TW #31 — Faces in the Crowd: Interview with Fred (Dynamic Harmony)
Dynamic Harmony's "quickie" Faces in the Crowd interview (printed as "#12", conducted 1995-10-17) with Fred of iNK, a Virginia tracker who had just gone "net-wide" with "Bawal". No real name is printed.
Key claims#
- Fred lives in Hampton, Virginia; member of iNK, "a group outta Kansas" — mainly artists who wanted to start doing demos and took him on after hearing "Bawal", "the song that I get the most compliments from". iNK's first pack came out days before the interview.
- Started tracking "exactly in March of 1994" after his friend Progenitor showed him Scream Tracker; before that only mod4win ran on his Tandy Sensation, "so I couldn't see what was going on". First mod he heard: "godzilla" (not Moby's).
- First admitted tune "Funkbeat" (about May 1994), first "decent" one "Relax at Ion Plus" (about November 1994); slacked off in early 1995; joined #trax about a month before the interview and distributed "Bawal" about two weeks before.
- Background: two semesters as a music major at Christopher Newport University (dropped out for money), piano since age six, other instruments self-taught, drums in high school. "I do think it helps out a lot, although there ARE a lot of 'naturals' out there."
- Early habit: after the first compliments he "was pumping out about 1-2 tunes per day"; his recent development was "to actually slow down and work on my tunes" — "It's not quantity, it's quality."
- Style moved from fast "demo-ish" to slower: "Bawal" is neo-classical/demo-ish, "Farewell" a slow piano tune; compliments from both camps. Influences inside the scene skaven and necros; outside, constant radio and U2.
- Sampling: "I can't sample crap" and has nothing to sample with, so he rips — "harsh, but at least I credit the samplers" with a sample-credit list. Cheesy ripping: leaving the original sample names in the list (he saw "purple motion" still in someone's sample names) and using "UNIQUE samples" everyone recognises, e.g. purple-motion's looped techno beat — "I think I've heard that one in at least 30 different tunes."
- Greets #trax friends (benzel, spotz, pfister, kmg, smeghead, basehead, leviathan, dodger, mercure) and local friends primetime, roo and witch doctor.
- Files:
fred-bwl.zipandfred-fwl.zipunderdemos/music/songs/s3m/1995/f/on ftp.cdrom.com. - The FITC song-reviews box that follows (skipped) recommends "Timeless Lullaby" by Mozart of Continuum (S3M, demo/orchestral) and "Tranquility Within" by vicious of VSL (XM).
Practical takeaways#
- Slow down: one considered tune beats two a day (see tracking-workflow).
- Ripping etiquette in practice: a credit list in the song text, rename the samples, and avoid signature samples that everyone can place (see sample-ripping).
Notable quotes#
- "It's not quantity, it's quality." — Dynamic Harmony, agreed by Fred.
- "I think I've heard that one in at least 30 different tunes." — Fred, on Purple Motion's looped techno beat.
Relevance#
The overused-sample problem stated with a concrete example, and a typical 1994–95 learning curve (mod4win → ST3 → #trax). Fred placed 11th in 20mc #6 and 10th in #8 (source: s-tw032-20-minute-chip-compo).
Pages touched#
fred-ink, scream-tracker-3, sample-ripping, tracking-workflow, purple-motion, skaven, necros, vicious, smeghead.