Amiga Music Preservation -

Interview

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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..

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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?

It all began when a friend of mine bought a Commodore Vic-20. That must
have been at around 1982. I was roughly six years old; my friend was a
couple of years older.

When he first told me about his plans, I recall asking rather uninformed
questions like "aren't computers hideously expensive - how could a
schoolboy afford one", and "wouldn't you need a whole room to house
one". Obviously I already had _some_ conception of computers, but I was
thinking of scientists in lab coats and panels of blinking lights...
Once the computer arrived, that was all cleared up, of course.

My friend mainly used his brand new Vic-20 for programming simple BASIC
games. (I recall he had the "Super Expander" BASIC extender and memory
expansion module.) He often used me as his test audience. From time to
time, he was also letting me to experiment on his computer on my own,
and we occasionally played some commercial
games ("Raid on Fort Knox" springs to mind!)

So, that was my first touch with computers. As these things usually go,
one thing leads to the other, and some six months later I was a proud
owner of a Commodore 64, which my parents bought me as a Christmas
present after I had defeated them in my persuasion campaign.

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

"Previously"? Watch your language! You make it sound like people would
actually throw their old computers away! :)

I have owned a Commodore 64, an Osborne 1, an Amiga 500, an Amiga 3000,
various types of PC clones, and several IBM Netstation Series 300 thin clients.
Oh, and a TI-85 graphical calculator (it's got a Z80 and it's more
powerful than the Osborne I, so it will have to count!)

Some other machines I've used more than just in passing (but not
actually owned): Vic-20, Sega SC3000, Commodore 128, Osborne 1, Apple
II, Amstrad PC1512, various MSX compatibles, various Macs. I've also
touched (in passing) the keyboards of Amiga 1000, Amiga 2000, Amiga
4000, Amiga 1200, Salora Fellow, Acorn Archimedes, some Sun
Sparcstations, and a NeXT, to name but a few.

I still own the C64 and the Amiga 3000, the IBM Netstations, the Osborne
I and an Ampex A220 (a dumb video terminal.)

What did I do with them? The operative term is 80's style "home
computing": small-scale programming, tinkering with graphics and sound
features, finding new, creative uses for computers at home (which was a
new concept at that time); experimenting with everything, hacking my way
around limitations. I had a mouse, a copy of GEOS and a printer for the
C64; I got a modem for the Amiga which opened up a whole new world of
BBS discussions and downloadable files. Gaming was never particularly
high on my priority list, but I did my fair share of that, too. I've
done video titling, computer animations for video, raytracing, video
editing etc. Listing the things I _didn't_ ever do on a home computer
would probably be easier than listing the things I did.

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

Badly formed question, again. :) I've done all of these, though I have
not "coded" for any demoscene production. But we can rephrase that
simply as "how did I end up making music on a computer", right?

Some credit must be attributed to the fact that I took piano and guitar
lessons as a child and in my teens. I was often playing my own little
improvised tunes and themes on the family piano, even though I didn't
yet actively develop them into coherent songs at that time. Frankly, I
was usually _more_ interested in my own tunes and improvisations - or
playing tv and movie themes by ear - than playing compositions of people
who had been dead for centuries (much to the dismay of my music
teachers!)

Once I got a computer on my own, I naturally started paying some
attention to the tunes in the games, music demos and cracker intros.
It's probably correct to say that the SID tunes I heard on my Commodore
64 during the first couple of years were really my first touch with
synthesized music - and, in some ways, also my first touch with
"grown-up" music. (Mind you, I was 7 or 8 years old at the time.)

I actually heard many classic pop tunes - including Faltermeyer's "Axel
F", Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" and many pieces from Jarre - as
SID renditions first, and the original versions only later. (I didn't
listen much radio at all in those days, and didn't buy much commercial
music. One of the reasons for that must have been the [then-current]
state of the Finnish radio stations, which were really underdeveloped
and backwards up until the late 80's. One of the other reasons was that
I didn't really have much money for buying records or C cassettes.)

On a parallel timeline, my friend (the very same guy who bought the
Vic-20), was getting more and more interested in music, and purchased a
synthesizer, a MIDI sequencer, and a drum machine, letting me borrow
them a couple of times. The idea of composing music in a pattern-based
fashion became familiar that way, and that was also my first touch with
MIDI.

I didn't compose anything on the C64 yet, as I didn't have the necessary
software tools or skills to program them myself, but I deeply admired
the SID wizards of the time (Hubbard et al.) I recall I was always
feeling kind of sorry for all my friends who owned all these _other_

8-bit computers, since their music capabilities were clearly pitiful

when compared to the C64: just soulless electronic blips and bleeps. SID
music was (and still is!) something completely different to ordinary
"computer music" in its quality: there is warmth, character, and
satisfying resonance and roughness to its sound. (Kudos to Bob Yannes,
who designed the chip!)

There are literally dozens of great SID tunes that I _still_ listen to
from time to time, and I'm absolutely delighted of the high activity on
the SID remix scene ( etc.)

Then came the year 1985. I had naturally read all the magazine articles
about the Amiga, but the first time I actually saw and touched one was
at my relative's place, about half a year later. He had an Amiga 1000
running Deluxe Paint.

The concept of drawing high-resolution (320x200!) multicolor computer
graphics with a mouse and, on the other hand, having a modern, powerful,
multitasking graphical windowing system at your fingertips was exciting,
but the A1000 would clearly have been too expensive for me. I had no
choice but keep using my trusty old C64. (I also didn't hear any sound
output from the Amiga during that short visit, so I had no idea of how
Amiga fared on that front.)

The second time I saw - and actually heard! - an Amiga was a couple of
years later, at my cousin's. It was a brand new A500. Once I arrived, ny
cousin had it running a Breakout clone called "Crystal Hammer", on a
C=1084S stereo monitor. The title screen was colorful, high-resolution,
and almost photorealistic, and the game was playing back Karsten
Obarski's music - IN STEREO and WITH SAMPLED INSTRUMENTS!

That tune (and the spacey stereo feeling in it, as Karsten bounces the
notes between the left and right channels) sounded better than anything
I had heard on a computer before. I instantly fell in love with that
machine. I also experimented with Deluxe Paint and the Workbench again,
took a quick peek at shell commands, and decided that _this_ is it - I
got to get one of these myself.

Not too long after that tryout, I had bought my very own Amiga 500.

Then a friend of mine copied me Oktalyzer - and _that's_ when I started
composing music on a computer. It felt a bit like I would have suddenly
got a collection of musical instruments (a drum machine, a sampler and a
sequencer) for free.

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

Oktalyzer, SoundTracker, NoiseTracker, ProTracker, OctaMED. I've also
had some brief encounters with Dr. T's "KCS" and Blue Ribbon's "Bars &
Pipes Professional".

(Oktalyzer, ProTracker, and OctaMED are the ones I have used the most.)

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

My most ambitious works have been composed in OctaMED, utilizing its
MIDI features, and a separate MIDI keyboard acting as a sound module.
These have been done outside any scene affiliation, and they are
generally not in public circulation.

I have also made some unfinished 4-channel modules (stored away
somewhere) which I might easily end up liking better than some of the
released ones if I only had the time to finish them some day.

As for the published ones, "Guitarous" seems to be the one that usually
gathers the most favorable comments from random people, though that may
be simply because Alexander Stock decided to include it as a sample tune
with his MOD2MIDI tool (which means "Guitarous" has easily had the
greatest exposure and circulation of all of my released works.)

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

Can't think of any. The earlier ones are certainly more amateurish and
less polished than the later ones, but that's to be expected! On the
other hand, I didn't really release all that many in the end (and the
really, really bad ones were, of course, ditched a long time before
anyone ever heard them.) The smallish tunes (in the <40 KB range) are
simple and small on purpose: they were composed for boot menus and
similar purposes where you can't sacrifice tons of disk space for the
music.

Looking back, maybe I could have thought better names for some the
tunes, but naming
your own compositions is always a chore. You often end up with silly
random names if you can't be bothered to give it a serious thought at
the time of the release.

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

Just like in movies and prime time tv shows, music sets the atmosphere
and mood for games as well. Music can, on its own part, help in holding
up the suspension of disbelief, making the make-believe worlds
believable. That's actually a very important thing, especially in the
narrative games which are trying to tell you a story.

Music, of course, can play a very important role in synchronized demos
as well, but ironically, in many cases the demo music modules have
easily outlived the actual demo. :)

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

I've done both to some extent, but I don't currently have the time for
serious composing. I'd like to get back into that, though - and I
probably will.

(The inspiration for composing seems to be a thing that comes and
goes in phases.)

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

I'm not sure if I follow the question. If you mean to ask if the "mpeg",
"wave" or "midi" formats are better or worse for composing and
distributing music than traditional modules (or SID tunes and the like,
for that matter), that really has to be decided on a case-by-case basis.

I hold the belief that technically restricted and challenging music
formats and tools should be used more - not less - especially in the
early phases when working with the themes, riffs and bacrdounds.
Sometimes the limitations of the instrument seem to bring out the best
of a composer. If you have virtually unlimited resources (as far as
instruments, tracks and recording quality go), the danger is that your
tunes will lose their rough edges and originality, and they will begin
to sound just like any other bland pop tune you can hear on the radio.

Computer music used to have its own sort of distinctive quality, but now
that many games are using music produced with "real" instruments, and
software houses even hire the top pop group of the day to do the tracks
for them, that's easily lost. I'm not saying composers and softare
houses should necessarily stay with the old formats and tools, but
keeping your music influenced and open to the past would be nice.

The SIDstation (which is a MIDI sound module built around the Commodore
64's SID chip) is a prime example of what I'm talking about: even if you
have modernized all your tools and instruments, and are no longer
restricted to having just three synthesized oscillators, you don't have
to _totally_ abandon and forget the past - you can mix and match. Google
for some tunes of "Rezo Largul" to see what I mean.

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

- Alistair Brimble's absolutely brilliant work in "Alien Breed"

- Olof Gustafsson's every bit as brilliant tunes in "Pinball Dreams" and
"Pinball Fantasies".

- Walkman's "Klisje paa Klisje"

- Romeo Knight's "Boesendorfer P.S.S."

- Fleshbrain's "Neodrink" (15 minutes of developing themes!)

- Chris Glaiste's haunting "Lost Patrol" theme (especially when combined
with the intro screen slide show in the game.)

- Audiomonster's tunes in "Flashback"; especially the haunting
"flashback-options1" (aka flash4.mod), which I've sometimes listened for
hours in the backround on repeat. He should really rework this into a
proper song and publish it on a CD, or something.

- Karsten Obarski's "Crystal Hammer" (well, perhaps not the best of the
mod tunes overall, but one of the best of _its own time_, when Obarski
was just about the only person tracking. :)

- Almost everything by Dizzy and Heatbeat

- The tunes from Monkey Island 1

There are many others I should have mentioned, but I'll have to stop
somewhere.

As for the C64 side, Rob Hubbard's "Nemesis the Warlock", "Commando",
"Zoids", and many others. Then there's Martin Galway, of course, with
his "Ocean loaders", "Miami Vice", "Rambo" etc. Oh, and the funky
"Boulder Dash" and "Spy vs Spy I" themes.

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

Not at the moment. Never say never, though. I'd perhaps like to develop
some ideas and themes further, especially using some of my unfinished
material.

12-What bands are you currently listenning to?

I don't really listen to "bands" all that much. (Why? Bands often change
their style from one album to the other, and while I might like one of
the albums very much, the next one may already be pretty bad.) But
here's
a list of some of my now-current favorite albums:

Kemopetrol: "Slowed Down" (excellent trip-hop; get this album if you
can!)
Sting: "Ten Summoner's Tales"
Toto: "Tambu"
Jamiroquai: "The Return of the Space Cowboy"
Jan Hammer: "Escape from Television" (Themes used in Miami Vice)
Kolmas nainen: "Hikiset siivut" (A Finnish down-to-earth rock band)
Janita: "Sävyjä" (Ma Baker's Soul Factory)

Some other artists with great songs, compositions and performances,
in no particular order: Vince DiCola, Jean Michel Jarre, Vangelis,
Madonna, John Williams, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Dave Weckl, Gary
Moore, Rush, Clannad, Rinneradio, Trio Töykeät, Lenni-Kalle Taipale,
Sade, The Police, Genesis, Neljä ruusua, Robin Williams, Seal, and
probably many others I forgot to mention.

I'm pretty much genre-agnostic, but I'm trying to avoid raspy-voiced
stadion rockers, sloppy MTV-style rhytm & blues, punk, gabber, happy
hardcore etc., and most of anything labelled as "rap" or "hip-hop".
(Sorry.)

Skillful and thoughtful rock, jazz, electronic dance music in its many
shapes and forms, movie soundtracks, soul, funk, pop, ethno (especially
celtic music), synth pop etc. is what will usually get my attention.
I also listen to classical music.

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

It was a nice experience. I was never very deeply involved with the
scene circles, but I enjoyed the productions (both participating
in creating them and viewing the finished ones!) and the subculture
(such as the disk magazines with their party reports etc.) Most of
all, if it weren't for the scene, many great tunes would have been
left uncomposed, and many creative people unrecognized, and that
would have been a shame!

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

Nope. For me, "the scene" pretty much died after Commodore's demise (and
the subsequent decline of the Amiga as a popular hobbyist computing
platform.)

I never really understood the "PC scene". Where's the challenge of
creating demos (or music for them, for that matter) if you don't have a
common hardware platform with its common restrictions?

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

Greetings to all. Keep trackin'!

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please note: this interview is ©opyrighted in 2005 by crown of cryptoburners
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