We all know the Adobe Creative Suite, but did you know how many alternatives there are out there for each application?

I LITERALLY JUST PAUSED THE VIDEO THERE ACCIDENTALLY WHILE I WAS FIXING SOME AUDIO PROBLEM 😭

PROCESS ZINE — miscommunication as format

Somehow the universe handed me the most on-theme idea yet.

Since signal // noise won’t exist digitally — no streaming, no Bandcamp, no easy link — I realised the release can mirror the communication barriers I deal with daily.

I can’t use the phone. Companies won’t use email or webchat. So whole conversations vanish into the wrong medium, trapped in a channel I can’t access.

So I’m sending Suno a cassette.

A literal analogue “phone call.” Sixteen tracks printed onto a format the machine can’t parse. No QR code. No download. No link to the full album. Only the digital-only bonus tracks will be accessible, like captions that only cover half the conversation.

If the album is about mishearing, misclassification, and APD… then letting the full version exist in a format the system cannot read feels exactly right.

A finished record that may remain unheard. A signal trapped in its carrier. A conversation sent through the wrong interface.

Images of cassette + 4-panel J-card prototype (a quick b/w laser mockup).

Adding on to my previous post with a post from Cohost in the case anybody still on the Adobe train decides they want off.

Alone (Demonic Mix) - January 2022

After a very long break I finally got back into music making in 2022. I had started messing around with a few samples in Lockdown in 2020, but didn't get around to finishing anything.

This was a track I worked on a few years earlier, with different vocals. I was never totally happy with it, and that hung around in the back of my mind for years, I had unfinished business with this track!

So I revisited it and found Kara's wonderful rendition of Alone by Edgar Allan Poe on ccMIxter. It was a perfect fit. I did think about adding the original vocals back in, with one on each channel à la The Murder Mystery, but decided against it as I had messed around with them so much trying to mask them, and couldn't find the original.

The demonic voice in the background is actually a slowed down sample of speech from a well known Sci-Fi movie. At one point it reveals itself.

Reviews for Alone (Demonic Mix) on ccMixter and Looperman:

Deeply cool groove.

Hey Kirkoid! It’s great to see you here! I really dig your dark, hypnotic mix with those crisp, catchy drums. Thanks so much for including my vox.

Wow, what a fantastic intro my friend. Great track. Well done, Maj.

Cool, it is retro and future at the same time. awesome!

I was about to make this one of those posts that say, "Hey everyone, WATCH OUT, there's some ILLEGAL PIRATED Adobe software that you should definitely AVOID. Here's the link so you know what to look out for, because you wouldn't want to get stuff FREE by MISTAKE"... and then I realized, if Adobe actually wanted to come after me for copyright shit (which they don't), their lawyers don't fucking care if I did it with a coy wink and a nudge.

So fuck em.

Fucking steal that shit. It's a moral imperative.

(And if you don't want to for personal reasons, or because you're a business and they will come after you, you can get Adobe CS2 free legally, or any of these decent free alternatives.)

But if you want the real CC, read on!

The crack:

god I sound like a drug dealer now

I use the 2019 CC cracks made by Zer0Cod3, who was taken down almost immediately after, but this mirror site still works as of July 2021: https://cgpersia.com/2019/01/adobe-2019-cc-collection-win-x64-148263.html

You have to download it using one of the options at the bottom of the site (I used RapidGator) and it's a pain in the ass but still ultimately safer than trying to find a torrent (send me an ask about that if you want another masterpost).

How to use:

Once the files download, PUT YOUR COMPUTER IN AIRPLANE MODE

Make a System Restore Point just in case anything goes wrong and you want to roll it all back.

Install the programs you want. They may ask for you to sign in or put in a key. Just click the "do it later" option and close out of the program as fast as you can. Ideally, try to install the programs without letting them launch at all.

Copy the crack file (the one with its name listed on the website) and REPLACE the original file of the same name. You don't actually have to use the patch tool.

If you're confused, let's do Photoshop as an example. So you've run the installer, and you now have Photoshop installed. Go to its Program Folder (on Windows it's usually "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CC 2019\" but if you're ever unsure, you can install Everything Search then just search your whole computer for "photoshop.exe"). Delete the original photoshop.exe, and put the photoshop.exe that you downloaded in the exact same place.

DON'T OPEN IT YET. We need to block Adobe from verifying/updating these programs...

If you have any other genuine Adobe programs (e.g. Acrobat DC) make sure you've signed out of your Adobe account.

Block all these apps in your firewall (You can look up how to do that for your specific device). Also, if you're on Windows, you can open "C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts" in a text editor and add the follow: 0.0.0.0 lmlicenses.wip4.adobe.com 0.0.0.0 lm.licenses.adobe.com 0.0.0.0 na1r.services.adobe.com 0.0.0.0 hlrcv.stage.adobe.com 0.0.0.0 practivate.adobe.com 0.0.0.0 activate.adobe.com

Next (on Windows), open Services.msc and set the following to Startup Type - Disabled: Adobe Genuine Software Monitor Adobe Genuine Software Integrity Service AdobeUpdateService

(Mac has an equivalent called launchctl, so you can check there for things with similar names to disable.)

That's it! You're good to go!

Obviously if you get any requests in-app to sign in, check for updates, or access the internet or Adobe Cloud, deny that shit. If something does go wrong with the install, the worst-case scenario is that you'll be on a free trial that will expire, and you'll have to FULLY UNINSTALL everything discussed above and try to repeat the steps fresh.

Final notes:

There's another way to get free Adobe CC called CCMaker. It uses AmtEmu, which emulates the amt files that Adobe used to verify these programs up through CS6. I didn't think AmtEmu still worked though. I've also heard CCMaker is faster and more lightweight, but I haven't tried it out so I can't confirm any of that. Try at your own risk.

Speaking of risks: I'm a stranger on the internet. There's no reason you should trust things I tell you to download (hell, I didn't trust these things when I was downloading them). I did run them through virus checkers (VirusTotal, Kaspersky, and Comodo), and apart from a few false-positives that are common with cracked software, it looked clean. I always recommend having a robust antivirus running. If you notice any suspicious behavior, try to isolate it and delete it. When in doubt, rollback to a system restore point made before you did any risky installations. Kaspersky is a very good free antivirus.

Lastly, if you found this guide useful, PLEASE REBLOG AND TAG THIS POST (and my other post linking to this one) so other people can benefit just the same!

So I found out that if I sang Africa by Toto in a certain rhythm it would go along with one of Disturbed's songs, so I recorded me doing it for all of you, you're welcome I am sorry my voice sounds bad, I am a bass, not a tenor or an alto lmao.