TW #22 — Interview with Jase (Clef)
clef of epinicion interviews jase, the Australian winner of Music Contest 3 — "after NetSplits, capture problems, and time limits".
Key claims#
- Jason Chong ("hence my tag Jase"), just turned 20, fourth year of a Bachelor of Science and Engineering degree (e-mail at uwa.edu.au); in the demo groups Oxygen and Enigma.
- MC3: entered "to see how I fared against other composers in the world"; his goals were top 5, "to make sure an XM gets top 5", and — to his surprise — winning, "and beat necros". He nearly did not enter because the deadline fell in his exams and made the tune in the last two weeks; he did not expect "a symphonic tune would win twice in a row". He wanted to answer those who gave fasttracker-2 "the thumbs down before trying" and said no good XMs existed: "display its benefits (eg in envelopes) over s3m and other formats" (see xm-format, instrument-envelopes).
- Australia: the scene "is definitely growing fast" — Firelight, CB, Jedi; new demo/music groups; oz95 coming up.
- Background: nearly 15 years of classical music, violin for about 13 years, piano, electric guitar for the last five years; a Guns N' Roses / Metallica / Satriani phase (played and analysed); now US House. Tracker favourites: skaven's Ice Frontier and purple-motion's Starshine; lately Big Jim's "huge symphonic demo music"; "I'm into realism now so I use some of Necros' stuff as inspiration" (see realism-in-tracked-music).
- Started tracking about November 1993, after his first-year exams. The first demo and tracked music he heard was Unreal by future-crew; he was composing MIDI at the time, asked around, and "started on FastTracker playing with some awful samples from my SY35", then downloaded Aminet mods. His musical background "was a great advantage".
- Workflow: ideas by "mucking about on a keyboard, piano, guitar or even by singing in the car", or from the radio; a structure/plan for the major sections "in my head"; then samples that match the type of tune — "the samples must fit the ideas I have"; then tracking; then revisions "to get it to sound and flow right".
- Tip for beginners: people sit down with a bunch of samples and no idea; get the idea and the feel first. Playing with samples can give a feel, but "lots of people fall into the trap of basing their whole tune on this". "Take one step away from your piece at some stages and listen to it like it's the first time you've heard it or it's someone else's piece."
- Output is low; releases on hornet as
j-*.zipandjjj-*.zip, a few tunes shipped with Mod4Win "thanks to Jensi"; a homepage at UWA. Thanks to the MC3 organisers snowman, dan and floss; Firelight "for helping me out from the very start"; his girlfriend suggested the tubular bells.
Practical takeaways#
- Idea → structure → samples chosen to fit → track → revise.
- The stranger's ear: step away and listen as if the piece were someone else's.
- The 1995 case for XM over S3M was instrument envelopes.
Notable quotes#
- "some people said that since no good tunes came out in XM that it wasn't worth trying XM." — Jase.
Relevance#
The 1995 Music Contest 3 result (an XM by a classically trained Australian beat Necros), the FT2-versus-ST3 format argument of that summer, and a planned, instrument-first workflow for tracking-workflow.
Pages touched#
jase, clef, fasttracker-2, xm-format, instrument-envelopes, necros, skaven, purple-motion, big-jim, future-crew, tracking-workflow, compos, hornet, realism-in-tracked-music, epinicion.