Labels:text | screenshot | font OCR: Andy Baxter Reviews ... . . FOPIV Friends Of Paula - Volume Four - 'Simply Blue' . When I received FOP IV and a letter from Richard asking me to review it, visions of Wayne's World flashed across my mind, "I'm not worthy! I'm not worthy?". Reviewing a disk by the (near) legendary Raven would be a nightmare. But then I thought about it ... a wicked gleam lit up my eyes, I rubbed my hands together with glee. . . REVENGE !!! Give me that disk! I stuck it in the drive and several moments later, a screen pops up :- "BY ELWOOD" - WHO? FOP IV is not Chris Wrights' latest! So, for the Raven fan out there (well, there must BE one), don't buy this disk expecting more of the same from our beloved Chris. Nope, FOP IV is by Paula's new friend, Elwood and I was pleased to see that Elwood is the (rather strange) pseudonym for none other than Steven Gane! Now, through MUG, I've got to hear a few tunes from Steven and anticipation? they've all been excellent, a full disk had my earbuds tingling in Steven includes a little history of his musical life to date, how on a diet of just baked beans, he learned to play 'Chopsticks' non-stop on the piano at school (so YOU were the annoying little gitt) Then, he moved onto Rock'n'Roll (The Beatles, Jerry Lee, Little Richard - trendy little dude wasn't he?) Well, one thing led to another, he got an Amiga, got his hands on MED and hasn't looked back since. Oh yes, somewhere along the line, he fell in love with 'The Blues' Have you guessed yet? The clue is in the title. Yup, this disk is VERY blues orientated! Let us begin :- Lorraine - Steve's little leg-over song ( I hope she liked it Steve!) This one is dedicated to a beautiful woman called (and here's a coincidence) Lorraine. The song starts off with a very cool, laid back bass riff with some sort of choir/strings accompaniment in the background. When the lead melody eventually enters the scene, it sounds like a tune from that old C64 maestro Martin Galway. A saxophone pops in for a bit of a solo (Steve likes a bit of sax) which is absolutely superb. The tune then changes, and the second part of this mini-symphony is 'Parting' which is rather sad. A lonely saxaphone plays against a stark drumbeat. Sampled rain in the background add to the effect, giving it all a real feeling of loneliness. . . that walking home alone again feeling eh Steve? The latter half off this part suddenly changes and becomes more upbeat, Steven informs us that it has, in fact, gotten funky (oh yes, almost forgot, Steve has this habit of using the text lines to let us thickies know what the tune is doing, giving us subtle hints like 'CHORUS' and 'Link Block' .) The third part is 'Blue Heart'. A fairly simple bass run and drun pattern kicks it off slowly, then saxaphones help it along again (Steven tells us that it sounds like St Lois Blues so you may be able to imagine this part) These saxaphones take up two channels and freak out a bit, weaving around, harmonizing sometimes even seeming to go off on their own little tunes. It's all very much your stereotype slow blues type of thing really. The penultimate part 'Hesitant', is certainly different. A very racey upbeat number to begin with which suddenly mellows out and sounds (again) like an old C64 tune (Rambo?). It's cleverly done. The final part is 'Rocket' (which Steven admits sounds like a Led Zep song . . . YOU'RE NOT KIDDINGt, but for the life of me, I can't think of the title'. Again, this is very racey and rocky sounding but has little of note other than a neat bassline and a memorable (albeit ripped off ) melody. On the whole, this is one of the best mods on the disk. A real mixture of styles are used. As usual, Steven's mastery of MED commands shines through. The samples (particularly the bass and sax) are crystal clear. It all makes for challenging listening, especially at almost 16 minutes long? Play Those Blues - This mod comprises of two blues tunes, 'Kansas' and 'Bluesbreakers' played completely on the piano. This is more of a demo of how to make your Amiga sound like a blues piano player. The sampled piano is of excellent quality and the tunes themselves are quite good and err. . . that's all I can think of to say really? SUGGESTION - Record this mod onto a blank tape, take it to a party, put it in a cassette player, hide the cassette player behind the piano, press play, sit at piano and pretend to play piano. Amaze and astound your friends and family! BRILLIANT! The Promise Again, a multi-parter. Three tunes This one uses a few chip sounds, the main melody is played entirely this time. using a chip sound. Part one isn't too special. It's a bit of an upbeat number with a tight beat to 'pump' it along. The ending is quite good though. The lead chip sound is played on two separate tracks, one slighty behind the other and a few notes higher, giving it a dynamic psudo-echo sound which really fills the room. (This sound was much used by Martin Galway. Part two is better, again synthsound is used to produce some interesting harmonics. Part three though is my favourite. The synthsound harmonizes beautifully to create a gorgeous little melody. Overall, this tune is a great example of how to incorporate synth sounds into a tune without making it sound cac. And the moral of this story is er ... don't overlook synthsounds cos they're er ... ok (sometimes ) . JazzPartI (with Part II as well) - Steven has little to say about this mod other than it is old and is short. It uses just 3 samples, an upright bass, a cymbal (which goes tisss!) and a sort of flute Part I sounds like the backing music from one of those 'arty' animations you get on BBCZ and C4 to me. Part I also leads straight into ... Part II - There's not an awful lot of difference really, the flute gets a little more lively. I just feel that I've heard it before though (Jazz sounds all same to these ignorant ears anyway) There's not an awful lot I can say about this tune either, it's just there - it's. . . interesting! And the flute melody is well worked out. Steve promises us that JazzPartIII is on the way - can't wait! Electric Blues "One of my best!", enthuses Steven, "Starts reasonably slowly" (you're not kidding!). The intro is a very bluesy piano part which leads into a full blown blues workout, which I thoroughly enjoyed, I must admit. Organs organ away in the background and the drum track creeps in almost unnoticed until eventually the lead guitar takes the tune to where it was always heading. Unfortunately, the guitar sample isn't too hot. I'm nit picking here, it's not Steven's fault, I've yet to hear a really good electric guitar sample, they all tend to sound a bit screechy. Steven says he tried to give it a 'live' feel, as if he was playing at a gig, and he's pulled it off quite well One of the better mods on the disk, I must agree. JazzRaveII - Now don't get all excited you ravers. 'Rave' this certainly isn't! It's a strange jazz/rock fusion if anything. The jazzy bass Steven uses in many of his mods gives it a jazz feel but a distorted electric guitar crunches out repetitive chord sequence throughout. The drumtrack is a little dancey I suppose, and is quite clever as it's a long looped sample which saves on track usage. Steven does use extra tracks for the drums at times though, to accentuate certain beats. The lead part of this tune is played by a rather strange 'guitar' sample which actually sounds like a sheep being strangled. Isk Steven! Animal cruelty for art's sake, you should be ashamed of yourself! This guitar solo (as Steven readily admits) goes on a bit too long (about 5 minutes too long I'd say). I found this tune quite tedious really. It takes ages to build up and when it gets going, poor Larry gets it in the neck non-stop. The organ in the background is good though and fills out the tune nicely. But at over 11 minutes long, its too much. Say - The start of this sounds like one of those tunes on the laserJuke they have in pubs - you know, the rubbish music they put on to accompany boring clips of windsurfers and 'breathtaking' overhead views of mountain ranges - all of which is designed to drive you insane unless you put money in the damn thing! No, that's unkind, the start of this tune, whilst being a bit supermarket, is quite sweet and mellow. Yet again, this tune is split into separate parts, with a variety of musical styles used. Some are better than others. I particularly liked the slow piece around 9 minutes in (1 ?* ) which is a sad-sounding piece centred around an acoustic guitar and organ - very rousing. At almost 15 minutes long, this piece is a monster. So much time and effort has gone into it, it's untrue. It changes throughout and so there's bound to be parts the individual will prefer to others, the problem is wading through the rest of it. The Chip Song - What was I saying about chip sounds? No, chip sounds can be used to spruce up a tune a bit, but a tune completely composed using chip sounds has only ever been done successfully by Rob Hubbard and Martin Galway. At 7 minutes long, this is a bit of chore to listen to. Steven assures us that it's worth sticking with it to hear the blues stuff nearer the end, I would have to disagree with him there though. Yes, it's got it's moments but most of it is your bog standard beeps and noises. I really can't imagine anybody sitting in front of their speakers, absolutely rivetted, it sounds like Martin Galway on a bad day. But, I suppose every self-respecting MED composer has to have his/her own chipsong. It's a bit of a competition isn't it, not who can do the best but who can do the least rubbish one! CONCLUSION . On listening to this disk, there can be no doubt that when it comes to blues, Steven knows his navy from his aquamarine. When it comes to the usage of MED, Steven knows his bars from his elbow, when it comes to meal times, it's probably a good idea to leave Steven in a room alone for a few hours and let nature take its course. Steven is a MED Master. I just couldn't help but admire the way he used the many MED commands. There's not a block goes by which doesn't include at least one command. Sometimes the difference the command makes is so subtle that it's hardly noticable, but that just goes to show how much of a perfectionist he is and how much loving care he lavishes on each and every note. On the disk, Steven acknowledges those who accuse him of overuse of commands at the expense of the actual melody. He disagrees with this. I must say though, there's a good argument there. Despite there being a lot of music there in terms of time. There were only a very few bits which actually caught my ears and made me listen, actually WANT to hear it again. Maybe I'm the wrong person to have reviewed this disk, blues has never been my scene. I really did find this hard going. I had to take it in small doses, I could never have done this review in one sitting. I listened to ALL the tunes several times. I must admit, they got better with repeated listening and maybe if I go back to it, they'll sound better again, but at the moment, I don't intend to go back to it, it didn't 'grab' me, surely this sums it up. Having said all that, I would recommend this disk. If you like blues and/or jazz, you'll obviously love it. If you don't you will still find the disk a worthwhile experience. It's a demonstration of how to use MED if nothing else. You're likely to hear a number of things you would never have thought of yourself, there's some unusual chord changes, some lovely harmonics and some delightful samples in amongst this little lot. Don't expect any rave, don't expect any dance and don't expect any catchy little ditties. Expect to have your musical horizons broadened. Steven Gane is one of THE outstanding MED composers around at the moment. I hope that he will produce another compilation disk soon. This disk is of a very high standard, but I think the best is yet to come . I have omitted any form of rating for this disk. All of the tunes (with the exception of The Chip Song) would probably get a high mark for technical merit alone if reviewed individually. But as this is a compilation there seems little point. There are so many musical styles on this disk, you're quite likely to find SOMETHING you like but I'd be surprised if anybody likes EVERYTHING on the disk so I see no point either in giving the disk as a whole a rating. -=-=- THE OFFICIAL MED USERS GROUP =-=-= `F. O.P. FOUR' is available from Seasoft Computing and costs only 02.00 (inc. p+p). Phone Seasoft now on 01903 850378 for Access, Visa or Switch orders or send cheques (payable to `Seasoft Computing' ) to Seasoft, Unit 3, Martello Enterprise Centre, Courtwick Lane, Littlehampton, West Sussex, BN17 7PA. Europe - add w1.00 extra for postage - ROW, ú2.50 extra. ================= THE OFFICIAL MED USERS GROUP -=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 2-1 This article orignally appeared in the official OctaMED magazine, TI. For more information on TI, please send a stamped, addressed envelope or international reply coupon to MED USERS GROUP, 6 Glevum Road, SWINDON, Wiltshire, SN3 4AF, ENGLAND. This is also the address to write to if you would like to make any comments or criticisms of this article or if you would like permission to use this article in your publications.
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