Amiga Music Preservation -

Interview

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`qb ,dP'

TLb. ,dMP' all rite, now you get the chance to read

TML.dMMP some facts about some of the major amiga

,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..

dNP `Yb.

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

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\___P___/ .\--\__ __/__ |--\____)---\ _____/__ |--\_ \ _/

| | | \ | | \__| | _ \ / | \__| | /\ |

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

A long time ago, when I was around 6 years old and a graphical clock
program on a ZX81 was considered 'cool'.

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

ZX81 (brick), ZX Spectrum (real keys!), XT, 386 DX-25, 486DX-33, P100 and
for the past 5 years, a P2-450 (yeah I need to upgrade, it's 2003:)

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

I've always been interested in music as a means of artistic expression.
Plus I didn't have much talent for graphics, much less for coding. Quite a
clear choice, then.

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

Started off with ModEdit and quickly moved to FastTracker. When FT2 came
out in 1994 it was like WOW, I was breaking the 8 channel limit and using
envelopes etc. I moved to Impulse Tracker in 1997 when I saw it had great
support from the tracking community and really pushed the boundaries of
what tracking was supposed to do (well, compared to Protracker on the
Amiga anyway).

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

I always wanted to write a track that I was technically very proud of. I
know most people will say that it's the end result that's important (i.e.
how a module sounds), and of course they're right, but the composer
listens for all those little sounds 'between the musical lines' in his own
tunes, which others may not be able to hear, and a lot of that depends on
getting the tune just right from a technical standpoint. 'Mister
Invisible' (for the Return to Stage 9 disk), while it's not my best song
musically, is surely my best technically. All these facts are rather
geeky, but I managed to get an entirely 16-bit 44Khz sample set into less
than a meg (so effectively the module is CD quality) and exploited IT's
envelopes and filters to get the exact sound I wanted.

I'm quite proud of Pandorra's Box (for the Valhalla intro 'Brighten the
Corners', which won the X'97 party), both musically and technically. I
worked very hard on this tune and I think it paid off.

Musically, Pretenders (winner of the Trackering 29 competition) or
Innuendo (3rd place in GroovyCompo 2) stick out in my mind. One type of
music I could always write relatively easily was poppy melodic
chord-stabbing stuff, but with a moody and pensive undertone. These two
tracks are the best example of this.

Plug: All these tunes are available on my website (http://www.scandal.org)

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

Of the tunes that were put out (which is a very small percentage of the
tunes I wrote), I would say 'Dreamer's Domain' on Traxx in '94 was very
forgettable and pretty tuneless.

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

Priceless! Who wants a silent demo or a game with just sound effects? The
same applies to the role of music in movies. Tell me American Beauty would
still be a classic without the Thomas Newman score and I'll change my
name.

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

No. The last time I finished a track was in August 1999 (As Numb As,
released on Kosmic). Tracking was a big part of my life and I will never
forget it, but the scene isn't what it used to be and it's hard to
motivate yourself when you're essentially on your own.

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

MP3 is great but there's a lot of scope for abuse, and a lot of poor
tracks are slapped out and spread around the net in mp3 format. The
problem is basically that you can't see how the track was made because
mp3, of course, is just a recording of audio output. I liked it when you
could analyse a module that someone had written, pattern by pattern in a
tracker, and learn how they wrote it, see whether or not they had good
technique, incorporate their tricks into your own pieces.... With MP3 and
wave, this is all gone.

As for MIDI, I have no experience with it so I can't really comment.

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

Cheezmobile by Sequencer for The Trackering (15? can't remember).
Technically this is an amazing tune. Just take a look at the patterns in
FT2 and you'll see what I mean - it really pays off because the tune
achieves a tight, clean and well-processed sound from a poor sample set
(that's the idea of this competition btw).

For overall sound, I still listen to Romeo Knight's 'Cream of the Earth'
(OLD Amiga demo tune from 1990) in the car.

Jak (MD) made some nice elektronica on his musicdisk called 'Disk', and
Brothomstates (aka Dune) has a few remarkable tracks like 'Mr Y'.

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

No. All my music is already out there on the web (http://www.scandal.org),
and more and more people are just downloading their music nowadays,
whether legally or illegally. A certain friend of mine had a CD published
quite recently which got a lot of media attention, yet he barely made 500$
on it. There's no longer any point, neither financially nor artistically,
to spread your music on a CD.

12-What bands are you currently listenning to?

Currently = June 2003. Robbie Williams has some very catchy tunes,
although I'm not sure he writes them himself. Coldplay perhaps. For
Electronica... still the old favorites like Orbital but also Jakatta.
Also, anything that makes it onto Ministry chillout CD's is normally good
enough for me.

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

I was never in the Amiga or C64 scenes as I always had a PC. Perhaps I
missed out?

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

Nope, but I'm still alive, which is always good :).

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

I miss the scene. The rest is history.

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please note: this interview is ©opyrighted in 2003 by crown of cryptoburners
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