Scene Zine Monthly for July 16th, 2003 [Issue #4]

Published By Scene Rep

The Monthly Ramble
By Patrick Groove

Most of us are extremely busy with either keeping up on our personal projects or working for every cent we can get. However we still find the time and the will to bring you yet another issue with useful information.

You'll notice I've started displaying user feedback. While we have had arm loads of email since our launch I've held back until we had some real exposure and time for you to trust us. We encourage you now to email us your comments so that we can serve you better.

It's becomming more and more exciting to be a rep at Scene Rep and a writter for Scene Zine. As I told you last month we are involved in projects across the scene beyond our monthly zine commitment (and yes I'll tell you more soon). However we still can't get enough help. If you wish to contribute in any way then again, contact us and we'll get back to you!

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Reader FeedBack

Hi Drq!

Thank you a lot for the funky brains feature in the newest scene zine edition. I was especially happy about the attention you gave to "Djinn". Yes, I admit it. I really shouldnt sing. I love to sing, but my voice is rather... unique ;P , but I tend to sing anyway. My sister told me that if I'd ever sing again she'd kill me with a baseball bat. :) The chorus od "Djinn" was meant to be sung by a professional female singer I know in this city, but she was on vacation by the time the deadline for SMC approached. I had in mind letting her sing the chorus in two overlaying soprano voices. If I ever re-release this tune played by a band, this will be the way to go.

-Gargoyle of Funky Brains

To The Editor

I'm known as mados/TAP, ex-main editor of the German demoscene diskmag WildMag, now supporting PAiN. I'm publishing a CD called "DiskMag-Pack" including almost all slightly relevant diskmags ever released.

I want to include a copy of your "Scene Zine" on the CD. So the question is: Am I allowed to do this? It would be a nice improvement of the CD. It's easy to do a wget'ed copy of the zine so the only thing I need is your permission.

Additionaly: Do you want to write something about the magazine by your own? Ofcourse, I will write that part if you don't mind.

-Mados

Send us your feedback!!!

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Impulse Tracker 3 Report
By Patrick Groove

Most people in the demoscene see Impulse Tracker 3 as a dead and gone project. I couldn’t agree more, however the many of the advances that were made in its development may still play a role in upcoming software releases. My intent through this article is to display where the IT3 project began, where it left off, and where the technology is still going. This story is one of dreams that tore a rift through working colleagues and shows an example of how anti-promotion can hurt an original intent.

It was in 2001 that I had my first hand glimpse into the world of Impulse Tracker 3. After giving a less than forgiving public review of DSPAudio’s Pulse Player a gentleman from the company contacted me by the name of Anthony Bisset, which we now know of as Tony Allen. I took the opportunity to interview him about DSPAudio’s involvement in IT3.

"The Impulse Tracker 3 project aims to revolutionize Impulse Tracker 2 and the tracking world again", he told me in that interview. "Impulse Tracker 3 is not just an updated version of Impulse Tracker 2. It is a commercial product intended to compete directly with Pro-Tools, Digital Performer, Cubase, Acid, and Logic". He would go on to tell me that Impulse Tracker 3 was dead lined for late 2001 and would be MAC compatible in early 2002.

At that time I had no concept of Impulse Tracker 3’s beginning’s and was ignorant of the general misinformation which was being bred within the company. It turns out that a group called Unreal began both the IT3 project in 1998 and also registered DSPAudio while they worked in conjunction with a German company. The original intent would be for Impulse Tracker 3 to be freeware. That was until Tony Allen and some other unnamed individuals offered to invest. For the next two years Tony Allen would base his operations with DSPAudio, would begin the IT3 project over again, would split resources between Impulse Tracker 3 and Pulse Player, and begin FLAW. Unfortunately when you come into a project, try to own it, and then expect results with limited resources, you can find yourself short handed. At the time when the MAC version was to come out for IT3 the two parties parted and the deadline for IT3 was considered indefinite. There is currently no public downloads of the progress up to this point. It was shortly after that DSPAudio washed its hands of IT3 and Unreal announced its current involvement.

Unreal Today:

Unreal continues to develop Pulse Player and an audio/video engine called Enigma. These two projects are supposedly funded by Orcave Communication Systems. While Pulse Player continues to be a freeware project it is unknown when the plans for Enigma will come forward. Currently both projects are being beta tested with Pulse Player making significant gains towards a final version. Enigma seems to be something that will be integrated into future software packages and utilizes Outer Visual Engine (OVE) library which was also present in IT3 development. As far as I can see from the Unreal website, Enigma has also been integrated with Pulse Player.

DSPAudio Today:

Their current gravy is FLAW which on its own is an audio sequencing program much like Buzz Tracker. While they claim that it is in no way the next Impulse Tracker program it could be dubbed IT4. FLAW was announced shortly after DSPAudio under Tony Allen restarted IT3. It can be expected that many of the technologies that went into IT3 will be in FLAW. DSPAudio used to feature the former version of Pulse Player until Unreal was out of the picture and now boasts the completion of a Linux audio driver. Their website states that FLAW will be released in 2004 due to it being behind schedule.

Further Personal Remarks:

In my humble opinion Impulse Tracker 3 could have been finished years ago if it wasn’t for a commercial push to complete the product. Now we can expect that Impulse Tracker 3 will never be a reality. Not all hope is lost though. Just as the Fast Tracker 3 project died the scene has seen software like Skale rise out of the ashes. The question that should be asked is whether or not the scene really needs another tracker which is based on old school technologies. Personally I’m happy to see Unreal getting their priorities straight and finding new markets for their applications such as Enigma for example. On the other side of the spectrum if FLAW is ever completed I’m sure we can expect a paid for system much like Renoise. It should also be noted that distrust in any organization is counterproductive and leads to the failure of projects. The scene has seen a number of failed projects and it’s time to learn from those failures.

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Demos Exposed
By Christofori

Greetings yet again! This month brings three great demos along for your viewing pleasure, as well as a few changes to this column. Namely, I've decided to drop the "scoring" system for several reasons, and I'm also previewing all demos on a secondary machine. Hopefully, you'll all like the changes; I feel they'll help to bring this segment to you as a more effective and valuable resource. Without further ado, here are this month's demos!

System Information:
1)AMD Athlon XP 2100+ system with 512MB of RAM, a GeForce 4 MX-440 video card, Sound Blaster Live! Platinum, and Windows XP Professional.
2) AMD Athlon 950 with 256MB of RAM, a PCI GeForce2-MX video card, onboard sound, and Windows 2000.

Red Line by Condense & Mandarine

This demo's got some good effects and great music. The overall look of the demo is kind of like an oldskool film; the effect is provided by some grainy textures overlayed on the screen to make the whole thing seem like it's on old film. The effect is good, but it would be even better if it could appear more random. The demo focuses on three or four red lines flying overhead through several scenes.

On the technical side of things, the demo ran without a hitch on both of the review systems. On startup you're given the option to run in full-screen or windowed mode, which is great. There didn't seem to be any noticable glitches onscreen on either system, and the music played without a hitch. The music's got a great beat and is full of energy; it provides a good sense of energy for the demo. Perhaps the entire thing would be more artistic if the music were a bit scratchy, too; like sound reels from the old films.

El Bourrrinos by Marshals

This one's a good 3D demo with a block-guy that likes to headbang. The colors used are all almost simplistic, but the overall look and feel of this demo is pretty good. There's a good balance of 3D stuff, and even a moment or two that seem to have been inspired by Anime. The music is pretty loud, like something you'd find in a club; which is probably why the block-guy gets out and wakes up his friends. :)

The technical side of this demo still looks pretty good. There are startup choices of full screen or windowed mode, as well as several different resolutions to choose from. All choices seemed to do well on my main machine, but on the secondary reviewing machine, things could get bogged down at times, even at lower resolutions. Also, when a character moves close to the fore, he becomes more and more pixilated or blocky. However, this demo moves at an impressive pace, and really seems to do well for the most part. It looks like some outstanding work!

0010 1010 by Federation Against Nature

This one's a rather interesting black and white abstract piece. Things being 'on' or 'off' seem to be central to the theme of this one (you might have guessed from the title). For instance, the first scene shows off a binary clock made of rings; really cool! Anyway, there are some really complex forms and figures in this one, and the attention to detail is great; there are clouds reflecting from some of the figures' surfaces. The 'end' for me, no matter which option or system I went with, was rather sudden; I'm not sure if that was intended, or if the demo actually stopped prematurely. The music is pretty far out, too; it fits the 'data' aspect of the demo, and a few times I was reminded of the old dot matrix printers, as some parts of the music sounded like that to me. Great and interesting work in this one.

On the technical side, this one looks great. The opening menu provides loads more choices than most average demos out there, including resolution, shadows, and 16/32 bit depth modes. You should be aware, however, that this demo appears to require DirectX version 8; most of you should already have that, or the newer version 9.0a, already. At any rate, I didn't notice any hiccups or hangs, apart from being unsure of the ending. However, being that it ended the same way exactly on both systems, I'm banking that the demo was designed to end as it does. Pressing ESC returns control of the system at any rate. Overall, this one's great, though it has a strange ending.

That's it for this month. Please don't forget that I'm accepting requests for demos to review; I've even got one or two lined up for next month's segment. In the mean time, keep watching those demos; you know I will.

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The Compression Conundrum? (Or "Why I use OGGs over MP3s")
By Libris

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the tracking scene is now making significant changes in the way it operates. The change has come around because of a number of different reasons, one being the introduction of and consequent desire for VST plugins, and the other the change that many have made to the XP Operating System, which of course, is a DOS user's nightmare. There are many others, but these are the main ones as far as I can see, and they have forced trackers to explore new software possibilities and expand on their repetoir of techniques. Some are understandably out of their comfort zone, but others are surging forward, one thing is for certain though; open source modules are getting scarcer by the day.

Trackers today, have at their fingertips a plethora of new toys ranging from inbuilt softsynths to DSP and VST effects and instruments. Software such as this is allowing our sound to get to new levels but has also crushed the desire and ability for trackers to release their music in open-source module formats. For starters for someone to correctly play the module they would need all of the same VST effects that the composer used in it, this could cause all sorts of size issues, not to mention potential legal hassles! Softsynths and effects often take up copious amounts of precious CPU use too (due to their shockingly lazy coding one source insists to me) so a module which may run smoothly on the composer's computer, may run awfully, or not at all on the listener's. In other words, releasing open-source music made with 'next generation' trackers is a pain. So what do we do? We compress the music of course, to a cold, static format such as MP3 or OGG, formats which lack the vibrancy and life of open source music, but which make up for in efficiency and compatibility.

I'm willing to bet that the majority of electronic musicians out there don't actually give much of a thought to what format they compress their music in. The majority would probably compress it in MP3 format; quick and easy, and after all, everyone's got an mp3 player. Whilst the MP3 format is undoubtedly still the most popular audio compression format for the online composer is it really the best one? Well I say no. People who know me also know that I'm a fairly ardent supporter of the MP3 format's biggest rival: OGG Vorbis. Despite the rather quirky name more suited to a Terry Pratchett novel, the OGG format has made quite a place for itself, and has a number of advantages over the MP3 format - all of which can be appreciated by the underground musician.

For starters the OGG format is both open source, and patent and license free. The MP3 format is licensed to the Fraunhofer Company, which means that if you were to sell your music in the MP3 format then you would legally owe Fraunhofer a small percentage of each sale. Most people don't realise this, or don't care because they probably won't sell their music in a lossy format such as MP3 anyway, but it's the principle of the thing that counts as far as I'm concerned.

Size-wise the OGG format often wins, with slightly better compression without the loss of sound quality, the size difference is by no means huge, but there is a difference in most cases. I'll be the first to admit that I'm no sound engineer, my ears are far from perfect and I doubt if I had my eyes closed that I'd be able to tell the difference between a well encoded MP3 and an OGG so I'm not going to tell you that your music is going to sound any better, but it should sound better for it's filesize.

Another handy feature of the OGG format is the comment header. The feature is similar to that in many tracker programs whereby the composer/encoder can write notes about the song, this gives it a far more personal feel and can help in promotion also. Because the OGG format is both open source and royalty/patent free it is a constant work in progress, at present it still lacks widespread support and there is no standalone player. This may seem like a disadvantage, but newer versions of Winamp (and just about any other player - including XMPlay) are now bundled with plugins that support the playback of Vorbis files so reaching your target audience shouldn't really be a problem at all. Due to it's free nature, software developers are able to take advantage of the features of the OGG Vorbis format with ease. Say for example the coder of a new tracker wanted to implement a system whereby a song could be rendered straight to MP3 (bypassing a straight .WAV render), that coder would have to pay the Fraunhofer Company money in order to implement such a system, with the OGG system however, they wouldn't have to pay a cent.

Some people still swear by MP3s, that's fine, some say they handle lower frequencies better than OGG files, while OGG files handle higher frequencies better, whether this is true or not, I really couldn't say, I'm no expert - but I think having a royalty free, open source project is important. The MP3 format is about 15 years old now, and while still useful is bundled with a whole lot of legal implications. The choice is clear in my mind.

And so ends a rather biased article, I would be quite interested to hear from people who disagree with my viewpoint. If I get enough intelligent replies I will publish them in next month's issue for further discussion. Contact me here.

For more info on OGG Vorbis files, including encoders go here.

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Monthly Scene Music Reviews
By drq

After listening to mars radio hits, volume 1 (see the third review for more info), I started going through my collection of older funkymuskrat/Stalker songs, and realized how much his music has meant to me through the years. Although three short reviews can’t do justice to his extensive and varied catalogue, I felt I wanted to share some of my reflections with you out there. These are three of my favourite songs by Ariel Gross, one from his Stalker era and two released under his current epithet, funkymuskrat.

Atlantis

This one’s from ‘95, and probably one of my favourite s3m tunes ever. Funkymuskrat was known as Stalker back in those days and was one of the five musicians in Five Musicians.

What gives this tune its special feel is undoubtedly the thickly layered pads and the dense, driving rhythm section. The melodies function more as a complement to the arrangement, rather than the other way around; they’re a part of the whole. They’re not the main ingredient, just interesting seasoning. It works very nicely, actually.

At about 1:45 there’s a tempo shift, and it’s done with a taste and sense of timing you seldom encounter in modules nowadays. The songs slows down, yet doesn’t lose any of the energy that’s been building up. There’s a feeling of elevation, as if the song is finally “taking off”, having found what it was looking for. From here it never looks back, and soon comes to a gentle closing. Simply brilliant.

Download .s3m (256 kb)

Laugh

This is funkymuskrat’s take on Hunz’s rap number “Laugh”. I definitely prefer it to the original, and it’s one of the few rap songs I actually listen to on a regular basis. It was released on Hellven in 2001.

“Laugh” starts out with a mid tempo beat that’s nothing too extravagant, although respectably groovy. It supports the rapping nicely. But it’s not until the reggae-style chords and the bassline joins in that the song really gets started. The bass in particular stands out – this is a composer who knows to use silence as well as sound, because the spaces in between notes are as important as the notes themselves. He’s not afraid to hold back and let the silence speak. I’ve noticed this in many of his basslines, although perhaps not in the other two tunes I’m reviewing here. (Check for example his song “Inphinity”, a co-op with Clover, also released on Hellven and part of the milky.way EP.)

The organ chords in the chorus are also a highlight. The progression might come across as a bit unexpected at first – at least it did to me – but it makes sense after a while, and then you wouldn’t want it any other way.

I don’t like rap in general, but I like this piece. Maybe you will too.

Download .mp3 (2.6 mb)

Numbers 7 and 7 and 7

This is very recent stuff, and the song that triggered my writing these three reviews. It’s part of mars radio hits, volume 1 – a set of electronic tunes displaying various degrees of experimentalism and with quite a unique overall feel. Some of these songs are pretty hard to digest perhaps, so this piece is a good place to start. It’s probably the least “weird” song among them. Composers are Funkymuskrat and Ramenboy.

The intro consists of a fairly commonplace beat and a chord sequence. Then the sound kind of opens up, if you will; it becomes wider and cleaner. The production is nothing short of brilliant. In spite of a rather sparse arrangement and no obvious melodic theme, it doesn’t feel like something’s been left out. Everything is balanced so nicely it’s an absolute joy to listen to; very easy on the ears. Sometimes it’s nice to listen to music like that.

One notable thing is the use of triplets (please correct me if that’s the wrong term) for the synth line. It creates a really nice effect, using two simultaneous tempos like that, and lends the song something of an eerie edge. Moreover, while the beat offers no real surprises, the bassline certainly is worth a mention. It adds a lot of liveliness with its nimble leaps across the octaves. The piano which joins in towards the end is really nice as well.

Every once in a while you find a song that does a wonderful job being exactly what it tries to be; nothing more, and nothing less. This is such a song.

Download .mp3 (3.4 mb) as well as the rest of the album at http://www.spoomusic.com/

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