Rapture

In September, 1999, Slammy interviewed Rapture. Rapture is an established musician in the scene. Rapture is responsible for some mindblowing tracks, such as MELT, Aurora Borealis and The Drift. Read the interview, and find out just what makes Rapture tick!

Real Name : Fabian Del Priore
Age : 21 (in 1999)
Homepage : http://home.t-online.de/home/del.priore

slammy - BLUE Rapture - WHITE

Firstly, your handle is Rapture, what is the motive behind that?
Some years ago, when I began with all the internet / online stuff, I downloaded a nice ambient tune by Glitch, which was named "Rapture". I loved that song so much that I thought that title just had to be my nick name.

So, we've established your handle, what is your full real name?
Fabian Del Priore

And you where born when?
27th of May, 1978 :)

Which is pretty shit off close to my b/date *L*
That's true - I am a couple of days older than you :P

Whereupon do you reside?
I was born in the city of Frankfurt / Main, Germany. I lived all my life in Frankfurt, which is in my opinion a beautiful city.

Do you have any siblings?
Yes, two brothers. The first is 6 years older and the other 8 years older than me - I am 21 ... that will make, err... ;)

Do they track music at all?
Oh, they aren't into the pc and tracker scene at all; they can play the piano a bit, and a little bit of the trumpet *g*

What are your main dislikes in the world?
Diseases, war, famine and poverty I think... One could start to cry in that world...

What are your 5 favourite things in life?
Money, Love, Friends, Good Health and - ... Dragons... :) I am a big fantasy fan - and dragons are mythical and majestic beings. I love them.

What year did you start tracking?and what was your main inspiration for starting to track?
1994, I think. The reason is the love to compose... and the love to be in a scene where creativity is everything.

Who introduced you to tracking?
On a sweet sunny day, a friend of mine visited my home and gave me one little 3.5'' disk, which should change my whole life. It contained a small sized tracker program written by Triton - Fasttracker (I think it was version 2.02 or something). Well from that day on, everything changed - the tracker was born inside of me. And finally, I had the chance to write music and present the music files to a very large audience.

Which version of FT2 do you currently use?
FT2.08. Andreas Viklund released 2.09, but that's only a beta.

I have personally released some songs created in ft2.09, and I found it alot, well, alittle *L* better than 2.08. Alot of people won't use it though, why do you think that is?
Because you cannot set the Port, IRQ and DMA channels for sound blaster cards anymore. I personally do not use it, simply because it does not work on my computer system!

What sound card do you use?
An old classic SB16 PnP Card, but that's enough for me.

What was your first ever tracked song and was this ever released?
It was a track called "The Operator" which is in fact my former nickname. It's an old fashioned Rave / Techno song, a 4 channel XM ;) Don't need to talk about it, 'caus it suxx. You can find that one on The Modarchive and on my personal hp.

What inspires your music?
The inspiration for my music comes from famous musicians like Chris Huelsbeck, Robert Miles, Vangelis, Enigma, Jarre etc. This is one part of my inspiration - the other part is life itself I think; only the positive sides of course. Good weather, nice people, girl-friends, Dragons, etc :-)

Do you currently have a girlfriend?
Not at the moment. (Did you hear that? Rapture is a free agent girls!)

How would you best describe your music?
It's kinda atmospheric, spacy and ambient. My music is soft, non-repetitive and full of harmony. No hard rock, industrial, metal parts allowed! ;)

Outside of tracking, what music do you listen to on a regular basis?
Generally spoken, I listen to every kind of music, which has good melodies, nice chords and so on. I love to listen to video game soundtracks, movie soundtracks (The Rock is great!), Trance and Ambient CD, and every style of music which combines melodies with a lot of variation in it :)

What is in your CD player right now?
hehe, it's quiet around here, 'cos I'm too lazy to listen to music via head-phones, and because it's 3:00am in the morning. When I listen to music, it has to be _loud_ to get the full effect.

If there was anything at all you could change about the course of music, what would it be?
I like the way how music has evolved, there's nothing wrong with it in my opinion.

If you could change anything one thing about the tracking scene, what would that be?
The huge amount of novice trackers, who think they can track good, and produce lame music, which takes the hd space away from music archives like TiS or MA. In the tracking scene, it's not like "only the best will survive", because everyone has the chance and the possibility to release their works. :)

I class myself as an intermediate artist, What do you class yourself? and why?
I would classify myself as a pro - because everyone tells me that :-) To be honest now, I think I have collected enough experience over the years (from 1994) and have listened to thousands of modules, studied them, talked to great guys like Elwood or Keith303, that I would classify myself as an advanced musician. :-)

The greatest guy I have talked with is Skaven, how do you rate him?
Skaven, wow, a living legend in the tracking scene, I would say! What did he tell you? I do not know if he is still around in the tracking scene, but if so, he certainly has released some wonderful works - thats for sure.

Moving to his collegue, Purple Motion, PM has recently entered onto the scene again, with an MP3 called, Credits, have you heard this song?
I listened to that one, its great! Assembly 99 mp3 winner, wasn't it? It was some kind of orchestral / classical work, not the usual kind of tracked music.

How do you feel about PM being back?
It's awesome, I hope he will produce more tracks soon. And when he decides to continue to track, he will certainly take the Impulse tracker, which I do not like. What about you?

I use IT...I learned to track in Scream Tracker, so It was the logical choice for me...
Thats true, ppl who used to track in st3 will use IT in the future. ppl, who used the legendary Protracker on the amiga, will use FT2, because its the same interface and handling. I used to track with Soundtracker 2.5 on the amiga :-)

Which are your favourite mods ever?
Space Debris by Captain, Nocturnal Intruder by Basehead, Distance by The Zapper!, Catch that Goblin by Skaven, Guitar Slinger by Jogeir Liljedahl (who is a GREAT tracker), 12th Warrior by Dr. Awesome, and many others as well, too much to mention now.

Todays Legends such as Awesome, Anders Akerheden, how do you rate them?
Nowadays, there's a second generation of trackers, as I call it. And Awesome, Akerheden, Viklund, Bladh, Nighthawk, Codi and many others are counting to it. I would say, they are not as innovative as the "first" generation, because everything was already there - Melodies, styles etc. There hardly isn't any new stuff around...

My feeling today are, that modern day trackers have got it too easy, mainly because of all the software that is available to them. Such as rebirth, etc. Its now become quite easy to produce a pro-quality song, with little effort, what are your feelings on this?
Yeah, that's true, they use rebirth, buzz, axs and mad tracker. With this software, people can not only produce pro-quality music, but also in a very short period of time. The "oldtimers" among the trackers, Jogeir, Skaven, P-Motion etc, had to use software like ST3 or even Protracker, and they produced very high quality stuff - and THAT is what is so astonishing and amazing about it...

Now, You entered, and WON the Outpost 1st One Hour Tracking Compo - How do you feel on 1 hour compos?
Yeah, I am glad about it, because it actually was my very first one hour compo I did participate in. And I composed the track with in approx. 40-45 Minutes or so, because I was in the IRC-Channel all the time to ask questions like "May I use Volume Ramps, Can I use 16-bit samples, What about a 32chn-XM, What about pannings and effects?" et cetera. So it really surprised me that I won :-)

I feel that the 1 hour compos are the real link to the humble beginnings of tracking, mainly because of a set sample pack, usually of a shitty quality, and sometimes, well most times, bring out the best in trackers, do you believe in this theory?
It's a good start to begin tracking, you're right. If you only have a limited amount of low-qual samples, and a limited time to produce the track (60 minutes in this case), AND if the track is very good at the end - you're a very good tracker. 1h compos are always kinda underestimated, but I think they're getting more important now. As a pro musician, you can test your abilities to track, and if you win, you succeeded in the test and feel good. :-)

There have been a few incidents, where artists have suggested that perhaps tracking is now starting to die out, do you believe this is true?
Sometimes I have this feeling, too. XMs and ITs are more and more pushed into the background because of a new music format - the well-known MP3, but I don't think that the tracking scene will die completely.

How could you (if you could) bring tracking back to the top?
I think because of the new generation of tracker software (and software synthesizers), tracking is getting more important again, and I hope that the MP3 (which can be used for highly illegal purposes - you know what I am talking about) will be pushed back. Look at Mad Tracker, Buzz or AXS and you will have the answer!

What are your personal best tracks?
I think the ones which are rated with 10/10 points everywhere. Like Aurora Borealis (in 4 or more different editions and remixes), Aphrodisiac, Deep Ocean and Dream Dimension, to name a few.

Finally, what advice do you give to the worlds legion of trackers?
Most important, do not give up if anybody is coming to you and tells you that your works are totally crap and lame. Spit him in his face if you can and continue to track, because experience is 50% of everything. The rest is creativity, endurance and talent. Always use lots of non-repetitive melodies, chords and harmonies. Use lots of effects and all channels, 32 in FT2, and 64 or more in other trackers. I heard that Mad Tracker has 256 voices.

Thanks for the interview, and thank you for your time! Outpost wishes Rapture all the best for the future!