An Interview with Ferrara

Rob Hubbard, Martin Galway, Ben Daglish and Martin Walker. I didn't know their names until I came across some SID collections with my Amiga on the internet. I admire Rob Hubbard for the musics he did for Commando and IK. Galway because Rambo First Blood part II and Ocean Loader's. Daglish for Last Ninja and Martin Walker for his great tunes Armalyte, Dominion, Aggressor and Secret Project. I used to listen to the Armalyte tunes as background music for hours when I was a kid. I had a Zzapp! covertape which had a Martin Walker -musicdemo (which I've been searching from the net forever..) and in it were the abovementioned tunes..

It's an impossible decision to make =) The Armalyte tunes by Martin Walker have astounding athmosphere in them, especially the beautiful arpeggios. The Last Ninja tunes by Mr.Daglish, Mr.Gray and Mr.Ouwehand all have a special feeling to them, they're all amazing. I could list these tunes all day long… for example, Commando, IK, IK , Zig Zag, Dominator, Vendetta, Phantom's of the Asteroid, Wizball, Ocean Loaders etc etc etc… 😉

Remixscene: people supporting Remix.Kwed.Org ! And Chris Abbott ! You did what I've been waiting for several years !
C64demoscene: party organizers still keeping compos for the legendary computers. I guess there would still be many more demos made for the C64 if there weren’t any democompos for it, but the compos really give the younger generations a taste of what can be done with 1Mhz.

There are a few of them, but to mention just a couple, they are:
International Karate by the grand old man himself, Rob Hubbard
and The Last Ninja III -tunes by Reyn Ouwehand

The atmosphere, the sounds, the melodies. And -of course- the legendary
games they were in. Those were THE legendary games of THE legendary C64,
amongst all other great games which were published for our 1Mhz Warrior.

The game, demo, or intro, where it was first introduced. Then I listen to it a couple of times and learn the melody. Then I start picking up samples from my collection, creating an overall atmosphere for the tune. After I've finished the tune, I finetune the samples, replace one or two if I feel they need to be replaced and then remaster it in with sound mixing software.

That’s a difficult one to say… Looking at the positive feedback I’ve got from my old International Karate –version, I’d say that would be the one. However it sounds so old these days… time flies…

I’ve heard about it and would sooooo much like to attend it but I just cannot afford the time or money 🫤 If anyone, who's attending, could ask for an autograph or similar from Rob Hubbard or from the other Grand Old Men of SID music, and snailmail it to me, I would owe someone a BIIIG favour.. =)

Yes I did three or five tunes. I remember that one was a cover of the Mission:Impossible theme from the legendary tv-series. However they all went away and disappeared when I sold my first C64 almost over 8 years ago. I used the Megasound Editor, or whatever it was called, made by Jori Olkkonen.

people still fiddling with the C64 (Tero Mäyränen (aka Deetsay) etc)
organizers keeping up the compos
the great enthusiasm of C64 on the internet, amount of C64-related sites is fantastic.
Chris Abbott and his BIT CD’s… Absolutely fabulous.
- cheap danceremixes. Dancemusic, house, trance etc are my favourites and there’s nothing wrong in doing C64 covers and remixes in those genres. However I feel there are too many dance and techno remixes out there where the arranger has taken a too simple and easy approach to making the music.

They’re an integral part of my youth and thus have a great effect on me whenever I hear them played. When I was a kid, I always dreamed of being a professional musician or coder of C64–software and games, but when I was old enough the time was passing on and I felt I lacked the talent of composing. So, when I’m remixing / covering a C64 tune, I’m sort of re-living my dream of composing / arranging a tune. The result is a combination of the original tune and the stuff I imagined in it, when I heard it years ago. You all SID fans probably know the illusion of hearing something in a tune, that’s not really there but is created by your imagination working on the 3-channel SID-sound.

PC, FastTracker/ModPlugTracker and some effects/mixing software. Since my early Amiga-days I’ve collected samples and I have most of my collection still on my HD with all the new 16bit stereo –samples. That’s it. No keyboards, sid2mid or anything…

Beating my friends over and over again in Pitstop II and California Games *grin*.
And the first time I got to the highscore-list on Wizball, I just kept staring at the screen and listened to the great music…

In games music -industry ? I don't think so.. But by publishing their own records of their new (and why not old) material, could be a way for them to earn some cash and even more publicity. (At least amongst us (the SID-fans).

They're pretty much unnoticeable. An exception to this was the music in Outcast. It was great.

I would like to add more hardware and software availability here in northern parts of Europe. There’s practically no shops or netshops dealing with refurbished old computer hardware around here in Finland. At least not that I know of.

Scene is made of people and as people live their life, the scene is modified accordingly.
The life span of a certain scene is always determined by it’s members and so I believe that there is a certain type of lifespan for a certain type of scene. A scene as such doesn’t die, it lives forever but it’s nature and content has a lifespan which is directly in connection with it’s member’s lives. There will always be people who make covers and remixes. More or less in number, but still…

It can be very difficult, but it can also be quite easy. It depends on the complexity of the original sound and the musicgenre you're remixing/covering it in. Usually, some parts of the sound/melody must be simplified to fit better, for example, to trance/house/dance -genres. Sometimes it works better, sometimes it doesn't. I usually memorize the tunes melody and then, by listening to it over and over again, play it into the tracker-program. I've never used any SID2MID -style programs as I like to process the whole tune through my head. Sometimes the melody changes just a tiny bit here or there and I don't notice it. One could say it happens unconsciously but I don't know about that… However the end result is my interpretation of the tune with some or no changes.

I would like to own two pieces C64-related equipment at this moment. One is the HardSID card for my PC and the other is the IDE64 project to give my C64 a proper harddrive 8-). HardSID is the ultimate solution in bringing the SID sound to life without the original C64-setup.

Try to dive into the atmosphere of the original tune and hear those melodies and parts of SID music that are really not there. By this I mean that try to hear the whole SID sound, not just the melodyline etc. When there are three SID-channels playing a tune, the ear takes the sounds and effects differently and combines them into something else than just the three channels separately… (I don't know if I'm making any sense here as english certainly is not my native language 😉 )

There are several of them. I’d very much like to hear Martin Walker’s Secret Project, Aggressor, Domination and Armalyte -themes. I used to listen to them over and over again when I was young. The arpeggios in Armalyte and Domination are my top favourites.

Trying to put my act together as a remixer and release some new stuff… However my life (tm) has taken me so much time to live that I haven't had the time to do anything time-consuming and creative.

However I would very much like to thank all the people who have sent me email and given me their wishes of what they would like to hear next! I’m very appreciated and I never, ever thought that I would get this much of response from my work. Thank you all, you have saved several of my days with your emails!