Atlantic (Barry Freeman)

Tracker of Neophyte and Aim Higher, a friend of master-of-darkness, and one of the four staff of traxweekly's "Faces in the Crowd" (FITC) from October 1995 — its tips writer, song reviewer and occasional interviewer; still a TraxWeekly writer in the 1997 staff sheet, which gives the name Barry Freeman. The sources are his own tips article and the FITC pieces he took part in (sources: s-tw032-not-so-advanced-tracking-tips, s-tw030-interview-paganus, s-tw029-faces-in-the-crowd-esper-division, s-tw034-interview-deus-ex, s-tw106-a-little-panning).

Facts#

• Composing for about a year by September 1995; Master of Darkness names him, with Imagix, among the friends who influenced him (source: s-tw027-faces-in-the-crowd-master-of-darkness). Listed as writer "Atlantic (Barry Freeman)" in the #106 staff sheet of 1997 (source: s-tw106-a-little-panning).
• FITC staff: one of the four names (with kal-zakath, Master of Darkness and dennisc) on the one-week "Faces In The Crowd: The Publication" folded back into TraxWeekly in #29; complaints about its "Suggested Songs" were to go to him or Master of Darkness (source: s-tw029-faces-in-the-crowd-esper-division). Kal Zakath credits him with helping turn FITC into "interviews, tracking tips, reviews and scene commentary" (source: s-tw034-interview-deus-ex).
• Interviewed paganus for #30 (conducted 1995-10-10), with the running joke that the piano is surpassed only by "the PM SONIX-LEAD siner synth" — "everyone plays the sonix lead synth"; Paganus measures a year's progress against Atlantic's own "the Story of the Mermaid" (Neophyte) (source: s-tw030-interview-paganus; see purple-motion).
• Wrote the FITC song-review boxes (#30, #34) — the policy was to suggest, not rate, songs from "most new music uploads to ftp.cdrom.com"; in #34 he found mick-rippon's "Tea Cosy" "mellow and laidback with a very catchy and appealing theme", faulted only for a badly looped organ sample, and asked composers to put e-mail addresses in their songs; DennisC told Mick Rippon that Atlantic was "your biggest fan" (sources: s-tw030-interview-paganus, s-tw034-interview-deus-ex, s-tw041-interview-mick-rippon).
• "Not So Advanced Tracking Tips" (#32, 26 October 1995): a "confession" of the habits that slowed his own progress, sorted into five tracker types; beginners should not try to sound like "Necros or Purple Motion" — "Only those musicians sound like those musicians" — nor like "Skaven or Basehead" at once, but start small; the "Sheep" point — analyse what you admire instead of imitating it (source: s-tw032-not-so-advanced-tracking-tips; see tracking-workflow, necros, basehead). It ran in the same section as Master of Darkness's "Complaints" (source: s-tw032-fitc-complaints).
• His review in #37, reporting a #trax argument between Aahz, Basehead and Necros and a tracker who said "chord theory is not required to write good music", sparked the chord-theory debate of #37–#40 (source: s-tw039-chord-theory-debate; see diatonic-chords).

Related#

traxweekly · master-of-darkness · kal-zakath · dennisc · paganus · mick-rippon · tracking-workflow · hornet

Sources#

s-tw032-not-so-advanced-tracking-tips · s-tw030-interview-paganus · s-tw027-faces-in-the-crowd-master-of-darkness · s-tw029-faces-in-the-crowd-esper-division · s-tw034-interview-deus-ex · s-tw039-chord-theory-debate · s-tw041-interview-mick-rippon · s-tw106-a-little-panning · s-tw032-fitc-complaints