pouët.net

Friday, June 23, 2006
In remembrance of Edwin van Santen
Hi everyone.

I don't know if many of you remember me, but Edwin and I founded 20th century composers (20cc) way back in 1988 or so. I’ve been asked to write an article focusing on Edwin’s work in 20CC, and I gladly accepted the opportunity to write about my memories of Edwin. So I’ve fired up the old SID browser and started up some of Edwin’s tracks - hoping all the good memories come back to me!

Back in ’87 or so I developed a first crude version of the “music player” code (although most ideas were initially ripped from the existing Hubbard / MON players). Off course, just a player is not much use just by itself, and I was thus actively looking for someone that had some real musical talent (not having met Edwin yet). I can’t remember where and how I met Edwin, but it must have been at some copy party. Even though we had a small age gap (I was seventeen, Edwin fourteen) we immediately aligned and shared the same vision as how to proceed onwards.

As the player at that point still had a lot of rough edges (as did our SID knowledge), we decided just to start doing demo tunes and learn as we proceeded. Any careful listener can certainly hear the “crude” technology we had in the early days (just listen to one of our early tracks such as “Dolphin Force”). However, we worked hard, and did a lot of analysis on other tunes and players, and we made great progress. If you listen to “I’m your baby tonight” or “Layla mix” (both late ’8cool then you will immediately notice the huge sound quality improvements we made in that first year. A special worthnoty track mentioning from these early days is the “PCW tune”, which was a huge hit in the scene. It was part of a compilation demo in order to promote ourselves among game producers on the 1988 London PCW show.

From 1990 onwards we had the player on a very mature level, giving us ample capabilities to unleash our creativity. At that point the code had evolved from a plain rip to a program in which we had implemented a lot of our own ideas and vision (including sample playing, double speed playing, dynamic envelopes & range, auto swing, humanizing and more). Just listen to tracks such as “Scratching Zwaantjes” (’90) – the sound quality is awesome. I don’t think it gets a lot better on a SID.

Overall, Edwin was the main composer, and it was my job to concentrate on the technical bits and pieces (mostly improving the music player). I was also in charge of the end mixing and sound design (though I did publish some tracks of my own).

I quit the “active” scene somewhere in 1991 or so, but Edwin continued for a few more years and exited at around 1995. Listening to a track such as “Fire intro” (’93) you can definitely hear the huge improvements Edwin had made in his composing, especially when compared to some of his early tracks. Amazing how much someone can accomplish in just a few years! You’ve got to remember that Edwin had no formal musical teaching. He was basically self thought (apart from some elementary guitar playing skills he had). However, one has to note that a lot of Edwin’s family members were very musical as well. The apple apparently does not fall very far from its tree!

So let’s go back a bit in time once again, and see how 20CC evolved. Our “strategy” was to partly partner/align with well known demo/cracking groups (supplying them with exclusive tracks), and partly to release music on our own “label”. We most certainly wanted to do game music in order to make some cash and widen the audience. Unfortunally, our efforts in obtaining contracts for game music development were obstructed due to major constraints such as school, parental objections and lack of investment power ($$).

Some well known / successful tunes we released in the early years were conversions from popular mainstream tracks such as “Air wolf”, “Big Fun”, “Blue Monday”, “Children Songs V2”, “Popcorn” and off course the much used “Top 40 Mega mix” (all tunes originating from 1988).

Since the conversions were fun to do, and got used a lot in demo’s (boosting our fame), we decided to release a few mainstream conversions every year. This strategy seemed to work quite well for us, as we got a lot of positive feedback on these tracks (and many conversion requests). Well known releases were “Spykerhoek” (1989), “Final Axel”, “Take on me”, “I just don’t have the heart”, “Groove is in da heart” (all 1990), “Killer” (1991), “All that she wants” (1992), “Talentar bells” (aka Tubular Bells) and “This is your life” (both 1993). Another hit conversion was the Mega Mix II track, a mix of famous C64 tunes (’89).
If you have a spare minute, do play “Groove is in da heart” - as I think this could actually be the very best conversion ever made on a C64!

But it certainly wasn’t just conversions that we did. Some of Edwin’s best work (in my humble opinion) is to be found in tracks such as “Eternal”, “Revolution” (both ’89), “Edwin’s dream”, “Just Cool” (both ’90), “Cosmic Cyclon” (’91), “Roodkapje” (’93), “A trip into EV Space” (’94) and the before mentioned “Fire Intro”. Some of my personal favorites are “Learn it the hard way” (’90) and “Paradise” (’91) – both contain exceptional compositional work, and are very typical for his “melodic style”. My personal ever favorite track is “Somewhere Minor”, a composition in a minor scale done in 1990. The underlying chord progressions are wonderful, and the intro is extremely powerful (and again a typical signature of Edwin’s melodic movements). Looking back, it’s my personal opinion that the compositions he did in minor tone scales were among his best. Too bad there aren't many remakes of his work (see remix.kwed.org). Much of his work is definitely worth remixing…

An especially remarkable tune is the “Vlindertjes” track, an absolutely great track that was originally composed in 1988 for the PCW show demo pack. The disk with this track was stolen from Edwin on some copy party shortly after the PCW show. The tune became very well known, as it was used extensively in the “Papillion” intros - albeit in a copycat version by another author! The melody in the Papillion intro is almost identical to Edwin’s track. There is also a later remake (using a different sound set) called “Vlindertjes V2” by Edwin, done in 1990 just for fun.

A good example of our partnering with demo groups is the “Sophisticated III” series of tracks. This set of seven (!) tunes was exclusively composed for the Blackmail demo group. The Sophisticated III demo had a huge impact in the scene due to the powerful combination of new coding techniques (FLI), superb graphics and music. There is also a unique loader track (with samples) where the ‘user’ may mix the tune too its own liking.

Something not many people know is that I also worked extensively with Reyn Ouwehand (as Reyn lived very close to me). Reyn used the 20CC player (with my explicit approval) and I editted a lot of his work. I hoped Reyn would one day join 20CC, but Edwin wasn’t to crazy about this idea. Reyn was the superior composer of the two (with many years of formal training and a very impressive studio), so I could understand that Edwin felt a bit threatened by Reyn… It certainly meant I had to carefully maneuver between the two talents!
An interesting (though also not well known) fact is that certain sound sets I created initially for Reyn were later used by Edwin in his tunes. As an example, listen to the striking resemblance between sounds and effects in Reyn’s “Super Trucker” (’91) and Edwin’s “Retteket” (same year). Edwin used the almost identical sound set I had initially developed for Reyn’s work on the Super Trucker game. Off course Reyn also used some of the sound sets I had initially created for Edwin…

After Edwin quit the C64 scene he became a DJ / producer, mainly focusing on (hardcore) house music, working under the synonym “DJ Perpetrator”. He co-formed the “Floor Control” company, hosting four (vinyl) labels and different artists. Check out http://www.floorcontrol.com for a good overview of his later work. Some well known vinyl releases by Edwin are “Maniacs”, “The power”, “Ill Behavior”, “The Strong Survive”, “Store & Forward”, “World of Shit”, “Arena Creations”, “Come and Test Me” and “The DJ rocks”. Other highly rated releases are “Pumpin’ Correctly “, “Push em up” and “Pumpinfinity”. It’s fair to say that Edwin is generally considered one of the better early (hardcore) house producers.

I learned about Edwin’s passing in the midst of june 2006. As I knew Edwin so well (teaming together to spread the 20CC sound) the news came as quite a shock to me. Edwin had most certainly been a good friend for many years. Although I lost contact with Edwin after "growing up", it's hard to forget him. He was a very extravert personality with a cheeky sense of humor - there was always a good laugh when you were hanging out with Edwin.

He would often call by phone just to let me hear a new tune he had been working on during the day (no email in these early days)! I can still envision the weird looks on the face of my mom when she heard the weird high pitched sounds coming from the phone! But it was quite common in these days, as Edwin always wanted to know how I felt about a tune.

I can also vividly remember the many times that we were just sitting together with a little "mini keys" keyboard (a simple four octave kid thingy - we didn't have the cash to buy pro tools in the beginning years). Even though we had no proper gear to work with, you could still really hear the talent that he had. As said, most of the musical knowledge he had was self taught. Just imagine what would have been possible would he have had full "formal" musical training!

Anyway, I still like to listen to his work nowadays, and not only because of sentimental reasons. Certainly, some tunes are stronger than others, but there is some very powerful material out there. I guess we may now consider this work his "heritage" to the scene. We should remember Edwin as a talented composer that has done so much for the progression of C64 music. Too bad he had to leave us at this young age.

My thoughts are with his family and all his many (old and new) friends.

Falco (“falco.paul at gmail.com”)

he made some great anthems

the tunes do sound nice!

btw the exe did crash at first launch with a msg about winamp sid plugin then it was ok.

-- the hosting suxx
-- the interface switches to fullscreen
-- the interface crashes
-- installer installs unwanted crap (winamp plugin?! WTF?!)
++ it's (an attempt at) a tribute

to me, the many negative points clearly outweigh the sole postive one... if you want to pay tribute to a legend, please don't do it with kind of totally crappy releases.

Somehow I like it with the bgscrolling.
Thanks for Sandision.sid! Didn't knew the original (is it?) thought the one was on Paradox demo :)

yes

R.I.P. EVS. Thanks for many great tunes.

i second havoc.. and it's osdm.

Can´t download it. Too bad.

i feel sorry :-)

no go

what havoc said..., but i will give a thump up anyway :)

Hosting on the radpidshare? Fokk!! I gotta wait 50' goddammit (yes I was d/l some stuff from "them")!!!
Edwin van Santen and Falco Paul... Yes I remember you very well dudes! I was hanging around with one C64 coder in 1991 or so, who was crazy about this dutch crew! He was telling me lotsa stories how did they worked, how coded and tracked the sids. I was listening these stories like an enchanted one. Edwin van Santen and Falco Paul - the duo behind 20 Century Composers, the unforgetable duo.
I am really sorry Falco (and Edwins familly and close fellows especially) to hear that. I had no slightest idea about that. I was even consulting EvS home page a couple of weeks/months ago knowing nothing... EvS was a milestone on C64 scene. He was the man and you Falco was the machine. Edvin had a special style! Fokken great style. Tunes like "Blue Monday" 88, "AirWolf", "Sophisticated", "Learn it the hard way" (1990 Vision intro rules!!!), "PCW Show", Talentar bells" (Ikari + Talent for EVER!!!), "Trip to EV space", "Hardcore Power" (TRSI cracktro from 1994 was an awe) naming a few are still in my head... and will be... Thank you Edwin and I wish you good luck in your (our) home and spiritual evolution.... ['][`][´]

great music, but
- it installs not wanted stuff
- the framerate is sometimes 3-4fps.. (wtf?!)
- the dl-site sucks

here you are - another link for lazy girls:

http://fileho.com/download/8fa4fa252841/20cc-Chipdisc.rar.html

Falco Paul & EVS are GREAT legends to me....

Great job

Never mind the install-crap... I like it!

good tunes, the rest is pretty much

- for copy/pasting original post by Falco Paul
- for a totally useless non-EVS related interface
- for replaying the sids in stereo
- for crashing twice my PC
- for being months too late
+ for the selection of tunes

BAH!

I thought it was Falco's post.
Hmm, but even if it is not, the only bad point is, that it is not properly done/coded... Pity.
Maybe someone out there will code a real C=64-like feeling chip-disk for windows in order to let ppl know the unforgetteble legacy of 20th Century Composers?

Okay ikstar o mighty titan member at least i did something for this great guy you and your bigshot crew didnt even think about doing a thing for other people that made the scene back in the old days and gave you inspiration for years
loads of people prommised to do something for him to release something it can be readed in the blogs and logs everywhere NO ONE after 6 months no one
I might not have the coding skills as most of you got but at least i got a heart i know where im comming from and i know my roots i respect and honor Guys like 20CC
They where the shit back in the 80s and you hostshot sceners beter not forget it
Man i dont even know why i place comments and defend myself here on this pile of shit titan member or not i shit on you and just lemme do my thing to honor a great Scener without nagging about things that dont even matter
Man what a bunch of hearthless phricks are in the scene today im happy i dont take part of it anymore and took part of it when it was a nice scene to hang round with
Al this site is complaining nagging about people that try to do something
This isnt what the scene was about back in the old days no fucking way we al tried to help and get better share knowledge and get people started
No nowadays it seems everyone is the best and knows best
Thats why i see hundereds of productions added here every day come on gimme a break
so called scene people you are a shame

i suggest you take the next bus to the clue shoppe...

I think you overreacted a bit and ikstar just added a thumb up to your demo. You shared a nasty spirit :\ You seem to disrespect this new scene, maybe you have heart just for the old days.

Thanxx sim. You know the score m8 ! Wh are we living in a world of idiots today? We know how it was back in the day. And you little wanking kids have no R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

BIG UP THE OLDSKOOL CRU !

My humble apolagies towards ikstar and the titan crew the script seems to have confused me
and i didnt knew that the writers name is below the comment
i should have readed better shame on me and i hope you can forgive my mistake
But i wont take my words back about this newscene people problem who think they are god and judge people cos they arent as good as they pretend to be
you people have to realize one thing that its a good cause if people try to be active creative and want to take part of the demo and intro scene
you should be honored that people are still interested in this
And you people should try and help them improving their skills
ofcourse demomakers and intro makers suck
and die hard coding rules but projects like osdm
makes it possible to the wannabe sceners who have other skills instead of coding to show them off to the world thats why im a big suporter of volkerts OSDM he brings back the oldskool spirit and its a thing none of you managed to do in al those years
back in the old days if we see quality in graphics writing or music we contacted that person to join and we teached them the other things by hand this is how you motivate people
No the thing how it is now is you suck and thats it not even the lil good things are noticed
people are kicked under the ground
This doesnt motivate people and doesnt give a good spirit to this site
Thats what upsets me and make me feel angry
and caused my mistake towards the titan Crew
once more my apolagies towards them
And i hope i made myself clear on a few matters im not attacking any individuals
i just want to honor a great musican who have ment loads to me and brings up good memories with his vibes i hope you can al respect that
im not asking for my production to be good or not just a moment to remember EVS

Thank you

ROTFLMAO

i owe whoever invented this "joshua" character a beer at the next party... certified grade a comedy, thankyouverymuch indeed!

Hey im not afraid to show when im not right or wrong il make a nice and decent apolagy then
Thats how i am raised
About the party and the beer i think ill pass
Beer makes me very agressive and if im round loads of assholes who think they are better then me i might squeeze a bottle of beer in that persons face just for fun ( hahaha JK i know i got a sick kind of humor played to much Rockstar video games )
Call me joshua the creepy joker !!!!!!!

And the fun-part is, ikstar thumbed up while I should be his victim :D
Anyway, this release still sucks major ass.

EVS deserved much better than this pile of shit.

/me dies laughing :) to the clueshop, fast :D

Yeah thats right SCouT/SCL-ScS it was al ment for you show us what you got man i challenge you
Show us and prove us that your creativity is as good as your big mouth
Im looking forward to see what you can do on the windows platform ;)
i gues nothing

I only started listening after I've read about him... his songs rules so much. I love "So-Phisticated III": can't get it out of my head.

The musicdisk should run on windowed mode, because I usually like to use my computer when it's just playing songs, the scroller is like... too short.

Eh eh... dude... read the FAQ.
The comments expressed in pouët are not even of the responsabily of who has written them.
If you want moral suport try going to IRC, or check the www.dbfinteractive.com forum.

hey josh, what kind of oldskooler are you anyway?!

why don't you challenge scout on a real oldskool platform- c64 for example...? i mean, you used to hang out with the "oldskool scene" in the "oldskool years", so surely you must be able to beat that n00b on a real "oldskool platform"...

or is it really just big words that you produce, and no action?

"Oldschool spirit" apparently means "bloated and requiring no talent whatsoever"!

(Hint: back in the oldschool days people using demomakers were scolded as lamers. That part of the oldschool spirit still remains in today's scene. Oh, and before taking a piss at Scout you should perhaps check out some of the stuff he did for the PC as well as the C64.)

I can only recommend people reading this to have a look at Richard/TND's EvS tribute instead, for something a bit less insulting to Edwin. RIP.

I'd like to know what you can do on any platform, and I mean YOU, not some silly demomaker. :D

I somehow like the graphics, but the interface works like crap and I dont want stuff installed without asking first


Richard/TND released EVS Tribute Demo several months ago


maybe it makes it possible, but it sure hasnt been used that way so far

What kind of skills do you have, joshua? Doing photomontage?

@Joshua: Sure, I accept the challenge.
PC Windows intro? Okay. No problem.

The rules:
- No OSDM
- Everything should be made by you (code, gfx & music)
- Project (incl. sourcecode) must be available to all
- Deadline. Let say, 8-1-2007?

I am waiting...

someone make a better tribute to 20CC with all 200CC songs & decent gfx please

buying the cheapest pair of flowers to put on his grave just for having your name on the list of people who contributed some thoughts isn't quite what i would call a worthy tribute.

what dalezy said

and he wasn't much a musician either

the comments saying it installs stuff scared me
i didn't launch it