Amiga Music Preservation -

Interview

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

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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. Â· i n t e r v i e w Â· ___________

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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?

When I was a kid my cousins got a Commodore 128D. I couldn't afford a computer (in Argentina, my home country, that was a luxury afforded only by very few).
I was already interested in videogames (went to the arcades often with my dad) and when they got this 128 I always wanted to play with it to the point that there was a family joke about how the first thing I said as I crossed the door of their place was to be allowed into the computer room!
This must have been 1986 or 1985.

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

I couldn't afford a home computer but I was lucky enough to have family living in Germany who gifted me my first three computers.
A C128 came in mid 1990, then an Amiga 600HD in late 1992, followed by a Pentium 133 in 1997 which I used side-by-side with my Amiga for many years to come (I never really ever abandoned the Amiga).

I mostly played games with the C128 but I learned to code on it using the BASIC tutorials in the manual and a "monitor" for the memory and disk.
When the Amiga came over, besides spending shit tons of hours with friends playing Micro Machines, I discovered computer creativity. One of the first things I got was Deluxe Paint, and soon after that, I was recommended by my local software dealer to get this software he thought "I'd like" (who knows why but he nailed it. He also copied to me my first trackmo!). It was a pirated copy of DSS-8 which is a tracker that came bundled in with a sampler of the same name (I didn't have the sampler). I had no idea what the fuck it was but I started to figure it out via the demo tunes included and so I began making my own tunes with it.
Since I had no sampler (nor access to a BBS or any other Amiga file archive), I figured out how to rip sounds off some games and use that on my own modules, so not the best sample selection but I had to make do with what I had at hand. I must have been 15 when I started making these modules. DSS-8 was semi-compatible with Protracker but not really. Everything was very much trial, error and fucking about. Great times.

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

Well I dabbled and still do on all three aspects, but music is the only one that I never really stopped doing throughout and the one I feel more connected to and passionate about. I always loved music, my parents at home would be really into music and my dad had a huge vinyl collection from which I heard very varied music since I was little. I got a tiny Yamaha keyboard when I was 6 that I tried to make music on. Electronic sounds were around me from early age and it's only natural, now looking back, that I ended up making electronic music, as some of my earliest musical memories include Vangelis, Kraftwerk and disco music. Later on, when I started going out to gigs, it seemed like the perfect way to connect to other people.

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

I've used so much stuff! From that crappy DSS-8 to OctaMED, from MusicLine to AHX (when it was called THX!) and other trackers on Amiga, and when I got the PC I started to enter the land where you'd have virtual instruments and crazy things like Rebirth and the very first versions of FruityLoops which I adored. All that ended with me adopting Ableton Live as my main DAW in 2003 and I stuck to it since.
Although nowadays I don't use a computer to compose music anymore, my DAW, still an old copy of Ableton 6, is used for recording, editing and finalizing. I actually make music with an arrangement of vintage and modern synthesizers, outboard effects, and an Akai MPC-1000 running JJOS2XL as my sequencer/workstation.

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

My modules are mostly crap, so let's not talk much about them, haha. With music in general, I never reached my goal, I don't think one ever would, and that keeps you making. Always have to better myself.
As to achieving particular goals, that has happened a few times, and it feels fantastic. But music is an ever going work in progress for me.

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

Even the crappiest crap I have made, I like to go back and listen to and reflect on the time I made it at and maybe why it was that way. It's good to know those things. So there's no tune I don't want to remember. No regrets. They all helped me be who and where I am today.

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

It's one of the most important things. I am not alone in being a person that fires up a game or demo just to listen to its soundtrack! There were a lot of Amiga games that were total crap but the music kept drawing me back to them (let's stop pretending Project X was a great game) and demos where I don't care about what I am looking at, all I care for is the music pumping out as loud as possible because it's banging!

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

I never became a music professional, although I have played within a niche scene that allowed me to do many amazing gigs around the world, sometimes even well paid!
I still make music but not as much as I'd like to. The project with which I toured the world and spent my time on for 10 years is dead. Now I look for a new direction for my music, to keep playing and doing the stuff I want to make.
I will be making music til I die if I can. It's just a very important part of me.

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

I don't and never cared about what people use to make music. Format, platform or gear fetishism only gets in the way of actually making music. People can discuss and mess about with modular synthesizers for weeks on end without actually making a single piece of music whatsoever. Fuck that.
Do what you want with the tools you have or like and that's it. But make music, otherwise you're just a gearhead.

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

Well that would be impossible, I also hate making "top" lists, but if you want some killer tunes that you can find at AMP, let's list five:
- celsius - day dream
- bay tremore - rockin' steady
- substance - tb303 funks up tr808
- nuke - rink-a-pink
- dave - mono-foil
In no particular order. And not at all my all time top, just some I just remembered that I really love.

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

I guess this question applies to people who actually made great tracker music, so that's not me haha. But besides having pressed music in releases already, I do think about going back to old tunes and redoing them. It would be an interesting exercise.
Just NOT my early Amiga works. God no! :D

12-What bands are you currently listening to?

I listen to so much stuff all the time, I try to keep current and hear new things. Let me see what artists my media center says as "10 recently played":
Jaja, Anode, Type-303, Brainwaltzera, Wave Racer, Henry Homesweet, Maelstrom, Lauren Flax, Kelly Lee Owens

OK, what a mix :D

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

The computers gave me the possibility to express my creativity and make a future path out of it. The Amiga taught me all about graphics and I made a career out of that. They also taught me about creating music and I found passion in that. I don't know what boring life I'd have had I never crossed paths with these wonderful machines.
The scene gave me a platform in which to show my work to the world and helped me overcome my introversion. It made me meet some of the most inspirational people ever, and make great friendships. The demoscene was always something to look up to, creatively.

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

Barely. I am a member of Genesis*Project on the C64 scene but I really haven't done much with them in the past years, something I'd like to remedy. Also it's about time I make a proper C64 music release...

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

Greetings to all my friends in the C64 and Amiga scene worldwide! Keep creating, keep honest and unique. Fuck racism and discrimination, stand up against it every time you see it instead of ignoring it.

While we're at it, check out the Amiga Protracker DJ tool we created with my friends Hoffman and d0pefish, PT-1210!

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This interview was kindly sent to us by Akira via email in Sept 2020. thx!
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