Amiga Music Preservation -

Interview

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,nmm`XXMPX musicians. read about their history in

,#MP'~~XNXYNXTb. the scene and their plans in future.yes,

,d~' dNNP `YNTb. that's meant to be read while listening to

,~ ,NN' `YNb their modules. read 'em over and over and over..

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,NN' `b. · i n t e r v i e w · ___________

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| _| | | _l_ | | \ / _l_ | ___|

l___/=l___|====l____/===\______|==l______|\ /l___/===\______l____/

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Handle:

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Group:

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Date of birth:

1-Please, briefly present yourself

Hi, my name is Marcus Andre Rousseau.
Playing xylophone was my first musical experience (when I was
about 5 years old). With 11 or 12 years I got my GEM electronic
homeorgan, which I became quite attached to.

A little later I had an accident in school, where nearly all my
left fingers got broken and/or dislocated. The emergency physician
was quite a knob and just plastered the hand in. I still got somewhat
gnarled left fingers.

Around 1992 I started to play guitar. That became my next big hobby,
and I started to neglect tracking a bit.

Occupationwise, I studied some biology and constitutional,social and
economic history.
Eventually I graduated as a digital media designer.

2-Your earliest public work is 1990. When did you start composing ?

Apart from some melodies and chord progressions on my electronic organ,
tracking gave me the first real opportunity to construct songs.
I made some squeaky covers ("Miss Marple", for example) on my C-128
(which I got 1988) in C-128er Basic with the 'play' command.
With enough enthusiasm and dedication one could probably have created
something good with it, but I lacked both.

On Amiga, I used Shinobi as my handle, a term I got from a martial arts
book about Ninjutsu. I also liked the game "The Last Ninja" on the C-64.
I tried some aliases at that time aswell: 4tex, Catalizer, Tuner.
Later (2003+) I temporarily called myself Vision and Kendo.

3-You apparently used Protracker on Amiga for your earlier work. Obviously,

you've used ModPlug Tracker on PC. Can you tell what software you've been
using, up to now ?

(Yes, I really liked Protracker :)
I used the 1.1a Amiga Freelancers Version for making my modules from
1990-1994.
It was perfect for me at that time.
From 1995 to ~2002 I did not make much music with trackers. 1999 I got my
first PC, a Pentium III 500 and some years later discovered PC tracking.

Fasttracker was one of the first I had a look at. Somewhat familiar in
regards of the interface!
I also used MODPlugtracker, a bliss on one hand, but a pain on the other.
The features and options are very nice, but I don't care much for the
interface.
I made some songs in Goattracker, which is cool. For a while I was
composing in Skale Tracker which is imho a really good tracker with many
possibilities.
Only minus is that there are not many players for .skm-files.
Luckily Skale Tracker can save to .xm, aswell.
Regarding sequencer software like Cubase: I'm more comfortable with
tracking, it seems. For some years no, Milkytracker is my favourite
(apart from Protracker of course!) tracker.

4-Your ~2004 protracker was composed with Protracker on Amiga ? The real

question is : how long did you use Protracker ?

I occasionally used Protracker with my Amiga again from time to time in
the 90s and after that, but the 'intensive' years ended around 1993.
No, my 2004 mods were composed with WinUAE running Protracker.
I had an urge to use that program again, but also wanted to release my
songs to the internet.
At that time I did not have a catweasel device, but even though it was an
emulator, making those mods was quite enjoyable.

5-While you're not listed on HOL or Mobygames, did you nonetheless

compose any music for a game (any computer) ?

Nope.

6-You appear to be a solo musician. Is this true or were you at times member

of some groups (Amiga/PC) ?

Yes, that seems to be true.
Unfortunately, I've not yet been a member of any active group.

7-We found no reference of one of your musics in any Demoscene music compo.

Did you still enter a compo ?

I participated in some, for example 2003 in the musitAAtio #3 (as Vision),
2005 in the Nectarine st-01-compo and 2006 in DectCompo.
Never say never :]

8-Some samples, in your musics, are credited to other fellow demoscene

people (Estrayk, Strobo, etc.). For the other samples, how did you
create them ?

I saved a lot of samples from my favourite modules and added them to
my collection.
My keyboard at that time (Yahaha PSR 500)sucked soundwise, so I ended up
with sampledisks kindly provided by another friend who had a mailbox
connection.
A friend had a digitizer, who allowed me to make some samples with it,
e.g. for Aquatic Plants. The drums were from a Roxette-Remix.

On the PC it was much easier to create your own samples (software-synths,
simple line-in plug).
For 'Mechanical Island' and 'Tramp(twisted emotions)' I used some selfmade
guitar samples. On 'Cubic' I sampled some CD's and generated synth sounds
within Soundforge.
I also sampled some sounds from my crappy old keyboard, can't remember
where I used those.
Fortunately now I have a new keyboard (Yamaha E403), also to make
samples from.

9-What are you doing today, music wise ?

Been tracking and composing a little as a result of playing more keyboard,
I guess.

10-Any message or last word ? Feel free :)

I'd like to thank and greet everyone whose samples I used o/

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This interview was kindly sent to AMP team by Shinobi on 20110821
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