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's hard to say. Being a kid, I was already fascinated by computers.
My father was working as a programmer already in the 70ies,
and I occasionally visited him at his working place with these
amazingly huge and blinking devices. I also loved arcade machines,
and later those pocket games. Hence, one could say that my interest
starting around 1980, when I was 5 years old.

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

Before C64, I had one of those Sharp-Pocket computers, where I learned
some BASIC programming. I also got a Philips G7400, a very
popular game-console here (at least here in Austria).

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

In the end, it was a pragmatic decision. It was me and a friend, being
around 12 or 13 years old, having our C64, when we got fascinated by
"the scene", which we wanted to enter.
We started to hack around a bit, and did some lame things like changing
scroll-texts in demos etc, using some of these memory-dump tools, or
whatever. Fortunately, playing around with this tool helped me later to
work with future-composer etc., without being afraid of the
hex-decimal system and things. Doing graphics design appeared
a bit boring to me, although later, I remember did some graphics
(together with articles) for Magnetic Dreams, one of those C64-disk mags,
which were highly popular in the beginning of the nineties.
My friend focused on spreading and things like this.

Coming back to music:
Although, I had not much idea about music at all, I started to play
around on C64, and after a lot of terrible noise, I eventually got
at least some idea how, on the one hand, to make this SID tune sound well,
and on the other hand, which sequence of sounds form a music at all.
From this point on, things really made a lot of fun, and as soon as there was
serious positive feedback, things steadily progressed.
Looking back, it is amazing how many pieces of sound I produced within
a quite short period. How did I have that much time?

At some point, I also got some AMIGA. Although the sound was, of course,
great, I soon recognized that C64 is more suited to me, mainly because of
two things: The more possibilities a computer offers to make music, the
better musician you have to be, and I was rather a music-programmer than
a composer.
On the other hand, during the years, I got some experience how to make
music with only three tracks/voices(?). A knowledge, which was more or
less useless on more powerfule machines.
I did some conversions from original amiga tunes (like "Dear Rob" or
"Rallymaster" (?) to C64),
but basically, I used AMIGA just as an experimenting platform
to design tunes, which were intended to be realized on C64.

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

Basically, future-composer and ro-muzak.
On amiga it was the ordinary soundtracker (?).
Later, I used to play a bit around with screamtracker (?) on PC.

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

I want to answer this question in two parts:
The first time I felt convenient that I'm doing something like music
was a tune called "Dig It", which was my first success in achieving
both a reasonable sound a reasonable melody.
Later, I think I have reached some goal with the music suite for the
C64-game "Sysiphus in Aegypten". Those tracks, I still like the most.

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

Enough of them. A small selection is unfortunately available
in the HVSC under "early tunes".

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

The most important thing is to strengthen the atmosphere a game or demo
already provides. One of the best examples, I think, is Arkanoid (both arcade
and Galway's great conversion to c64). Also Sanxion (Hubbard performing
Tschaikowsky!) and Wizball are great examples, which come into my mind.

I also remember a very early c64-game called "frantic freddie",
where my basic motivation to reach the next level was to listen to the next
tune.

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

No.

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

I did never think about this.

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

I'll try to select 10 (in no particular order):

Wizball (Martin Galway)
Comic Bakery (Martin Galway)
Parallax (Martin Galway)
Monty on the Run (Rob Hubbard)
Rasputin (Rob Hubbard)
Lightforce (Rob Hubbard)
Ghost'n Ghouls (Tim Follin)
Knight Games (David Whittaker)
Cybernoid I (Jeroen Tel)
Mutants (Fred Gray)

There were also some intro/demo-tunes which are superb,
but its hard for me to correctly name them.
I remember Bjerregaard's "In the mood", for instance.

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

No.

12-What bands are you currently listenning to?

Still some of the usual suspects like Kraftwerk or Depeche Mode.
In general there is broad range I of music I like to listen to;
to mention some of them:
The Who, The Clash, Pixies, Moloko, Trio Exclusive, Manu Chao, Modena City Ramblers, Police, Gotan Project, Franz Ferdinand, and definitely Ska Music.
... and, indeed, most of the guys played on Slay-Radio.

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

What shall I say? It was a great time!

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

No.

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

A brief "Hello" to all those guys I had contact with.
I would be nice to hear from some of you, after such a long time.

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