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?

With a father working at IBM, my first contact with computers had to
be really early. If you think the ATARI 2600 with pac-man, Dig dug and
such doesn't count for "computer", then it was in 1983 when a friend
of mine and I were sitting in front of an Olivetti PC trying to play
King's Quest 1. I was six years old at that time and didn't speak ANY
English. I wonder how the figured out that "open door" stuff. ;)

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

The first one was an ATARI 2600. I just played with it. Hell, I was around
THREE. :)

The next computer was a C64. Again I just played with it. Some of the games
my sister and I played until we dropped dead (I remember the Bubble
Bobble times very clearly ;)). That was really cool.
The third one was already a PC. It might sound strange, but think of it.
My dad worked at IBM, so little Franky was getting a PC, no questions
asked. :)

PCs grew bigger and faster. You know the development.
When I was around 12 or 13, my uncle got me a Roland CM32-L soundcard
from the states. We had to import it because my IBM PC was a
microchannel one, and the industry never really got to producing for
microchannel. So this year (must have been around 1989-90) I started
making music with the PC. First there was an Adlib card, then the
Roland CM32-L, after that Soundblasters came. A friend of mine showed
me Fasttracker 2.03 at that time, and I knew that this was what I had
always wanted.
The rest was more an affair of PCs growing faster. Programs became
more complex, possibilities grew big time.

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

I think it wasn't me choosing music. I think music chose me. It's the
media I express myself with. Music has always been with me. I became
calm and aggressive, sad and happy with auditive things. So music just
had to be it.

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

FT2. Most definitely.
I don't even remember the name of the program I used when I had this
Adlib card. I DO know that the program that came with my Roland card
was called "Trax", and it was a MIDI sequencer on a very basic level.
I only had 128 instruments that MIDI gave me. With no other
synthesizers, this was what was left for me. Especially the base drums
sucked. :)

With FT2 everything became different. I started thinking and working
with tracker manners instead of MIDI matters.
I must have used FT2 for over around 8 years when at christmas 2000 my
parents gave me this great gift: a Korg Trinity V3.
Since then FT2 became less and less useful, and I started switching to
buzz. This is basically what I express myself with, apart from the
Trinity, of course.

But FT2 was definitely the program I worked with the longest, if you
don't count operating systems. Not even the Lucasfilm game "Maniac
Mansion" got it so far. :)

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

None. It's always a matter of working, learning, producing, improving.
I never release a song I'm not content with (okay, let's not count
this "provoke" tune that wasn't meant seriously. I didn't even
remember its name when some time I was told somebody liked it a lot).
Still every song has a different message, and sometimes I'm more
content with the sound, sometimes more with the story I tell with it.

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

No, there is no tune like that. There have been some really bad tunes
in the past, but they're at least good for a great laugh with your
friends when you got drunk already. :)

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

Music isn't everything, but demos without music are nothing.

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

Yes, I'm still composing for my crew Park for fun. I don't know if
there will ever be professional and commercial projects. I think I'd
love to make music for money, but the music would be way different, I
guess. But that's all totally unknown territory really to me.

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

Errrmmm, well...apart from midi which is more a media to make music
these are all just streaming formats. to be honest, i didn't have any
idea you could stream music only with mpg-files, but wave (and all
other streaming formats) are basically just a form of data for a
stream and don't really represent a style of making music.
So I think they're useful. :)

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

Probably everybody writes it here, but i have to mention it, too.
There have been so many great tunes that it would take way too long to
list them all. Being asked this question I can only list a couple of
tunes I remember that helped me a lot in certain situations.

Falcon - Leeloo
If I died tonight, I'd want this song to be played at
my funeral. I am NOT joking.

Le Petit Prince
Nicollete

Velvet & A-Move - Fluffy Clouds
Sojourner

Wave - Pools of poison

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

I can't talk about that yet. :)

12-What bands are you currently listening to?

The Avalanches, Yonderboi, BT, St Germain, Pe Werner, George Michael,
Eric Gadd, Aphex Twin,

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

As somebody who's never had an Amiga, the only point of the Amiga
scene that could possibly reach me was a totally idiotic guy in 5th
grade who always showed up with the games his brother who seemed to
have contact to the Amiga trader scene brought along.
With the C64 scene, I had no real contact. The only things I saw were
the cool cracktros. :)

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

Yes, I'm "still" working for several projects, may it be music or demo
projects. My law studies take a lot of time, so I can't always compose
the way I want to, but as I mentioned earlier, music has always been
with me, and sometimes I just need to get back to working with it.

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

Of course I want to greet my Park people, everybody I've coop'ed with,
my friends from IRCnet and everybody who's been nice to me. :)

The rest of my ideas is more a general question I sometimes ask
myself. I wonder if there are still young people learning how to
track. Some time ago I wanted to make a big tracking tutorial to
prevent tracker music from being forgotten. Too bad I don't run an
operating system FT2 runs on any more. :)

People, keep on making music you love!

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