Commodore Remix

I have been wondering in my time away having a rest from remixing (and feeling so much better for it may i add) just where the scene will be in another 10 years, I have been around for about 8 of it "active" if you want to use that term the other 2 I was just a listener and a truly avid one at that. Something got released I downloaded it regardless to who the artist was or what the tune was .. it was a well prized novelty (even the honerabilly stuff) and they had pride of place on my hard drive, I used to make audio cd's and have them on my cd player, play them out to friends and generally wax lyrical about just how fantastic it was that these tunes hadn't been forgotten.

Time has passed and 2000000000 remixes of the last ninja, comic bakery, sanxion et al later im now not so excited about it as i used to be unless certain artists are involved and they become "must" downloads just because I have grown set in my way's I have become a fan of the artist more so than the music itself if that makes sense to you, it really doesnt matter what the tune is the artists previous efforts make it imperative to me to go and download. The "marking" system doesn't effect my choice either the tune could be a googly green but if i am a fan of that artist i'll download anyway.. so to me I guess the scene has become more about the artists within it rather than the sid they choose.

So Im wondering IF the scene is still about in 10 years time (and I hope it is, its certainly outlasted many peoples expectations and the constant influx of young and fresh talent is constantly breathing life into it at a steady rate) just what the focus will be on by then. The cd market has by chris's admission pretty much died a death, though there are some that still want "physical" copies its certainly outweighed by the digital distribution this of course is just how ALL music is going right now and chris should be applauded for not being slow on the uptake and keeping that part of this happy little corner alive. There are though less and less people seemingly willing to put time aside to write albums or think up concepts, thats not to say that what HAS come out isn't fantastic though and well worth getting im just thinking there isn't nearly as much as there used to be and im wondering why, when digital distribution is incredibly cost effective for both artist and label, maybe chris can shed some light on this? are the artists just not forthcoming anymore? or maybe I have it wrong and its just NOT as cost effective as it is in the I guess "mainstream" markets.

So right now it looks to me that the radio side of things is still very much the life blood and the inclusion of other stations like scene sat etc really has broadened the appeal this coupled with the odd bit of publicity thanks to people like timberland that highlights the demo scene and brings people who otherwise would never have bothered to type in c64 unless they fell asleep on the keyboard and inadvertently banged it out with their forehead and nose to these very pages helps no end.

Course one thing I have noticed is that alot of artists are now just cutting their teeth here and then moving onto bigger and better things, like a sort of staging ground which is good for the music scene in general and I guess also to some point to this scene aswell as fans of commercial success's go looking for back catalogue stuff and then find US lurking with wry little smiles on our faces.. think you've heard everything do you?.. come have a listen to .... THIS!.

Some of them abandon this and only really come back now and then for the nostalgia or like me to follow artists they have grown to love/talk to friends they have made or generally just make a nuisance of themselves in the nicest possible way of course.. I guess what im trying to say is that I see this place still being around in 10 years time.. but the music won't be the draw like it was when it 1st started, it'll be the artists, the people, the banter and yeah its quiet, sometimes nothing happens or is said for day's on end but we are a friendly bunch we rarely shun new people you are made to feel at home within the folds of who have seen it, done it, worn the t-shirt (in some cases literally) and still awaiting the next big gathering.. to get pissed up, eat something swedish and laze about in the mid day sun.

.. discuss

Excellent post and thanks for sharing, I think that special feeling might have been lost a little because there is so much content to quench the thirst, and the observation you've made about people using this community as a platform to jump onto other areas or improve their career, is also something I've observed, and some of these people were active as little as 1-2 years ago and you dont see them around anymore. If they are around they are not posting.

I'm not going anywhere, as long as my health is good I'll be here, I dont have the talent to spring board to other platforms and leave this place.

I'm sure it will still be here in some form, but isn't it scary that such large chunks of self-disclosure are subject to just disappearing? That's the digital world for you...

Speaking for me, I've always been drawn to areas where I could make a difference: but now remix fans have so much content they could listen continually for a week and still not listen to all C64 remixes. Any new album would be greeted with a "meh", even if it was by Rob Hubbard himself.

The thing is, there has to be some payback for doing an album for a person: whether that's praise, self-fulfilment, money or whatever. Well, praise is thin on the ground these days, as is money (just having an online market outlet doesn't mean people will buy).

So essentially the only thing a person gets at the end is the journey of having created a CD: and that's a long journey with disappoinment at the end.

I'm not sure that applies to the Amiga scene yet: Jan Z. and Ziph have done a good job of keeping the enthusiasm alive, and that scene was naturally about three or four years behind ours.

I'd still love to do Karma 2 and Dreamscapes 2, but I'm not sure that there would be an audience at the end, even if it was free. That's kind of demotivating for me as an artist, since what drove me was trying to please people's expectations.

Also, 10 years is a lot of time for personal stuff to happen: and it usually does. Hence most of the people I worked with in the early years don't come here very often (Boz is the one with the highest profile, I'm amazed he keeps it up every week: oo-er).

One of the saddest things is not seeing everybody. I was even tempted to show up unannounced at the Slay gathering ("hey, fancy meeting you here!"), but it just can't happen with everything else that's going on.

Anyway, this scene has a long tail: heck, there are still people remembering testcard music and that's much older than C64 music.

Mathematically, contributions to a forum tend to correspond to a power law: that is, there's relatively few contributors doing most of the posts. So it only takes one of them to disappear to fundamentally change the shape of the community.

Anyway, as long as this website is here, someone will be here: but 10 years is a long time. By then, life pretty much guarantees that some people will have moved on, some might have had bad luck, some will have had children, etc. I'm not sure how much of the hope I had for C64 music in the mainstream was wishful thinking: but whatever, the window has closed now, even if some of our alumni get successful.

Anyway, random musings aside, I miss all you guys out there who I met at BIT Live and after. If anyone's in the London area, and wants to meet up, just give me a mail or PM. I think in the end, the thing I'll remember most about the period is the people: long lunches with Boz, trips to Soho with Kenz, hanging in rehearsals at BIT Live, ferrying people about, kipping on Mat Allen's floor since I had to give my room to Marcus Schneider in Brighton, trying to stay awake while ferrying Jan Lund Thomsen from Brighton, the late arrival of a minibus at Brighton... the list of moments is endless.

Chris

If I may wallow in selfcenterness for a while...

I'm a happy fellow, and I have a good life, but I rarely jump out of bed on a Wednesday morning yelling "Yes! Another day just like every other!" I won't say I dread routine, but it's not something I thrive on.

I know my enthusiasm is nurtured by a sense of building or developing something, or breaking new ground. Making things better (or simply different). Right now, I don't feel that happening in the remixing world. It's all there and pretty much perfect.

I'm one of those early devotees, who spent a lot (perhaps even too much) time and energy on all things C64/video game remix related. I've done the album, I've been to the live shows, been part of the live shows. I've shook the hands of legends, and then gotten drunk with them. I've done the radio thing, downloaded it all, commented on it all... You get the picture. I've done it! I always try to come up with something fresh and new (hell, I think I'm the only remixer in the world to get negative votes for doing two remixes in a similar style!), but I've kind of run out of ideas by now.

That's the downside of experience - it's harder to be impressed by something, and it's harder to think of something completely new. You'll listen to something or come up with an idea and think "This is great, but Mahoney did the same thing in 2003." I have, in a way, become my father in the way I tend to think it's all been done before.

There is in no way a lack of quality in the remixes released today, on contrary, but it's just not as groundbreaking, is it? When things become routine, I start to look around for other things to experience.

That said, what I rarely tire of is people. The people is what makes me stick around. I've made a lot of friends, some really good friends, and the friendly vibe makes it hard not to come back. Some of my best memories ever are connected to remix events and meet-ups. Meeting the guys again is never routine!

Sadly, real life, work, wife, children and other hobbies than remixing consumes a lot of time so the energy is not always there to be as involved as you wish.

However, this is just me. My truth. I've "had my day", but I am in no way bitter about it not being as great as it used to. And I think it's destructive for us old farts to moan about how good it all used to be. That takes the fun out of it for the new comers, who still have that sense of discovery.

@Chris - I did wonder how the digital distribution thing fitted in to how you worked within this scene I can kind of sympathise with what you said I know from various indie releases of games that its very hard to find the market for it, those that clamour for the item will buy it but beyond that area its very hard without money available to you to actually advertise beyond (but and not saying it to kiss arse) I do think with what you have had at your disposal that you have done wonders and the events that you put on with the help of so many others who should all be proud of themselves too have been nothing short of fantastic as makke said above alot of us like him have amazing memories of those times and they are something money just cannot buy.

so indeed.

The young talent I try to keep up with and there are some absolutely fantastic artists out there whistling through as I said before (and i understand why they do it too) they cut their teeth here and move on which in one sense is a shame because were left wanting more and in the other brilliant because we all had a small hand in furthering their careers if you like, or just helping them to build confidence in themselves. Sometimes we even have actual big time producers here too which just goes to show the draw of the sid.. Im wondering if anyone thinks that at some point the ay/ym scene will pick up? I think it was neil who did the atari remix cd? how well was that received? and do you think maybe in time the spectrum and the amstrad too might see itself in the limelight? the ym itself is being used ALOT in modern dance music now especially electro, theres something amazingly aggressive about its standard saw that can be messed around with so much I could name hundreds of tunes that have been released that are using it.

Retro right now is very much "IN" you only have to look at artists like lady gaga, la roux, too many dj's, little boots or soulwax etc to hear it in practise and even the larger more established artists are now using it too or reverting back to simpler times, maybe it wouldn't hurt to branch out slightly because I know for sure there are alot of young ears that wouldn't turn their noses up at 90% of the music that can be found here.

Retro is "in", but only applied as a desperate veneer to lend some credibility to an otherwise standard pop or dance act. In the end, record labels are in the business of making as much money as possible off a given person or people before throwing them onto the scrapheap. Any retro me-too (and retro has been "in" for so long that I'm not sure it's ever been "out"!) is purely an ancillary bright idea to add novelty.

In the end, it's all about a big treadmill of new and naive bright young things being seduced and discarded before they get wise to it. The techies care about the music, but the marketing and PR people call the shots about what's in and what's out. And remixers are definitely out (too ugly and old, most of us!).

What's odd about the BIT Live events is that almost without exception they were financial disasters only slightly mitigated by generous donations from three or four scene personages when it became clear what a financial hole I'd dug myself into... but from a life-enhancing point of view, I'll never regret doing them while we had the chance.

Kind of ironic that money facilitated something which money can't actually buy, though

Chris

The SID remix scene in 10 years? I have no clue. I guess, on my part I'll be making SIDs and some remixes when it would be about time.

Despite that I'm relatively new here, in a way I have returned

Anyway, from the newcomer's point of view:

One year ago when rakBIT was on the workbench I was thinking I have the inspiration / plan of creating an array of SID remix albums. My primary goal with making of the 1st album was discovering some uncharted grounds (for me, at least) both production and stylewise as well as finding the freshness of my '90s musical way-of-thinking that vanished during the years of routine live shows and routine recordings. During the preparation of the album I realised that SIDs had a much bigger impact on my music than I thought. It's been a long due that I wanted to pay in a way.

After some time passed, the album is out... I don't know, I have mixed feelings. I could fulfil my personal goals of finding the "old fire" that had a good impact on my (non-scene) music composing workflow, I even re-started SID composing and was involved in C64 scene productions, testing SID editors whatsoever.

6 months after the album is out, I have a dosen of new SID tunes vs 1 new remix release. That really made me think... I still love my guitar better than my C64, you get my point. So, where's the fuel leak?

Perhaps, at the end, as an onstage musician, I still work a little like a cook trying to make and improve meal that people may like. Apart from a couple (less than a dosen I think) of folks giving feedback, I still have no clue what people think about the album rakBIT in general. Love it - great, hate it - great, lack of feedback - leads me nowhere. I think, it slowly slided my motivation meter really low about starting an another project of such magnitude. Sure, I'll be around releasing stuff but no album(s) for a while.

Anyway, being a member of SIDrip Alliance is a good thing, partly because playing live some unprecedented (and rather wicked) stuff is quite challenging, partly because the motivation of other members keep me on the track.

The future? We'll see it. Or not. Who knows. That's why it's future

Whatever music style is currently in vogue 10years from now I'm sure a skilled remixer will remix a sid tune to it. Sid tunes are timeless. The internet is a relatively new concept so it's more of a question of what will downloading or listening to music be like on the internet 10 years from now, will we have to pay tax, a subscription fees or something like that just to access the vast selection of free music available. Someone is always out to make money!

One thing I do know, there will be still some narrowminded listeners that still don't tolerate people with ideas that are different from their own. Yet, wont give a thought to just thinking for a second before posting a scathing critique, "Would I appreciate receiving the same comment? Afterall I am listening to this free of charge."

Heres to the next 10 years!!!

I'll give my two cents on this, but it'll only explain MY point of view on the scene, as I bet there are as many different reasons for being here, or not being here anymore as there are people who have visited.... in other words; I can only speak for myself.

Personally I'm not one of those that spit out new remixes all the time, but I find this place very valuable anyway, and the reasons are many. First of, and the biggest reason for me lurking around is, that the SID is nostalgica to me... I'll NEVER tire of listening to these tunes, both original and some remixes, simply because they are part of my life, and a part which I will not want to forget EVER. This would be the case, even if I was not a musician myself.

As a musician and participant, one of the reasons I do remixes, and still do on ocation is the same as Chris was mentioning; to make people happy, and fulfill some of their expectations. Personaly I'm not doing this with an intention of making money from it, but it's true that all artists want some kind of response to what they do, and unfortunately, in this regard, internet society is not very good at giving feedback even if the music is free of charge, and this has become worse over the years as everyone takes digital art for granted, as if it's somthing you just pick like a flower in a garden, without ever thinking about those who made it... music and art is being treated like a piece of meat by todays standards.

The voting system on RKO is one of the few that usualy give a fair amount of feedback shouts, and without these, I honestly do not think I'd be producing anything for the scene again... as an artist I demand response as a minimum (positive or negative), and will go to places where this happen. Fortunetely, RKO's voting system is really good, and without those shout comments, it'll be very little rewarding for me to make any remix at all... who want to make music just to satisfy yourself!?

Here on the Remix64 forums I've witnessed a drastic fall in what made this place so valuable to me unfortunately... in the past it was teaming with life, and there were long and wonderful threads in almost all categories, but today they have faded away into so little that there really is not much to come for in my point of view. Especially the musicians forum seem deserted at best, which was one of my favourite places... is that signalling that the remixers have nothing to say anymore?... or has the whole world sunk into an "I have enough in myself!" kind of living? There are often new releases on RKO, so the remixers are there, but they rarely say much anynmore. I miss the community... these days it's like a "release and keep quiet" type of scene when it comes to the remixers talking to eachother.

Of course, everyone can get fed up with something, and I believe Makke to some point is right when he says that we reach a point where our scene appetite has become saturated, and start looking for other interresting things, and if this is true for all retro lovers, then this place WILL cease to exist at some point because; if nostalgica is what drives people to come back time and time again alone, then when these people one day pass over or get "fed up", then at some point in time there will be no one "to remember" anymore, and all those who just use the place at a kick start for their carreers will move on to other scenes instead leaving this place cold dead.

But then again... if all who cares are not here anymore, then there will be no reason for the scene to be here.... and thus I predict that this scene will be here as long as there are still people who lived through the 80's with the C64.... it's almost like the usage of the earths fossil fuels... we will see this scene as long as there are still fossil C64 nerds here to burn up

If those who stay here for the nostalgica part move on, then this scene will slowly die away, or transform into something different with time... in 20 years time this may have transformed into a community for remixes of Mario and other game music from this time instead, and the ancestors of old (read: us) will be forgotten...

I'm sad to say this but when the remix standards was much worse than it is today the scene was a lot more inspire'ing... today most is almost artistically perfect, but the aftermath and the reaktions are but a small part of what it used to be... people was fascinated back then by new remixes... today they complain if it's not on par with commercial recordings... could it be that we have become pampered bickering and bored people, who always want more and more, and when the peak has been reached we just leave it all behind to find another fix?

A little blurb about the forums aspect that In some ways I understand and in other ways I dont understand, I also have lots of questions.

Take a look at the stats below.

These forums. (est. 2002?)
Total posts 69,142 | Total topics 6,184 | Total members 1079

My Wifes forums (est 2006)
Total posts 385,974 | Total topics 29,509 | Total members 893 Active Members 293 (based on 365 days)

I started forums for my wife 4 years ago and its all about the breed of Dachshunds, what does that have to do with Remixing? Probably nothing, but the activity level is very high compared, and I've tried to figure out why that is.

Regardless if the topic is about C64 Remixing or Dachshunds, there is some type of passion there and people have fun posting and discussing about the topic.

On our Dachshund sites, people talk all aspects of the subject, how to feed, they share photos of their dogs etc..

Here people share photos of their studios and discuss how they produce some of their productions.

But I dont understand how there are people who have been members since 2002 come online and post something in 2010 and you see that in all those years they've only had 4 or 6 posts.

What does that mean? Does that mean, that they are spending more time being creative working on their skills rather than posting on a forum and discussing the topic?

What happened to Dafunk? his last post was 7 months ago, Moog over 2 years, and FireFox 3 years, I'm not picking on these names for any particular reason other then, whats different in this community that these guys just fall off and disappear? I remember these guys used to be on the Top list of Remix of the Year awards. Its sad to see they are not participating here anymore.

I dont want to bring up anymore names, because the list would be long, but I love this place and all the talented people who are here and have been in the past.

I'd like to see this place around for another 10-20 years at least.

Analog-X64 wrote:A little blurb about the forums aspect that In some ways I understand and in other ways I dont understand, I also have lots of questions.

Take a look at the stats below.

These forums. (est. 2002?)
Total posts 69,142 | Total topics 6,184 | Total members 1079

My Wifes forums (est 2006)
Total posts 385,974 | Total topics 29,509 | Total members 893 Active Members 293 (based on 365 days)

I started forums for my wife 4 years ago and its all about the breed of Dachshunds, what does that have to do with Remixing? Probably nothing, but the activity level is very high compared, and I've tried to figure out why that is.

Regardless if the topic is about C64 Remixing or Dachshunds, there is some type of passion there and people have fun posting and discussing about the topic.

On our Dachshund sites, people talk all aspects of the subject, how to feed, they share photos of their dogs etc..

Here people share photos of their studios and discuss how they produce some of their productions.

But I dont understand how there are people who have been members since 2002 come online and post something in 2010 and you see that in all those years they've only had 4 or 6 posts.

What does that mean? Does that mean, that they are spending more time being creative working on their skills rather than posting on a forum and discussing the topic?

What happened to Dafunk? his last post was 7 months ago, Moog over 2 years, and FireFox 3 years, I'm not picking on these names for any particular reason other then, whats different in this community that these guys just fall off and disappear? I remember these guys used to be on the Top list of Remix of the Year awards. Its sad to see they are not participating here anymore.

I dont want to bring up anymore names, because the list would be long, but I love this place and all the talented people who are here and have been in the past.

I'd like to see this place around for another 10-20 years at least.

I've had some of the same thoughts... mainly because compared to how many new remixes we see on RKO, how many times they are downloaded, and how many shouts and attention the remixers get there is relatively high compared to the activity in here. Why won't listeners and Remixers write more in here as well? ... Especially I don't get why the remixers do not write more when they deliver free music, and get nothing but feedback in return? ... it's in these forums that discussion on the remixes should be made, and not just some shouts on RKO that leave no option for discussing anything.

All this tells me that the potential people for having as much activity as on your dachshund forums is there, but something has killed the activity in here... if it's boredom, oversaturation of the subject or because people has been "scared away" is hard to grasp, but one thing I've noticed about forums in general is, that those who write the most, and has the most interresting subjects are usualy the NEW members... the beginners... I see this on many other types of forums, and this is where I think THIS forum and it's senior inhabitants have been failing BIGTIME in the past, cause whenever new heads showed up and asked questions or had anything to say, noone seemed to want to answer them.

If you think about it, and you know that the "new blood" is what fuel the forums, then this is like not "watering the sprouts", and I believe that this is why people have left... the elders have "said it all", so they only write when they see interresting threads... but there are no "fledgelings" to post all the newbie questions that will drive the elders to give off their knowledge anymore.

Slowly but securely no new people will want to be here, as they feel ignored, and the elders will haunt the place as "ghosts" waiting for the occational interresting post.

I myself consider me an "elder" in here, an if the board is active, I'll be active too... it's as simple as that, but even I have witnessed that posting a subject in here goes on for DAYS on end, without anyone responding, even though the thread gets read many many times. My latest remix of Wizardry took about 2-3 days before anything showed up... it was not like this in the past... and the amount of response has also drastically fallen.

I bitterly believe, that the reason things are so quiet is that those who ARE here, simply respond too little to make any newcommers want to stay on the forums.

You might be right. I feel like I've run out of interesting things to say about remixes, and other stuff occupies my mind. Oddly, I've often felt that the feel of the scene is directly related to my level of enthusiasm for it, like an umbilical connection. At the moment C64 remixing seems to me like an unreal past ("Did I really have that much time?"), since the stuff happening in the present is pretty crucial.

Do I have a duty to respond to posts that no one else looks like they're going to? Well, actually, that might be true. In which case I've been remiss.

But in general forums tend to become less about their subject and more about the people in them. Plus more people are interested in dogs than remixes.

In the Wizardry thread, I wanted to post me and Darren Izzard's Wizardry remix again, which stopped me posting immediately. But then I realised I couldn't remember where I put it, and got distracted. Getting distracted happens to me a lot.

Anyone want tea? How about them Nicks?

Chris

Many interesting thoughts above.

I can partially agree with the "seen all - done all" phenomenon. Exactly the same happened to me in the underground metal scene. You say new bands, I say old patterns that I grew tired to death. And the same happened to me with broadcast production, namely remixing some station-exclusive stuff and seeing/processing the flood of 100.000.s of totally brainless 12-a-dosen my-monkey-can-do-it-better "...quality jobs..." on commercial tracks that degraded both the quality of music value and listener quality in a decade. Not to mention the "value" of pre-and suffixes of anything "DJ whatever" or "whatever (remix)". It is all about repeating patterns that work, that is the way for success, isn't it...?

But, there is still hope

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vEStDd6HVY&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbpOoTEFD_g

Fresh acts won't change the shape of the system but may be inspiring to start an another chapter. That would be it, the future of SID remixing and the scene.

You know I could be wrong about this opinion but instrumental electronic music isn't quite in vogue at the moment. Back in 2000 Trance music was pretty big along with a few other dance styles and electronic music was going through a bit of a revival then mid way through the naughties things started to swing more towards live music and guitars with vocals etc (X factor anyone) so I think most producers are focusing on this style nowadays. Thats not to say sid tunes can't be done with vocals and guitars though most listeners don't like sid to vocals as the original wasn't. Its just that instrumental sid tunes into updated instrumental electronic tunes are now seen as a bit passe and a fresh angle is now needed.

Depends on where your looking/going the instrumental stuff is still very much being played out .. ibiza is still the home of 4 to the floor trance music and its still definitely very much in vogue though it HAS changed alot from what we remember, its much harder and filled with fractured sounds and running at about 140bpm (the standard used to be 128/130). Your right about vocal stuff being in vogue though especially in the commercial mainstream only have to refer straight back to lady gaga for proof of that or any number of these rap artists that are now using trance lines as backing tracks for their vocals.

I remember once a guy did a remix of x-out on here in the british rap style and it got pretty much ripped apart for being too wordy makes you wonder if he'd released that now would it have gotten a better run at things?.