IMR interview — Chris Hülsbeck (1996)

A short questionnaire with one big claim: Hülsbeck believes he beat martin-galway to sampled sound on the sid — and lost the fame to a release delay.

Key claims#

• Living in "Langen near Frankfurt" (1996); born 1968; first hacked "an early MS-Dos machine (Sirius PC)" but "my own first computer was the legendary C64 in 1984". "I had no contact with the 'scene'" — the demoscene questionnaire's group questions come up empty.
• Proudest moment: "Winning the first music competition in a german computer mag called '64er Magazin'" (shades, 64er). Remembered because "I had the luck beeing the first german programmer for music in these days" and because of the sheer quantity of soundtracks.
• The Bad Cat claim (chip-samples): "I think I was the first programmer who made sample sounds in musics with the SID chip, but the first release 'Bad cat' from Rainbow Arts that featured 'my' trick was delayed about 3 month until the program was finished. So Martin Galway got the fame with 'Arkanoid' and his sample-like technique... but I don't want to be jealous of him... :)" — matching VGMPF's timeline (sampler work unreleased until July 1987, arkanoid out February 1987).
• Only regret: "that I was to naive about buisness and money".
• Favourites: game Impossible Mission, Archon; demo "Synth Sample" (the program he elsewhere credits with inspiring Shades); programmer Mario van Zeist; composers Rob Hubbard "(on the computer scene)" and John Williams; best tracks One Man and His Droid, Lightforce, Monty on the Run, Cybernoid, the Star Wars score.
• 1996 present: "Producing soundtracks for games… I'm proud being one of the few people from the old days who are still in the buisness… My latest work is the soundtrack for 'Tunnel B1' from Ocean Software on Playstation, Saturn and PC"; on IRC as "Chippie"; still using "C64 (Original machine and Emulators)".

Notable quotes#

"So Martin Galway got the fame with 'Arkanoid' and his sample-like technique... but I don't want to be jealous of him... :)"

Relevance to the wiki#

The sample-priority claim in Hülsbeck's own words (already implicit in VGMPF's dates) belongs on chip-samples and martin-galway; the "no contact with the scene" line sharpens the contrast with how hard the scene embraced soundmonitor.

Pages touched#

chris-huelsbeck · martin-galway · chip-samples · arkanoid · shades · 64er · rainbow-arts