Legends of the Commodore 64 & Amiga scene

 

 

 

Yesterday morning Gyorgy Dragon aka Gyu passed away. He was 48.
Gyu was well known in the Hungarian Amiga and gaming community, participated and/or founded many great projects like one of the last one the International Amiga Day, but the full list would be really long.
He will be missed…

From a friend:
“Gyu, the founder of this group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/amigaday/), also was a scener, he was a member of the hungarian group, Muffbusters, and run the “Aga Inn” BBS for years. He was a musician also. He was active and a cool scener guy till the middle of nineties.”

 

 Interview

• 1-How did your interest for computers start? Which year was that?

It was in 1981, when I first saw a Sinclair ZX-80. It amazed me a lot. And
then, when the ZX-81 and Spectrum came alive, the “revolution” begun.

• 2-What machines did you previously have? What did you do with them?

I got a C-64 in 1984. After that my next machine was a C-128 in 1986. In 1988
I got my First Amiga 500, a KickStart 1.2 machine. On C-64 and C-128, I was
doing programming and some scene stuff ( i was living in Colombia that time).
On Amiga I was dedicating myself to music, First composing using trackers,
after using TFMX and Bars&Pipes Professional for MIDI. I used my Amiga for
MIDI until 1999.

• 3-For what specific reason did you end up making music rather than gfx, coding?

SImple, I was not good enough for coding, and very untalented for gfx. For
music I found osme talent in myself, so I started to compose.

• 4-Which composing programs have you been using? Which one in particular?

Protracker for scene stuff and for FatMAN
TFMX for Abanbdoned Places
Bars&Pipes professional for MIDI stuff.
Now I’M using Digital Orchestrator Pro and CakeWalk for MIDI on PC

• 5-With which module did you feel you had reached your goal?

Only with some MIDI projects. I think, that the sound of C-64 or the sound of
Amiga wasn’t “Enough”, it was a good stage when the computer music evolved.

• 6-Is there a tune you would like not to remember? For what reason?

No, I think, that all my music was good (at least for me). Generally I composed
a lot of “junk”, but those were never released publically (but they have some
good ideas at least for some later compositions).

• 7-In your opinion, what’s the value of a music in a demo, game?

Music is essential for a demo. A demo is a piece of art, a multimedia
presentation, that made of visual and audio effects. A demo with no music
isn’t a demo at all. A game is different as it doesn’t stand for itself. Music
can be important part of a game, but for long gameplays ( adventure games,
RPG’s) the music isn’t essential, or it can be very boring at times. For
action games the music is essential, as it pumps adrenaline up very much.

• 8-At present, are you still composing? For professional or leisure purposes?

Yes, i’M still composing, preparing myself to the release of my first CD (the
music is ready since 1993). 3 other complete CD’s are ready for publishing as
well.

• 9-What do you think of today’s pieces of music such as mpeg,wave,midi,etc…?

mp3 is a good possibility to distribute music via the internet. It’s very
useful for demos of full releases, 1 minute samples etc. Wave is for PC only,
so it can be used broadly. MIDI is good for composing, but isn’t good for
general music as it’s very limited to the 128 pre-defined voices of the
General Midi.

• 10-Could you tell us some of your all times favourite tunes?

From the computer scene my all time favourites are:
Commando, One Man and his droid, Monthy on the Run – Rob Hubbard
Desert Dream – Laxity/Kefrens
Odyssey – Greg/Alcatraz

• 11-Are you planning to make an audio cd with some of your music remastered?

Of course. Just I need to solve some financial problems. 🙂

• 12-What bands are you currently listenning to?

Dream Theater, Ayreon, Freedom Call, SOnata Arctica, Jaded Heart etc.. etc..

• 13-What does/did the amiga/c64 scene give you?

A good possibility to develop my talent and to contact a lot of very good guys.
The scene helped me to enter to the game development, and finally to evolve
myself as a journalist. So I need to give “thanks” to the scene for everything
I achieved in my life.

• 14-Are you still active in the scene these days?

No, as Amiga scene died, and I was very comitted to the Amiga…

• 15-Anyone to greet? Anything left to say? Feel free…

Yes, I want to say thanks to you all to deserve the spirit of the old game
music and to give me the feeling, that I’m still important :)))) I was very
very happy when discovered myself between the game-musicians. You gave me some
smile, thanks for that, guys.

 

Source: http://amp.dascene.net/detail.php?view=3184&detail=interview

Source: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=76433

rest in peace Gyorgy…