Hey guys. I’m Peter Monrad from Copenhagen, Denmark and I release my tracks as ‘Friend from Work’. I’ve been playing music for almost 30 years, originally bass, and been in many different bands and setups. When I graduated from the university back in 2003 and started working full time as a creative director and graphic designer I slowly stopped playing in bands. Then I had two kids and at some point I almost never touched an instrument. How sad it was. Then around 2020 I finally got first Garage band then Logic Pro and started making music at home, when the kids were sleeping. That led to a lot of lofi beats and hiphop under the name Tiny Anthem. I gradually lost interest in the genre because of all the generic stuff that was coming out (I really liked Tom Misch’ Beat Tape 2) and I started doing more atmospheric guitar stuff. After I released my first two tracks I moved to Sky Valley Records and really like this set up. I now work four days a week at a communications agency and have one day off for making music and videos. I spend a lot more time than that one day on music, but the setup works great for me. I have four guitars that I switch between and the favorite changes pr song. I often record the same parts on different guitars and then decide afterwards. Looking forward to getting to know you all.

@Jane Annoff Hey Jane. That one is my telecaster on the neck pickup for the intro main guitar arpeggio and then the same tele on the bridge pickup for the theme with a Strymon Flint tremolo on as well. But my Strat could sound very similar.

@Martin Eibisch hey Martin. Thanks for the many interesting inputs. Just a short answer from now regarding the add to the playlist. The Ambient Post-Rock has 123.590 and with my placement a bit down on the list it amount to around 50 plays a day. Sometimes a bit more, but not anything crazy.

Hey. I’m from Denmark and I’ve seen him play as a guitarist for many of our big, legacy artist on big stages in tv shows etc since the 90s. I am also a bit curious as to how this band is build, whether it’s just him doing all the parts or what’s the deal. As far as I know he’s working on a live tour of it. You should check out Arc de Soleil too. It’s a bit similar but more a middle eastern flavor as opposed to the surf vibe and then recently he started to sing a little. probably inspired by Khruangbin sparse use of vocals

Oh. That’s really cool! Love the music he’s doing. I’ll think of some question and get back to soon.

Hey. Here is my input. A lot of the same stuff as Martin as far as I can tell. I think ultimately you will have a natural flow of the conversation, but here are some things, that I ‘m curious about from my own perspective. Getting streams 1. As far as I can tell he only has two tracks on official Spotify playlist. Was he featured more when he started putting out music and was that crucial to help building a large fanbase? 2. Where are the listeners coming from now? Is it from the Spotify radio plays or is it more listeners that has found him through Instagram and TikTok? 3. What is his advice to someone putting out instrumental music looking to attract even more listeners? 4. He has deal with Musicbed for licensing his music for films, commercials etc. and then he also has his own Northwind Music Library How are those to licensing options going? 5. Does he compose directly for films, commercials etc? How did that start? 6. And then something about the Patreon/Substack initiatives Mixing and recording 1. How does he record his guitar. Which interface, what daw, amp simulator, pedals and so on 2. I really like how he’s guitar actually seems to be quite dry with a lot less reverb than lot of us would be tempted to add. How does he go about crafting his sonic, ambient universe and especially advice on how to balance the use of reverb.

@Jacopo Ramonda Thanks a lot! Glad to hear you're cranking my song. AT first there is both some big reverb sounds made on guitar using a Chase Bliss Mood MKII to create a huge pad-like sound along with some sweets where I turn the guitar volume up. But there is also a synth pad coming in at 0:15. That's a preset from the Alchemy synth in Logic. From 1:53 there's a lot of stuff coming in, but the rhythmic effect is an arpeggio done in Logic. Basically you play the chords (midi) and then add the Arpeggiator that can be set in various ways. Here it's doing 1/32 going down and then I also have a tremolo that makes the sound go from side to side. over 3 bars.

@Jacopo Ramonda Yeah, I don’t have a midi guitar either. I’m just playing some chords on a keyboard or just drawing the notes of the chords in Logic