SIDin #2 — Lasse Öörni (Cadaver) interview (Stefano Tognon, 2002)

A short e-mail interview with lasse-oorni made in November 2002 — the year goattracker was new — in which he explains why he kept writing players (memory and rastertime), why GoatTracker's music "takes too much memory", what it still lacked ("step-programming for sounds") and why he started ninjatracker. Tognon introduces him as the author of "fantastic games with a wonderful atmosphere like in MW series (e.g. I like the rain, or the day/night effect …) and a series of cross-develop tools and music players."

Key claims#

• Life: "I live near Oulu, Finland, and study physics/math/chemistry/computer science in the Oulu university (I aim to be a teacher)". Webography: Covert BitOps (covertbitops.c64.org) and www.student.oulu.fi/~loorni/.
• A late starter: "I started 'serious' or C64 coding and crossdeveloping quite late, in 1998, after a break of several years; before that I never got anything noteworthy done on the C64. So I guess that makes me quite a newcomer." He declines "one of the last full coder" — "there are several coders using crossdevelopment, and more are picking it up". The games named: Escape From New York, BOFH: Servers Under Siege, Metal Warrior — engines, graphics and music all his.
• Why so many players ("Music driver, SadoTracker, Goattrk and Ninjatrk"): "I've been steadily improving as a coder, so each time, when starting a new game project, I also wanted to rewrite the playroutine for memory or speed (rastertime) gain. Sometimes, I even wrote editors :)" (sid-player-routine).
• GoatTracker's cost: "I thought Goattracker would be the ultimate for my personal use, because it was fast & easy to compose on, but finally I had to realize that music made with it takes too much memory (because of the patterns, they're like in Amiga/PC tracker programs). So I started the quest for the extremely optimized playroutine/musicdata combination (Ninjatracker) :)"
• What was next in 2002: no samples — "I have no experience of sample coding (although I guess it's not too hard), so it's unlikely they'd be featured in my editor(s)"; "Goattracker has kind of reached the peak in ease-of-use vs. features (it is missing step-programming for sounds, that would add versatility at the cost of easiness), and Ninjatracker in speed & size, so at least now I can't see the need/possibility for another player." Instead: "good music for MW4", partly arranged for the C64 from tunes by "non-C64 related guys … same system as with MW3".
• Standard questions: real machine vs emulator — "Real machine is better for gaming sessions … And a real SID is very much preferable for composing. But emulators are very powerful tools in testing your programs." Worst own tune: Advanced Action Movie Simulator, "done that way on purpose (crapgame-compo)"; best: "MW2 has some nice melodies in a couple of tunes". Favourite composers: "Rob Hubbard, Martin Galway, Matt Gray, Jonathan Dunn (this guy composed the ultimate war-feeling/heroic SIDs), Reyn Ouwehand". Best SIDs: "Hubbard's Sanxion loader, and the various Ocean Loaders evoke the most feeling in me :) Platoon, Last Ninja 2 & Last Ninja 3 soundtracks contain also nothing but brilliant tunes to me. Usually, it's not the technicality that I care most of, but rather the melodies and the atmosphere."
• Closing advice "for any C64 gamedevelopers. Beware of 2 things that will get your project cancelled, by mysterious hand of fate: 1) planning to do a Zelda project with bitmap scrolling 2) trying to do another Turrican for C64 :)"

Practical takeaways#

• Memory is the tracker's price: patterns of the Amiga/PC kind are convenient to write and expensive to ship, which is why a game musician ends up with a second, packed player (NinjaTracker) — the trade-off sid-player-routine describes for SID-Wizard's player types and GoatTracker's packer.
• "Step-programming for sounds" was the missing feature in 2002; GoatTracker 2's wave, pulse and filter tables are that feature (instrument-tables, goattracker).
• Compose on a real SID, test in the emulator — the same order luca-carrafiello and later Lemon64 threads give (s-sidin01-carrafiello-interview).

Notable quotes#

"each time, when starting a new game project, I also wanted to rewrite the playroutine for memory or speed (rastertime) gain."

"music made with it takes too much memory (because of the patterns, they're like in Amiga/PC tracker programs)."

Relevance to the wiki#

Biography and the player lineage for lasse-oorni; the 2002 state of goattracker (before the v2 tables) and the reason for ninjatracker; listener's verdicts for jonathan-dunn, sanxion and last-ninja-2; a line for tracker-scene-history.

Pages touched#

lasse-oorni · goattracker · ninjatracker · sid-player-routine · jonathan-dunn · sanxion · last-ninja-2 · tracker-scene-history · sidin