The Internet can be an ugly place but beneath all the noise of social media, it can still be a beautiful place. In recent months, I’ve found myself spending some late nights and early mornings on YouTube going deep on an amazing piece of music gear I got for my birthday this year: the Roland BOSS RC-600 looper. It’s only through the heroic contributions of regular YouTube folks like Teej or Ross Gallagher that I’ve been able to make any sense of this device — and it’s a BEAST (in the best possible way – I’ve never had more fun with a piece of music gear!)
There was a particular issue I was struggling with that I figured out on my own by connecting what I had learned from YouTube and a random nugget on a message board. I couldn’t find a YouTube video explaining it (and I had suffered many hours figuring it out) so I decided to make a YouTube video myself to save others the trouble I went through: “Using a MIDI device (Morningstar MC6 Pro) as a multi-effects pedal using ASSIGN on the Roland Boss RC-600”:
I’m spending a lot less time on social media these days to avoid the toxicity but making this YouTube video reminded me that if I want the Internet to be better, I can choose to participate in making the Internet that I want — and that Internet is populated by people trying to make music in their basements, bedrooms, and garages and the Good Samaritans who make lo-fi instructional videos to help them do it. If I help just one person get to the joyful experience of making music a little more quickly with this video, it’s worth it.
(Quick musical update while we’re here: Way back in 2019 / 2020, I wrote about what I had learned taking piano lessons after six months and one year. Well, I’m still at it. Four years later, I’ve continued lessons — adding guitar as well — and also completed eight college-level music classes at Berklee Online with coursework in everything from ear training to improvisation to music theory to piano performance to producing music with Logic. I put a band together — named Humbled by the Void in tribute to the late David Berman — for a party and we played a six-song set. And yes, there’s a Soundcloud. It’s all been life-changing and awesome for this now 51-year-old.)
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