Remix64 — An Interview with Chris Huelsbeck (2001)

Neil Carr's 2001 interview with chris-huelsbeck for the remix community: why he started on the C64, what shades did for him, what he loves and dislikes about the sid, and how composing changed once real instruments were involved.

Key claims#

• Favourite C64 composers: rob-hubbard, martin-galway, Ben Daglish, jeroen-tel; favourite SIDs "the synth sample demos (was that Hubbard?)"; his own favourites: R-Type title and Starball.
• On the SID: "The SID Sound is absolutely unique and can't be accurately produced by any other Synthesizer that I know. Specially the pulse-with modulation is the holy grail of its power. There was not much to dislike, besides maybe the SID chip / C64 filter design, which caused each machines filter to sound almost unpredictably different." (pulse-width-modulation, filter-programming)
• Why the C64: he already played organs and synths; "one of the reasons I decided to get a C64 was the SID chip, since I didn't own any synthsizer myself"; when a friend who programmed a game needed music he "was 'in business'"; "My very first music player was pretty basic, but I learned fast and the sound got better" (sid-player-routine). His grandmother helped pay for the machine.
• Shades: "my first published tune and got a lot of attention, because it won a competition in the biggest selling C64 magazine at the time. That helped to establish my name and basically also got me the job at rainbow-arts, the first big german games developer." To be on Top and great-giana-sisters became successful titles "and all that helped to spread the word". Most of his success was in Germany because the games were made for the German market. "What really made my day was the competition in the magazine that I won."
• Composing: "The basics of a good song remain the same: good melody, accompaniment and a strong and interesting arrangement. All other elements like sounds and recording technique are exchangeable." For a game he looks at "the concept, artwork and in the best case play the game itself … That gives me ideas about mood, speed and character of the music." (arrangement, melody-writing)
• Atari ST: Gem'X and Jim Power used "my own custom player"; nobody ripped them. "In the C64 days music didn't need to match a game, it could even stand out and it had a revolutionary charm."
• Remixes: fine "as long as there is no commercial usage"; likes g2's Katakis megamix and Nebularia's Turrican 2 title; Chris Abbott's Back in Time CD. 2001 studio list includes a Kurzweil K2500S, Akai S1000, Nord Modular, Ensoniq SQ80 and the reFX QuadraSID virtual SID.
• 2001 job: Factor 5 (founded in Germany 1987, moved to San Rafael in 1996), whose MusyX sound tools were licensed to Nintendo.

Notable quotes#

"Specially the pulse-with modulation is the holy grail of its power."

"My very first music player was pretty basic, but I learned fast and the sound got better."

Relevance to the wiki#

Hülsbeck in his own words on PWM, the filter lottery and what Shades did for his career; quotes for chris-huelsbeck, pulse-width-modulation, sid and shades.

Pages touched#

chris-huelsbeck · shades · sid · pulse-width-modulation · filter-programming · rainbow-arts · great-giana-sisters · arrangement · sid-player-routine · melody-writing