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 was in 1982 when my school first got its BBC micros. I would amaze other
classmates by typing in such lame gibberish as 10 PRINT "YOU SMELL ";:GOTO 10.
I was also the only one who knew that pressing SHIFT+BREAK would boot a disk!
Later in 1985 I discovered my friend's father was a collector of Atari
equipment/software and was quite big on the piracy scene - he had thousands
of disks for his 400/800/800XL and new ST. I then absolutely fell in love
with all things Atari.

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

I bought an 800XL later in 1985 which is still my favourite 8-bit machine,
but became disappointed with the lack of new software, so I ended up buying a
Speccy +2 in 1986 after listening to some Tim Follin music (I think Agent X).
I tried an Atari ST for a while in 1987 when my friend bought one (fave game
Supersprint, fave music was Goldrunner) but finally rested on an Amiga 500 in
1988 after seeing an intro by the group Knight Hawks (had excellent Karsten
Obarski soundtrack). Then got a 500+ and a 600 before getting an A1200 and
upgrading it until 1997 when I sold out to PC.

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

It was easier to do! I was never any good as an artist, and although I could
follow 68000 whilst looking at others' sources (my best friend was an excellent
coder) I much prefered to load up my copy of Linel's SoundFX, load in some
instruments, and spend a couple of hours making sweet music! I was also a DJ
by 1991 and wanted to make a track I could play in a club. I finally collaborated
with a guy named Andrew (Uppy from Intuition) and we had some tracks put out on
Chill Records and later Uproar records - all made on an Amiga with no FX. They
were terrible!

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

I discovered Linel's SoundFX about a year before I saw Soundtracker (which I
hated). The important difference between the two is that SoundFX let you use
CIA timing so you could match breakbeats perfectly, where as Soundtracker had
no concept of "BPM". I was trying to make house/dance tracks so I found SoundFX
was better for that purpose. I later used Noisetracker for making more typical
demoscene tracks (Noisetracker's pattern FX were far far superior to SoundFX's).
Of course, when it came to implementing the playroutine into code - SoundFX
sucked! (See Magnetic Fields Spaced Out 1 music disk to hear how my music
DOESN'T work with the playroutine hack.) By the time ProTracker was released,
you could choose CIA timing, so I started using that.

The king of trackers, as far as I'm concerned, was OctaMED for its synth sound
editor. I spent so many happy hours making C64-sounding tunes using that (some
are still available at Exotica's Special section.)

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

None at all! When a module made it into a demo or music disk, I was happy. I
remember being at a Silents UK meeting in Fareham (Feb 1990 I think it was)
and everybody was really enthusiastic when I played them some new music.. I
always like to attempt 1:1 conversions of tracks (I think my version of LFO
on one of the Spaced Out disks was as near as possible on an Amiga, and done
in under 300K!) I think it was some of the synthsound tracks that I was
happiest with, but all I was doing is emulating my heroes (Rob Hubbard,
Maniacs of Noise, etc.)

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

Many! I have lost probably 70% of my work anyway, and since much of what I
made was never spread officially, there's little chance of hearing them
again! This can be considered A Good Thing.

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

For me it was always essential that there would be good music. From the earliest
days of buying Atari 8-bit software, I would spend money on a game because a
magazine review said the music was excellent (Warhawk, International Karate,
Jet Set Willy, etc.) Rob Hubbard soundtracks probably helped to shift thousands
of extra units of C64 games! On the Amiga though, there was not so much quality,
mostly because music editors were free and making samples was easy, so many
people set themselves up as musicians but had no idea how to make a soundtrack.
Hundreds of Amiga games had terrible music, and to me this is worse than having
no music at all.

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

I have recently discovered the AmigaRemix site and am working on some remixes
of old Amiga tracks for them (currently finishing a version of Frederic Hahn's
Dear Rob tune) and when I was running the Lazarus site a few years ago, I made
10 Amiga remixes for a project we were working on. I have recently ressurected
those tracks and will clean them up and put them somewhere for people to use.
Most of my time these days is spent producing for radio (imaging, branding,
jingles, etc.)

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

It's a logical step forward. MP3 has changed the way I work dramatically. WAV
files are the common currency for everything I do that involves sound. If you
are comparing what's possible now using a softsynth, Cakewalk and an MP3 encoder
compared to a copy of ST-01, Soundtracker and a module replayer, the principle
remains the same.. but the quality is 1000% better (listen to the interpretations
at somewhere like remix.kwed.org for proof!)

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

Oh god...

Virtually anything by Tim Follin
Sleepwalk by Karsten Obarski (the first Amiga track I ever heard)
Almost all by Rob Hubbard (including Jet Set Willy on Atari and Hydrofool on Spectrum)
Almost anything by Nuke/Spaceman
Good old Soundtracker stuff by Thomas Dahlgren (as Atom and Uncle Tom)
Ready by Felix Schmidt (well known Suntronic tune used most by Paranoimia)
Get a copy of Music Invasion III by Jungle Command to take you back to what it was
all about!

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

Not a CD, but will contribute to AmigaRemix and make some of my more interesting
stuff available on a forthcoming Lazarus tribute site.. I am also trying to
compile a list of the "secret history" of well-known Amiga themes (for example,
Ski Dance by Chris Huelsbeck (Amiga version by SLL for the Thrust Ottifanten
demo) is a real song by the band Panarama, that kind of thing.)

12-What bands are you currently listenning to?

These days I am into soulful and funky House music, I have two radio shows
playing dance stuff, though I must admit when I'm not making mixes or listening
through piles of useless promos, I often fire up Sidplayer2 or Deliplayer just
to go back to the roots.

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

I don't know what it gave me, but it took my life and my childhood away. While
other kids were playing outside, I would be in my bedroom listening to the
soundtrack of some new game I had bought, or reading the scrolltext of some demo
(Tristar Demo 3 kept me away from school one morning.) Later I would be locked
in my bedroom actually making soundtracks. Hundreds of them.

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

I would like to be but there is just not the same time available (oh to be young
again and not have to worry about paying bills and all the stress of being a
responsible adult.) I am watching a few A1200s on e-bay as I speak, and when one
is there for the right price, I fully intend to reacquaint myself with the
Amiga and learn how to master AHX!

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

Inspirations should always be acknowledged, so even when I'm 80, incontinent
and rocking back and forth in my chair, I would hope that some Rob Hubbard
tracks, the soundtrack to the Amiga demo Enigma by Tip/Mantronix and maybe some
good old Karsten Obarski would not be too far away. We've all kept this stuff
alive for 20 years, I see no reason to tire of it in the next 50. I would
personally like to thank Buzz/Exotica for reintroducing me to the best cavern
of lost Amiga music in the world, and say hi to all the old geezers I used to
know, too many to list but special mentions to No.5/Dextrous/Spook (Mag Fields),
Robotron/Kef/Harlequin (TSL UK), Colin (Quartex), Action Man (Crystal)
still have those tapes he sent back in 91! and anyone else who liked what I did!

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