'Tis the season, and it's nice to sit down and listen to some traditional Christmas carols in a cozy candle-lit room with plenty of biscuits. And sometimes it's nice to hear more modern takes on these ancient (and not so ancient) classics.

Unfortunately, whenever I look for this sort of thing, what I usually find is really bland CCM — some woman breathily singing "O Come All Ye Faithful" so slowly I can feel my life draining from me with every beat, a completely unnecessary modern bridge replete with painful key change, and so on. I know this stuff can be done right — Annie Lennox's Christmas album is a great example of taking classic carols and setting them to new music in such a way that it can completely change how you hear them. But finding more stuff in that vein is surprisingly hard.

So does anyone here have any suggestions or ideas for modern takes on classic carols that actually try and do something interesting?

I have about a week of funemployment left before I start my new job, and one of the things I picked up this month was FL Studio to see if I can make a song. Does any have any tips/tricks or any recommended video tutorials? If it helps, I have some background in music theory and I play a couple of instruments and have a preamp setup with line in's and stuff.

https://www.powercomposer.net/

I am not affiliated with this project, I just think it's awesome and deserves more publicity.

Power Composer is a piano-reel-style MIDI editor built in the Godot game engine (though it is a tool, not a game). It's intended to be lighter and more accessible than a DAW, but still quite powerful. The dev has been quietly working on it for a while now and just recently made a free early-access Windows build available!

I've been keeping an eye on it ever since it was featured in the Godot 2024 showreel, as I've wanted something like it for a while. Several years ago, I was playing around with Chrome Music Lab's "Song Maker" so I could use it in my classroom. I ended up having such a great time that I got incredibly sidetracked and spent a while just writing stuff. I know the grid-based sequencer isn't a novel concept, but something about that particular configuration just clicked with me.

Ever since then, I've been searching for something similar but more capable that still clicks in the same way. I tried Bosca Ceoil, LMMS, and a couple DAWs' MIDI editors, but nothing quite did it. Then I saw Power Composer. Now that I can actually try it, it's just as comfortable as I hoped! I'm a classically-trained music teacher and have been writing/arranging with software like Dorico for years, but something about sequencers (and Power Composer in particular) just feels more freeing to me than traditional notation.

It is not open-source nor is it planned to be, which is a bummer because I'd love to contribute, but I get it - being paid for your work is nice. No word on the release price or timeline yet.

The dev seems like a good guy. In addition to the website above, Power Composer has a Youtube channel and a Discord server, and he is actively taking feature requests and bug reports on the latter.

I've been exploring it a bit and I'd be happy to answer any questions people have about it! Really enjoying it so far.

So there used to be this vibrant community on macjams.com where DIY musicians congregated to share their music, collaborate, offer advice and constructive criticism, etc., but the site shut down in 2019 with nothing to take its place. Every couple of years, I'll start the search again, but I haven't found anything that scratches the same itch anywhere on the web. There are a few subreddits that attempt to create the same atmosphere and scope, but the overwhelming majority of content I've found is spammed out with self-promotion and endless empty threads.

Has anyone found a community similar to Macjams that I've missed or overlooked?

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

hey everyone — i finished my music/sound project back on halloween but forgot to post it here!

it is drone/noise/ambient/experimental music so if that’s not your thing, i completely understand!

listen and download for free on bandcamp

or listen on other streaming platforms:

• spotify
• apple music*
• youtube
• deezer (cannot find link at the moment)
• amazon music
• 100+ more, just search “mabry amalgam” and I hope you’ll find it.

(*) for some reason the distributor created a new artist with the exact same name as my correct account just for this EP. If you want to hear my other stuff as well, here’s the correct profile

this was a music/sound project with contributions from some fellow tildes users. some of you may remember my post from several months ago asking if anyone wanted to collaborate. a number of you kind folks did and I used 5 users contributions throughout the project.

i’m very happy with how things evolved (and don’t have the overwhelming urge to pull it down and tweak it into oblivion per normal) and am very grateful for everyone who participated. it was a unique experience for me and i enjoyed 99% of it! the 1% I didn’t enjoy was dealing with a new music distribution service, but that’s a different topic.

seriously, thank you

i was in a creative rut for months and having the pieces submitted by other people really helped.

i don’t know if the folks want to be credited directly in this post but those who agreed to being credited in general have been with the final releases.

i tried my best with the tags but i’m still not 100% on how to tag properly :)