So, who is she?
My name is Madeeha. I’m a creative and arty woman with a geeky/nerdy side who’s always had a strong and vivid long term memory. This makes me very prone to feeling intense bouts of nostalgia, which is what seems to fuel my creativity and passion.
I love art and creativity, specifically in the form of music creation, photography and I used to paint with oils. I also enjoy electronics every now and then. My creativity always involves vintage computers in some way or form, especially with my music creation. When I say vintage computers, I refer mostly to the Commodore Amiga computer, which has a special place in my heart.
How it all began
Left to my own devices in childhood, I always had a strong curiosity about things around me, which made me end up with the most unusual interests. (Well “unusual” according to many around me). I never fully fit in and was always that quiet little girl sitting in the corner watching everyone. I’m still a people watcher and definitely have never been the conventional woman. This has it’s pros and cons in life, but, I am what I am.
I’ve always noticed and observed the simple little things in life, which were/are overlooked by most others. This has it’s pros and cons in life also.
The little geeky/nerdy things in life
The things I noticed when I was little. LED VU meters on our tape recorder back then, lava lamps, plasma balls/globes. Being very visual, lights that dance to music naturally appealed to me and are what first pulled me into my interest in electronics, merely because It made me want to create. That strong visual part of me that notices the little details, is probably why I later got into oil painting and later photography, in such a big way to the point of it being one of the things I studied at university.
With a childhood like that, my early to mid-teenage bedroom eventually ended up looking like this.
Well, this is just one variant, it changed a lot as my interests expanded or evolved or when I got something new. Below is when the main downstairs TV was passed onto me after we bought a new one, I took a photo of my cousin enjoying a game on the Playstation.
This was around 1999-ish. My goodness, I was just 16 or 17 years old and remember this like it was just a couple of years ago. This Panasonic stereo TV was my first experience of connecting my Amiga via RGB scart and I absolutely loved it. I miss these care free times!
Publishing creativity
In these photos, some of you, no doubt, will have noticed the multiple Amiga computers I had back then. (Two A1200s and an A600, my brother still had our old A500). The Commodore Amiga was a massive part of my childhood, teenage years and adult life. This computer has been a great influence in my life. Regretfully I was not active in taking part in the Amiga scene itself back in the day.
If I could go back in time and visit that shy teenage girl I was face to face, I would at the very least encourage her to submit her tracker music MODs to Amiga format or CU Amiga magazines. Or even to put them onto Aminet when I first had internet access at college. I loved CU Amiga and Amiga Format by the way, nothing can ever replace these Amiga magazines for me and nothing can top the feeling of going into town heading to WHSmith and checking out the latest Amiga Format or CU Amiga magazine.
Being non conventional, I unfortunately ended up shy, nerdy and selling myself way too short. Therefore not taking part in the scene earlier is a regret I have.
About being left to your own devices.
It’s good, it’s liberating, you have freedom to do things as you wish, but it has it’s down sides. Unfortunately, you’re not encouraged or told that you’ve done well at the tender ages where you need that warmth or that push to build confidence. As liberating as it can be on one hand. On the other hand, It also brings it’s hefty dose of uncertainty about oneself and life around you. The feeling is exaggerated further when your friends have totally different interests to you and you’re in a world where no one knows what to make of you. Where no one gets you and you have to keep it all to yourself.
My interests were unusual, I started messing about with electronics when I was around 6 or 7 years old. Messing with motors and small light bulbs out of broken toys, working them with bits of wire and old batteries. I eventually connected tiny light bulbs to headphone sockets and trying to make them light up to the music. It works by the way, if you have an amplifier strong enough but I wouldn’t recommend it on precious equipment.
Amiga MOD Music
By the time I was ten years old I had a small collection of components already. All stored in this big yellow bucket. Later on in my early teens, I started building little projects. One of my first ones was an Amiga stereo separation adjuster. I’ve always loved Amiga Music, in fact at one point, I used my Amiga as my main source of music.
I remember living and breathing Amiga MODs at that time. In high school times I’d rip mods from games and demos using the Amiga Action Replay II cartridge. The extremely wide stereo effect of the Amiga was uncomfortable to listen to in headphones. So I created a very simple little device back then that adjusted the stereo separation. I used this to record Amiga MODs onto cassette tape. This is a more recent (and much neater) revision of my stereo separation adjuster.
The wonderful college days
Ah memories of collecting music MODs. My first year in college where I first had internet access the first thing I thought about was finding more Amiga stuff. I’d download MODs, PD games and demos from Aminet, bring them home on 720k floppy disks. I’d then copy them across to my Amiga using CrossDos and have a lot of fun exploring them.
I’ve noticed people always look back to high school with fond memories. For me, however, college years were the best point of my life.
I studied electronics and technology there and a couple of the tutors were brilliant with me. They noticed me building projects in my lunch breaks and one in particular would sometimes spend a little time and encourage me. The only time in my life someone actually did that. I find myself reminiscing about my time there. My work experience was done there and I enjoyed that very much. The atmosphere was great and often wished I could work there. Remember those strong nostalgia pangs I’m prone to? I just got one now along with a few flash backs, thinking about this place.
My Music Creation
Now rewinding back to 1996 a little bit. Thanks to a certain issue of CU Amiga Magazine, which featured Soundtracker Pro II and this Amiga Music and FX book that came with it. I got into music creation when I created my first track, in 1996.
Spending hours and hours in front of the Amiga while sat on the carpet, writing music on Soundtracker Pro II. I can safely say the majority of my teenage years were spent with Amiga computers doing something or other on them.
This is what happens when you try to take a self portrait with a 35mm film point and shoot camera. I was way off though I caught the setup properly though. . Here’s me (or my hand) in 1996-ish. I must have been around 13 years old here.
And yes that is an Amstrad double decker VCR (with the front flaps broken off, just like in good ol Amstrad fashion!).
These images pretty much sum up my teen life in a nutshell. Each time in sat on the floor in front of the Amiga creating MODs on Soundtracker pro 2 and recording stuff onto tapes. That mouse mat and tapes I remember buying from Stationary Box.
The more recent years
I’m talking 2012 when I was 29 years old. I started expressing my nerdy/geeky interests a bit more outwardly. Coming out of a phase in life where I always felt the need to conceal my interests a bit throughout life to “fit in” because I felt people didn’t approve. I got the odd comment here and there. I’ve had a lifetime of people directly and indirectly telling me and showing me that I’m stupid and can’t do anything. Eventually. I just stopped caring just did what I do. You can only push someone so far before something cracks.
A regret of mine, I wish I had not cared and not listened to people’s bull$h!t and taken it to heart much earlier on. Better late than never I suppose. I started documenting what I did more by this time in 2012. Doing offline blogs and vlogs here and there. I still had that residual hesitation about myself and my work.
Life lessons I learned
I learned too late in life, If you have passions and interests and receive no encouragement or if you receive negativity, people discouraging you or mocking you underhandedly, just pursue it anyway.
Despite how nice and friendly I am to people, the usual drill is, they like me until the instant they find out my interests and that I’m actually a deep thinker, they get uncomfortable and it sometimes comes out in toxic ways sometimes.
There are people out there who consciously or subconsciously try to clip your wings and compress you into a box that fits their mindset. They try to “put you in your place” by mocking you being passive aggressive and invalidating you.
Back then, I feared their judgement. These days I just pity them. Only the weak suppress people into submitting to their false narrative. Only the weak downplay and trod over your creativity or talent and hinder your progress in order to elevate themselves.
This was again in 2012, the first time I had a proper work surface. Prior to this I’ve always been working on carpets, floors and dining tables temporarily. That’s the thing with me, once I get into something, I end up living and breathing it regardless of where I’m doing it.
I eventually started creating content on YouTube and other places online. As I wanted to share creativity with people and that’s how I have ended up here with experiences to share.
Thank you for reading through this, it was meant to be a simple “About me” but I never know how to introduce myself. So I just let it flow, opened up a little and started talking about my experiences, a little summary of my background 🙂
