
The complete C64 music collection                            Jens-Christian Huus


The first player system, 1987-1988.

In 1987 I began making my very first C64 player routines and started composing
for the first time in my life. This should soon become the beginning of a 5-year
period (1987-1992), where I managed to learn a lot inspite of being a late
bloomer. Both the players and music in this 1987-1988 period was horrible to
say the least, but I was very entusiastic about making music and it was quite
fun. Actually I made all the music in "Aegis Sonix" on the Amiga. After having
made the players on the C64 I converted the music by writing down the notes on
paper, retyping the notes into a simple BASIC loader on the C64. It sounds very
awkward and believe me, it was! Running through a complete tune with terrible
sounds, adjusting them while listening was tiresome - yet, I managed to make all
the tunes that you'll find in this directory. I often feel disgusted when
playing these tunes, but remember we all have to start somewhere! :)  I remember
I was proud of inventing "feeling" on the vibrato from the very first player,
something that was unused at that time. I'm not sure if I was the very first
in Denmark with my own routine - Johannes Bjerregaard was making the music for
a danish game called "Tiger Mission" - and I think he just beat me to it by a
few weeks. Everybody else was using Sound Monitor at that time.

But a bit of warning before playing this music; it's bad - REALLY bad! ;)



ALPHA.DAT       Alpha Centauri

BACK_TO.DAT     Back to Alpha Centauri

BEATY.DAT       Beaty Intro

                This was in fact a song I "heard" while I was asleep and
                dreaming. When I woke up I quickly ran over to my Amiga and
                typed in the notes. It's still terrible though! ;)

CLASSIC.DAT     Classic Rhythms

DARK_III.DAT    Darkness III

DARK_IV.DAT     Darkness IV

                The last song I did in the old player system. Also the only one
                not composed in Aegis Sonix, it was done in Sound Tracker on
                Amiga - yes, one of the first versions from Karten Obarski. It
                was still converted using the same awkward system though.

DREAMING.DAT    The Dreaming

DRUMDEMO.DAT    Drum-Demo

EXP_6.DAT       Experiment #6

EXP_6_V2.DAT    Experiment #6 v2

                Almost no difference to the previous song.

FIVE_MIN.DAT    Five Minutes

                As the name suggests it was done in a hurry on Aegis Sonix.

GOTTA.DAT       Gotta Hurry Up

HEAVY.DAT       Heavy Thing

JB_THEME.DAT    James Bond Theme

                Conversion of a 007 theme found on a CD containing James Bond
                synthesizer conversions by "A Close Call".

JEWELS.DAT      Jewels

                Conversion of an old Nik Kershaw song. The first version of
                the player to feature slide. Many of the tunes in this period
                didn't use any slide at all.

MAYDAY_3.DAT    Mayday v3

                Actually parts of the song was inspired by an old Manfred Mann
                song called "Stranded in Iowa".

MISS_YOU.DAT    I Miss You

                There's a melodic change at 00:48.

MOONLIGH.DAT    Moonlight

                This is the very first song I ever composed. It happened on
                Aegis Sonix on the Amiga. I remember I was very proud - today,
                I wonder why...

N_Y_T.DAT       I need you tonight

                Conversion of the old Inxs hit. Later in 1989 I made another
                attempt because the demogroup Jewels wanted a better conversion.

ODE.DAT         Ode to the 64

                I tried to make a tune like Rob Hubbard's "One Man and his
                Droid", but the result was not too brilliant.

ORION_CP.DAT    Orion Copy-Party

                Ha, this makes me recall memories of a catastrophic trip to
                southern Germany. I was sick yet I was persuaded into driving
                to this place together with the rest of Jewels - although I
                recovered during the very long trip through Germany, the
                copy-party was cancelled when we finally got there. :(

PAW_V2.DAT      Paw Intro v2

                An introtune. The part from 00:20 was really a small excerpt
                from "Alpha Centauri".

QUICK.DAT       Quick Blast

                One of the better tunes of that period - also one of the first
                tunes to contain the typical "Hubbard"-snare which was a mixture
                of noise and triangle, swapped at each frame.

REINCARN.DAT    Reincarnations

                Notice the melodic change at around 01:54.

SCHH!.DAT       Schh!

                Made in anger because of one of my friends always hissing me
                down whenever I made too much noise.

SEPT.DAT        September

SHARKS.DAT      Sharks

                The only real gametrack, it contains 4 tunes. Although it was
                incredibly samey - something most of my tunes were in this
                period - it remains the best tunes in the old player. It was
                ordered by a german democoder, but was never used.

SORRY.DAT       Sorry

                The second tune I made after "Moonlight".

SPEEDY.DAT      Speedy Gun

                Made upon the dream of coding a racing game viewed from the
                side. Remember the old Star Wars movie "The Empire Strikes
                Back", where the Millenium Falcon closes in to the camera while
                dodging a meteor in the asteroid belt - from the side? Well, I
                wanted to make a game like this only with a speedy car. Need-
                less to say I never came around to actually coding it. ;)
                Looking back, I reckon it wouldn't have been possible anyway.

TRAIN.DAT       The Train

                The tune really begins at 00:35.

XMAS.DAT        Big Bad X-Mas

                The tune containing most variation of all the tunes in this
                period. It is long and seemingly samey, but listen - it changes
                all the way! :)

YOKO.DAT        Yoko Tsuno

                Has nothing to do with the cartoon character by Roger Leloup
                as such, only that I was quite fond of that cartoon at that
                time. Roger, you should have stayed with the original style in
                the first album. Today, it seems like you're taking your own
                character much too seriously...


