64 and Amiga Music Page by Derek Joseph AKA Vanubian

64 AND AMIGA MUSIC PAGE

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The 64 music page is dedicated to quality musicians such as Rob Hubbard and Martin Galway, who produced beautiful music from the Commodore 64, a machine that was really was surpose to be used for just bleebs and sound effects. Classic games such as Wizball and Sanxion were enhanced by the excelent music.

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Commodore 64 music was best known for the musicians who became cult heroes for efforts such as Sanxion by Rob Hubbard, Giana Sisters by Chrs Hullsbeck(Im getting better), Last Ninja 2 by Matt Gray, Knucklebusters by Rob Hubbard, Parallax by Martin Galway, Wizball by Martin Galway, Last Ninja by Ben Douglish, Hawkeye by Art of Noise, Cybernoid by Art of Noise and (Koyanassaki) Delta by Rob Hubbard .

hubbard.jpg (6438 bytes) The undoubted master is Rob Hubbard . Rob Hubbard had a hip hop flavour to his tunes where he concentrated on the beat rather the orchestral tunes like Martin Galway. Tunes such as Sanxion , Knucklebusters , (Koyanassaki) Delta are some of his greatest tunes. BMX Kidz was a tune developed from his experiments with sampled sounds on Crazy Comets 2 . It had an excelent beat which I thought was impossible on the Commodore 64, who am I to doubt the master. Unfortunately, his translation to the Amiga and other machines was not so fruitful. To get these classic tunes check out C64audio . Rob Hubbard picture from C64audio .

timf.gif (10628 bytes) Tim Follin in my eyes was a genius. The sounds he produced from the Commodore 64 where amazing. Classic tunes for Led Storm, Ghouls and Ghosts and Bionic Commando still chern in my head. Compared to todays music they sound sad but as a computer musician my self, I know how hard it is to producing something reasonably good from the Commodore 64 SID chip. The company he worked for was Software Projects who concentrated on mainly arcade conversions, helped by Tim's music. To get these classic tunes check out C64audio . Tim Follin picture from C64audio .

Matt Gray produced some of my favourite music for the Commodore 64 for Last Ninja 2. The reason being he had the imagination to actually rip off hip hops masters of such as Public Enemy, NWA, and also Tim simeon. The 4 level has the best tune, respect. Game music now is just an after thought.

AMIGA MUSIC

After the Commodore 64 had it's day the Amiga scene grew rapidly, except in America due to poor marketing by Commodore plus lack of interest from the American public. Amiga Demo Scene grew from the Commodore 64 scene were musicians and programmers showed off what they could achieve with the new Commodore Amiga.

Silence, Phenomena, and other demo groups such as Magic 12 became popular.

Musicians such as Audiomonster became respected around the European community for what they could achieve with the Amiga. The Demo scene is still alive in the form of the PC but is not as big as it use to be. Everybody wanted to be in a respected demo group. Musicians wanted to show the world what they could produce.

The thing that surprises me is I told my sister and friends years ago that this type of music will become popular. Now you can hear on Top of The Pops groups producing similar but I would not say better music similar to what was produced on the Amiga years ago. That's the reason I can not stand garage as it is say nothing new to me. Garage music is going to die a quick death. I see it lasting another 2 years. Hip Hop is still surprising me but the rapid swing to commercialism will kill what rappers recall as hardcore. I'm always knocking Mase but his style real depresses me. To think that all you have to do is produce a quality beat and rap some mum bo jum bo to it vexs me. But other people like it so who am I, he's making his money.

I new the end of computer music was nigh when Dave Whittaker a reasonable Commodore musician sampled Tim simeons Bomb The Bass tune for Xenon 2 an excelent shoot em up that was to easy to complete. I new if David could do this then anybody could sample a song an translate to the computer. Was I right, Hell Yeah!

Check out Quake 2, does the music enhance the game or was these tunez just bungled in. I feel the art of game musicians has been replaced by using sampled sounds and inapproriate music. I do not mind real musicians being used, only when the music can be used to enhance the game. Ask anybody about computer musicians and they'll go, AH! WHAT! who are they. I can not say who is a quality musician any more as there are so many crap ones out there. In the Commodore 64's hay day crap musicians were found out fast. Only quality programmers or computer musicians could producing something reasonable from the SID chip, amateurs stayed well clear. Thats the reason only a few quality musicians were regularly used. Now anybody can become a computer musician all you need is a keyboard, sampler and effects box and your away. IT'S A SHAME.

The Japanese appreciate good computer musicians. They even buy CD's with their favourite game music. I rate japanese musicians as they still stick to producing beautiful music with out the need for going over the top with sampled sounds. I would not do it my self though. I can not see my self dancing to Rob Hubbards Knucklebuster tune in a club. You never know have I stumble on something new, Commodore 64 tunes translated into commercial pop tunes. Gameboy Tetris music and Pacman was used, why not Commodore 64 tunes there are plenty to choose from, all you have to do is add a beat. Remember you hear it hear first, September 6 1998.

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