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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| _| | | _l_ | | \ / _l_ | ___|

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?

Oh boy, that was in 1984. I got a VIC-20 as a christmas present. My parents
had no choice - if I wouldn't have gotten that thing I sure would've gone
c r a z y. But there it was, all new, with a Datasette tape drive! Oh boy,
all that high-tech.

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

Over the course of my 'career' I had the following machines: VIC-20, C-64,
Amiga 1000, Amiga 500, Amiga 2000, a crappy 286, a Mac Centris, a Pentium 120
and now a Mac G3.

At the beginning I did lots of gfx with the C64 and then the Amigas. I did
three(?) slideshows on the Amiga, hundreds of logos and three games that were
asctually released. Later, I felt the urge to make music, til one day, I sat
down loaded up soundtracker and made my first tune. I released one music-disk,
called "Drums & Pipes" under the banner of TRSI.

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

I got tired of making gfx, and really wanted to do music in my sparetime.
Since I started to work as a digital artist professionally, first in Austria,
then in the US, I didn't feel the urge to do visual stuff for fun. I'm still
having fun in my job of course, I love it, but music has become my
counterweight to the job.
Oh, and I never tried coding anyway. I got in the scene right when everything
split up, meaning, there was a coder, a musician, a gfx-artist, swapper, etc. ...
Shit, I can't believe that's more than 10 years ago!

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

Noisetracker, Protracker ... a little bit of Huelsbeck's TFMX, but that one
turned out to be a little bit too timeconsuming. It took a while til you had
everything set up correctly.

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

Oh, jeez, I really liked making chip-tunes, because I missed the old SID
flavour, and back then the whole retro-wave hadn't kicked in yet. Listening to
my old mods makes me smile, because I remembered what I tried to achieve and
the attempts were quite often clumsy, but I like them.
Can't really give you a favourite though ...

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

No, not really. I did and still do it all for fun and nothing else. No
regrets.

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

Like music in a movie: extremly important. It sets the whole flavour. I mean,
the Cebit 90 demo by RSI was great, but Romeo Knights kickass tune propelled
it even further, same with some Rebels demos where Static did the music. Just
awesome.

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

Yeah, I'm still making music. More than ever I've got to say. I've got a
pretty nifty setup at home and do it still just for fun. I'm totally into
electronica of course, Drum&Bass/Jungle, Goa and Ambient. But I don't restrict
myself doing a specific style. I do whatever feels cool at the moment. The
next morning I might listen to it and decide it's crap. That's ok too. Most
importantly, I don't have to do music, because somebody pays me to do it, like
in my job. That keeps the fun alive!

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

Well, the mod-standard has survived for a long time, which is amazing. The
biggest revolution in my opinion though, is the MP3 format. It already became
a standard in some way and will become more so. The advantage it has is that
it's not tied to any programs, platforms, etc. Since the audioquality nowadays
is 44.1Khz/16-bit, it's the ideal format to swap stuff around. No matter if
someone does guitar-music, electronice or a capella. And the increasing
throughput of the Internet supports that. It's no biggy anymore to send 5MB
files around.

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

Hmm. I don't know the actual names of their tunes, but these were my heroes:
Romeo Knight, Static and Uncle Tom ...

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

We'll see. If I run into the right person who wants to release it. I'm already
trying to have a high standard in my recordings - but I still have to learn a
lot ...

12-What bands are you currently listenning to?

All electronica across the board.

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

Cool memories and my career too. If I hadn't started painting so much on the
Amiga, I would've never ended up in Hollywood.

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

No. Kinda miss it, but I don't have the time and the contacts. That time's over.

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

Oh boy. Whatever you want to do, music, gfx, etc. - DO IT! Without any
regrets. Go for it! Have fun. It might get you to places you would never
have imagined (like Hawaii).

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