Michael Malak
Masterpiece
Leave It (Yes)
Michael: I have to give a lot of credit to another individual, Mike Walters. He was a real Yes-head, and also a fan of Rick Wakeman, so that he was one of those who did not object to the pop keyboard-heavy style of the 90125 album (even though Wakeman wasn’t on it).
Anyway, Mike Walters showed me his AMS file work in progress, and I was quite taken by the pitch-bending technique he was using. Sometime later, I started over on my own, as he had abandoned the project, mimicking his pitch-bending. Galen would later go on to incorporate pitch-bending into some of his files, in a rare instance of the apprentice leading the master.
This file makes excellent use of time-multiplexing to realize that phantom fifth voice for percussion. It also incorporates two instances of the laser sound effect.
Overall, the file succeeds because the song itself has such great variety of phrasing, making it non-repetitive.
Other Files
Presented in chronological order, so the better files are generally later, but you can tell by the self-ratings.
Maniac (Michael Sembello)
Self-rating: (3/10)
Michael: Being my first AMS file after Galen’s inspirational Knight Rider theme, I had no concept of budgeting memory. Notes that are enveloped could have been done more efficiently and notes that are left flat could have had a little bit of envelope added.
Safety Dance (Men Without Hats)
Self-rating: (3/10)
Michael: Sadly, I generally picked songs by how much I liked them rather than by how well they would translate to AMS. As a consequence, what should have been an improvement, given this was my second outing, turned out to be marred by the impossibility of rendering hand-claps. Whereas drum percussion works in AMS due to the distortion level Lee Actor hard-wired into the bass notes, the pure tones of the higher notes make it impossible to render a higher-pitched hand-clap.
I settled for attempting to simulate distortion for those hand-claps by playing two notes an octave apart in rapid succession and it was a disaster.
Also hampering the effort is that it is a repetitive song.
Billie Jean (Michael Jackson)
Self-rating: (8/10)
Michael: Yes, I did make this before starting in on AMS II, so it is odd that it would come out so well after my first two lackluster outings.
I remember having completed just the introductory measures up to the point where the vocals would cut in, and a friend, Stephen Ford, popped by, heard it, and said “Maestro!”. Funny how little compliments like that stick with you for decades.
But I had spent an immense amount of time on those introductory measures. Playing the piano sheet music straight sounded nothing like the song. I don’t mean it didn’t sound as good; I mean it wasn’t even recognizable. I discovered each note had to be varied in loudness and duration in order to get it to sound like the song. And the timing was so delicate that I was unable to time-multiplex the percussion into the same voice as that bass line.
The result is that with one voice for the percussion, one for the bass line, and one for the vocal, that left but one voice for the chords! It was an enormous sacrifice to not have at least two voices for the chords.
But it was worth it, because the file is quite listenable all the way through despite the repetition. That bass line carries it.
Eye of the Tiger (Survivor)
Self-rating: (5/10)
Rock the Casbah (The Clash)
Self-rating: (7/10)
Michael: An otherwise good file is marred by the sustained scream toward the end. Of course, in AMS, that comes out as high and loud. The fact that there is some spoken-word sprinkled in makes it worse.
Other than those flaws, it does groove pretty well, with occasional multi-voice percussion, good use of enveloping, some pitch-bending, and even the laser sound effect.