Topic: Never Look Down -- Free 10-day release

[Kaiaatzl]

So, for the sake of publicity (and mostly for another sake that I'm not saying here but could make me a lot of money) I'm releasing my album Never Look Down free for 10 days.  After those 10 days are up you won't be able to download the album anymore until I start selling it in September.  So if you want to get it free, then get it now.

Is there a catch?  Yes there is, it's voluntary but highly encouraged -- as it's the main reason I'm making an early release for free.  I need anyone who downloads the album to listen to it, along with the two limited-edition bonus tracks, and tell me within fourteen days which three songs they think are the best.  This is very important.  So important that if I could make it mandatory I would -- and there are very few things I would ever make mandatory if I had the power to.
I'm setting this topic up across several forums but please, only vote on one of them.  After the fourteen days are over I'll tally the votes across all the forums where I posted this, and I don't want to be counting anyone twice by mistake.  Because regular users can't create poll topics on PD, and I don't want to commandeer the site poll a second time, post your choices in this topic -- either track number or name will do.

And now that's out of the way...
http://205.196.121.55/jlg4zwrp7krg/6sr0cbtrl4uc3kx/Never+Look+Down+--+Free+1-week+Release.zip

What you get in this release:
The entire 12 track album in 320kbps mp3; no DRM, the files don't delete themselves after 10 days or anything like that... but be sure you back them up if you like them because after August 19th you won't be able to download them again.  You can do anything you'd like with them as long as it's legal -- so no pirating or plaigarizing .  They are copyrighted.
You get my original lyric sheets that I used to perform the vocals for each track, along with author's notes -- some creator insight, or just silly jokes, about each song.
And you get two bonus tracks from The B-Side Abyss that will not be on the final release.

What you don't get in this release:
There is no album artwork yet, I've been thinking of the types of artwork I might want to commission but I haven't made a final decision on either artwork or artist yet.
And this release does not include the single bonus track that will be included on the final release.

[TechPro]

It's too bad no one from this forum has commented on this music during the past 10 days, for which I offer my apologies on behalf of my fellow forum participants.

I have hesitated to comment on the music for two reasons.  1) It's not really my taste in music, thus my comments would not necessarily be valid.   Knowing that, I'm going to make my comments fair and (I hope) helpful.  2).  There are others who are much more 'into' this particular music style, therefore I hoped that they would comment ... Unfortunately none of them did.   For that I shall virtually lash them with multiple flayed wet noodles wish upon them many unwanted Internet cookies in their browser cache. (that should teach them).

I listened to the whole set and here's my thoughts:

Thought #1:  While I thought there were some interesting patterns and music, I often thought we were on the same song even though we'd moved on to the next track and I had to switch back to the play list in order to see if we had moved on.  In other words, much of the music sounded like the rest of the music.  While that's good when keeping to a theme or an overall style, it doesn't keep the listener's interest if the music keeps sounding the same.  A number of the pieces showed significant difference from the others and were obviously a different song, but others just seemed to be the same rhythm and riff.  I wanted more variation and difference between the songs.

Thought #2: The music seemed (to me) to have a lot of 'midi' feel to it.   Now there's nothing wrong with midi music (just listen to the Descent 1 and 2 midi music), but it can come across as a cheap imitation of professional instruments... and it seemed that way to me from time to time.  I didn't expect with music I thought is intended for professional release.

Otherwise, if the music had been a style/type that I prefer ... I might have liked it and might have wanted to listen to it repeatedly.  Sorry my tastes in music are different.

Also, was it intentional to sound very Descent like?  It seemed to me to cross between the Descent midi music style and the Descent Redbook music style.

[Kaiaatzl]

Well first of all thanks for replying.  I haven't suffered from any lack of replies on all but one of the other boards where I posted this, and this has definitely been the most downloaded file I've uploaded anywhere...

It wasn't really intentional to make it sound like Descent but a lot of the inspiration was of the same kinds of music that inspired Descent's soundtrack, and, arguably, other music that had been inspired by Descent.

The music seemed (to me) to have a lot of 'midi' feel to it...

...Ever since I played the two PSP "Wipeout" games I like music with synths that seem to imitate real instruments but with their own styles and differences -- you could say I tried to imitate the sounds of guitars, pianos... but add a different sort of "character" that you would never be able to hear in the real sound.  The 'guitar' sound in Track 7 is actually the same sound I created for a remix of D1 game20 and it was based on an e-guitar 'version' of the lead sound in the FM version of that song, some other sounds may have also been 'inspired' by OPL midi sounds.
I guess it just comes down to taste.  I've heard plenty of professional release electronic music that had the same sort of 'imitation' quality and I like it.

[-<WillyP>-]

My thoughts pretty much echo TP's. I listened to them when I first downloaded the file, but wanted to go through them again before commenting, but TBH didn't really like any of them, or hear anything to base a preference. But don't take that as a criticism, like TechPro, it's just that type of music I don't care for, particularly the robo-voice.

[Scyphi]

I admittedly haven't listened to it (in part because I didn't want to actually download it until I had an idea of what songs I would be downloading), but WillyP and Techpro's comments admittedly echo what I have though of much of your past works, so, especially seeing that you seem quite happy with your style and have had no reason to change it, I can presume it'll be something similar for this batch of music.

But hey, if people download it, like it, and think it's good anyway, who am I to say otherwise?

[Kaiaatzl]

It is a very unusual kind of music, and people are more able to see or hear variety in types of art that they're used to seeing or hearing.  So I'm not really surprised.
I am surprised at the number of people I've found who like it.

[-<WillyP>-]

...people are more able to see or hear variety in types of art that they're used to seeing or hearing...

This is very true. I am glad you found an appreciative audience. Music, like any art, should be created to please the creator. If anyone else likes it, so much the better, but do it for you.

[Kaiaatzl]

I'm also surprised that almost no one chose the three songs I would have chosen -- in fact there was one of them that no one at all chose.

My picks (in order), if I had been qualified to pick, would have been track 7, track 3, and track 12.

[D2Disciple]

Man, so sorry I missed this. But, I would like to buy it and take a listen, if I can scrape up a couple of bucks here and there to get it (unfortunately, you're releasing this right about the time that I'm looking at buying a Microsoft Surface come Oct. 26) 

If it's anything like your previous work, I'm sure I will very much appreciate your artwork, even though I'm more of a rock/metal guy. 

[Matthew]

Microsoft Surface come Oct. 26) 

Woah, I didn't realize Surface was coming along so fast. I wonder if it'll be up on Dreamspark...

EDIT: Nevermind, I thought Surface was that tabletop platform Microsoft has been showing off at tech shows...

EDIT2: Interesting... Microsoft seems to be calling their new tablets Surface, but there's also an application platform called Surface which is what I was thinking of. Shame on you Microsoft!

EDIT3: Aha! Apparently they're calling it PixelSense now.

[D2Disciple]

[offtopic]

Yeah, the tabletop Surface got renamed to PixelSense. There are supposed to be two versions of the surface tablet: Surface RT and Surface Pro. RT runs on ARM processor with a non-x86 version of Windows 8. Pro will run Windows 8 x86 on an Intel processor. Personally, I'm very interested in the RT. Microsoft suggests it will be from 300 to 400 dollars, have an nVidia Tegra 3+ processor, and have Office 2013 built-in. Comes with a built-in kickstand, front-and-rear facing cameras, and a fully functional keyboard/touchpad magnetic flap.
 
I think the RT is going to be a massive failure, honestly - but that doesn't make it any less awesome. For 400 bucks, you're essentially getting a laptop and a tablet and Office. All in the same device. And if it fails, well, you see what's happening to WebOS, and it's benefiting early adopters. Whatever it's mileage, it's the first tablet with that "gotta have it" factor for me. 

[\offtopic]

[Matthew]

I don't see why the RT would be a failure, to be honest. That's a lot of stuff for $400, so long as you don't need to run any non-metro apps.

[Scyphi]

What caught my attention about Microsoft Surface is the fact that it's apparently getting released on October 26th; that happens to be my birthday.

[Kaiaatzl]

Never Look Down will get released as soon as I sort out the issue of album artwork (for both it and the other album in the dual release -- which focuses a bit more on instrumental work) and find and talk to Doug Hale about including a cover of one of his songs as the official bonus track.  I might need to talk to someone from Julien-K as well but I don't think that the sliced drum sample in track 3 is an issue.  I probably should though, just to be safe.

This thread and the others like it -- and the entire early release idea -- was actually here so I could figure out which three songs to enter into the International Songwriting Competition.  Since I didn't have the money to enter the whole album, no matter how much I wanted to.