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.

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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?

Must have been around 1985 when I got my C64 - my first computer.
It fairly much continued with the Amiga and the PC from there.

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

I used to have a C64, as mentioned above. It was mainly used for games,
later I did some rather unspectacular demos. With the change for the Amiga
I lost interest in games, tried myself at coding and graphics which I didn't
really like. Music seemed like a good alternative, particularly since I found
the Soundtracker (K. Obarski cannot be thanked enough!) to be a really handy
tool. I still use the Amiga for creating music these days, even though I don't
do mods anymore. It serves its purpose as a MIDI sequencer - running OctaMED
by Teijo Kinnunen. I know this is a really unorthodox method of working with
MIDI but I feel that I do get along with it very well. My PC is mainly used
for my studies, writing documents, doing graphics, creating CDs, archiving
and administrating things. I haven't done any music with it until now.

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

Purely by chance. I have never had a proper instrument training, except for
the flute when I was nine or so. But I guess that doesn't really count.
The one reason probably was that I found it to be profoundly more fun than
graphics or code. I must say, though, that I envy coders and graphics-artists
for the fact that they can listen to whatever music they like while they're
working.

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

I started out with Sonix which I soon left behind when I got my hands on
Soundtracker. I continued using this type of grid-edit program when
Noisetracker and later Protracker came out. For some reason I never liked
Octalyzer, Startrekker, TFMX, Jamcracker and all the other tools that there
used to be. Protracker definitely was the most handy and easy to use of them
all. For MIDI sequencing I was and still am very much into OctaMED because
it's the same type of editor as Protracker. I cannot stand Cubase, Notator etc.
because I find the classical notation to be of little use for electronic music.
But to be fair, I have to say it all boils down to what you're used to in the
end. Someone who has been using Cubase all his 'musical life' will be just as
comfortable with it as other people with grid-edit-programs.

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

I dunno if I really had a goal in the first place. I simply liked doing music
and as long as I found it entertaining that was alright. In retrospect, I'd
say Cyberride was a good demo-module so I suppose it served its purpose in the
Pygmy production 'Extension'.

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

'Still Moving' - it's just really, really bad.

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

You mean value? (ed.that is!) Or importance? I think it makes a demo
watchable for non-coders. Try looking at a nice demo with the music turned
off - it's not half as cool as it is with the music blasting away through the
speakers. Music can add dynamics to a demo, it can support certain effects
in a very subtle way, it can fill spaces left by lousy effects. Probably one
of the best examples for the function of music is, in my opinion, the old
'Substance' demo by Quartex - without Moby's 'Knulla Kuk' mod the demo would
be a pile of boring crap but the tune really does make it entertaining to
watch.

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

I'm still composing but it's all very different from what I used to do on the
Amiga. I have worked for various professional productions like theatre-plays,
commercial presentations and such but I had to drop that when I entered my
first state exam for law. Having passed this exam I am now working for a
law-firm plus writing a dissertation which does not leave much time for music.
For this reason I am not working commercially anymore, just composing for
leisure.

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

Do you mean the format? Or the tunes themselves? I cannot say much about
either of the two, really. The format doesn't matter at all and nowadays
computer music, I do not get to listen to a lot. I don't play computer-games
and I'm not involved in any scene anymore so I have flatly no idea of what's
going on.

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

There are many. Examples would be 'Cream of the Earth' by Romeo Knight,
'Knulla Kuk' by Moby, early stuff by SLL (song x.xx), 'Banana Split' by Dizzy,
'Sainahi Circles' by Heatbeat, '3d demo II tune' by Julius,
'Occ-San-Geen' by Uncle Tom, 'B.S.T.' and 'Uralvolga Fine' by Bruno and
so on and so forth.

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

I have done an audio-CD already but it holds only new, non-Amiga stuff.
It's instrumental music, strongly influenced by ambient, house and 'modern
electronica'. It was mainly done for myself so I created it at home with a
CD writer. As I mentioned earlier, I'm doing music myself to listen to so I
do not have the urge to spread it among a large group of people. Right now
I am working on a second CD and I have got about an hour worth of material
already. I'm not going to use all of it since I want the selection to be
just right according to my taste - I want to listen to it in one go without
feeling I have to skip stuff. So I'll wait until I have an hour worth of
material that I want to put on this compilation. The Amiga stuff is now
very far behind my back so I guess I could never come up with the impetus
necessary for re-working my old mods.

12-What bands are you currently listenning to?

Loads of different ones. I still like synth-pop, as for example the PSB,
Depeche Mode and such. My favourite act must be The Orb, though. Their music
is so incredibly deep, you can listen to a track 30 times and it sounds
different every time. I also love Brian Eno, Black Dog, Future Sound of
London, Massive Attack, Tricky, Kruder & Dorfmeister, Soma, Orbital, Prodigy,
Scorn, The KLF, Lalo Schifrin, Dizzy Gillespie, Chick Corea, Stan Getz,
Danny Elfman and many more.

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

The C64-scene gave me loads of innocent fun - I was 13 - 15 at the time.
The Amiga scene gave me the chance to develop my musical skills, to contribute
to productions, to meet a lot of interesting people and to learn about the
fact that too many people are just sad fucks with a definite ego-problem.
I was taught not to trust people's enthusiasm if I haven't known these people
for at least a few years. Apart from that, it was a great time.

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

No.

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

Thanks. Just a quick hallo to some people who might read this. Teijo, it'd
be cool to hear back from you since it was a long time since we last wrote.
Steve, I hope you're doing fine and enjoying your job - send greets to the
London bunch from me. Dierk, ich habe keine Ahnung, was Du gerade machst -
vielleicht meldest Du Dich mal, wuerde mich interessieren wie's Dir so geht.
That's it, I guess.

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please note: this interview is ©opyrighted in 2001 by crown of cryptoburners
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