Domination #1 — Interview with Jeroen Tel (Jazzcat, 1994)

The earliest of the wiki's long Tel interviews — jeroen-tel at 22, still mid-career, walking through the whole C64 road from BASIC player to Probe Software and the Nintendo CD.

Key claims#

• The career ladder, in his own order: C64 at twelve → "I learned a bit of programming and wrote a little music-driver in basic" → "As soon as I discovered Sound Monitor I started to compose using that program, plenty of tunes were used in demos like for example 'Madonna Remix'" (soundmonitor) → "At a computer-meeting I met Charles Deenen (at that time called TMC/Scoop Designs) who was able to program a music-driver to suit my needs. Together we founded Maniacs of Noise. I composed the music; he created the sound effects that was the concept."
• Selling it: "I made about ten demo-tunes to show at the PCW Show in London. I showed it to various companies, who apparently were impressed. Electronic Arts (USA) seemed to like my music so much; they even offered me to work in-house for them. Unfortunately I didn't really feel like moving to the USA at the age of fourteen. Anyhow, the first music-contracts came in instantly."
• Probe: preferred his music "exclusively for their C64 games"; at eighteen a six-month in-house contract as "Computer Audio Programmer" (also Nintendo/Sega work), then freelance from the Netherlands with regular London trips.
• 1994 present: a Nintendo-club-exclusive CD of studio versions of his game titles (Lethal Weapon III, Robocop III — "remember Dutch Breeze?" — Bram Stoker's Dracula); working on an SFX CD, a library-music CD and a personal album; "now and then a C64 project still sneaks in too"; "I will be composing music for the C64 as long as games are published on it".
• Studio: built around the Akai S3000 sampler — live guitar riffs, vocals and drums recorded, sounds synthesized, mixed internally, mastered to recordable CD.
• On colleagues: "Rob Hubbard has proved to be a great composer"; "some of the tracks Tim Follin did … absolutely smashing!"; "Martin Galway has been a very characteristic fellow by playing around with the 'octaves' all the time. From the latest generation I liked the funky stuff Johannes Bjerregaard produced."
• Turbo Outrun again as the satisfaction peak: home on a Friday night with "a lot of inspiration", finished by morning "100% to my satisfaction". "My biggest achievement though, I find to be … the total collection of my 'noise'. Every track contains a piece of my heart."
• Unfinished solo projects where "concept, coding, graphics and noise were all done by me"; a compilation demo of his C64 music promised ("Noise Of Maniacs" per the other interviews). On piracy: "An illegal copy sometimes functions as a commercial", though games are vulnerable once players get bored. Pro-C65: an upgrade "would put a lot of people back in the saddle".
• The Video Game Soundmakers CD could be ordered for DFL 40 from the MoN studio in Helmond ("state: ccd 10493").

Notable quotes#

"I composed the music; he created the sound effects that was the concept."

"Every track contains a piece of my heart."

Relevance to the wiki#

Fixes the sequence BASIC → Soundmonitor → Deenen's driver from Tel's own mouth in 1994, adds the EA offer at fourteen and the Probe exclusivity to jeroen-tel, and gives maniacs-of-noise its mid-1990s commercial shape.

Pages touched#

jeroen-tel · charles-deenen · maniacs-of-noise · scoop-designs · soundmonitor · johannes-bjerregaard · martin-galway · rob-hubbard · sound-effects