cynicmusic

Any resolution on Sylenth1 is good in my book. How about Zebra2?

Glad somebody noticed the circuit board wall art And thanks for supporting my project. Also wanted to share this pic. Sorry it's so big hope you have a big monitor =)

Hey OCREMIX! I'm Alex Smith, remixer of two Green Hill Zone mixes (http://ocremix.org/artist/10319/the-cynic-project). I’m a little obsessed with Sonic 1 & 2 as you may have heard from my sonic remixes: (http://sonic.tcpmusic.com/) Maybe you heard my Sonicquarium ocremix (http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02631/) with its slow tempo and ethereal ambience. Introducing Pixelsphere: A game I'm making around this ambient style, and a tribute to everything I love from 16-bit era sidescrollers, plus my own style of uplifting music. Pixelsphere has a dynamic soundtrack where everything in the game makes music. This is a labor of love for me and I’ve been working on the game for 2+ years and commissioned some art to make the game look amazing. It recently became apparent that I needed more help to finish the game so I decided to launch a kickstarter to fill the gap and bring Pixelsphere to completion. I have a budget worked out and all the funds are earmarked for two artists and a developer that I have lined up. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cynicmusic/pixelsphere-a-musical-adventure Watch the video for a rough idea of what I’m doing, but I have a some exciting things planned for the game that aren't fully described on the kickstarter, and I thought ocremix would be a great place to introduce them. 1) Dynamic Soundtrack - I’m building a system that layers loops that change the mood of the game based on your location and progress. Yeah, this is a pretty obvious one and I have a lot of content developed for the system already, but I need help to finish developing the music engine to sync up loops. 2) Physical Sequencer - This is a less common gameplay element and I’ve only seen it a few other products. Basically the idea is that there’s puzzles where physics objects like bouncing balls, orbs, boxes, pulleys, levels etc...interact to create an interactive musical environment. There are wheels turning at very slow RPM to gradually guide objects to new destinations which will generate new sounds. As well as user interaction to help guide the objects. This is mostly an interactive art piece for the time being, but I intend to introduce a puzzle element where the music is generated while the user attempts to replicate a prescribed pattern of tones, shapes and colors. A lot of exciting things are possible with the right people on this project so please get in touch if you’re interested in contributing to /collaborating on Pixelsphere (or just want to chat). The game is still a big WIP so I'm looking forward to your ideas, suggestions and criticism. There’s a lot of awesome music talent on this forum so I was thrilled when I discovered that remixers can post in Community! Image spam to follow:

thanks!! It's hard to stay away from the classics. They bring back such good memories!! Alex

Yeah I think swells in the choir is the easiest thing I can do. I always forget to go add that level of realism by automating parameters. thanks much for this!!

I think that is the feedback I needed to hear. I thought the ending was great, but I guess that is why I am asking for advice it's a little abrupt i guess huh. I can also look at tweaking the strings wetness Im using the EWQL symphonic orchestra and it gets challenging the more real the instruments sound becuase the expectation for no fake bits gets even higher than with obviously fakey strings.

http://cynicmusic.com/music/marble_zone_piano_suite.mp3 Hello, I just pulled open this mix last week to update the piano sound to a more realistic library, but I wanted a chance to share it with you before that update. I've been collecting a few mixes that I'd love to share with you, but haven't submitted to OCREMIX yet because they lack that final polish in the arrangement department (although I think the production is very nice!) I played this piano in myself and it has a nice rubato feel. I've been turned down in the past for weak arrangements and that left me a little skittish on submitting new mixes since I tend to focus more on production rather than arrangement. Anyway would love some feedback on this track (and whether its submission worthy or what you would change), and I plan on submitting a few more this week. As usual, the rest of my sonic remixes are here: http://sonic.tcpmusic.com The Marble Zone mix is here: http://cynicmusic.com/music/marble_zone_piano_suite.mp3 I also wanted to take a second to plug my game, Pixelsphere, which is kickstarting now, and for which I composed the soundtrack. The OCREMIX gods were kind enough to give me an RT last week which was very generous of them!

rofl thanks you just ruined the song for me.

Thanks for the feedback all. I have been working on this for the past month and added a new intro and chorus. And a lot of new parts. The intro is more ambient/atmospheric and then I transition into the orchestral sound. new mix cynicmusic.com/temp/47_realtime+L2at-6dB.mp3

5/5/2012 --- updated a new mix. BTW at about 2:50 it goes back into the old mix. I haven't updated the 2nd repeat section yet. cynicmusic.com/temp/47_realtime+L2at-6dB.mp3 One of two sonic remixes I'm working on. This is probably my 5th green hill remix but certainly not my last! I'm The intro isn't finished yet so it's faded in. All feedback welcome or make the intro for me this is the old mix for comparison http://cynicmusic.com/temp/2012_March_aSonicRemix28aa.mp3

I got knocked off the page by that street fighter 2 spam I am going to submit this on Friday unless I come up with any improvements.

Still working on April Rain from a year ago. It's a sonic remix in the usual cynic project style. Hope there's enough green hill zone in this mix Any feedback is appreciated! http://tcpmusic.com/music/GHZ_mix3.mp3 Alex / The Cynic Project old sonic remixes here http://sonic.tcpmusic.com/

Another sonic remix in the (un)usual cynic project style. This one has densely layered percussive melodic lines based on the green hill zone theme. Feedback is appreciated! http://www.tcpmusic.com/music/SonicGHZ_Cynic_Project.mp3

Thanks I will mix up the rhythm and throw in an octave or something to make it flow. I'm terrible at bass lines yes the last time the riff plays verbatim from "Till I Come". Otherwise I borrowed the rhythm and played marble zone notes.

http://sonic.tcpmusic.com/marble_TCP.mp3 just messing around with instrumentation and trying to sound like ATB. Need to make it into a song now Any feedback welcome! Alex Smith The Cynic Project

ya I should probably finish up lost marbles before I tackle a new remix, huh? I ditched the chem plant remix in favor of this anyway, if anyone's interested in a video remix. http://sonic.tcpmusic.com/chemical1.avi (21MB/XVID)

Holy fuck. Wish I had heard that before. It puts my mix to shame =(

http://sonic.tcpmusic.com/ You wonder why there's not any good chemical plant remixes? Probably because you simply cannot make this tune any better. I tried anyway though and here's the result (WIP 50% done) Link goes to my flash player click "download song" on the player to download the mp3. Feedback/any ideas for this are appreciated.

Percussion - I have a ton of loop libraries, I will usually pull one or two loops from a set and drop them in Native Instruments Intakt, chop them up into individual MIDI note triggers and trigger them by MIDI. A little rearrangement of the MIDI gets me some variations and fills. I typically remove the kick and snare, opting to program those in NI Battery. I frequently bounce percussion tracks down to audio and then chop them up further, of fx process just a few parts, simple tricks like an extra long reverb/delay effects tail on just one hit. I do alot of processing of rhythmic elements in Antares Filter, sometimes desiging a filter set specific to a loop, and then automating filter parameters over the course of the song to make gradual changes. Plugins you will see in all my projects are Waves RVerb Waves 6 tap delay Waves Mondomod Antares Filter NI Battery Novation V-Station Ohmboys quad fromage I also have a buncha hardware that I use for the rest of the instruments, though its not a big deal to work entirely in software Pads/Strings - Roland XV-3080 (Factory Presets) Piano - Roland XV-3080 Supreme Piano Expnansion Pads/Leads - Roland XV-3080 (Modified Presets from Vengeance-Music.de) Arpeggios - Novation Supernova 2 (hardware) or V-Station, again I own all the patches from Vengeance for both these instruments) Basses - wherever - Also, All these songs have sega genesis samples from the sonic games in them!

Finishing tracks just isn't my strong point at the moment. Mostly becuase I tend to make 'em worse the longer I work on them. I'd certainly be interesting in collaborating with anyone who's interested in Sonic remixes, to help finish/expand some of these mixes. I have a ton of spare ideas, mostly in the form of piano reductions I've arranged. Though I don't know if anyone is much interested in my style, I've submitted 6 of them to OC and so far no bites..

Chill/slightly minimal remix of Marble Zone with piano. The chorus features a mandolin patch I programmed with some interesting reverse delay effects. I'd say this was a WIP but I know full well my next Marble Zone remix will be in progress soon =) http://sonic.tcpmusic.com/music/lost_marbles.mp3 This is my 3rd Marble Zone remix, as usual, my sonic mixes/speedrun video remixes are here: http://sonic.tcpmusic.com Alex Smith / The Cynic Project / cynicmusic.com