It also has visual lyric cues but I don’t really need them anymore.
• Space Cadet: This is just the album version, which I play additional guitar on top of.
• No Brakes: This is a grunge-funk fusion version that I produced specifically for VR performances.
• The Difference: This is the upcoming album version sans guitar and vocals. This track debuted at this show. It also has visual lyric cues which I probably don’t need but I still use them out of an abundance of caution.
• Safety in Numbers: This is a disco-ska fusion version that I made specific for VR performances.

The reason I’ve done so many disco/funk versions of things is because one of the Moonlit Academy shows had a city pop/funk theme, so I decided to adapt a couple of my songs to it, and I found that it brought a great energy to the performance. I ended up liking it so much that I’ve used that as my preferred style for my live adaptations going forward.

Audio mix

I still haven’t figured out a reasonable way to give someone else the ability to modify my audio mix (i.e. work the board) remotely, so I still use the sound check procedure and hope for the best. Focusrite have recently released an update to let my 18i8 support Focusrite Control 2, however, so I might look into setting up some sort of remote access for trusted users or see if its new “auto gain” function is Good Enough™.

Show post mortem

I think that things went pretty well, all things considered. I did mess up a few of my lyrics (which I don’t think anyone else noticed), and I definitely had trouble with the guitar chords on both Change Is Coming and The War Machine. I was also sweaty and fatigued and in a bit more pain than usual. Hour-long sets always take a lot out of me, but I also feel like it’s very worth it in the end, even if I can’t do them as often as I can do 30-minute sets.

I loved reviewing the chat transcript afterward and seeing all of the kind comments, and I’ll similarly enjoy editing the video and listening to the background chatter that I couldn’t hear over my own performing.

I find it very funny that at every show since Furality I’ll have people requesting my Furality jingle, which is not something I’m going to ever do on a backing track set (the Furality song specifically, but also taking requests generally). But it’s something I can accommodate in an acoustic show (time permitting, of course), and I am always happy to do it while busking.

Anyway. NHAMFest was super good and I hope this is a tradition that keeps going! It’s a huge amount of work for everyone involved and I think we’re all going to be taking a very well-deserved nap. Thanks to everyone who attended, both on the Fediverse side and in VRChat, and thanks especially to the folks who ran the show and kept it going so smoothly, as well as to Noxi and Tune Together for knocking it out of the park with hosting and promoting the show on the VRChat side.

1. I notice that on that blog post I was talking about the Leapmotion as the next thing I was going to try. It ended up not working at all well; it drew too much power for the BigScreen Beyond to handle, and even if I connected it to a USB port directly on my computer the tracking quality was pretty abysmal. ↩

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.

• 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.)

Of course also the way they manage payments means there’s no way for me to withdraw my meager earnings from them, either, but what else is new with these indie-exploiting music companies…

Skyline Festival!

This show will also probably be streamed over on Twitch.

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.

Anyway, here is my comment, verbatim:

I’ve been with Symphonic since March of this year, and I currently have 19 releases managed by them (and one release each on Soundrop and CDBaby).

I’ve had plenty of support tickets with Symphonic and they usually get back to me quickly, although often the response is clearly AI-written. When that’s been insufficient I’ve been able to escalate to an actual human, though, and the answer I get is honest and straightforward, like either “thanks for the feedback” or “that’s on the roadmap” or “that’s not something we want to support” or the like.

My big complaint with Symphonic is that their metadata interface is very annoying to work with, and requires a lot of scrolling and clicking to set things like genres and individual credits. They don’t have any way of just setting the same credits for all songs on an album, and the genre selector is super annoying. I’ve given them some feedback on how it can be improved but I think it’ll be a while before any changes happen there.

I’ve also had them reject releases based on genre or title-related things (for example, they would not accept my release’s original title of “Lo-Fi Beats to Grind Coffee To” because apparently “lo-fi” and “beats” are both blacklisted due to AI slop) but they’ve been straightforward in communicating about issues like that.

They’re also a lot more strict about the cover art text requirements and, in particular, detecting text that isn’t in the release or artist name.

I’m not thrilled with their reliance on AI for customer support, and reading between the lines a bit I suspect they also use AI for developing the site itself. They’ve also raised prices and tried to justify it based on providing AI marketing tools that nobody actually wants, but I think that’s just misplaced marketing efforts to try to justify them not operating at a loss.

My main complaint is just that the UI/UX on the uploader and tagger really sucks to use with my particular set of physical disabilities and I can’t imagine it being a good experience even for people who don’t have chronic pain issues, and I wish they’d provide some sort of API-level access so that I can just script my uploads with the metadata I already have on my own end. But I can also see why they wouldn’t want to do that, since it’d make it way too easy for people to automate AI slop uploads, which they are firmly against, at least for the music and art.

They have a more detailed explanation of their stance regarding AI.

I would say that as far as mainstream distributors go, Symphonic is the least-bad of a lot of bad choices. If I had my choices I’d not be on major streaming at all, but that’s where people want to listen to me. Hopefully Fairplayer and other distributed/indie streaming options take better hold. (I’m certainly trying to do my part to make it happen!)

But anyway, in the meantime, if you do want distribution on the major DSPs, Symphonic has been pretty okay for me.

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.

Mirlo

Mirlo has been around for a while, but they made some pretty great strides when the original issues with Bandcamp had started to happen. They are, currently, my favorite of the Bandcamp alternatives, for the following reasons:

• They actually care about artists and trying to make a better ecosystem for everyone
• Their principles are based on socialist collectivism
• Their long-term goal is to provide interoperability and a federated world so that they don’t have to be a single point of failure, business-wise, and are being developed as open source
• Their uploader is great (especially when paired with Bandcrash)
• They give artists a choice of how much of a cut they take
• They provide integrated merch sales (albeit with fairly clunky shipping setup), a fully-fledged artist blog (for those who need it), and monthly support options as well
• They support pay-what-you-want with both an absolute minimum and a suggested default
• They have integration with Fairplayer and also are looking towards other interop things for a larger world of independent streaming

Things are still a bit rough with them in some places; for example, I don’t like how their frontend is currently a ReactJS app without any server-side rendering (which is bad for SEO and some forms of interop), and they still don’t currently have the ability to generate discount codes or do per-track artwork, but they’re constantly making progress, and ethically and politically they are about as far left as is possible in the space.

I really want to see them do well.

itch.io

itch.io is an independent games, assets, and content store. I actually first learned about them as a place to sell my comics, although they’re primarily used for games and tools.

They aren’t designed specifically to be a music store and leave a lot to be desired in the music sales department, but with Bandcrash it isn’t too difficult to manage your albums there.

Like Mirlo, they allow you to set whatever platform cut you like, and they also have flexible bundles and discount codes, which puts them a bit above Mirlo. They also let you organize your catalog into categories/sections. They also give you an incredible amount of control over your page layout, with the ability to provide custom CSS on request. And they even provide the ability to sell merch, although it’s pretty clunky to set up.

They also support pay-what-you-want with both absolute minimum and suggested default prices.

However, there are a few reasons why they don’t earn my top choice; for example:

• The company is very small and centralized, and has a very high bus factor
• Their interoperability is quite minimal and lacks a robust API for doing things that would be very helpful to do
• As they do not have a music focus, there are a lot of places where things could be better, especially with sales reporting and discovery

Still, as an independent digital asset shop (with potential merch sales), you could certainly do worse.

ko-fi

Ko-Fi started out as a Patreon alternative with a tip jar and monthly support options, but they also have a commissions platform and sales for both digital and physical items.

It’s pretty okay as a shopping cart, although handling physical and digital versions of things is a bit clunky as they have to be separate items (which means uploading the digital version twice, once for each version). Also, the only way to provide an audio preview on the shop itself is via a YouTube embed. To that end it works as a supplement for having your own website, but it’s not a great shopping experience. Also it offers absolutely no discoverability at all.

They don’t offer a flexible sales cut option, but the standard cut they take is a mere 5%, and you can choose to pay a small monthly fee to waive that.

They also do have discount codes, but they don’t have easily-managed discography bundles.

Also, they support pay-what-you-want with absolute minimum prices, although there’s no way of doing a suggested price.

Personally I focus on Ko-Fi for selling physical goods that aren’t music-related, but I do have all of my albums available there in digital form.

Subvert

This is a newcomer to the indie sales space. I’ve written a bit about them already.

They have some interesting ideas, namely instead of taking a cut they ask for customers to pay a tip to the platform to keep it running (similar to Gofundme), but I personally feel like they are prioritizing style over substance, and the actual upload and metadata editing process is a bit onerous.

There’s nothing about them that stands out in particular aside from the co-op business model and the customer-driven cut.

Like many other sites, they support pay-what-you-want with an absolute minimum; they also let you offer discounts to other co-op members, which is nice.

One notable missing feature is the ability to have hidden tracks on albums. There’s also no means of doing per-track artwork that I can find, which is something supported by both Bandcamp and Bandcrash.

I’m not focusing too heavily on Subvert, although I will probably continue to upload new releases there for now. I’m not super confident in their future but hopefully they’ll surprise me.

Some places I know about but haven’t used myself

There’s some more places that are on my radar and which might have the right balance for someone else, even if they don’t suit my particular needs:

jam.coop is still in its early days. It has a very minimal design (not necessarily a bad thing) and it’s under a co-op model. They’re also looking towards greater interop, so they’re worth keeping an eye on.

bandwagon.fm is a Fediverse-first ActivityPub-based thing. I’ve put some of my music here but it hasn’t really met with how I want to manage my music. But it’s built with interop from the beginning and as such they also have ambitions towards being part of an open music ecosystem.

Ampwall takes a somewhat different approach from most of the stores in that they actually charge musicians for hosting, and their rates seem a little high to me, but they make up for it somewhat by also taking a lower cut than most of the other shops, and providing a nice browse experience. I don’t really know a lot about them but the Mirlo folks speak well of them.

Places I am not interested in and why

I used to use Gumroad, but its founder, Sahil Lavingia, has a long history of problematic behavior. Additionally, Gumroad is now primarily AI-coded and supported.

I have also been receiving spam from various up-and-coming wannabe services that are being vibe-coded on platforms like zilla.so and so on. My thought on things like that is: if the promise is that you can start up a company based on just a notion that you don’t have to think about, why wouldn’t anyone else just do it themselves and cut out the middleman?

A note about web presence

Personally I think that any musician should have their own website that they run on their own terms, with whatever features make sense to them and with their own web domain and so on. I don’t believe in putting all your eggs in someone else’s basket.

I run this site using Publ (and I will someday get around to releasing my site templates to make it easier for someone else to do so). A lot of folks use Faircamp which has a lot going for it. You can also build a site with any number of site generators like 11ty, Hugo, or any number of static site generators. Heck, you could also hand-code it the old-fashioned way.

You could even go a step further and provide your own shopping cart and checkout flow via PayPal or Stripe or whatever. I don’t feel like dealing with that noise, which is why I just hand off my sales to other platforms.

Even if you don’t want to build your own site, I highly recommend getting your own web domain and at least forwarding it to your favorite sales channel, or setting up a Linktree or Carrd to direct people to your preferred sites.

Sockpuppet was selected as one of the performances for Projekt: Community’s PJKT Fest 2026! Woo!

I think I had also meant to include Safety in Numbers for the same reasons, but it ended up slipping my mind. Maybe I thought it would get its own separate release somewhere? But I have no idea when or where that might be.

So, last night I finally got around to remastering the original version and adding it to Deadnames, so if you already bought that album digitally, you should now be able to redownload it and get the updated audio.

The CD version was already at pretty close to the maximum length of a CD, and adding Safety in Numbers to that pushed it way over, so the CD version that’s available now is missing the two hidden tracks in favor of Safety in Numbers. I only know of one person who actually has a physical copy of Deadnames other than myself, so I don’t think that impacts anyone.

But anyway, updating the files on my Ko-Fi shop made me also realize that Bandcrash had a stupid bug that was preventing the MP3 files from getting the cover art tags (which is something I really should have had a proper automated test for, but the state of that code’s tests is kinda abysmal). So I’ve now reuploaded all of the MP3 versions to Ko-Fi and itch.io, so in case anyone’s actually bought any of my albums there, you’ll want to redownload the MP3 version from the respective library.

This also wreaks havoc with the Musicbrainz metadata! I’ve submitted some updates there although who knows how long it’ll take to get accepted.

Anyway. This whole thing affects, like, ten people. But I figured I’d post about it so people would know.

I am, as always, pleased as punch to have done a half-hour set with VRelium for the 2026 Pridefest!

For future VRelium shows, join group RELIUM.8220 for access, or watch on Twitch.

Trans Academy is hosting Trans Pride VR, and on June 14, which just happens to be fluffy’s birthday, fluffy will be participating in a panel discussion about music production. Come on by to hear fluffy waffle about everything! Join group TRANS.7885 for access.

Afterwards, fluffy will likely be celebrating by jamming on instruments in places around VRChat. Alcohol and/or cannabis may be involved, venue permitting.

During this time I performed a short set during a break between panels at Trans Academy’s Trans Pride VR festival.

For future Trans Academy events, join group TRANS.7885.