TW #7 — Interview with Ryan Cramer (Popcorn)
Popcorn, now signing "TraxWeekly Co-Editor", interviews ryan-cramer of Iguana and renaissance, "one of my favorite composers", a week later than planned. The extract file inbox/tw-extracts/tw007-5-interviews.txt holds only the section's ASCII header; the interview follows it in the raw issue.
Key claims#
- Ryan Cramer (his real name), 20, sophomore business major at George Mason University, Fairfax, VA. Sells software: wrote DataView, "used on MOST Wildcat BBSs", and sells Tran's Timeless for Windows.
- Groups: Digital Infinity → Renaissance → Iguana, joined "once Renaissance sort of got out of the demoscene" and had no demo plans.
- Got in after hearing the music of Renaissance's Amnesia and future-crew's Unreal; learned on Whacker Tracker "for months … LOTS of frustration"; first song Ocean Sunrise ("quite bad … have to start somewhere").
- Sound cards: a gravis-ultrasound first — returned because "I couldn't get it to work right and nothing seemed to really work with it" ("one of those guys you see on c.s.i.p.d … who complain about the GUS") — then a Sound Blaster Pro for a long time, then a GUS again and "realized just what a great card it was"; by 1995 two of them (a MAX and a standard one), on "just a standard 486 hooked up to a stereo system".
- Workflow: "lots of sampling" first; load the samples he likes; lay out a chord pattern that works with a bass line, drumbeat and melody; after a couple of patterns, write "other opposing melodies that are totally different but still work with the original in a seamless way" — "Music has to change, so I try to concentrate on the changes the most."
- Joined Renaissance by calling The Sound Barrier BBS in New York long-distance and leaving C.C.Catch messages; C.C.Catch listened to his experiments and "was giving me pointers". Raising the Sail impressed Daredevil; The Beginning of the End and Thunder Dream got him in. Beginning of the End was in the NothingOn musicdisk but "didn't sound like it was originally created".
- No musical experience outside the tracker. Influences: film music (Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner, John Williams) — "the goal of creating demo music is sort of the same as film music, just because it's designed to be part of a larger work"; also Yanni's early albums, Vangelis, Mannheim Steamroller, Tangerine Dream.
- Scene, April 1995: demos "aren't as much fun as they used to be … we haven't seen much to top 2nd Reality", and games now surpass demos; the music scene, by contrast, is "really exciting". Favourite style: "demo music". "I don't enjoy tracked music that tries to sound like recorded music, although it's always impressive"; he likes "stuff you wouldn't generally hear on your CD player".
- No best song; music stays a hobby — "these days I have to concentrate on how to make money".
Practical takeaways#
- Chord pattern first, checked against bass, drums and melody; then counter-melodies that contrast yet fit — plan the changes (tracking-workflow, melody-writing, arrangement).
- Demo music is functional music, like a film score: written to serve a larger work.
- Getting a GUS to work in 1993–94 could take two attempts; software support, not the card, was the problem (gravis-ultrasound).
Notable quotes#
- "Music has to change, so I try to concentrate on the changes the most." — Ryan Cramer
- "I like tracked music that does truly unique stuff, stuff you wouldn't generally hear on your CD player." — Ryan Cramer
Relevance#
A Renaissance recruit's path (BBS → C.C.Catch's pointers → three songs), a counter-melody-driven workflow, the film-score view of demo music, and an early vote against "realism" — see realism-in-tracked-music.
Pages touched#
ryan-cramer, renaissance, gravis-ultrasound, future-crew, tracking-workflow, realism-in-tracked-music, tracker-scene-history, traxweekly.