MY CD, FREE

jq · Joined: 02 Dec 2007 Posts: 1088

That's right. Here you go. I decided to put the album under my name rather than my pen name because this project has been fairly personal for me.

I have 3 simple requests that I hope people respect if they are going to download my album for free:
1. Please, PLEASE, write a review of it Here That requires a membership. But the membership is free and it would be doing me a great service. I am not asking for your money, just a thoughtful review of my album on Rate Your Music.
2. Please listen to it all at once, from track one through track 10. It is only like 24 minutes and although lyrically it isn't a concept album, it was designed to fit together loosely as a theme album. It should play consecutively if I encoded it right so there should be no problem with the order. I only hope that I put it together as a RAR file correctly.
3. If you are going to show it to people, please make sure they know who it is. I am not asking for money, but I do want credit if you decide you like any of it.

Anyway, without further ado:

ZIP FILE (Presumably for Mac Users. Tested and works great.) http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PIRIQ6UX

RAR FILE (Not Tested Yet. Please let me know if there is anything wrong with how it is compressed, etc.)

SENDSPACE: http://www.sendspace.com/file/bfu1a1

MEGAUPLOAD: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZQH3RULB

RAPIDSHARE: http://rapidshare.com/files/82896179/Cultivator.rar.html

I don't know anything about sendspace but it seems to be legit. I will be uploading my album onto the other respective websites as soon as I can. (Rapidshare, and Megaupload.)

Explanation of tracks:
All tracks were written, performed and produced by me in my apartment with no help. EXCEPT, I had some help figuring out how to encode to MP3 by Kizzume.

Track 2, "Are You Free?" was originally written for English 102. It is about post-apartheid in South Africa and is the ONLY time I rap, lol!

"Eat Her Tonight" was created before I had propeller-head reason, and therefore, the beats are improvised. (Beat-boxed.)

"Dance and Hold Hands" was written for my girlfriend.

"I Know You Know," and "Another Day" were the earliest recordings to be done with drums and therefore have a more garagey feel. This was before I got my new guitar amp and effects processor and had to find more creative ways of making distortion. I believe I succeeded.

Enjoy.

Kizzume · Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 2:08 am Post subject:

This album is very raw--sort of like PJ Harvey's 4track album. At first listen it was so raw that it was almost hard to handle, but then I started listening some more. It's hard for me to judge albums that are this raw, so I'm going to have to wait a bit to make a good official review on that site--I've signed up, but I need to have a more subjective view of this.

My biggest complaint about this album is the lack of a bassline through most of the songs. I'm so attached to basslines that when they're missing, it takes me a lot longer to get the feel of the song. Eat Her Tonight--I really would have added some volume compression and some sort of effect--like a delay or a reverb or even a chorus effect--something--it's just so dry, and it needs to be EQ'ed a little bit too--I would have especially added extra bass to the bassline you're singing. But then again--this album is raw and I believe it is SUPPOSED to be raw.

Musically, so far, I think my favorite track on there is Rainbow of Tears. I really like the guitar layering you did at points on that one, and the vocal lines are haunting in a similar way as side B of David Bowie's Low.

Lyrics always take me a while to analyze in songs--so just know that this is only the musical review--I haven't focused yet on lyrical content. I was just trying to get a little review out right away as I was listening to it.

I hear a lot of talent, and I need to give it more of a listen to give a REAL review of this. There are many albums that grow on me, and this may be one of them. PJ Harvey's 4-track album was one of those.

jq · Joined: 02 Dec 2007 Posts: 1088

Yeah, I mean, let's face it-- It was recorded by me in my apartment with cheap instruments. No help from somebody on mixing or mastering either. So it isn't going to sound studio perfect. But I think if you can get past the recording quality you may find that the songwriting is pretty good.

Then again, maybe not Confused

Kizzume · Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 7:00 pm Post subject:

Kizzume · Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 9:51 pm Post subject:

It'd be cool if you wanted to ever stop by and we could use the equipment I have here if you wanted. I think it would be fun to collaborate on a project as well. Smile

jq · Joined: 02 Dec 2007 Posts: 1088

Segep · Joined: 10 Nov 2007 Posts: 219

I want to download this, but I'm waiting until I go to my aunt's house. She has a cable modem. I'm stuck on dialup here.

Kizzume · Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 12:24 pm Post subject:

jq · Joined: 02 Dec 2007 Posts: 1088

Sweet. Do you play it? What kind of guitar is it? Anyway, we should come up with a project name and parameters (what you want to do and what you want me to do) and at the very least we could send it back and forth and have fun adding to it. Or if you have room at your house we could maybe jam there some time.

Kizzume · Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 2:31 pm Post subject:

jq · Joined: 02 Dec 2007 Posts: 1088

WHat kind of guitar do you have? Do you play it yourself?

Anyway, one thing about my CD is I was getting so frustrated with my "weirdness" (see other thread for details) problem and all that I sort of rushed the order of my album and excluded some of my best tracks. It is sort of too late to include them now (now that my profile has been set up at RYM and all) so I guess the other tracks will forever be B-sides or may end up on another CD.

ON THE OTHER HAND, I was thinking about maybe doing something like LULU for a physical copy of my cd for sale, and what I might do is include the other three tracks as a "CD DELUXE EXCLUSIVE," so that people who downloaded my album for free and liked it can get it in full quality (uncompressed WAV rather than MP3) with extra songs if they want.

On the other hand, the way LULU works and how much they charge to print copies of CDs and all that (in small amoutns-- obviously you get a discount when you order in bulk) it may be sort of pointless to sell CDs. I don't know if people would be interested in a physical copy anyway, and I don't stand to make any profit through lulu if I want to sell the CD at a reasonable price. (After manufacturing and LULU commision the CD would cost $6.50 before shipping.)

Kizzume · Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 4:31 pm Post subject:

Yes, I play the guitar--- http://kizzume.com/guitarish.mp3 is me doing double-tapping work on the guitar, just trying to get a basic idea down.

Personally, I think sticking with the online downloading thing for now would be the best. Once you have an album that really has a more professional sound to it, I think that would be the time to push for physical CD's. I remember when I first started putting out my demos on audiocasettes--this was in the early 90's--and back then I sure didn't have the sound I have now. CD's were the thing then, but recording CD's yourself just wasn't an option, so audiocassettes were the main option, just like right now, online mp3's are the main option.

My, how times have changed. Smile

jq · Joined: 02 Dec 2007 Posts: 1088

the only thing is a lot of people I know still use CDs. Not everyone. Most are MP3 ready. But still about 40-50% of the people I talk to, hang out with, etc, are CD people. Of course, now that I learned how to I realize I can burn CDs myself rather than go through a manufacture. But I am also a big fan of the visuals I created for the CD, which my printer does not have ink to do.

As for renoise. Is that a replacement for Reason or a substitute for Pro Tools? What kind of hardware does it use? (Same as pro tools?)

PS, I still can't figure out my MIDI. Sad

. If I could, my piano parts in my music would sound a WHOLE lot better (as I have a $80 keyboard and the samples/instruments on it don't sound very real. Not at ALL compared to the amazing sound of Reason.)

You still havne't told me what kind of guitar you have. Is it a secret?

jq · Joined: 02 Dec 2007 Posts: 1088

Also,

What is "volume compression"?

And for EQ....I can alter the bass somehow? This is possible on pro tools?

The problem with Reverb on pro tools is if I add it it seems to screw up the timing of the vocals. I know that doesn't make sense. If anything I would expect Delay to do that, and not reverb. But sure enough for some reason it does, every time I try it Sad

Kizzume · Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 5:00 pm Post subject: