Hey everyone, and first of all a big thanks to @Sebastian Jautschus for starting this group and hosting it here on Skool! Really looking forward to getting to know you all and to see where this whole guitarwave journey will take us. A quick intro: I’m Martin from Cologne, Germany, and I release instrumental tracks under the name Chasing Reverbs. Some are pure solo guitar pieces (electric or acoustic), others come with a fuller instrumentation (like piano, bass, or subtle beats). I’ve been playing guitar since I was about 15 – so, roughly 30 years now. Along the way I’ve always played in bands, and still do today (an indie rock trio and a project with a singer-songwriter). I started my solo project during the pandemic – you probably remember those times 🙂 – when rehearsing with bands wasn’t possible. Over the years I had collected lots of musical sketches and ideas, and finally wanted to turn them into finished tracks. Only then did I realize how much more it takes these days to be an independent artist: recording, mixing, mastering, distribution, marketing, building a website, social media… the whole package. Thanks to YouTube I was able to teach myself most of it, and I’m still running things as a one-man operation. Since around two years I’ve also been working with @Nathaniel Graham from Sky Valley Records, which has been super helpful for additional reach. My favorite guitar is a Gibson ES-330 from 1974 (that’s the one in the pic). I don’t use it too often for recordings, since the P90 pickups can be a bit noisy, but live or just noodling on the couch it’s absolutely my go-to. Outside of music, my family (especially my 7-year-old daughter) comes first, and in my day job I work as an analyst for a large German grocery retailer – because, well, the music needs to be financed somehow. 😄

Hi @Jane Annoff , and welcome to the community — great to have you here! Really happy to hear that you like my version of "I See Fire". I played my Music Man Silhouette on that track (photo attached). It’s the guitar I usually reach for when I’m after Strat-like tones. I’ve had it for a long time. A good friend of mine worked in marketing for the German Music Man distribution, and I was able to get it through him at a very good price. Pickup-wise, I used my favorite position (bridge + middle) to get that Knopfler-style tone. I’m also using a capo on the 4th fret. By the way, in this YouTube video I go through the piece step by step: https://youtu.be/Nb7eeWsGSWc?si=ql2T9s8ccBB5J3Si

Hi @Freddie Webber, wishing you a wonderful day as well! I watched your documentary about the Alpine tour the other day (https://youtu.be/JOHn_DBfOJU?si=4bPhW0fmGOn-Maam), and it was a wonderfully entertaining and engaging half hour. Huge respect for pulling off so many gigs in such a short time completely on your own — and at the same time still thinking about filming and gathering material for the video.

Hey @Sebastian Jautschus, great to hear from you again! And no worries at all. When you’re self-employed and have to pay the bills through client work, it’s completely understandable that professional projects take priority. I also find it really interesting that you’re working in the music industry professionally and earning a living with audio branding. Maybe at some point, when things calm down a bit, you could share more about what an audio brander actually does (is that even the right term?). I’d be very curious to learn more. Hope things ease up for you soon. I’m also really looking forward to the 2.5-hour conversation with @Brian Hennessey — very excited to have him in the community as well. I couldn’t make the hangout yesterday, but I’m looking forward to the Monthly Topic call and will try to join live. Also, compliment on “through the branches”! I just listened to it for the first time — beautiful track. And with the beats coming in around 1:30 it’s almost danceable 🙂 And congrats on landing the Ambient Post-Rock editorial playlist — also to @Peter Monrad. If you both have any updates on the stream impact, I’d be really interested to hear. Since my time with Sky Valley Records, I think this might be the first editorial placement for the community (or am I wrong, @Nathaniel Graham?). Since I’ve also been a bit quiet lately, here’s a quick update from my side: - On Friday I thought of you guys while attending a clinic by Chris Buck. I’ll share some impressions in a separate post. - Musically, I’ve been working on a collab with an old friend from my hometown Marburg. It’s outside my comfort zone — more in a jazz/soul direction — and it’s been really interesting to play in a genre I’m less familiar with. - On the marketing side, I used Hypeddit again for my latest release, mainly to test their recent updates after Meta’s Andromeda changes (and admittedly also out of laziness to create ad videos myself). Happy to share my experience if anyone’s interested. - Also wanted to mention that the new Bandcamp alternative Subvert (run more like an artist co-op) is currently in alpha testing and close to going public. Might be interesting for some of you. I’ve been enjoying randomly clicking through artists — basically the opposite of algorithmic discovery. Here is the link to the platform: https://alpha.subvert.fm/discover

That's great news, @Sebastian Jautschus! Really looking forward to the episode as I've been listening to and admiring From Somewhere Quiet for a while now. And thanks for reposting his IG post, @Jacopo Ramonda. I would be interested in the following: Background / Biography: - Are you formally trained as a musician? - Was the pandemic a catalyst for starting From Somewhere Quiet? - Are you still working a day job alongside the project? Creative Process: - In one of your IG posts, you mentioned that only a small percentage of your songs actually get released. Do you usually work on multiple projects in parallel? - What criteria do you use to decide when a piece is truly “release ready”? - What typically sparks a new song for you? Is it often a new sound (for example from a new pedal), or does it usually start with a riff, motif, or hook? Guitar Nerd Questions: - What are your favorite pedals at the moment? - What does your recording setup look like? Do you go straight from the pedalboard into the DAW, or do you record through an amp? - How do you create those beautiful ambient textures and pads in your tracks? Marketing & Promotion: - Which promotion strategies have you experimented with, and how would you evaluate their effectiveness? - Do you actively promote your Spotify “This Is From Somewhere Quiet” playlist (for example via ads)? - How much of your steady growth would you attribute to editorial playlists — and how much to collaborations (e.g., with Adam Dodson)? Sorry for the many questions, I have already limited myself to three per section 😄