= Dijitaal Lair = Background

12 tracks were written for the Manopticon 4 convention. Out of these, only 4 or 5 were actually used over the weekend. A few of the tracks were written, not 'solely' for the event but for an amateur film that I was involved with at the time - In particular 'U.N.I.T FHD Codename: Province' (which was also the name of the film......how strange!). Due to various problems and difficulties the film was never finished, but it was a great learning process and in retrospect I think we did very well considering that people had big time constraints with other work etc.....Incidentally, the guy who wrote the script for the film and who happens to be a very good friend of mine also provided the Manopticon 'logos' for this site.

All of the music was first mastered to DCC and then recorded onto cassette for the convention itself. I was going to master straight to CD, but with a limited budget at the time, that wasn't really an option. The 'gear' used to write the tracks included: an 'AMIGA' 1200 running OctaMED (for samples), KORG Wavestation SR, Yamaha TG-100, Phonic mixer, Phillips DCC and a small master keyboard.

The venue for the convention was the 'Picadilly Hotel' in Manchester (UK). The Date was the 7th & 8th of April 1996. One of the great things about the convention was that all 'proceeds' would be donated to a certain charity. In this case it was the 'Roy Castle Cause for Hope appeal' (Cancer research) - Some of you may remember Roy playing the role of 'Ian' alongside Peter Cushing in the film 'Doctor Who and the Daleks'.

The Executive Producer (Philip Segal) of the 'then' new Doctor Who movie, made his debut at the convention, much to the appreciation of the fans. He also brought along a 'demo' version of the new theme tune, which reacted in .....'mixed' opinions shall we say (hell, I thought it was great). Incidentally my friend Jason, managed to have a chat with the man himself. He (Jason) gave him a model Tardis as a sort of welcome gift, that the had knocked together a week or two previous. To be quite honest it was really far superior to the rather poo version that later featured in the TV Movie - no offence Phil ;-).

There were of course the usual plethora of guests, which included but were not limited to: Jon Pertwee (who sadly passed away later), Colin Baker, Elisabeth Sladen, Sophie Aldred, Sarah Sutton, John Leeson (the man behind the voice of K9)........did I mention Philip Segal yet?

The Manopticon 'committee' - the rather nice (most of em) bunch of people that helped in 'bringing the thing together', were many and 'varied'. But the two people that I think deserve a mention here, are 'Jason Lythgoe' (now called Jason Lythgoe-Hay.....oooooh!) - a great friend of mine and also 'Chris Howarth'.
Jason was the event designer, which basically meant that he was in charge of the overall look and feel of the convention. I have to say that he did a damn good job too.....especially seeing as he was working on a 'shoestring' budget (were talking pennies here).
Chris on the other hand was the event organiser, which basically meant that he had to.....well, organise the bloomin thing. Never before have I seen someone so 'cool' under pressure - I'd have been 'wetting' myself, but not Chris, he just took it all in his stride like there was simply nothing to worry about - nice one!

As this was or is the last 'ever' MANOPTICON, I thought it appropriate to come up with something new and unique, something that had never been attempted before. It was a close friend of mine who suggested the idea of an evolving piece of music to accompany this years 'Title-Sequence'.

The first step was to select a style or 'theme' for each of the eight Doctors. I am not going to tell you what they are, hopefully the styles are enough to be recognisable. Tell you what, go and have a listen to the first track, go-on.

OK, I know I know, it was inevitable that I should end the theme with a 'dance' piece for 'McGann's' Doctor. Described by one member of the MANOPTICON committee as ''That horrible 'rave' music'' and by another as being ''Better than I expected''.

With the second (A touch of inspiration from Mr. Miles I think) and third tracks on the CD, it was my intention to break away from the traditional 'mould' of 'variations' on the theme. I did this by doing away (although not completely) with the infamous 'dum-de-dum' (Thrum-de-dum for 'Howell' fans) bass line. ''ARRGGHHH NO, blasphemy, ''hang him'' I hear you cry. Obviously I retained the 'Ooh-eeh-ooh' melody....well obviously, what would be the point of any rendition of the theme without a good dose of 'Ooh-eeh-ooh'.

For Manopticon 5, I mastered all the tracks to a CD and then had the cassettes made up - Again, budget constraints prevented me from having the music pressed up onto CD's instead of tape, (I now have a CD writer and can provide the music for both conventions on CD if anyone is interested).

The equipment used to write the tracks for the convention included: Pentium running Cakewalk PRO, AKAI S1000, KORG Wavestation SR, Alesis Quadrasynth Plus, Alesis Quadraverb, Phonic mixer (which died after the event) and various other bits of 'kit'.