Amiga Music Preservation -

Interview

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`n. .rP'

`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 · ___________

______dP _____________ \ /

\ ,N'\____ _____________. _____ \ \_____. ____\ /

\___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?

I used to play Pong-clones in the '70s, then I had an Atari 2600 and I got used to square-looking
things... that's why I never enable "ClearType" in Windows ;)

My father had a HP-10C handheld "programmable" calculator, really fascinating: you could program
a "keypress" sequence, and the thing was able to repeat it when you pressed the "R/S" key !
Then in 1983, my father came home from London with a little black mistery box: it was a Sinclair
ZX Spectrum. I started with BASIC but rapidly got frustrated: so slow and dumb. Games like
"Manic Miner", "Jet Set Willy" and Ultimate's games like "Alien 8", "Knight's Lore", "Atic Atac"
were "state of the art" in the eighties and I wondered how they could make them.

The great Matthew Smith (the coder of "Manic Miner" and "JSW", Software Projects) was the man
I respected. By the way, Manic Miner simulated 2 voices polyphony on the Spectrum's beeper (so
dissonant and cool). So I really wanted to code games, and eventually found in magazines that
the "secret" was hiding in machine code. I broke the piggy money box (really), no matter what,
and bought Rodnay Zaks's book "Programming the Z-80", the one with the lightning bolt on the
cover! Yes, it was enlightening. This is how it all began.

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

In order, apart from gaming consoles:

Sinclair ZX Spectrum (BASIC, then learning Z80 machine code)
Commodore 128 (6502 machine code: minimal games)
Commodore Amiga 500 (68000 machine code: demos, mods)
Commodore Amiga 2000
...and then all sorts of PCs [come on, throw the first stone ! :P]

I currently like and own a lot of weird machines like SGI, Atari Falcon, Mac (yes it's weird too).
I've recently got an A4000/060 on ebay, to catch up with the latest productions (but I really
need a PowerPC board for that machine).

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

Note that I am basically a coder, but I love composing.
HALF-BRAINS TEAM had no musician therefore it had to be me.
Mr.Break - the other musician - only joined the group in 1989.

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

Good old original SoundTracker with ST-01 disk (blessed Karsten ;)
Later SoundTracker releases.
NoiseTracker
Startrekker
Oktalizer
Own-made MIDI tracker on Amiga (damn lame Amiga serial port !)
CakeWalk on the PC

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

None (or all ?).
Really, my only goal is to enjoy what I do, and I like to do all sort of things therefore I am
best at doing "nothing of all" (or was it "all of nothing" ? :).

I just compose for fun and it is not my main interest. There are far better musicians than me
in the scene.

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

No, I like to remember even bad things, they are all part of me ;)
Bad productions must be remarked so that you know when and how much you have improved.

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

Try watching a demo or playing a game without music.
Or just try watching a movie without soundtrack...
Sound is the first thing we feel, even before we are born.
Sound is our basic innate feeling, "conditio sine qua non".

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

Not much time, and too many passions.
I am "composing" code (grin) for professional and leisure purposes ;)

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

I miss the old golden dayz !
And frankly, I love working with limited resources, realtime effects, there's wonderful math in
music. MPEGS tastes like "precalculated" to me ;)
Farbrausch 64k intros (PC) are a good example of what I really like (code, muzak and gfx).

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

Almost all Rob Hubbard's tunes on the SID (Thing On A Spring, Sanxion, Delta, Monty series...).
Arcade games tunes such as "Thunder Cross".
And a lot of Amiga modz, too many to remember them !

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

I made one for myself.
Since my music and Mr.Break's is really weird I don't think anyone would be interested.

12-What bands are you currently listening to?

J.S.Bach - not really a band... but it's a great part of modern music's DNA.
I have no favourite groups. I "filter" almost any kind of music/group and enjoy only the
interesting part of it. Neither do I listen much to music, it distracts me totally so that it
is impossible for me to do anything else meanwhile. An unknown part of my brain automatically
decomposes music splitting it into bare single-instrument "tracks" which are very easy to
remember, thus I don't listen more than a few times to the same song/group.
But indeed I like to do revivals with friends, listening to scene modz !

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

Lots of fun, lots of friends !
Great memories. "All those years"... (playing the Firefox mod now, one of my favourites).

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

No, but I like following the scene evolution.
I am barely active in the open source community, this is a kind of "scene-replacement" for old
coders like me... I guess I will be able to join the scene again as soon as i retire from work..
see you in 30 years ! :P

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

I greet KAA, ROB, Mr.Break and Parsec, and all the other great friends I haven't heard from them
since those golden dayz.

Lastly, thanks to AMP for the great work !

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