cRu Issue 44
March, 2003 / / / /
325 Subscribers World Wide // / / / /
Tale Of Contents
Opening:
Message From the Editor
Letters From Our Readers
Features:
A Proposal: The Scene Resource Union
From OldSkewl to NewSkewl - Making the Great Tracker Switch
Reviews:
Music:
In Tune -- Fine by In Tense
The Lineup -- Monthly Music Listings
Guest Music Review -- May by Melvyl review by Valzihjken
Demo:
Screen Lit Vertigo -- Planet Loop and Darkstar
Opinion / Commentary:
Editorial -- Revolution or Refinement
Link List: Get Somewhere in the Scene
Closing: Staff and Contact Information
Message From the Editor
Last month, Novus interviewed Saurin Myterium Shah, the former
webmaster of Trax In Space. Much to my surprise, it really attracted a
lot of attention. Between Novus and myself, we recieved between 15 and
20 messages. Honestly, we rarely recieve more than 5. Its stirred up
several debates, and lots of discussion, to say the least. Some, but
not all, of your messages have been published this month. They can be
found in our Letters section.
The interview also brought me to finally collect my thoughts on the
matter of the scene resource condition. I have an interesting proposal
for all you site webmasters out there. Youll want to read my proposal
in this months features.
Well, weve got a great issue for you this month. I appreciate all the
outside contributions for articles this month. Aside from our normal
columns, youll find an extra music review by Valzihjken and a feature
article about modern tracking programs by Psitron. We hope you enjoy
this months issue.
Until Next month!
--Coplan
Letters From Our Readers
-- A Message from Patrick Groove --
That was a great interview. It was good to see ethical scene reporting
and a search for the truth. I hope that when people read that interview
they take away with them a sense of the sacrifice some of our fellow
sceners make in bringing services to us everyday. As far as I can see
the administrators of popular scene websites have indeed looked to the
Trax In Space example in their daily operations. Keep up your spirit and
excitement, Vince!
--Patrick Groove
United Trackers
-- A Message from Mister X --
Great work on your interview with Saurin! Im glad he finally came out
to speak on the issue, as none of the others involved felt it was our
place to.
--Mister X
-- A Message from Kosmos with comments from Novus --
Just read your article with Mysterium.. Interesting stuff. Of course no
one is going to criticize himself, so ... there are a lot of things hes
leaving out... Like the fact that he always wanted to profit from it -
went to investors, took up a loan, next thing you know, he had an office
where he purchased himself nice computers along with a leather chair.
All was written off in taxes as his business expense. His 1 Goal was
HIS SUCCESS - he was a business major. We butted heads against that one.
Sceners and music was maybe 3, somewhere along the line. And yes,
regardless what he says 2 was money.
Growth is NOT the reason the site went down. Poor management is.
You will say, Sure, you dont have servers and bandwidth to pay for.
And Ill reply I have purposely thought of that, and have decided
against it, because I foresaw the future. People may snicker at that,
but UT went up right when Hornet was sinking. And TiS went up after
Hornet has sunk.
I dont have any beef with Mysterium now, but in the past I really did.
Especially when we both had big plans together, but all he ended up
doing was stealing my ideas and publishing them on his site. Anyway, I
dont want to bad mouth the guy, he took a hard hit. And Im glad that
you finally let the scene know what really happened through his words.
--Kosmos
United Trackers
-- Reply from Novus --
Actually, we covered all that. Except for the leather chair bit, but
whatever. I mentioned in my intro that his goal was profitability, and
that kept coming up in the interview as well. He made no attempt to
hide that. But a person can have multiple reasons for doing something,
some selfish and some altruisitc, often at the same time, and he
brought up the altruistic motives as well.
Growth is NOT the reason the site went down. Poor management is.
He admitted as such. When I point-blank asked him what went wrong, he
said, It actually mimics the dot-com busts. Too much cash going out,
not enough coming in to support the operations. He also admitted to
numerous bad decisions that he made. And Id say letting a site grow
too fast is a perfect example of poor management.
Never underestimate the power of pre-planning.
--Novus
A Proposal: The Scene Resource Union
By: Coplan
Last months interview with Msyterium yielded a lot of debates and
discussions about the state of the demoscene. On a personal level, I
cannot stand by without saying anything, and my normal editorial column
isnt enough.
Now, the title of this article might throw some people off. I dont for
a minute believe that the demoscene needs a reformation. On the
contrary, weve got quite a healthy population of musicians, coders,
artists, what-have-you. But its a bit bottom-heavy, and thats the
problem. This isnt a debate as you may find in my typical editorial
column. This is partially a defense for SceneSpot and partially a
proposal.
First, the defense:
When I started SceneSpot, at least in concept, I was still in college.
I had a lot of time, a lot of energy and a lot of crazy ideas. I
started making friends and tried as hard as I could to get the help I
needed. As it turned out, the only help I needed up front was someone
to get the ball rolling thanks Ranger Rick and someone to provide
server space for me again, thanks Ranger Rick. And while I still have
a lot of time and effort going into the project, I still feel as though
Im pretty lucky. But Im one person. Im not a group, and sometimes
my efforts are looked upon as copy-cat material. While SceneSpot shares
some similarities with other sites, it is unique in its presentation and
goals. Believe me when I say that the current version of SceneSpot is
only a mere shadow of what SceneSpot can and will be one day.
So enough about that...whats this proposal?
What I propose is not entirely easy to comprehend. Nor is it something
that is very easy to pull off. I havnt figured out exactly how
everything could be done in the first place, but the scene needs some
order in its resource sites. And this is the best solution albeit an
incomplete one that I can come up with.
Too many people try to change the scene. The reality is that the scene
evolves. And the resources that belong to it also revolve. And once
again, someones always looking to change them. One of the faults of
TiS is the fact that it tried to change the scene. Not good, as you
have seen its outcome. But thats not bashing mysterium or his works.
His work has paved the way for future scene contributors. You can argue
with me on that point, but theres really very little to argue.
So how does one deal with an ever-changing set of resources? One lets
Darwin take over. Naturally, the demoscene and its resources is about
surival of the fittest. But were not talking creatures here, and the
one thing that is overlooked in all this is that there arent enough
top-level contributors as it is. How many millions of people are
involved in the demoscene today, and what very small percentage are
willing or have the skills to run a website? Well, if Johny Demoscenes
site dies, hes going to go with it. Ive watched it happen hundreds of
times. We dont just loose his site, we loose his talents and skills.
THAT cannot happen if we expect to keep everything organized in a way
that makes the scene thrive. For those of you familiar with American
History, youll notice that this is very similar to the Labor disputes
of the late 1700s and early 1800s. This is why Unions were formed.
Why dont we form a Scene Resource Union?
Worry not, Im not saying we have dues or anything like that -- at least
not in the traditional sense. We simply make users fully aware of our
affiliates and what resources they might offer. As our sites evolve,
theirs evolves as well. Site A might decide to phase out its news
handling, while Site B might decide to focus on news handling.
Theres no hole, as Site A refers users to Site B for news. But
Site A has a wonderful forum, so users get referred to it as well.
Overlapping is inevitable, and it would of course be acceptable. Our
goal is not to compete with each other, rather benefit from the
awareness that the others bring us, and we return the favor by making
our users aware of their resources.
The first step, of course, would be to see whos interested. If youre
at all interested, send me a message coplan@scenespot.org and tell me
your thoughts. Ill be forming a mailing list if there is enough
interest and well begin talking about the way this could all work out.
I have a lot more mapped out than I have written here. I wont go into
too much detail at this point, as it is all just an idea at this point.
But I do have many ideas that, even if they arent materialized, might
help to benefit the scene in any way we can offer them. If nothing
else, we might pool our resources and develop a centralized index of
scene resources think Yahoo where the Scene Resource Union members can
maintain a catalog of members sites.
Again, if youre interested, send me a message: coplan@scenespot.org
--Coplan
From OldSkewl to NewSkewl
Making the Great Tracker Switch
By: Psitron
Admittedly I have been out of the scene loop for a while. Call it what
you will, but I have unfortunately been busy with life to do much else,
tracking or otherwise. But I have finally found some time to get back to
my tracking needs Im not all whole unless I track : and, in the
process, have finally made the plunge from what I will call oldskewl
trackers to the new, modern trackers that many composers now use. I
thought, as a result, that I might walk through this somewhat daunting
conversion for you, showing the differences and features from the old
verses new skewl trackers.
Of course, quite a few musicians have opted to go to a full-fledge music
sequencing program like Cubase or Cakewalk. And while they are wonderful
programs, they are rather expensive and undoubtedly require some sort of
hardware that can require quite an investment. Do not get me wrong, my
personal opinion is that hardware can be rather important when composing
music, using a tracker or otherwise. And though the advantages and
disadvantages are out of the scope of what I intend on talking about
here, suffice to say, as wonderful as hardware is, it is usually costly.
As a result, the tracker is still a viable piece of software if one does
not yet want to take the plunge into full blown sequencing. And, of
course, if you must go to sequencing, but do not want to loose the
tracking interface, there are always things like ShakeTracker, zTracker,
etc. that allows one to do sequencing from within a tracking interface.
Though, from reading the forums on SceneSpot, it seems that they do not
compare to the professional sequencing packages - if you can afford it.
For whatever reason, for those that feel they still want to use a
tracker but are unable to use DOS, it may be time to try ones hand at
the newer tracking software that is available today. There are many
options, most of which run under Windows. An unfortunate circumstance
for the Linux die-hards: looks like youre going to have to keep your
system dual-booted or build a Windows box as I have yet found a windows
tracking program that runs reliably under WINE - if anyone has, drop me
a line. There has yet to be a stable tracking solution for Linux other
than Sound Tracker or CheeseTracker which, unfortunately, is *still*
buggy and not yet a viable alternative to Impulse Tracker, in my
opinion - both of which do not have the new features that modern
trackers have. Who knows, however, perhaps we will get lucky one of
these days :
In any case, the vast amount of features in todays trackers are quite
nice and definitely worth looking into, no matter what OS you prefer to
run. Many support features such as VST effect and instrument plugins,
multiple effect columns, modular designs as in the case with Psycle and
BuzzTracker, etc. The interfaces have also been refined, some offering
an entirely new interface while others build upon existing interfaces,
like the Fast Tracker 2 interface. Unfortunately, for musicians that
prefer the Scream Tracker / Impulse Tracker interface you may be out of
luck as I have not yet found a modern tracker that successfully
implements this interface to an acceptable degree, though many do offer
some of IT shortcuts and similar effect-symbols Axx, Bxx, Dxy, etc..
I personally have chosen to use Renoise which does a wonderful job of
extending the existing FT2 style interface to include many wonderful
enhancements though it does fall short of the FT2 interface by not
including Nibbles : As a result, I will be concentrating largely on
Renoise for the duration of this article. Be forewarned, however, the
free version offered is missing some enhancements, notably ASIO and
WAV-out support which I will explain in depth later. If you are
looking for a 100 free program that is similar to Renoise, I would
suggest trying out Sk@le Tracker, which offers many of the features that
Renoise has plus a few of its own - though it is currently still in
beta.
I come from a Scream Tracker background - it was what I started tracking
shortly before going to Impulse Tracker. As a result, switching from
that type of interface to Renoise was a bit daunting at first, largely
because of the differences in keyboard shortcuts and navigation. I find
myself using the mouse more than I honestly would prefer - one of the
noticeable characteristics of an FT2-based interface. Though after a few
weeks of playing around with it, I have grown quite accustomed to the
FT2-based interface and enjoy the amount of information that is present
on the screen at once. I also enjoy the hexadecimal representation of
pattern lines and effect amounts, which give a more cleaner appearance.
A volume level of 64 in Impulse Tracker is simply 40 in Renoise - 32 is
20, etc. I do still miss the Impulse Tracker interface sometimes,
however - I suspect many die hard IT users will probably feel the same
way. Nonetheless, to get the extra features available in the current
generation of trackers, one will have to go through a learning process,
no matter which tracking program is used.
Aside from utilizing the FT2 interface, Renoise is chock full of
enhancements that make the switch well worth the effort. One of them is
the ability to have multiple note and effect columns per track which
allows a much more complex array of effects that can be applied to a
track as well as the ability to apply those effects to multiple notes. I
have found this helps when one wants to apply effects to a chord
progression, like a volume slicer to get that cool trancey sound : It
also helps to structure ones song a bit better and makes the pattern
data cleaner.
One of the interesting concepts that has been implemented into Renoise
is a sort of effects stack. Not only is one able to use the standard set
of effect like volume fade, re-trigger, etc. one is also able to use a
series of included DSP effects, any number of which can be applied to a
certain track. The number of effects per track is only limited by ones
processor of which Renoise does take up a pretty large part of. The
interesting thing is that these effects can effect each other, depending
on how they are arranged within the effect stack. This is much like how
Buzz Tracker and Psycle allow one to use effects, only in Renoise it is
presented in a more trackerish way.
It gets cooler, too! Renoise has implemented a tracker envelope system
which allows one to be able to modify the DSP effects using a series of
linear or curved envelopes. This allows a much greater degree of control
and speed at which effects can be created in a track, which is
especially helpful when using a filter. It also keeps the pattern
effect columns free. The only down side I have found is that it is not
possible to string the envelopes over a series of orders, at least that
I am aware of, making it a bit of a pain when working with a lead over
more than one pattern, or when fading the song out, etc. You can save
the envelope into a preset and then simply apply the preset to the
tracks and orders that you want to have the effect, though I would like
to see a better way of doing this and it still doesnt solve the problem
of wanted a very slow fade-out, or something similar. Nonetheless, this
is a rather unique and welcomed feature that I have found to be very
useful.
As I said before, Renoise also implements VST effects and instruments,
allowing one to go beyond using pure samples to create songs. This is
particularly helpful if one is without a hardware-based synth or wants a
particular sound not found in ones own sample library or synth. One of
the largest benefits of using VST instruments is that the sound is
generated on the fly, meaning there is no loss of quality like one may
find when using a sample especially at low or high octaves. There is
also a vast amount of plugins out there, many of which are inexpensive
or even free. Renoises DSP also works with VST instruments, though I
was rather surprised to find out that the standard tracker effects like
the volume slicer and note slide effects do not work. I was even unable
to change the volume that the VST plugins were played at from within the
pattern. Worse still, there is no way that I have been able to find to
be able to modify the plugins parameters from within the pattern-data.
Also be warned - the quality of these plugins varies considerably and
many cannot compare the easy of use and quality that many hardware
synths provide. Despite the drawbacks, I have found that they do come
in handy, and many current-generation trackers, not just Renoise, have
implemented at least partial support for VST plugins. And they certainly
do help when you just want to play around with ideas or are trying to
find a particular kind of sound.
The last feature that I would like to bring to light is a greater
support for the MIDI interface. MIDI has been supported in trackers for
quite some time, though many modern trackers are supporting ASIO and
MIDI-clock timing as well, allowing low-latency MIDI messages to be sent
to and from hardware equipment. In all honestly, I have yet to try this
myself in anything but Impulse Tracker and Buzz. This is due in large
part to the fact that I myself have yet to have much in the realm of
equipment and am currently running Renoise almost exclusively on my
laptop, which has no conventional MIDI connection : Though I do expect
Renoise as well as other modern trackers to have better support for MIDI
than was present with IT and FT2. One of the features of Renoise that I
wish to try is the ability to sync to MIDI hardware which would allow
one to be able to compose in both Renoise and on sampling equipment and
synths which sounds very interesting indeed. From what I hear, however,
do not expect Renoise to be up to par with professional sequencers,
though for those just getting into hardware, wanting to use a sampler,
or just wish to enter notes via a real keyboard, Renoise should work
wonderfully.
All in all, I have been very impressed with Renoise, after reviewing the
large amount of trackers available. Though, since many of the features
in Renoise are supported in other current-generation trackers and since
some support things that Renoise doesnt, I suggest you make your own
decision. One of the things that I have been impressed about with these
modern trackers is the diversity of interfaces that are available. It
seems like it is the FT2 vs IT argument all over again, only worse :
Therefore, I encourage you to find the one that fits what you are
looking for in a tracker best. Many swear by Buzz, some by Psycle,
others are still using ModPlug Tracker while others may still be using
Impulse Tracker, and perhaps a select few might still be using ModEdit.
: If you do want a newer tracker, however, do expect to do some
learning and some experimenting no matter what you pick. I believe that
you will find it is well worth the change. And though even I will
probably never let go of Impulse Tracker especially for the Mod Compos
: I am personally quite glad I broadened my own horizons - it has
helped my music immensely
--PsiTron
In Tune
Fine by In Tense
By: Coplan
-- Introduction --
In my quest to find new, good music, I am sometimes strayed by fancy
effects or truly high-quality samples. I sometimes feel as though Ive
been attracted by the features as opposed to the context. Sometimes
its for the best, as I wouldve never discovered Quasimojo if I werent
on my MIDI kick a few months ago.
So I wandered back to the Chill Productions website to discover two very
interesting details. First was the fact that Quasimojo has a few tunes
in a Lesbian Porn flick visit Chills website to download those tunes:
http://www.chillproductions.com. Second was that theres this guy, In
Tense, thats been shelling out tunes like mad. I havnt seen a release
rate on anyone like this in a long time. Curious got the best of me,
and I grabbed a bunch of his tunes. One of them caught my ear: Fine.
-- Fine by In Tense --
If chip tunes were to ever have a more current, higher quality sound,
this song would be the benchmark. The song is in MP3 format, so I know
very little of how it was created. I can only imagine that this stuff
is all synthesized with something like Renoise or Psycle or Buzz. These
arent chips, to say the least, but you get that sort of overall
feel. Either that, or you took a trip back to the 80s.
But thats not why this tune caught my ear. In general, its a very
simple tune with a simple, repetative base line, and some trance pads
floating in and out of the song. Theres a break beat and a few rest
periods in the song. In fact, you could almost sing some Dead or Alive
lyrics to the tune Anyone else remember that 80s band, or am I really
that old now?. As I was saying in my intro, we often overlook tunes
such as this because of their chippy feel, or simple patterns, or
what-not. For whatever reason...this one didnt slip through the
cracks.
Back in the day, more traditional styles of music are always discussed
talking about movements, or at least a logical order. You always had an
A part, followed by a B part, then the C part the corus which was
followed by a D part, then maybe back to the C part, then the E part e
for end finished up the tune. Its not so easy to talk about music
this way anymore with all these modern styles. I like to think of some
more modern electronic styles as a pool of Oil. And someone is
putting different colors of water in the oil. It doesnt blend, and it
swirls around, ever changing as the outside forces inflicts movement on
it. This tune is very similar to that. The Oil, in this case, is the
the base line and the percussion section. Theyre fairly consisten
throughout the song. But there are all sorts of different colors of
water that keep swirling around this core. Its really quite amazing to
hear with headphones as well, as it really feels like parts are moving
around your head.
This is one of those tunes where you can get so much out of it by
listening to it in different ways. At lower volumes, its very
relaxing and soothing. It would be a good ambient peice at that point.
But if you turn it up, you cant help but to gasp at the dynamics. Its
definately not an ambient style with volume.
And there is so much going on. You cant place any sort of melody.
There is one part where there is a trance pad off to the right side that
plays one thing somewhere in the middle-upper octaves. And another
trance pad starts playing something else in a much higher octave way off
to the left. The parts are so different, its almost chaotic. But it
fits together perfectly. At what would seem like random points, they
hit the exact same note, and then bounce off onto their chaos again.
All the while the percussion and the base line are doing their own sort
of counter-point.
If you cant tell, this is really a difficult song to describe. Youll
just have to go download it yourself.
Song Information:
Title: Fine
Author: In Tense
Release date: August 22, 2002
Length: 6:32
File Size: 8.6 MB
Source: http://www.chillproductions.com
--Coplan
In Tune is a regular column dedicated to the review of original and
singular works by fellow trackers. It is to be used as a tool to expand
your listening and writing horizons, but should not be used as a general
rating system. Coplans opinions are not the opinions of the Static
Line Staff.
If you have heard a song you would like to recommend either your own,
or another persons, We can be contacted through e-mail useing the
addresses found in the closing notes. Please do not send files attached
to e-mail without first contacting us. Thank you!
The Lineup
By: Novus
Welcome to The Lineup! Every month, I scour through the hundreds of new
releases on the scenes major archive sites to find the best new music,
saving you the trouble of having to download 20 instant-delete songs to
find 1 thats worth keeping.
Im always looking for feedback from you folks on how good a job Im
doing so far. Are the songs listed in The Lineup as good as you were
hoping theyd be? Do I need stricter standards? Looser standards? More
openness to other genres? E-mail me at vinceyoung@hotmail.com and
sound off!
In the meantime, you may consider the following 39 tunes to be the best
tracks of February 2003:
--THE BEST OF THE BEST --
Last Hope - Cdnalsi - dance
http://www.cdnalsi.as.ro/lasthpe.it
-- THE REST OF THE BEST --
Abandon - Rage - demostyle
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/demos/groups/fobia/rage/abandon.zip
Alliance - Drax - pop
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/drax/drx-alli.zip
Alternative Process - Morphine - house
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/morphine/rbi-altp.zip
Always Remember - Xerxes Scirocco - fantasy
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/scirocco/n55-remem.zip
An Important Thought - Smash - acid jazz
http://www.homemusic.cc/Songs/songs.get.php?soId2348
Backflip - Drax - dance
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/drax/drx-back.zip
Celestial Fantasia - Beat - demostyle
http://www.beatfox.com/music/celesfnt.s3z
Deceitful Love - Jeva - pop
http://data.modarchive.com/D/deceitful.it.zip
Declaration Of Ahh - Laxity - light rock
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/laxity/lax-decl.zip
Dont Give Up - Rage - demostyle
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/demos/groups/fobia/rage/dontgir.zip
Equinox - Blasa - experimental
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/moods/humm186.lha
Eternal Fire - Glitch - techno
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/glitch/gl-fire.zip
Freeze - G-Day - house
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/1999/ambience99/mmul/house/freeze.zip
Give Me Some Hope - Jay - pop
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/jay/jyhope.zip
Humanoideja - Stinger Mellow-D - fantasy
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/stinger+mellow-d/sm-human.zip
Julli - Rage - demostyle
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/demos/groups/fobia/rage/julli2.zip
Lonely Falcon - Crusader - demostyle
http://data.modarchive.com/L/lonefalc.it.zip
Love Generation - Neotraxx - trance
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/neotraxx/ntlove.zip
Massacre At Chios - Sikamikanico - fantasy
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/sikamikanico/massacre.zip
Midnight In Arabia - Metal - trance
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/metal/mtl-arab.zip
Mind Of A Dreamer - Beat - demostyle
http://www.beatfox.com/music/mindrmr.xmz
My Sweet Atlas - Kaneel - ambient
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/kaneel/klmsa.zip
Night In The Tropic - Error303 - pop
http://data.modarchive.com/E/e303night.it.zip
Nine Millimeter - Virgill Reed - funk
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/virgill/xm/ninemillimeter.zip
Over The Mountains - Rage - demostyle
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/demos/groups/fobia/rage/overmoun.zip
Panoramic Viewpoints - Morphine - light rock
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/1997/bizarre97/mmul/mph-pvpt.zip
Planets Of Euphoria - Rage - demostyle
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/demos/groups/fobia/rage/planets.zip
Sad Shadows - Samplemaster - demostyle
http://data.modarchive.com/S/samplemaster-sasha.it.zip
Separate Ways - Smash - jazz
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/smash/separate.zip
Solar - Jay Neophite - trance
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/jay/jnsola.zip
Space Time - Rage - demostyle
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/demos/groups/fobia/rage/spacetim.zip
Static 2 - Laxity - pop
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/laxity/lax-sta2.zip
The Destination - Morphine - dance
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/morphine/rbi-tdes.zip
The Man In The Iron Mask - Wong Chung Bang - pop
http://data.modarchive.com/W/wcb-ironmask.it.zip
The Regained Silence - Tarahenrik - ambient
http://www.modplug.com/mods/nrdetail.php3?sessiondetailno10467
Twisted Vortex - Argh - pop
http://homepages.tcp.co.uk/jonl/music/music/f4-tvort.zip
Two Homies From Arden - Metal Drax - house
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/metal/mtl-2hom.zip
Union - Scirocco - demostyle
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/scirocco/union.zip
Von Elfen Und Feen - Iwellius - fantasy
http://mx.x-six.org:81/Iwellius/Mods/Elfen-Feen.zip
Windmill - Mista Waisgai - trance
http://kvartsv091.sn.umu.se/mwg/mwg-wm.zip
Words - Novus - dance
http://www.novusmusic.org/novus/nwords.zip
Latez!
--Novus
Guest Music Review
May by Melvyl
By: Valzihjken
Before I start the review, a brief introduction: Im Valzihjken.
Im 18 now, but many years ago, when I was young, I heard some Scener
songs on some freeware games, some .mods and .s3ms. I didnt realize
what they were until a few years later when I downloaded Winamp. In
between that time, I saw some demos, and I have no idea why. I do know
that my dad who is over 45 knew about demos before I was born and even
made some diskmag type stuff for a round-robin disk. When I dicovered
these music files with Winamp, I searched for more on my hard drive and
eventually found one that mentioned the Hornet. From there, I learned
much about the Scene and downloaded many demos, most of which I deleted.
I became distracted by games yeah, Im a hardcore gamer and never came
back until a couple a years ago. I dont even know why. Probably saw my
copy of the Maui or The Fulcrum demo lying around on my hard drive
and wanted to see what cool stuff had happened since.
Always a music lover, I decided maybe Id stop just singing the tunes I
invented and actually make them in a replayable distributable format. So
I learned to use Impulse Tracker.
Ive been hearing orchestrated concerts for a long time and love good
jazz Thelonius Monk, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, etc.. Because of
my tastes, at least partially, I can hardly stand imitation. I can
usually tell when a sax, a violin, a cymbal, or another intrument
doesnt sound real. Thus, I dont like much tracked orchestral or Jazz
music, though I can get past most of Smashs samples. Synth stuff that
is supposed to be synthed, like a 303 or acid dont bother me at all, so
I can enjoy acid Jazz and electronic-orchestral mods.
Moving on to something more interesting:
Hellven, wow. I found their site because of Coplans review of one of
Virts songs and went their because I really like Virts music and often
follow Coplans recommendations. Then I proceded to listen to just about
all of their releases over a couple of days, and I thoroughly enjoyed
most of their music. Theres some wonderful heavy industrial-type stuff,
but, Im going to talk about very easy-listening ambient background
stuff by Melvyl. I recommend getting all of their tracks to see for
yourself what you like and dont like. Its all good, but these guys
have some serious depression/anger problems or something else that
causes an underlying theme of death and the question of existance.
Maybe they just think its funny.
Anyway, Melvyls song May part of Hellvens Someone e.p. is one
that I could listen to repeatedly for a long time without annoyance
assaulting my mind. In fact, I did. Im still playing it. Im still
enjoying it.
Its so simple, so quiet and peaceful, yet so worth paying attention to.
You can be active or passive about listening, but its still going to be
a pleasant experience.
Technically, whats there to dazzle you? Not much. Only seven samples,
virtually no effect or volume column usage, and a very simple melody add
up to minimalism or something like it.
Drums show up in order 4 and a bassline in order 6 which sometimes feel
more complex then the melody which is made of a few samples that, though
theyre electronic, make one think of flutes and strings. The bassline
is very good and certainly pushes the song to much higher place in my
music collection. I tried muting all the channels but the drums and
bassline and it was still enjoyable.
The melody, the real focus of the song in many ways, is basically a
peaceful repetitive chord progression. Maybe its not one of my favorite
tunes of all time, or even one of my favorite tracked songs, but I think
it will be played more often than most of my collection anyway because
it helps to give me a good feeling. It doesnt feel like the same old
song I just played yesterday.
Go ahead, listen to it while you read your book, do your math problems,
sketch, or proofread. Turn your pc games stupid music off and let this
loop instead, but before you do, play it loud with a good set of
headphones over your ears with nothing else to distract you. Its better
than pop, even with your eyes closed!
Song Information:
Title: May
Author: Melvyl
Length: 7:34
File Size: 581 kilobytes uncompressed
Source: http://www.hellven.org
http://www.scene.org
--Valzihjken
mbacon@infoway.lib.nm.us
Screen Lit Vertigo
Planet Loop and Darkstar
By: Seven
-- Planet Loop by MadWizards and Nahkolor --
final version
Found at www.madwizards.org
1st place at the TUM02 democompo.
System requirements: 10 MB HD, Geforce 256 or better with recent drivers,
Windows
Test Machine: P4 2.6Gh 512MB DDR, Realtek AC97 audio, Geforce4 488 Go,
WinXP
The Credits:
Code: Performer
Graphics: Spark
Music: Mobby
The Demo:
Its been two months since TUM, and theres *still* no radeon patch
available for Planet Loop! MadWizards, do you have *any* idea how much
we ATI owners suffer due to your procrastination?! In the end, I
couldnt stand it anymore and bought a ridiculously overpriced Nvidia
card which happened to come with a free laptop included. Off topic,
does anyone else feels that blaming random scapegoats for your own
extravagant purchases helps ease your conscience?
Anyway, Planet Loop is the first PC demo of the famous Amiga crew
MadWizards, and Im glad their design skills are unaffected by the move.
Especially the first part, starting with the circular window in space
seamlessly becoming a gateway in space, is of rare quality. It mixes a
high-tech space theme with antique objects the watch, the looking
glass, all in warm copper colors. Together it remind me of steampunk
sciencefiction. Effects include tunnels, stars, and even the old lens
effect. The second part breaks the style: its faster, more flashing. We
fly through a realistic gas station, a cubist train station, and several
abstract scenes that could have escaped from a Haujobb demo. There are
overlays with dotted orbit-loops, and the typical unreadable small text,
something Ive never seen the point of.
Both parts have abundant pictures, mostly as background or incorporated
in the effects. There are faces, flowers, various abstract patterns, a
coffin on rails etc etc, all drawn in a luminous yellow colorscheme.
Its impressive, especially when you know both the 3D and 2D graphics
are done by one man.
The music by Mobby/Nahkolor is also in two parts. I cant really
classify the first one: it starts pretty ambient, a bit melodic, but the
percussion grows stronger until it dominates almost everything. The
second part is somewhat IDM, with again a very strong rhythm section,
but some echoing bells prevent it from getting to monotone. Syncing is
very good, and the effects fit the tune the spinning wheels near the
end f.e.
Overall:
I guess anyone who has the equipment to watch Planet Loop has already
done so. If not: shame on you, youre missing a piece of demoscene
history. The mix of different styles put me off a little, but otherwise
this is a flawless demo. If you cant watch it, put it on your demos to
check out after my next upgrade list, or keep an eye on
www.madwizards.org, maybe the promised Radeon patch will see the light
of the day somewhere in the future.
-- Darkstar by Smash Design --
party version
Found at www.scene.org
3th place at the TUM02 democompo.
System requirements: nothing listed, but probably a heavy 3D card.
13.5 MB HD, Windows.
Test Machine: PIII 900 640MB, SB1024, Radeon 8500 LE 64MB, Win98
The Credits:
Code: Kai, Tobi, Idefix
Graphics:
Music: Wayfinder
The Demo:
Darkstar is your typical heavy 3D storydemo with a twist: you can watch
it in stereo-3D, if you have the required magenta/cyan sunglasses. For
those without, theres a non-stereo executable too. The story is pretty
simple: aliens attack the earth, the earth defends itself. Some 3D
models are really impressive: the giant mothership, the swarm of alien
fighters, and the helis, aircraft carier and mobile launcher on earths
side. There are almost no effects, except explosions, which happen a lot
but dont look very good IMHO: too small, and the models dont break up
in wreckage. The planets, the skies and most landscapes on the other
hand are a pleasure to watch. The downside of all this eyecandy is that
youll need a top-of-the-line 3D card to enjoy it: I had a very
noticable stutter in the framerate, and even after changing my cards
settings to speed iso quality it did not disappear completely. Strange
enough, it wasnt worst in the most complex scenes. I wonder if they
used pixel shaders or other exotic stuff for the planets and stars?
The music is by Wayfinder, I recently discover his Azure releases and
this soundtrack fits right in with the rest of his tunes: a mix of
techno and trance, with an aggresive rhythm that fits the battle scenes
on screen.
Overall:
Darkstar isnt a demo youll watch over and over again, but thats the
fate of most story-demos. Here the story isnt even that original: I had
flashbacks to Genocyd/GMF, 1st at Wired97, during the swarm flies out
the mothership scene. But maybe you can discover a hidden moral in the
scene where a missile, prominently displaying the American flag, is shot
down by an alien fighter my pick: Saddam must be an alien. Get this
one if you like 3D demos, if youve one of those stereo glasses, or if
you need to benchmark your new Geforce FX.
--Seven
Editorial
Revolution or Refinement?
By: Coplan
It wasnt long ago that our very own Novus posted the Novus Revolution
on his very own site. I will not post any of it here, but feel free to
browse it at your convenience: http://www.novusmusic.org
For the most part, his manifesto describes how the tracking scene has
generally been in decline since 1998. It is an effort to get more
activity in the tracking scene and get more involvement. There are some
issues that I disagree about with his manifesto, but there are a lot of
views that both he and I have in common. But his own title Revolution
implies that we need to start from scratch, or overthrow what we already
have. In general, I dont consider that a very viable practice.
Novus speaks specifically about the music scene. But I think his
manifesto could easily be applied to all scenes. You have heard me say
it here many times, and countless times elsewhere: There isnt enough
personal involvement in the scene. I could talk until Im blue in the
face or type until I cant feel my hands, but there is very little
that words will do to make you want to get involved. If youre not
already involved, Im willing to bet that you dont intend to get
involved. So I guess this article is aimed at those who are already
involved and looking for more.
Legalize, organizer of the upcoming American Demoparty known as
Pilgrimage, has done several outreach projects and will be doing more
in his area. You can get details and field reports about his projects
at his personal site:
http://www.xmission.com/legalize/polygony/outreach/ His projects are
all aimed at getting more people involved in the scene. Some are purely
informational while others have become hands-on seminars where he and
his team educate talented coders in the arts of demo coding. His long
term goal is to bring more awareness to the demoscene and hopefully get
more people involved where it matters. So let us learn by his example
and consider why hes doing so well with his work. Granted, his work
takes a lot of coordination and time. But the benefits from such work
are astronomical. The main difference is, however, that most people are
much more likely to react and get involved if someone is sitting
immediately in front of them. They can see this person. They can hear,
see and feel his emotions as he gets excited about this hobby of his.
That goes a long way. His work is definately a step in the right
direction to helping the scene fix itself.
But is the demoscene broken?
Contrary to what Novus might say, however, I dont really think the
demoscene is in decline at all. Yes, it has gotten a bit disorderly,
but it has hundreds upon thousands of more members than it did in 1998.
There are thousands more releases a year and the bar is raised every
year. This year alone was the largest Assembly of all time. The scene
isnt dying, its just a bit confused, thats all.
In 1998, we had a very simple system. Everything was either Amiga or
Dos. Almost everything existed on Hornet, and communication occured in
trax, pixel and code. Almost all collaboration happened in the IRC
channel.
Now, life hasnt really changed much. But there are so many people.
IRC networks would get bogged down let alone the fact that IRC isnt
the most popular form of communication anymore. Hornet closed its
doors as its resources were drying up. Scene.org often times needs to
add a hard drive, and even at that they still require applications to
have space on their server. Gone are the days where one server could
host it all. Gone are the days where we can go to one stop.
We need a new model. We need to once again find some common ground and
make the scene a much happier place. Let us look back at the scene
right now. Web pages pretty much drive the scene now, as it has for a
very long time. Almost every group has its own web page and its own
file section. Some of them post mention of new releases on sites like
NoError and Orange Juice. Others make no mention of such releases as it
becomes tedious. How many news sites are there now? I cant count on
all the fingers and toes that I have. Just look under Portals in our
link list and you will see there are a lot. Is that all necessary?
Probably not.
Realistically, the thing that would make the demoscene a much happier
place is if it were simpler and easier to navigate. Lets trim out some
of the redundancy and collaborate all of our sites and all of our ideas
together. Let the news sites cross-reference each other. Let the song
databases share song information. Each site will be more complete and
more accurate. And the end user will not have to browse 30 sites just
to get an idea of whats new. Its all very possible in this day and
age. The only thing is requires is time and patience. This is a
resource that has always, unfortunately, come at a shortage. Those who
are willing are often tied up with other projects. But maybe some of us
need to make sacrifices to make the scene a better place.
After all, it is YOUR demoscene.
--Coplan
Link List
Portals:
SceneSpot Home of Static Line.......http://www.scenespot.org
CFXweb.......................................http://cfxweb.net
Czech Scene................................http://www.scene.cz
Danish Scene..............................http://demo-scene.dk
Demoscene.org.........................http://www.demoscene.org
Demo.org...................................http://www.demo.org
Diskmag.de...................................http://diskmag.de
* Greek Scene............................http://www.demoscene.gr
U Hungarian Scene........................http://www.demoscene.hu
Italian Scene...........................http://run.to/lascena
ModPlug Central Resources..........http://www.castlex.com/mods
Noerror.................................http://www.noerror.org
Norwegian Scene........................http://www.demoscene.no
Orange Juice.............................http://www.ojuice.net
Planet Zeus..........................http://www.planetzeus.net
Polish Scene...........................http://www.demoscena.pl
Pouet.net.................................http://www.pouet.net
Russian Scene..........................http://www.demoscene.ru
Scene.org.................................http://www.scene.org
Scenergy on-line 8bit............http://www.scenergy.natm.ru
Scenet....................................http://www.scenet.de
Spanish Scene............................http://www.escena.org
Swiss Scene..............................http://www.chscene.ch
Archives:
Acid2.....................................ftp://acid2.stack.nl
Amber.......................................ftp://amber.bti.pl
Cyberbox.....................................ftp://cyberbox.de
Hornet 1992-1996........................ftp://ftp.hornet.org
Scene.org..................................ftp://ftp.scene.org
Scene.org Austra........................ftp://ftp.au.scene.org
Scene.org Netherlands...................ftp://ftp.nl.scene.org
Swiss Scene FTP...........................ftp://ftp.chscene.ch
Demo Groups:
3g Design..............................http://3gdesign.cjb.net
3State...................................http://threestate.com
7 Gods.........................................http://7gods.sk
Aardbei.....................................http://aardbei.com
Acid Rain..............................http://surf.to/acidrain
Addict..................................http://addict.scene.pl
Agravedict........................http://www.agravedict.art.pl
Alien Prophets.....................http://www.alienprophets.dk
Anakata..............................http://www.anakata.art.pl
* ASD....................................http://asd.demoscene.gr
Astral..............................http://astral.scene-hu.com
Astroidea........................http://astroidea.scene-hu.com
BlaBla..............................http://blabla.planet-d.net
Blasphemy..............................http://www.blasphemy.dk
Bomb..................................http://bomb.planet-d.net
Broncs..................................http://broncs.scene.cz
Byterapers.....................http://www.byterapers.scene.org
Bypass.................................http://bypass.scene.org
Calodox.................................http://www.calodox.org
Cocoon..............................http://cocoon.planet-d.net
Confine.................................http://www.confine.org
Damage...................................http://come.to/damage
Dc5.........................................http://www.dc5.org
Delirium..............................http://delirium.scene.pl
Eclipse............................http://www.eclipse-game.com
Elitegroup..........................http://elitegroup.demo.org
Exceed...........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/exceed
Fairlight.............................http://www.fairlight.com
Fobia Design...........................http://www.fd.scene.org
Freestyle............................http://www.freestylas.org
Fresh! Mindworks...................http://kac.poliod.hu/fresh
Future Crew..........................http://www.futurecrew.org
Fuzzion.................................http://www.fuzzion.org
GODS...................................http://www.idf.net/gods
Halcyon...........................http://www.halcyon.scene.org
Haujobb..................................http://www.haujobb.de
Hellcore............................http://www.hellcore.art.pl
Infuse...................................http://www.infuse.org
* Inquisition....................http://inquisition.demoscene.hu
Kilobite...............................http://kilobite.cjb.net
Kolor................................http://www.kaoz.org/kolor
Komplex.................................http://www.komplex.org
Kooma.....................................http://www.kooma.com
Mandula.........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/mandula
Maturefurk...........................http://www.maturefurk.com
Monar................ftp://amber.bti.pl/pub/scene/distro/monar
MOVSD....................................http://movsd.scene.cz
Nextempire...........................http://www.nextempire.com
Noice.....................................http://www.noice.org
Orange.................................http://orange.scene.org
Orion................................http://orion.planet-d.net
Outbreak................................http://www.outbreak.nu
Popsy Team............................http://popsyteam.rtel.fr
Prone................................http://www.prone.ninja.dk
Purple....................................http://www.purple.dk
Rage........................................http://www.rage.nu
Replay.......................http://www.shine.scene.org/replay
Retro A.C...........................http://www.retroac.cjb.net
Sista Vip..........................http://www.sistavip.exit.de
Skytech team............................http://www.skytech.org
Skrju.....................................http://www.skrju.org
Spinning Kids......................http://www.spinningkids.org
Sunflower.......................http://sunflower.opengl.org.pl
Talent.............................http://talent.eurochart.org
The Black Lotus.............................http://www.tbl.org
The Digital Artists Wired Nation.http://digitalartists.cjb.net
The Lost Souls...............................http://www.tls.no
TPOLM.....................................http://www.tpolm.com
Trauma.................................http://sauna.net/trauma
T-Rex.....................................http://www.t-rex.org
Unik........................................http://www.unik.de
Universe..........................http://universe.planet-d.net
Vantage..................................http://www.vantage.ch
Wipe....................................http://www.wipe-fr.org
Music Labels, Music Sites:
Aisth.....................................http://www.aisth.com
Aural Planet........................http://www.auralplanet.com
Azure...................................http://azure-music.com
Blacktron Music Production...........http://www.d-zign.com/bmp
BrothomStates.............http://www.katastro.fi/brothomstates
Chill..........................http://www.chillproductions.com
Chippendales......................http://www.sunpoint.net/cnd
Chiptune...............................http://www.chiptune.com
Da Jormas................................http://www.jormas.com
Fabtrax......http://www.cyberverse.com/boris/fabtrax/home.htm
Fairlight Music.....................http://fairlight.scene.org
Five Musicians.........................http://www.fm.scene.org
Fusion Music Crew.................http://members.home.nl/cyrex
Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff
Hellven.................................http://www.hellven.org
Ignorance.............................http://www.ignorance.org
Immortal Coil.............................http://www.ic.l7.net
Intense...........................http://intense.ignorance.org
Jecoute.................................http://jecoute.cjb.net
Kosmic Free Music Foundation.............http://www.kosmic.org
Lackluster.....................http://www.m3rck.net/lackluster
Level-D.................................http://www.level-d.com
Mah Music.............................http://come.to/mah.music
Maniacs of noise...............http://home.worldonline.nl/mon
MAZs sound homepage..................http://www.maz-sound.com
Med.......................................http://www.med.fr.fm
Miasmah.............................http://www.miasmah.cjb.net
Milk.......................................http://milk.sgic.fi
Moplayaz..........................http://ssmedion.de/moplayaz
Mono211.................................http://www.mono211.com
Morbid Minds..............http://www.raveordie.com/morbidminds
Moods.............................http://www.moodymusic.de.vu/
Noise................................http://www.noisemusic.org
One Touch Records......................http://otr.planet-d.net
Park..................................http://park.planet-d.net
pHluid..................................http://phluid.acid.org
Radical Rhythms.....http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/merrelli/rr
RBi Music.............................http://www.rbi-music.com
Ruff Engine................http://members.xoom.com/ruffengine
SHR8M......................................http://1st.to/shr8m
Sound Devotion................http://sugarbomb.x2o.net/soundev
Soundstate.........................http://listen.to/soundstate
Sunlikamelo-D...........http://www.error-404.com/sunlikamelo-d
Suspect Records........................http://www.tande.com/sr
Tequila........................http://www.defacto2.net/tequila
Tempo................................http://tempomusic.cjb.net
Tetris....................................http://msg.sk/tetris
Theralite...........................http://theralite.avalon.hr
Tokyo Dawn Records........................http://tokyodawn.org
Triads C64 music archive.............http://www.triad.c64.org
UltraBeat.........................http://www.innerverse.com/ub
Vibrants................................http://www.vibrants.dk
Wiremaniacs.........................http://www.wiremaniacs.com
Zen of Tracking.........................http://surf.to/the-imm
Programming:
Programming portal......................http://www.gamedev.net
Programming portal.....................http://www.flipcode.com
Game programming portal...............http://www.gamasutra.com
3D programming portal.................http://www.3dgamedev.com
Programming portal......................http://www.exaflop.org
Programming portal............http://www.programmersheaven.com
Programming portal.....................http://www.freecode.com
NASM free Assembly compiler......http://www.cryogen.com/nasm
LCC free C compiler.........http://www.remcomp.com/lcc-win32
PTC video engine.........................http://www.gaffer.org
3D engines..........http://cg.cs.tu-berlin.de/ki/engines.html
Documents...............http://www.neutralzone.org/home/faqsys
File format collection...................http://www.wotsit.org
Magazines:
Amber...............................http://amber.bti.pl/dimag
Amnesia...............http://amnesia-dist.future.easyspace.com
Demojournal....................http://demojournal.planet-d.net
Eurochart.............................http://www.eurochart.org
Heroin...................................http://www.heroin.net
Hugi........................................http://www.hugi.de
Music Massage......................http://www.scene.cz/massage
Jurassic Pack...........................www.jurassicpack.de.vu
Pain..................................http://pain.planet-d.net
Scenial...........................http://www.scenial.scene.org
Shine...............................http://www.shine.scene.org
Static Line................http://www.scenespot.org/staticline
Sunray..............................http://sunray.planet-d.net
TUHB.......................................http://www.tuhb.org
WildMag..................................http://www.wildmag.de
Parties:
Assembly Finland.....................http://www.assembly.org
Ambience The Netherlands..............http://www.ambience.nl
Dreamhack Sweden....................http://www.dreamhack.org
Buenzli Switzerland......................http://www.buenz.li
Gravity Poland............http://www.demoscena.cp.pl/gravity
Mekka-Symposium Germany...................http://ms.demo.org
* ReAct Greece.............................http://www.react.gr
Takeover The Netherlands.............,http://www.takeover.nl
The Party Denmark.....................http://www.theparty.dk
Others:
Demo secret parts....http://www.inf.bme.hu/mandula/secret.txt
Textmode Demo Archive.................http://tmda.planet-d.net
Arf!Studios..........................http://www.arfstudios.org
coders..................................http://coderz.cjb.net
Demonews Express.........http://www.teeselink.demon.nl/express
Demo fanclub........................http://jerware.org/fanclub
Digital Undergrounds.....................http://dug.iscool.net
Doose charts...............................http://www.doose.dk
Freax................................http://freax.scene-hu.com
GfxZone............................http://gfxzone.planet-d.net
PC-demos explained.....http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained
Pixel...................................http://pixel.scene.org
trax e-mail list.............................................
.............http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/trax
Underground Mine.............http://www.spinningkids.org/umine
IRC Channels:
Scene.........................................ircnet thescene
Programming.....................................ircnet coders
Programming....................................efnet flipcode
Graphics.........................................ircnet pixel
Music......................................irc.scene.org trax
Music.............................................ircnet trax
Scene French..................................ircnet demofr
Programming French............................ircnet codefr
Graphics French..............................ircnet pixelfr
Programming German........................ircnet coders.ger
Scene Hungarian............................ircnet demoscene
Programming Hungarian......................ircnet coders.hu
Zx-spectrum scene..................................ircnet z80
-- Staff --
Editor: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
Staff Writers: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
Dilvie / Eric Hamilton / dilvie@yahoo.com
Novus / Vince Young / vinceyoung@hotmail.com
Psitron / Tim Soderstrom / tigerhawk@stic.net
Setec / Jesper Pederson / jesped@post.tele.dk
Seven / Stefaan VanNieuwenhuyze/ seven7@writeme.com
Tryhuk / Tryhuk Vojtech / vojtech.tryhuk@worldonline.cz
Vill / Brian Frank / darkvill@yahoo.com
The Watcher / Paul-Jan Pauptit / watcher@tuhb.org
Tech Consultant: Ranger Rick / Ben Reed / ranger@scenespot.org
Static Line on the Web: http://www.scenespot.org/staticline
Static Line Subscription Management:
http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/staticline
If you would like to contribute an article to Static Line, be aware
that we will format your article to 76 columns with two columns at the
beginning of each line. Please avoid foul language and high ascii
characters. Contributions Plain Text should be e-mailed to Coplan
coplan@scenespot.org by the last Friday of each month. New issues are
released on a monthly basis.
See you next month!
-eof---------------------
March, 2003 / / / /
325 Subscribers World Wide // / / / /
Tale Of Contents
Opening:
Message From the Editor
Letters From Our Readers
Features:
A Proposal: The Scene Resource Union
From OldSkewl to NewSkewl - Making the Great Tracker Switch
Reviews:
Music:
In Tune -- Fine by In Tense
The Lineup -- Monthly Music Listings
Guest Music Review -- May by Melvyl review by Valzihjken
Demo:
Screen Lit Vertigo -- Planet Loop and Darkstar
Opinion / Commentary:
Editorial -- Revolution or Refinement
Link List: Get Somewhere in the Scene
Closing: Staff and Contact Information
Message From the Editor
Last month, Novus interviewed Saurin Myterium Shah, the former
webmaster of Trax In Space. Much to my surprise, it really attracted a
lot of attention. Between Novus and myself, we recieved between 15 and
20 messages. Honestly, we rarely recieve more than 5. Its stirred up
several debates, and lots of discussion, to say the least. Some, but
not all, of your messages have been published this month. They can be
found in our Letters section.
The interview also brought me to finally collect my thoughts on the
matter of the scene resource condition. I have an interesting proposal
for all you site webmasters out there. Youll want to read my proposal
in this months features.
Well, weve got a great issue for you this month. I appreciate all the
outside contributions for articles this month. Aside from our normal
columns, youll find an extra music review by Valzihjken and a feature
article about modern tracking programs by Psitron. We hope you enjoy
this months issue.
Until Next month!
--Coplan
Letters From Our Readers
-- A Message from Patrick Groove --
That was a great interview. It was good to see ethical scene reporting
and a search for the truth. I hope that when people read that interview
they take away with them a sense of the sacrifice some of our fellow
sceners make in bringing services to us everyday. As far as I can see
the administrators of popular scene websites have indeed looked to the
Trax In Space example in their daily operations. Keep up your spirit and
excitement, Vince!
--Patrick Groove
United Trackers
-- A Message from Mister X --
Great work on your interview with Saurin! Im glad he finally came out
to speak on the issue, as none of the others involved felt it was our
place to.
--Mister X
-- A Message from Kosmos with comments from Novus --
Just read your article with Mysterium.. Interesting stuff. Of course no
one is going to criticize himself, so ... there are a lot of things hes
leaving out... Like the fact that he always wanted to profit from it -
went to investors, took up a loan, next thing you know, he had an office
where he purchased himself nice computers along with a leather chair.
All was written off in taxes as his business expense. His 1 Goal was
HIS SUCCESS - he was a business major. We butted heads against that one.
Sceners and music was maybe 3, somewhere along the line. And yes,
regardless what he says 2 was money.
Growth is NOT the reason the site went down. Poor management is.
You will say, Sure, you dont have servers and bandwidth to pay for.
And Ill reply I have purposely thought of that, and have decided
against it, because I foresaw the future. People may snicker at that,
but UT went up right when Hornet was sinking. And TiS went up after
Hornet has sunk.
I dont have any beef with Mysterium now, but in the past I really did.
Especially when we both had big plans together, but all he ended up
doing was stealing my ideas and publishing them on his site. Anyway, I
dont want to bad mouth the guy, he took a hard hit. And Im glad that
you finally let the scene know what really happened through his words.
--Kosmos
United Trackers
-- Reply from Novus --
Actually, we covered all that. Except for the leather chair bit, but
whatever. I mentioned in my intro that his goal was profitability, and
that kept coming up in the interview as well. He made no attempt to
hide that. But a person can have multiple reasons for doing something,
some selfish and some altruisitc, often at the same time, and he
brought up the altruistic motives as well.
Growth is NOT the reason the site went down. Poor management is.
He admitted as such. When I point-blank asked him what went wrong, he
said, It actually mimics the dot-com busts. Too much cash going out,
not enough coming in to support the operations. He also admitted to
numerous bad decisions that he made. And Id say letting a site grow
too fast is a perfect example of poor management.
Never underestimate the power of pre-planning.
--Novus
A Proposal: The Scene Resource Union
By: Coplan
Last months interview with Msyterium yielded a lot of debates and
discussions about the state of the demoscene. On a personal level, I
cannot stand by without saying anything, and my normal editorial column
isnt enough.
Now, the title of this article might throw some people off. I dont for
a minute believe that the demoscene needs a reformation. On the
contrary, weve got quite a healthy population of musicians, coders,
artists, what-have-you. But its a bit bottom-heavy, and thats the
problem. This isnt a debate as you may find in my typical editorial
column. This is partially a defense for SceneSpot and partially a
proposal.
First, the defense:
When I started SceneSpot, at least in concept, I was still in college.
I had a lot of time, a lot of energy and a lot of crazy ideas. I
started making friends and tried as hard as I could to get the help I
needed. As it turned out, the only help I needed up front was someone
to get the ball rolling thanks Ranger Rick and someone to provide
server space for me again, thanks Ranger Rick. And while I still have
a lot of time and effort going into the project, I still feel as though
Im pretty lucky. But Im one person. Im not a group, and sometimes
my efforts are looked upon as copy-cat material. While SceneSpot shares
some similarities with other sites, it is unique in its presentation and
goals. Believe me when I say that the current version of SceneSpot is
only a mere shadow of what SceneSpot can and will be one day.
So enough about that...whats this proposal?
What I propose is not entirely easy to comprehend. Nor is it something
that is very easy to pull off. I havnt figured out exactly how
everything could be done in the first place, but the scene needs some
order in its resource sites. And this is the best solution albeit an
incomplete one that I can come up with.
Too many people try to change the scene. The reality is that the scene
evolves. And the resources that belong to it also revolve. And once
again, someones always looking to change them. One of the faults of
TiS is the fact that it tried to change the scene. Not good, as you
have seen its outcome. But thats not bashing mysterium or his works.
His work has paved the way for future scene contributors. You can argue
with me on that point, but theres really very little to argue.
So how does one deal with an ever-changing set of resources? One lets
Darwin take over. Naturally, the demoscene and its resources is about
surival of the fittest. But were not talking creatures here, and the
one thing that is overlooked in all this is that there arent enough
top-level contributors as it is. How many millions of people are
involved in the demoscene today, and what very small percentage are
willing or have the skills to run a website? Well, if Johny Demoscenes
site dies, hes going to go with it. Ive watched it happen hundreds of
times. We dont just loose his site, we loose his talents and skills.
THAT cannot happen if we expect to keep everything organized in a way
that makes the scene thrive. For those of you familiar with American
History, youll notice that this is very similar to the Labor disputes
of the late 1700s and early 1800s. This is why Unions were formed.
Why dont we form a Scene Resource Union?
Worry not, Im not saying we have dues or anything like that -- at least
not in the traditional sense. We simply make users fully aware of our
affiliates and what resources they might offer. As our sites evolve,
theirs evolves as well. Site A might decide to phase out its news
handling, while Site B might decide to focus on news handling.
Theres no hole, as Site A refers users to Site B for news. But
Site A has a wonderful forum, so users get referred to it as well.
Overlapping is inevitable, and it would of course be acceptable. Our
goal is not to compete with each other, rather benefit from the
awareness that the others bring us, and we return the favor by making
our users aware of their resources.
The first step, of course, would be to see whos interested. If youre
at all interested, send me a message coplan@scenespot.org and tell me
your thoughts. Ill be forming a mailing list if there is enough
interest and well begin talking about the way this could all work out.
I have a lot more mapped out than I have written here. I wont go into
too much detail at this point, as it is all just an idea at this point.
But I do have many ideas that, even if they arent materialized, might
help to benefit the scene in any way we can offer them. If nothing
else, we might pool our resources and develop a centralized index of
scene resources think Yahoo where the Scene Resource Union members can
maintain a catalog of members sites.
Again, if youre interested, send me a message: coplan@scenespot.org
--Coplan
From OldSkewl to NewSkewl
Making the Great Tracker Switch
By: Psitron
Admittedly I have been out of the scene loop for a while. Call it what
you will, but I have unfortunately been busy with life to do much else,
tracking or otherwise. But I have finally found some time to get back to
my tracking needs Im not all whole unless I track : and, in the
process, have finally made the plunge from what I will call oldskewl
trackers to the new, modern trackers that many composers now use. I
thought, as a result, that I might walk through this somewhat daunting
conversion for you, showing the differences and features from the old
verses new skewl trackers.
Of course, quite a few musicians have opted to go to a full-fledge music
sequencing program like Cubase or Cakewalk. And while they are wonderful
programs, they are rather expensive and undoubtedly require some sort of
hardware that can require quite an investment. Do not get me wrong, my
personal opinion is that hardware can be rather important when composing
music, using a tracker or otherwise. And though the advantages and
disadvantages are out of the scope of what I intend on talking about
here, suffice to say, as wonderful as hardware is, it is usually costly.
As a result, the tracker is still a viable piece of software if one does
not yet want to take the plunge into full blown sequencing. And, of
course, if you must go to sequencing, but do not want to loose the
tracking interface, there are always things like ShakeTracker, zTracker,
etc. that allows one to do sequencing from within a tracking interface.
Though, from reading the forums on SceneSpot, it seems that they do not
compare to the professional sequencing packages - if you can afford it.
For whatever reason, for those that feel they still want to use a
tracker but are unable to use DOS, it may be time to try ones hand at
the newer tracking software that is available today. There are many
options, most of which run under Windows. An unfortunate circumstance
for the Linux die-hards: looks like youre going to have to keep your
system dual-booted or build a Windows box as I have yet found a windows
tracking program that runs reliably under WINE - if anyone has, drop me
a line. There has yet to be a stable tracking solution for Linux other
than Sound Tracker or CheeseTracker which, unfortunately, is *still*
buggy and not yet a viable alternative to Impulse Tracker, in my
opinion - both of which do not have the new features that modern
trackers have. Who knows, however, perhaps we will get lucky one of
these days :
In any case, the vast amount of features in todays trackers are quite
nice and definitely worth looking into, no matter what OS you prefer to
run. Many support features such as VST effect and instrument plugins,
multiple effect columns, modular designs as in the case with Psycle and
BuzzTracker, etc. The interfaces have also been refined, some offering
an entirely new interface while others build upon existing interfaces,
like the Fast Tracker 2 interface. Unfortunately, for musicians that
prefer the Scream Tracker / Impulse Tracker interface you may be out of
luck as I have not yet found a modern tracker that successfully
implements this interface to an acceptable degree, though many do offer
some of IT shortcuts and similar effect-symbols Axx, Bxx, Dxy, etc..
I personally have chosen to use Renoise which does a wonderful job of
extending the existing FT2 style interface to include many wonderful
enhancements though it does fall short of the FT2 interface by not
including Nibbles : As a result, I will be concentrating largely on
Renoise for the duration of this article. Be forewarned, however, the
free version offered is missing some enhancements, notably ASIO and
WAV-out support which I will explain in depth later. If you are
looking for a 100 free program that is similar to Renoise, I would
suggest trying out Sk@le Tracker, which offers many of the features that
Renoise has plus a few of its own - though it is currently still in
beta.
I come from a Scream Tracker background - it was what I started tracking
shortly before going to Impulse Tracker. As a result, switching from
that type of interface to Renoise was a bit daunting at first, largely
because of the differences in keyboard shortcuts and navigation. I find
myself using the mouse more than I honestly would prefer - one of the
noticeable characteristics of an FT2-based interface. Though after a few
weeks of playing around with it, I have grown quite accustomed to the
FT2-based interface and enjoy the amount of information that is present
on the screen at once. I also enjoy the hexadecimal representation of
pattern lines and effect amounts, which give a more cleaner appearance.
A volume level of 64 in Impulse Tracker is simply 40 in Renoise - 32 is
20, etc. I do still miss the Impulse Tracker interface sometimes,
however - I suspect many die hard IT users will probably feel the same
way. Nonetheless, to get the extra features available in the current
generation of trackers, one will have to go through a learning process,
no matter which tracking program is used.
Aside from utilizing the FT2 interface, Renoise is chock full of
enhancements that make the switch well worth the effort. One of them is
the ability to have multiple note and effect columns per track which
allows a much more complex array of effects that can be applied to a
track as well as the ability to apply those effects to multiple notes. I
have found this helps when one wants to apply effects to a chord
progression, like a volume slicer to get that cool trancey sound : It
also helps to structure ones song a bit better and makes the pattern
data cleaner.
One of the interesting concepts that has been implemented into Renoise
is a sort of effects stack. Not only is one able to use the standard set
of effect like volume fade, re-trigger, etc. one is also able to use a
series of included DSP effects, any number of which can be applied to a
certain track. The number of effects per track is only limited by ones
processor of which Renoise does take up a pretty large part of. The
interesting thing is that these effects can effect each other, depending
on how they are arranged within the effect stack. This is much like how
Buzz Tracker and Psycle allow one to use effects, only in Renoise it is
presented in a more trackerish way.
It gets cooler, too! Renoise has implemented a tracker envelope system
which allows one to be able to modify the DSP effects using a series of
linear or curved envelopes. This allows a much greater degree of control
and speed at which effects can be created in a track, which is
especially helpful when using a filter. It also keeps the pattern
effect columns free. The only down side I have found is that it is not
possible to string the envelopes over a series of orders, at least that
I am aware of, making it a bit of a pain when working with a lead over
more than one pattern, or when fading the song out, etc. You can save
the envelope into a preset and then simply apply the preset to the
tracks and orders that you want to have the effect, though I would like
to see a better way of doing this and it still doesnt solve the problem
of wanted a very slow fade-out, or something similar. Nonetheless, this
is a rather unique and welcomed feature that I have found to be very
useful.
As I said before, Renoise also implements VST effects and instruments,
allowing one to go beyond using pure samples to create songs. This is
particularly helpful if one is without a hardware-based synth or wants a
particular sound not found in ones own sample library or synth. One of
the largest benefits of using VST instruments is that the sound is
generated on the fly, meaning there is no loss of quality like one may
find when using a sample especially at low or high octaves. There is
also a vast amount of plugins out there, many of which are inexpensive
or even free. Renoises DSP also works with VST instruments, though I
was rather surprised to find out that the standard tracker effects like
the volume slicer and note slide effects do not work. I was even unable
to change the volume that the VST plugins were played at from within the
pattern. Worse still, there is no way that I have been able to find to
be able to modify the plugins parameters from within the pattern-data.
Also be warned - the quality of these plugins varies considerably and
many cannot compare the easy of use and quality that many hardware
synths provide. Despite the drawbacks, I have found that they do come
in handy, and many current-generation trackers, not just Renoise, have
implemented at least partial support for VST plugins. And they certainly
do help when you just want to play around with ideas or are trying to
find a particular kind of sound.
The last feature that I would like to bring to light is a greater
support for the MIDI interface. MIDI has been supported in trackers for
quite some time, though many modern trackers are supporting ASIO and
MIDI-clock timing as well, allowing low-latency MIDI messages to be sent
to and from hardware equipment. In all honestly, I have yet to try this
myself in anything but Impulse Tracker and Buzz. This is due in large
part to the fact that I myself have yet to have much in the realm of
equipment and am currently running Renoise almost exclusively on my
laptop, which has no conventional MIDI connection : Though I do expect
Renoise as well as other modern trackers to have better support for MIDI
than was present with IT and FT2. One of the features of Renoise that I
wish to try is the ability to sync to MIDI hardware which would allow
one to be able to compose in both Renoise and on sampling equipment and
synths which sounds very interesting indeed. From what I hear, however,
do not expect Renoise to be up to par with professional sequencers,
though for those just getting into hardware, wanting to use a sampler,
or just wish to enter notes via a real keyboard, Renoise should work
wonderfully.
All in all, I have been very impressed with Renoise, after reviewing the
large amount of trackers available. Though, since many of the features
in Renoise are supported in other current-generation trackers and since
some support things that Renoise doesnt, I suggest you make your own
decision. One of the things that I have been impressed about with these
modern trackers is the diversity of interfaces that are available. It
seems like it is the FT2 vs IT argument all over again, only worse :
Therefore, I encourage you to find the one that fits what you are
looking for in a tracker best. Many swear by Buzz, some by Psycle,
others are still using ModPlug Tracker while others may still be using
Impulse Tracker, and perhaps a select few might still be using ModEdit.
: If you do want a newer tracker, however, do expect to do some
learning and some experimenting no matter what you pick. I believe that
you will find it is well worth the change. And though even I will
probably never let go of Impulse Tracker especially for the Mod Compos
: I am personally quite glad I broadened my own horizons - it has
helped my music immensely
--PsiTron
In Tune
Fine by In Tense
By: Coplan
-- Introduction --
In my quest to find new, good music, I am sometimes strayed by fancy
effects or truly high-quality samples. I sometimes feel as though Ive
been attracted by the features as opposed to the context. Sometimes
its for the best, as I wouldve never discovered Quasimojo if I werent
on my MIDI kick a few months ago.
So I wandered back to the Chill Productions website to discover two very
interesting details. First was the fact that Quasimojo has a few tunes
in a Lesbian Porn flick visit Chills website to download those tunes:
http://www.chillproductions.com. Second was that theres this guy, In
Tense, thats been shelling out tunes like mad. I havnt seen a release
rate on anyone like this in a long time. Curious got the best of me,
and I grabbed a bunch of his tunes. One of them caught my ear: Fine.
-- Fine by In Tense --
If chip tunes were to ever have a more current, higher quality sound,
this song would be the benchmark. The song is in MP3 format, so I know
very little of how it was created. I can only imagine that this stuff
is all synthesized with something like Renoise or Psycle or Buzz. These
arent chips, to say the least, but you get that sort of overall
feel. Either that, or you took a trip back to the 80s.
But thats not why this tune caught my ear. In general, its a very
simple tune with a simple, repetative base line, and some trance pads
floating in and out of the song. Theres a break beat and a few rest
periods in the song. In fact, you could almost sing some Dead or Alive
lyrics to the tune Anyone else remember that 80s band, or am I really
that old now?. As I was saying in my intro, we often overlook tunes
such as this because of their chippy feel, or simple patterns, or
what-not. For whatever reason...this one didnt slip through the
cracks.
Back in the day, more traditional styles of music are always discussed
talking about movements, or at least a logical order. You always had an
A part, followed by a B part, then the C part the corus which was
followed by a D part, then maybe back to the C part, then the E part e
for end finished up the tune. Its not so easy to talk about music
this way anymore with all these modern styles. I like to think of some
more modern electronic styles as a pool of Oil. And someone is
putting different colors of water in the oil. It doesnt blend, and it
swirls around, ever changing as the outside forces inflicts movement on
it. This tune is very similar to that. The Oil, in this case, is the
the base line and the percussion section. Theyre fairly consisten
throughout the song. But there are all sorts of different colors of
water that keep swirling around this core. Its really quite amazing to
hear with headphones as well, as it really feels like parts are moving
around your head.
This is one of those tunes where you can get so much out of it by
listening to it in different ways. At lower volumes, its very
relaxing and soothing. It would be a good ambient peice at that point.
But if you turn it up, you cant help but to gasp at the dynamics. Its
definately not an ambient style with volume.
And there is so much going on. You cant place any sort of melody.
There is one part where there is a trance pad off to the right side that
plays one thing somewhere in the middle-upper octaves. And another
trance pad starts playing something else in a much higher octave way off
to the left. The parts are so different, its almost chaotic. But it
fits together perfectly. At what would seem like random points, they
hit the exact same note, and then bounce off onto their chaos again.
All the while the percussion and the base line are doing their own sort
of counter-point.
If you cant tell, this is really a difficult song to describe. Youll
just have to go download it yourself.
Song Information:
Title: Fine
Author: In Tense
Release date: August 22, 2002
Length: 6:32
File Size: 8.6 MB
Source: http://www.chillproductions.com
--Coplan
In Tune is a regular column dedicated to the review of original and
singular works by fellow trackers. It is to be used as a tool to expand
your listening and writing horizons, but should not be used as a general
rating system. Coplans opinions are not the opinions of the Static
Line Staff.
If you have heard a song you would like to recommend either your own,
or another persons, We can be contacted through e-mail useing the
addresses found in the closing notes. Please do not send files attached
to e-mail without first contacting us. Thank you!
The Lineup
By: Novus
Welcome to The Lineup! Every month, I scour through the hundreds of new
releases on the scenes major archive sites to find the best new music,
saving you the trouble of having to download 20 instant-delete songs to
find 1 thats worth keeping.
Im always looking for feedback from you folks on how good a job Im
doing so far. Are the songs listed in The Lineup as good as you were
hoping theyd be? Do I need stricter standards? Looser standards? More
openness to other genres? E-mail me at vinceyoung@hotmail.com and
sound off!
In the meantime, you may consider the following 39 tunes to be the best
tracks of February 2003:
--THE BEST OF THE BEST --
Last Hope - Cdnalsi - dance
http://www.cdnalsi.as.ro/lasthpe.it
-- THE REST OF THE BEST --
Abandon - Rage - demostyle
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/demos/groups/fobia/rage/abandon.zip
Alliance - Drax - pop
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/drax/drx-alli.zip
Alternative Process - Morphine - house
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/morphine/rbi-altp.zip
Always Remember - Xerxes Scirocco - fantasy
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/scirocco/n55-remem.zip
An Important Thought - Smash - acid jazz
http://www.homemusic.cc/Songs/songs.get.php?soId2348
Backflip - Drax - dance
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/drax/drx-back.zip
Celestial Fantasia - Beat - demostyle
http://www.beatfox.com/music/celesfnt.s3z
Deceitful Love - Jeva - pop
http://data.modarchive.com/D/deceitful.it.zip
Declaration Of Ahh - Laxity - light rock
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/laxity/lax-decl.zip
Dont Give Up - Rage - demostyle
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/demos/groups/fobia/rage/dontgir.zip
Equinox - Blasa - experimental
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/moods/humm186.lha
Eternal Fire - Glitch - techno
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/glitch/gl-fire.zip
Freeze - G-Day - house
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/1999/ambience99/mmul/house/freeze.zip
Give Me Some Hope - Jay - pop
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/jay/jyhope.zip
Humanoideja - Stinger Mellow-D - fantasy
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/stinger+mellow-d/sm-human.zip
Julli - Rage - demostyle
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/demos/groups/fobia/rage/julli2.zip
Lonely Falcon - Crusader - demostyle
http://data.modarchive.com/L/lonefalc.it.zip
Love Generation - Neotraxx - trance
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/neotraxx/ntlove.zip
Massacre At Chios - Sikamikanico - fantasy
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/sikamikanico/massacre.zip
Midnight In Arabia - Metal - trance
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/metal/mtl-arab.zip
Mind Of A Dreamer - Beat - demostyle
http://www.beatfox.com/music/mindrmr.xmz
My Sweet Atlas - Kaneel - ambient
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/kaneel/klmsa.zip
Night In The Tropic - Error303 - pop
http://data.modarchive.com/E/e303night.it.zip
Nine Millimeter - Virgill Reed - funk
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/virgill/xm/ninemillimeter.zip
Over The Mountains - Rage - demostyle
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/demos/groups/fobia/rage/overmoun.zip
Panoramic Viewpoints - Morphine - light rock
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/1997/bizarre97/mmul/mph-pvpt.zip
Planets Of Euphoria - Rage - demostyle
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/demos/groups/fobia/rage/planets.zip
Sad Shadows - Samplemaster - demostyle
http://data.modarchive.com/S/samplemaster-sasha.it.zip
Separate Ways - Smash - jazz
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/smash/separate.zip
Solar - Jay Neophite - trance
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/jay/jnsola.zip
Space Time - Rage - demostyle
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/demos/groups/fobia/rage/spacetim.zip
Static 2 - Laxity - pop
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/laxity/lax-sta2.zip
The Destination - Morphine - dance
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/morphine/rbi-tdes.zip
The Man In The Iron Mask - Wong Chung Bang - pop
http://data.modarchive.com/W/wcb-ironmask.it.zip
The Regained Silence - Tarahenrik - ambient
http://www.modplug.com/mods/nrdetail.php3?sessiondetailno10467
Twisted Vortex - Argh - pop
http://homepages.tcp.co.uk/jonl/music/music/f4-tvort.zip
Two Homies From Arden - Metal Drax - house
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/metal/mtl-2hom.zip
Union - Scirocco - demostyle
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/scirocco/union.zip
Von Elfen Und Feen - Iwellius - fantasy
http://mx.x-six.org:81/Iwellius/Mods/Elfen-Feen.zip
Windmill - Mista Waisgai - trance
http://kvartsv091.sn.umu.se/mwg/mwg-wm.zip
Words - Novus - dance
http://www.novusmusic.org/novus/nwords.zip
Latez!
--Novus
Guest Music Review
May by Melvyl
By: Valzihjken
Before I start the review, a brief introduction: Im Valzihjken.
Im 18 now, but many years ago, when I was young, I heard some Scener
songs on some freeware games, some .mods and .s3ms. I didnt realize
what they were until a few years later when I downloaded Winamp. In
between that time, I saw some demos, and I have no idea why. I do know
that my dad who is over 45 knew about demos before I was born and even
made some diskmag type stuff for a round-robin disk. When I dicovered
these music files with Winamp, I searched for more on my hard drive and
eventually found one that mentioned the Hornet. From there, I learned
much about the Scene and downloaded many demos, most of which I deleted.
I became distracted by games yeah, Im a hardcore gamer and never came
back until a couple a years ago. I dont even know why. Probably saw my
copy of the Maui or The Fulcrum demo lying around on my hard drive
and wanted to see what cool stuff had happened since.
Always a music lover, I decided maybe Id stop just singing the tunes I
invented and actually make them in a replayable distributable format. So
I learned to use Impulse Tracker.
Ive been hearing orchestrated concerts for a long time and love good
jazz Thelonius Monk, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, etc.. Because of
my tastes, at least partially, I can hardly stand imitation. I can
usually tell when a sax, a violin, a cymbal, or another intrument
doesnt sound real. Thus, I dont like much tracked orchestral or Jazz
music, though I can get past most of Smashs samples. Synth stuff that
is supposed to be synthed, like a 303 or acid dont bother me at all, so
I can enjoy acid Jazz and electronic-orchestral mods.
Moving on to something more interesting:
Hellven, wow. I found their site because of Coplans review of one of
Virts songs and went their because I really like Virts music and often
follow Coplans recommendations. Then I proceded to listen to just about
all of their releases over a couple of days, and I thoroughly enjoyed
most of their music. Theres some wonderful heavy industrial-type stuff,
but, Im going to talk about very easy-listening ambient background
stuff by Melvyl. I recommend getting all of their tracks to see for
yourself what you like and dont like. Its all good, but these guys
have some serious depression/anger problems or something else that
causes an underlying theme of death and the question of existance.
Maybe they just think its funny.
Anyway, Melvyls song May part of Hellvens Someone e.p. is one
that I could listen to repeatedly for a long time without annoyance
assaulting my mind. In fact, I did. Im still playing it. Im still
enjoying it.
Its so simple, so quiet and peaceful, yet so worth paying attention to.
You can be active or passive about listening, but its still going to be
a pleasant experience.
Technically, whats there to dazzle you? Not much. Only seven samples,
virtually no effect or volume column usage, and a very simple melody add
up to minimalism or something like it.
Drums show up in order 4 and a bassline in order 6 which sometimes feel
more complex then the melody which is made of a few samples that, though
theyre electronic, make one think of flutes and strings. The bassline
is very good and certainly pushes the song to much higher place in my
music collection. I tried muting all the channels but the drums and
bassline and it was still enjoyable.
The melody, the real focus of the song in many ways, is basically a
peaceful repetitive chord progression. Maybe its not one of my favorite
tunes of all time, or even one of my favorite tracked songs, but I think
it will be played more often than most of my collection anyway because
it helps to give me a good feeling. It doesnt feel like the same old
song I just played yesterday.
Go ahead, listen to it while you read your book, do your math problems,
sketch, or proofread. Turn your pc games stupid music off and let this
loop instead, but before you do, play it loud with a good set of
headphones over your ears with nothing else to distract you. Its better
than pop, even with your eyes closed!
Song Information:
Title: May
Author: Melvyl
Length: 7:34
File Size: 581 kilobytes uncompressed
Source: http://www.hellven.org
http://www.scene.org
--Valzihjken
mbacon@infoway.lib.nm.us
Screen Lit Vertigo
Planet Loop and Darkstar
By: Seven
-- Planet Loop by MadWizards and Nahkolor --
final version
Found at www.madwizards.org
1st place at the TUM02 democompo.
System requirements: 10 MB HD, Geforce 256 or better with recent drivers,
Windows
Test Machine: P4 2.6Gh 512MB DDR, Realtek AC97 audio, Geforce4 488 Go,
WinXP
The Credits:
Code: Performer
Graphics: Spark
Music: Mobby
The Demo:
Its been two months since TUM, and theres *still* no radeon patch
available for Planet Loop! MadWizards, do you have *any* idea how much
we ATI owners suffer due to your procrastination?! In the end, I
couldnt stand it anymore and bought a ridiculously overpriced Nvidia
card which happened to come with a free laptop included. Off topic,
does anyone else feels that blaming random scapegoats for your own
extravagant purchases helps ease your conscience?
Anyway, Planet Loop is the first PC demo of the famous Amiga crew
MadWizards, and Im glad their design skills are unaffected by the move.
Especially the first part, starting with the circular window in space
seamlessly becoming a gateway in space, is of rare quality. It mixes a
high-tech space theme with antique objects the watch, the looking
glass, all in warm copper colors. Together it remind me of steampunk
sciencefiction. Effects include tunnels, stars, and even the old lens
effect. The second part breaks the style: its faster, more flashing. We
fly through a realistic gas station, a cubist train station, and several
abstract scenes that could have escaped from a Haujobb demo. There are
overlays with dotted orbit-loops, and the typical unreadable small text,
something Ive never seen the point of.
Both parts have abundant pictures, mostly as background or incorporated
in the effects. There are faces, flowers, various abstract patterns, a
coffin on rails etc etc, all drawn in a luminous yellow colorscheme.
Its impressive, especially when you know both the 3D and 2D graphics
are done by one man.
The music by Mobby/Nahkolor is also in two parts. I cant really
classify the first one: it starts pretty ambient, a bit melodic, but the
percussion grows stronger until it dominates almost everything. The
second part is somewhat IDM, with again a very strong rhythm section,
but some echoing bells prevent it from getting to monotone. Syncing is
very good, and the effects fit the tune the spinning wheels near the
end f.e.
Overall:
I guess anyone who has the equipment to watch Planet Loop has already
done so. If not: shame on you, youre missing a piece of demoscene
history. The mix of different styles put me off a little, but otherwise
this is a flawless demo. If you cant watch it, put it on your demos to
check out after my next upgrade list, or keep an eye on
www.madwizards.org, maybe the promised Radeon patch will see the light
of the day somewhere in the future.
-- Darkstar by Smash Design --
party version
Found at www.scene.org
3th place at the TUM02 democompo.
System requirements: nothing listed, but probably a heavy 3D card.
13.5 MB HD, Windows.
Test Machine: PIII 900 640MB, SB1024, Radeon 8500 LE 64MB, Win98
The Credits:
Code: Kai, Tobi, Idefix
Graphics:
Music: Wayfinder
The Demo:
Darkstar is your typical heavy 3D storydemo with a twist: you can watch
it in stereo-3D, if you have the required magenta/cyan sunglasses. For
those without, theres a non-stereo executable too. The story is pretty
simple: aliens attack the earth, the earth defends itself. Some 3D
models are really impressive: the giant mothership, the swarm of alien
fighters, and the helis, aircraft carier and mobile launcher on earths
side. There are almost no effects, except explosions, which happen a lot
but dont look very good IMHO: too small, and the models dont break up
in wreckage. The planets, the skies and most landscapes on the other
hand are a pleasure to watch. The downside of all this eyecandy is that
youll need a top-of-the-line 3D card to enjoy it: I had a very
noticable stutter in the framerate, and even after changing my cards
settings to speed iso quality it did not disappear completely. Strange
enough, it wasnt worst in the most complex scenes. I wonder if they
used pixel shaders or other exotic stuff for the planets and stars?
The music is by Wayfinder, I recently discover his Azure releases and
this soundtrack fits right in with the rest of his tunes: a mix of
techno and trance, with an aggresive rhythm that fits the battle scenes
on screen.
Overall:
Darkstar isnt a demo youll watch over and over again, but thats the
fate of most story-demos. Here the story isnt even that original: I had
flashbacks to Genocyd/GMF, 1st at Wired97, during the swarm flies out
the mothership scene. But maybe you can discover a hidden moral in the
scene where a missile, prominently displaying the American flag, is shot
down by an alien fighter my pick: Saddam must be an alien. Get this
one if you like 3D demos, if youve one of those stereo glasses, or if
you need to benchmark your new Geforce FX.
--Seven
Editorial
Revolution or Refinement?
By: Coplan
It wasnt long ago that our very own Novus posted the Novus Revolution
on his very own site. I will not post any of it here, but feel free to
browse it at your convenience: http://www.novusmusic.org
For the most part, his manifesto describes how the tracking scene has
generally been in decline since 1998. It is an effort to get more
activity in the tracking scene and get more involvement. There are some
issues that I disagree about with his manifesto, but there are a lot of
views that both he and I have in common. But his own title Revolution
implies that we need to start from scratch, or overthrow what we already
have. In general, I dont consider that a very viable practice.
Novus speaks specifically about the music scene. But I think his
manifesto could easily be applied to all scenes. You have heard me say
it here many times, and countless times elsewhere: There isnt enough
personal involvement in the scene. I could talk until Im blue in the
face or type until I cant feel my hands, but there is very little
that words will do to make you want to get involved. If youre not
already involved, Im willing to bet that you dont intend to get
involved. So I guess this article is aimed at those who are already
involved and looking for more.
Legalize, organizer of the upcoming American Demoparty known as
Pilgrimage, has done several outreach projects and will be doing more
in his area. You can get details and field reports about his projects
at his personal site:
http://www.xmission.com/legalize/polygony/outreach/ His projects are
all aimed at getting more people involved in the scene. Some are purely
informational while others have become hands-on seminars where he and
his team educate talented coders in the arts of demo coding. His long
term goal is to bring more awareness to the demoscene and hopefully get
more people involved where it matters. So let us learn by his example
and consider why hes doing so well with his work. Granted, his work
takes a lot of coordination and time. But the benefits from such work
are astronomical. The main difference is, however, that most people are
much more likely to react and get involved if someone is sitting
immediately in front of them. They can see this person. They can hear,
see and feel his emotions as he gets excited about this hobby of his.
That goes a long way. His work is definately a step in the right
direction to helping the scene fix itself.
But is the demoscene broken?
Contrary to what Novus might say, however, I dont really think the
demoscene is in decline at all. Yes, it has gotten a bit disorderly,
but it has hundreds upon thousands of more members than it did in 1998.
There are thousands more releases a year and the bar is raised every
year. This year alone was the largest Assembly of all time. The scene
isnt dying, its just a bit confused, thats all.
In 1998, we had a very simple system. Everything was either Amiga or
Dos. Almost everything existed on Hornet, and communication occured in
trax, pixel and code. Almost all collaboration happened in the IRC
channel.
Now, life hasnt really changed much. But there are so many people.
IRC networks would get bogged down let alone the fact that IRC isnt
the most popular form of communication anymore. Hornet closed its
doors as its resources were drying up. Scene.org often times needs to
add a hard drive, and even at that they still require applications to
have space on their server. Gone are the days where one server could
host it all. Gone are the days where we can go to one stop.
We need a new model. We need to once again find some common ground and
make the scene a much happier place. Let us look back at the scene
right now. Web pages pretty much drive the scene now, as it has for a
very long time. Almost every group has its own web page and its own
file section. Some of them post mention of new releases on sites like
NoError and Orange Juice. Others make no mention of such releases as it
becomes tedious. How many news sites are there now? I cant count on
all the fingers and toes that I have. Just look under Portals in our
link list and you will see there are a lot. Is that all necessary?
Probably not.
Realistically, the thing that would make the demoscene a much happier
place is if it were simpler and easier to navigate. Lets trim out some
of the redundancy and collaborate all of our sites and all of our ideas
together. Let the news sites cross-reference each other. Let the song
databases share song information. Each site will be more complete and
more accurate. And the end user will not have to browse 30 sites just
to get an idea of whats new. Its all very possible in this day and
age. The only thing is requires is time and patience. This is a
resource that has always, unfortunately, come at a shortage. Those who
are willing are often tied up with other projects. But maybe some of us
need to make sacrifices to make the scene a better place.
After all, it is YOUR demoscene.
--Coplan
Link List
Portals:
SceneSpot Home of Static Line.......http://www.scenespot.org
CFXweb.......................................http://cfxweb.net
Czech Scene................................http://www.scene.cz
Danish Scene..............................http://demo-scene.dk
Demoscene.org.........................http://www.demoscene.org
Demo.org...................................http://www.demo.org
Diskmag.de...................................http://diskmag.de
* Greek Scene............................http://www.demoscene.gr
U Hungarian Scene........................http://www.demoscene.hu
Italian Scene...........................http://run.to/lascena
ModPlug Central Resources..........http://www.castlex.com/mods
Noerror.................................http://www.noerror.org
Norwegian Scene........................http://www.demoscene.no
Orange Juice.............................http://www.ojuice.net
Planet Zeus..........................http://www.planetzeus.net
Polish Scene...........................http://www.demoscena.pl
Pouet.net.................................http://www.pouet.net
Russian Scene..........................http://www.demoscene.ru
Scene.org.................................http://www.scene.org
Scenergy on-line 8bit............http://www.scenergy.natm.ru
Scenet....................................http://www.scenet.de
Spanish Scene............................http://www.escena.org
Swiss Scene..............................http://www.chscene.ch
Archives:
Acid2.....................................ftp://acid2.stack.nl
Amber.......................................ftp://amber.bti.pl
Cyberbox.....................................ftp://cyberbox.de
Hornet 1992-1996........................ftp://ftp.hornet.org
Scene.org..................................ftp://ftp.scene.org
Scene.org Austra........................ftp://ftp.au.scene.org
Scene.org Netherlands...................ftp://ftp.nl.scene.org
Swiss Scene FTP...........................ftp://ftp.chscene.ch
Demo Groups:
3g Design..............................http://3gdesign.cjb.net
3State...................................http://threestate.com
7 Gods.........................................http://7gods.sk
Aardbei.....................................http://aardbei.com
Acid Rain..............................http://surf.to/acidrain
Addict..................................http://addict.scene.pl
Agravedict........................http://www.agravedict.art.pl
Alien Prophets.....................http://www.alienprophets.dk
Anakata..............................http://www.anakata.art.pl
* ASD....................................http://asd.demoscene.gr
Astral..............................http://astral.scene-hu.com
Astroidea........................http://astroidea.scene-hu.com
BlaBla..............................http://blabla.planet-d.net
Blasphemy..............................http://www.blasphemy.dk
Bomb..................................http://bomb.planet-d.net
Broncs..................................http://broncs.scene.cz
Byterapers.....................http://www.byterapers.scene.org
Bypass.................................http://bypass.scene.org
Calodox.................................http://www.calodox.org
Cocoon..............................http://cocoon.planet-d.net
Confine.................................http://www.confine.org
Damage...................................http://come.to/damage
Dc5.........................................http://www.dc5.org
Delirium..............................http://delirium.scene.pl
Eclipse............................http://www.eclipse-game.com
Elitegroup..........................http://elitegroup.demo.org
Exceed...........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/exceed
Fairlight.............................http://www.fairlight.com
Fobia Design...........................http://www.fd.scene.org
Freestyle............................http://www.freestylas.org
Fresh! Mindworks...................http://kac.poliod.hu/fresh
Future Crew..........................http://www.futurecrew.org
Fuzzion.................................http://www.fuzzion.org
GODS...................................http://www.idf.net/gods
Halcyon...........................http://www.halcyon.scene.org
Haujobb..................................http://www.haujobb.de
Hellcore............................http://www.hellcore.art.pl
Infuse...................................http://www.infuse.org
* Inquisition....................http://inquisition.demoscene.hu
Kilobite...............................http://kilobite.cjb.net
Kolor................................http://www.kaoz.org/kolor
Komplex.................................http://www.komplex.org
Kooma.....................................http://www.kooma.com
Mandula.........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/mandula
Maturefurk...........................http://www.maturefurk.com
Monar................ftp://amber.bti.pl/pub/scene/distro/monar
MOVSD....................................http://movsd.scene.cz
Nextempire...........................http://www.nextempire.com
Noice.....................................http://www.noice.org
Orange.................................http://orange.scene.org
Orion................................http://orion.planet-d.net
Outbreak................................http://www.outbreak.nu
Popsy Team............................http://popsyteam.rtel.fr
Prone................................http://www.prone.ninja.dk
Purple....................................http://www.purple.dk
Rage........................................http://www.rage.nu
Replay.......................http://www.shine.scene.org/replay
Retro A.C...........................http://www.retroac.cjb.net
Sista Vip..........................http://www.sistavip.exit.de
Skytech team............................http://www.skytech.org
Skrju.....................................http://www.skrju.org
Spinning Kids......................http://www.spinningkids.org
Sunflower.......................http://sunflower.opengl.org.pl
Talent.............................http://talent.eurochart.org
The Black Lotus.............................http://www.tbl.org
The Digital Artists Wired Nation.http://digitalartists.cjb.net
The Lost Souls...............................http://www.tls.no
TPOLM.....................................http://www.tpolm.com
Trauma.................................http://sauna.net/trauma
T-Rex.....................................http://www.t-rex.org
Unik........................................http://www.unik.de
Universe..........................http://universe.planet-d.net
Vantage..................................http://www.vantage.ch
Wipe....................................http://www.wipe-fr.org
Music Labels, Music Sites:
Aisth.....................................http://www.aisth.com
Aural Planet........................http://www.auralplanet.com
Azure...................................http://azure-music.com
Blacktron Music Production...........http://www.d-zign.com/bmp
BrothomStates.............http://www.katastro.fi/brothomstates
Chill..........................http://www.chillproductions.com
Chippendales......................http://www.sunpoint.net/cnd
Chiptune...............................http://www.chiptune.com
Da Jormas................................http://www.jormas.com
Fabtrax......http://www.cyberverse.com/boris/fabtrax/home.htm
Fairlight Music.....................http://fairlight.scene.org
Five Musicians.........................http://www.fm.scene.org
Fusion Music Crew.................http://members.home.nl/cyrex
Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff
Hellven.................................http://www.hellven.org
Ignorance.............................http://www.ignorance.org
Immortal Coil.............................http://www.ic.l7.net
Intense...........................http://intense.ignorance.org
Jecoute.................................http://jecoute.cjb.net
Kosmic Free Music Foundation.............http://www.kosmic.org
Lackluster.....................http://www.m3rck.net/lackluster
Level-D.................................http://www.level-d.com
Mah Music.............................http://come.to/mah.music
Maniacs of noise...............http://home.worldonline.nl/mon
MAZs sound homepage..................http://www.maz-sound.com
Med.......................................http://www.med.fr.fm
Miasmah.............................http://www.miasmah.cjb.net
Milk.......................................http://milk.sgic.fi
Moplayaz..........................http://ssmedion.de/moplayaz
Mono211.................................http://www.mono211.com
Morbid Minds..............http://www.raveordie.com/morbidminds
Moods.............................http://www.moodymusic.de.vu/
Noise................................http://www.noisemusic.org
One Touch Records......................http://otr.planet-d.net
Park..................................http://park.planet-d.net
pHluid..................................http://phluid.acid.org
Radical Rhythms.....http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/merrelli/rr
RBi Music.............................http://www.rbi-music.com
Ruff Engine................http://members.xoom.com/ruffengine
SHR8M......................................http://1st.to/shr8m
Sound Devotion................http://sugarbomb.x2o.net/soundev
Soundstate.........................http://listen.to/soundstate
Sunlikamelo-D...........http://www.error-404.com/sunlikamelo-d
Suspect Records........................http://www.tande.com/sr
Tequila........................http://www.defacto2.net/tequila
Tempo................................http://tempomusic.cjb.net
Tetris....................................http://msg.sk/tetris
Theralite...........................http://theralite.avalon.hr
Tokyo Dawn Records........................http://tokyodawn.org
Triads C64 music archive.............http://www.triad.c64.org
UltraBeat.........................http://www.innerverse.com/ub
Vibrants................................http://www.vibrants.dk
Wiremaniacs.........................http://www.wiremaniacs.com
Zen of Tracking.........................http://surf.to/the-imm
Programming:
Programming portal......................http://www.gamedev.net
Programming portal.....................http://www.flipcode.com
Game programming portal...............http://www.gamasutra.com
3D programming portal.................http://www.3dgamedev.com
Programming portal......................http://www.exaflop.org
Programming portal............http://www.programmersheaven.com
Programming portal.....................http://www.freecode.com
NASM free Assembly compiler......http://www.cryogen.com/nasm
LCC free C compiler.........http://www.remcomp.com/lcc-win32
PTC video engine.........................http://www.gaffer.org
3D engines..........http://cg.cs.tu-berlin.de/ki/engines.html
Documents...............http://www.neutralzone.org/home/faqsys
File format collection...................http://www.wotsit.org
Magazines:
Amber...............................http://amber.bti.pl/dimag
Amnesia...............http://amnesia-dist.future.easyspace.com
Demojournal....................http://demojournal.planet-d.net
Eurochart.............................http://www.eurochart.org
Heroin...................................http://www.heroin.net
Hugi........................................http://www.hugi.de
Music Massage......................http://www.scene.cz/massage
Jurassic Pack...........................www.jurassicpack.de.vu
Pain..................................http://pain.planet-d.net
Scenial...........................http://www.scenial.scene.org
Shine...............................http://www.shine.scene.org
Static Line................http://www.scenespot.org/staticline
Sunray..............................http://sunray.planet-d.net
TUHB.......................................http://www.tuhb.org
WildMag..................................http://www.wildmag.de
Parties:
Assembly Finland.....................http://www.assembly.org
Ambience The Netherlands..............http://www.ambience.nl
Dreamhack Sweden....................http://www.dreamhack.org
Buenzli Switzerland......................http://www.buenz.li
Gravity Poland............http://www.demoscena.cp.pl/gravity
Mekka-Symposium Germany...................http://ms.demo.org
* ReAct Greece.............................http://www.react.gr
Takeover The Netherlands.............,http://www.takeover.nl
The Party Denmark.....................http://www.theparty.dk
Others:
Demo secret parts....http://www.inf.bme.hu/mandula/secret.txt
Textmode Demo Archive.................http://tmda.planet-d.net
Arf!Studios..........................http://www.arfstudios.org
coders..................................http://coderz.cjb.net
Demonews Express.........http://www.teeselink.demon.nl/express
Demo fanclub........................http://jerware.org/fanclub
Digital Undergrounds.....................http://dug.iscool.net
Doose charts...............................http://www.doose.dk
Freax................................http://freax.scene-hu.com
GfxZone............................http://gfxzone.planet-d.net
PC-demos explained.....http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained
Pixel...................................http://pixel.scene.org
trax e-mail list.............................................
.............http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/trax
Underground Mine.............http://www.spinningkids.org/umine
IRC Channels:
Scene.........................................ircnet thescene
Programming.....................................ircnet coders
Programming....................................efnet flipcode
Graphics.........................................ircnet pixel
Music......................................irc.scene.org trax
Music.............................................ircnet trax
Scene French..................................ircnet demofr
Programming French............................ircnet codefr
Graphics French..............................ircnet pixelfr
Programming German........................ircnet coders.ger
Scene Hungarian............................ircnet demoscene
Programming Hungarian......................ircnet coders.hu
Zx-spectrum scene..................................ircnet z80
-- Staff --
Editor: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
Staff Writers: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
Dilvie / Eric Hamilton / dilvie@yahoo.com
Novus / Vince Young / vinceyoung@hotmail.com
Psitron / Tim Soderstrom / tigerhawk@stic.net
Setec / Jesper Pederson / jesped@post.tele.dk
Seven / Stefaan VanNieuwenhuyze/ seven7@writeme.com
Tryhuk / Tryhuk Vojtech / vojtech.tryhuk@worldonline.cz
Vill / Brian Frank / darkvill@yahoo.com
The Watcher / Paul-Jan Pauptit / watcher@tuhb.org
Tech Consultant: Ranger Rick / Ben Reed / ranger@scenespot.org
Static Line on the Web: http://www.scenespot.org/staticline
Static Line Subscription Management:
http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/staticline
If you would like to contribute an article to Static Line, be aware
that we will format your article to 76 columns with two columns at the
beginning of each line. Please avoid foul language and high ascii
characters. Contributions Plain Text should be e-mailed to Coplan
coplan@scenespot.org by the last Friday of each month. New issues are
released on a monthly basis.
See you next month!
-eof---------------------
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