Ryan Cramer

Musician of renaissance and, from 1995, Iguana; a self-taught tracker whose model for demo music was the film score. The single source for this page is Popcorn's TraxWeekly interview of April 1995 (source: s-tw007-interview-ryan-cramer); perisoft names him first among his favourite trackers — "professional, smooth, and ambient" (source: s-tw011-interview-perisoft).

Facts#

• Ryan Cramer (real name), 20 in April 1995, business sophomore at George Mason University, Fairfax, VA; sells software (DataView for Wildcat BBSs, Tran's Timeless for Windows).
• Groups: Digital Infinity → Renaissance (recruited through C.C.Catch on The Sound Barrier BBS after Raising the Sail, The Beginning of the End and Thunder Dream; the second appeared on the NothingOn musicdisk) → Iguana, when Renaissance left the demo scene.
• Learned on Whacker Tracker after hearing Renaissance's Amnesia and future-crew's Unreal; first song Ocean Sunrise. Sound cards: a gravis-ultrasound returned as unworkable, a Sound Blaster Pro, then a GUS again — two by 1995 (MAX and standard) on a 486.
• Workflow: sample a lot, load favourites, lay a chord pattern that works with bass, drums and melody, then write contrasting "opposing melodies" — "Music has to change, so I try to concentrate on the changes the most" (tracking-workflow, melody-writing).
• No musical training. Influences: film composers (Goldsmith, Horner, Williams) — demo music, like film music, "is designed to be part of a larger work"; Yanni, Vangelis, Mannheim Steamroller, Tangerine Dream. Prefers "demo music" and dislikes modules that imitate recordings (realism-in-tracked-music).
• In 1995: demos less exciting since Second Reality, games overtaking them, the music scene "really exciting"; music to remain a hobby.
• luv-kohli names him among his tracked influences; Ryan's BBS, Data Connection, carried all of Empyrean's releases (source: s-tw031-interview-luv-kohli).
• Not to be confused with ryan-sprott of Grey, the "Ryan" interviewed in #63 — "i am NOT RYAN CRAMER" — nor with Ryan Hunt, pinion (source: s-tw063-interview-ryan-sprott).

Related#

renaissance · gravis-ultrasound · tracking-workflow · realism-in-tracked-music · future-crew · perisoft · luv-kohli · ryan-sprott · pinion

Sources#

s-tw007-interview-ryan-cramer · s-tw011-interview-perisoft · s-tw031-interview-luv-kohli · s-tw063-interview-ryan-sprott