An Interview with Makke

The kings: Rob, Ben and Martin. Those were the first ones I really liked from the start. My first true memory of actually getting hooked on a C64-song dates back to 1990 (when I got my first C64). Me and my brother was playing Delta for the first time, and not only did I love the game but the music stuck. Later on in ’97 I picked up the C64 thing again, and learned to love Future Freak, Jeroen Tel, Paul Norman, David Whittaker… I can go on for ages. But I guess the ones mentioned here are the ones I got hooked on the most.

Cybernoid II is the ULTIMATE song. Not only on the SID, but in existence. At least I thought so for a long while, and I still think it’s a popmusic-masterpiece (too bad the game sucked though). Crazy Comets is also one I love, as well as Skate or Die. The Deathwish III music is also one of those unforgettable pieces. And of course the Dexion Ranking Demo-music. Brilliant!

I own no synth and I can’t play the keyboard. I mainly use FT2 for making the songs and then I save all the channels to different wave-files and then I mix them in other programs. Right now I use Cool Edit Pro, but I’ll be switching to more hardware oriented mixing as soon as I got the money for a better soundcard.

I haven’t checked out that many arrangers yet. Only the old timers. I didn’t like C. Abbott’s early stuff, but Back in Time 2 was a major upgrade. I also like J. Liljedahl except for the way he treats the drum/percussion parts (too basic and stiff), but being the great musician as he his I’m sure he’s been working on it.
SoundWavers are really cool. O2 and FeekZoid are also really great. Puffy is a major player as well, but my absolute favourites are TDG. They make my day 24/7.

Without Chris Abbott there would be no c64remixing scene. Big cred to him for that, but right now I’d say it’s Jan and all the other guys involved with remix.kwed.org.
Who’s giving the boosts on the music front I really can’t say. There’s just way TOO much remixing going on for me to download on my 56K modem. I haven’t downloaded much new stuff for the past 4 months. Not only because of the modem, but because there’s been too much repeating in remixing. The same songs are getting played over and over again, and after a while it gets a bit boring. Besides, it’s still the C64 music I love. Not the remixes. I don’t love remixes so much I spend my days on the modem downloading them. If I had a faster connection I’m convinced this situation would be different. I mean, if you spend half and hour downloading a song it better be good.

I listen to everything. But AC/DC, Pantera, Black Sabbath, Kraftwerk, Bad Religion, Covenant, VNV Nation, Apoptygma Berzerk, Rancid, Millencolin, Rammstein, Iron Maiden and Depeche Mode are probably the bands I listen to the most. However there’s always Spiritual Beggars, Beck, Apollo440, Fear Factory, Chemical Brothers, Prodigy…I could go on for bloody ages.

From the old days it’s me and my big brother playing IK and Defender of the Crown. My oh my, we could sit there for hours. The best thing with playing games on the computer was that my brother couldn’t cheat like he always did if we’d play Monopoly or RISK.
From more recent years I’d have to say that the (Activision’s) Decathlon matches, me and my mate Wolk had in 97-99 were top class entertainment. The best game to challenge your friends in.

Yep, that’s me singing alright. My singing voice stinks (not only from a bad breath), but I do love to sing and experiment with singing in my music. I can’t recall ever hearing anyone sing in C64-remixes before (part from a few SoundWavers songs, but I don’t know if I’d like to call that singing), and so I started looking for a song that would go well with lyrics. I didn’t want it to be a famous SID, because I figured if people disliked the singing and I had ruined their favourite SID, and they would hate me for all eternity. So I picked Hammerfist by Tomas Danko. No offence to Mr. Danko, but Hammerfist isn’t really a great SID, however it had some elements that I liked. I got to work, it sounded pretty good and the rest is history. The only thing I’m not happy with is that I didn’t get a good chorus in. I’m gonna try to get a sing-along friendly chorus into my next vocal-remix.

Right now, there’s too much being released. This is both a good and a bad thing. The good thing is that there are lots to choose from, and the bad thing is the exact same thing. There’s much to choose from…and I don’t know what to download. Hopefully a faster connection will sort this problem from me. It would be nice just to download it all and have a listen. But I don’t feel like doing that on my modem.
The second problem was that the scene lacked a forum, but I guess all that has been taken care of now.

That’s just impossible for me to answer. I listen to a shitload of music everyday it’s hard to say what influenced me to do this and that. But if I have to say something I’d say Apoptygma Berzerk’s Welcome to Earth album is absolutely one of the greatest influences of my synthetic music during the past year. Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers are others. I play around with alot of different styles and I think I get a bit touched by all of them. However, I just love the simple synthpopish feeling on Welcome to Earth. It’s not as dark as most synth music usually is and it has some really catchy songs. That’s what I think is the most important thing with a rock/pop song, it has to be catchy. Otherwise it loses it’s meaning.

Not that much. Of course there are the reviewers (LaLa and co). Kenz sent me a few words, so did Chris Abbott. The only major feedback I’ve got is on Ode to my C64 (Hammerfist), and that felt really good. People should send more feedback when they like other peoples work. I’ve said that before many times in demoscene-magazines, but I guess you can’t say it too many times.

The Last Ninja remixes by TDG. My god! They’re just awesome! If those were mine I’d soil my pants thinking of how good I am.

There’s a lot of excellent stuff, but most gamemusic nowadays are just background music which you never really notice. In the old days the background music of a game penetrated your skull and stuck in your brain, even if you weren’t aware of it, it did. Just to mention a few examples, the Lotus Turbo Challenge music on Amiga. I can still hum every song from the game to myself and I haven’t played the game for years. The Lazy Jones music on C64: Brilliant songs, still stuck there. I bet if I stopped listening to the Lazy Jones SID today, 10 years from now still be able to say it was the Lazy Jones music after 3 seconds. The music from Duke Nukem 3D: I could pin point the level the music came from in my sleep.

Nowadays however they all sound more or less the same, and you won't remember the songs in a game after you stopped playing two weeks ago. I’ve been playing a bit of Soldier of Fortune the past months, and the music is EXCELLENT! But I can’t remember how any of the songs go. And that’s a bit sad. You don’t get the same feeling of returning home when you fire a game up as you did before. The musical-magic seems to be gone. Just fire up Monkey Island 1 on your Amiga and tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about.

Yes. Zombie Nation have already proved that. Just give the SID a modern shell and the mob will take it for a brand new level. It’s been done before. Give old stuff a new shiny armour and everyone will think it’ll be something totally new. In that way Zombie Nation was a good name for it, Because the mob is like a horde of zombies.

First off I wanted to remix a song by Ben Daglish, but none of the songs that were already remixed. I liked Technocop, but it wasn’t good enough to base a whole song on. The Kraftwerk-drums was placed there by coincidence. Some how I just tried them in there, and I guess they’re the source of this songs originality.
So anyway, the Technocop song wasn’t really the ideal remix-sid, but at the same time as I did it I’d been playing around with Hülsbeck’s Jinks, and so I just merged the songs. The last part with Afterburner was done in ’98. I never released it, but I liked it anyway, even though it actually was too basic to release.
When I had finished Megamix 1 I didn’t like it at all. I had a few friends listen to it, and they convinced me to release it. So I did. I’m glad at least someone likes it. I’ve learned to like it myself, even though I’m not at all that happy with it.

The 1 in the name is more like a precaution thing in case I want to release another megamix. Right now I have no plans on one, but there might be something cooking. As most of my musicstuff they just happen. It’s nothing I plan to do. Somehow it just appears. But I DID release another megamix. Echos of the Master.

Echos of the Master. I think that was my first C64-remix I released as an MP3 (in 98 or 99). However I consider that one as the most original piece I ever done. It wasn’t meant to be a C64 remix from the start, but when I was trying to find a good melody for the song I just tried the IK -theme out, It fitted so well I had to keep it that way. Then I tried the baseline from Commando out. Sounded excellent! (All though my personal all time favourite remix I did is the Jesus on E’s remix, of an old Amiga Demo-soundtrack.)

To do something original but still respect the old SID. In many of my remixes I add stuff like melodies and parts that are not in the original SID. First off because I like playing around with melodies and breaks, secondly because it enhances the remix. I want to make my remix as good as I can, and if it takes a bit of adding and cutting that’s what I’ll do. I don’t just want to do a blueprint of the SID. I want to put something in there myself. A touch of Makke.

First of all I’m working on a new homepage. I’m not working on any new C64 remix at the moment. I have a few unfinished, but I think I’m stuck with those and I’m really unhappy with the results.

Who knows! I’m working on a solo demo-tape to send to some record-labels. I’m also doing a few other things such as Skullgrinder and Welt, which are metalbands, T.W.O. (a synthprodject I have with a friend), and of course there’s always some new C64-remixes cooking in the back of my head, but I’m far too lazy and untalented to get most of the ideas out.

Uhm…take care? Hehe. I can’t think of anything witty to say right now…