"Stop Harming Us, Set Us Free" new decent free downloadable tune

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protozone
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"Stop Harming Us, Set Us Free" new decent free downloadable tune

Post by protozone »

NEW TUNE AVAILABLE: "Stop Harming Us, Set Us Free":

https://hearthis.at/protozone/stopharmingussetusfree/

This is a free 320 kbps MP3 download.
There are no words in this tune; it's an older tune but it needed to see the light of day and the dark of night again.
Enjoy. :mrgreen:
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Re: "Stop Harming Us, Set Us Free" new decent free downloadable tune

Post by folderol »

Were you intending to put words to this? It makes for a strange title otherwise. Rather has an action movie feeling, especially with the mood contrasts.
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Re: "Stop Harming Us, Set Us Free" new decent free downloadable tune

Post by vitaminx »

Love that low end whooooosh sound e.g. between 2:00s and 2:45s, really nice.
For my taste the rave synth gets a little bit annoying over time, I would probably try to modulate it with a LP filter with some resonance, or leave it out now and then.

Otherwise nice chilly track :)
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Re: "Stop Harming Us, Set Us Free" new decent free downloadable tune

Post by protozone »

vitaminx wrote:Love that low end whooooosh sound e.g. between 2:00s and 2:45s, really nice.
For my taste the rave synth gets a little bit annoying over time, I would probably try to modulate it with a LP filter with some resonance, or leave it out now and then.

Otherwise nice chilly track :)
Thanks very much, vitaminx.

I don't have the tune handy right now to listen to, but I think I know which synths you are talking about.
I got the idea for the low end whooosh from some tunes by the honorable Imogen Heap. But I actually performed them, I think with Vembe Surge. I didn't sample anything, although I think somebody might get a similar sound from a vinyl turntable technique.

The second synth sound you are talking about--well, I'm pretty sure it already was filtered semi-resonant modulation unless perhaps you are talking about some other sound. I don't remember using any "rave" sounds. The tune is old, but not 1990s old, it's old as in 2015 or 2016 or so. As for leaving it out now and then, I would consider it as an option, but I deleted the project stems a very long time ago as I routinely do. The tune is pretty much complete.

As per your request: From what I remember, if I had removed the synth sound that I think you are talking about (the midrangey vocal-like part) then it would've gutted the main part of the tune and the whole tune structure would've suddenly been deprecated. I'm certainly not against dropping out parts from time to time; I do that routinely in my tunes. I would agree it's a good technique.

Perhaps the length of the tune made the actual parts variation less noticeable. Also, the softer part is not intended to be in total isolation nor is it intended to be like a "duet" with the harsher parts. The tune isn't intended to be laid back; it's intended to convey contrasting elements which are not mutually exclusive of each other.

Nevertheless thanks for listening by all means and for your comments. I always try to make a mental note of the comments people make about the tunes so that at least my future tunes can accommodate people's preferences to some degree even if I can't go back and change the old tunes. So in your case, I'll try and do more drop ins and drop outs (although recently I got requests to do fewer drop ins and drop outs; so I don't know what gives :mrgreen: ),.
folderol wrote: Were you intending to put words to this? It makes for a strange title otherwise. Rather has an action movie feeling, especially with the mood contrasts.
Thanks for your enquiry. No, I wasn't intending to do any lyrics. Lyrics from me are pretty rare, even for tune that I had planned to do lyrics to. I just don't have the voice and I ended up pawning my microphones for other more useful items. I

I'm glad you picked up on the mood contrasts; that was the main idea of the tune from the start. What you describe as the action movie feeling is also quite fitting to my intentions, because when I composed it I was thinking about intense moments where even the the reprieves are somewhat melancholy and tend to be sandwiched in between other times of change or tension. For me, I can relate to the action tv show scenes where maybe a battle is won, but somebody puts their life on the line and barely makes it, or maybe the person who saves everybody dies saving them all, like in some really hardcore CSI scenes, or like in some shows where a catastrophe is prevented but another one happens anyhow. There's that element of emotional and physical loss despite the strength and stamina and prowess and dexterity and committment to fight against the odds and against evil using whatever tools are in the bag 'o' trix. And maybe that sounds overintellectualised, but that's kinda how I think.

The tune used to have a different title, but the previous title gave no inclination of any emotion. The new title conveys emotion and struggle and for those who are trapped and/or abused there's usually an element of calmness and patience and sadness combined while requesting to be freed. But as the perpetraitor's continue their evils, the pent up legitimate aggression cannot be denied--victims have a right to fight back. And even if freed and released from abuse, there's still the lingering pain and sadness and suffering due the loss of friends and family and others who died or were harmed.

So yeah, the title is pretty serious. I'm happy with it.

Either way, I hope you like the tune. Of course you are welcome to download a copy if you do. And thanks very much for comments and insights. I like how you tend notice things about my tunes whether you like them much or not.

Peace be with you both.
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Re: "Stop Harming Us, Set Us Free" new decent free downloadable tune

Post by psyocean »

Magical music, linux alchemy lab :) Excellent job!

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Guitar and synth tales... https://www.youtube.com/user/Psyocean/
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Re: "Stop Harming Us, Set Us Free" new decent free downloadable tune

Post by lilith »

This is again pretty good and I hear again mainly NIN influences. At 2:00 ff I think some more noisier elements or noise elements instead of this melodic piano sounds would fit better the style. It's also a bit lengthy... 1 min shorter would be perfect as in the last minute there's nothing new. It's not strange at all btw. :mrgreen:
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A longwinded response to 2 cool people

Post by protozone »

Dear Psyocean and Lilith:

Your comment(s) brought many genuine smiles to my face. Thanks very much.

Psyocean, I like your poetic response. Lilith, you always seem to come through with good comprehension. Thanks to you both.

In terms of the influences, yeah they are hard to dodge after listening to some excellent bands and artists since about 1983 and then diving into them even more around 1993 and onward. However, I'm not trying to cover or emulate NIN or anybody else. I quit purchasing NIN content as regularly as I used to. In fact, the most recent NIN album I purchased contained zero(0) tracks that I liked and I quickly re-sold it while it was in mint condition. I think I stopped archiving copies of NIN material sometime soon after The Fragile (double album). Even though I find The Fragile to be amongst the top 10-20 albums I've ever heard, I don't currently own any copies and I started to quit listening to NIN as much after the remixes of The Downward Spiral, because I don't like depressing and/or hostile and/or masochistic lyrics too much. If the actual music bed is nice, I'll overlook the lyrics, but I tend to purge the nasty lyrics stuff because it tends to get on my nerves no matter how good the music part is.

That being said, I wasn't trying to copy NIN for this particular tune. And NIN isn't and wasn't the only "aggrotech" (perhaps) band that I like and/or listen to a lot or did in the past. If I remember correctly, at the time of the tunemaking, I was listening to a portion of dubstep as brostep was infiltrating it. For technical reasons relating to my own DAW and personality, I was having a difficult time doing the types of filter modulation that I wanted to accomplish. But for only about 2 tunes did it turn out the way I wanted in that particular moment. Even so, I'm not real good at it despite having access to online tutorials and stuff like that. Programming envelopes makes me so bored I feel sick, and I don't normally own the type of controller that makes manual modulations easy. I used to know how to get good results from Vember ShortCircuit, but I've since forgotten how I did it.

But if you listen to the tune, you'll hear the Imogen Heap "smooshy" bass thing. It wasn't stolen from Imogen Heap, but I was browsing some sounds I had in a VST instrument, and I realised I could get that type of sound, which I like. She used that type of sound on the Speak For Yourself album (2005). She's a musician whom I admire A LOT. She's got clout.

So on the one hand, I was thinking about dubstep, but my online friends were talking more and more about brostep, so I was less inhibited about using such a midrangey type of sound. But I come from more of a God Lives Underwater type of background than any type of brostep background. I only own about 3 brostep tunes that I like (Bats in the Belfrey by Emalkay, CloudBurn by FeedMe, and some other tune by Emalkay but I forget the name). I do like some ChillStep, but I can hardly ever find any... Oh, and I should add that I happen to like a few tunes by Korn collabing with Datsik and Skrillex--wierd but true. I think that's some stuff on the Path of Totatlity album, I think. People were making fun of Get the F Up, or whatever it's called on KVRaudio.com and I had never heard the tune before so I looked it up and loved it and bought the MP3.

But to explain the influences again, I do remember liking for a long time, and I still do like the band Ochre. Around 2007 they were pretty popular on OEM Radio and Limbik Frequencies and I'd never heard anything like that before in my life. Even though my tune doesn't sound like Ochre at all really, the mellow part is a little bit like some of the other bands that a person might have heard while listening to those internet radio streams back in that time.

And I think even back as far as the mid 1990s there were a few bands I vaguely remember doing similar semi-ambient downtempo IDM types of tunes. But it's been so long since then, that I couldn't pinpoint any specific bands except that I happened to like some of the stuff on ChillOut the Techno Revolution Continues which came out in 1993 I think. It was largely a project of Jo Bogaert of Technotronic fame who also did some solo stuff. One of my favorite tunes by Jo Bogaert is Ambient Kinsky which was on that compilation album.

Anyways, I was influenced by the NIN tune Burn on the Lost Highway soundtrack, meaning that I like the tune and wondered how the sounds were made when I first heard it. But that was a hugely long time ago. Actually, come to think of it, that might have been on the Crow soundtrack instead. Nevertheless, I can tell you right away that I learned how to get some similar percussion sounds of some of it a couple of years ago when I decided to try using Impulse Response WAV files as drum sounds instead of for convolution reverb. I still do that a little bit even though I've since lost my main archive of great IR sounds *cry*.

But this tune and definately, in my tune MasterClass you can hear them. MasterClass has LOTS of that stuff happening. I think MasterClass used about 24 stereo drum tracks in FL Studio rendered to WAV file, and then mixed and edited in REAPER where I overdubbed 2-6 additional percussion tracks using some SoundFonts and a few sounds from Proteus ROMpler VSTi. It turned out really well, and I posted up screenshots of the project file on a website I don't go to anymore (because of internet bullies makin me ticked off). MasterClass was a breakthru tune for me. Not so much because of the impulse responses, but because of the tune structure being a bit more complex than Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus yet still complying with that a bit too. And I really liked how I was able to combine a wider variety of contrasting sounds than previous tunes.

This tune is actually more of a "little-brother" or "little-sister" to "MasterClass" and to "Hold yOur Fire" than anything else. If you compare this tune to those you can hear the similarities of soundsets and concept and emotions. I can't rememer which ones I did first, though.

To be fair, I know the tune might be a bit long, but because of the original BPM and the length of the idea chunks, I couldn't reduce the duration without destroying the tune structure pattern. That's one of the major drawbacks of using slower BPM's. Also, I learned from studying the excellent works of Chaotix (he's on SoundCloud.com, he did the tunes "Human Error", "MotherShip", "Until I Fade Away" and a great remix of "Recess" by Skrillex).

Chaotix used to do a bunch of 2 minute tunes that were astoundingly good, but just too short. But it got me thinking about how to focus great energy into smaller chunks. Since then, Chaotix has improved to complete full tunes, and I've started doing a lot more 3 minute tunes instead of 4 or 5 minute tunes except for when I'm really feeling it and wanting to make something (pardon the cliche;) "epic".

Chaotix knows I like his stuff a lot, I've told him several times, and his stuff really is great. HE knows how to do wobbles (the "wub"s) with great stealth and style, and he really knows how to create and handle bass and subbass. I'm still an amateur in that realm, but getting better gradually. I usually don't own the right types of monitors to create good bass content without it being too much, so I usually don't venture into that great awesome realm.

Similarly, I noticed that Imogen Heap's music is amazingly varied and diverse and broadband, but it tends to be quieter than other tunes (which is not a weakness!!!!!!!!!!!) because she knows how to use the audio spectrum to it's fullest. I'm trying to have an approach more like hers. Even though I can't begin to come anywhere near her excellence as a musican or as an engineer, I like the management of spectrum.

Anyhow, I hope this sheds some light on this stuff.
I don't mean to sound preachy or anything.
You guys/gals are some of my only fans so I feel that you deserve the best in terms of "behind the music"/"behind the scenes" types of infos.

Nobody else knows this stuff.

By the way, I posted up another of my older tunes today.
It's the one called "Data_Decoys_and_Doppelgangers".

Peace be with y'all. You rock!
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