Interview with Thomas Hauerlandom
by C-jeff
Thomas Hauerland - TDM - great musicians, keeping the tradition
music, Timothy Follina at Spectrum and in our days. Today we
decided to meet with Tom personally, and learn from what does
all began. Well, meet, TDM of K3l, Hooy-Program, AY Riders!
C-jeff: Hello, Thomas!
Tdm: Hi Jeff, glad to see you in this great pub, happy
that he decided to talk to me here. What will you drink?
C-jeff: Maybe a little wine?
Tdm: Yes ... Bottle of wine, please! Thank you. That's better.
Proceed :-).
C-jeff: Tom, first introduce yourself to our readers.
Tdm: My real name is of German origin, although I live
in the Czech Republic - Tomas Hauerland. The good news is that
I can use the short version - Tom Hauerland not containing
special characters. I was born in 1978, just when
began to appear the first games for the machine, so I now
25.
C-jeff: All of us were fond memories of childhood and
first acquaintance with the computer. Tell me what happened to
you?
Tdm: Hehe, no problem. To answer the question is not difficult,
so I grew up in a house where microelectronics was in every
step. My father - a professional electrician and amateur. His
brother also is an expert on electronics, so I got to know
computers at a very early age. As I recall, the first
What I found was a ZX Spectrum computer with 48 MB of RAM, from
Sinclair Research; I saw him in "House of Children's
Creativity." That was cool, because everything that I typed on
the keyboard, there also displayed on the screen :-).
Later, I saw a bunch of classic toys. I can not exactly
remember what year I saw Spectrum. Maybe in 1983 or
1984. A year later his father bought PMD-85, Czech-based
computer CPU Z80. He was big enough and properly heated.
We had to use a fan for cooling. I found
time of occurrence of ZX. Studied BASIC on that computer.
However, pay attention to what I was then a 11 - or 12-year-old
boy, so to me it was not worth waiting for some special
achievements. Although I protorchal front of the screen for
many hours. By the way, it was a great and terrible old TV
screen. When I turned 13, my parents bought Didaktik Gama -
Czech clone ZX Spectrum 48K, with a good keyboard and a 100%
compatible with original. This is a really good computer
additional 32 KB of RAM. I use it so far, and all
do it. I like it. This is an integral part of my
childhood, so ... You understand that all this means to me.
Two years later, one of my very good friend, Martin Holubar,
bought the Amiga 1200, and allowed me to work with her for five
days. I was shocked. But that's another story, because you
interested ZX Spectrum.
[Gurgle of alcohol]
C-jeff: Well, I'm very interested to hear you, so that
I beg you - go ahead.
Tdm: Heh, I see the wine contributes to our conversation. Yes,
Amiga was for me the real shock. She was
high-quality sound and nice graphics. At Martin was
"Naked" car without the accelerator and the hard drive, but I
could do a lot! The first time I met with the eight-tracker -
OctaMed - and I made a few Mouzon, including then-hit
- "Scatman's World". I used the seven channels. Sound,
compared with the Spectrum AY, fantastic. I know
what is wrong - compare 32 - and 8-bit computers. In
OctaMed was a cool feature - synthesizer sounds, which I
very pleased, as synthetic sounds were to me
interesting. I wanted to hear the voice of Amiga without
samples, here so I was interested and this synthesizer. I know
that this is stupidity, but I was just mad at a similar
(something like experiments on the test that may Amiga "without
floppy disk "- I just wrote a 512-byte boot block
I saw a command line interface). Sadly, I was able to
afford to buy the Amiga only four years ago, when
"Golden age" has passed. Everyone knows the problem with money.
I I think you too, hehe.
Today is my Amiga 4000 with a PCI-bridge G-Rex 4000 graphics
card VooDoo 3, 16-bit sound card TerraTek 512i, network card
Realtek. There are USB-ports Algor, connected in the slot Zorro
III. Well the best gizmo - Seagate Cheetah Ultrawide 3, 320
15,000 rpm with a temperature sensor. Baud rate
data - about 35MB / s! Awesome. Processors in the machine -
Motorola 68060 60MHz and Motorola 604e 200MHz, stuck in a dual-
fee CyberStorm PPC. It's cool. My second Amiga - model
500 + with 8 MB of FastRAM (fast memory) and the controller
SCSI-2. For this miracle machine I bought a ROM KickStart 3.1.
Yes, I know that "my roof is gone, but the Seagate Cheetah
really nothing to compare. ;-) For the Amiga is still
developing good software. A few weeks ago I bought
multimedia package "Hollywood", with which you can
develop small cute demos to run on
systems, ECS, AGA or RTG. 68060 must
be present in the computer.
C-jeff: How do you start developing the ZX Spectrum?
Tdm: I and two of my friends - Martin Holubar and David Danek -
founded T.D.M. Software. It is sad, but Martin has supported us
only morally, nothing else he was doing. David was
artist, and I did everything else - the code and the music ...
Our first project was called "TERMINATOR" and it was really slop
creation, written in BASIC with terrible looped
operators BEEP. :-) Were next Highlander II and III,
much more decent quality.
C-jeff: Are there any of these programs do you have? Perhaps
the archives or somewhere in the attic?
Tdm: Well, this is a very complicated issue. They should be
somewhere in the old cassettes. As far as I can remember, I
never washed them. In While I have no idea what he wrote,
"demo". I do not think that I started out as a coder. :-) No! I
played a lot of toys, was gamer. It was a wonderful and
exciting.
C-jeff: Spectrum toys - it's great. Very pleased that
and to this day people do something interesting. Have you seen,
for example, Fire and Ice from the n-Discovery?
Tdm: No, I will need to look at her. You know, I have all the
yet very little free time. I would like more
engage in writing music. :-( But as said, POKE, "you
should be stronger than its Khrenova time, and it's true. We
People are often looking for an excuse lack of personal time.
:-)
C-jeff: Yes, it really is. Although, for me, then
until I'm free time I have left plenty of
:).
Tdm: You're really lucky dude! Maybe you do not even
suspect it. ;) Once your training is complete, you
find that free time is becoming less and
less. It depends on the age and life priorities - and they
during our miserable lives are changed ...
C-jeff: Tell us about the collective Hooy-Program, which you
Membury am?
Tdm: Hooy-Program was founded by Michal Bukowski (Yerzmyey), and
he is cool dude with lots of positive energy. In general, I did
love. ;-) He forces a smile and gives us strength to work in
this computer era, when few people doing something in his spare
time.
C-jeff: Yes, in this regard, Jerzy can only envy!
Tdm: Believe me when I work, focus on any
project (and even music) is very difficult. Ah, the music, the
source of my life force, a topic for another conversation - if
you want know something about it, just ask me. ;)
C-jeff: I'll listen carefully.
Tdm: That's great - feel the power of the sound of each song
that I like. The last big musical project I have been in
1998, with two girls vocalist. Yes, I wrote to them
sweet slow songs, well, plus a few things in style
techno. Slow songs I like more fast. Although, the
Scooter I liked a few tracks, such as, "Like
Hypa said "Have Disk" Techno Experience 2003. "On the Spectrum,
I started with electronic music. I still like things
Timothy Follina (Timothy Follin), Matthew Cannon (Matthew
Cannon), Dalglish Benn (Benn Dalglish), Jonathan Dunn (Jonathan
Dunn).
When I finished at university, free time suddenly
ended. Come and guidance in life have changed. I need
own apartment, own car, well, sex. : =) So
time to the next generation of young fans of the Spectrum. But
I do not believe in it. Look at the Amiga scene - everything is
so same. Best demos - from the "oldies" such as The Black Lotus,
Ephidrena ... Graphics ... I'm not an artist. Draw something I
tried but it was awful. I am a musician and coder. Not a good
coder.
C-jeff: And a very good and interesting musician. :) Tell
what software do you use to create music?
Tdm: Heh, thanks for the compliment. I usually work with the
SQ-Tracker. I know that ProTracker 3 is better, but it uses
stupid the fine print ;-) and I do not like editing system. And,
Besides, I'm old enough to learn another tracker. :)
[Gurgle of alcohol]
ProTracker 3, in my opinion, very good program. My friend
Johny-X said that this is the best tracker for AY. And I told
him believe, as he always sought to extract the maximum from AY
crazy sounds. But I do not use them because of small font
and a small editing window. Look at the window of SQ-Tracker -
it is much larger and better suited for me.
But he does not have heaps of teams, but those that have, I
have enough. More Besides, now I'm not as productive as in
years past, so that study PT3 does not make sense. Being a
computer specialist, have to score a bunch of horrific head
bytes. :)
C-jeff: What can you say about a track, for example,
SA invitation?
Tdm: Yes, the music of Syndeecate Apocalypse 2003 invitation
intro to originally written by Tim Follin - my favorite
composer - Beeper for ZX Spectrum. Since I am versed in
programming Z80, then I managed to disassemble the player and
write songs as good as possible. I'm glad that you
like. Theme of the Agent-X 2, in my opinion, is the best of
penned by Tim for the ZX Spectrum. From the technical point
view, the best theme used in the game Raw Recruit (with
different basses, a large set of drums and improved
frequency stability of the reproduced sound.) Maybe you
noticed that the music player Follina - one of the most
"Pure" on the Spectrum 48K. This can be seen when one
channel plays a high-tool, and the rest -
LF. The result - the sound is stable in all channels.
C-jeff: What kind of music the past you could call the
undisputed leaders in their field?
Tdm: Everything is simple: Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart, Tim Follin and other like trance, atmospheric
music.
C-jeff: What can you say about contemporary music?
Tdm: Well, for example, the soundtrack to The Matrix
Revolutions is, very good. Especially the last song super! I
think that the difference between music 10.5 years old and the
modern purely technical. I remember my first experiences with
AY - I it seemed that I could squeeze out any sound. I thought
that the envelope generator volume - is the envelope of the
sound generator. :-) Later, when I came A1200, I was surprised
by her excellent sound quality. I could not believe that such a
sound plays a small white box. Today, many
is easily done (sampling, effects ...) but ... the more we
help computers, the less motivation to do
something for yourself. Maybe it's my personal problem, but I do
feel. :-)
C-jeff: Have you finished the music school?
Tdm: Yes. When I was a kid, I attended primary musical
school, and then singing lessons. Some years I sang in a
children's choir. Good years, a lot of girls ... :) Actually, I
did not pay their attention. :) In childhood, I learned to sing
and play piano about five years.
C-jeff: Do-oo-oo! Just five years? :) Oh, I sang and played
Piano-eight! This is a really long time. But after
Training ... in general, now I know that's music school
great influence on my music lessons today.
Tdm: Yes, it's good practice and the basis for a start. Always
better when you can play your ideas on keyboards.
C-jeff: What's mean to you today the word "Spectrum? That
you are all about?
Tdm: Um, hard to tell the truth. :-) For me, this way
catch up with old friends from my childhood (except Yerzmyey,
hehehe :-)). Now I do not use Spectrum often. Since
now I'm far from home, where he stayed my Speccy, I use my
A4000 as a computer for all occasions (including the emulation
Spectrum). But I still collaborate with Hooy-Program,
especially with Mr. Y.,:) and we still make funny old-school
demos and he likes my music, and I - it, so we're happy. :-)
C-jeff: What can you say about the topic of "Death ZX"?
Tdm: Speccy will live as long as we continue to
support. That's it. While many people think similarly, there
greater chance that we will continue to meet at party. I
I think everyone sceners in life there are two periods: the very
computer, and then - people around the computer.
C-jeff: Back to the music. Why do not you write a composition
for party? Your music is on the party would sound pretty
interesting.
Tdm: Heh, thanks a lot for the good opinion of me. First
problem - the time required for writing tracks. Second -
ideas I have less than that of Mike Oldfield. :-) And I always
wanted to do "more quality" not quantity. I never
does not change anything in their compositions after writing.
Yes, that's I am a strange person. :)
O. .. pub closes, so we need to go.
C-jeff: Yes ... sorry, but I think that we will soon pay a
visit to her again. :)
Tdm: Definitely! Thank you for time well-spent. I hope
Our conversation will be useful.
C-jeff: Thanks and good pastime for you!
[We left the pub]
Tdm: See you soon, Jeff!
C-jeff: Bye!
