It seems all of us think on the same wavelength. I was really amused when I saw this post, TwoJacks, since I had been working with Bryce's delvmod to extract and resynthesize the original tracks at the time. I haven't yet sent them to Randy Pringle, but I wouldn't be surprised if he'd be interested in doing his own remaster of the music equipped with the MIDI files. In the meantime, check out the other topic about a new Cythera soundtrack with the MIDI files and visit cytheraguides.com/soundtrack to download it!

Remastered Cythera Music

For about the past 6 months, I've been devoting spare time to the process of creating a new Cythera soundtrack. I love soundtracks, and it seemed a shame that we only had the in-game recordings from years ago for Cythera's music. Some time ago, Bryce started the process of extracting and converting the original QTMA files into standard MIDI versions, which inspired me to finish the job. It has been a time-consuming process -- requiring coding the rest of the QTMA to MIDI converter; synthesizing, arranging, and mastering new versions of the old tracks; and creating all the supplemental materials like artwork, webpages, and detailed liner notes. Finally, all of that process is complete, and I'm hoping fellow Cythera fans get some enjoyment out of this new soundtrack!

The 20th Anniversary Soundtrack (actually 19 years, but, eh, close enough) is a collection of two volumes, each comprising one disc of three sub-albums. The first volume/disc is entirely MIDI music. The first sub-album is a lossless copy of the old music. The second and third are new variants resynthesized with the Timidity software using several premium sound fonts. The second volume is generated with Apple's Logic Pro X, which removes the constraints of standard MIDI instrument sets and allows all sorts of new sounds. The first sub-album is an attempt to remaster the music with new software while making it sound close to the original. The second is a set of variants trying out new instrumentations and arrangements, and the third is a collection of suites of songs.

Details about each volume & album can be found on the soundtrack page on CytheraGuides.com:

Cythera: 20th Anniversary Soundtrack

Now, I am not a musician, so my focus with the tracks on this release was to attempt to recreate the old music in an updated form (for the Revisited, Resynthesized, and Remastered albums), with some experimentation (in the Alternates, Reimagined, and Suites collections). Mostly, I wanted something updated for myself that I could listen to and enjoy. I hope some of you do too!

Just in case you don't... all of the source files are available for download as well. This means that we have the MIDI versions of Cythera's music at long last! So if that's all you want for a Cythera soundtrack, it's there too. Other materials include new Cythera-themed cover art and a 36-page booklet with detailed liner notes. There's an assortment of other little things (links, resources, credits, etc.) scattered across the webpage and liner notes PDF, so it's worth browsing the website to see if anything piques your interest.

Lastly, to any musicians on here, please do download the MIDI files and have fun making your own versions of Cythera's music. I'd love to hear more Cythera-inspired tracks! I'm also likely to email Randy Pringle the MIDI files since he couldn't find them, and that at least gives him a copy, but would make it easy for him to revisit the music too.

I'm so glad Bryce started this process of extracting resources from the game data; it's made so many things possible that we couldn't easily do before. Thanks all for keeping the Cythera spirit alive!

P.S. This is Wizard, but my old account is unrecoverable. This one will also lock soon if Ambrosia doesn't send me the activation email...