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?

That has to be 1983, if I remember correctly. The year our family bought the
Commodore C64. At first, I began to learn basic and program on it, but soon
laid my hands upon the SID chip and started making music. The same C64 is even
functioning today, and I still play games together with friends like Bubble
Bobble, IK, Forbidden Forest, Boulder Dash, R-Type, Katakis, Turrican, Giana
Sisters, To Be on Top, Arkanoid, Paradroid, Alleycat or TRAZ (to name a few).
Standing beside my PS2 and Gamecube consoles, that is a funny sight. ;)

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

Well I got in touch with the video and computer games world with the famous
PONG video game, after that I got the well-known Atari VCS 2600 with hundreds
of games, until the C64 came to us in late 1983. I used it for many years,
until I turned my focus towards the Sega Master System console, which had
slightly better graphics (more colors) and effects and lots of fun games but
worse sound compared to the capabilities of the SID chip. After that I got the
Sega Mega Drive / Genesis console at Christmas 1990 if I recall it correctly.
One year later I bought a Commodore Amiga 500. There I got in contact with my
first tracker programs, my favourite one has to be the Soundtracker 2.0 / 2.5.
(Although programs like Aegis Sonix and Music Appetizer were quite a lot of
fun, too!) And I began making music more seriously. Two years after that, I
added the Nintendo Super NES 16-bit console to my equipment, which is a great
game console even to this day. It offered so many high quality games, my
favourite ones have to be Super Mario World, F-Zero, Zelda: A Link to the Past,
Super Probotector, Street Fighter: World Warrior, Demon's Crest, Equinox:
Solstice II, Secret of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 2), Axelay, Donkey Kong Country,
Super Aleste, Soul Blazer, Star Wing and Parodius, to name but a very few! In
1995, I got a Atari Mega ST2 to work on my first commissioned work, Menateus
(the official game for the EXPO 2000 Exhibition in Hannover, Germany, 2000).
Well, to keep things short, I got some other consoles like the PSX / PSone /
Playstation 1, PS2 / Playstation 2, Gamecube and a lot of PCs, beginning with
an Intel 486 DX2/66, 8MB RAM; Intel Pentium MMX 200, 32MB RAM; AMD Athlon
Thunderbird 1GHz, 256MB RAM; AMD Palomino 1,5 GHz, 512MB RAM to my current PC,
an AMD XP3200+, 1GB RAM, 250GB HD, 128MB Geforce4 Ti4800, and lots and lots
of other computer and video game equipment and games, too much to list
everything up here... :)

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

Well, GFX was never an alternative, as I suck at drawing (no matter on paper
or on the computer ;) although I like to render graphics in my spare time with
3D Studio 4. I've given up coding rather quickly since I never got beyond
C64 Basic and Microsoft Basica on DOS platforms (OK and some Turbo Pascal
Lessons at the high school). But I made my own games on the C64 using some
interesting tools like Activision's "Game Maker", "Celebrity Squares" or the
famous "SEUCK" (Shoot Em Up Construction Kit). There was even a cool car
game construction tool on the C64 from Electronic Arts, "Racing Destruction Set",
where I spent months and months creating new cars and courses.

There was a time where I tried myself in writing novels, short stories and
composing at the same time. But eventually, it became clear that I was better
in making music than writing stories, so I dropped the latter one and fully
concentrated in composing and arranging.

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

As a beginning I started with the aforementioned Game Maker from Activision,
which had quite a nice Music Editor. On the Amiga 500 I used Aegis Sonix,
Music Appetizer and Soundtracker 2.5 among others. On the PC I had been
introduced to the genious Fast Tracker 2 (in 1993) which I used a long time
to compose music for the PC Demo and Music scene under the Nickname of Rapture.

The most important program of course has to be Cubase which I use to this day
(and I'm more than sure in the future for a looong time as well). I started
with Cubase on the PC (Cubase 1.0 which fitted on one single 3,5inch 1,4MB
Disk, guys!!! :)). On the Atari Mega ST2 I used Cubase 2.00 for my first
assignment. Then Cubase VST 3.5 came up for the PC and for the first time
offered VSTi's. VSTI's are virtual software synthesizers, instruments and
software samplers which can be added to Cubase VST as Plugin's to create
music solely on the PC without using additional Hardware Synthesizers except
a midi keyboard. But I could never part from my hardware equipment and
synthesizers, so nowadays I use a mixture of virtual studio with Cubase SX
2.0 and my hardware setup at the same time.

Microsoft's freeware composing environment Directmusic Producer 8.1 which
is a part of the Direct X technology of Microsoft is also worth a mention
and a nice tool to create interactive music (I used it for Funatics' Cultures2,
Northland and the 8th World Wonder). It's really really hard, complex and
complicated to use, but on the other hand, it's the first Microsoft Program
that runs 100% stable !!! ;) Never ever had crashes, bluescreens or
malfunctions with it, and that will mean something! ;)

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

Hard to tell. With my "Lightspeed Travel" I reached a humble 4th place at
Mekka & Symposium 2002. As this is one of my last modules I would say that
it's one of the most progressed and advanced as well from a technical
standpoint. I even made a track in Madtracker 2, "Cascades". People claim
that it sounds like a studio production, whereas I made everything in
Madtracker only, even the effects and whatsoever.. nice to hear that from
ppl, though... :)

There are not too many tracks made by myself that I could listen to in an
endless loop... some of them really have grown boring over the tides of time,
sigh... There are some exceptions though.. "Walking in the Park" is nice, warm
and mellow, as are "Melt" and "Aurora Borealis". But it's up to you people to
decide. :)

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

My first tracker module, ack !!! ;) Made in ModEdit v2.00, called "The Operator".
A cheesy 4chn techno track. Away with that bullshit !!! ;)

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

Music spawns so much emotion, no matter if it's music for a movie, a game or
a demo. Without music, there's always something missing. Something really
important. I can't believe that most people only have eyes for the graphics
or gameplay in games, effects in demos, and storyline, Special FX etc in
movies (it's also very important, but music is as much as essential, or even
more...!). It's right, the best music in films is when it isn't noticed by
the audience.. but imagine you take music away completely, then it can't be
noticed because it isn't there AND people will definately miss "something"
in the movie; they can't tell what it is at first glance, but there's
missing something... ;)

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

Far more for professional purposes, far less for leisure ones (it's a time
issue). I try to compose in my free time as much as I can, but everytime I
want to do something bigger, the next commission is waiting there. Life is
hard... ;)

Nowadays I'm still composing and arranging for video and computer games (at
the moment I'm making music for "Legend of Kay", a Playstation 2 Action
Adventure by NEON / BigBen, coming Spring 2004). The last music assignment
was "Chicago 1930" by Spellbound / Wanadoo, a Gangster / Mafia strategy game
for PC.

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

You mean the file formats? Well, MP3 and OGG is still a favourite of mine, I
have to work with wav files of course and midi in Cubase etc. I listen to
tons of mp3 music (and all other formats like spc, tfmx, ogg, sid, gym, nsf,
gbs, etc) with Winamp 2.91, my favourite music player.

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

From the demo scene? Well sooo many wonderful tunes, could name thousands here...
I'm gonna mention my current favourites, as I collected hundreds and hundreds
of favourite tunes over the years, and some of them already got boring ;)

Mosaik is genious in chill out and ambient styles. Behind Mosaik is no other
than Radix himself, who is a great tracker by all means. Excellent!

Basehead from Straylight Productions has also made wonderful tunes; Nocturnal
Intruder (the best, funky!), CDAGAME (nice jazzy chords), Diamond in your soul
(tribute to leftfield, cool), Freedom at midnight, Glow Bug (whooh... spacy),
Gotham Nights (groovy!), Imajica, Lonely Planet (chill me out!), Then Zen
Garden, Spitting Images.

Ever heard of Docmusic? Take a listen to "Take A Note" and "Vinyl" !!

Muuttohaukka by Warder is great! Kinda German music with the accordeon / polska
style ;)

Back_for_good by Jerry / Rebels 98: Nice relaxing jazzy tune! :)

Xerion seems to be a newcomer too: "Oasis Undersea" reminds me of Secret of
Mana (desert level), "Sunday Daydream"
(wooow.. there's nothing more genious in the
jazz genre (speaking of tracked music, it's
so damn nostalgian)), "Ride Lavender Wind"
(has already grown cheesy again, sigh.. ;)

Lesnik - "As the trees".. A medley of his unfinished and previously unreleased
tracks... damn, in some parts I wished I had done this.. not so much
in terms of sound quality, but in terms of harmonies and melodies..

!llegal !nstruction - "Beat 170": Great...! I should do a Drum & Bass Fusion
track, too...! :)

Reed - "Cheery Jam": OK almost as good as Sunday Daydream ... Excellent! ..
"Dansze Mucyka" : Nice chilling club music...!

Marek Roczniak - "Homeless Dog": Hard to describe the style of this module...
but sounding very mystic. Fabulous!

Nork - "Book of Desire": Wow! Fantasy Style... reminds me of some Dungeon music
from an Action Adv / RPG...

Nitzer - "The Adventure": Ok too old already again.. grown kinda cheesy, but
still it has its wonderful moments!

Dizzy - "Pathway" : A module from 1993 but still very relaxing and laid back...!

.. Baah, too many modules over here, I'll stop now, before the list gets too
long.. But you should have a picture of my musical taste by now... :)

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

If you mean a compilation of my older works, new remastered and/or arranged:
Not at the moment. But you can listen to new music of mine for example on the
upcoming "Merregnon Vol. 2" Soundtrack! Definately NOT to be missed by any
circumstances! :)

12-What bands are you currently listenning to?

Don Davis - Matrix Reloaded (awaiting the upcoming Matrix Revolutions Soundtrack!)
Spirit Stallion of the Cimarron - Wonderful music by Hans Zimmer & Bryan Adams,
wonderful movie... Kraftwerk - Tour de France Soundtracks, Zelda - Windwaker OST

Madonna, Herbert Grönemeyer (is this man known outside Germany? Well I most
certainly guess so), Andy Hunter, Juno Reactor, Overseer, Keemo, Feeder,
Fluke, Linkin Park, Team Sleep, Dave Matthews Band, Elton John, Röyksopp, many
more...

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

I never really was in the amiga or c64 scene, due to abscence of internet etc..
it was harder to really get into this "business" than into the pc music / demo
scene... You had to know the right people, had the right connections, etc.

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

No.

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

Greeting fly to: Thomas Böcker, the whole Merregnon Studios Team, Lizardking,
Nightbeat, Purple Motion, Timo, Jogeir, Welti, Chris Huelsbeck & all at
Synsoniq & Vision, Jazzz & Immortal 2 Crew, King Einstein, Acumen, Evil Flash
Overload, Xenox, and everybody else I forgot to mention!

And of course to Crown of Cryptoburners for this interview, thanks a lot! :)

And Remember, don't drink and drive, stay tuned and may the schwartz be with
you! ;-)

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