Interview with Martin Galway
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One of the most talented music programmers in the computergame scene
is 20 year-old Martin Galway, who has written various soundtracks for
Ocean/Imagine games. In two years time he has worked on more than 30
programs, like "Rambo", "Hyper Sports" and "Miami Vice". 

How did your programming career start?
I started to write computer music in 1984. I still went to school in
Manchester. I wrote the music for a game a friend of mine wrote on a
BBC computer. This game later was published by Ocean. They were very
impressed by my work, so they gave me a C64, a datasette, and an
assembler and said: "Let's see what you're able to do...". That was in
1984. In February of 1985 I signed a contract as a programmer at
Ocean. 

Can you tell us a bit about how you create your musics?
When I have an idea for a song, I enter every single note into the
computer. This can take pretty long, if you consider a twelve minute
song with three voices. To try musical ideas, I use a Seiko DS202/DS310
and a Yamaha CX5M synthesizer. Our development system at Ocean is
more than top secret, because it's the best! I will only tell, that I
enter the music on a C128D and play it on another C128D. 

Do you think that the musical potential of the C64 has been fully exploited yet?
No. If someone would use the whole memory of the C64, he could do
musics that played several days. This will ofcourse never be done inside
games. The music, the graphics, and the code have to share the
processing power of the CPU. Most of the time, the musics gets the
smallest piece of the cake. If I would write a music that uses 60KB and
the whole CPU time, that would sound damn good. 

Which games do have music done by you?
There's a whole lot of them. "Ping Pong", "Miami Vice", "Green Beret",
"Highlander", "Comic Bakery", "Rolands Rat Race", "Cyclone" and "Street
Hawk" (note: Street Hawk has never been released for the C64). 

Do you think that Pop musicians will one day start recording cover versions of
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game tunes?
No, unless computer music gets more sophisticated. I need some years to
get some experience with the Amiga, because this computer has the best
features for music. 

Who is your most favourite computer musician?
Rob Hubbard is the only one I pay respect to. All other musicians are
second class. That's because of their lack of programming skills or
missing arrangement-experience. 

Which normal music do you listen to?
I like to listen to the Top 40, and try to follow the things going on in
the charts. I like Level 42 (since 1980), Thomas Dolby, Prefab Sprout,
Stevie Wonder, and The Art of Noise. I also like to listen to Jean-Michel
Jarre and Vangelis. 

Is composing computer music the thing you want to do for the rest of your life?
Ofcourse not. I would like to be involved in the development of an
arcade game. I have many interests beside computing and music. 

Tell us about your hobbies.
I like watching Sci-Fi and Fantasy movies like "Return of the Jedi" where
is like the special effects most. I also like the rpg "Dungeons &
Dragons", plastic modelling and painting and I'm writing novels (using a
word processor). 

Do you also play games in your spare time?
Ofcourse. The game magazines are often wrong with their reports. I did
telephone interviews, where they afterwards wrote things, we hadn't
spoken about. There is one very dominant publisher in the english
game-mag scene, which is no good for the readers. The opinions of the
reporters are very much influenced by certain software companies. 

Which computer magazines do you read?
"Personal Computer World", "Byte" and "Electronic Product Design". 

Which musics are you currently working on?
I'm currently working on the musics for five games, but I'm not allowed
to tell the titles. 

Well, then we wish you a lot of success with your work and thank you for the
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interview.

Happy Computer issue 11 1986