Suddenly this week everyone is talking about BlueSky, for some reason.
I signed up there ages ago as a possible alternative to Twitter (RIP), which was becoming less and less fun (for some reason).
Sadly there just weren't enough people talking about music production, audio technology, mastering and sound engineering to hold my interest back then. I tried Threads instead, which was OK but just seemed like more of the same algorithmic content that I was already seeing on Instagram and Facebork.
And now suddenly, almost overnight, everyone is trying BlueSky, for some reason...!
It's full of musicians, recording engineers, music producers, mixers, mastering engineers and more.
Honestly, it's really good fun. Loads of great people, no algorithm deciding what it thinks you're interested in, some innovative features and no aggressively promoted stuff you'd never normally choose to look at. It's great !
But because there's no algorithm, it can also be a little slow to get up to speed with. Finding people is a bit clunky, the search is often a bit hit or miss, and it's easy to get discouraged before you've even had a chance to get started.
So I'm putting this post up to try and help with that. If you've been wondering what all the fuss is about, and want to find some interesting people to follow and look at quickly while you give BluSky a try, here you go !
Dead easy, it's the same as any other social media site – either download the App or click here and follow the instructions. For more detail, try this post. One minor difference is that you get the option to choose a "Hosting Provider" when you're choosing a username – just go with the default, "BlueSky Social". Make sure you add a profile pic and some kind of Description – these are the things most people will look at when deciding whether to Follow you or not.
You'll have been suggested some accounts to follow based on your interests during sign-up, but back when I first tried it they weren't especially relevant to me – maybe you'll have more luck ! Even better though is a BlueSky feature called Starter Packs. Anyone can make these, they're basically just lists of people and Feeds you're suggesting that other people might like to follow.
If you're short of time there's a "Follow All" button at the top of every pack, or if you prefer you can scroll down the list looking at people's Description and pic – remember those ?! And you can also click the "Posts" tab to preview what kind of thing you'll see in your feed if you follow everybody in the pack.
So hopefully you can see how cool Starter Packs are, by now. They aren't super-easy to find at the moment, though – they show on people's profiles but not in Search, for some reason. So, here are some of my favourite music & audio suggestions to get you started:
Music & Audio People Starter Pack
This is my first Starter Pack, which I'm constantly updating, and includes a somewhat arbitrary collection of interesting people I've found - musicians, music producers, recording engineers, mixers, mastering engineers... anyone involved with making, recording, mixing, mastering, producing or just talking about music !
Here are some more focused options:
Film, TV & Soundtrack Engineers
Plus some related packs by other people that I found:
Some people have put together multiple Starter Packs sorted by category – Sean in particular. You can find them all on his profile page, but here are a few I found particularly useful:
Music Magazines, Website, Blogs, Podcasts, etc
I don't know what the size limit on a Starter Pack is yet, but florgoth has hit it - 36 times over already. So if you go to the Starter Pack tab of his profile page, you'll find over 2800 bands and musicians on BlueSky - more than enough to get started !
Who is florgoth ? I have no idea but his profile Description says he's a
he/him cuddly metalhead "boss-level sweetheart of a sound bastard"
See how important those are, now ?!?
Custom Feeds are another cool feature of BlueSky. They're a bit like hashtags but more, specifically tailored to collect interesting posts from people talking about specific topics. They're still quite quirky and off-topic, though – and more fun because of it, hopefully !
You can go straight to the Feeds tab on your profile and search for topics that interest you, but before you do, here are some of mine you might like to try:
Music and Audio People – talking about recording, mixing and all aspects of audio and music production
Mixing – Mixing engineers and others talking about mixing music and audio
Music Production – music producers and others talking about music production
Audio Mastering – People talking about audio mastering, mastering music, audio restoration and more
Music Tech – People talking about mics, mixers, recording gear, plugins, DAWs and more
The cool thing about these is that they're custom feeds, meaning I can tweak what shows up in them. So for example rather than just following the #mastering hashtag (which includes posts on all kinds of other topics apart from music and audio mastering), my mastering Feed tries to sift out only the most relevant posts, and can combine multiple lists of users and hashtags, exclude posts that include certain keywords etc... it's a bit like trying to build your own algorithm !
Anyway, give them a try and let me know what you think - I'm still messing with them, so apologies if I break them every so often.
You can choose to follow multiple feeds, which are available on your profile tab, or add your favourites directly to your homepage for easy access, just like Lists - all without having to follow a ton of extra people if you don't want to.
I've also started making a few Lists, which are similar to Starter Packs but more flexible - you can pin them to your Home page for quick access without having to actually follow everyone. Click the About tab for a List to see who is included.
Mastering Engineers on BlueSky
Music Technology people on BlueSky
Music and audio people on BlueSky - even more people than in the Starter Pack !
There's a load of other stuff you can do with BlueSky but this is only supposed to be a quick-start guide...
Hopefully by now your feed is full of interesting and fun music and audio posts for you to interact with, so jump in and start talking !
The more I use BlueSky, the more I appreciate the complete lack of algorithmic control. It takes more time and effort to get started, and to find the people you want to connect with, but once you get into the swing of things, it grows organically - just like the original Twitter. The problem with platforms that try to figure out what you want to see is that they prioritise showing us all the stuff that they think other people want to see... meaning we all end up seeing the same stuff over and over again. The number of times I've shared a meme I think my kids would like to see only to realise they've already been shown it...
After only a short time paying proper attention on BlueSky, I'm re-connecting with all kinds of people I used to know back in the early days of Twitter, and finding all kinds of interesting new people I'd never have found anywhere else. I'm still in a bubble, but at least it's a bubble I control !
If you found this helpful please share it with people you know, and come and say Hello on BlueSky – you can find me here. Enjoy !
