Monday VOM | Tuesday Open Spark | Sunday Music City | Facebook | Zoom Technical Info | past photos and videos | ABOUT THE VIDEOS AND PHOTOS
ALL ARE WELCOME – NO HATE SPEECH.
Music City Open Mic
Monday night VOM
12/24 - Christmas Eve w Fold Up Your Chairs.
Music City Open Mic
Monday night VOM
12/31 - It Goes Past 11, New Year's Eve Open Mic
rob's VOM (Virtual Open Mic) - Every Monday 7-9.30pm ET
Current Open Mic Sign-up Sheets
A “Virtual Open Mic” online is a LOT different from running a physical one at coffeeshop or bar. There is a base level of technical savvy required, performance is different and it can require a lot more preparation! Because of this ALL signups are in advance and we encourage first-timers to drop in early so we can make sure settings and sound are as good as they can be!
Tuesdays Takoma Park Open Spark
7112 Willow Ave., Takoma Park, MD 20912 | signup at 6.30pm, music at 7pm
This is the rarest of all things – a listening room open mic!
Sponsored in conjunction with Institute of Musical Traditions and School of Musical Traditions at SMT’s new lesson space in Takoma Park, we’ve got a small room for performances and we’re not afraid to use it. This is NOT a restaurant so bring your own food or drink if you want to eat or drink! (no alcohol please, and of course please clean up after yourself). House keyboard in the house. The night is free to attend, but we hope that you’ll support our featured artist with tips and adoration. Scroll back to the top of this page for our next feature…
We’re not big enough for amps or drumkits, so don’t bring’em. 2 songs, 10 minutes, 1 pun – whichever’s shorter. Webcasting Live on Facebook.com/robsopenmics, YouTube.com/robsopenmics and Twitch.tv/ilyaimy.
Sunday Music City Open Mic.Sunday
(new night as of February 2024)
Sunday Night Music City Open Mic.
Morsbergers 713 Frederick Rd, Catonsville, MD, 21228 | signup at 6.30pm, music at 7pm
2 songs or 10 minutes whichever’s shorter. Signup in person, list goes out at 6.30pm. (this open mic REPLACES the Outdoor Ellicott City Open Mic, at least for the hawt, sweaty, thunderstorm season!)
In 2002 Catonsville got declared “Music City, MD” because of the “because of the concentration of musical retail stores and educational facilities in the area”. Well, how about an open mic? I’ll be set up for up to 3-piece acts generally, but please contact me at least a day in advance if there’s something WEIRD about your set up! rob@ilyaimy.com.
The Fiddly Bits.
**IF you are playing with an instrument or background tracks do the following**
On any platform, generally all of this is smoother if you use headphones.
o On a computer (updated 9/30/24)
Make sure your Zoom install is current, (and things are always changing) so things may look different! Also, headphones generally simplify EVERYTHING!
1. In Zoom go to your Audio Settings by clicking the little arrow next to your mute / unmute button in the lower left hand corner of the meeting. (Before the meeting you can find this by clicking on your profile pic in the application, clicking settings and “audio”)
2. You can pick your speaker and microphone here and test them both to make sure they’re working.
3. Audio Profile : Please select “Original Sound for musicians”. Beneath that if you are wearing headphones, UNCHECK “Echo cancellation”. If you choose NOT not to wear headphones, though Zoom’s doing a pretty good job nowadays, leaving Echo cancellation checked can cause audio drop outs and weird sonic artifacts, but SHOULD avoid feedback and echoes. “High fidelity music mode” should be checked if you’ve got a decent internet connection (20mpbs or greater). Check “stereo” if you’re webcasting in stereo. If you don’t know, don’t click it! (note that “stereo” is different from “having two audio channels!)
4. We recommend in the “Advanced” section you also select “Signal processing” “raw” and echo cancellation to be set to “auto”. Please note that on some manufacturer’s devices there can be additional noise cancelation functionality – testing and google are our friends!
5. Close your Settings and in the upper right-hand corner “Original Sound For Musicians: Off” should now appear. Click it so that it says “Original Sound For Musicians : On” when you play. If you’re all chatting together and you’re not wearing headphones, turn it back off. Basically “on” for playing, “off” for talking.
There are plenty of tips and tricks to this, but those are the basics! Show up at 6.30pm ET and we can talk about it – or more importantly LISTEN!
o On a mobile device
1. BEFORE YOU JOIN THE MEETING in your app go to your settings (cogwheel in the upper left hand corner)
2. Go to Meeting and switch “Use Original Audio” ON.
3. Once in the meeting in the lower right hand corner click “…” more and click “Enable Original Sound”
IN ANY CASE : Have fun!
If you’ve attended any of my open mics you’ll realize I’m running around with my camera all the time, and there’s probably a couple of video cameras scattered around the room. Click here for more information on YOUR video and photos and acquiring them. For some events (as of this writing, Takoma Spark) I’m Live streaming, and for others (currently the Music City Open Mic) videos are uploaded later, but I’m doing this for three reasons!
1) Advertisement of the Open Mic : of COURSE I want more people to know about the open mic nights, and SHOWING people how awesome they are is the best way!
2) For artists’ use! I want any artist who plays one of my open mics to come away not just feeling like they’ve been part of a cool night of music, but also to have all the little fiddly bits THEY need to book shows. That means a couple of Live shots and a video of them performing Live. YOU ARE WELCOME to use photos and videos taken of you for your own purposes. If you can, please leave my watermark or give me credit, but honestly, this is to help our local music community, go forth and conquer! (info on finding and sharing your video / photo)
3) Even if your performance isn’t your best, these videos are here for a third purpose : so we can learn about our performance. Sometimes the video shows you were way better than you thought. Honestly, sometimes the inverse… but the ONLY way to learn how we sound and look from the outside is through video of our performance. Use this as a learning tool to get better and better!
IF YOU WANT TO FIND “YOUR” PERFORMANCE AND SHARE IT:
The photos are all here on ilyAIMY.com (you can click on “Past Open Mics” under “rob’s Open Mics” in the top menu). There’s also a search function in the top menu. Put your name in there! I generally record the names as they appear on my list, so “Kate B Penbleeds” might sometimes just be “Kate B”. This should bring up entries by date. Videos are embedded in those pages. On www.youtube.com/robsopenmics you can also search your name or by date. To share YOUR performance, simply find your performance, click “share” and check the little box that says “start at ____”. This might take some trial-and-error, but will get your fans and friends where you want them to go pretty quickly!
IF YOU WANT A CUSTOM PHOTO, VIDEO OR AUDIO MIX : I’m happy to “cut out” and remix your video (different cuts) and audio (I record everything multi-track). I generally ask for $25 for a song, or $40 for your set. This includes giving them opening title and credit cards. I might ask for more if you brought me something really complicated (full band), but for most artists this is fine. If you want a photo, unwatermarked, you’re welcome to that too, just tip me! Contact me at rob@ilyaimy.com or 301.910.2575 for details. Please note: I can’t keep the data forever, I generally only have all the tracks and video for the last month or two of open mics!
And of COURSE – I’m just one rob. Sometimes photos or videos or audio glitches, gets lost, or I don’t press “record”. If I screw something up, please come back and we’ll try to get it right!