AWE Stars Creative

Bjorn Lynne

Bjorn Lynne is a 28 year old composer and producer, specialising in melodic synthesizer music with a strong beat and a rich atmosphere. He is originally from Norway, but his work has led him to England where he now lives and works. Bjorn has released 4 solo albums and his 5th album is being released just as this is being written. Bjorn also has his own homepage where he showcases his CD's and has more MIDI music to download. He also spends a lot of time writing music and creating sound effects for computer - and console - games, working as the in-house musician and sound engineer for Team17 Software Ltd. in England. Some of his latest works in this field can be heard in the games "Worms" and "X2".

Bjorn uses the SoundBlaster AWE32 as an important part of his studio setup. It is, he says, a particularly vital tool for creating music and sound effects for games, both on PC and on other platforms. Bjorn explains, "Even when I do music and sound effects for the Sony Playstation, I do 90% of the work using my PC and the AWE32. This allows me to concentrate fully on the sound and the music, and not having to worry about special custom formats and so on. Then when everything is put together, I simply convert it all in its near-finished form and then do the final bits of tweaking using the Playstation development tool."

We asked Bjorn what he likes best about the AWE32: "The onboard RAM and the SoundFont system allows me to quickly grab a sample, turn it into a MIDI instrument and have it up and running in my song within a very short time. This is very important for me when I'm working - when that bolt of inspiration hits me, I just cannot afford to mess around with sounds and samples for too long, or the magic of the moment will have left me before I can return to the actual composing. With the AWE32 and Vienna SoundFont Studio, I can have the new sound up and running in my song almost immediately. So I have installed 8 MB of RAM on my AWE32 and although I do own a professional sampler - an E-mu e64 - I often sketch out songs using only the AWE32 at first, even for songs that are written for a full-fledged professional CD release. If, after I have a rough sketch of the song running on the AWE32, I decide that this is a song that I want to keep working on, then I will switch on my full recording studio and start mapping out the song on the more expensive pieces of gear, to get that full studio production sound. The AWE32 is almost invaluable in this process, as it helps me grab those sparks of inspiration immediately, and it gives me an idea of how a song will turn out before I spend days tweaking it with all the studio-gear."


Blown [With SoundFont] (480K 2:39 m/s)
This was my first attempt at making a song specifically for the AWE32 and using a SoundFont. It is a funk-rock track with guitar-, bass- and piano solos. Oh, and some pretty bouncey hornz, too.
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Digital Phoenix [With SoundFont] (456K 4:34 m/s)
This is actually a song from my 1995 CD "Dreamstate". I wanted to see how closely I could recreate the full studio recording, using only the AWE32 and a SoundFont that would fit in the AWE32's standard 512kb of RAM. And the result really wasn't too bad. Although the full CD version still sounds better, I think I managed to retain the "feel" of the song, which is a sort of powerful and ominous, "alienated" and very foreign sort of atmosphere, with a deep and thunderous beat to it.
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Digital Surfin [With SoundFont] (455K 1:56 m/s)
This is a snappy piece with quite a catchy lead melody and a piano solo in the middle that goes a bit wild and widdly before returning to the main theme and closing in at just around 2 minutes. Quick - and to the point.
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The Gathering [With SoundFont] (487K 2:40 m/s)
This is a simplified version of the song "The Gathering" from my 1996 CD "Witchwood". Again, I was curious as to how close to the full studio version I could get with only the AWE32 and a SoundFont of less than 512kb. And once again, I came away quite happy with the result. This is a very "folky/folklore" inspired piece with a weird synth-sound at the beginning that almost sounds like some sort of mouth-harp. Then a "native" style beat comes in and supports the very folky lead sound played with another strange sound, almost like a mixture of a bagpipe and a soprano sax. Or something to that effect. Once again, the full CD version is still best, but I think this sounds good for a PC soundcard.
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Electroglow [With SoundFont] (473K 5:06 m/s)
Yet another AWE32-reconstruction of a track from one of my CDs, this song is from my very latest album titled "The Void". It is quite dreamy and has a flow to it that I like. It also has a deep, booming bass and a certain "spaceness" to it that made me think of the name - "Electroglow".
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A Jetty on the Lake [With SoundFont] (409K 4:17 m/s)
This is the only one of my AWE32-songs in which I use a "sound effect" that is not a musical or instrumental sound as such, but the sound of a stream running through the forest and of ripples touching the sides of a small boat on a lake. The melody is simple, romantic and reassuring with acoustic guitar and flute.
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The Mist [With SoundFont, Note: 2 MB RAM on AWE32 required] (1910K 3:10 m/s)
Well at least memory-wise, this is my "biggest" attempt with the AWE32 so far. It uses a SoundFont that is almost 2 MB in size, so you will need to have 2 MB or more RAM installed on your AWE32 in order to hear this song. This song contains a lot of guitar, in fact there are more than 15 different guitar samples, which certainly helps make the guitar sound "real". I plugged my Stratocaster through a Peavey Rock Master pre-amp and into the AWE32, and made sure I sampled the guitar at various places on the neck and also sampled pull-off and hammer-on notes to get it to sound as realistic as possible. The song itself is a rather mean-spirited affair with a Metallica-like opening and a sort of Pink Floydian closing section.
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The Nightwatch [With SoundFont] (490K 6:28 m/s)
This track is inspired by 40's and 50's detective movies. Picture a big city street, late at night, the sounds of cars in the far distance but otherwise it's quiet. A lonely streetlight casts long shadows on the sidewalk, and on the 3rd floor, the window of a single room is lit, where Private Investigator John Farley squeezes the last drops out of the bottle and tries to get to the bottom of this latest case... :-)
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Relentless [With SoundFont] (562K 13:48 m/s)
This is a rather long track (about 13 minutes) that gets on it's track and keeps going and going and tries to pull you into it's slow groove. I have used MIDI controllers to slowly change the filter cutoff frequency on a couple of the instruments, to create a "flowing", almost analog sounding texture. There is a middle section in 7/8ths, something I've not heard before in a MIDI song, and there are also some parts where the synthbass does a 7/8ths groove while the drums underneath go about their business in 4/4, creating a polyrhythmic feel. The whole thing goes to a crescendo and a climax towards the end, with a revisit of the main theme in a grander arrangement than when it first appeared. The full CD/studio version of this song is on my latest CD "The Void".
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Zen Koan [With SoundFont] (495K 7:18 m/s)
This piece is a bit strange in that it is almost like a techno/ambient-track but it doesn't really follow any of the "rules" of techno/abmient music. It is far too slow, it doesn't have the open hihat on every 2 and 4 and it doesn't use the much clichéd techno/ambient scales. In spite of this, it almost sounds like a techno-track. Why, I have no idea.
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Be sure to load all SoundFont banks into user bank 1 via the AWE32 Control Panel.
Look here for instructions on
how to load SoundFonts.

Click PREVIEW to play back a segment of the composition in RealAudio 3.0

Click DOWNLOAD to download the composition.

Click here to visit Bjorn.


The above MIDI files are uploaded by a third party who has indicated that he or she has the right to do so. They have not been reviewed in any manner by Creative -- either for performance, for intellectual property rights issues, or for the lack of viruses. These files consist of songs that we are informed are completely original compositions by the following person. Creative Technology Ltd makes no representation or warranty as to the copyright or other intellectual property rights with respect to such user up-loaded files. Creative shall not be liable for damages of any kind relating to such rights. By opening and/or copying or using these files, you agree to the waiver of any liabilty relating thereto by Creative. For more information on these MIDI files, please write to the following email address.

Bjorn Lynne: Bjorn@team17.com


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