Synoiz Music Blog

Posted 28th June 2009

What? What is theeees? A blog? A BLOG?

Yes, exactly. I've finally forced myself to sit down and update my blog. A lot has happened since last I updated this, I've been ill, I've had the most gluttonous comfort food imaginable, I've played more games of Risk than the mind can handle however (and I can only tell you this aptly with the use of an eyesore) the brilliant news is that

LONG LOST... IS OUT NOW!!!

Oh yes, it finally actually happened! My debut ambient single "Long Lost..." is finally released to the world in its 3-track nothing-really-happens glory. We're still in the process of promoting it at the moment so if this is the first you've heard of it being finished and released then I don't blame you. I've done a really terrible job of organising myself on this but the reason we held off "Getting Safer" as the first single was so we could try our hand at this music video/promotion lark on something smaller first.

That being said though, "Long Lost..." is one of my favourite tracks on the album and I'm so amazed at how well it's turned out. Such a sense of pride seeing it there on Amazon to buy!

You can check out more information on the single as well and the music video itself (as well as a special message from me talking about the song and other random stuff...) on the special "Long Lost..." mini-site that I set up:

What's next?
Well today I've had a rather lazy day, was up till 4am playing Dynasty Warriors with my housemates and bizarrely enough Ian Lawlor, who directed the music video for "Long Lost..." above, it was lots of fun but it makes me think I need to get back into playing computer games. The last one I really made time for was Resident Evil 4 and that was years ago now... wait, Silent Hill Origins too, that was good. Anyway if I ever intend to make a living doing game soundtracks I'm going to have to listen to what everyone else is up to in the industry so more games in the future I think.

At the moment I'm working frantically on the soundtrack for my friend Phil Lutas' puzzle game for the XBox Live Marketplace. It was (if you've heard me mention it before) going to be called "Pebbledash" but apparently they're having to change it now due to similarities between Pebbledash and Boulderdash (considering they're pretty much the same sort of game, fair cop really). Now this is the thing, I NEVER expected this to be so difficult! I've spent so much time on these 5 tracks that I'm beginning to get sick of them lol.

Basically the problem is that every time I tried to make proper music for it the tracks ended up way too dark/dramatic/focal, whereas the game is a very vintage style arcade game for kids so I've had to change my style significantly and dredge up loads of old fashioned vintage synth noises and catchy melodies in order to make music that fits. The hardest part is fitting it to the game (+ sound effects) and listening to it over to see if it gets annoying. I wish I had a playable demo of the game so that I could play it and listen to the music to see if it gets frustrating when the game gets tough...

I'm still not happy with any of it however when finished there will be 6 tracks in total. I've uploaded the three problem children above so you can have a listen to them, please tell me what you think, too vintage? Too boring? Too repetitive?

Hope you're all doing well, please help me out by checking out the single and buying it from Amazon.
Graeme x

Posted 27th February 2009

Hello again all you delightful people (and even the non-delightful ones, you know, the ones who drown kittens and stuff).

I'm in a really good mood today, things are going very well right now, I'm just a bit tired from it all as I've been very busy. My week has been taken up with my new job, working on the soundscapes album and singing lessons (I have to get back on form for the vocal album) plus my good mate Lee (of "On The Nightwaves") has moved into the spare room in my house, it's pretty awesome having someone else here, but I'm terrorfied it might distract me from my music a bit. He has an XBox and it lures me toward it with sweet promises of Silent Hill: Homecoming and Too Human :( 
Below is an artist's representation (I'm not gonna say who as it's obviously me) of the XBox/Synoiz scenario:



"The Esoteric Order of Dagon" makes Top 10 on OurStage
Oh yeah, much more importantly, judging finishes on this month's OurStage entries today (around 4am GMT I think, that's like Midnight in America I think) and the b-side to Long Lost... "The Esoteric Order of Dagon" has made the top 10 in Experimental! I am so pleased you would not believe! It's the first time I've finished in the top ten (the closest was "Revelation, Despair" which finished at #14). If you're reading this and you've been judging on OurStage then thank you so much :) 
Of course there's still time to vote on what order you want the top ten in, so if you have an OurStage account (or wouldn't mind signing up for one) you can still help the track out by voting for it to stay in the top 5:



If you'd like to help out then just register for an account and then go to "Judge" in the main menu bar, and then select "Experimental" from the channel dropdown. There's only the top ten to vote for now so my entry should pop up at some point! 

New Tracks for Soundscapes
Just to say thank you again to anyone who voted for me on OurStage, here are some of this week's latest demos for the Soundscapes album, "Alien Architecture" is a kinda sci-fi one (I was thinking of X-Com/UFO if you know what that is), and "Realisation of the Truth" and "...Abandoned" are ones for the horror section, they're both very Resident Evil-inspired!

That's it for now, hope you're all doing okay, I've got my fingers crossed for the OurStage results!!!