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?

Informatics is the cause or result to individualism and curiosity.It seems
humouristic to say late 70's computer interest was a choice. The domain has
not changed at all, its content neither.What has changed is the definition we
give to computing.

The ways to release have been multiplied by 100 ... The way to work on
several Oses, plateforms, languages, IDE, window managers, cross-plateforms...

So what was my interest for informatics ? It's a domain which gives more
questions than answers and where each answer hides thousands more
questions....

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

I've been unproductive with my early plateforms....

Some forms of creation on Amiga 1200 though : Some ASM-C coding,Lot of music,
some pixel/pixel rendering. I really thought those machines would stay on top
for 5 years but history decided other way...

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

...Tracking was one thing you could do transparently ... You didn't had to
care about hardware changes ...format and coding was still the same.... Ok,
there was GFX, but I worked one whole month on some pixel/pixel rendering
.... That required too much time for one picture ! I wanted quick
results...One hour to compose, one hour to listen ....

I begun with some tunes using the NoiseTracker sample libraries in late 80's
....Then hardcore and jungle tunes....

In 80's we had good tools for music, in 90's good tools for gfx and now it's
time to code on Linux :)

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

Well,none in particular, I like them all.When it can support 4 tracks or more
with AM-Wav sound and some effects, it's ok.My main interest in music
remains:

o Use little looped samples
o Static bass
o Use a lot of tone portamento
o Boosted vibrato

That means I'm not a pure chip-tune composer but nor New-Age too ... I like
good fx samples (it can be 5 Mb long, I don't care) but the lead has to be
pure-digital with full vibrato.So I'd say I prefer polyvalent trackers even
if generated size is not always the best. On the coding size, we've got
enough powerful libraries able to read the stuff so who cares ?

On the other hand, there's still a lot to do on trackers:

o Network sample-support
o Asynch beatbox support
o Visual effect preview (1st place)
o Style Generator
o Live-Reverse
o ....

I think energy must be put forward ... Loosing energy on compatibility issues
is unnecessary.

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

What I've done from 1998 is almost good. Some headlines:

o Albums for Ultimate Wall of Sound : "Does 2 mean conflict?","End of your
Days", "Travelling" .....
o Doskpop tunes like "Mental Force Zero", "Loving Laurence", "Million
years ago", "Oceanic Pure Design" ....
o New-Age tunes like "Transport to Orion", "Nominal Accuracy"
o Techno : "Sequence Loading", "T-Lab", ....

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

My early releases (90->95) .Technically uninteresting.

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

Synchronized tunes can be 50->90% of the demo.Atmospheric tunes 20-30%. But
it's an interpretation.Globally, this question sounds like "what's a man
without his heart?" or so .... ..When turning speakers off with a synched
demo, it's no more attractive for sure... But any 160 BPM will mark the point
on any blasting effect.

Gfx and Sfx help mutually the product.

Another consideration should be "What's the value of music without demo" ? I
mean each component benefits itself of the combination and a lot of tunes are
still in our memories due to the context

Technically ,problem is double by now.You've got to amaze newcomers, you've
got to put some oldskool to charm older sceners. We have to face 2 scenes.The
scene of slideshows, pixel/pixel fineart, cute zines and the scene amazed by
synchro, techno, lo-fi.

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

Well, I'm mainly coding - Gfxing .... When a demo is ready, it takes 1 hour
or 2 to make a music which fits the stuff. I also make some musics to
zines.My prefered style in the last 5 years being doskpop and Lo-Fi which
takes chip-tunes material another way around.... By the way, some french
sfxers are releasing bright tunes in that range !

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

Mpeg

I'm using a lot of plateforms and I want to watch releases with correct fps
(no virtual control ;) ). So, video formats are a least bad solution.

On the other hand, 3D tools have reached a development level where you can do
demos easily and export the stuff in video format at ease.Those tools being
approached differently from coding, we can see different architectures. We're
going to pure design no more "Look at this 30 seconds ... It was hard to
code".

Media formats are portability leitmotived technically-logically talking.More
composers, more public. I'm not surprised it gets spread worldwide....Some
companies released complex media formats 20 years ago : ))) ....

A big problem remains : the compression level.75% quality picture is a shame
in some contexts. It's data sensibility relative....

Midi

Well, midi is one good solution ... But patch process should be expanded to
gfx dramatically.
We can imagine in a near future full-featured hardware textures based on
manufacturer's DB...Maybe a consortium managing 100% quality textures.The
same for fonts
Some nice sound-cards projects have been dropped and I just can't understand
why ... Midi means low-bandwith, full-quality....

It ought to be mixed with wav formats though for a global sound
format.Imagine 32 wav tracks, 32 midi tracks, 32 live-generated tracks...
Midi for string chords , Wav for special rythms, Live-generation for Acid
.... I know some projects are on the way to gain this which remains an
utopy....

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

o Vangelis : Antarctica
o Def Leppard : Stand up
o Def Leppard : Hysteria
o Def Leppard : Animal
o The Cure : The loudest sound
o Prince : Into the light
o Willy Deville : Each word's beat on my heart
o Sigue Sigue Sputnik : is this the future?
o Tangerine dream : Love on a real train
o U2 : Light my way
o John Carpenter : Escape from New-York
o Johnny Cash : Sea of Heartbreak
o Frank Black : Abstract Plain
o Elliot Goldenthal : Heat
o James Horner : Braveheart

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

I released four albums with Ultimate Wall of Sound in 2001-2002 (all
available online from http://fabian.unixtech.be/uws). where we added lyrics
dimension....It's a good experience

A friend of mine released a cd of my best techno tunes some years ago....A
great stuff !!!

I'd like to release some Lo-Fi cd ...Maybe for 2003 ; but my first objectives
are the UWS' fifth album and release long 3D movies with New-Age music.

12-What bands are you currently listening to?

Def Leppard, Advent, Mesh,Recoil,Cure,Autechre

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

Amiga was a very good plateform for multimedia approach.The way the operating
system was layered is very interesting and is demonstrative in the paranoia
we're gaining nowadays.Free of virus and communication in 90% cases, it
didn't required any substantive protection which was a boost for that 7/14
Mhz monster.When Amiga 1200 appeared, we had the perfect machine on the
paper. Graphically talking, the new Aga chips with its 16Mcol ability was
perfect. The global memory system was still better and sfxly talking, 4
physical tracks was enough as interpolated trackers were available with up to
32 tracks.

As far as I know, Amiga 1200 series is the informatic zenith.We're living now
a big fall of the client-side informatic technology. Some sort of an asphyxia
within viruses, spam, hoaxes, heavy operating systems, heavy concepts the
offensive micro accelerations won't solve.

I imagine future being a conflict between standards and parallel
technologies....

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

Well, I've been coding-gfxing-sfxing the following releases in 2002:
o System D. (3D Movie)
o Expressions (Slideshow)
o WiderSinnig (Demo)

and I'm working on FaceCream (3D Movie)

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

Respect

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please note: this interview is ©opyrighted in 2002 by crown of cryptoburners
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