Amiga Music Preservation -

Interview

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,nmm`XXMPX musicians. read about their history in

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,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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Handle:

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Group:

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Date of birth:

1-How did your interest for computers start? Which year was that?

I think in some about 1988 my father bought me a Atari 800 XE or something with it's "sensitive" tape-loading device, well I was 12 years old then so it was all about fun then - games. I remember playing first game - it was like this: you as an ant-eating animal at the top of the screen was supposed to dig through the tunnels with your tube nose to score points (eggs) and be sure no one of bad guys (ants) gets you before you suck your nose back (altogeter with points of course). On the Atari the most favorite games for me were: Ninja, Draconus (and it's amazing music), World Karate Championship, Bruce Lee (which I played with a friend of mine).

2-What machines did you previously have? What did you do with them?

As far as I remember:

1990-1991 Commodore 128 with blackbox (purpose: games)

1991-1993 Amiga 500 (purpose: trying everything one after another: composing music, some graphics creation, some coding in assembler, editoring)

1993-1996 Amiga 1200 (purpose: mainly making music, swapping, editoring to Generation's zine "Przypadkownik" and Investion's "Fat Agnus")

pc486 (treason! yes, I sold A1200 :( and bought this devil machine 486 without sfx card; I was terrified hearing my mods on beeper for a few months, but then I bought SBlaster AWE32 and started brand new chapter in music-creation). But I was somehow forced to buy pc: firstly I bought VGA monitor for to take a chance of viewing Amiga in better frequency and resolution. I had a drivers and it was working well until... I runned my music-program Digibooster (DB - first professional 8-channel tracker created by Tap/Investation). By that time I got used to use DB for a while and I was going never to get back to 4-channel tracker anymore. Digibooster had a bitmap screen and all I saw on the VGA screen was some DB-like-coloured noise (like bad modulo on viewed picture). It was a disaster - Protracker, Fastracker runned and my beloved 8channel tracker Digibooster failed on showing on VGA monitor! Tap tried to take care of the problem but after few weeks I gave up - I decided to sell A1200 (for about 9900 zl) and buy a pc. In 1996 A1200 was still good looking brand, however some voice inside told me it was softly vanishing out of the market. And on the pc - preety good soundcards showed up - like SB AWE32. I consider it as a good move now, but not without a sentiment for Amiga.

After so many years I had enought knowledge to rebuilt my 486 myself - adequately to my needs and pocket. First set was 486DX66MHz runned 90 MHz, 420MB HD (taken from A1200), 16MB of RAM and 800x600 VGA resoultion. Now (2006) I got moderate pc: 1GHz AMD, 60GB HD, 384 MB RAM, DVD-RW, 17"CRT, SoundblasterLive5.1 sfx, Radeon 9550 128MB gfx, Evolution keyboard and still lots of ideas.

It is also important to notice - none of us in the group had direct contact throught internet. It was about the democratization process in Poland which took years since 1989. There was practically no infrastructure nor technologies to have the terminal at home - not everyone had a phoneline and none of us runned a BBS. So all the contact we had with outside world was mail-swaping (which I did also) and copy-parties (mostly in Poland for we were very young and our parents could not agree to send us abroad, needless to say about passport-documents). Later, some about 1995-6 one of few have limited access to the internet on the university-campus.

3-For what specific reason did you end up making music rather than gfx, coding?

Making music is my best way to express myself.

4-Which composing programs have you been using? Which one in particular?

Fasttracker, Protracker, Digibooster, Synthia (for generating synth sounds for mods), some real-time processors for live-works, Octamed, many more

5-With which module did you feel you had reached your goal?

Definitely "Bouncing Puck" - it's full version I got only in Digibooster but the bass, self-made drumline is unforgettable. There were also few tunes I can say abvout:

"The sound sleep" - for self-recorded birds, processed hard drums

"Expired sun Acaver" - based on bassline of Merlin's/Sonic (greetz Pal!)

"Voyager2 approaching Titan (featuring U2)"

6-Is there a tune you would like not to remember? For what reason?

No, rather not. Even if there were some - I've already forgotten it.

7-In your opinion, what's the value of a music in a demo, game?

Well, do you imagine watching demo-compo without the music!? Now you know what I mean!

8-At present, are you still composing? For professional or leisure purposes?

Rather rarely but yes, I like to improvise some in ambient or goo' ol' techno style. Sometimes I mix some stuff like movie sountrack with my own work. I also like to listen my own old stuff.

9-What do you think of today's pieces of music such as mpeg,wave,midi,etc...?

It's all for the people - great that it became so world-wide, common and universal.

10-Could you tell us some of your all times favourite tunes?

On Amiga:
"Step into Darkness" Randall/Suburban
"Hardwired-maintune" Jesper Kyd/Kyd Balle
"Bubble Experiment" Merlin/Sonic
"Condom Corruption" and "Testlast" Travolta/Spaceballs
"Abiturienti" Groo/CNCD
"242" from demo Front242

Market-released LPS:
Aphex Twin "Selected Ambient Works II"
The Future Sound Of London "Lifeforms"
The Future Sound Of London "ISDN"
The Orb "Orbus Terrarum"

Market-released tunes:
The Future Sound Of London "Cascade"
The Future Sound Of London "Stakker-Humanoid"
The Future Sound Of London "Papua New Guinea"
The Future Sound Of London "Vertical Pig"
Music from "2001 Space Odyssey"
Acen "trip to the moon"
Many Aphex Twin tunes
Jaydee "Plastic Dreams"
The Prodigy "Everybody is in the place"
Josh Wink "Higher state of conciousness" and "Are you there"
Human Resource - Dominator (Joey Beltram Mix)
Laurent Garnier - Wake up (full length version)
System 7 - Living on the drugs
All berliner Studio K7 "3lux" video releases

BUT FOR ME TUNE OF ALL TIMES IS::::
The Future Sound Of London "SLIDER"

11-Are you planning to make an audio cd with some of your music remastered?

Maybe

12-What bands are you currently listenning to?

Ambient/Techno: Aphex Twin, Future Sound of London, The Orb, Luke Vibert, Richard H.Kirk, Wagon Christ, many more
Guitars: Beck, Tortoise
Jazz: Miles Davis, P'taah
Polish: folk, Marek Grechuta, wietliki, Micha³ Bajor
and many many more

13-What does/did the amiga/c64 scene give you?

I met great people, we had great fun and joy. Also I experienced unity with other people. Unforgettable parties, childhood and this feeling of doing something important - it's still in my mind.

14-Are you still active in the scene these days?

15-Anyone to greet? Anything left to say? Feel free...

Greetz:
Generation: Krzysiek, Pitek, Skalniak, Klapa, Kondziu
Investation: Tap, Walt, Dan, Skorpik, Dr.D, Berserker
Other personal: D¿ozef, Majki, Jerry, Exolon/Alc, Artie/TRS, Axel D./ ILS, Merlin/Sonic, Randall/Suburban and all I forgot!

and special to Backfire/Investation for bringing me onto da scene!

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please note: this interview is ©opyrighted in 2006 by crown of cryptoburners
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