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____/

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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?

I first had a Grandstand games console probably early 80's. It had 1 cartridge with 10 sports games which where just controlling vertical lines with a joystick LOL. Two vertical lines was called a football simulation, I think it was running at 60fps+ tho ;) At school we had some computers with huge 8inch floppy disks, 2 good computers (for the day) a bbc and an acorn electron. The first home computer that made me want one was a sinclair spectrum running Hunch Back it was awesome, until.... I saw a C64..

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

I had C64 with just a tape deck (last ninja & armalyte classic games & zzap64 magazine). I remember typing in pages and pages of code (poke this peek that) from those game books, only to find there was a typo or when you run the game some corrupt graphics appeared and it crashed. August 1989 I got my A500 then I bought a A1200 not long after they came out. Mainly played games and played with sound/noise/pro/star(yuk) trackers.

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

I had no idea where to begin with coding. (which is odd because I ended up getting software engineering HND and a Hons Degree) I could only alter existing graphics with any success so that wasn't gonna go anywhere. However when I first used soundtracker I thought WOW! this is just really great fun to jam about with these sample/ sfx. Load up some mods and see how they were actually composed and what all the commands could do. I think blue-monday by SLL was the first ever mod I heard, and people got samples off of those St-01,02 etc disks.....hehe

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

Amiga days was soundtracker and protracker, then screamtracker and fasttracker on pc. At present I only ever use Fruity Loops.

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

Journey to Revina, worked the best as I got the atmosphere I wanted at the start. Besides Im not cringing too much if I hear it.

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

No, because all the really really bad tunes I wrote are on my amiga HD, safely locked away from the public :) and give me a good laugh. Although my worst ever tune is called 'dawebeat' I think the name is says it all. One of my first tunes it sort of sounds like dying crows that are off key with drums. Very very funny to listen to thou....

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

For a demo it can boost an average demo into something memorable. Game music can get in the way but for Shadow of the beast and Turrican, the music made them memorable for me. These days game music is an important method for creating atmosphere, although I think the sound effects and spacial soundfx are more inportant especially in first person shooters, not many fps music soundtracks come to mind.

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

Just for fun/ for me... if I like what I've made in FLStudio and it still sounds ok 6mths later good.

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

Well the problem with mpeg is you can't learn from it, or see how it was made. I know alot of musicians would get pissed if you ripped their samples. But being able to use someone else's sample or see how their song worked probably helped / inspired many composers when they started out. They say we stand on the shoulders of giants, amiga musicians built on the chip tunes of the 80's and other musicans. Tomorrows musicians will only have ripping / using mp3s as their samples for tracks/mixes, you can't dissect an mp3, maybe thats why lots of modern music doesn't have much innovation.

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

For me these are classics or remind me those miggy days.

Artist / Song
--------------
Claxon - Small suggestion
Codex - Memorydust
Bit Arts - Its just sonorous, Emotional thing, Brass connection
Tip - Gummisnoppis
Walkman - Piano plinker
Dr awesome - Moongazer
Lizardking - Wild McArthur
Captain - Beyond music
Laxity - Desert Dream (has anyone mentioned these guys before :)
Skaven - Ice Frontier, Catch the Goblin (a unique sound!)
Purple Motion
Elwood (Jussi Salmela) - (all their tunes were cool....)

Artist Group / Demo
--------------------------
Blaizer - Horizon - Sleeping Bag demo
Nuke - Seeing is believing demo music
Jester & - Anarchy - Flower power demo

4-Mat

Enigma by phenomena soundtrack.
Doc Holiday, Twilight & Ghetto - nice dance tunes in Wildire prods.

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

LOL, maybe I better write something worth mastering. :)

12-What bands are you currently listening to?

Keane, Coldplay, Moby, Royksopp, Leftfield, Mauro Picotto
Im not really a follower of any one band/group. I like ambient, dance and trance stuff as a rule.

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

Good friends, good times, good memories. Xcopy BOOIIINNNGggg.
The best thing the Amiga gave me was all those WOW moments as it was a colossal leap for sound and gfx from 8bit computers, even paint packages had wow factor back then. The amiga had a real community that pushed it with ideas and technically. You dont get that with the PC & consoles just lots of big companies with money, but look on the bright side. Yesteryears demo programmers are todays big boy game developers.... A little group called the silents did alright for themselves... see http://en.wikipedia..org/wiki/Digital_Illusions_CE

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

Is there a scene??? ahhh, it must have left me behind...

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

Just all the caterham & orpington computer club peeps (big steve, roger and john) from the early 90's. Anyone who dialed the Sanitarium BBS. Hi to Mark Knight (TDK) who was cool when I meet him, and didn't have an elitist attitude. Hello to anyone who was at Greenwich University (woolwich) between 1992-1996..
Hello if your 30+ cos all ex/amiga peeps probably are now.... :)
Hello to YOU reading this, hope your amiga memories are as nice as mine......

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please note: this interview is ©opyrighted in 2006 by crown of cryptoburners
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