TW #44 — Interview with Acidfrog (Radiance / Spice)
zinc interviews acidfrog, his Radiance co-founder and main influence: a DJ and radio presenter from the 604 area code (British Columbia) who tracks jungle in fasttracker-2 on a 386 with a GUS MAX and a sampling rig built from a mixer, a turntable and second-hand hi-fi.
Key claims#
- Cam Goodman, 19, tracking "for about 2 years" (since about early 1994); groups Radiance and Spice, and "sitting in limbo with LoK" with nothing released there yet. A DJ for roughly five years — a TV/radio show, then college radio — with two years of high-school music theory that covered MIDI.
- MIDI vs tracking: the same idea, but MIDI is "alot quicker and easier", especially for effects — "you just click a few buttons on the effects machine"; in tracking, "even on FT2 you have to put alot more work into your music to get the same results". Samples in trackers "will never be up to par with MIDI due to the lack of memory on the PC".
- Local vs Internet scene: the local scene is small and everyone knows everyone at about the same level; the Internet has "masses of wicked stuff and masses of crap". A discovery since getting online: Charlie Brown Records (Italian; "I like Pedro's stuff").
- Aspirations: a first 12", a studio and label, the DJ career; tracking is "a good release" while he has no studio. Immediate goal: "I try to learn something new with every song I do."
- Setup: a 386DX40 with a GUS MAX, hooked up to a mixer, CD player, tape deck and turntable ("all for sampling"), through a 250 W amp into a 12-inch bass speaker and two 6×9s. Advice: hunt garage sales and second-hand stores for amps and speakers.
- On #trax for five months (since about August 1995); thanks "fred" for helping him in.
- Files: on ftp.cdrom.com under XMs from 1995, always
AF-*.ZIP. - Last words: "don't get all caught up in this group s---… groups are used as a status symbol and that's really too bad. Just stay true to yourself."
Practical takeaways#
- A 1996 sampling chain on a budget: turntable, tape, CD and mixer into the GUS MAX; buy the analogue parts used.
- Learn one new thing per song.
Notable quotes#
- "Samples with tracking will never be up to par with MIDI due to the lack of memory on the PC." — Acidfrog.
Relevance#
Fills the acidfrog page that zinc's own interview left wanting; a DJ's view of trackers against MIDI gear; a concrete home sampling rig for recording-samples; and a jungle tracker in the XM era.
Pages touched#
acidfrog, zinc, lok, fasttracker-2, gravis-ultrasound, recording-samples, realism-in-tracked-music, tracking-workflow, tracker-scene-history.