"Marcus Donachie passed away in January 1998. He was my best friend, and
very involved in the making of my music. I would write, he would suggest,
encourage, tweak, and adjust. If we both liked it, it was good. If one of
us didn't, eventually the other would admit it was bad. It was a good
team, and it's one of the many, many things I will miss about him. The
mods included here are from our learning curve. Not only learning how to
write music, what goes into it, but also how to use the technology.
Starting from four tracks, then to eight, newer versions of OctaMED,
experimenting with different styles, building up the sample collection. We
all went through it at some point, and without him, I would have never got
past the first mod.
I lost my sample collection due to hard drive failure - 2500 ish samples.
He made me rebuild some, and carry on. He helped me through my 9 month
writers block. And, when I moved to
when I got carried away with the technology, the effects, the tracks, and
that I had forgotten about actually writing something people would want to
listen to. It has now got to the point where people get an MP3 of the
stuff I write, and then ask who wrote it - they want to listen to it
because it's good, not just because someone they know wrote it. This is an
amazing thing to be able to bring to the world, no matter how fleeting or
narrow it's impression is. It's the biggest sign of respect I can think of.
So enjoy our learning curve, with the bum notes, the poor samples, and the
strange ideas. Somewhere in there is what I am today, and somewhere in me
is what Marcus added to the mix."
-Ian Chisholm