An Interview with FeekZoid

Martin Galway, Matt Gray, Tim Follin, Rob Hubbard, MON, Benn Daglish, Anthony Lees and many more.

Times of Lore (all tunes!) Wizball, Phantoms of the Asteroid, The Last Ninja (all tunes by all composers!) A special mention to Green Beret - the loader and title - since this was the first C64 game I bought and it just blew me away! (The music that is - the game was too hard!)

The dead guys for their unique and fresh style. O2 - smooth synthiness, Puffy64 - for bringing real guitar play to the scene and THE definitive interpretations of Matt Gray's work! Soundwavers for bringing a real club feel to the arrangements. I like most arrangers to be honest, or at least those who make a real contribution to a track - ie not just a drum track or some effects.

I always thought that the biggest problem with the SID was the skizophrenic filter, or that 3 channels wasn't enough… but to be honest I always felt that what the SiD MOST wanted was some form of DSP. From early on in my listening days, I played the C64 sound output through a rackmount reverb/effects unit, and hearing a Galway lead through a spacious reverb effect…. Sheer joy!

Heh! Too different to explain properly! On the C64, music composing was not too different to programming, hexadecimal was the order of the day. This carried forward to my Amiga composing days using trackers. Some of my early arrangements were created with OctaMed Soundstudio on the PC - also a tracker, but eventually I gave up fighting and started using a proper sequencer. I recently toyed with the idea of doing a little tune on the C64 for old-times sake. I sat in front of the USA music assembler (my old editor of choice) scratched my head a bit, and decided to never try again!

Matt Gray's Level 2 loader music from The Last Ninja 2. I love that tune so much, from its gentle purring apreggios at the beginning to its ubiqutous driving Gray Bassline, I've wanted to arrange this tune in so many different ways. I've done two already, the Analogue Ninja (originally wanted to call it A Clockwork Ninja!) and I did an Amiga MOD too. I suspect I will return again this tune soon!

Well, my first computer was a BBC Micro - which was a bit pants in the sound department, I then got a c64 and the first game I loaded was called Knightmare (not the game based on the TV show) and it had a really nice tune on the title screen which had many different instruments, and used the filter…. And it just blew me away… then I bought my first game… Green Beret…. !! :P
I had already been dabbling in music with dreadful little Yamaha and Casio keyboards at school… but when I heard a C64… that was what really made me want to write music. But it would actually be sometime after that before I was able to do music on the C64 as I could not find a decent music editor for a long time, the first one was Ubiks Music - which was cool but too hard! Then voicetracker - which was a rip of the USAMusic Assembler… which I eventually gravitated towards… and got working!

Hmm.. not sure. I was really pleased with my rendition of Martin Galways Green Beret and Comic Bakery title musics. For my own favourite original work - it would be between Sceptre of Baghdad and Archetype (tune#6)
My favourite tunes are those that I start and just keep going, changing mood and style as the tune progresses. Key examples are Sceptre, and Treasure Isle (the long all-in-one version) Both these are scores that I wrote for games that were long, therefore I wanted to keep the listener interested for lengthy periods of time.

The Orchestral Synthasaurus Ninja 😊 Which was an arrangement of Matt Gray's Ninja 2 loader and one of Benn or Anthony's (can never remember who did it!) Ninja 1 themes.

In one way its good that there are so many people involved now, but because of that it can be a little difficult to keep track of the scene now. Places like Remix64 and RKO are great tho, as they serve as key areas to keep up. I also really dislike how certain arrangers/organisers are putting too much commercialisation/marketing/moneymaking into the scene. It can be good in some ways in that it brings events and/or people to the spotlight, but that in itself can be an annoyance.

My influences are all over the place. I am influenced by the C64 music itself, synthy works by such persons as Mark Shreeve, John Carpenter and Vangelis. Also a big fan of thematic/motif-based orchestral scores by the big guys like John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner.

Kenz.😉 He's been around that long. It was he originally coaxed me into sending him some C64 floppies (utilising ye good olde snailmail) containing my earliest C64 compositions. A relationship that followed right through my C64>AtariST>Amiga>PC>Synth musical evoloution. A common adoration for C64 music, synth and film scores ensured that I was always writing what we both wanted to hear. But enough about me😉 Kenz has been pushing other musos like myself to arrange/remix C64 tunes…. Even on the 64 itself! Binary Zone PD itself used to be a great eye-opener for those of us that did not have modems, to see what the C64 capable of beyond commercial games. Fast forward to today - with Kenz air-guitaring a C64 on Channel4… Clearly a hugely important moment in time 😊

I have no preference, as long as they are tributary (ie not pants) to the original C64. Both appeal to different tastes. Some people I guess really like pure C64 sounds perhaps added to by a little drums or fx. Certain C64 tunes just sound perfect with some reverb/echo (Miami Vice title anyone?😉 ) Whereas a remix could be interpreted as essence of C64. Eg: Any Dead Guys remix, they are truly unique in their approach to the 64. For myself, in general, I like arrangements where the C64 is not terribly present. Certain C64 tunes are difficult to imagine with wibbles, or chiffing basslines!

NOT being tonedeaf! I have heard some strange covers/mixes where there are bum notes/offkey bits. I can be quite pedantic with my devotion to C64 tunes. I HATE it if someone uses a minor chord where there should have been a major for example. I'm also a bit against excessive sampling of movie quotes which have appeared in a few mixes.
Most important though? Not trashing or ruining the feel of the original C64 tune I guess.

No. I try quite hard not to stick to one style, not just with my composing but with my listening too. I am quite baffled sometimes when people have used the term FeekZoid-style Admittedly some of my recent covers I have used a similar style of mixing/instrumentation. Many of my original Sids - however - were directly inspired by my peers. I would often do a Matt Gray style Sid, or a Galway style piece. If you mean melodically different styles.. well I generally wrote music by whatever inspired me at the time or for whatever task music was needed for. Eg: Sceptre of Baghdad needed a score to inspire the mood of the Far east.. but at the same time I wanted to put across a spooky mood AND put some driving-basslines in there too. Treasure Isle needed to have an islandic nature, by the sea, a mood of discovery. As well as some short mood pieces (Drunken Sailor) etc to lighten mood. In the end the music was never used for that game tho.

I suppose its for two reasons. I like all the classic Sids like anyone else, (except Sanxion! I h8 it!) but I often think Well… Puffy/Chris/DHS has done that tune as well as I could want, so I wont bother trying it Also classic sids are often OVER-covered, and you get sick of hearing eg Benn's Ninja Level 1 theme over and over.

Secondly… well.. I just like varied music… and there are many Sids out there that are very dear to me from having owned the original game and firing up the old game and just listening. There are many gametunes out there that I still want to turn my attention to. There is more and more of this I'm pleased to say happening in the scene. Obscure tunes rock!

These days I use a Pentium 3 700mhz 320mb with Soundblaster live for wave-playback and soundfonts and a Yamaha SW60XG board sits forlornly in my one and only ISA slot. I also have my pride and joy Korg N5 synth, Software wise I use Cakewalk 9 proaudio for sequencing, but I occasionally use other wee bits of software like vocoders, speechsynths etc to find some different noises.

I know I'm getting old now, because I can't stand most stuff in the charts these days. I h8 rap/R&B/drum'n'bass/boybands. I am quite partial to some dance/techno/trance style stuff. I love good film scores (John Williams's Duel of the Fates from Star Wars! YES!) In general I like a lot of stuff, many styles, many artists. Too many to mention really.

Loading games from tape - Rambo would only load on my C64 if I turned the tapedeck upside down. Play the Last Ninja, progressing from level to level JUST to hear the next levels music. Also, stopping the tape mid-level-load so that I could hear all of the loader tunes. Getting the Datel sampler… writing my first digi-tunes, and hammering kenz with diskloads of music shortly afterwards. Moshing around the room to Commando, screaming made-up (unintelligble) lyrics. 😊 Discovering the demo scene….

Well! I have lots of ideas for music - not all of them covers - its just a matter of making the time to get to work on them. Puffy64 and I have been trying to get around to collaborating for a while now. One day I hope to be able to return to the game-composing business.. but it seems a lot nastier these days. 😒

Let's keep it alive! Let's keep it FREE! Let not there be any more offkey remixes! 😊