Music Forum. [Newsflash Issue 7 JAN-90] ============ Although I`ve not as yet recieved any feedback from the previous issue here`s another feeding of the section for all you Amiga music fans. A Miracle! ---------- No, not the latest Queen album but probably the most popular musician on the Amiga, Tim Follin [Led Storm, Bionic Commandos] strikes again with a simply breathtaking score for Us Golds Ghosts & Ghouls. The main theme tune is a medieval/acoustic guitar ditty which sounds amazingly like something from an early Mike Oldfield album. Tim has done a superb job in creating superb 'atmospheric' echoing music that suits the game 100% and the use of the flute in the latter parts of the tune is simply brilliant. The game tunes are also of a very high quality but it must be noted that the theme-tune really does steal the show.. oh and the game's reasonable too! Midi Mentors! ------------- Many Amiga musicians use Midi as some stage and depending upon the variety and quality of their midi music produce some superb music, obviously the Amiga`s sound chip is redundant but thats not what we`re talking about. You may have noticed that instruments in music seems to have improved significantly, this is due to a mixture of high-quality sampling and the sampling of chords and other instruments from Midi sound modules and synthesizers. Shadow of the Beast was a typical example. I have now recieved a couple of audio cassettes with midi music created by Bjorn Lynne and Allister Brimble, both said these were initial experiments and promised better work later. Its my feeling that some of it could arguably compete and better much of the commercial rubbish that appears nowadays, ok so their Amiga music is good but this.. WOW! If theres anyone out there also done tapes, send them in and I`ll gladly give it a listen and report it here, please say what it was done with and other useful info. I am even considering forming original cassette `albums` of this type of music and offering this as a special range at a cheap price (including royalties for the authors), I don`t know wether this would be popular - please write and let me know. I`ve reviewed a couple of tapes in this section later on. More Great Game Music! ---------------------- A new company, Digital Magic have released their first game called DRIVIN` FORCE (reviewed elsewhere) and this features no less than SIX hi-quality sound-tracker scores, some I seem to have remember appearing in a demo - they certainly sound similar! Anyway its all good stuff, some of the instruments are a bit dated, many of them being heard a long time ago, newer better quality instruments would have made this music SUPERB, as it is its GREAT! Since writing the above bit I`ve found out that the author is a good friend of mine, Bjorn Lynne himself! He wrote the music quite a while ago and it suprised me to find out he was the author. Hip(ple)-Hop ------------ Yochen Hipple has been busy creating some very nice, original internally based music creations for the Thanlion produced games (at the moment this includes 7 Gates of Jambala and Chambers of Shaolin). This music is very good and is a nice mix of internal synths and samples, I particularly liked the high-score tune on 7 Gates of Jambala. The thing that got me was that there seems to be about 5 tunes in both games.. makes a change I suppose but at least its happening more often nowadays.. music is SO important to a game, usually a title is more noteworthy for the music, which has certainly been the case with everything Tim Follin has done so far.. By the way we recently read somewhere that Tim Follin HATES the Amiga.. strange but I cannot help thinking what he could do if he LOVED it! Audio Midi-Magic Cassette 1. ---------------------------- By Bjorn Lynne, Norway. Used Roland Sound Module. Music X (I think) 3 Scores: Gone For Good, Jazzy Jeremiah and Haunted House. Gone For Good - A reasonable `quality` version of the last issues superb title track. The strings and instruments are miles better but its not been finished off quite as well as the original 4 voice Amiga version. You can tell its one of Bjorns first attempts at using the sound module, its good but not great. I just hope he has another go at doing this particular song when he gets more familiar with his sound-module. This song shows that the original 4 voice version often can sound better that a technically superior version! A great song but I have a sneaky feeling that it has potential to be done a little better [eh Bjorn? hehe :) ] Drums and chords are superb however!! Well, so are the keyboards and strings and.. and.. Jazzy Jeremiah - Heres an original piece by Bjorn that is, as its title name suggests a Jazz style piece and a sax plays the lead (and VERY good it is too - most convincing). This song is good and all the instruments back up the sax very well and the bass/rythm is great. This is quality work and for an early piece its VERY good.. keep going Bjorn!! Haunted House - Here we have the best of the bunch, an italian house style mix complete with some AMAZING samples and brilliant drum-work, this sounds authentic, hang on while I nip out and buy the 12" !! Great dance track and for early work its simply excellent, I am VERY interested in what Bjorn will be doing in a few months time.. jaw-dropping time indeed! Awesome!! Audio Midi-Magic Cassette 2. ---------------------------- By Allister Brimble, England. Used Kwai K1 Synth Cheetah MS6 Synth [Analogue, if my memory is right] Sonix (All he had then, now using Music X) 4 Scores: Water-Music, Delta, Demonology, Bach Fun Water-Music - Jarre fans will lap this one up, conjuring images up of seas etc he effectively uses the Analogue synths to create the waves and splashing sounds. The quality is slightly let down by the limitations of the Cheetah synth but the good sounds of the Kwai make up for this. Although not technically as good as the Roland module, the music is very good. Allister plans to have a Roland module in the near future. Delta - A very warm, cosy version of Rob Hubbards classic. Nice twinkly little sounds in the background and great synth-sounds and chords. Drums are poor however, this being down the synths themselves. Demonology - One of Allister better sonix efforts has had the full treatment and again the drums badly let down what could have been a terrific arrangement of a brilliant piece of music.. hurry up and get those Roland Drums Al!! GREAT piece of music unfortunatly spoiled by limitations. Bach-Fun - Allister seems to like doing jazzed up Bach style things and this fun piece is certainly no exception although I didnt really like it and its certainly the weakest score on the tape. All in all the music is (as ever) from Allister of a high standard and I feel that when, supplied with the ideal unit (such as the Roland) he will be creating much better music, drums and percussion add a great deal to the feel of a score and as they are weak on all of these tracks you tend to feel that there is something missing. OCTALISER ! =========== This strange name is the title of a very clever new product by some german programmers. Its a soundtracker style music program that allows you to use up to EIGHT sound channels at once. It does this by mixing two waveforms and outputting the resultant waveform through one channel instead of two. This means that you can have 2 sounds per channel instead of one giving a total of 8 voices simultaneously. It works well but poor quality samples have a tendancy to produce excess white-noise when mixed. BUT expect some very clever and snappy scores when used to the full. As soon as we get hold of a demo score that we can use you can be sure it will be on Newsflash! I have heard there is another 8 channel sound-editor knocking around but have yet to see it, when I do I`ll give you the details.. A Finnish musician writes.. =========================== Watchman is an Amiga musician creating scores on Soundtracker/Noisetracker and is currently composing music for Finnish software house `Avesoft Oy` He has been creating mainly original music for a group in Finland called Deathstar for over a year. He`s also a UGA-Artist so contact Ron Fonteine for more information on using these talented people. Get in touch with Watchman at the following address.. WATCHMAN PO BOX 107 SF-61301 KURRIKA FINLAND Watchmans music was featured on the third issue of Newsflash, back in Sept 89. Thats all from the music forum this time, if you have ANY news or music you would like to inform the rest of the Amiga world about then don`t hesitate to send it along to me (Martyn) at my usual address, or call me on UK 0924 265593 and tell me about it. If you`ld like your Amiga music to be used on Newsflash or simply reviewed, especially if its a complete disk then do send it, we`d love to hear it!!