2026

Welp.. Happy New Year!! 2025 was definitely one for the books considering how much work I was able to release. This year I'll be continuing to focus on a lot of my musical endeavors. Here's what I got going on:

1. The Yamaha MT8X
I've finally found an 8 Track Cassette Recorder that was in great condition at a reasonbable price. Did a short test with it the other day and it seems like it's ready to go. This unit will be the offical recording unit for LST LVS personal projects from here on out. I have some ideas that I'm going to be drawing out in the next few weeks that will hopefully see some light for 2026. Stay tuned for that

2. Yamaha CP
I finally got a keyboard that could keep me away from using some free VST software for my DAW. Now that I have this keyboard I'm able to connect it to my guitar hero guitar to do some midi connection and write the riffs I wanted to write with no restrictions. This has been such a great addition for the setup that I'm now off the market for a keyboard. This is all I need

3. SP-303 & SP-404 MKII
Last year I started dipping my toes into sample based recording. When I inititally bought the SP-303 I wanted to see how the workflow felt using something archaic than the new samplers we have today. I exclusively want to sample from cassettes and have been bringing this unit to work to sample from cassettes I bought from SAVERS. Intially this was just to get the exercise of capturing samples a certain way, but at this point I'm realizing that this workflow helps keep my mind fresh on how I work on sampling and to figure out new ways to record.

4. Recording Projects
I think I'm going to be going full steam ahead writing and recording this year. Not sure how many releases will be in the chamber, but I have a couple planned. There's a collaboration that I can't really speak on just yet, a couple of tapes and maybe tracks that I can one off for you all to enjoy. I want to keep the practice of writing and releasing stuff just so I can see it out in the world.

5. Photo Editing
This year will be the year I'll finally take the editing of scanned photos serious. I'm going to be doing my best not to shoot as much and focus primarily on the editing side of photography. I've shot enough work and I think that it needs to be displayed somewhere. I don't know where, but somewhere and somehow.

... and that's where I'm realizing the artistic direction is chaning. I've shot so much, but edited so little that I forgot that the meaning of photography (at least in my end of it) is to shoot and edit your work and not just SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT all the fucking time. I'm beginning to realize that the camera is fading away in interest and I'm slowly wanting to just dive in on the other side of editing the work and cleaning up what I got. I have to be good and I have to let that side of me be in full focus. Photography has not been that attractive for awhile and I think there's that shift that I'm beginning to understand with others who had faded from it all these years.

I have a lot going on this year that will require a lot of time at home rather than go out and I'm okay with that. With the time I have to record these days I'm going to be doing my best to write as much as I can this year. Pretty excited man.


- Arthur (B)

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What a Year

As a creative I've been on my bag on the music stuff. Not so much on the photography game, but I'm finding myself letting photography sort of rest a bit. I have some New Years Resolutions that will involve me doing something different with photography that I'm actually excited about. It will make more sense once I get the ball rolling.

This release was a fun one as I continued my high as an observer of Japan. It felt new, but it also felt like home and I cannot even tell you how happy I was to experience that, let alone, be able to write about it in the musical sense. It was cool writing those drum scripts in JP and be able to bring that experience home. I'm forever grateful to my wife and best friend that we got a chance to experience that together. I'm definitely wanting to go back and this time I'll learn the language a bit lol. This was recorded on a Tascam 424.





Quite Life Vol II was released a few months after Japan Scripts and this release was just one of those "I feel like writing and release something" type of thing. And Quite Life series is kind of that concept. Of course its a reaction practice of Olympus Pen F images that I've taken over the years and deciding how I want the direction of the work go with the image that I decide to choose as a front cover. This was also recorded on a Tascam 424.





Probably my messiest recording yet. "Age 40 - 1985" is a coming of age record lol, but it defined a lot of what I was dealing with for the last few years being able to have stability and realizing that my life is loud in my head, but quiet outside. A lot has changed over the years and with the realization that my writing has gotten tighter after this record gave me a better perspective as to how I'm going to continue to make music. I'm happy about a lot of things and to be able to melodically express this musically was cathartic, but frustrating at the same time. I realized that making a full length record is tough and you have to take time to make sure the songs you write fit in the mold. Being that this was a recording diary for the last few years a lot of takes needed to be scrapped, some saved, angles of songs needed to be reviewed and order of songs needed to be placed carefully. I don't know if I'll be going through this approach again writing, but it did give me some idea of how I want to approach the next recordings. I love this record despite it being so flawed and it being my first full length release. This was recorded on REAPER DAW (godlike DAW for indie musicians like myself)





This is the final release of the year for me and it was a collaboration with my brother Daniel Dominguez. This was set to release late last year, but due to the fires in the Palisades along with contract market negotiations that LIKHA was trying to sort out the record did not release until late this year. To be honest I hated the fact that this was a thing with a record that Daniel and I had created, but to try out a different avenue for release I had to stay patient and let it rock when it was ready to go. This is the original cover for the record. When you search for this record on streaming platforms you'll see totally different font.
We had to comply to the LIKHA version of it if we were going to see some type of "in" towards the commercial industry. Even on some of the posts regarding the record release LIKHA had done this weird AI attachment that I did not like at all. I understand they're doing a lot for us, but at this point I think I'm going to continue to release music independently with Daniel for the forseeable future. I need control of the work we complete. I don't want to compromise and I want to stick to the direction for this next record collab we will do soon. This was recorded on REAPER DAW and passed back and forth with Daniel via Email.


(==========)


I'm thinking next year I'll be doing much of the same, but on a much higher altitude. There are some things I'm wanting to do differently. I have some projects I'll be doing next year that I won't discuss quite yet. In the meantime I'm going to be living off the high that I've been able to accomplish much of the work I've dedicated this whole year. Being prolific is to be imaginative and being imaginative is to be open. I love being an artist and I think I'll keep that going until I can't no more.

- Arthur (LST LVS)

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Gear

"So... I'm gonna kinda geek out a bit and talk about gear I bought."

Just recently I acquired two pedals to update my current setup. They are the Boss IR-2 and the JHS 424.

For a few years I've been using the VOX Stomplab IG as an amp modeler for all the recordings that have been released. The idea of using this piece of gear is to eliminate having to use any microphone setups which would take up recording time. When I realized that this recording setup was effective I started to play around with other ideas on how I optimize it looking through amp modeler type of units. I've given up using plugins and software to get specific sounds. When I watched an interview with Mac Demarco for Ernie Ball I realized that his approach to recording was simple and straight to the point inspiring me to have that same approach. I wanted to control more of the onboard gear than the software (and anyway my laptop is pretty damn old so I'm not gonna even try to add a bunch of plugins and software that may cause it to die).

I want to train my hearing rather than looking at a computer for specific frequencies. I want to turn knobs and get color that way. Honestly I let the mastering producers take care of the bigger sound these days.I'm hoping soon I could acquire a Tascam 488 or a Tascam 688 and record records with that setup alone and use on board gear for most of the recording processes. Obviously I want to have the DAW on the tuck for certain things, but I want to be able to explore recording on tape more than ever. I think I love having the analog process be more triumphant than the digital.


So the Boss IR-2 is going to be used in the newest productions here on out until I find another unit that will suit my needs as a player. I bought this specific unit for the crunchy emulation alone as I'm more keen to having dirty sound on my recordings. On top of that I want to be able to put other pedals behind it to sort of enhance the experience. I may need to get a compressor pedal to sort of accenuate certain frequencies.

During some tests using the Baritone guitar the output of sound was definitely worth spending the money on the unit. With the slightly dirty settings of the Tweed and even the Diamond selection the sound really came out man. I'm already figuring out how I want to make specific riffs for this sound and am excited to see what else I can mix with the guitar.



The JHS 424 pedal just recently came out and being the Mk.gee fan I am I’ve realized that most of the sounds he was making from raw 424 preamps blended well for the recordings I was making for the “Age 40 - 1985” record. With Mk.gee he was able to craft the specific sound that I’ve been wanting to capture to incorporate with the slightly dirty sounds when played soft and this distorted break up when played hard.

Honestly he's the reason why I look at the Baritone a different way. In fact I gravitate towards that instrument more along with my Squire Bass VI. In the beginning the Baritone guitar was a bit of a struggle to work with, but putting in flatwounds that were both from the Bass VI sets and regular flatwounds I'm able to play it the way I envisioned it: finger style most times, but with thumbpick strum on some heavy chords for dynamics.

Right now I'm starting to write some riffs with Nicole from One Hundred Year Ocean and have been compiling riffs that could potentially be melodic and heavy at the same time. I'm going to be using these new pieces of gear to see if the sound I'm going after would create the vision I'm chasing after. Maybe if this project works out (and hopefully it does) that I can officially be in a band with some who has been a big influence in my work as well.

Using the Stomplab IG def helped provide a foundation of how I wanted to make certain sounds on my recordings, but I realized that there is a bit of a limitation being that the patches don’t necessarily have space to tweak certain frequencies. It was kinda difficult to dial in sometimes since it is patched based. The latitude to make any changes was a bit of a challenge. I’m hoping that this unit will allow me to dial in specific tones for specific guitar sounds I want to make and journal that as reference.

That's all for now! Thank you all for checking out the record. I really appreciate it!

- Arthur

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