Amiga Music Preservation -

Interview

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`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.

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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?

With games, then create games in basic on the C64. Then I moved on to
assembler (a friend 'made' me a copy of the Edna cartrigde). Oh my God,
the memories.... :) Think this was in 1980-1984 (?????).
Too much beers since then I guess...

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

In chronological order:

C64 (gaming, basic programming, assembler programming)

Amiga500 (music, then some graphics, but never understood coding much
(I was into LDA and LDX, not MOVE.L).

Another C64 (touched music on this again). Never owned a disk drive on these
C64's though :) Press play on tape was my life at the time :)

Amiga 500+ (mostly tracker music, but more and more raytracing took over
for music)

Amiga4000/030 (now mainly graphics, music was now of MIDI type)

PC which I use for flightsimming, raytracing (Realsoft3D v4.2) and maybe some
day I will take up music making. Not everyone call what I make music btw :)
I still use my synths though a couple of days in a week mainly for practise.

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

I did'em all, my music was horrible but used in a couple of occasions, my
'graphics' was laughed at (I don't blame them) and my socalled 'programming'
always crashed. GOD I'm depressed :)

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

Don't remember on the C64, nothing famous (I was on a casette system).
Amiga: I tried most of the trackerprograms, then moved onto MIDI with - ehh,
Bars&Pipes and something I can't remember. PC: Some crappy freeware MIDI
shit - whoose name should be protected. :) No trackers on PCs.

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

None, most were crap. Some say Hubaluba was kinda fun though. More recently
though, I'm kinda happy with a MIDI (not mod, sorry) remix of Trap I released
on remix.kwed.org. It was abandoned though a few years ago, but a friend
convinced me to release it half-finished and buggy anyway. Seemed that some
actually liked it.

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

Most of them, see above :) Oh well, yeah, sundetune - it's kinda haunting
me... If you don't have it - don't get it! :)

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

Gameplay tops the list, then stability and graphics. Music is pretty low on the
list actually, but the total sound experience must be good. Nothing worse
than a great tune and sound effects from another planet. However, there are
gametracks that nearly makes up the game. In a demo, the music not only have
to be great, varied, and interresting, but also have to be handcrafted around
the visuals of the demo. The worst thing I see is a slow moving beautiful
gracious demo, and a horrible fast beating track to ruin the experience. I
really don't like those fast tracks anyway, but that's my personal opinion.

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

Nope, not really, but I'm still practicing some. I wouldn't go professional,
and the world would thank me for that. It happens when I hammer around on my
keyboards that I come up with something interresting, but it is usually
forgotten in a few hours. I don't record my ideas - maybe I should... I like
having a CD on or a good C64 remix (or actual sid-tune), and play along, much
to my neighbours dismay :)

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

mpeg: Great, absolutely great. Makes unheard music more accessible. In a
typical record shop the guys behind the desk is totally ignorant about
*real* music and only knows about what is on the charts for that week.
They would never be able to give hints on what *I* might like based on a
description (one exception, a 60 year old lady in a local record shop,
would you believe that, she must be the Oracle of record shops, and a
local legend!!)

wave: In two simple words: TOO DAMN BIG!!!! Ok, three...

midi: Midi is great for sharing ideas around, and to arrange more complex
music. It's invaluable for the one-man-band situation off course.
Sharing so called 'finished' tunes in MIDI GM/GS format is a waste, the
GM/GS standard implementation is usually horrible. Huge fonts can be
good as single instruments, but usually fails when combined - IMHO
(no pun on the effort on the fontmakers, continue please)

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

Tunes from the scene? I could if I remembered. There was so much totally mind
blowing things around. I have a 4CD set with old mods, but is currently not
installed on my computer due to lack of space. But there was a few really
nice blues tunes around. I *DO* have my absolute favourites, but.... sorry.

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

HELL NO! :)

12-What bands are you currently listenning to?

Liquid Tension, "Emerson, Lake & Palmer", Ayreon, Anglagard, J. S. Bach, Rick
Wakeman, Dream Theater, Jethro Tull, The Doors, Colloseum II, Queen, Pink Floyd,
Jeffrey Ryan Smooths, Mike Oldfield, too much classical to be mentioned,
Leftfield (I know...), Portishead (I know again...), Bjørk (and again).
These are the more 'alternative' kind of music I listen to, enjoy, and draw
inspiration from.

A more known list includes Jean Michel Jarre, Vangelis, Vanessa Mae (yup!),
Uriah Heep, Blues Brothers, John Campell, Deep Purple, Kiss (haha), Enigma,
Yello, The Pogues.

In addition comes many more or less unknown composers/remixers from
remix.kwed.org that delivers a lot of truly *GREAT* remixes from music that
'originally' (well...) originates from the Commodore C64.

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

Turned me into a nerd some say :) In addition a lot of fun.

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

Nope, I got a life :) No pun, I enjoyed that time very much thank you,
scattering around to big partys and so on. Nowadays we have our local meetings
(the 'Alive' group only), but consentrate on watching movies, eating junkfood,
playing games in network (which we said we would *never* do) and generally
having a good time. No more being productive.

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

I'd like to greet everyone who has managed to stay with me so far (reading
this) - a truly remarkable job. A big thank you also to those who creates
music for free (at mp3.com or similar), and also to those who keep illegal mp3
sites. If it weren't for them, I'd probably still be listening to Sandra and
Samantha Fox (great *BABES* at the time), and not discovered 'true' music.
And a warm thank you to John Wynne McCoy (http://members.aol.com/realmac/)
for his *free* Jeux soundfont. What can I say, I love the church organ.

That's about it.

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