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Messages - Decon Theed

#1
Drawing & Animation / Re: My very own art thread
July 16, 2018, 03:17:40 PM
Just caught up with the recent (and not so recent) posts I'd been missing, and damn; I wish I could think of something more constructive to say then just "YEAH I LIKE THE ART INNIT", but, well, I really dig the art m'dude, much the same as before. It's bright, colourful, cute, full of personality and just a joy to look at all around~!
#2
I can't say everything here was to my taste, even as a fellow that loves a good experimental release, I can at least say I've never heard anything else quite like it made using Music 2000, so I have to give you points for originality there. I did, however, hear some promise in a couple of songs, and I genuinely really liked c in my Pants Dubstep. The Playdays theme popping up in Good c gave me a chuckle as well, I admit.
#3
So, uh, hey there. It's been a few, hasn't it? Wasn't intended, I assure you; 2017 was a very difficult year for me, specifically on the mental health front (not too ashamed to admit here that I suffer quite badly from Clinical Depression and Anxiety Disorder), and for most of the year it totally robbed me of my ability to make music. Which, as you can imagine, broke my heart. It's honestly nothing short of a miracle that Funky Music to Rebel By even got made or came out as well as it did, given the state I was in at the time.

However, things did start to turn around a bit come December. I'd been writing albums every Christmas season since 2012, and as bad off as I was, I was not about to let one pass without something.


It gives me great pleasure to share this with y'all, as it is by far and away some of the best material I have written in the ten or so years I've been producing music using the ever reliable Music 2000. Normally the Christmas albums come in at 12 tracks, one every two days between the 2nd and 24th of December, but given how long it'd been since I seriously worked on anything I eased myself in by doing half the amount of tracks, on a much looser schedule- I didn't actually get the last track done until January 5th, if I'm honest! I also, this go around, forwent using any external samples at all; something I very rarely do these days. Partially it was to save on some stress- that way, I could save tracks and take breaks rather then leaving the console running for upwards of three days at a time- but it was also a statement of intent on my part. When y'tell people you make music using a very old bit of software for the original Playstation, that tends to turn heads and put misconceptions in more close minded folk's imaginations; because of this, and because this album was a celebration of both the 5th anniversary of my netlabel and my 10th year in this music gig, I made it a point to do almost everything solely within the programs confines; the only bit of smoke-and-mirrors stuff going on was the fact that, due to memory limitations, songs were recorded in chucks so I could free up space by clearing out non-necessary stuff after I was done with it (these would then be stitched together in Wavepad later- a technique I've used for years now, and hopefully its seemless!), and I provided some custom vocal work myself here and there. So, perhaps a more accurate title for the minialbum would be  XMAS 2017: 103 5th ANNIV. / 99.9% M2K, but that doesn't really roll of the tongue as nicely.  ;D Regardless, the mission was clear; I was setting out to prove you could make some really stellar stuff using said ancient software, if you were prepared to put in the time and effort to learn it through and through, and fight with its various quirks, (mostly) without the aid of modern technology or samples outside of the programs built-in library. The niche nature of the software and the kind of "sound" it produces is something that's grown a lot on me in the last couple of years especially, to the point of actively seeking out music made with it and informing people of what little I can remember of the scene around it when it was more active- so an album bolstering M2K's rep was a no-brainer.

All the pieces contained on here are also retreads of older demos or sketches I'd started, but never finished; of the 642 songs of mine I've got, a fair chunk of them are unfinished scraps, and I figure a good angle for a celebratory release was going back and finishing them off. Absolutely all of them are wildly different then the initial sketches, natch, but hey ho!


However, to prove this wasn't just a fluke, I also managed to put together another couple of pieces throughout February- one a fairly long track in a genre I'd been itching to try out (funky house) and done as a birthday gift for my partner, who loves said style of music (and is also the person that provided the cover art for this release, XMAS 2017, and a great number of my releases over the years); and a fun little "blow-off-steam" track I put together in a couple of days for a lark tossed in as a B-Side. The samples are back in for these ones, though, ha ha- the main track is actively built around Logo and Dawn Joseph's cover of Coldplay's "Don't Panic", for one, and the b-side is loaded with samples fresh out of 1993. :D

If you could listen to both of these in full- and download/purchase 'em if you dig 'em- I'd be mighty appreciative. A lot of hard work went into both of them, and I am immeasurably proud of them, and super excited at the potential for further growth and development of my skills both bring to the table. Thank you  :)
#4
Been sampling some of this on bandcamp and man, it sounds extremely promising. It is definitely worth way more then the asking price, so I'm gonna wait until my next payday to pick it up. Gotta support the indies after all ;)

Excellent work DJ; always warms my heart to see folks keeping M2K alive \m/
#5
Thank you! And hahaha, yep; I've done the odd speedcore/rotterdam techno piece here and there ;) I've actually got a few demos for pieces in that style I've had laying around for years on memory cards I do intent to finish, at some point. I'm a big fan of the more extreme end of hardcore music- speedcore, rotterdam techno, breakcore, extratone etc.- if it's bullc fast and has stomps that burst subwoofers, I'm all over it, haha!  >:D
#6
Well, a fairly big anniversary passed on Tuesday of this week; it was the 5th Anniversary of 103 Records' debut that day! Whilst it's no major player in the netlabel scene, the little success it's had is humbling (given it's a podunk little label I run from my bedroom in my spare time), and I've been very lucky to work with and host the music of some extremely talented musicians alongside myself. I also first started pursuing music as a serious creative outlet back in 2007, so this year could technically count as the 10th anniversary of my "career", if you will.

In honour of the event, I put out a little single featuring one brand new song, an older song I thought I'd lost access to ages ago, and a demo of a song I hope to finish in the (if we're lucky, near) future! You can purchase/DLit here:


Your support will be mightily appreciated: the new track, Funky Music to Rebel By, is the first piece I've properly worked on in nearly eight solid months, after a whole host of personal life issues and problems with depression and anxiety kept me out of the music game. To say I'm extremely proud of the end result would be an understatement. Hopefully the little b-side, which was intended as a joke track, gives you a little laugh too~  ;)
#7
Well, look what was waiting for me in the mail this morning!

It appears the case was a little damaged in transit which is a shame, but the disc itself is fine and at the end of the day that's what matters. It's been about eight or so years since I last heard a lot of the material on here, so it's been a real blast from the past lemme tell ya  :D
#8
Ahhhh, I see. Yeah, can't say I'm surprised either; part of my impetus to spring for a physical copy is the fact that I myself am a collector, so that's
kinda proving the point right there.

Still, here's to hoping you get at least a few more CD sales mate~
#9
I just sprung for a copy of It's the End of Time; partially to keep it up, and partially because the title track was always one of my favourites from back in the TIMGUL days. Epic Journey is probably the one I'll go for next, once I've got a bit more spare cash to play around with, because that's got another of my old faves on it (the Trance remix of Firestorm).

Just out of curiosity, how has selling CD's been going overall?
#10
Drawing & Animation / Re: My very own art thread
May 21, 2017, 01:43:53 PM
At the risk of repeating myself, I think these comic pages really show off that expressiveness inherent in your drawing style, which is what immediately drew (durr hurr) me to your art in the first place. No idea if/when you plan to do anymore comic stuff, but I highly encourage it; you've definitely got the knack for it, mazhat! :)
#11
I'd been wondering what happened to this project; I've been casually following it for a while. Glad to see it's near completion- and that it looks pretty dang amazing!

Groovemaster303 and Jredd do some amazing stuff on the chip music front, too, and if that sampler is anything to go by the soundtrack is going to be incredible (and technically impressive to boot).
#12
Sadly, I only have access to the rough recordings of my oldest material. A few files also got quality-compressed during transfers between different machines/people over the years, so some of the material sounds a little rough.

I should also point out that several songs changed projects and designations several times, so in some cases pold songs wound up with different titles (and in a few cases, were reassigned to another of my aliases).
#13
Hahaha, that album is only a chunk of my music, too; my current track total stands at 644 pieces of music, roughly. I've lost a lot of stuff over the years too, so even that isn't the "actual" total number of tracks I've. Such is the consequence of writing music for over a decade, haha~ :D I still have to release a chunk of that track total through 103 Records, but I've got a few "old work" compilations lined up to come out over the course of the year similar to Long Forgotten Leftovers (or others I'd released prior).

And hahaha, nah, I don't actually store my tapes, CDs, vinyls etc. in or on crockery/ That was all staged purely for the photo- the concept of which only came about because I'm the only person that thought the "Leftover" pun in the album title was actually funny. :P It goes without saying that none of the stuff pictured contains my music. The vinyls are warped or damaged records I've held onto to one day use for Scratching, the CDs are CD-R's with an outdated version of my sample library burned onto them, the tape casettes are a mixture of official and custom tapes I've had for years, and the floppy discs are a cracked copy of the amiga version of Flashback. That's why everything is laid out so as to obscure what it is in some manner.
#14
Currently giving the Machines Don't Care album a full-listen through. As someone who's big into the Twitch House/off kilter Electro House subsets of current EDM, an album by a supergroup featuring some of the biggest producers working in that style- incl. Fake Blood, HervĂ©, Sinden etc- is basically several christmases come at once for me (and indeed, it's one of my personal all-time-favourite albums).  :P

#15
Aye; I did some digging through the archives over a couple of days this week, and there's a lot of stuff that seems like it's not linked to posts. There is, however, a decent amount of stuff still readily available- at least 500 or so songs by my estimate, probably more- so that's something.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of stuff that's just straight up gone because users linked to it via alternative means. I went scouring for older work of mine I'd lost access too, but I tended to link to an old YouTube account I no longer have or long-dead Zippyshare links. A shame, but hey, if nothing else it teaches a potent "keep backups of and take better care of your work" (a lesson past me could've done with learning sooner <_<).

Still, I can't complain too much; there were a few songs I'd wanted to find that were still around, and I wound up discovering a few neat things I missed the first time around. It's also always really cool to hear how other musicians made use of Music 2000's features (or other programs in the series) in contrast to how I do, or the little stylistic differences between artists and how they manifest in the various software's features. Seeing what users used in addition to Music software was also pretty cool too; Weapons Division did some neat stuff using hardware synths/effect racks, on one song they did at least.
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