Month: November 2022

2022 on Spotify

30.11.2022

It seems that 2022 was a pretty good year for me, at least in terms of Spotify listens, sharing and downloads. If we compare the number of streams (254 vs. 3800), listeners (48 vs. 455), total listening time (20.3 vs. 420 hrs) as well as the number of countries where my songs were played (13 vs. 55) in 2021 and 2022, respectively, then the difference is clearly visible.

To be honest, I’m quite speechless now. I never create summaries on such numbers – not because I’m not interested in the progress of my music, but simply because I’m too engaged in practicing the guitar, creating new songs or learning new skills like sound recording, mixing and mastering. My numbers may not seem particularly high compared to well-known bands with professional promotion, but for an independent solo artist who can dedicate only part of his free time to these activities, they mean the world. Sometimes it seems hard to find something really meaningful in this world, but music is definitely one of those few that carry a very special meaning and give me constant inspiration and joy.

Thank you all for making it possible! Thank you for listening to my music and being with me on this exciting journey – and stay tuned, as the new stuff is already on its way!

New gear, new sound

22.11.2022

Recently I performed a couple of major updates on my gear. To cut a long story short, significant changes were made both on the hardware and software side.

Firstly, I was constantly struggling with the suboptimal output sound of the VST instrument I used to simulate drum sounds in Cubase (the DAW I’ve been using since the beginning) with. No matter how hard I was trying, I couldn’t improve the final drum tone beyond a certain point – and despite all the improvements, I found this particular point still somewhat suboptimal and artificial. Then someone (actually a professional musician, whose opinion I value very much) suggested me to switch to Get Good Drums. I, therefore, started to use “One Kit Wonder – Metal” from this company, and the result was immediately (without any further mixing and/or mastering) amazing. Secondly, I changed the original pickups in my LTD EC-256 guitar to Seymour Duncan’s Pegasus and Sentient passive humbuckers, which resulted in a dramatic and immediate improvement in the quality of the rough guitar sound. And thirdly – following years of using pre-programmed guitar presets – I started to experiment with setting up my own virtual guitar rig using the Bias FX2 amp-and-effects processor.