An Interview with Paul Kubiszyn

If I had to narrow it down to just a few then it would have to be Ben Dalglish , Tim Follin and Reyn Ouwehand, I would say Ben & Reyn for their Last Ninja’s (musical masterpieces which will live on forever!). Tim Follin for his wonderful tune in Bionic Commando (I think that was what it was called – It’s been a long long time since I played that game), I just remember the day I brought the game, stuck it in my 64 and booted it up, I must have played it over and over again to all my friends.

I am really terrible at remembering the names of these tunes so I will try and be as descriptive as possible here; The cracking Rasputin theme tune by Mr R. Hubbard stands out as my all time favourite. The music from Last Ninja 2 (incidentally myself and brother Mark were one of the first to complete this game, and for doing so were hired as the official mapping team for Commodore User magazine 😊; IK is also amongst my all time best sids I loved the music from this game from the moment I first heard it. Another absolute classic which was a must play to all my friends came later on when the C64 was loosing it’s commercial appeal, and this came in the form of the music from a game called Penguin Towers. It was an incredible masterpiece which relied heavily on owing a new type 8580 sid chip (generally found in the later made C64’s – and not the old type bread bins!)

I think my all time favourite is Who is Who? (taken from my Chemical Rock album (www.studiox64.com/chemrock.html) gratuitous plug mode engaged 😊 I always hoped this would be remixed into a club dance anthem (and still may someday). I have played around with this tune in Cakewalk a number of times but never came up to scratch with it. If I had to name a second favourite it would be Dance Mania, a tune which I did in 4x play mode which accompanied an acid type character in my TBED demo (screen pulsed in time with the groovy tune).

I began writing sids simply because at the time no one else would do the job for me. I formed the group XLCUS Software & Design in 1994 after my brother and I stopped with M&P Software (it wasn’t really going anywhere and he moved away so was not really an option anymore). I started to program some games, the first being my now much despised Square Scape. This game really bombed when it was reviewed (think it got 35% or something). The game contained little or no music, because at the time I didn’t know anybody to write music for me. I sat down one night and played around with a couple of music packages and finally found using Demo Music Creator v4 I was able to produce something which wasn’t too bad. I tested this theory out in some of my later games, and indeed the music starting to receive much critical acclaim (in some cases even more so than the games themselves). I then turned to demo writing and started to churn out tunes like no ones business, and soon realised that I had a real talent for sid programming. I then discovered the bonus’s of using the 8580 sid chip and just how much (and people are going to curse me for this one) BETTER than the 6581 chip it really was (send hate mail to; 6581ismuchbetterthanthe8580youstupidfool@studiox64.com)

Aside from the limitation of only 3 channels I never really had any dislikes of the sid chip. Looking back now (when I am using my 64 channel midi studio setup) I realise that so much more effort had to be made to make the tunes sound as great as they did (with only the 3 voices), you only have to look at some of the best dance tunes world wide to find evidence that less is better!

Receiving my first games review (mentioned earlier) was probably both the greatest memory and the worse all in one! – Getting a contract with Commodore Format to produce 6 games was also pretty sweet, along with being contracted to German software house C.P. Verlag gmbH to produce software. Along with these I would have to say all the nice people I was in contact with, they were both sceners and close friends (especially people like Simon Reece, Shuze, Richard Bowen, Macx and many many others). Finally the best ever memory was the most recent and that was attending Back In Time Live (congrats on a job well done Chris).

It is difficult for me to say when exactly XLCUS were formed, roughly around 7-8 years ago. I was a relatively late comer to the whole scene as it were. I started writing games in BASIC (as you do) then progressed onto assembly language and wrote my first game Square Scape, the game sucked and got a none too favourable review in Commodore Format magazine (you can read these snippets on my website http://www.studiox64.com) The name XLCUS (pronounced EX – EL – SEE – US) came around when I joined forces with then Acorn Archimedes programmer Jonathan Hunt aka, ARCUS, I at the time went by the name XL (hence XL & arCUS became XLCUS). Actually early on we were known as XL . C . US but later dropped the dots and gained some to be known as XLCUS Software & Design catchy title hey? – Myself I programed C64, wrote the music, did most of the graphics, and came up with the ideas in XLCUS, Jonathan helped now and then with some maths programming (plasma’s etc), but mainly focused on writing the Acorn software side of things. He wrote an entire package known as C64FS (which I think you can still download from http://www.xlcus.co.uk) this software enabled us to transfere files across from the Acorn on 3.5 inch disks directly to be used in my 1581 (3.5 inch) drive on the C64. Along with this we then coded bog standard bitmap converters (for porting pictures), then came FLI converters (for pictures with extra colours), then IFLI’s (pictures with more colours and greater resolutions), then sound converters (would you believe we actually wrote code to convert Tracker tunes (of mod’s) into Demo Music Creator 4/5 format). Following on from this we did sprite converters, font converters (you name it we did it).

The greatest moment came when we invented the format IMAP. Some vauge efforts with this had been done in the past, but we got it perfect. The simple format was to have 2 pre-calculated frames both in 160x200 multi - colour format, then to just toggle between them (full screen). Using this method of pre-calculation we were able to have remaining virtually ALL C64 processing time. The technique became widely used after we first did it, and sporned a large number of picture collections (for which we now appologise – as these really are boring as hell!) Anyway getting back to the plot, after Commodore Format finished and I had made my fortune from them (yeah I wish) I began coding demos, disk mags, utils anything really, and continued with it (helping out writing Assembly Language Tutorials for Commodore Scene magazine) until it had pretty much ended (or at least all of my contacts had stopped writing or sending disks to me). Then came a break of a few years until…….. StudioX64 was born.

Having missed the C64 scene for a few years I decided to kind of make a return, perhaps not in the way many had hoped for, but at least I have some sort of presence. I had already starting building up equipment for my music studio and decided seeing as I was going to have some C64’s lying around making noises on my commercial tracks I would name the studio StudioX64 (Studio64 was already taken). Then one day I sat down and listened to some of my old C64 tunes and I thought Wow! these are really great. I had received a number of compliments about my tunes some years ago (mostly good), from people who wanted them on CD. Because I had written them all for the 8580 Sid chip, a number of people thought they were terrible (or even corrupt in some cases) owing to the fact on a 6581 C64 they would have inaudiable rumblings instead of nice filters. I started to dig out ALL of my tunes to audition the best for a compilation CD (later to become Chemical Rock). I had over 100 tunes in the end, and getting that amount down to just the best of the best was no easy task. It took about 6 months to sample them all in (yes I sampled every track directly from MY 8580 C64 – in fact the original C64c which all of the tunes were written on!), after which I designed a nice cover, made 4 versions, each in different colours and set about advertising them on my web site (http://www.studiox64.com/chemrock.html)

Chemical Rock is a REAL C64 sid album (please don’t think it’s a remix album because it isnt), however the quality of the tunes are incredible (modest too boot!) If you don’t believe me then download the title tune here (http://www.studiox64.com/cgi-bin/chemrock.cgi) The album contains a staggering 72 minutes of Sid audio (enough to make you ears bleed!) over a massive 26 tracks. Some of the tunes you will find are actually good enough quality to be commercial. To proove it one of them Happy Sundays was recently played on a radio station. The album is available to purchase now directly from StudioX64.

The decision was made because enough people asked me to!

Choosing which tracks would go onto the final album, I didn’t really want to make another one with more tunes on, as this one was difficult enough (remember it took 6 months) – I can only imagine how much hard work Chris @ C64audio.com had to but into his materpiece Back In Time 3 which incidentally people you really should go and buy!

I doubt there will be anymore pure Sid CD’s, although I may do a few more real SID tunes when I get the time (I still have my C64 setup in my studio). There are plans however for a remix CD based on the music from Chemical Rock, which would obviously feature real studio synth remixes. Along with this I have plans to release an album next year sometime of commercial music (dance mainly) work in progress title Satellites.

If we are talking Sid tunes, this would be the music from Commando, Hubbard at his best. If we were talking commercial music then this would have to be (guess….) yep The Soundwavers remix of the Commando theme tune for Back In Time Live (this piece of music really kicked butt!)

My equipment at the moment is some what limited, but growing all of the time. My studio comprises as we speak of the following:

Mixing:
Spirit Folio F1

Mastering:
T-Racks24 mastering software
Wavelab V3
Minidisc recorder
Ego-Sys WamiRack24 (24 bit audio / midi PC rack)
Yamaha NS10 near field monitor(speakers)

Outboard:
Alesis NanoCompressor (for the drums)

Computer:
256meg ram P500, GeForce 2

Synths:
Yamaha Rm1x
Yamaha Cs1x
Novation Nova
C64 Hard Sid card(http://www.hardsid.com )

Software wise, I have for a long time been a Cakewalk pureist (you won’t catch me using Cubase in the studio) however I have since moved over to their new product Sonar (or at least trialing it), as it has far greater support for the WamiRack24 with it’s new WDM driver model

It sucks! – plain and simple, most of it is written by talentless orchestral music editors or sound engineers with too much time on their hands. Because it became the way it did (ie, you have to have 1000’s of pounds worth of equipment to get That commercial sound) all the fun and creativity just disappeared. Sid music rocked because ANYONE and EVERYONE could have a go at it (for virtually free), and you could with a lot of hard work obtain the same sounds as commercial games were using.

In audio terms people like Chris Abbott for without whoem we wouldn’t have had Back In Time Live (cause I doubt anyone else would have ever done it!). People like LaLa, Adam and Warren Pilkington (HSVC), Jan (of Remix.Kwed.Org) are also all note worthy, along with Instant Remedy, and Soundwavers. In terms of sheer C64’ness and scene retroness the award has to go to the mighty Kenz. Jason has done so much work for the C64 over the years, inface I remember buying PD software from him in the real early days, then later on I was actually supplying him with the software to sell!! - Another HUGE fan who is still playing C64 games, and often makes requests to me for tweaks to my own C64 games is Wayne Womersley of Art Ravers (see http://www.studiox64.com/images/bit/img19big.jpg )

Music and happiness. I find I am at my most creative after a night out on the town (see http://www.xlcus.freeserve.co.uk/pic27.jpg ), listening to kicking beats in a club and having a few beers with some mates (and the other half of course – see http://www.studiox64.com/images/bit/img13big.jpg ) I have composed some of my best tunes at 3:00am in the morning after a heavy session in the clubs 😊

I enjoy most music, although strongly dislike chart pop crap (the likes of Britney etc). Mainly I would listen to Mike Oldfield / Jarre / Enigma / Erasure / Trance / Dance, I can’t imagine anyone who would say that to some degree what they listen to isn’t reflected in their own music. Even if I don’t intend it to happen, I find somewhere in a finished tune I think, oh that sounds a bit Enigma esque.

The Nova is the nearest synth you can possibly get to the sounds of a C64 (without owning a Hardsid card, or the new C64 sid VST plugin from Refex I think). I can quite easily re-create almost all C64 sounds on this great synth. They have also just released a new version (version 4) of their operating system, which now allows for Double Saw waveforms, allowing the creation of extremely fully loaded sid like sounds.

Within the next 5 years I hope to take it further, much further and intent to build (or at least have built for me), my very own professional music recording studio. I would like to produce and record my own music, along with recording other artists too. I see in the not so distant future Sid being fully accepted as a new genre of music, and being played to death in night clubs the world over, and with Mr.Abbott’s efforts I doubt this will be too far away.

Lazy Jones wasn’t lazy he was just resting.
The Last Ninja isn’t really dead he is living with a wife and 2 kiddies in Kent, UK.
Jack the Nipper is serving 10 years for armed robbery.
Rick Dangerous got locked in an egyptian tomb with Lara Croft.
And finally in news today… A cure has been found for all those Mutant Camels, they wish to be no longer labeled Mutant, and instead Mono-chromic-Pixelatedly challanged!