A nice moment in Stay, petting Ember! pretty cute and we're figuring out how to pet her on flat screen (it's going well!) #indiegamedev #indiegame #gamedevelopment

Shout out to @acidtedblog.bsky.social Ambient Sunday mention of Stay Vol 2 this weekend! Cool music blog if you haven't checked it out - acidted.wordpress.com/2026/02/22/a...

Another big week for Ember 🐾💛 She’s been watching the wishlist count grow for Stay: Your Forever Pet on Steam! If cozy companion games are your thing, come join us, you might meet new friends along the way. store.steampowered.com/app/4385270/... #Indie #CozyGames #SteamWishlist #PetGame

Thanks Alt77 for dropping a nice review of the Stay Vol 2 soundtrack! alt77.com/dren-mcdonal... #indiemusic #musicsky #indiegame #indiegamedev #indiegamedevelopment #gamedev #gamedevelopment

Thanks York Calling for the thoughtful review on my soundtrack! yorkcalling.co.uk/2026/02/20/w... #indiegame #indiegamedev #musicsky #indiemusic #gamedev

Please wishlist and help Ember grow into her new home on Steam and Steam Deck! This feels like a homecoming after starting my indie career on Steam, then working in VR for 10+ years. Proud of the team -- a huge milestone for us! store.steampowered.com/app/4385270/...

My indie game team is bringing our virtual pet to PC and Steamdeck - Stay: Your Forever Pet! Get ready to adopt Ember later this year in Early Access! Help us by wishlisting and sharing. I *promise* you - she's a very good girl. Mostly. store.steampowered.com/app/4385270/... 100% made by hoomans.

What started as Stay: Forever Home in VR is growing! Stay: Your Forever Pet is coming to Steam for PC & Steam Deck at launch, with VR planned later. Our Steam page is live. Wishlisting helps our small team more than you know. #Steam #SteamGames #WishlistNow store.steampowered.com/app/4385270/...

NEWS: Our VR pet simulator game is coming to Steam so you can enjoy Ember on a PC/Steamdeck soon! It would be extraordinary if you could help out & wishlist the game at the Steam page store.steampowered.com/app/4385270/... thank you! #indiegamedev #indiegame #gamedev #cozygame #gamedevelopment

Love to see praise for both Sophia James and Amelie Anna's vocal work in my latest soundtrack - nice review here that acknowledges their wonderfulness www.obscuresound.com/2026/02/dren... #indegame #gamedev #indiemusic #musicsky

Nice review of Stay Vol 2 soundtrack up here - tunitemusic.com/post/stay-fo...

New release: Vol 2 of the Stay: Forever Home soundtrack (Cozy) this one is the ambient/chill music from the game music.apple.com/us/album/sta... In Atmos on Apple/Tidal feat. Sophia James & Amelie Anna on vox #musicsky #ambientmusic #gamemusic #indiegame #indiemusic #ambient

💘✨ Valentine’s Update is live! ❤️ New Valentine’s cosmetics to celebrate the season 🔧 Small quality-of-life upgrades throughout the game 🐞 Bug fixes and overall stability improvements Join our Discord to help shape the game!: discord.gg/H5QtNyDXJt #VRGaming #StayForeverHome #IndieGaming

I released Vol. 2 of the Stay: Forever Home "Cozy" soundtrack a week early on BC before streaming. Sophia James & Amelie Anna on vocals. Early pricing is only $2 #musicsky #indiemusic #gamedev drenmcdonald.bandcamp.com/album/stay-f...

It's bandcamp artist day so I pushed out Vol. 2 of the Stay: Forever Home "Cozy" soundtrack a week earlier on BC before streaming. drenmcdonald.bandcamp.com/album/stay-f... Essentially an ambient record, it features Sophia James & Amelie Anna on vocals. Early pricing is only $2 #musicsky #indiemusic

@stay-forever-home.com has been nominated for Rufftalk VR's MR game of the year! It's been an intense year for...well, everyone. Which is why I'm proud we brought to life something loveable: Ember, our virtual pet. Show Ember that you know she's a good girl! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

There's a joke about the best way to record a banjo...throw it in the ocean and record something else (paraphrased) but this week I used the Samar AL95 ribbon mic to record tenor banjo & it was terrific (thru a GreatRiver pre + 1176)

This screenshot is from the WarmAudio site re: the WA-2MPX I just replaced the tubes in mine as there was a nosy tube somewhere & noticed the TungSol 12ax7 is in there, but it's where the 12Au7 should be & the other chinese tubes are ECC83 (essentially 12ax7) so stock, it's really 3 12ax7s per ch?

One of the collaborators on my upcoming record is Oakland's own Marica Petrey, known as GirlSwallowsNightingale. She's quite talented/brilliant & the world will be a better place w/ her nu record in it if you can help her out www.gofundme.com/f/help-maric...

Did the deluge of audio plugin/black friday sale emails finally let up a little bit today? I think that maybe they did! Admittedly I had been waiting for Auto Align 2 to go on sale, and it did, so I got that one, but I don't think I need any more warm vintage vibe EQs/compressors

Xmas gift to me, the new Soyuz dynamic mic. Auditioned it last night with gtr amp & voice. Very detailed for a dynamic w/a 441 vibe to it. Looking forward to pairing it up with other mics on gtr cabs and horns. Bari gtr thru a 15" should sound great w/ this too! #micnerd #microphones

Just submitted my Grammy ballot finally, & I'll say it again but I really wish I could trade in my general category votes for more specialized category votes. I won't ever make an informed decision between badbunny/kendrick/bieber et al...but I could've weighed in on classical/engineering etc

Hiya and Happy End of 2025, let's all make some musicsoundstuff in 2026! #musicsky #redrum

Happy Holidays from Windup Minds! 🎄 As you know some of our team helped create Bogo, and to honor its legacy, and thank you for supporting Stay and Ember, we’ve got a little surprise. 🎁 Open the game on 12/25 - 1/5 for a special gift! #MetaQuest #VirtualReality Thank you!

I've merged channels/topics on YT so all of my music is in 1 official ch. it's interesting as YT also reports on all of the other videos that use my music in Shorts etc. This month's featured video from my polyheDren record - a tune w/ the wonderful Iva Bittová youtu.be/t7HiZk2NTLo?...

The pedal setup up being used today with fretless bass for Vol. 2 of the Stay: Forever Home soundtrack. Some tunes need a little glue/extending/low end etc to be enjoyed in a soundtrack context...I used to have an og CE-1 and this Warm version is a GREAT repro. #indiemusic #indiegame #indiegamedev

50% Off! Stay: Forever Home is on sale for a limited time! No better time to check out our new winter update! Meet Ember Today! vr.meta.me/s/26mms7ERBP... Join our Community! discord.gg/H5QtNyDXJt #VRGaming #MetaQuest #Dogs #Sale

Super happy to see Sophia James get a lot of attention, cuz she's an amazing musician - she sings on my Stay: Forever Home soundtrack & on my upcoming record. Am I in #Group7 yet? www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...

Winter season is here! New scenes, costumes, and resources! Be sure to login on Christmas day for a special surprise! We will share more details about the surprise soon! vr.meta.me/s/26mms7ERBP... Join our Community! discord.gg/H5QtNyDXJt #VRGaming #MetaQuest #Dogs

I have set up a store where I've made some CDs/LPs available for ("Ray Bloody") PURCHASE (for cheap) - some of these haven't been available before as I'd only had a limited amount for promotion etc. dren-mcdonald-music-merchandise-emporium.myshopify.com

🖤 Black Friday Deal! Grab Stay: Forever Home for 40% off with code BFCM25. The Winter Update is just around the corner, so it’s the perfect time to jump in! ❄️🐾 meta.com/experiences/... Join the community! discord.gg/H5QtNyDXJt

Pedestrian is now on the Vevo channel on YT for your viewing and listening enjoyment. Video was directed/shot/edited by my son (currently a college film major) www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXhy...

Lily Bloom has a new record out tidal.com/album/475116... A wonderful artist - she guests on my upcoming record as well. Anyhow, give it a spin!

Pedestrian is on Bandcamp now w/ a video (directed by my son!) drenmcdonald.bandcamp.com/track/pedest... In preparing the BC release, I also discovered this great BC writeup on Supercollider (this is their tune I covered) link in first comment.

Pedestrian has a video too, directed/shot/edited by my son (film major in college currently) - here's the AppleMusic link but it will be elsewhere soon music.apple.com/us/music-vid... #musicsky #indiemusic #indiemusicvideo

My cover of Supercollider's "Pedestrian" from the early 90s is out today on streaming (in Atmos on Apple and Tidal), a whole lot of guitar and vocal layers...video should be out later today, will update. #musicsky #indiemusic #musicproducer #90s Supercollider were pals & one of my favorite bands!

there appears to be a lot of magic in this box...the Ebow helps invoke said magic...will be putting several sources thru this today! #dreammachine #guitarpedals #pedals #knobs #audioexperiments

🍂🎃 Cozy fall vibes + spooky new Ember costumes! Download on Meta Free Trial and see for yourself! www.meta.com/experiences/... Join our Discord to learn more! discord.gg/H5QtNyDXJt #VRGaming #GameDev #StayForeverHome

My cover of Supercollider's "Pedestrian" (all 7 minutes of it) is available to presave on yer preferred service (BC coming soon) & on Tidal/AppleMusic it comes in Stereo & Atmos/Spatial ffm.to/j7y7a2z.bio

A new single on its way! music.apple.com/us/album/ped... There will be a music video as well as Atmos mix. A cover of Supercollider's "Pedestrian", one of my favorite bands from the LBC/LA 90s scene (they also did a great Residents cover for my Eyesore tribute comp). Also I sing on this one #muicsky

BUSY w/ a lot of projects but the next thing coming is a single/music video (that my son directed/edited) I'm doing a series of singles this year that are more 'songlike' (lyrics, vox, verses etc) & this will be the 1st. This song originally recorded by Supercollider, friends from 90s LA scene

Tell Congress to support the LWMA: actionnetwork.org/letters/tell...

Just so someone says it, the new Spinal Tap movie is truly laugh out loud funny, i was crying from laughter. So many little subtle jokes (nigel has a gtr with a 6 or 8 coil pickup?! but no one discusses), a lot of inside musician humor. Really worth a trip to the theater! #spinaltap #stonehenge

Hi, everyone. As you probably know, NPR lost its federal funding this year. So NPR Music is trying something new to keep the music playing: Tiny Desk Donations on YouTube. If you’ve ever enjoyed our little series that could, please consider showing your support 2day: www.youtube.com/live/Q2CW9TZ...

Amazing concept of a cave with Ember lighting the way, one of the amazing things that came out of our teams Game Jam. Check out the whole display in our Discord. Windupminds.com/discord #VR #indiegames #StayForeverHome

A form vs. function issue I guess? These @chasebliss.bsky.social devices are great but complex & I can't read the tiny fonts w/low contrast & i'm not willing to use bright white lights in the studio. I love my label makers (yes, I have 2) & use them on everything!

Mic maintanence day today - the Lauten Audio Oceanus needed it's tubes (yes, plural) replaced and it's shock mount needed new bands - really needed the new bands, look at how stretched out the old ones are! I use this mic a lot (as well as the Lauten Clarion) love them both!

Stay: Forever Home – Update 3 is live! 👗 Ember’s new summer outfits are here! ❗Free Trial Currently in Testing and Available to some users Today! 🛠️ Behind-the-scenes fixes & performance upgrades www.meta.com/experiences/... Now’s a great time to jump in 🐾💛 #VRGaming #MetaQuest #CozyGames

Happy Texas Chainsaw Massacre Day!

RockThePIgeon just posted a very thoughtful review of the STAY soundtrack! Thanks RockThePigeon! Also the game is currently 25% off right now rockthepigeon.com/2025/08/16/d...