Amiga Music Preservation -

Interview

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`n. .rP'

`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?

Ehhrr, that must have been when I saw some old car game, where you had to
shoot the cars in front of you (dunno' the name?) on the ZX Spectrum in 83'
:) I was pretty young, so I didn't really think computers could be used for
anything else than games, hehe..

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

I have had 2 C64, 2 A500's, 4 A1200's, 2 A4000's and 2 PC's. I still have a
C64 to play the classic games and see the latest demo's, that's really
great and much better than emulating it. Nice feeling having a C64 next to
you :) Still have one A500 for the same reason as the C64 + that Amiga is my
life, so I need to have an old A500, heh.. My A1200 is wrecked beyond repair
sadly, so I use it for spareparts (hmm, this is kinda' boring to read, eh?
;)), and then there's my superduper equipped A4000 which is my maincomputer
and which I spend a lot of time infront of. I had 2 PC's for playing games,
but I couldn't live with having them, so they're sold, and I hope I cen be a
nice boy and keep clean in the future ;)

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

Hehe, well, it surprises me that you want this interview with me, because
I'm NOT a musician not anymore, and it could be argued if I ever was, hehe
;) When I began my scenecarrier in 89', and didn't know what I was good at,
I tried everything, painting, coding, swapping, composing, it was quite
normal for a beginner to try everything. So, I composed a few songs I was
happy with (back THEN! ;)), and quite a number of lame, unfinished, one
track modules.

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

The first composing tool I used was a program from 90' or so called SoundFX
1.1. It was a kind of tracker with real notes I seem to remember, but I'm
not too sure. My first few tunes were made with that program, and trust me,
they were simple and awful, with the same 4-5 samples (that came with the
disks) featured in al of them ;) Then I upgraded to the new Soundtracker, the
first real tracker ever, if you don't know it, and it was great fun,
especially since there were those sampledisks called ST-xx, from where you
could get your samples, and there were a lot (well, at that time, it seemed
like you had all the samples you'd ever need). Hehe, modules from that time
tend to sound VERY similar, because everyone used the same samples,
especially the flute samples for the main melody, haha.. Ahh, it was kinda'
funny :) Anyway, I reached the "height" of my budding composing carreer when
I bought a sampler and used StarTrekker 1.3, a Soundtracker clone. That must
have been in 91', and in that year I composed my "best" tune and some other
chipmods. Then I realized that I was a shitty musician with no talent, and
quit composing for good.. Since that I've never even tried composing again
:)

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

In 91' I made a short chipmod (can't even remember it's name.. shorty or
intro "Something" probably) which I felt was my best mod so far. It had not
many patterns and had a very repetitive melody, but it sounded kinda' cool
and machine like.. I was happy! It was infact used as tune for a cracktro
back then, and that WOULD have made me proud, was it not for the fact that I
also coded that intro ;D

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

Everyone almost! ;) Hehe, back then the magic formula to make a tune was to
have one track where you made a sort of captivating melody, and 2-3 tracks
you had to fill out with background music, that didn't intrude upon the
melody. Composing trackermods was in its infancy back then, so when people
hear the modules composed at that time, they tend to find them VERY primitive,
and ofcourse they were, but it was a way of learning, and I still like
hearing many of the old modules, although they're simple.. They've got a
clean melody you can easily follow. It's simple sure, but if you heard
trackermusic back then, you're bound to still like it in a nostalgic way :)

That said, I can also say that I do not listen to the 2-3 modules I still
have lying around, which I made, because they are so simple and primitive.
OK, I can like that quality in other modules from better composers, but
I definately don't like it when it's I who made it ;)

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

Ahh, I guess all who answer that question will be a bit biased towards saying
that music plays a great role in a demo and game, and that's true ofcourse.
In a modern game however, there's a lot of SFX too, and usually the option
to turn off the music and play with SFX only, so in most games, the music is
only backgroundmusic, there to create an atmosphere, but the game does not
neccesarily suffer if you turn if off after a while. In Quake and Unreal,
it's almost totally irrelevant whether there's music or not, in a good RPG
like Might and Magic 6 the music is VERY good I think, and heightens the
experience of the game, but it's still unneccessary background music you can
turn off if you don't like it.

With demos, it's a different matter ofcourse. If you turn of the music in a
demo, the music must be very bad indeed! ;) Music is an integral part of a
demo, and unless you have a very special design, music is as important as
the code in a production. You can always cut down on the logo's, full screen
pics and maybe even gfx design (but I wouldn't do that), and still have a
good demo, but a demo with bad music (or no music!) would automatically
suffer in general. Music is very important in demos, it carries a lot of the
overall impression :)

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

As I have said, I've not composed anything since 91' I think, and that isn't
likely to change either :)

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

Depends.. In real life, I have enjoyed using MPEG for songs ofcourse,
although I still prefer buying the original if it's good. When looking away
from the real world, and looking at the abovementioned things in the scene,
I must say that MPEGS is useless! That shoud be clear to everyone, you
cannot generally use MP3 tunes for any productions, unless you want to
spread your production on CD's and for Amiga sceners there's also the
consideration of speed. Playing a MP3 tune takes about 50-80% of the
proccessor power! So, although I now must insult some of our own musicians,
I don't like musicians who compose MP3 tunes ;) We cannot use their tunes
for anything in the scene. Ofcourse they do it because they like better,
richer music, and then size and other factors plays a second role. That's
ok, but they can't be active scenemusicians if their tune fills say 35mb
before MP3 packing it. The tracker tools are what the scenemusician should
use for productions. A MP3 musicdisk might be fun, but it wouldn't be fun
to download it! ;)

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

There are A LOT!!! But I can mention some. The tune for the Amiga Break-Out
game Crystal Hammer from the eighties has always held a special place in my
heart. Simple and clear melody, oldsk00l sound :) But mentioning tunes from
games will just make this interview fill 100kb atleast, so I'll only mention
Amiga scene mods. El'Alajema from BKH and NHP is a great tune from 91', I
like for its strong and clear sound and melody, really a captivating
thing. Well, everything those two musicians have made is great, check it
out! :) Then there's the module from the Phenomena demo Enigma, made by
Firefox and Tip, which is still a real classic, various Jester tunes,
old Marillion tunes, etc.. As for newer tunes, the newest all time favourite
tune I can remember is not that new.. 94 or so, Lizardking's World of
Fantasy, WaterBelow and Underworld Dreams are, for lack of a better
expression, "great tunes"! ;) And lastly, not to forget, Jogeir Liljedahl's
Variations is also a song I like a lot.. There are TONS of others, but these
tunes I could remember, and they're all some of my all time favorutie scene
modules :)

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

NO WAY!!!!! ;D

12-What bands are you currently listenning to?

That's very varied. Right now there's an Astral Projection cd running. Along
that vein of music, I listen to Shakta, Astral, Transwave and a lot of
others. I also like Enya a lot (talk about something completely different!
;)), old Rubber techno, all cd's by Bjørn Lynne (Dr Awesome in the scene. If
you don't know HIM, you haven't been a scener ;)), Eat Static, Foo
Fighters, Juno Reactor, ManOWar, Ministry (over in the metal department,
heh), RMB, Overlords, The Orb, Chemical Brothers, Cranberries (arghh), AQUA
(ARRRGHHH).. Hehe, bascically I like all styles and kinds of music :)

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

EVERYTHING!!! I'm afraid I'm going to sound like a complete nerd now, but
for 10 years, the Amiga scene has been the most important (but NOT only ;))
thing in my life, I use 4-10 hous each day doing something scenerelated
(chatting on IRC counts too! ;)), I write lots of "The Scene was much
better in the good old days" articles, but still, the scene is the most
important thing in my life. I know people who have quit their jobs to be
able to atend a sceneparty (ok, that was a LONG time ago!), and that's how I
feel too. the scene is above every other concern I might have, and for a lot
of years now, I've been happy with it, although it's not as much fun as it
used to be, it's still fun. The scene didn't give me a girlfriend or sex
(there was still time for that though, MARGINALLY ;)), but it has given me a
lot of firends, a LOT of experiences, a LOOOT of work and hmm.. Made me
spend lots of money on parties ;)

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

Take a WILD guess! ;) I'm organizer, swapper and editor these days :)

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

I don't even know who'll read this, or where, but the people I could greet
would probably not read it, so I won't greet anybody (HAAAH!) :) What can I
say? Probably many musicians read this.. If you are a scene musician, take
care composing HUUUGE mods that needs to be MP3 packed. Slowly you'll loose
all interest in composing with a tracker, and you'll quit the scene to be able
to dedicate yourself fully to what you want to compose. That's fine, but
where does that leave you? You compose huge tunes for your own enjoyment,
but the masses won't hear it, and you're going to miss the scene, and hang
around on the scene channels on IRC and think of what you have lost, so take
care! ;) Tracking is still a form of ART too, don't drop it :)

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