Necros (Andy Sega)

The most-cited PC-scene musician in traxweekly: Andy Sega, 19 in March 1995, a computer-science major with a philosophy minor, co-founder of the five-musicians with Mellow-D after leaving kosmic ("it is kinda silly to be in more than one music group at once") (source: s-tw003-interview-five-musicians). Pinion listens to a tape of his modules in the car, Skaven names him a favourite, Catspaw admires his contributions to the scene, a 1997 beginner grants him "GOD status", and #trax voted him best tracker three times over (sources: s-tw014-interview-pinion, s-tw109-interview-skaven, s-tw057-interview-catspaw, s-tw105-newbie-interviews, s-tw080-trax-mass-interview).

Facts#

• Training: about five years of piano/keyboard lessons, ten years of playing, five years of informal theory. Speciality: "chords, lots of chords, big chords, and lots of insane harmonies" — demo style because it is purely melodic, plus attempts at realistic-sounding tracks (source: s-tw003-interview-five-musicians). Chuck Biscuits singles out "Necros' piano work and immaculate song structure" (source: s-tw003-interview-chuck-biscuits); Zapper got a compliment from him for realistic bass lines (source: s-tw027-interview-zapper).
• Songs named by peers: Realization and Realization 2 (FM's first release, originally the lead-off of a stalled LD musicdisk), Bugs in my Head (source: s-tw003-interview-five-musicians); the musicdisk Progression, which the scene set against Basehead's Lotus Position (source: s-tw027-interview-basehead-lotus-position); *The Grey Note* from Progression, cited for realistic sax from sampled passages with an echo channel (source: s-tw084-perfect-samples-the-piano).
• Szalemandre lists "Necros's tune, ripped from Pisstro" among the classic chiptunes he collected, and DennisC thanks him among the chiptune makers (source: s-tw037-death-of-the-chiptune-debate).
• Won the second 20-minute-chip-compo (results of 16 September 1995) with 123 points, ahead of Charlatan (102) and Balrog (100) (source: s-tw032-20-minute-chip-compo).
• Won first place in the NAID 1995 music compo; "didn't like his song too much"; his acceptance speech — respect for everyone who "had the guts to submit" a song — made the biggest impression on island-of-reil "and not just on me", and he was cheered before his entry even started (source: s-tw006-naid-opinion-interviews; Island of Reil does not name the song — the "Ascent of the Cloud Eagle" attribution below comes from s-tw007-the-importance-of-music-theory).
• Beaten to first place in Music Contest 3 (summer 1995) by jase's XM (source: s-tw022-interview-jase).

In his own words#

• "What it's like to be a PC Musician" (#5, April 1995), signed "Andy, aka. Necros / FM" (asega@ic.sunysb.edu): fan mail by the hundreds, $400 of game profits, 1,623 hours at the monitor, a cat traumatised by "every single version of HyperControl", and the advice to track "FOR YOURSELF" (source: s-tw005-what-its-like-to-be-a-pc-musician).
• Argued with basehead and Aahz for the value of theory in the #37–#40 chord debate (source: s-tw039-chord-theory-debate); "a siner and a set of FC ripped samples do not a mod creator make" (source: s-tw003-interview-five-musicians).
• Behemoth's "realism" piece answers an argument he had in #70 (source: s-tw076-realism-in-mods); the Modsquad's FAQ jokingly sends all questions to necros@fm.org, "he knows a lot about music" (source: s-tw077-chip-off-the-block).

The Advanced Tracking Tips series and the review column (1995)#

His 1995 columns are signed "Necros / FM / Legend Design" (asega@ic.sunysb.edu; ftp.mpoli.fi /pub/starport/music/necros/) and the review column "Necros / Five Musicians / Legend Design" (necros@axs.net; dragon.axs.net) — FM = five-musicians (sources: s-tw009-samples-lameness-preconceptions, s-tw012-advanced-tracking-tips, s-tw024-in-review-asm95).

• #9, "Samples, Lameness, Preconceptions, and Fluffy Bunnies": once a "siner-synth" purist whose friends called the result "video game music", he became "a loop junkie" — sampled riffs, transformed, are original work, and he defended Basehead's NAID entry against the charge of being "35 % ripped from CD samples" (source: s-tw009-samples-lameness-preconceptions; see sample-ripping).
• #12, Advanced Tracking Tips I: stereo width from one sample via O01 on a second channel, lead-articulation (velocity, GF0 legato, late vibrato, the echo track, the Purple Motion "drop-off"), scream-tracker-3's S8x/Xxx panning values and placements, and swing from alternating Txx tempos — his own "Realization 2" uses it (source: s-tw012-advanced-tracking-tips; see stereo-panning, shuffle-funktempo).
• #15, Advanced Tracking Tips II: songwriting after Jim Aikin's "Demo Tape Workshop" — structure (Intro / A / B / A / B / Bridge / A / B / Resolution), "peaks and valleys", drums like a live drummer, five progressions to avoid, and "SAMPLES! GET GOOD SAMPLES!" (source: s-tw015-advanced-tracking-tips-ii; see arrangement, chord-progressions).
• #18, Advanced Tracking Tips III: the art of voicings — C–F–Dm–G into C9 | Fadd2/C | Dm7 | Gsus4–G (source: s-tw018-advanced-tracking-tips-iii; see chord-inversions).
• #24, "In Review": his first review column, on the Assembly '95 music — Skaven's winning "Catch that Goblin" rated 6.5 ("not worthy of being a compo winner"), Zodiak's "Respirator" 8.5, Zapper's disqualified "Distance" 7.5, Yolk, Cube and Lizardking (source: s-tw024-in-review-asm95).
• How the scene read him: Atlantic warned beginners not to try to sound like "Necros or Purple Motion" — "Only those musicians sound like those musicians" (source: s-tw032-not-so-advanced-tracking-tips); Pulse, on why impulse-tracker exists: "Not because YOU track, not because Necros wanted a ST3 interface with more advanced features" (source: s-tw098-impulse-tracker-investment).

In the debates#

• Realism (1996). Challenged that a tracked saxophone can never sound real: "you can do a sax right if you know how to multisample and have a smidgen of talent" — "10+ samples of bends, hits, overdrives, diff octaves, and keyclick noises"; he pointed to greynote.s3m (the-grey-note) and named "Orchard Street" on his coming musicdisk as the better sax, then closed the thread in #73, signed "andy, necros / five musicians" (necros@fm.org): "tracked music is inherently synthetic in a very important sense … the best tracked music revels in it's contrivedness". DennisC claimed to have found the Amiga tune his "Point of Departure" drum loop was ripped from (source: s-tw070-realism-debate; see realism-in-tracked-music).
• Samples. Beacon names "Basehead's and Necros' super-samples" as the scene's most-reused sets; Psibelius uses the Grey Note sax as the example of a song-specific sample one must not rip (source: s-tw024-sample-ripping-debate; see sample-ripping).
• Theory. Future Assassin (April 1995) credited his NAiD-winning "Ascent of the Cloud Eagle" to "13 years of theory under his belt" — a tune in the panflute/toms/brass style the author could not get out of his head and into Scream Tracker (source: s-tw007-the-importance-of-music-theory; the FM interview a month earlier has Necros himself at five years of informal theory, see above). shawnm's serialism piece names "the theory the Necros and Basehead use" as the scene's tonal benchmark (source: s-tw046-serial-composition); the Modsquad's 1997 satire contrasts "Wave and Necros" — Wave for groove, Necros for emotion: "you listen to a necros tune, and you remember … when you were 5, swinging on the school's swingset" (source: s-tw087-music-theory-a-modern-approach).

In the interviews (1995–97)#

• Named a favourite or influence by leinad ("doesn't everyone?"), nemesis, stalker ("His chords, his beats, his everything. He's what I aspire to be"), perisoft ("you get both 'December' and 'Bugs in my head'"), beaner, big-jim ("werd to Necros' tracking tips cos they rule"), smeghead, jase ("I'm into realism now so I use some of Necros' stuff as inspiration"), luv-kohli, Fred, saxy, quantam-porcupine and daedalus; in balrog's PC dream team; one of zalt's "not-so-many but very unique" Americans, "necros, basehead, levi"; quarex greets him "since it's also cliche" (sources: s-tw002-interview-leinad, s-tw004-interview-nemesis, s-tw004-interview-stalker, s-tw011-interview-perisoft, s-tw011-interview-beaner, s-tw013-interview-big-jim, s-tw029-faces-in-the-crowd-smeghead, s-tw022-interview-jase, s-tw031-interview-luv-kohli, s-tw031-interview-fred, s-tw054-interview-saxy, s-tw054-interview-quantam-porcupine, s-tw052-interview-daedalus, s-tw042-interview-balrog, s-tw040-interview-zalt, s-tw019-interview-quarex).
• The counter-voices: maelcum (July 1995) is tired of "Necros is my biggest influence" in every interview — he and Major Tom made most of the scene's samples (source: s-tw019-interview-quarex); paganus's model of hero-worship — the newbie "hears Necros' music … THIS MAN IS GOD!", yet "he is just a normal, average, human being in other respects" (source: s-tw030-interview-paganus); shawnm (January 1996): "Most people would rather get a Necros tune than a NOISE tune", but do not force acoustic guitar "just because Necros used some", nor the pan flute of "Ascent of the Cloud Eagle" (source: s-tw041-interview-shawnm); ryan-sprott (1996) lists him as overrated — "he's a really great composer and cool as hell... but he's not the god everyone says he is" (source: s-tw063-interview-ryan-sprott).
• populus: his KFMF tunes "were very good (except for that bugs in my head thing)"; names DRUNK.S3M (source: s-tw016-interview-populus). His "don't track drunk" position was contested in print — Populus: "when you're drunk you … feel alone with the tracker. You focus on one thing"; lord-pegasus: "full of shit", caffeine keeps ideas, alcohol just makes odd songs (sources: s-tw016-interview-populus, s-tw018-interview-lord-pegasus; see tracking-workflow).
• Perisoft's standby sample "FC SINER FROM PANIC" is the same "siner" sound Necros mocks in the FM interview (source: s-tw011-interview-perisoft).
• Songs named later: vegas's favourite tracked song is "Metroplex", with "Point of Departure" "also very impressive", and Necros's and Spyder's tracked jazz his realism benchmark (source: s-tw062-interview-vegas); rage knew only "Eden" (source: s-tw060-interview-rage); liam-the-lemming met him at The Party 5 — "Your tune, it was uh... number 13, wasn't it?" (source: s-tw066-interview-liam-the-lemming).
• By 1997: Perisoft — "too damned idle to be on the list anymore" (source: s-tw087-interview-perisoft); mikmak's prediction for 1999: "Necros will return to the scene (just guessing)" (source: s-tw103-interview-mikmak).

To verify#

• (unverified) Later a game and electronic-music composer.

Related#

chiptune · basehead · five-musicians · 20-minute-chip-compo · the-grey-note · realism-in-tracked-music · sample-ripping · multisampling · lead-articulation · arrangement · chord-inversions · compos · maelcum · mellow-d · shawnm · paganus · jase

Sources#

s-tw003-interview-five-musicians · s-tw005-what-its-like-to-be-a-pc-musician · s-tw037-death-of-the-chiptune-debate · s-tw039-chord-theory-debate · s-tw077-chip-off-the-block · s-tw076-realism-in-mods · s-tw084-perfect-samples-the-piano · s-tw080-trax-mass-interview · s-tw014-interview-pinion · s-tw057-interview-catspaw · s-tw109-interview-skaven · s-tw105-newbie-interviews · s-tw003-interview-chuck-biscuits · s-tw027-interview-zapper · s-tw027-interview-basehead-lotus-position · s-tw032-20-minute-chip-compo · s-tw070-realism-debate · s-tw024-sample-ripping-debate · s-tw007-the-importance-of-music-theory · s-tw046-serial-composition · s-tw087-music-theory-a-modern-approach · s-tw009-samples-lameness-preconceptions · s-tw012-advanced-tracking-tips · s-tw015-advanced-tracking-tips-ii · s-tw018-advanced-tracking-tips-iii · s-tw024-in-review-asm95 · s-tw032-not-so-advanced-tracking-tips · s-tw098-impulse-tracker-investment · s-tw002-interview-leinad · s-tw004-interview-nemesis · s-tw004-interview-stalker · s-tw006-naid-opinion-interviews · s-tw011-interview-perisoft · s-tw011-interview-beaner · s-tw013-interview-big-jim · s-tw016-interview-populus · s-tw018-interview-lord-pegasus · s-tw019-interview-quarex · s-tw022-interview-jase · s-tw029-faces-in-the-crowd-smeghead · s-tw030-interview-paganus · s-tw031-interview-luv-kohli · s-tw031-interview-fred · s-tw040-interview-zalt · s-tw041-interview-shawnm · s-tw042-interview-balrog · s-tw052-interview-daedalus · s-tw054-interview-saxy · s-tw054-interview-quantam-porcupine · s-tw060-interview-rage · s-tw062-interview-vegas · s-tw063-interview-ryan-sprott · s-tw066-interview-liam-the-lemming · s-tw087-interview-perisoft · s-tw103-interview-mikmak