Announcing a new album - The danny B-Sides

Hello!

For a pretty long time, I've been sitting on a lot of music I've done for various projects that for one reason or another never saw the light of day. Recently I was encouraged by some jerks to put it all out there.

I'm planning on doing more original music in the near future, so I figure it's cathartic or something to release a collection of what I've done, to start looking to the future or whatever. Some tracks have been released before, for free, and they will be downloadable individually free. I'm just including them for completeness!

ANYWAYS

I'm putting together this collection, cleverly called "The danny B-Sides" and it will release some time in April. But I wanted to put in some demos to show you what it's all about.

Lovely album art by the lovely Chris Arredondo.

Keep in mind, some of these are really old. In many cases these aren't meant to be representative of my current production quality. It's more that I thought it might be interesting for people to hear my progression over the last few years. Most of these will be pre-Super Meat Boy, and some even pre-Canabalt.

Enough blabbertalk, here are the demos! They are just rough, unlooped previews. The final version will be nice and volume-leveled and looped/faded.

The first is music from an iOS game I did years ago that never came out. It was for the tutorial section where a robot taught you how to box.

Next up is a high-energy track I was working on for a racing game by Adam Atomic.

Finally, I worked on a game called "Liferaft" with the friendly friends at Mikengreg. You may know Greg from Mikengreg as the brilliant artist behind Ridiculous Fishing, the best game ever made for stuff ever.

I hope you liked them! Again, the album will release sometime in April, I'll announce an actual date soon. It'll be on Bandcamp, iTunes, all that jazz. It will be a few dollars, and will contain quite a bit of music (final count announced soon!).

Anyways, hope your day is going well. Be sure to do that thing you have been putting off, drink lots of water and vote your conscience.

-danny

HEY! I got a blog. LOL

Hey.

I decided it would behoove me to start keeping up with this social media thing. So I started up this blog, since the kids tell me it brings in all the MySpace hits.

If you're here you probably know me, if you don't I've written up a little spiel.

If you don't care who I am, the music is at my Bandcamp page.

Anyways, last year was kind of a rough, transitional year for me. I moved to the Seattle area with my girlfriend Kim, in an attempt to immerse myself more in my work. Things are going well, I've got multiple projects in the pipe, and I'm productive. At least until the SimCity servers get sorted out.

My current projects are -
Celsius Game Studios - Drifter (PC/iOS)
QCF Design - Desktop Dungeons (PC)
Robotoki - The Adventures of Dash (PC, Consoles?)

I don't know if this blog is going to be professional, emotional, personal, lackadaisical, parasitical, etc. but now you know where to go for the hottest danny B news and gossip from around the globe.

-danny

How do I hire you?

Usually I'm pretty booked with projects from developers I've been working with for awhile.  Feel free to email with details on your project, but please understand I only have so much time.  :)  Here is a list of composers that I recommend.

Did you go to school? How do I write music too?

I went to Mesa Community College for four years and took all the music classes I could and did not get any kind of degree.  I took music theory, aural perception, composition, recording, music business, and electronic music.  I think education is incredibly valuable but for what I do specifically, certification is not. The most important thing is to write often, always seek USEFUL criticism to improve, AND NEVER STOP.  I started out writing video game remixes and it got me interested in composition.  It allowed me to focus on learning music production without having to worry about coming up with original songs.

What do you use to make your music?

I primarily use Reason 6 and Cubase 7, which are software Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs).  I click most things in manually with a mouse.  I usually only use keyboards for auditioning samples. My rig is an Intel i7-based workstation with 16 GB 1600MHz RAM, an Intel SSD for the operating system and DAWs, and 2 large Western Digital HDDs in RAID 0 for samples. I back everything up to a Synology NAS and online to Carbonite.

My go-to VST instruments are Spectrasonics' Omnisphere, Trillian, Stylus RMX, EastWest PLAY - Hollywood Strings, Brass and Woodwinds, anything by Native Instruments but particularly Battery and Kontakt, Damage, Phaedra, Rob Papen Predator, Sylenth, Synthmaster and Plogue Chipsounds.

I currently run 2x HP ZR30w Displays at 2560x1600 each, and monitor on KRK VXT8's. I have a few guitars but my only notable one is the Fender VG, which I record through a Line 6 POD XT. My audio interface is a Steinberg UR28M, and I also use Steinberg's awesome CC121 controller (with motorized fader and AI knob! It's crazy good.)

Hey, hey! Who do you think you are?

My name is Danny Baranowsky and I'm a composer of game and film music from Mesa, Arizona.  My beard is more well-known than Dennis Miller.  A more robust and supple bio is here, but here's a list of things I've worked on over the years.

Games!!! - 

2009 - 

Semi Secret Software - Gravity Hook (Flash) Download Soundtrack
Semi Secret Software - Canabalt (Flash/iOS/Android) Download Soundtrack
Semi Secret Software - Fathom (Flash)

2010 -

Semi Secret Software - Gravity Hook HD (iOS) Download Soundtrack
Team Meat - Super Meat Boy! (XBLA/PC) Purchase Soundtrack, Special Edition, or 2-CD Set
grapefrukt - GLORG (Flash) Download Soundtrack
Doomlaser - Das Cube (iOS) Download Soundtrack
Flashbang Studios - Time Donkey (PC) Download Soundtrack
Flashbang Studios - Blush (PC) Download Soundtrack
Semi Secret Software/Radial Games/Spry Fox - Steambirds (Flash/iOS) Download Soundtrack

2011 - 


Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl - The Binding of Isaac (PC) Purchase Soundtrack
Nicalis/Studio Pixel/NIS America - Cave Story 3D (Nintendo 3DS) (soundtrack property of publisher)
Petri Purho and Martin Jonasson - Jesus Vs. Dinosaurs

2012 - 

Semi Secret Software - Hunger Games - Girl on Fire (iOS)
Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl - The Binding of Isaac - Wrath of the Lamb (PC)

Upcoming! - 

Celsius Game Studios - Drifter (PC/iOS)
QCF Design - Desktop Dungeons (PC)
Robotoki - The Adventures of Dash (PC, Consoles?)

Film and/or TV and/or Webiseriesodes!!! - 

2010 - 

Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin? - Rhythm Heaven (Web Series) Download Soundtrack
Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin? - Season 2 Finale (Web Series) Download Soundtrack
Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin? - A Death in the Family, Part 1 (Web Series)
Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin? - A Death in the Family, Part 2 (Web Series)
Once Upon a Pixel - Super Mario Bros. (Web Series) Download Soundtrack
Anthony Saves The World (Web Series) Download Soundtrack

2011 - 

Singularity Collapse (Half-Life 2 Fan Film) Download Soundtrack

2012 -

Parallax (Short Film) Download Soundtrack

Other CoOl StUfF!! - 

Collaboration with Brent Kennedy - Super Meat Boy! Choice Piano Cuts Download
Super Cool NES Chiptune version of Rebecca Black's "Friday"! Download

Do you ever play live music?

I've played in local bands in Phoenix, Arizona for years.  Right now I am very happy with where I am and just trying to keep up with the gigs I have on my plate.  My long term goal is to tour and play music; the details and manner in which I will do this are yet to be decided.

So, you're a big jerk and you're too busy for my project. Who else would you recommend?

That was mean.

Off the top of my head...

Jimmy Hinson (Big Giant Circles) - By all accounts a pretty, pretty lady, JimmyJamz has worked on Mass Effect 2, Black Ops 2, Puzzlejuice, and Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix.

Alexander Brandon - (Funky Rustic) - Veteran game composer, known for scores for Unreal Tournament, Unreal, Deus Ex, Tyrian, Jazz Jackrabbit 2. Smells wonderful.

Andrew Aversa (Zircon) - A long time veteran of OCRemix, Andrew has done music for games like Return All Robots!, Soulcalibur V, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, and Monkey Island 2: Special Edition. Probably part robot.