---
title: Spectral Forge
tags: music
---

_postmortem_

Second solo ambient live I ever did.
May 2023 at <a class="external-link" href="https://festiwalswiatla.hs3.pl/ ">Festiwal Światła</a>

I took some lessons from [[Stellar Chant]] and had some more time. Biggest change was that I decided to make my own visuals (and it kinda worked, more on that later).

This time I went with 4 tracks and setup with PC (mainly due to visuals). I still had one point of failure, but had everything backed to iCloud/Dropbox so I could recover if I had at least some time.

Setup for this year:
1. Laptop with Ableton Live 11 Suite. I had samples and instruments there. I `bounced` (aka "make this an audio") almost everything I decided not to play and had MIDI clips just in case if anything goes wrong with MIDI keyboard
2. Arturia Keystep connected to laptop and Ableton to control MIDI. First concept was to change MIDI tracks for different instruments, but was scrapped.
3. SOMA Lyra-8 connected to Ableton with huge convolution reverb for basically whole 2nd track. I did a photo of Lyra setup so I could replicate it if any knob would be changed.
4. Focusright Scarlett Solo as an audio interface and output.
5. MIDI over (50m 🤯) ethernet cable to send MIDI data to change visuals.

### What went right
- I managed to learn Blender enough to do 1/4 of the visuals and they were cool
- My friend helped me with amazing AI-gen visuals for the rest of the show
- Everything worked perfectly, including MIDI over ethernet
- I had killer outfit to "transform" into MonoChromancer. This seems silly, but helped me a lot to "play character".
- Had a proper soundcheck
- Have better photo/video than last year
- <a class="external-link" href="https://album.link/s/2YVFDSW2w99MUYaijNaytQ">Actually released Spectral Forge as debut album! (even if it's not mixed as well as I would like, it's still a huge lock out of my head)</a>
- A lot of my stickers found new home
- Discovered I can manipulate volume "kinda as an extra instrument" - small changes in volume for some parts really did enhance the show

### What went wrong
- Still, even with soundcheck with folks I was too quiet. Not as bad as last time, but turns out that a lot of people do dampen the sound a lot.
- I tried rehearsing playing on Arturia before show and it turns out that by far my best take was at home composing. So I decided to ditch whole live playing for 3 tracks out of 4 - so for most part I stayed there trying to look like I'm doing something
- Out of stress I did turn wrong know on Lyra for a while and had to recover quickly during stress. It made the track bit worse

Lastly, I think I focused too much on "let's make something that will be playable live" and lost track somewhere along the lines. I kinda got lost in a quest to "make live for a festival" that I made a bit compromised version of music. At least it was eye-opening afterwards to change direction and go back to the "proper path" (aka path that actually is fun for me).

Also, it made me rethink my "all live" approach. I may come from local rock bands background, which may not necessarily translate 1:1 to ambient music.

Overall a huge net positive, especially with release out and a "wake-up call".