Rawhed interviews Saurax/Sensory Overload
Rawhed - 1st question Mr Saurax! :) Tell us about what you do in the demoscene, a bit about urself,
and the people affiliated with you.
Saurax - What I mostly do is track :) At present, I'm organising the new "MANiC ENSEMBLE" musicdisk
series, that will hopefully encourage our local musicians to liven up a bit. I'm 16, was
born and live in Durban and I'm part of Sensory Overload (the best group of course) and as
you recall, I somehow managed to get lost in 1995, assuming that the group had died I've
been tracking since 1994, originally in the MOD format,I then progressed to S3M, then jumped
right into IT, but i refused to touch the XM format :) My first MOD had something to do with
The Wizard of Oz if I recall correctly..Heaven forbid if somebody actually still has it.
Rawhed - Hehe, do you?
Saurax - Nope. I've been through too many hard drive crashes, but it was uploaded to a local BBS in
Durban at the time - Connectix. And if I did, I would obliterate it :)
Rawhed - Tell us about Sensory Overload
Saurax - Well, that group started back in 1994... it was just a few friends (we used to play lazer
games together). we originally held the idea that we were not a group, but a 'team'.
Unfortunately, the original 'team' that we were, weren't very active. That was a huge
problem, especially in Durban... the only other group I was a part of was TiA, and those
guys were pretty idle too. Since then, I co-founded T-Matic alongside Cynges in September
1996 and have been maintaining our website until a few months ago - T-Matic looks like it's
ready to close down too everyone is running off with CD contracts and game music contracts,
T-Matic is an international music-tracking group). http://www.t-matic.org
Rawhed - How did you 1st find out about tracking and the demoscene?
Saurax - In 1994, I received a few oldies MODs (people will remember AXELF.MOD, ERASURE.MOD, etc)
I originally used Modplay 2.19 and I was really stoked and I wanted to make them myself.
So eventually I found MODEDIT 2.00, then I moved onto MODEDIT 3.0, by which time ScreamTracker
was making it's debut.
Rawhed - How do you think your musical talent, style, method, speed etc has changed since you started?
Saurax - Musical talent? We're talking about me here :)
Well, my original style, was: Bassdrum, Closed Hihat, Snaredrum, Closed Hihat, (repeat).
I would add a strange bassline and then add the most dischordant melody imaginable. In
1996, I was a regular on the #trax channel and these guys were a great help. They taught
me how to tune samples and I learnt some musical theory from them...I also learnt what
sounded wrong and right. My method has definitely changed, because now I write the
chord progressions first, then the melody... I used to track the other way around,
which usually results in an interesting noise. My speed has improved majorly - if I
track a song, it's usually completed the same day it was started, otherwise the song's
mood doesn't flow (or you get a crossover song). Although I think I track too quickly
and should spend more time on pieces.
Rawhed - Do u concentrate on any style?
Saurax - I try to change my style after every release, because confining yourself to one style,
is only going to get a certain group of people to listen to your music. Once you're labelled
as a Trance composer, for example, the Rockers won't download your music. If I find myself
clinging to a certain style, I usually stop tracking for a while.
Rawhed - Tell us about forum compo 1...the entry...and the winning ;)
Saurax - Oh, gosh... when I downloaded the samples that we had to use, I felt like throwing up on
the spot. I first had to tune the samples carefully and after I'd tuned them, I had to
retune them (my ears must've been playing tricks on me). Once I finally had the samples
tuned, I noticed that I was sitting with about 4 bass samples, 5 chip samples, strange
drums and a horrible drumloop (thus I called it 'craploop'). I just mixed all the bass
samples together into one bassline and from there, I just did my usual tracking thing...
And somehow, I won :)
Rawhed - What are your plans for the future?
Saurax - This year I'm hoping to get my matric through correspondence, which means getting away
with skipping Std 9.. from there I'd like to compose music in the gaming industry. There
is already a secret project underway, but I'm sworn to secrecy :)
Rawhed - How about optimise98?
Saurax - My entry for Optimise98 is already completed - I did it in one day in April... I was
hoping to start in April and take months to finish it. Of course, I still have enough
time to create/select a different entry. I have about 34 unreleased songs sitting on
my hard drive, shouting "eat me".
Rawhed - What equiptment do ya use for songs?
Saurax - I sometimes use my CT-470 keyboard to get the main theme of the song. A good example of
that was the main theme from "Lost & Found"...that came from pure boredom. I also have
used a few samples from my CT-470, but I mostly rip samples... in the past, I would
credit the authors of the samples, but unfortunately so many sources are uncredited/credited
incorrectly nowadays. I also tend to use my PC's keyboard to track... ;) I'm hoping to
get a few synthesizers/sound modules, if I ever get funding. I would like to burn an Audio
CD, but that isn't really an option for me nobody would buy the CDs, besides, I think
music should be free
Rawhed - Umm...What do you think of the sademoscene?
Saurax - I think if people were more willing to contribute and give more dedication to the scene,
it would prosper. Instead, they just moan about how bad it is and sit in their corner
and do nothing. But it's good to see there are curious people looking at the scene and
wanting to get involved.
Rawhed - What you u think we could do to improve the Sademoscene page?
Saurax - Update it more regularly - or even have an SA demo scene ftp site which holds our local
scene's productions/releases.
Rawhed - Saurax, are there any tips you'd like to give to help/show aspiring musicians out there?
Saurax - Try not to stick to one style of music... explore other ideas and take the time to
experiment :) and stop tracking repititive rave... ;)
Rawhed - Any final/closing words? any greets..comments...thoughts?
Saurax - Werd to the regulars in #optimise98 and #durban :) and I hope to see you guys at
Optimise98!! And never get discouraged!
Rawhed - thanks for this interview our sauraxness
Saurax - sure Rawfish :)
Rawhed - its sorehed! ;)
Saurax - HAHAHAHA
Saurax - Rawass
Saurax - LOL
Rawhed - heehehhe
and the madness continues....