Martin Walker

Interview by Rick 'Brujo' Wishart with assistance from Brian 'Cowzar' Cowell.

1. How did you become involved in the music industry?

Although I'd played in various local bands for years, and recorded in various local studios, my first job was way above the audio spectrum - working between 1GHz and 10GHz as a radar engineer! It's ironic that the personal computers we all use today clock at similar frequencies. However, I was far more interested in audio, and soon moved across to the hi-fi industry, working in the R & D lab of Garrard (of record deck fame) as Chief Electronic Engineer. During this time I also did some work with acoustics, before being bitten by the Sinclair ZX81 computing bug.

This led to a couple of years working for Atari UK, where I ran training courses, programmed demos, and gave promotional talks about personal computers. However, I couldn't stop programming, and eventually became a self-employed software author writing in a variety of assembly languages, and had six original games published during the late 80's.

From here I became a computer musician, specialised in composing game soundtracks and sound effects, completing over a hundred projects for the Commodore 64, Atari, Amiga, PC, Super Nintendo, Gameboy, Megadrive, and Gamegear. I enjoyed the challenge of squeezing the last drop of potential out of fairly primitive soundchips. When my clients asked me for soundtracks for PC games, I bought my first PC around 1990, and thus began my long relationship with this platform, which continues to this day.

Alongside my musical and computing activities, I'd written columns and features for many years in computing and game magazines, but made the final jump to music technology in 1996, when I approached Sound On Sound magazine here in the UK. I now write their regular PC Notes column, along with a mountain of software and hardware reviews (66 soundcards to date!) and workshops on a wide variety of topics, but am probably best known for my in-depth PC Musician features. I also write the regular PC Audio column for Audio Technology in Sydney, and have also contributed to other magazines including ComputerActive, Future Music, and The Mix.

2. Who have been your musical influences?

I had nine years of piano lessons, but eventually rebelled against taking all the exams and started dabbling in writing my own music from the age of sixteen onwards. I ended up building an electric guitar at school, and this coincided with an interest in electronics, so I started designing and building audio effects boxes, culminating in a primitive guitar synth with patchcords. This is partly why I'm now so interested in software like Reaktor and Tassman - it's wonderful to create your own sounds from scratch. However, I was never much of a guitarist, so while at university studying Physics I bought my first keyboard - a single manual Vox Jaguar organ for £50, followed by a Hohner Pianet, Crumar Stringman, Fender Rhodes Stage 73...

I've always had eclectic interests in music, ranging from the English eccentricities of early Genesis, Keith Emerson's keyboard playing in ELP, and the vision of Jon Anderson and Yes, through to jazzier things like Brand X, Chick Corea (particularly the wonderful Return to Forever), pianist Keith Jarrett, and the ensemble playing of Weather Report. I've always been fascinated by keyboard players who have a unique sound, such as Michael Nyman, the keyboard playing of Richard Barbieri in the group Japan, and particularly of Dave Stewart (the other one) of Egg and Bruford. Bill Bruford is also one of my favourite drummers for the same reason, and I loved his work in the more experimental period of King Crimson. Admired guitarists include Bob Fripp and Bill Nelson (BeBop Deluxe), once again each with their own unmistakable sound.

More recently I've enjoyed Bjork, Moby, Future Sound Of London, Orbital, and the Chemical Brothers, and love the rhythmic freedom of classical music by Debussy, Elgar, Holst, and Satie, plus modern composers like John Williams. Nowaday I'm also into more peaceful and ambient music - the direction my own has taken.

3. Do you follow any sort of criteria when doing articles for magazines?

Some magazines are very specific about how each article and review should look, right down to the number of screenshots, photographs, and extra boxes of text, and where they should be placed on the page, even before you write the first word. Thankfully I have very good ongoing relationships with Sound On Sound in the UK and Audio Technology in Australia, and they generally give their writers more freedom to explore their subject within the limits of whatever word count is available, which not only makes for more relaxed writing, but also provides a much greater opportunity for the writer's personality to come through.

With reviews, it's important to tell readers not only what features the product has, but also how they might benefit them in practice, and to report back on how easy they were to use. I'm lucky that having designed both electronics and software myself, and had experience of hardware production lines, I can often see both the designer's and the end-user's viewpoint, and can often explain why things have been done in a certain way.

I've also been writing for quite a few years now, so editors trust me to provide an honest, informative, technically correct, yet balanced viewpoint in a review, with the huge advantage that as I get to see a huge range of hardware and software I can place my views on each new product in context, and try to suggest a few alternatives that will help readers make up their mind.

4. In your years of experience reviewing, do you find manufacturers receptive to constructive criticism and have you ever been asked to review something that you felt like declining due to the lack of quality ?

Most manufacturers do value the thoughts of those of us who have been in the industry for some years, since we get to see and use a huge range of products, and can quickly see where something new fits in to the market. It's sometimes difficult to be objective when you're too close to your own product, and already knowing it backwards makes it more difficult to write a user's manual suitable for a beginner!

A fresh viewpoint from an experienced musician and reviewer can sometimes also find strengths that the manufacturer hadn't thought of, and conversely can reveal weaknesses that they never considered. However, as long as the comments are fair and technically correct this should never cause any arguments. On the contrary, Sound On Sound's reputation has been largely made on telling it how it is, which is why its complementary reviews are so valued by manufacturers.

As for declining to review a sub-standard product, I've very rarely had to do this. Anything that doesn't impress the magazine staff and reviewers fairly quickly isn't likely to get serious consideration for a review anyway, since there are so many good products competing for review space in most magazines.

However, if I ever receive a product that's performs well below expectations, I always check first that it isn't a one-off faulty unit, but then the review goes into print regardless, with details of the faults found on the original and any improvements in the second sample. This is after all why users read reviews - to find out what happens in the real world, well removed from the occasionally 'inventive' claims of the manufacturer's marketing department.

5. Whats your view of the raging "software versus hardware" debate?

As a reviewer I probably get to try out as many of the latest software and hardware synths as anybody, but ultimately it always comes down to how good it sounds and how easy it is to use. I quickly learnt in my years as a game designer that you have to make it easy for users to get into the first level, however complex things become later on. If a synth produces amazing sounds but has an impenetrable user interface, people will try to create with it for so long and then give up and use the presets.

This is where hardware manufacturers are still at a disadvantage, since they have to design with production cost in mind - I've designed for a production line, and every penny counts. On the other hand, having a hundred virtual knobs on a software synth costs the same in development terms as half a dozen, so the interface possibilities are endless. However, this creates another problem area, because without limits developers may give us a huge unwieldy user interface simply because they can, and because the marketing people thinks it looks more impressive in advertising screenshots.

The best interfaces seem simple and intuitive, but this is because each control is often in charge of several interacting parameters - a graphic overlay if you like. It takes more time, effort, and lateral thinking to perfect designs like this, but they are ultimately far more rewarding, as each control feels 'organic'.

When it comes to the sounds themselves, I don't really think it matters whether we're talking about hardware or software - most modern designs are digital in nature, and there's absolutely no reason why DSP code should sound any different running inside a personal computer or in a dedicated rack unit. I suspect that we're heading for the best of both worlds, with even hardware synths having optional computer front-ends for detailed sound editing, while maintaining portability for gigging.

6. What gear do you currently have in your studio Martin?

As you might expect from someone who writes so much about PC music technology, my Pentium 4 computer takes centre stage running a huge variety of music software. In the early days I was known to my friends as Martin 'six keyboards' Walker, and used to cart most of them around playing live, but over the years I've sold most of my music hardware, keeping just a few favourites. I'm not a hoarder, and if anything isn't earning its keep it gets sold.

Despite the huge advances in technology since its release, my favourite hardware synth is still Korg's Wavestation, for its unique evolving sounds. It's a classic example of the sounds being worth battling past the restrictions of a front panel interface. I also have a Roland JV1080 for quality bread and butter sounds, and still use my ancient Korg M1 as a master keyboard, and occasionally its sounds as well, as I created hundreds of my own programs and combinations over the years - there's nothing more rewarding than writing music with your own signature sounds.

Most of my more recent hardware acquisitions are PC-related. For instance, my trusty SW1000XG soundcard provides me with a Yamaha MU90 synth, but is hooked up to a Kenton Plugstation containing four PLG daughterboards covering FM synthesis, analogue physical modeling, pianos, and virtual acoustic physical modeling. These provide me with a wide range of expressive sounds along with huge polyphony, without straining my computer's processing power, which is then free for other duties.

When it comes to software, two synths in particular have also captured my imagination over the last few years - Reaktor for moving the goalposts of softsynth design, and Tassman for adding modeling of physical objects. I love their open-ended approach to sound design, although it can be intimidating for beginners. I also love Atmosphere for its superb-sounding pads, and Hypersonic for its versatile yet easy-to-use sound library.

However, GigaStudio has provided the most revolutionary change to my music making over the last few years, along with its wonderful range of streaming sample libraries from developers such as Dennis Burns (Bolder Sounds), Dan Dean, and Gary Garritan.

Now that software can produce sound of such high quality you just have to make sure the playback chain is as good as you can manage, and my ATC and AVI monitors help a great deal in this respect.

7. What forms of synthesis do you think should be explored more, or least revisited again?

Again, I think it all comes down to the sounds and the interface. Who would have thought that in 2002 we'd be getting so excited about a sample+synthesis instrument? But that's exactly what happened with Eric Persing's Atmosphere, due to its inspiring 3Gb library and easy-to-use interface.

Most of the hardware classics are already being revisited in software form, and Native Instruments' FM7 takes FM synthesis to new heights, again because it's much easier to use than the original. I missed out on FM synthesis the first time round, but met it at the deep end when programming a sound editor for Sega's Megadrive games console, which effectively contained a Yamaha TX81Z that I had to talk to at chip level. I fell in love with its unique timbres, especially the metallic and bell-like sounds, but the beauty of dealing with synthesis at a low level is that you can investigate anything that takes your fancy. I found adding a little randomness at various places to the algorithms gave FM a more living, breathing quality.

I still think there's a lot more to be squeezed out of wave sequencing in its various forms, particularly if someone can make it more accessible for editing with a decent computer-based front end like Korg have just done with the virtual Wavestation of their new Legacy Collection. Stringing together a sequence of sound snippets can produce some unique results, and once you reduce their size you're entering granular synthesis territory - again, another fertile breeding ground for new sounds, although in many cases rather unpredictable.

Physical modelling has also still got a lot more to offer, especially now computer-based interfaces can make it so much more approachable. However, there's often a fine dividing line between order and chaos in physical modelling, and hardware designs tend to restrict the available models to those that behave well. Software-based applications like Tassman let you push the boundaries rather more, and you can end up with some totally unique sounds if you're prepare to steer carefully.

However, I've always loved sounds that evolve and have a life of their own, and that you can adjust in real-time. I'm not just talking about wiggling a filter frequency knob either, but having enough control over the sound that it feels 'alive'. Acoustic instruments are rewarding because they allow each player to extract a huge range of sounds, depending on how you hit, pluck, or blow them. And once started, the notes carry on evolving harmonically, as well as (in polyphonic instruments) interacting with others over time. You can get the same 'organic' quality with some synths if you're prepared to put some effort into controlling them in real time, but although the breath controller is ideal for wind players, I'd like to see some more expressive keyboard-based controllers available.

8. What are your thoughts on the "workstation" concept of today?

I may be untypical, but I've never once used the integral sequencers in any of the keyboard instruments I've owned, apart from playing the demo songs. Personally I much prefer the graphic interface provided by a computer-based system - this gives you so much more freedom that I'm not sure nowadays how many musicians would be interested in a dedicated hardware workstation with a fixed spec. After all, now that we can run our choice of synthesisers, samplers, effects, MIDI sequencing, audio recording and playback all from one handy computer, many musicians only need to plug in a keyboard controller at one end, and amplifier and speakers at the other.

Where dedicated hardware scores is its reliability, and here computers still have some way to catch up, although a PC purpose-built for music using high quality components, emitting low acoustic noise, and properly set up for the special requirements of music, can be extremely stable, as can a Mac, which at least starts out with a specification known to each and every developer.

Computers go wrong precisely because we have so much freedom, and can install whatever new hardware and software we fancy, and tweak so many aspects of software and hardware performance - there are just too many ways to bring your computer to its knees if you don't know what you're doing. We're also partially victims of our own impatience, since most of us now expect to buy software once and get a lifetime of free support and upgrades. So, software developers are constantly developing new products to tempt us to part with our money. The result is that the contents of most musician's computers are never static for more than a week or two, which isn't the ideal recipe for long-term reliability.

9. What sort of features do you think manufacturers are missing on synths these days?

I'd like to see more performance controls, since you can get so much more expression out of most synths once you start waggling a few knobs. Novation's new Remote 25 is a good example of what I'm talking about, since this starts with a quality semi-weighted 25-note keyboard that responds to aftertouch, and then adds 24 buttons, 8 knobs, 8 encoders, and 8 sliders, plus (best of all) a programmable joystick and touchpad. If only someone would create five, six, and seven octave versions of this I'd buy the largest one immediately, whether it had any sounds in it or not.

10. With groundbreaking products like Reaktor and a plethora of other music software 'plugins' of hugely varying quality presently available to musicians, what do you believe are the key programming achievements which are necessary that distinguish the innovative from the mediocre?

I'm not sure you can itemise a series of 'key programming achievements', particularly when it comes to softsynths and plugins. Sometimes innovative products take a huge amount of development time and resources, as for example the huge sample libraries involved in the excellent Spectrasonics softsynths, and in this case only larger companies can create them.

On the other hand, the beauty of products from smaller coding teams or even individuals is that without a lot of staff on their payroll they can code wherever their fancy takes them, and come up with genuinely different products that sometimes break new ground. I was particularly inspired recently by DelayDots' Spectral plugin suite for instance, since it let me create radical new effects in the frequency domain that I hadn't heard before. I ended up creating a bank of presets that's now bundled with the plugins, and even the designer was surprised by some of the sounds that his own code was capable of.

Then of course there's the middle ground, where smaller developers get taken on board by larger ones to further develop new ideas - a good example of this is NI's Absynth. This enables ambitious products to be funded for long enough to let them mature and become more commercial. Ultimately you just have to use your ears and decide for yourself what works and what doesn't, whether it's freeware, shareware, or a full commercial offering - the boundaries are quite blurred nowadays.

11. Do you believe that the traditional hardware synth companies will survive in the longer term with their present business model ? How may they adapt ?

There will always be a case for hardware synths, particularly for live use, since their polyphony and performance is guaranteed, with no glitches, clicks, or pops. Moreover, although most musicians are perfectly happy working with a computer front end, it's sometimes very satisfying to switch on a synth and just play, without having to think about memory, latency, and multi-tasking operating systems.

On the other hand, products like Spectrasonics' Atmosphere and Trilogy have proved to hardware manufacturers that if treated seriously, the softsynth can produce a range of sounds that go beyond the capabilities of most hardware boxes. Judging by the popularity yet cost-effectiveness of such products, I expect we will eventually see some from the 'big name' synth manufacturers, once they are convinced that it's profitable.

However, most hardware manufacturers are already dipping their corporate toes in the software waters, but they are understandably wary of piracy. A half-way house is to design software front-ends for existing hardware synths, to make them more accessible in a computer environment. I hope Yamaha's OPT (Open Plugin Technology) will eventually get much wider support in this area, since this open standard provides the glue between existing MIDI+Audio applications and external synth hardware, without getting involved with running multiple applications and working round the limitations of multi-tasking drivers. What we need is less barriers between hardware and software, so you can use them together more easily.

12. How did you view the Creative purchase of Emu and Ensoniq ?

It's always good when innovative designers get funding from a larger mainstream company, although sometimes their long-term goals may clash, and some of the more interesting products that might have emerged don't, because they don't fit into the larger consumer market. Creative's Audigy soundcards for instance provide a huge range of features, and are incredible value for money. However, the top-of-the-range Audigy models are very expensive for the typical consumer, are at almost entry-level prices for the musician, but end up confusing to musicians because they are awash with gaming and home theatre-based features that may not be used. Emu's APS soundcard used much of the same core technology, and was provided with software aimed more towards the more serious musician, but is sadly discontinued.

However, I think Emu have finally got it right with their new range of professional soundcard products, which have an excellent audio specification, the versatile EmulatorX softsampler complete with its massive 53 different filter types, and at prices that have caused quite a few jaws to drop. It's taken some years, but the Emu name is now back with a vengeance.

13. With the recent acquisition of Emagic by Apple and Steinberg by Pinnacle how do you see these business changes influencing sequencer/product development and the longer term impact of the products on musicians ?

I hope it won't make too much difference, although I sympathise with anyone who's spent years getting up to speed with Emagic's Logic range on the PC, only to find the plug pulled for long-term support of their platform. I suspect that we'll see more entry-level products being launched, since this is often where the bulk of the revenue lies, but hopefully this will generate enough income to keep research and development going on the flagship products. Perhaps we'll also see more combined audio/video editing products being launched, since this is the next logical development for these companies, and if the audio code only ran if the associated video hardware was present this might solve the current software piracy problems at a stroke.

14. What would be the most humorous thing you've seen/heard happen in the music industry?

Having done it myself in the past, I'm always sympathetic to people demonstrating products at music shows, since things can (and often do) go wrong. I've witnessed my fair share of embarrassing moments, particularly when computers crash, and you can see the beads of sweat start to run down people's faces, although some masterful demonstrators can even turn this into a feature, by claiming that this is the first time the software's crashed in a week, which is amazingly reliable for a Beta version.

The most embarrassing demos are those with a dummy prototype out front (the product, not the demonstrator), while the real product, still in a vast casing with wires hanging out, and surrounded by a team of boffins, is being manipulated behind the scenes, since when something goes wrong the front man is completely floundering.

Shows and the unexpected go hand in hand. Once, in my early days working for Atari, I left their stand for a few minutes to visit the toilet, and when I came back I'd been volunteered to be interviewed live on radio thirty minutes later by 'Whispering' Bob Harris, who used to present the BBC's famous Old Grey Whistle Test music programme. Thankfully, he was quite charming, and I acquitted myself reasonably well.

Sometimes marketing claims get a little out of hand, and it's surprising how many people take them at face value without checking. Some years ago I reviewed a soundcard whose software claimed to play back up to 128 tracks mixed down to stereo using a unique 'rendering' algorithm similar to those used in 3D graphics programs, which made it possible to extract the constituent tracks at any time, despite only storing the final stereo mix on your hard drive. The UK distributors were really excited by this, but it only took me about half an hour of testing to disprove these claims, and by the time my review came out the retail price had dropped by 50%.

15. Can you outline the process in designing, programming and publishing a computer game ?

I'm sure the process is far more organised and streamlined than when I used to write them back in the 80's, but I can only comment on how I did it. My Commodore 64 games all started with an idea that was a twist on something that already existed.

For instance, 'Hunter's Moon' was a combination of a shoot 'em up and Spirograph - that children's game with the multiple wheels that you rolled around with a pen to create complex multi-coloured geometric drawings. This sparked off the idea of the worker cells that moved in similar ways, dropping bricks to create 2-dimensional cities in space. When you first entered a game level the city might be complete or partially constructed, but it was growing or regrowing the whole time you tried to find and capture the starcells to get to the next level.

'Citadel' was a combination of a shoot 'em up and a board game, where your opponents only saw you as a threat when you moved from one 'square' to another. So, you could either play it by racing around blasting everything in sight, or by stopping and carefully considering each move and its outcome before taking your next step.

Normally I approached a software publisher once I had one or two basic playable levels programmed, to sell the idea and get a contract and advance to keep me going until the game was completed and royalties hopefully starting rolling in. However, I was still essentially free to let my ideas develop at their own pace, and of course being the creator, programmer, graphic designer, and composer, I could just run with whatever ideas occurred during this process, with a visit from the software house every few weeks to see how everything was progressing.

16. What type of routines are used to simulate AI in computer games ?

Very primitive ones in the case of most CBM64 games, since we only had 64 kilobytes of RAM to programme the entire thing. However, it was still possible to implement what seemed like intelligence, by programming a table of likely movement behaviour for the 'baddies' based on their relative position to you. Once you added a few random numbers to weight a few such strategies, your opponents could seem surprisingly intelligent!

Nowadays I suspect far more complex strategies are adopted, since so much more memory is available, but by giving each opponent a fixed route to patrol, or one of several randomly chosen ones, plus a few extra ploys chosen at random once you're within a certain proximity, it must still be surprisingly effective at giving the impression of intelligence.

17. In writing music for video games, how do you decide on what's the best style of music? What strengths/weaknesses did you encounter with the various platforms on which you programmed the music?

In my experience you rarely had the opportunity to choose the style of music, since the software house that approached you nearly always had their own strong ideas on subject matter. If you were composing the soundtrack for an original game then you might get lucky enough to meet the programmer(s) and discuss it creatively with them, but most were happy to have the publishing company liaise, and in this case you could expect a request for some 'Terminator-style' music with alarming regularity, since so many games were set in the future.

Games set in a particular historical context were more interesting, and I did get to write some gungho orchestral music for 2nd World War games, medieval ensembles, military marching music for the American Civil War, as well as the odd string quartet or thrash metal track. However, often the most creative opportunities came with 'cartoon-style' games where you could really let your imagination run riot. I once wrote music for a game that took place in a kitchen freezer, where the instruments consisted of the sounds of food being eaten and drinks being opened and consumed, while on the next level, which took place in a roadworks, I used pneumatic drills, singing saws, hammers, and so on. That was fun.

Sometimes the most challenging commissions were conversions of tunes that had originally been written to suit other game formats, and I had an excellent reputation for squeezing the last drop out of conversions from multi-track orchestral sampled compositions that ended up transcribed for three channels of beeps on the Nintendo Gameboy!

18. When it came to doing the sound effects for games, how did you approach this task and what inspired your creativity?

I created my own libraries of sound effects for each of the seven or eight game formats I worked on, since in those days only the Amiga could really use samples, and then only with whatever memory the programmer had left over. For these, in the absence of today's excellent commercial FX sample libraries, you either gleaned them from vinyl, audio cassette, film videos, or used lateral thinking. For instance, faced with the requirement of a large slab of stone being removed from a cave entrance, I created a very realistic one by scraping a small stone around the rim of a flowerpot, and then dropping it in pitch by a couple of octaves.

With the other game machines you got a few channels of square or pulse waves, plus hopefully some white noise, and from these primitive elements you had to extract the last drop of creativity. I worked at sound chip level, programming in assembly language, so that I could manipulate the chip registers every 1/50th of a second. Thus, chords could be created as very fast arpeggios to give the illusion of a bigger sound, while bass drums started with a tiny chiff of noise, followed by a decaying tone, and snare drums oscillated between noise and tone, again at 50 times per second. Sega's Megadrive was more fun, since this had the same Yamaha FM chip as the TX81Z, but I used similar techniques to manipulate the sounds, so that I could get sword clashes, gunshots, and even running water, by rapidly altering the parameters. And you tell the kids today...

19. What's your view on the development of the Atari and Amiga and the eventual demise of them both ? For example, these platforms often opened gateways to programming for aspiring teenagers (some of whom now program on today’s consoles ) whereas today systems like the PS2 and XBox don't offer that opportunity ?

The Atari's built-in MIDI ports made it the perfect computer for the musician, since programmers had access to them at a very basic level, and didn't have to run the gauntlet of a modern multi-tasking operating system. While today's computers can run multiple applications 'simultaneously', it's still done in exactly the same way as my sound chip programming - by rapidly swapping between tasks - but there are lots more of them to juggle, and therefore more possibilities for timing errors, especially when audio and MIDI are regarded as less important than the graphic bells and whistles. Both the Atari and the Amiga still have a small but dedicated following, although there are extremely few new applications appearing, and support is becoming more and more of a problem.

There are no doubt still plenty of opportunities for people to be employed as programmers, musicians, graphic designers and the like in today's game companies, but you're right - in the old days you could get far more hands-on experience to hone your talents while still living at home with your parents. Mind you, there's still a cult following for many of the older games machines and computers, and you can also find musicians who are now remixing elderly game soundtracks using modern synths - one of my 1980's CBM64 soundtracks was recently featured on an Audio remix CD!

20. Due to the power of modern consoles, video game production now requires such a huge team and development costs, but despite flashier graphics and sound is the gameplay improving as fast as the hardware? Is it possible for a lone programmer to publish a game these days ? What games in the last decade do you consider to be groundbreaking - either technically or in terms of gameplay?

Who knows? Although it's easier to get lost in today's imaginary worlds, due to their much greater realism and depth, I still hanker after the almost meditational techniques you needed to master the old classics like Space Invaders, Galaxians, Defender, and the rest. I very much doubt that the lone programmer is still in existence, except perhaps as some sort of 'creative team leader' - it simply isn't possible for one person to do all the work needed for a modern game within the available timescale, and budgets are so much bigger that it would be commercial folly to let a loner develop products at their own rate. However, I'm sadly out of touch with games, since I haven't even seen one since 1996, when I moved over to being a writer and musician. After fourteen years in the game industry I was played out, so to speak.

21. Do you think there will be a convergance between Hollywood Film Studio's and Games Producers/Publishers ?

I think this is already happening. Even in my day the games companies were quick to tie in games with the latest film releases (I once had to create a CBM64 game from scratch based on the original 'Back To The Future' film in just nine weeks - that's pressure!) Nowadays many games seem to be being programmed in tandem with the film's editing, with much greater fraternisation between the two camps, and this can only be good for realism in the final product. This is perhaps hardly surprising, since merchandising is now such an important part of a film's revenue, so the more products available at the time of its launch, the more likely it is to break even at the box office or go into profit.

22. Given your education and experience have you ever thought of, or been inspired to return to software programming and publishing audio related software eg. a 'soft-synth' ?

No, I suspect it's just as hard trying to earn a living creating softsynths as it was writing games, although at least nowadays you can take charge of your own publicity through the Internet, and not have to rely on others to do it well (or not as the case may be). Besides, I'm able to help those who do, by publicising their work in magazine reviews. Also, like many other users, I'm gratified that so many software authors are open to suggestions for improvements and new features, so that's an occasional outlet for my ideas.

23. What 10 albums in your collection would you consider to be the best?

Like most people, what I listen to depends on my mood, and since there are so many ways to define 'best', I'll simply select some of the albums that I've particularly enjoyed , and that have influenced me over the years. Here they are in no particular order.

Genesis - "Foxtrot"
Sprawling compositions featuring unusual time signatures, classic Mellotron chord sequences, and vocals full of English eccentricity.

Japan - "Tin Drum"
A unique combination of oriental influences, inventive synth sounds, liquid bass, often tribal rhythms, and of course the voice of David Sylvian.

Bjork - "Homogenic"
An inspiring combination of clean Icelandic string octet with distorted loops and synths, and that unmistakable voice.

Future Sound Of London - "Lifeforms"
I first heard this playing in a music shop, and just had to buy it for its unique soundscape treatments that take you somewhere you've never been before.

Tim Story - "Wheat and Rust"
A self-taught pianist and synthesist whose finely crafted compositions have 'haunting elegance and meticulous compositional detail'. They take me to a still quiet place.

Nigel Shaw - "Requiem - Well Of Souls"
Based on the classical form of Mass for the Dead, this is a haunting but uplifting album featuring whistles, flutes, keyboards, and voices, composed by a musician and flute-maker who lives in the middle of Dartmoor in the UK.

Kevin Kendle - "First Light"
A reflective album of floating keyboard textures, bubbling synths, and soft melodies inspired by the stillness of the dawn in the UK countryside, full of early morning mists and tranquillity.

Orbital - "Snivilisation"
Another collection of eccentric and thought-provoking tracks from the brothers Hartnoll, featuring hypnotic rhythms, vocal snippets, and unusual instruments.

Moby - "Play"
Yet another unusual combination, this time of vocals old and new, along with lots of modern sounds, bound together with a freshness and extremely human approach to song making.

The Chemical Brothers - "Surrender"
Yet more surreal soundscapes, this time with a harder edge, some infectious head-banging rhythms, and intriguing treatments.

24. What do you do outside of the music industry to keep yourself going Martin?

Since I spend the majority of my working days with a headful of technology, I like to unwind by emptying my head a little while walking my dog in the country, with meditation and Tai Chi, a form of moving meditation. I've been doing the latter for several years now, and it's made a huge difference to the amount of peace in my life.

Of course I enjoy contributing to the Sound On Sound forums, but I can't really say I have a favourite web site, since when you spend so many hours researching features and reviews it's not exactly relaxing to surf for pleasure as well - you end up with square eyes and a headache. However, I regularly visit hundreds of web sites, and admire the amount of time and dedication people put into so many of them.

For a complete break, my wife and I really love the rugged and mysterious coastline of Cornwall in the UK where we now live - it's full of stunning scenery, with rocky coves, windswept moors, tiny villages that seem almost lost in time, mysterious stone circles, and even the odd pirate's grave. This inspires my own instrumental music, which one review described as 'like a slowly turning kaleidoscope'. I've composed three solo albums to date, and am working on a fourth, all of which I market under my own Yew Tree Music label.