Inteview with Dharma

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!Interview With Dharma
By Teis/DVN Staff
Interview With Dharma

"Get off your lazy asses, get yourself a job and buy a sampler y`all!" - Dharma.

Dharma:
Haha. wordup Monotonik I think it's called nowadays.. but the f*** knows Hol's been changing it back and forth so much I don't think he even knows himself!

Teis:
Heheheh :D .. ok mate. as not all amiga sceners know what a MOD group is, nor do they know people from this scene, I would say introduce yourself to our reading audience.

Dharma:
What a mod group is? alright, well mod group is umm.. a group of people doing mods! hehe and spreading them on the internet and bbs free of charge. i'm not going to go to the history of mods in depth here but basically mods are like midi files with samples, they were invented maybe 12 years ago yeah. so in 96 this group called Mono got started. at first it was mainly uk sceners. H0l, Hoffman(Dreamfish -ed), Twilight, vim etc, they were doing the kind of stuff that was popular in the uk at the time, ie. breakbeat and jungle. h0l, being the clever a&r man that he is, saw that there's talent outside of the uk as well and recruited people from denmark and finland.. ahh i'm getting bored already :) next question hehe

Teis:
(h0l was also known as hollywood in the amigascne in groups like axis)... Nobody told you to write such huge answers :D anyways, now as we know all about the tracking scene and Mono, tell us abit more about you and how you got invited to the amiga / tracking scene.

Dharma:
aight.. i was into jungle and abstract hiphop in the mid 90s and started dabbling with trackers. pretty soon i found about Mono through some local bbs', they had the best stuff out there and that had a big influence on me, in terms of realizing what you can actually do with trackers. Mono and Black Sista.. them 2 reigned supreme aint nobody else who could touch them! I think it was Vim who I sent some stuff i had done, he liked it and sent it on to h0l. that's how i hooked up with Mono. I never had an amiga btw!! i'm a straight up pc d00d! ok..?

Teis:
wouah .. straight up pc? that doesn't matter really, as you released your music in the amiga scne ;D. anyways, what do you think of the other amiga tracking groups like i.e Phase Distortion who also startd in 96?

Dharma:
From phase dist. i haven't heard much. some Linus stuff.. it's good.. maybe the 3rd best crew out there, Black Sista being the 1st.. everything they released was dope, there were other good individual artists.. Dune etc, but Black Sista as a crew was so tight man, very much ahead of their time. oh yeah, there was this group called Voodoo which was also good. It was a little later on though, like maybe 98? their tunes are worth checking out.

Teis:
Yes, Voodoo was good, Kuu a.k.a Substance's crew. they still exist in a way as bgirlarmy / blacksista / ageema blues also does exist ;] Three names, weird. anyways, for how long have you been tracking really?

Dharma:
I had a go at scream tracker back in the day.. when people had their covox sound systems and shit.. maybe 90.. but never really got into it cause the music was crap! then when i was getting into jungle, like 95,96.. i got into tracking again as well so basically from there.

Teis:
So you're also an old tracker. now that you're so long in the tracking buiss, have you like developed further and better?

Dharma:
Well i haven't really been working with trackers for a while now.. i got some studio gear with 2 friends like.. 2 years ago and i've been using that stuff since. but having a tracking background definitely helps in finland where i live, for instance. i think all the good producers have a background in tracking whether they doing hip-hop, jungle, big beat whatever.. doesn't matter.. most of the good ones grew up with trackers

Teis:
Seems to be as you told. well, a studio gear. i presume that you're working and producing in the reallife music buiss.

Dharma:
Yeah theres a few releases on vinyl and theres more coming. it's been a little slow the past 6 months b'cause i've been tied up with my day job but i'm taking more time off for music now as that is my true love.

Teis:
Sounds great! i presume you've released on some major UK jungle label (as i wouldn't know :D).

Dharma:
Yeah that moving shadow 12" came out last summer.. i've been doing stuff for formation now, should be putting out some of that sooon-ish! theres a track on jazz&bass, and then an ep with tunes from me and 2 friends.

Teis:
Wow! i must say i'm impressed! ;D . sounds like you've made it all the way out to the reallife buiss. tell us, was it hard and how have you managed it?

Dharma:
Well let's put it like this, getting tunes released isn't hard, the hard part is making tunes that are good enough :). we sent a demo to a few uk labels after working long days in the studio for about a year.. maybe a month later we got a call from moving shadow, they just said that they liked it very much and want to release 2 tracks from it.

Teis:
Way cool!... as you just wrote, ONE YEAR. does it take so long mastering several tracks? i mean, like could i just track my music and send it? would that be enough?

Dharma:
nah, one year i mean we had been making tunes for a year. from scratch. but yeah you need to mix your tracks before you send them.. labels these days listen to the quality a lot. before it didn't really matter that much.. but  has progressed a lot, i mean i'm sure some of like 95,96 amen tunes were done on like  but right now  is, as far as production goes, one of the tightest sounding types of music on this planet.. and it's hard to get tunes to sound good enough with just a tracker! i'm not saying it's impossible, just really really hard. actually trackers used with other stuff can work. you could make a decent sounding tune with  or  if you mix it down in like,  later on, but it takes a lot of time and knowledge.

Teis:
yea thought so. well anyways, talking of trackers in the music buiss. i've heard that some of mono or even mono itself made music for a PSX game. is that true?

Dharma:
yeah there was a think game called "tank racer" which had a soundtrack by mono d00dz errrrrr... -think? that came out in last year

Dharma:
way cool! were you also involved?

Dharma:
actually i think it was 2 years ago? yeah, i had a track on there. i've never seen the game tho! h0l didn't send us copies :(. so i cannot tell u if its good or not.

Teis:
way cool! anyways, can you tell our reading tracker audience any tips & tricks for future purpose.

Dharma:
ok tracker audience... this ones for all the tracker kru! get off your lazy asses, get yourself a job and buy a sampler y'all!! heheh.. no on the real tho.. i suggest you get into buzz and logic 4 in the future that combo will be tight when buzz has midi support! thats it.

Teis:
ok thanks alot Dharma, if you want to say anything else, greet people, kiss me, then go ahead :D

Dharma:
hehe i'll leave the kissing to others but i'd like to shout out all the mono headz, ageema blues, tpolm doods and whoever else there is doing interesting stuff with k0mputerz tokyo dawn r. also! they're cool ok!

Teis:
thanx mate ;]

   Another dawn, another dusk. another day, another night. another chance, another choice. another interview, another victim. another crap, another bullshiet. another start, another end.