⌊ Ryo Kawasaki Interview ⌉

This interview was conducted with Ryo after we exchanged messages over the years but I never got around to putting it online – in light of his recent passing I thought I would post it here.

1. How did you originally become interested in the Commodore 64 as a viable platform for music composition?

Since the end of 70’s I was using and developing my own guitar synthesizer system with many drum machines & sequencers as well as variety of sound modules integrated within a single system so that I could perform real time solo / one man guitar synthesizer shows mainly in planetariums in East Coast as well as utilizing it to produce my own albums and compositions.

Solo composition sample : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2WfYYBuBgs
GS with the band sample : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0nsn-jYlhE

So, it was natural evolution for me to become interested in C64 in early 80″s when it came out with some sound chip in it even though the quality of sounds were rather primitive, but it was interesting enough for me to play with it since those sounds could be manipulated the same way as basic analog synthesizer sound modules such as Attack, Sustain & Decay, Sine Sawtooth, Square wave generators, Noise generator, Ring modulator, Cut Off frequency, low pass/high pass filters were all programmable.

And I produced one album called “Lucky Lady” using C64 sounds along with my analog guitar synthesizer and use of drum machines and sequencers in 1983 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcjTSMr8fFI

What I was doing was that I tried to implement my knowledge and methods how to use my huge analog guitar synthesizer system in to this tiny C64 box. Also I remembered that when I was really little I enjoyed playing on little toy piano my father gave to me as Christmas present and somehow this idea of little toy piano was also integrated to this first software “Kawasaki Synthesizer” as a toy and gift for children

2. Did you have any prior programming knowledge before you became interested in developing software for it?

What I did was entirely improvisational and intuitive, I had no formal study or training to become a software designer and programmer, Although electronics and sound engineering was my hobby since childhood and I built many devices from amp, radio, transmitter, TV set and electric organ etc, so I intuitively knew how electric signal flows and computer programming was basically the same thing using notepad instead of soldering iron, how to regulate and condition the flow of signal utilizing instructions and to execute the program, so I ended up using machine code to program those software which is the lowest level language using only opcodes that doesn’t require any high level programming language that involves human language expressions for instructions, so that I can think how machine would think and it executes much faster and require smallest amount of memory and we had only 64KB! I had to reserve most of memories for music data instead of programming codes and it had to run fast as real time application such as overdubbing in real time using lots of interrupts. I also liked those simple sprites came with C64 that could be used to give some simple animations.

So, as a starter I just read computer magazines and computer programming books along with C64 programmers guide book for few months and came up with very raw prototype of my first program, later called “Kawasaki Synthesizer” and brought the disk to one of computer shops in NYC where I knew the manager and asked him to boot up my prototype program, and voila! All the customers in that shop were glued to the screen of my program while I was showing and demonstrating some functions and features of this program! So I realized that I had something special and unique that can be marketed!

Well, the rest is a history and it will become too long to tell what took places thereafter, but anyway that’s how it got started 🙂 http://ryokawasaki.com/c64/

3. At the time of its peak, what was your opinion of the SID chip (and also the perceived general opinion of the SID) considering all the other sound processing chips that were available in personal computers at that time?

All I knew at that time for the personal computer that had sound capability was Atari for the game sounds, what else had sound processing chip at that time of 1982-1984? At any rate, as I have mentioned above that SID had all those programmable basic analog synthesizer in it.

4. How do you feel electronic music has changed now that possibilities are endless in terms of processing, and do you think limitations of a system sometimes encourage more creativity and focused output?

Well, in my case, when C64 was introduced to the market in 1982, there was no MIDI yet, so I was using analog sequencers and drum machines using pulse sync to run them in sync for my background tracks. Such as how I created above “Lucky Lady” album.

Around the time when I completed my first program “Kawasaki Synthesizer” in 1984, MIDI was gradually becoming available and popular, so I wrote another program called “Kawasaki MIDI Workstation” that enables user to record real time performance on to 8 separate tracks at a time as well as user had an option to record using step sequencer such as for drum track etc. Input devices was using MIDI out from any midi keyboard and output is connected to fire the analog, FM sound module, sampler or drum machine has midi input up to 16 independent outputs by recording in 16 different midi channels because this midi workstation I developed had mixing capabilities so that the first 8 tracks can be mixed to the single track to empty the remaining 7 tracks that can be used for new overdubbing for new parts and so on. This program was not sold in public but used for my own creation as well as I gave to some friend’s recording studios in New York CIty.

You can see this “Kawasaki MIDI Workstation” in action in live here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhPAavOh3kA Here, all background tracks were recorded on C64 and live musicians are playing along with it. There’s no tape recorders used. The mid rack is at the right most and you can see it around 5:50 into the clip.
Thereafter, I used this C64 midi sequencer for many 12 inch dance tracks during the late 80’s: Sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIKXb4Q42Yc

And I continually used this 64 midi workstation during 90’s for many Smooth Jazz albums I produced

Samples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr3KtkAEMZY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lGkrt3MiAk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7JU5RgC2Dc

And by the end of 90’s, I kind of got tired of making or producing music using midi sequenced tracks, sampled sound (sound file), so for the last 15 years I have returned to perform or record music only with live musicians although I use computer to record, mix and master live recorded music, but not for producing music any more.