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..

dNP `Yb.

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

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| _| | | _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:

[email protected]

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

My first memory of using a computer was playing "Invaders" on a Commodore PET,
probably around 1980.

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

My dad had a ZX81 - I used to type in BASIC programs from listings in magazines.
Later we got a 48K ZX Spectrum, which I used mostly for games, but learnt BASIC
programming and a little bit of machine code.

I got my Amiga A500 in 1989, after being impressed by some demos I saw at a
friend's house.

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

I never had any gfx talent, and I couldn't get to grips with coding on the
Amiga. To be honest I haven't much musical talent either, but I have always
enjoyed listening to music. I bought a cheap sound sampler, and started to get
some useful results tracking stuff together.

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

Tried various versions of Soundtracker before settling on Noisetracker (I used
version 1.2 at the time). I used Audiomaster 2 for the sample editing.

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

Looking back, the tracks on "Superlative Systems: Supersonic 1" were all
pretty poor, really, although some people must have liked them to copy them
on - I couldn't believe it when I found one of my mods on a Russian web page and
my name mentioned in the AMP database!

I started on tracks for "Supersonic 2", but I only ever finished one mod, a
version of Going Back To My Roots (Rich in Paradise). I would say that,
technically, this was my best, although if my Amiga had more memory I would
have used a higher sample rate.

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

"Make It Mine" on Supersonic 1 was truly awful. This was made before I learnt
how to resample at different rates to adjust the BPM of a sample to fit into
the mod patterns, and consequently ended up bodging the timing in several
places.

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

In my opinion, the best example ever of how music complements a game is in the
arcade version of Outrun. The red Ferrari, cool music on the radio, you could
almost feel the wind blowing through your hair...

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

No. After Supersonic 1 in 1991, I went to university and didn't have much time
for making music. However, in my final year (1995) I thought it would be amusing
to sample the voice of one of our lecturers and sequence the samples with
extracts from Whigfield's "Saturday Night". It actually worked quite well, so
I did a similar track based on "Dreamer" by Livin' Joy.

Around this time I also started as an occasional DJ for a small bar that was
part of the university.

After getting my degree, I bought some equipment and eventually set up a mobile
disco with a friend, playing at weddings, parties, etc.

I have now quit doing discos to spend time with my wife and son.

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

MP3 files are wonderful. Ten years ago I never imagined that it would soon be
possible to download music to your computer via a telephone line and burn your
own audio CDs.

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

On the Amiga? I still remember excellent music disks from Titanics, Crusaders
(Dr Awesome - the one with the toilets), D. Mob and Flash (digital concert
series). Other memorable tracks were in a Phalanx vector demo, and a Fairlight
demo (with a spinning cube).

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

Since my music was basically just sampled from tape, vinyl or CD in the first
place, there wouldn't be much point!

12-What bands are you currently listenning to?

New albums I buy are usually dance compilations, particularly the Euphoria
series. I would struggle to name the artists though...

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

I would never have considered myself part of the "scene" - I was just a kid who
collected demos and sampled a bit of music. The Amiga scene in its heyday was
very strong throughout Europe; reading scroll texts in the various demos gave
an interesting insight into European culture.

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

No - apart from doing this interview!

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

Just a quick "hi" to the other ex-members of Superlative: Ozy (Gaz - pisshead),
Teenwolf (Andy - married, under-the-thumb apparently) and Hal (Simon -
emigrated to Scotland, get in touch!)
And of course any of my old contacts who remember me...

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please note: this interview is ©opyrighted in 2002 by crown of cryptoburners
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