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?

It was at around '79 or '80 when my Dad brought home a ZX-81 for us (my friend
and me) to play with. We even had to type in a BASIC program in order to play.
I was not even 8 years old at that time.

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

Well, the ZX-81 had to go back to my Dad's workplace, so that's the end of
that. Later I really wanted to have a ZX Spectrum but my Dad bought a
Commodore-64 instead. Although at that time I was mad at him, I haven't
regretted his decision since. :) I recorded lots of audio tapes with C64 game
and demo tunes. I also created a few tunes myself, but (un)fortunately most of
those got lost when I had to sell my C64 before moving to the US. From the C64
I jumped right onto the IBM PC bandwagon, mostly because I couldn't afford an
Amiga. But I was always fascinated with the Amiga's sound capabilities, so
when the very first MOD editors appeared on the IBM PC (remember ModEdit and
the Covox?), I started to compose with them right away.

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

Good question... For some reason I was always more fascinated with sound and
music than with graphics. (BTW, coding is what I do for a living now. :) I
guess, my genes are to blame for that: my Dad is a big music fan, too. It
actually worked out because my friend was always more fascinated by graphics.
:) We even "formed" our little group which we decided to call TranSByte, and
although we didn't do too much under this name (and thus, nobody really ever
heard of it), I keep using it whenever I release a new tune of mine.

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

I probably tried my hands on every single tracker that appeared under the sun
on the C64 and the PC, LOL! :) I particularly remember Future Composer and the
Rockmonitor series on the C64 and ModEdit, a very early PC-based tracker. One
of my favorites was UltraTracker, because it worked very well with my Gravis
UltraSound soundcard and it was able to do effects that no other tracker at
that time could. Then I used FastTracker a lot. Nowadays I prefer to use
Cakewalk for sequencing.

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

Neither: they all suck! :) Seriously, my main problem is that I never seem to
be able to finish a tune. Whenever I released one it was because I got bored
with editing it further. =) I am not 100% satisfied with any of my tunes: the
more I listen to them, the more problems I find in them, the more ideas I get
to enhance them. Having said that people seem to really like my "Monty 2"
tune, which is actually a cover of the famous title theme from the "Auf
Wiedersehen Monty" C64 game, composed by the immortal Rob Hubbard and Ben
Daglish. I also think "Moments of Friendship" and "Illusions of Love" are
probably the two tunes that symbolize the "peak" of my tracking days.

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

I'd like to forget about most of them! See above! :)

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

In many cases it's just as important as the soundtrack of a movie. You can say
a lot with pictures only, but you really need music to enhance it, to
underline it and to make it complete. I think the most successful demos are
the ones in which the simultaneous presence of visuals and sounds (music,
sound effects) complement each other instead of just running along in parallel
with each other. Similarly in a game the title theme or a well-placed ambient
in-game theme can make or break the experience for the gamer.

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

I do have a small home studio that consists of a Kurzweil K2600XS and a
Kurzweil K2000S (plus my PC which does the sequencing, recording and soft
synthing) and occasionally I still release a tune or two, but music is purely
a hobby for me right now, not a profession.

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

It doesn't matter what format it is released in: if it's great music, it's
great music, no matter how it was composed or how it is delivered to the
listener. Of course, better sound quality is good have, but it's not an
absolutely necessary requirement. I've heard absolutely superb General MIDI
tunes - and also ones that are horrible. I've heard really good SID tunes (C64
tunes) that were composed just recently - and absolutely bad ones, too.

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

The list would be very long, whether we talk about modules, C64 SIDs or other
tunes. :)

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

It is still a dream of mine to release an album with my own compositions, but
if I ever do that they will be brand new tunes, not remastered modules.
The only module of mine that I'd like to rework one of these days is "Zoom",
mostly because originally it was composed on my Kurzweil K2000. The rest was
created to be a module and shall forever remain as such. Unless somebody else
comes along who wants to remix them. :)

12-What bands are you currently listenning to?

My all-time favorite composers are Vangelis and Jean Michel Jarre and I do
tend to listen to a lot of electronic music, but depending on my mood I
really enjoy anything from Enya through classical music to Hungarian
folk songs - good music is not limited by arbitrarily set genres!

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

Hope. Hope in mankind in that they can create a place where people are not
driven by money or by greed, but by the pure joy of what they're doing. And
they enjoy doing it so much that they don't even mind sharing their creations
with everybody and anybody for free.

The scene also provided me with tremendous joy. I feel privileged to have
heard so many great musical compositions that I wouldn't have heard otherwise,
whether they were C64 SIDs or Amiga MODs or XMs or whatever. The scene
expanded my horizons, it almost always made me happy (and angry only very
rarely), it also gave me new friends - what more can one ask for?

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

I'm still fairly active on the C64 music scene, especially as it pertains to
HVSC (the High Voltage SID Collection). I was a member of the HVSC Crew for
quite a few years up until recently, but these days I am more active listening
to C64 remixes (http://remix.kwed.org and http://www.remix64.com).

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

Greets to the entire HVSC Crew for doing a tremendous job, and greets to the
many C64 SID fans and composers who keep supporting the HVSC!

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