An Interview with Stefan Hartwig

Well, in addition to all these famous and well-known names like Hubbard, Galway, Tel, Hülsbeck, etc. I would like to add Thomas Mogensen, Kim Christensen, Johannes Bjerregard and Geir Tjelta.

Generally I would say the tunes of Jeroen Tel were still amazing. But there were a lot of great musics from unknown composers I enjoyed a lot. - Mainly Intro and Demo tunes I think.

Difficult to say, one or two of the Intro/Demo tunes did fine, but with regard to the games I only remember the Illgen tunes, because a friend of me had written the music routines and it was quite cool to be the first musician who was able to experiment with this little piece of code.

I was a real scene maniac and part of different C64 Groups. Every member had to contribute something to the group and the easiest and most natural thing for me was the contribution of music. It was also a real challenge to push the group forward in regard to scene rankings and demo competitions.

Well, after the Turrican 1 game was nearly finished I was told that my work was also onboard and that it should be a honour for me to contribute something to the game. In fact I was a bit disappointed that no one had asked me before the game hit the market, but what do you want? - That's business and company policy and with Turrican 2 it went in a similar way.

After a lot of Intro/Demo tunes I began to create series of musics for the so called Intro- and Demomakers, programmed by Sebastian Broghammer. Then I contributed music for some C64 magazines like Magic Disk before my work for Digital Marketing, Digital Excess and Starbyte Software began.

It's rather cool to hear all these old C64 tunes in a new environment, especially when the essentials of the original tunes have been kept alive. During the hot days of the C64 there were a lot of talented musicians and I think it is worth to recover and rebuild their musical ideas.

Yes, of course but the times have changed. During the C64 era one musician with his Commodore was enough to handle a complete game project. Today there are partially complete symphonic orchestras and dozens of people who are involved in a game soundtrack. The game industry has become an important employer for professionell componists, especially from the film business. My two favourite ones are Bill Brown (Undying, Rainbow Six, Trespasser) and Jeremy Soul (Icewind Dale, Total Annihilation, Giants). - Search the web, listen carefully to their music and you know what I mean!

No, really not, I don't like to work on a tune after it has been finished. There are people who have more talent in remixing these musics and adding new ideas and features to it, like Lman who has done a great job in revitalising the Turrican tracks.

- Three channels of sound: On the one hand three voices were definitely too little on the other hand you learned what is really important for a tune and how to get the most out of the SID chip.

- Different SID chips: CSG (Commodore Semiconductor Group) produced different SID generations which all sounded and worked a little bit different, for example model 6581 used a 12 volt source while model 8580 used a 9 volt source. One result was a different effect on filter range, volume, digital noise and sample play.

All in all I think the C64 Sound Interface Device with its programmable ADSR generator, different waveforms and l/h/b filters filters was quite innovative for a simple homecomputer (and it is still today).

Man, you can ask things. - Well, I think it was not the C64 itself, the people around the C64 scene pushed the Commodore legend forward. People from all over Europe met in strange locations (even in old subterranean bunkers) and tried to find out who did the best programming, graphics or sound. It was a real creative time, in other words it was cool!

I have heard about the Back in Time CD's which contain some remixed and rearranged C64 musics but I've never heard about bitlive, sorry.

Currently I'm working together with a group of very talented multimedia producers here in Munich called Triplex. Beside professionell webpage-design they're creating innovative multimedia titles. At the same time I'm also working on a dance music project.

Most inspiration I find within film soundtracks, it's very interesting how composers add music and musical effects to film scenes and how they emphasize certain moods. I rarely hear Hits running on MTV, Viva, etc. (a lot of them sound peculiar equal). Additionally I hear a lot of classic music and try to figure out how certain musical forms are working and why an orchestra sounds like an orchestra and a multisample not.

I was always very interested in music with a solid bass fundament and a unique melody line, therefore I list the following examples:

• Omega Force One; Street Cred Boxing (Johannes Bjerregaard)
• Tomcat (Jeroen Tel)
• Thymos; Tristesse (Thomas Mogensen)
• R-type (Chris Hülsbeck)
• Haakon (Geir Tjelta)

No, I don't think so, because everyone had his own unique style and the last thing I wanted to do was to copy or to imitate a certain style. - I think after first experiences you should try to find your own way of interpreting things.

Today I'm working in a big aerospace company and only during my spare time I can afford to work on my musics. - Sometimes I'm really glad not to make my living with music because I'm not under pressure to deliver music in time.

Well, beside doing some musics for multimedia and dance projects, I try to go on with my music theorie because even in times of GHz-Computers, 24 bit samples and automated composition software it remains the backbone of every composition. I will also improve my studio equipment and try to cope with all these ugly little DirectX and VST Plug-Ins.

I use the usual stuff like Synthies (Korg M1, Roland U110, Casio CZ1, Roland Juno1, etc.), Sampleplayers (Proteus2, XG Player, etc.) and of course the SID-Station, which is based on the original MOS6581 chip. The signal pass of my setup is as much as possible digital, with a digital Yamaha mixer and Audio Logic Platinum as software core. I also experiment with different digital cards and software synthesizers.

As I already said, the Turrican sounds were a kind of disappointment for me because I think every side has to contibute to the success in a fair and reliable way. This means, every person involved should be informed in time and not after a project has already been finished.

Personally I think a good remix should add something new and fresh to the original sound. I never rely on this big special murder effect no one ever heard before, I try to invest as much time as possible in the structure of melody and harmony because the last decisive instance for your music should always be your ear and your personal taste.