Shades (Chris Hülsbeck, 1986)
chris-huelsbeck's first published tune: written in February 1986 "from 8 PM to 4 AM" for 64er's music competition, "merely aiming for top ten", and placed first, earning 1500 DM (source: s-vgmpf-chris-huelsbeck).
Facts#
- Composed as raw Musicmaster data typed in with the SMON machine-language monitor — "was eine zeitraubende Arbeit war" — which is why Hülsbeck then wrote soundmonitor (source: s-64er-soundmonitor-article).
- "Shades was my first published tune and got a lot of attention, because it won a competition in the biggest selling C64 magazine at the time. That helped to establish my name and basically also got me the job at rainbow-arts." "What really made my day was the competition in the magazine that I won." (source: s-remix64-huelsbeck-interview)
- His own account of the entry: "After Planet of War I was already improving my machine language music player and when I read about the contest, I was determined to get at least noticed by sending in a cool music piece" (source: s-emuwiki-huelsbeck-interview).
- The name lived on in Symphonic Shades (2008), the orchestral concert of his music (source: s-emuwiki-huelsbeck-interview).
- What pushed him to enter, told a year later: "Davor programmierte ich schon einige Musikstücke mit einem Freund zusammen, allerdings nichts Weltbewegendes. Programme wie beispielsweise »Synthsample« brachten mich auf die Idee, auch mal etwas in der Art zu machen. Dann habe ich »Shades« programmiert und es eingesandt." He read about the contest in February 1986 and did not expect the result — "Ich rechnete gar nicht damit, daß ich solch einen Erfolg haben würde, und dann belegte ich sogar den ersten Platz" (source: s-happy-computer-soundprofessor).
- The tune came before the editor. The MusicMaster play routine already existed when he entered; only after Shades won did he decide, "angesichts der Möglichkeiten dieser Abspielroutine", to build an editor around it — soundmonitor, of which MusicMaster then remained a fixed part (source: s-soundmonitor-lineage-wikis).
- Ten years on it was still the high point of his career: asked in 1996 for his proudest moment, "Winning the first music competition in a german computer mag called '64er Magazin'", which he partly credited to timing — "I had the luck beeing the first german programmer for music in these days" (source: s-imr-huelsbeck-interview). In his shortest telling (2011) the tune goes unnamed altogether: "Later I won a music contest in a magazine and developed the first tracker-like music editor called 'Soundmonitor'" (source: s-audiogang-huelsbeck-interview; the fuller career account sits on chris-huelsbeck).
Reception#
- CSDb lists it "Released At: 64'er Music Competition", achievement #1, rated 9.4/10 by 19 users ("One of the best SID's ever!!!", "truly a piece of history"); the d64 and
/MUSICIANS/H/Huelsbeck_Chris/Shades.sidare linked there (source: s-csdb-soundmonitor-and-shades). - SIDwave: "Chris' first music sounds fantastic to everybody, because it has a new style, not heard before. It's pop/rock/chris, it don't sound like Hubbard or Galway" (source: s-recollection-brief-history-of-sid). JCH, otherwise cool on Hülsbeck's C64 work: "the early Shades that had an amazing mood" (source: s-chordian-sid-musicians). The contest was announced in 64'er 6/1986; a 1991 album is also called Shades (source: s-wikipedia-chris-huelsbeck) — that announcement date and Hülsbeck's own "Februar 1986" are left standing against each other on 64er.
Related#
chris-huelsbeck · soundmonitor · 64er · sid-player-routine
Sources#
s-64er-soundmonitor-article · s-vgmpf-chris-huelsbeck · s-remix64-huelsbeck-interview · s-emuwiki-huelsbeck-interview · s-csdb-soundmonitor-and-shades · s-recollection-brief-history-of-sid · s-chordian-sid-musicians · s-wikipedia-chris-huelsbeck · s-happy-computer-soundprofessor · s-soundmonitor-lineage-wikis · s-imr-huelsbeck-interview · s-audiogang-huelsbeck-interview