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This month is the month of Void Pointer. A sparkling music enthusiast who deserves this spot. He is active in the scene, he does his best to contribute at all cost. For other people he's known because of his big mouth, some may like him, some don't. But he clearly has his own trademark when it comes to making music, and his improvements over the last year are remarkably good.
MatthijsB: First of all, congratulations. Could you introduce yourself to those who don't know you?
Void Pointer: Thank you, I never expected to become AOTM because my music is quite different and I'm only part of the tracking scene for 3 years.
My name is Peter Spaargaren, I live in a place called "Kudelstaart" in the Netherlands (the country where weed is legal  ). About 3 years ago I got in touch with a program called Impulse Tracker. A friend of mine downloaded it and I watched how he made little songs. I thought it was fun so I downloaded it also, I didn't do anything with it untill I moved. I was just surfing through my harddrive content as I saw this IT214 directory. I opened it and played some demo songs which came with it. I was stunned!
Of course my first songs weren't that good. But at my job I had a collegue (Nick van der Schilden also known as Saiko) whom learnt me a lot. If it wasn't for him I would have quite already. After about 3 months of tracking Nick introduced me to Tripwire and Cadra (which I interviewed for CTG).
It was a dream of mine to become a member of their netlabel. I sent them each new song I made to get some feedback from them, my songs weren't good enough though. I got better and better, untill I felt I got pushed back by the IT214 limitations.
I crossed over to another music platform. Saiko introduced me to Buzz about a year ago. Since that day I use Buzz. Unfortunately my pc cannot handle too much processes at the same time, so I am forced to make more monotone style with less different sounds in order to keep the sound working properly. Nowadays I don't mind I was forced into monotone genres, I actually want to continue doing monotone music.
Meanwhile I'm good enough to join the Sublogic Corporation (the netlabel of Cadra & Tripwire), but I won't. I've started my own netlabel which I'm quite proud of. There are some brilliant musical minds in my label, without them it would be impossible to keep my label running.
People tell me I have developed my own style in the past few years, which I think is great for a 16 year old kid. I hope to have my music released on a CD someday, but that's not my aim. For me, it's about getting feedback and respect from guys whom are getting sick of all the commercial trance, like me. I think trance is becoming way too commercial, and I resent that. It's about the music, not the money! On CTG there are enough good artists who like to be "different". Also within the trance genre.
MatthijsB: Whoa, I didn't ask you to start writing your biopraphy! I can drop half of my questions right now haha. After all this improving, you made a classical piece called 'Stop' which topped the CTG charts, and got lots of good feedback. It sounds really tragic, and you said it was a hard time for you. Could you elaborate on this song's background?
Void Pointer: Oh.... Uhm, I was completely depressed back then. Everything in my life went wrong. I went to bed arguing every night. I had troubles in my lovelife. In short: I was depressed. Emotionaly unstable. A few people noticed my mood could change radically within seconds. I was planning to quit my scene activities for a few months to get some time for school, so I decided to go out with a bang. I made a song purely based on my feelings and emotions, and I'm very pleased with the result. If I listen to this song now, I get sad!
In the end I couldn't leave the scene. It's become a part of my life I guess. I hope I've graduated, even with all the problems I had. My troubles at home seem to be over also. You could say I'm quite a happy man again! 
MatthijsB: Well, 'stop' was a success, are you considering doing another track based on you emotions any time soon?
Void Pointer:I have no idea. I'm a dark person sort of, I won't be making happy tracks when I feel happy since such emotions won't be expressed by me. Maybe when my life get's tough again some emotional track will appear. Actually as we speak things are getting a bit worse again, so maybe I'll make another track like stop tomorrow. But it could be next year also. I have no clue.
MatthijsB: I know you as a guy who says what comes up in his mind, have you got something to say about CTG?
Void Pointer: CTG is an awesome site, acecream is one of the best webmasters a site can have. He updates the site frequently with new tools and such, which is just one of many good things of CTG.
What I resent is the mass reviewing which happens every once in a while. People seem to care only about the quantity of their reviews and not the quality in order to get that Reviewer of the Week promotion. this happens with other things too, forum replies, reviews as I said, and even track releases (which doesn't happen often though). I won't mention any names, I think people will know who I mean. An example is the non direct linking to mikseri.net songs. People don't use the direct links because Mikseri won't count a download that way (thus they don't gain popularity on that particular site). I hate people who are obsessed by their status and the number of downloads they receive, it seems they don't care about the music itself but only the attention they get.
I also think there will be many more discussions about the CTG reviewing system. I think it's working okay right now. There are reviewers which review very well, they seem to have listened a track about 20 times and they really come up with some good comments. I love those people! I think it's important to explain how you feel about a song and because of what reason. Unfortunately that doesn't alwasy happen.
I think CTG is a fine community, the forums are quite active by a rather small number of members, but it's working. You really get to know some people there because of it's rather small size. That's the best part of CTG, it's fun to be there and to talk just about anything.
MatthijsB: As far as I know you have 2 project names, deFusion and Void Pointer, which you initially started with. What's the difference between these two projects?
Void Pointer: Hmm... Using my new name, deFusion, seemed to confuse some people. To keep it simple, I use Void Pointer for everything related to hardcore and other distortion related music and deFusion is used for the softer genres (all other genres ). Now you probably would ask me why I released my track 'Stop' under my Void Pointer alias. Well, I thought it was good to end with Void Pointer because I also started with this name. On top of that I think it is great to have extreme differences in style under one alias (extremely hard and extremely soft music I mean). That's kind of it I thought.
MatthijsB: Do you have some things planned for the near future (musically and in real life ) ?
Void Pointer: If I have completed my final exams (I'm still waiting for the results), I will go to another school to be a ICT networking management study. I would love to earn my monthly pay check with designing and coding websites and maybe even more. But honestly, I have know idea wat I want to become, the future for website designers and coders isn't really bright these days.
MatthijsB: Well, I think we've got enough of reading material here , anything you like to add to this interview?
Void Pointer: Yes I would like to quote this brilliant line from the Yomi Records website, which should be kept in mind for the CTG members..
"The music, not the money. The audience, not the masses.
For the mere fukken fun of it, the beauty and the art of sound." |
That's about it, I would like to thank the people who voted for me and I'd also like to to thank MB for translating my answers.
cheers
MatthijsB: No problem . My translating wasn't really good either I guess, I'm pretty darn tired. So if anyone has a problem with some lines in this interview, tell me by PM or respond by replying in te forum thread for this interview. Thanks Void for this great detailed interview.
Void Pointer: You're welcome
Links Related to Void Pointer:
Void Pointer Website
Xplizit Netlabel
Digital Dreams (Void Pointer's own Netlabel )
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