TW #41 — Faces in the Crowd: Interview with Mick Rippon (DennisC)
DennisC interviews mick-rippon, a music student from Newcastle, Australia, with three years of Amiga tracking behind him and three months on the internet — the interview traxweekly's FITC editor had promised in #34 (source: s-tw034-interview-deus-ex). Short, but with quotable positions on samples, chiptunes and compo judging.
Key claims#
- Mick Rippon (real name), Newcastle, Australia; 19, turning 20 in January 1996; studying for a music degree "hoping in the end to have a big fat major in composition". Acoustic guitar is his instrument; piano self-taught "since I could reach the keys".
- Tracked on the Amiga for three years and on the PC for six or seven months: "I mastered Protracker on the Amiga, and I've nearly mastered ST3 and FT2 on the PC." Amiga vs PC trackers: "a tracker is only an artistic tool, and not vital to creating a piece of music."
- Influences: avoids listening to other stuff; when something is brilliant, "I'll make sure I'll work out why it sounds good."
- Joined the net at the start of October 1995, on a 9600-baud modem with slow Australian ping times — "Downloading is a chore." DennisC reports that Atlantic is "your biggest fan".
- Composition "dictated on the mood I'm in"; ideas arrive around the turn of the month; he wakes with melodies and writes them down at once. "I love ambient tuneful stuff. Everything I write is laid back, even when I try to write the opposite!"
- Samples: "A sample is only an instrument for heaven's sake. Did Beethoven whinge because other composers write for the piano as well?"
- Chip tunes "are a different art altogether. It shows how a composer can cope with limited resources … more of a challenge than an attempt to write an enjoyable piece of music." The controversial 20-minute compo "should be treated like an experiment than an indication of 'who is the best chip muso'"; "There's as much shit 'non-chip' music as there is 'chip music'."
- Voting: "Musicians should judge other musicians!" — music is so variable "that you can nearly get away with anything", and "a particular style or genre always wins". He had just finished a tune for Oz96, "Australia's first demo party", and expected no placing "because most people won't understand it! It seems that musicians like my music more than the rest."
- On TraxWeekly and #trax: "Traxweekly is the most wonderful idea in the world! It keeps the unity which I think is the main strength of the tracker community."
- Plans: projects with Blue Aphace of AV; a debut musicdisk once he has a keyboard for his own samples. Page printed as
HTTP:\\users@hunterlink.net.au/~dfmar.
Practical takeaways#
- Analyse what you admire instead of imitating it ("work out why it sounds good") — the same advice as Atlantic's "Sheep" point in s-tw032-not-so-advanced-tracking-tips (see tracking-workflow).
- Write the waking melody down immediately.
Notable quotes#
- "A sample is only an instrument for heaven's sake." — Mick Rippon.
- "Musicians should judge other musicians!" — Mick Rippon.
Relevance#
An Amiga-then-PC musician's neutral view of the tools, the "samples are instruments" position for sample-ripping, a definition of the chiptune as a resource challenge for chiptune, and a jury-vs-audience argument for compos; also the date of Oz96 as Australia's first demo party. FITC's reviews had already recommended his "Igsignif" (#30) and "Tea Cosy" (#34) (sources: s-tw030-interview-paganus, s-tw034-interview-deus-ex).
Pages touched#
mick-rippon, protracker, scream-tracker-3, fasttracker-2, sample-ripping, chiptune, 20-minute-chip-compo, compos, tracking-workflow, traxweekly.