Tonight, ten years ago, Rosetta practiced for the first time. Happy birthday.

Anonymous asked: I did try to find the answer to this question but couldn't. I know your guitar is tuned to drop A# (Bb). So what is the lowest string on your bass then, since it is no 5 string I might suspect a regular half step down (with D#, Eb as the lowest tone). Am I correct? Sorry for asking such a basic question, but it's something that interests me as someone who plays super low tuned guitars (8string). thank you very very much.

The bass is tuned to C-standard. Standard tuning, 2 whole steps down.

Anonymous asked: Will your future releases be more Heavy/Sludgey, Progressive, or Ambient/Atmospheric oriented?

We’ll let other people be the judge of that, when those releases come out. We’ve started to think of each release as having its own self-contained personality, so there will be more sonic distinction between them. Our new EP has lots of spacey instrumental stuff and is generally quieter and more melodic than other releases. But the new full length, written at basically the same time, is confrontational and much more dissonant than previous releases.

If one of our previous releases is in your personal top 5 or whatever, then the new stuff might actually be frustrating to you. If you’re more in the “wonder what’s coming next?” camp, then they should be pretty exciting.

Anonymous asked: I recently heard several rumors on the net that you guys have split up and that a determinism of morality will be your last album. I really hope this isn't the case, is it? If not, are you considering coming back to Europe to tour again? I caught you last year in Prague and you all kicked ass!

That is hilarious. In fact, we have not one but THREE releases in the works right now (EP, LP, and a split) and as far as I know, nobody is leaving. It’s even possible that a band member started this rumor to troll people.

That being said, we did go through a couple of messy breakups with our old vans. It was ugly and full of drama.

We’ll come back to Europe sooner or later. Probably sooner. Our booking guy emails us once a week about it.

Anonymous asked: I personally love listening to CD of Galillean Satellites in conjunction with albums of Tim Hecker. any other ambient artists which you think might do the trick?

Thomas Köner. Matt’s favorite.

flossyflex asked: Does Rosetta believe that the social media fueled post-millennial rise of narcissism has a negative effect on the underground music scene?

LOLLLL (not derisive, good question)

Well yeah, it has a negative effect on everything, and that includes music. Everyone’s entitled and more interested in constructing themselves than in a creative give-and-take. Everyone’s a diva. Given that most people do their best work in collaboration with other people, that’s bad for creativity generally.

Oh, and is there actually an underground music scene? This is not intended as a mockery of your question… it’s more to suggest that maybe the fact that we’re all internet-dwelling narcissists means that there is no “scene” anymore anyway. Reason being: “scene” is an intrinsically local concept — it’s in the definition of the word. A music scene used to be something that you had in your town. Now it’s “the scene” abstracted out to everywhere, including every non-major-label band everywhere. At the same time, it also connoted some sort of community in its locality, but with everyone just living online and preening all day long, that element isn’t really there anymore either.

It’s worth asking whether “virtual community” might be an oxymoron. Maybe what’s missing these days isn’t some abstract set of human character traits, but simply physical proximity to each other, with all the character-building and decency that requires.

andmedpin asked: Guys I really enjoy your music! damn! you play pretty loud, haha. I play in a band and we're trying to get a post rock-metal sound. Would you recommend a few pedals that you like?

We’re not big boutique pedal users. Most of Matt’s stuff is standard Boss gear with some creative signal routing. Anything “weird” is usually stuff that he built. Dave’s pedals are also fairly traditional — just an MXR analog delay and an EH reverb pedal, with the Fender SubLime Fuzz in the mix more recently.

raid-aereo asked: Matt, I noticed that in recent pictures you've been using a V4 in place of the Model T. What prompted this change and how are you liking it? Also, how do you run the heads together, pre-amp out of one into the power-amp in of the other? Thanks

The Model T wasn’t cutting it in terms of power — it was having trouble keeping up with the Marshall TSL. My TSL has been modified heavily and actually puts out 135W clean before clipping, and has a significant midrange bump that makes it seem louder than its power rating would indicate. The T reissue does about exactly 100W under optimal conditions, and has a very dark tonal response — so it was almost impossible to get it to seem as loud as the Marshall. It’s a fun amp in its own right and was wasted in a power slave role.

The V4 is a stopgap measure, since it also makes about exactly 100W clean. The advantage of the V4 is that it has a very flat/neutral tone stack (a James-Baxandall, which is not mid-scooped at midpoint), so it can be fed from the front of the amp, instead of the FX return. The tone controls can be used to tailor the frequency response to match the Marshall’s mid bump, which results in greater perceived headroom and power.

The V4 is about to be replaced by the Atomium Model B head, which has a frequency response very similar to the Marshall and puts out 145W before clipping.

You can find a lot more info about these amps and my work on the Atomium Tumblr.

Anonymous asked: Hey, I was wondering, as I never saw it asked earlier, is main topic of The Galilean Satellites 2001: Space Odyssey or am I over-interpreting it? I would even go as far as reading "A day of red light" as company of HAL ;)

No, Armine wrote all the lyrics for TGS before he had seen or read 2001: A Space Odyssey. Moreover, the focus on Europa comes in the later novels of that series. Matt had read the books and pointed out some of the coincidental resemblances after TGS was recorded. So Project Mercury and later works included many intentional references to the series (Clavius, the TMAs, etc.).