We are the music makers - producers?

Reason I ask about the starting step is that if it does reset then you've got another way to keep it in time if you're 'close enough' already.
Tap tempo works - less well for ongoing patterns than for generated effects (ie. delay) but it's accurate enough for short bits of a song. I can't remember how precise people can be but it's likely to be in the low tens of ms, particularly if you consider that to play in time with anything else you are anticipating rather than reacting (your CNS would introduce too much delay). Also how often are you going to have 15 minutes of the same effect?
However, I accept it's not ideal if you want rock solid sync'ing

The Redsound looks interesting, I suspect as it's intended for DJ use it's probably relying on a strong beat in the incoming audio. Annoyingly it's quite hard to search for what other people have done with those zvex pedals since he released the super versions with midi already built in. I know at one point there was a mod for them that added various helpful functions...

Anaesthetic themed silliness. Recorded at Soup studios last year.

https://elvers.bandcamp.com/track/staggers-and-jags

They've just released mk2/ updates on everything...

Feeling your pain here. That feeling of knowing deep down, you're more than good enough but...well the gate keepers not in agreement. I've been trying to get a slot at place near me. I gave two different mixes. Both of them good enough. I know because I've listened to some of the people they've had on there. On several occasions I've spoken with the guy and we've clearly been into the same producers/sounds etc but ultimately: Nada.
A lot of it comes down to selling yourself (which I hate doing and am not great at); are you bringing a fuktonne of people down? It is a popularity contest. One of the guys I heard playing was so bad I was 2 seconds from telling him to pack it in! [not to stop playing but to stop the self indulgent fucking around, when he clearly didn't have the skill set to do it properly or he was off his head.]
Venues prefer that you're bringing people in, so they don't have to. But I think to myself: I'm not a promoter. (I'm at that age where my peers are Moms and pops.) Also you don't pay promoter wages on top of DJ money.
I think it's the people that get gigs that I know are not all that, that really cuts. They're either not technically all there, or you can tell from what is being played their music collection is somewhat limited, or they don't have the chops to change it up and manoeuvre elsewhere if needed. Yeah we've all got to start somewhere but it seems some get fast tracked waaaaaaay quicker than they should- certainly way earlier than I got any breaks.
I knew 15 yrs back that making stuff would be the only way. I've started to do so now but I'm also back in university now, so even typing this prelude to my crywank is cutting into time I don't really have. It feels really cunty to moan when I look at the fact I'm healthy and in the top 5% on this planet by way of luck/geopgraphy but sometimes that shit really chaffes ones nipples.

Problem is 90% of promoters don’t seemingly don’t care about the night and just book whoever can bring people, meaning the night is a succession of random genres and most people go to see one band, not have a night out.
Maybe that’s the best that can happen midweek in a small town but the worst cunts for this are in London where there’s no excuse for not having a coherent lineup and a dj to match.

Problem is 90% of promoters don’t seemingly don’t care about the night and just book whoever can bring people, meaning the night is a succession of random genres and most people go to see one band, not have a night out.

I tihnk that's symptomatic of changing tastes as well.

Back in the early 2000s when I was touring, we thought things had got as fragmented as they could - we were doing modern metal stuff (think Tool / Deftones) at a time of The Strokes/White Stripes and Nu Rave and Electroclash. The average show was about a 200 capacity; very different to the 90s where you were either grunge or indie and the average show was a 1000 capacity.

Things are more fragmented now. It usde to be that you could do, say, a NYHC night with four bands who'd each bring 50 people. But there aren't four NYHC bands in london who could bring 50 people now, so if a promoter wants to stay in business, what can he do but invite four bands who can bring 50 people and hang the genres.

Also, and this is something I think people don't think enough about, but the smoking ban has had an effect. Used to be that people woudl stay in the venue and watch all the bands, more or less. Now, people go out for a cigarette and stay out there - even nights with 100 people tend to have <25 people watching each band.

Things have changed and life is harder for promoters now - fewer punters, fewer bands, fewer venues. I have some sympathy for them.

You’re not wrong but I think my point is that there are probably 200 people who would go to a NYHC show if it was promoted properly as such and became known as a great place to check out new NYHC bands. Build a scene etc

Cheap semi conductor tech made access to music making gear easier. It also made access to being a deee jai easier [digital]. The market is flooded. Standards maybe inevitably drop. Paradigm has changed and it's now become even more of a popularity contest. The amount of shocking pony I've heard on the muff wiggler forum from peeps that have dropped £$€ surprised me and then I realised: the democratisation has allowed so many to live out their dreams; you can say, Album out now on band camp.
I'm not against the access because I, too have benefitted but don't expect there to be loads of excellent easy to access stuff out there. Way more sifting. But then this topic transcends gender and racial lines also, which I cannot be bothered to delve too deeply in for now.

@Butternut-Squash Promotions is a young man's game. I don't have the time nor the inclination to crank up social media activities.

Xaoc have some new bits DREZNO and Lipsk maybe?

I don't necessarily disagree with you guys in terms of experience as a musician, but I'm also aware that things've changed - there's no money in it anymore. So if anyone is out there working in music, I'm reticent to criticise them, because christ knows I wouldn't be willing to put my money in my pocket to put nights on - too much of a risk. But these guys are. So it's on them how they do it. Like someone said, if you don't like the gatekeepers, become the gatekeepers. But it's a harder road now than it was, and you may be required to make compromises you wouldn't want to make.

Acutally

Butternut-Squash
Has anyone got any experience of devices which take an audio signal and use it to generate a midi temp signal? I saw one online, just curious what options there are and whether they work very well.

FWIW my plan in to take the audio from a non-midi hardware sequencer and sync it with a DAW.

TBH I\ve not read your request properly so it may not be totally up your street. I'm failing at doing two things concurrently. University work got me trippin'

Apols

I don't really accept your point - the idea is that you could go to this show whether you've heard of the bands or not because it is known as somewhere to hear the music you're into (regardless of whether the individual bands are popular or 'good'). If the promoter wants to blow their load in the first show, well that's terrible promoting and only a small improvement on the normal situation!
I know things have changed but there are examples of this concept working up and down the country in clubs, it's just not often applied to bands/live music so much.

This is a fair point and I'm sure promoters don't start out with the intention of being shit but for all their 'risk taking', most on the toilet circuit will pay themselves before anyone performing and put zero effort into promoting anything beyond a facebook event (if that). Venues with in-house promoters are as much to blame tbh - all they care about is drinks sold on a weeknight and it locks out anyone else who might have some imagination.

Anyone just enjoy fucking around with synths, no particular ambition? Recently having a lot of fun with a Volca FM through an Alesis Wedge, much '90s warp goodness. Got my eye on a Dominion Club too as I'm currently sans analog monosynth.

Not to derail this discussion, it's an interesting one for sure. I play in a band but luckily don't have to deal with promo/booking etc, just show up and play. And slowly learn the patterns of how the industry twists and writhes.

Yep! I mean my ambition is to finish off all the half-made tracks I have lying around but that’s it for now. Not seen the Club but liked the look of the One... Probably have enough mono for the moment though.

I could be wrong on this - its all subjective - but I feel like there were a lot more bands back in the 1990s-2000s than there are now. It used to be that you couldn't move for crappy, bottom tier rock bands all trying to get on the numetal bandwagon. The way I saw it was that it was the job of the band to create such a buzz about them that they stand head and shoulders above the other bands in their scene, and part of the way they did that was -
among other things - by being uniquely able to sell out (say) the Dublin Castle on a Tuesday evening. Promoters speak with A&R guys, A&R guys speak with promoters - they're both trying to make money. A sold out show is a sign of a potentially good investment.

In other words its the responsibility of the bands in question to sharpen their elbows and MAKE room for themselves; it's not the responsibility of existing bands to get out of the way. A mate of mine who's been plugging away in a moderately successful metal band said this a while ago, that the rock festivals have had the same headliners for the last 10 years and it's boring, and that these bands need to retire. Well, he's right about it being boring, but otherwise I think he's full of shit. Bands don't move out of the way until they're MADE to, by someone innovative coming along, creating something new, and making them look old and irrelevant and stupid. My pal shouldn't be complaining about successful bands not making way for younger bands; he should be looking at what he's doing himself and figuring out what it is he's not doing that those bands are - whether it's their songs, execution, charisma, style, relevance to the zeitgeist, or ability to pull a crowd.

I do think your idea of a band dedicated to stopping other bands is brilliant though. That is an undeniably attractive proposition.

I think we just see it differently. What you've just said is exactly what I expect a promoter to do - build the event. At that point they've done their job imo, and it's up to the bands to go out there and flyer and lig and drum up crew to come down. If every band does that, every band benefits, and every band who does that tends to gig with every other band who does that. Musicians know their audience better than anyone; promoters, with the best will in the world, don't, so it's on us - imo - to find them and bring them down. Basically, when I stopped expecting promoters to promote, the world made much more sense to me. I spent less time being disappointed, and I spent a lot more time grafting.

Gotta add a thing though - that sort of thing is easier when you're younger. When I was 23 I'd be out at gigs and clubs every night of the week. I'd be printing up flyers at my day job and I'd be handing them out all evening, for weeks at a time, for ONE gig. But I was young and I was pretty and I was single and my band was pretty good, so it was a simple and fun job to get people out, and you might even get laid into the bargain. Now I'm in my 40s and you would not catch me dead handing out a flyer or being in a bar at 3am on a Thursday. The most I'll do these days is a fb post. Maybe tech made us all lazy.

If I lived near a contemporary music college I would definitely form a band to end all bands. In fact I might go a bit further and lay booby traps.

Those contemporary music colleges are so weird. A few of my pals from back in the days teach at those things now. I've met a few people who've graduated from their classes and they're very technical, much more so than we were when we were figuring this stuff out for ourselves. But I can't help but feel they're missing out on the chaos, on working out your path and sticking to it. So much of modern musicianship is sociology; finding your untapped market and betting that they'll stick with you throughout your career. Assuming there'll always be an audience, and that an 19 year old can do it the same way you did when you were 19? I just don't see it myself. I think the really interesting musicians coming out now are going to be the ones who completely shun the college system. I can't imagine Kurt Cobain -
the last person to truly revolutionise the industry imo - doing especially well at one of those things.

https://soundcloud.com/malekkoheavyindustry/malekko-manther-audio-1
https://soundcloud.com/malekkoheavyindustry/manther-by-anon-file-1
https://soundcloud.com/malekkoheavyindustry/manther-growl-2

^ another new monosynth/groovebox. Roland MC-202 style oscillators and mixer and a filter like the Sequential Circuits Pro One (if I'm not mistaken).

Interesting. FWIW, i’m still in the grips of a fairly major crisis about whether or not I can continue to put stuff out there to absolutely zero interest. I think I need to get off social media and maybe go back to just playing live.

I take your point but I think it falls down on a number of levels (although you're probably right about tech and laziness too).

1. Touring bands (or in fact any band not in their own town) can't do this legwork in advance and how many people these days will go to a gig for a specific band on the night they've been handed a flyer for it?
   You don't see club djs hanging around flyering, the promoter/venue hires flyerers and the flyer is for the night as a whole, which will have a genre. And they get paid regardless of who turns up!
   
2. If a band can draw enough people in a new town despite this, they don't need a shitty multi-genre promoter and should be getting booked onto proper shows.
   
3. The promoter is taking the lion's share of the door money and usually with dickhead rules around who counts for each band. The end result being that your friends and fans pay £6 each and you see £1-2 of that, assuming they named you on the door and were counted properly. I've played shows where we've brought 40-50 people and not been paid at all. Not that the money is why we do it (obviously) but when you start running the numbers you start wondering what the point of charging people at all is - I'd rather play somewhere with no cover charge and still get nothing!
   
4. There are promoters who do it properly and put on a regular night that is coherent, looks after the performers and builds in popularity, regardless of who is playing.
   

Yeah totally agree with you when it comes to touring. I was only really talking about the situation I've assumed most of us are in these days - too old to tour, not enough money in it, doing shows local to where we live. In that case I think we have more control, which we should take if we can. Ultimately by doing that effectively, that's how you get on tour, at which point press should do a lot of the job for you. Though not for me personally. I'm 41. I'd rather drive an Uber than go on tour these days, not that anyone's asking me.

Actually, do you wanna do a gig? I've booked the ELVRS in for a Sat night gig at the Gladstone on 16th Dec. If you're up for it i'll pitch yer as a support? Be cool to combine forces.

Can't promise anything but will put your forward if you're up for it?