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?

My interest in computers got started pretty much at the beginning of the
Homecomputer age at the tender age of 6-7 at the beginning of the 80`s.

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

My first computer was a zx-81, I could never get any of the tape games to work
so spent my time on it keying in programs and games all the while looking for
a decent conversion of Space Invaders. Eventually i got my hand on a spectrum+
where i first became obsessed with computers and games! Played all the classics
1st hand - Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy,Renagade,The hobbit and all the rest -
and perfectly happy i was with the speccy until i was about 13 when i first
saw the Commodore 64. The first things i saw on it were Last ninja 2 and delta.
So blown away was i that i sold my speccy and got myself a 64 in about a week!
Back then i was perfectly happy to play games,games and more games. I also
breifly owned an Amstrad but got rid of it and when back to the 64. In the
late 80`s a friend of mine got hold of an Atari ST and i saw Dungeon Master
and then i knew it was time to trade away the `64 and get one of them beautys!
I had one for about 6 months and gotta admit it wernt all i expected it to be -
in my eyes it couldnt even keep up with a 64 musically!

At this time a few mates at school got hold of Amiga 500`s, I saw Shadow of the
Beast and knew i had to have one! When i finally got hold of one and with the
advent of soundtracker and AMOS i started to spread my wings creatively i was
more than happy to stick with the machine in one guise or another for almost
10 years. 1999 the Amiga was pretty much dead and had to face up to the future
and buy a PC. But the Amiga will always be my true love!

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

To be honest i was always a coder first. I got into making music(as well as GFX)
purely as a means to flesh out my Black Dawn RPG series. At the time i never
new anyone in the scene and everyone i knew locally with Amigas were either
coders or GFX artists. So it was pretty much down to a lack of options!

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

The only program i really got along with was Protracker. Obviously there were
shitloads of trackers around at the time but Protracker was fairly user friendly,
stable and didnt use any weird file formats. And thats what i stuck with.

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

If im gonna be honest nothing i ever composed i was ever happy with - The best
of my tunes were undoubtly used as title tracks for the Black Dawn series.
They were dark and depressing in tone which suited the series perfectly.
`Satans Little Helper` was used as the title track in Andrew Campbells
Magnetic Fiction series which i was pretty pleased about but i wrote at lot
more crap than decent tunes!

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

Ohhhhhh! where to begin! EVERYTHING i wrote in the first few weeks of getting
my hands on protracker!Thankfully tho only a select few have had them inflicted
on them! Out of tunes that were actually released tho i would say the theme to
Spank My Willy(Jet Set Willy Clone) cant remember what it was called but i
pinched the melody from the big keyboard scene from `Big` with Tom Hanks. It
just bloody annoyed the hell out of me.

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

In a demo i have to say in my opinion the music is more important than the
visuals. Lets face it 99% of the demos in the Amigas Golden years were just
groups trying to up the ante with more of the same,More Cubes!,More Polygons!
More effects that looked kinda cool the 1st time i saw them but after seeing
the same thing in 10 demos one after another your gonna get sick of them! But
a good track sticks in your memory long ater the demos been and gone. The
visuals aged pretty quickly but a good tune never gets old.

Its the same with games, its not very often i play with a 64 or Amiga these
days but I`ll listen to the music a hell of a lot more.

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

I`ve dabbled with PC trackers but the last tune I composed was on Codemasters
Music. Im still heavly into the music scene but these days it with `real`
instruments as i play the guitar. These days lack of time and too much life
gets in the way of sitting in front of a computer all day. Mores the pity

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

Mpeg is a fantastic format - whethever its cos your a tight ass who dont wanna
pay for CD`s or your a struggling band trying to get there music `out there`
its a damn good thing-hell, even my DVD player plays them! I havent really
bothered with anything else since i got my hands on my 1st MP3`s

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

From my Amiga Days its got to be the Shadow Of The Beast Soundtrack, Xenon 2,
Cannon Fodder.

All time fav tho has got to be Last Ninja 2`s soundtrack on the 64, Still
listen to it today

To many fabulous 64 tunes to remember but here goes............Last Ninja,
Draconus, Bionic Commando, Delta, Amaylte, Crazy comets, 99% of rob hubbards
stuff, all System 3 games, all thalamus games...........

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

Im sorry to say but i dont even have 99% of music i`ve written or games ive
coded........5-6 years ago i was burgled and almost all my amiga stuff was
stolen.............

12-What bands are you currently listenning to?

Bands ive listened for years are The Beatles, Mike Oldfield, Queen, Iron Maiden,
Radiohead, Ocean Color Scene and Pink Floyd.

New stuff i listen to included AudioSlave, Linkin Park, ColdPlay, Kid Rock

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

The 64 gave me my first appreciation of computer composed music, the amiga
allowed me to participate in it.

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

I still keep tabs on the scene but these days havent got the time to add to
it im sorry to say

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

Just really want to say thanks to everybody who took and still takes part in the
scene. Without you i would not havesat up and said `Shit! i can do that!`,
Got off my ass and sat down and created something.

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