========================================================================== Music Forum - Sharp news from the world stave (urk..) ========================================================================== Hello again and welcome to the music forum, this time I've had some musical feedback from Poland of all places, from Rafal Wiodsna of Gdansk, Warsaw. Rafal sent me some nice pieces of Noisetracker music and some of his work will be featured on future 'flashes, in fact you can find one of his pieces, EXCEPTIONS on here! Rafal's work was very original and rather nice - let's face it - it has to be good to get on Newsflash! So you can sample some fine Polish Noisetracking next time. Rafal has also been using internal style sounds within his noisetracker songs, just like the ones on disk B this month. This method uses basic waveforms looped for the main lead synth sound, typically these are no more than 64bytes or less in total size, which is an obvious advantage when instruments are typically 10,000bytes or so, and if used right they sound great - eg the Hybris score. These aren't "internal" synth sounds, as basically they are produced using the same method, the smaller waveform being treated much as a sample. On their own the sounds don't sound particularly convincing but used in the right places can sound sensational and if you need to watch the module size then their use is a boon. Rafal also sent in his personal top-tens, so all you musicians can see how you rate in Poland..... Rafal has only seen a couple of 'flashes... Top 10 Musicians.. (Amiga) 1 - Romeo Knight (Cebit Demo) 2 - Uncle Tom (Mental Hangover Demo) 3 - Rhesus Minus (Cryptoburners Demos) 4 - Fleshbrain (Crusaders music disks) 5 - Dave Whittaker (various commercial games) 6 - Tim Follin (various commercial games) 7 - Jesper Kid (Silents demos) 8 - Dr Awesome (Crusaders music demos - aka Bjorn Lynne) 9 - Ron Klaren (Battle Squadron Music) 10 - Codex (Razor Demos) Rafal rates Martin Galway as the best ever computer musician and Parallax as his best piece, I liked Galways' stuff and I must admit Parallax was my favourite, especially the pitch bending at the end which squeezed a hell of a lot out of the sid chip. Once again, people who aren't mentioned, don't take it personally as there can be NO TOP TEN but maybe 30 musicians who are all excellent and have their own style... everyone has their own top-10 and most differ. On the disks this month we have a SUPERB program from the Amiga Freelancers in Norway, Protracker 1.0c - this is currently THE BEST 'tracker available - even better than Noisetracker 2.0 which is a commercial program although I haven't seen it available in the UK yet. Enjoy the program, it really is superb, there's full help available and a couple of demo modules.. if you want to load previously used Newsflash material then use the Multiripper that was featured last month, this will "rip" or steal the music module and then you'll be able to load it in and examine it. Protracker is compatable with past Sound/Noisetrackers. There's also a play-routine source for people to examine and we hope to have an optimized, CIA Timed source routine shortly for it, enabling it to run on NTSC machines too. I am thinking of compiling a number of sample-disks consisting of highquality only samples and modules, if these are compiled they will be made available to Newsflash members and for a small fee. Watch the next issue for news, which should give me time to compile a number of suitable disks, we could produce 40 or 50 samples disks but to be honest 3/4 disks of TOP QUALITY samples would suffice, no one wants tinny, older samples! AMAZING! Some Response! Maurice Wiellink of Holland writes... Did you ever listen to a Tune through a headphone plugged in your monitor ?......... DON'T DO IT !!! It will sound like #$##@!!! How can that be ??? I don't know, do you ? However, Mr.Brown always complains that it's very quiet on the AmiMusic scene with the exeption of those who listen to the names Brimble, Lynne, and Lentfert, those guys just don't intent to be quiet (thank God !) *Too right I complain, never any feedback, thanks Maurice! So I decided to do something about it (while I was Playing Colossus Chess). I Picked Sound FX from the ceiling (how did it got there ?), loaded just one,bad, piano sample into it and created a song.....Just like that. It was ready in five minutes ! It Sound's a bit like 'Moonlight Sonate' but it ain't it because this one is called 'Daylight Sonate'............ * Yup you can find Maurice`s music in the background options... Sound FX is a somewhat limited editor but I still use it a lot to get a tune together the first time. Later on, I will put it all together in a more powerfull editor. Allright then. I will name some tunes that I like (in no particular order) 'Voyage' from S.Lentfert 'Ave Maria' from A.Brimble The 'SoundTrack' on the Red Sector 'Cebit' Demo. 'Is This All' from The Watchman (?) '12 th Warrior' from B.Lynne The 'SoundTrack' on Shadow of the Beast. 'The Snowman' from X-Men 'Another Tune' from Suntronic 'Galaxian Gloud' from S.Lentfert Some pieces of the game Turrican Some pieces of 'Choral Rock' from N.Sixsmith 'Latest Sounds' (you know, that short tune of A.Brimble) 'Piano Session' (Unknown Author) 'Over and Over' from S.Lentfert 'No One Home' from B.Lynne But I Like My Own (Master ?) Pieces the most !!! (Big Ego ?... NOoo !) By the way, why don't you explain in Newsflash, to all those people who don't know, what Sequencers, Midi, Samples, Synthetic Sounds, Editors, Samplers .....etc are ?! I'm sure that there are many Amiga owners that have'nt got a clue what all this stuff means, and does ! * We did feature a Midi for beginners article in a previous issue but if more readers request it, I`m sure we can get a good musician to do a series on the subject. See Ya Later ! And Continue the Music Forum on NewsFlash, Allright ?!? * Of course Maurice, and it`s nice to get mail, especially for this column which I`m aware seems very popular but not too well supported with mail or support! Come on all you musically minded Amiga bods! I got a letter from my Norwegian mate Bjorn Lynne (Dr Awesome) who I hear is now considering concentrating on better musical theories in his tunes because (and I agree) it's getting hard now to produce and Amiga score and have people say "jeez! listen to THAT!". We are coming to a point where the current technology is at it's limits, the scores that people are wowing over are ones with great samples and effects, Bjorn's own "Cooking It Up" being one of them (300K by the way) - but Bjorn also created a very nice piano score in 37K which was musically far superior. For me I'd like to hear both, in the long run I appreciate good musical scores and I still rate Bjorns "gone for good" which was on Newsflash 6 as a great piece of Amiga music. But it's nice every now and again to hear something refreshing and powerful. Since writing the above I recieved a piece of music called "Space Deliria" from Bjorn which I rate as probably the best piece of music I`ve heard to date, I simply LOVE it. Fortunatly at the last minute Bjorn sent me a Crusader`s demo containing the aforementioned score, so you can revel in it`s brilliance. I would say however that the demo detracts from the music in that you tend to concentrate on the things happening in the demo (it is a good demo!) and less so on the music, so watch it once and then music fans can turn off the display and pump up that volume. It`s wonderful. Funny as it seems my mate Bjorn is also considering packing his Norwegian bags and heading for these parts, to try his luck over here as a musician. Bjorn is one of the best Amiga musicians around, having heard his synth stuff I`d also go as far as saying "one of the best musicians" too, I really do hope that he get`s some work and he can spend a year or so over here, the guy deserves a break. Talking of Midi music (was I?) I heard some of my other music pals stuff tonight, albiet over the phone but it was excellent, I speak of Al Brimble who`s just gone out and bought yet more bits to plug into his synths and stuff. A mixer and reverb unit are the latest gubbins to be strapped in, I witnessed the difference a reverb unit makes last January whilst I was at Bjorns in Norway - even to the Amiga! It`s staggering. So I can look forward to a tape of Al`s stuff popping through the door shortly, complete with full reverb/spacial/stereo effects, can`t I mate??? Continuing on with the Bjorn Lynne chat.. I'm hoping we can do another special disk soon consisting of further works from this great Norwegian musician who has gone from strength to strength over the last year, creating some truly great Amiga tracks and some superb Midi tracks too. I've been talking to a few of the guys with regards MIDI-based synthalbums and I'm hopeful that we could get together and produce a kind of Album - including music from all the best Amiga artists - not using the Amiga but their Midi stuff.. if you think their Amiga stuff is good.. you HAVE to hear their stuff using professional equipment... but what I'd need for any of us to progress is a willing public, if you'ld like to hear some of it I HAVE to know. I am 100% positive that an album of these musicians stuff was to appear it would be better than any Jarre or Vangelis. No joke. I listen to Jarre/Vangelis and I also listen to all their Midi stuff... it really is something else.. Amiga music fans need no telling that we are priveliged to have 30 or so brilliant musicians using the Amiga for their output, most of these doing it for the love of it and the hell of it - it's us who benefit and I'm pleased that Newsflash gives them a platform to perform on. Excuse me if I'm getting a wee bit sentimental - I'm on the 4th can of Lamot Pils, such are the rigours of working from home.. as it's the music spot I have to be relaxed and the music is blasting out and my fingers are itching to sprawl over the keyboard! One thing is starting to concern me is that there seems to be a new music editor out every week and to be honest I cannot see any of them succeeding because of the quality of the PD ones, I mean we have had a succession of them, including Protracker - why should anyone buy a music program to produce amiga sounds when such fine programs are available for next to nothing. Midi apart I believe the Amiga commercial music scene is dead for developers, any package that would sell would have to be incredibly good and I can't see anything appearing that would beat current programs. Amiga owners are spoilt when it comes to music, brilliant editors and fantastic music - most available in the public domain and in demos, every now and again in commercial software. So let's all thank everyone concerned for providing us with some great entertainment in the last year, most have done it, as I said, for the sheer hell of it and of course because they love doing it - that's where pure creativity comes from. On a personal note I'd like to thank the following for a never-ending source of musical Newsflash material... Bjorn Lynne... for GONE FOR GOOD, MOVE, TUNA FISH, SPACE DELIRIA! & others. Al Brimble.... for EVERYTHING - too many to count... THANKS! Seb Lentfert.. for some brilliant synthetic pieces and also to Brian for coding them all up for us... ta! And also.... Stein Giske... for some internal-synth music Watchman...... for some nice finnish music! Bruno Bossier. for contributing and getting better.. also for 'Bridges! Rafal Widsna.. for proving that the beat goes on in the East.. Steve Hogg.... for sending me some stuff last week! (See next Newsflash!) Also... Every musician in any of the demos we have featured, all have been great! Let's hope the standard of Amiga music continues well into the 90's and some of these superb musicians get the recognition they deserve and finally make it onto vinyl/magnetic tape/cd... Musical Goodbyes from Martyn.... Seeya. PS. If you`re not happy with any of the views or opinions expressed in this column or you feel you would like to express your own views and opinions then by all means tell me, some feedback would be great.