- James Kochalka on Wired: Last Day of his kickstarter for Glorkian Warrior: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/03/sxsw-james-kochalka/ #
- Malaysian Chiptune Comp is out: http://mychiptune.blogspot.com/2010/03/hey-its-malaysian-chiptune-compilation.html #
- Jam the multiformat musicplayer for Atari and Windows Released 2.1: http://www.creamhq.de/jam.php #
- 4mat – “Decades” album teaser http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9xgw75BwRg #
- Photos from March Pulsewave: http://thetanknyc.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/photos-from-march-2010-pulsewave/ #
- Crionics on the Amiga in TV 1990 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T9g8xAtF5o&feature=autofb #
Category: Interviews
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TCTD Links for 2010-03-22
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8bit today: THE LOW TECH ART OF OTRO
Another wonderful interview with one of the most iconic pixel pushers out there, Otro.
Otro is an artist who goes by the name of Julien Ducourthial in real life. An independent artist from France exploring the low tech aesthetics in the fields of pixel art, animation and design with a strong authentic style.
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gwEm interview pt 2
This is the second part of our interview with gwEm, you can find the first part here.
LB – In the maxYMiser FAQ you make the comment that the other trackers available for the machine lacked in some way, I was curious which limitations encouraged you to start on maxYMiser.
gwEm – Well, there were 3 different trackers all doing something different, I wondered why.. then I read a deeply inspiring interview (note: links to myatari.net zip of May2003 issue which contains the interview) with the legendary Tao, which went into details about his techniques. I decided to put all the effects into one tracker.
LB – Did you develop maxYMiser in secret for a while or were you getting input from other Atari experts?
gwEm – I make most of my projects secret, since I don’t want to disappoint, maxYMiser was a big secret though. I got input just from Dma-Sc on the interface – he tried all the early versions, from the very first mock up. I asked him, since I am a big fan of his music style, he seemed interested in trying a new tracker out, too – he was one of the first to move to Triplex. After the first couple of releases I got advice from 505 instead, since Dma was busy. Except for those two guys, I didn’t really listen to anyone else. But they are, in my opinion, the best two musicians on the Atari ST demoscene.
LB – How did the ST community react to maxYMiser?
gwEm -Well, I released some stuff – firstly the song ‘maxYMise’ as a compo tune. ‘maxYMise’ didn’t do that well, which effected motivation. I realized then, its not all about fancy effects. Next thing was ‘The Phatt Demo‘
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gwEm interview pt 1
Pictures used with kind permission of Bit.Shifter I was lucky enough to chat a little to gwEm, author of Maxymiser, hell survivor, Hardcore rave tunesmith and International Rock Star.
LB – Thanks most kindly for doing this.
gwEm – No worries!
LB – What came first for you, music or computers?
gwEm – Hard to say… Today music comes first though, I don’t care too much for computers. I was very young when I had my first computer, so I can’t exactly recall. Maybe I had a musical instrument before then..?! No idea :)
LB – What was your first machine?
gwEm – It was an Oric Atmos 48k
LB – Not the most popular of machines at the time, did you start coding on it?
gwEm – Yes, but I was very young, and didn’t do much worth speaking about. It was all BASIC stuff.
LB – Did you hop from that to the Atari series or was there something in between?
gwEm – No, the Oric broke, and then our family got an Atari ST.
LB – Did the sound chip capture your imagination right away?
gwEm – I’d have to say no – that came much later. The late 80s demo scene didn’t attract me at all. Atari ST was based around the megademo format – which in retrospect is kind of cool but at the time I thought it was an ugly way to present screens. But it only took a couple of years to get into making music on the ST.
LB – Which trackers did you start on?
