Varien

Nick Pittsinger (born May 15, 1990), better known by his current stage name Varien, is an American composer and producer. His styles range from industrial, electronic rock, and drum and bass to orchestral and Soundtrack music. He is a featured producer on the electronic labels Monstercat and FiXT, and has had songs such as "Cloak and Dagger", "Moonlight", and "Valkyrie" reach millions of views. His music has been featured in media such as 300: Rise of an Empire, The Purge: Anarchy, The Real World, and more. Other non-composing accomplishments of his include helping develop multiple sample libraries for 8dio Productions, led by composer Troels Folmann and providing music production tutorials on YouTube, which have grossed over 1,000,000 plays total. Other past monikers of his include Shamantis, Kitsune Soundsystem and Halo Nova. In August 2010, Nick achieved internet virality with his slowed-down remix of Justin Bieber's song "U Smile" entitled "Justin Bieber 800% Slowed Down". He was interviewed by Entertainment Weekly, MTV, and had articles written about the track from all over the world. In July 2011, Nick released his first Monstercat single "The Force" on Monstercat under the alias Halo Nova. He has released 2 other songs under the Halo Nova alias: Triceracops and Totally Radical, both released on Monstercat in late 2011. In December 2011, Nick was hired by dubstep producer Skrillex to do an orchestral suite of his most popular songs. In this suite, the songs "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites", "All I Ask Of You", "Scatta" (all from the Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites EP) and "First Of The Year" (from the More Monsters and Sprites EP) were re-arranged into an orchestral fashion. To date, the "Skrillex Orchestral Suite" has received over 3,000,000 views on YouTube. Under his Varien moniker, Nick has remixed popular acts such as Gareth Emery, Rebecca & Fiona, and Celldweller. He has had songs chart on the digital distribution website Beatport a number of times, including "Mirrors", "Valkyrie", and "Toothless Hawkins (And His Robot Jazz Band), all of which hit #1 on their respective charts. On February 26, 2013, Pittsinger released Pick Your Poison Vol. 1, a compilation album of trailer cues that he had done strictly for the purpose of film, television, and video game licensing. Pick Your Poison Vol. 2 came a year later. In 2013, Nick and Klayton of Celldweller formed the cyberpunk/electronic music project Scandroid. In 2014, Varien teamed up with Two Steps from Hell on a private trailer cue compilation entitled Open Conspiracy.