TATICLINE May, 2001
// Monthly Scene E-Zine 209 Subscribers
Table Of Contents
Opening:
Message From the Editor
Letters From Our Readers
Features:
Party Review -- Mekka/Symposium 2001
The Root -- How they Got Involved This Month: Xenoc
Columns:
Music:
In Tune -- Music from T-Tracker and Nightflowers
The Listener -- Music by Keith303, Esem and Willbe
Retro Tunage -- Remember by Beek
Demo:
Screen Lit Vertigo -- Le Petit Prince by Kolor party-version
General:
Editorial -- The Ever-Evolving Scene
Link List -- Get Somewhere in the Scene
Closing:
Credits
Message From the Editor
Welcome to our 33rd issue of Static Line. We have a good issue for
you, packed full of all the stuff you love: song reviews, demo
reviews, and our two most popular features. In addition to all the
typical stuff this month, youll also find yourself with a wonderful
The Root written by Xenoc. Most of you will probably know Xenoc for
his participation in the demoscene, and now you can hear his story.
Then, Seven has visted yet another demoparty. This time, he reports on
the Mekka / Symposium, 2001.
Again, I must remind you all that Static Line is always looking for
new writers. If you think you have anything to contribute to Static
Line, be it a regular column, or a feature writer, please send me an
e-mail: coplan@scenespot.org.
And if you havnt checked out SceneSpot lately, you might want to do so.
After all, weve added many new features, and were growing more and
more every day. You can help us grow. Come visit us:
http://www.scenespot.org
--Coplan
Party Review
Mekka/Symposium 2001
By: Seven
-- Friday 13 --
Its spring, and the scene is slowly gathering speed again. The
long-awaited Mekka/Symposium 2001 starts today in Fallingbostel, a good
600 Km from my appartment in Belgium, so I took a day off to get there
on time. Hey, its Friday 13, it brings bad luck if you work today :
Baxter arrives at 11 oclock, and we load my junk in the car in
record time. Next we drive to Antwerp to pick up Djefke and his
equipment. He takes two monitors and two keyboards with him, because he
promised these to a British scener on pixel who could only bring the
case of his PC. With a lot of effort we manages to fit everything in the
car. It reminds me of Block-Out, that old 3D tetris game :
The rest of the 7-hour trip from Belgium over the Netherlands to
Germany goes without troubles. We didnt get lost and had no significant
accidents, only Baxter grumbled a bit that he had get up sooner than
usual, and thus couldnt eat a decent meal before he left. At the
Dutch-German border, we were a bit nervous because Baxter had seen on
the news yesterday that the Dutch custom officers were confiscating all
products of animal origin, due to the foot and mouth disease. They even
went so far to confiscate chocolate easter eggs dunno why, milk or
eggs dont transmit it IIRC but maybe the custom officers just like to
eat them themselves, and guess what I had hidden in my backpack to
celebrate Easter on sunday :/ Luckily the custom officers were lunching
and we didnt even had to stop.
We talked about the demo that we planned to make at the party. Its
been since LTP4 that we wanted to release something, but things always
got delayed : So, now well release something just for the heck of it,
no matter how unfinished it is. We aim for a ranking in the middle :
When we arrived at the partyplace, the parking was already quite
filled. We parked temporary next to the entrance, to facilitate
unloading. Walking through the entrance hall, I saw scene-posters from
Pain, Buenzli, Haujobb and other groups/mags/parties sticked to the
doors and the walls. The main hall was largely filled already, so we
quickly paid the entrance fee 70 DM, about 35 Euro and scanned the
hall for three consecutive empty seats. Alas, the few such places were
already reserved :/ Since there was plenty of empty space near the
entrance, we asked the organisers for a table to set up there. They had
one left, a wobbling, sqeaky one, but it didnt break under the weight
of our monitors so we were well pleased. We put it next to the info
desk, far away from the *large* speakers on the podium. During our
installation I already ran into Diver, PS/Calodox and Skyrunner, and the
whole place has a really great athmosphere.
The main partyplace is a single sporthall, very large, with a ceiling
that looks like the bottom of a wooden ship. On one end, theres a
podium with a large big screen. Over a hundred chairs are put in front
of the podium, and after each compo this part of the floor will become
more and more covered with bottles, cups and cans. It was almost
dangerous to walk there the last day : Only after a day I noticed
theres a balcony behind the bigscreen which can be reached via two
stairs to the left and the right of the bigscreen. A lot of C64 sceners
are sitting there, as wel as in the right corner next to the bigscreen.
There are numerous banners on the walls, an Amiga scener has brought his
own beamer with which he projects stuff on the ceiling, some people have
brought christmas lights to decorate their machines... And then there
are the fashion statements: the guys from Centric all wear something
like a white body-covering desinfection suit with a big orange C on the
back, and dust masks. I notice a few really weird hats, and someone
from the group Sundancers Inc. IIRC wears a T-shirt with the message
Save the scroller! In the back of the hall everyone could write his
groupname/logo/whatever on a large paper banner. By the end of the
party, it was completely filled.
18:46:
Baxter is cursing at C++, since hes using Java at work and now
considers that a much better language. I try to install VC++, which
crashes of course, but for the sake of our demo I do not give up in
disgust. A bit later my old projects compile again, so I try to convert
them to that DemoGL framework Baxter wants to use.
On the bigscreen, the timetable is shown, plus useful info like the
prices of the cables, CDs and the rest you can buy at the info desk.
Another screen is added later: a request for everyone in the hall to sit
a bit closer to each other, in order to make room for the other sceners
that are still arriving.
21:00
The opening ceremony starts, inspired on the olympic games:
Steeler runs to the podium with a self-made Olympic torch a flashlight
with red plastic strips, and lights the bigscreen with a fullscreen
oldskool fire-effect. The entire crew presents itself on the podium,
and then the intro of the C64 game Summer Games is shown.
22:41
Welle Erdball is giving a live performance, loud but very good.
Its a German music group which plays rock music with synthesizers,
theyve made commercial music for the nintendo/gameboy. Avoozl is
helping Baxter and me on how we can draw a lot of dots quickly in
openGL. Warp, who is sitting next to Avoozl, shows me his entry for the
32K game compo: a strange 2-player mutation of Pacman, based on an
ancient C64 game.
-- Saturday 14 --
1.25
Crests demoshow is over. For over two hours, hes been showing a
selection of the very best PC demos and intros. I especially liked to
see those GUS-only intros like Paper or Clone meets clone, its been a
long time since Ive seen them *with* sound never had a GUS...
Djefke, who is responsible for the public relations in Access Denied,
is using his secret weapon: beer. More precisely: Belgian beer. Need we
say more? Hoardes of sceners suddenly want to talk with him Of course,
I dont want to imply youre any bit less interesting without beer,
Djefke : One of them is Phoenix/Hornet from America, nowadays using
the handle Feen, who decided to visit MS2k1 just a few days before. Wow,
I never expected to meet a Hornet member in real life. My second
scene-CD was the Hornet Underground CD, and Ive read all issues of
Demojournal, so this brings back some memories.
2:54
In the row in front of us, some guys are working on a *very*
impressive animated model of a scorpion. Its clearly for a demo, and
its depressing to watch if you still got to figure out the basics of
openGL :/ Baxter goes to sleep in his car, since the sleeping area is
completely filled. A few minutes later, a guy from the scorpion-demo
asks if Ive a copy of Visual Studio. I hand him over Baxters CDs, and
it turns out theyre from Federation Against Nature, the group who made
the best raytrace-demo so far: Nature Suxx. In fact, the scorpion is
part of the sequel they are making now: Nature Still Suxx! I really like
raytracing demos, so Im more than happy to hear this.
4:18
Night in Fallingbostel, everything is very quiet. Im trying to get a
mandelbrot zoom working. Yeah, I know fractal zoomers were fashionable
maybe five years ago, but its just for in the background of another
effect.
In the row next to us, Mat!/Ozone is sleeping with his head on his
keyboard. His screensaver shows Beavis and Butt-head peering out the
monitor, saying Look! The sucker is asleep! A self-made paper piggy
bank is attached to his Amiga, with a notice If you have 5000 DM and
you dont need them, I accept it... :- Give me your money and feel
better! Mat!/Ozone: Im REALLY very poor. Now I understand why the
party website said about the entrance fee: free for girls and Mat!/Ozone
9:00
PS is using Baxters PC to debug a demo he made with someone else, but
unfortunately the coder is not at the partyplace. Dake Fred/Calodox
are helping him. Im typing over some code from a Graphic Gems book, on
how to do fast delaunay triangulation. This should somehow help me to do
a fast voronoi effect, but unfortunately the book doesnt tell how to
convert between them :/ The rest of the hall is *still* very quiet.
10:05
Oh oh, after he woke up, Feen cant find his jacket anymore, and his
plane ticket is in it! The orgos ask over the PA if someone has seen it,
but no-one reacts :
Since Djefke is now awake, he can keep an eye on the hardware and
its my turn to catch some sleep.
12:22
Im back awake again my average sleeping time on a concrete floor
seems to be 2 hours, and after eating a bit I talk with Pampy, another
american scener, about voronoi cells. The first compo is alternative
graphics, meaning raytracing and photoshopped pics, should start at
13.00. Lets hope there are no delays...
14:34
The first compo was one hour delayed, but it was of very high quality.
There were 57 entries, out of which 36 entries were preselected. Its
hard to choose from 36 pictures when you see them only once for maybe 20
seconds each, but they will be shown a second time tomorrow. During the
compo, they played more Welle Erdball music, which is really a fitting
soundtrack for a demoparty.
16:12
The Second Reality show has passed in order following versions of
that classic demo were shown: the C64 clone by Smash Design, the wild
version Real Reality by Never, the original PC version by Future Crew,
and as a bonus Future Crews Unreal demo, on which Second Reality was
the sequel.
After this we all go outside to watch the harddisk-throwing compo.
Theres some discrimination in this compo: the girls who compete can
throw with small, modern harddisks, while the guys have to throw big,
ancient harddrives that are at least four times as large. Is that fair?
An exception is made for Mat!, who is allowed to throw with the girls
harddisk OK, because there were no more girls who wanted to compete,
and maybe because Mat isnt exactly very large.
16:59
Oh boy! Theres a TV-crew walking around, and they were interviewing
an organizer in the row in front of us. When they were finished, the
interviewer asked if he could interview me, and I didnt immediately
found an excuse to say no : So five minutes later I was looking at the
camera, rather nervous I might add, with my back to my screen Can you
show something on your screen? Something impressive please?, answering
questions like Where are you from?, Why are you in the scene?, Are
you looking for a job here?, Do you think the newest hardware makes it
easier to make a demo? etc. At least it seems theyre genuinly
interested in the scene, and dont try to make it look like a freakshow.
Hmm, on second thought, then why did they interview *me*? huge grin.
Since I dont have TV at home, let alone cable, Ill ask Skyrunner if
he can tape it program Nano on 3Sat, tuesday and watch if Im shown on
it.
20:45
Since even coders cant live on bread and orange juice alone, we hop
in the car and go on a food hunt. I could really go for some pizza, but
the McDonalds are closer, so french fries and hamburgers it is...
Unfortunately we missed the 64K amiga intros in the meantime, but
someone recorded them on a digital camera and put the avi on the LAN, so
I can watch them in thumbnail format.
A tad later, the PC 4K intro compo starts. One word: magnificent!
After all the parties with none or only a few low-quality entries, its
great to see a compo with 10 entries, several of which are simply
groundbraking. My favourite is Juggler, featuring a realtime raytraced
juggler, with reflections etc plus music. Then theres Varus, with
streams of lights traveling through accelerated 3D environments, also
with music, and there are 4K versions of Heaven 7 and Kasparov with
music thats even more boring than the original :... Wow, wow, wow.
Next a virtual newsreader announces several fake demo-related
newsitems, quite funny but I dont remember them anymore. Sorry.
21:54
More entertainment from the organizers: a scene-version of the TV-show
Who wants to be a millionaire? It has the bombastic soundeffects, the
three types of jokers of which the ask-the-public and phone-a-friend
jokers are a tiny bit manipulated by the orgos, and questions ranging
from how many channels has a 4-channel module to how do you set the
border color on a C64 to black ? Answer D: poke 54296, 0. Its much
better than the real thing.
23:07
Finally its time for the hand-pixeled graphics! Again a preselection
is necessary, but still over 40 high-quality pictures are shown. Voting
will be very, very difficult. Its a pity theyre not yet? available
on the website, because I wont be able to remember exactly which name
on the voting site matches which picture :/
-- Sunday 15 --
2:28
Djefkes favourite 3D package refuses to install, and hence he cant
supply us with the 3D models we wanted to put in our demo. Since the
progress on the rest of the demo is very slow, we once again decide to
delay it to the next party : Oh well, at least I have the openGL
documentation, so I keep learning at home :/
Baxter, Phoenix and Pampy are watching some pixar movies plus all the
Hybris/NEMESIS wild demos from The Party99 to 2K1. They get better each
year, Back To Basics is really hilarious.
The C64 music compo is happening now, and people are dancing on the
podium. I feel much too tired to do that, so I pull my sleeping bag over
my ears and take another nap.
6:08
Awake again. Boy, this feels strange: normally, a demoparty is almost
over on sunday morning, but now its only halfway : I discuss some
things I cant remember anymore with Djefke and Feen, who unfortunately
still hasnt got his jacket back. Ive a bad feeling it might be stolen,
but Feen looks depressed enough already so I keep quiet :/
8:54
Breakfast time: the organizers are selling fresh sandwiches, and
while Im eating I download the full version of Real Reality including
the making of part that was missing on my current copy.
Another info-screen has popped up on the bigscreen since some time,
it reads: FEELING DIRTY? The showers are open for boys/girls from XX
to YY. For a 4-day party, showers are indeed more than just a detail.
11:16
I went outside to catch some fresh air, and was surprised to see
everything covered with snow. Thats what happens if you spend too much
time inside, you lose track of what happens to the world outside : Some
sceners are standing around a fire, keeping it burning despite the snow.
PS informs me that Yes and Chandra from Orange Juice are not sure if
LTP5 will happen this year. I really, really hope it will, as LTP4 was
the best party I visited last year. After a while the cold forces me
back inside, cause Im not wearing a coat.
The Amiga 4K compo starts, with some nice productions but nothing as
spectacular as the best PC 4K intros. I guess the limited CPU power
makes the biggest difference. One entry has no visual effects, but
generates 8 yes, eight different chiptunes! Unfortunately this takes a
good 20 minutes, so my opinion about it balances between awe and
boredom.
13:37
After reading the Halloween documents www.opensource.org/halloween
some time ago, I had decided to give Linux a try, but being the cautious
type I preferred to have a Linux guru around in case I screwed up. Since
Djefke is a hardcore Linux evangelist, now seems to be a good time to
take the risk. While I struggle with the Suse installer, LILO and
loadlin, the C64 graphics are shown. Feen tells me they have only 16
colors, and the resolution is probably very limited too, but from the
back of the hall they look almost as sharp and colorful as the PC
graphics :
16:07
Linux works, to the extend that I can type this in the Midnight
Commander, yipee! This turns out to be a bad idea, as I have to convert
the line-endings of the new paragraph when I continue in Notepad. After
the C64 graphics compo followed the console demos compo: stuff for the
Gameboy Advanced and the Dreamcast etc, about 5 entries in all. All
chairs and other horizontal surfaces in the first part of the hall are
occupied, so Ive to watch them from a distance.
To fill the gap till the next compo, those wicked orgos have thrown
in ChillZone, a live jam-session with synthesizers, guitars and brace
yourselves digeridoos! For the ignorant: a didgeridoo is an Australian
wood-wind instrument that looks like a 2-meter long cigar and sounds
like a blowfly with a cold. In addition, everyone who had an instrument
was invited to join in. Vickey, Tomcat/Greenrooms girlfriend started to
dance on the podium, more people followed her example and by the time
the delayed PC 64K intro compo was ready to begin, it had to be delayed
even longer because the dancers and the audience didnt want to stop
The 64K intro compo wasnt as spectacular as the 4K intro compo, most
of the 17 intros used the same accelerated effects. Art by Farbrausch
Scoopex was something special, it used 3D in child-drawing style like
cartoon-style rendering but with disconnected lines and almost flat
colors that cross the lines. Further honorable mentions to Rise for the
original progress cube and the impressive cityscape, and for The
Milkyway Experience for the nice spacecut effect. As I had trouble to
keep concentrated during the compo, Ill sleep during the MP3 compo in
order to be fully awake during the demo compos.
18:06
The C64 4K intro compo has started. One features realtime raytracing
in textmode, albeit so slow that you can see the individual frames being
drawn. Most intros have music too, but what impresses me the most is the
large number of entries: over 20! Thats twice as much as in the PC
compo, for a machine that has only a fraction of the PCs active scene!
Of course, there isnt *that* much you can do on a C64 besides
programming on it :
21:57
The demo compos are being delayed due to the large nr of entries. In
the meantime, another round of Who whants to be a scenionaire is
played with Mat!/Ozone as contestant, and later everyone can bring stuff
to the orgos to be shown on the bigscreen such as the inevitable All
Your Base animation.
23:10
Still no democompos, but theres an improvized real-time coding compo
for the C64: coders have 1 minute the time to program live on the
bigscreen simple effects like making the border of the screen flash.
Just before the democompos, the classic game Bomberman is played on
the bigscreen. Steeler dedicates this game to a friend of him who was a
famous hardware designer but died a few weeks ago. For the challenge,
the players have to use very big and clumsy control pads. As a result,
most levels are won by the player who does *not* blows up himself.
And after the Bomberman game, the demo compos start!
-- Monday 16 --
3:31
Wow! First 22 amiga demos, then 15 minutes pause, and then 27 PC
demos. Man, Im feeling dizzy! The Amiga demos were almost all very well
designed, but the effects are of course not up to par with the PC demos.
The Black Lotus made IMHO the best one, Perfect Circle, with a very
impressive Mandelbrot rotozoom effect. The PC demos were on average of a
lower quality than the amiga ones, and I wouldnt have mind a
preselection. Still there were many excellent ones. Propaganda/INF is my
favourite one, lots of great effects changing rapidly, perfectly synced
to the music a japanese rock MP3, as usual. Nature Still Sucks also
looks really great, although the framerate is on the low side at some
parts. Kolor has also made a very nice demo in a cute cartoon-style, Le
Petit Prince, which will no doubt end up high in the results.
The C64 demos follow, but I can hardly concentrate anymore. I
randomly try the URL ftp.party in the explorer, and guess what? The
majority of the entries is already available online. I keep one eye on
the bigscreen while I start downloading them, and after the C64 demo
compo ends the bigscreen shows several URLs where you can download the
entries : Now you can also exchange your wristband for a voting key,
which is necessary to submit the voting form. The orgos take no risks
that someone fakes a votekey: mine was
8JHkdW5QwA3aPY-w2c--Ayhcz88D, that a full 31 mixed-case characters.
Try to type that correctly when youve had less then 10 hours sleep in 3
days!
7:21
Voting is over, already from 6 oclock. That made a rather small
timeframe for people to submit their votes, and since many sceners went
to sleep after the compos, they missed the deadline. It was also
impossible, in the time given, to relisten/rewatch all the entries for
more accurate voting :
Feen and I talk about Hornet and the American demoscene, and I buy a
NAIDorabilia CD from him to add to my scene CD collection. Nowadays
everyone has a CD burner and broadband internet access, so official
scene CDs become a rarity...
11:46
The fast intro compo entries are shown, which had to feature an
olympic flame, donuts, an advertisement, and some more compulsory
subjects. Finally the prize ceremony starts. Instead of the usual
third-second-first place announcing, all entries of a compo are shown
together. After each name is a growing bar, and the entry whose bar
grows the largest has the most results and wins. The tension in the
audience rises as one bar after another stops growing :
In the 4K intro compo, the raytraced Juggler wins, followed by Varus.
In the 64K compo Art takes the first place, which I personally didnt
like that much. The second and third places go to Haujobbs intro and
the Rise intro. Le Petit Prince/Kolor wins the democompo, followed by
Mozaik/Haujobb and Propaganda/INF. Im disappointed that Nature Still
Suxx reaches only the fifth place, IMHO they deserved a higher ranking.
A lot of sceners have started packing and are leaving the place, even
before the prize ceremony. When the rows before us are half-empty, Feen
and I go take a look at the location where he has last seen his jacket,
and lo and behold: we find it under a table tucked behind a cardboard
box! Even better, the plane ticket is still in it. So Phoenix isnt
stuck here in Fallingbostel, Im sure thats a load off his shoulders :
1:30
We start to pack our stuff and swap email addresses with Pampy and
Feen. Skyrunner, who has made the music for the winning Juggler 4K,
gives me one of the several identical issues of the Go64! magazine he
has won. I know the 4K compo doesnt have big money prizes, but that
must be one of the most useless prizes ever, especially because last
year, he also won several copies of exactly the same issue!
After we say goodbye to our friends, we drive off to Belgium. The
trip home doesnt go as smooth, we spend two hours in traffic jams. I
try to sleep, and later I read that Go64! mag. Its hard to believe
they still made papermags for the C64 in 1999! The articles are
interesting though: reports from demoscene parties, articles on how to
etch your own printed circuits hint: wear sunscreen to protect against
sunburns from the UV lamp, and be careful with those hazardeous
chemicals, and how to mask non-maskable interrupts. Theres one gem of
a quote I just have to share with you, about how the C64 sceners see the
PC sceners: Go64! september 1999, p 12:
Nobody seems to have any artistic skill anymore - graphics are
scanned or raytraced, samples are mixed together in the fast tracker to
mindless Mod music without any hint of imagination or devotion.
There you have it, stop the Mod vs MP3 debate, lets all go back to
SID chiptunes :
-- Back home --
The next day, someone had converted the Nano program to .avi and had
put it on the net already. It was only a 5-minutes item, but they
managed to give a decent explanation what the demoscene is, and they
showed screenshots from demos and 4Ks and stuff. My interview was cut
out, probably for aesthetical reasons :
All in all, Ms2K1 was definately the best party Ive visited yet. At
first I was a bit dissapointed that we didnt finish our demo, but after
the compo it was clear that there were already enough demos, and ours
would only have lowered the average quality. Lots of kudos to the
organizing, for speaking English, properly announcing delays, providing
entertainment inbetween the compos, and much much more. The amount of
entries in all compos was very good, more often too high than too low,
and the general atmosphere was great. The only improvement I can see is
in the voting. The IMHO perfect system would be: after each compo, all
entries are made available for download, people can vote whenever they
want, and votes can be submitted for each compo separately, instead of
all at once. Implement that and next years edition will be really the
perfect party.
--Seven
The Root
How They Got Involved
Sponsored By: Tryhuk
By: Aaron Zafran Xenoc
When I sit down and listen to old tunes from the scene, I get
depressed. Yes, depressed. Perhaps this isnt the reaction that one
would expect from a guy who will emphatically tell you that the days of
trax, music contests remember? MC1-6?, and envy of Five Musicians
were some of the best of his life. Its hard to explain what it was
about the scene that has kept these memories so dear to me. Yet, its
also hard to explain the feeling I get when a total stranger recognizes
my name on a mailing list and sends me an email that essentially is
comprised of Xenoc! Your music kicked ass! Why dont you track any
more? I think somewhere near the root of my depression lies the fact
that if I had to explain why I stopped tracking, Id have to say that
Im not entirely sure.
Anyway, maybe this will all make more sense if I start at the
beginning. Im going to venture an educated guess and say that I
started tracking around November of 1994. I was 13 years old. A guy by
the handle of The Kamikaze Gerbil lol ran a BBS that I frequented, and
one day he sent me a MOD that he had written. It wasnt so much that I
was inspired by the song, but more that in the true spirit of
adolescence, I was determined to write a better one. So, I downloaded
Scream Tracker 3.x and proceeded to churn out a horrendously repetitive
and dissonant piece that I still hide in a secret directory on my hard
drive so nobody finds it.
I discovered at that point that writing music is not easy. And for
those of you that seem to think tracking makes it easier-you couldnt be
more incorrect. Nonetheless, I continued to pursue tracking, and I
improved slowly but surely, learning from the masters: Purple Motion,
Skaven, Elwood, Necros, etc... It wasnt long that my obsessive and
socially inhibiting use of BBSes led me to discover demo/tracking
groups, and the desire to be a part of one of these prestigious
foundations immediately consumed me.
Of course, I ended up being accepted to an art/ANSi group as their
only musician, but hey, youve got to start somewhere, right? The group
went by the name Rulerz of Chaos, or RoC, and I wouldnt be surprised if
not a single person reading this has any recollection of RoCs
existence. But it was the insignificant publicity that RoC provided
that sent me on my path to becoming part of the real demoscene. One
day, I received an email from a guy by the handle of Nova. He lived in
Canada, and wanted me to join a group by the name of COaR! Yes, I know
you havent heard of that group either. We never released a goddamned
thing. But it was Nova who introduced me to trax.
Before I entered trax, tracking was merely a hobby. The big names
of tracking that I had grown to idolize seemed so far away, so
inaccessible. And then, that first day I logged onto IRC and joined
trax, my jaw dropped. Necros was in the same chat room that I was in.
NECROS! Holy crap! Of course, I was far too intimidated to say
anything to anyone in there, but I grinned stupidly in awe as the chat
rolled by.
In time, that intimidation dissolved, and the relationships I formed
in trax led me to apply to pHluid, which was the tracking division of
ACiD. I became one of the more active members that pHluid had at the
time, and for some reason my music stood out according to many among
the releases that followed. But, I was somewhat disappointed with
pHluid throughout my time as part of it, and if I recall correctly, my
departure from the group was not only messy but also very embarrassing.
I believe a portion of an email from a very angry and immature
15-year-old Xenoc was published in Demonews, a widely read scenemag.
At that point, I became a senior member of Analogue Music, which was
a group run by a guy by the handle of Mind Bender, who did not track. I
believe this single fact was probably the reason that Analogue didnt
live up to the potential it had. Nonetheless, we had some pretty decent
and well-known musicians under our belt, and our releases were generally
approved of. Things were good, I was writing music, getting good
feedback, and felt like I was moving up in the world of tracking. It
was this era of my tracking history that holds the fondest memories for
me.
And suddenly, everything started to fall apart. Administrative
nonsense tore Analogue apart. Every time I logged onto IRC there were
issues to be addressed, people to be lured in or kicked out. There was
talk of for-profit endeavors, which was against everything the tracking
scene stood for. The scene had decidedly begun to lose its edge, not
just for me, but for many others as well. Anyone who was involved at
the time would likely agree with me when I say that you could feel the
overall morale of trackers dropping.
Slowly, I faded out of the scene, observing tragedies that followed
from a distance. Hornet Archive was suddenly no more, and soon it was
announced that there was a good chance there would be no MC7. My social
life began to pick up and I didnt really care about any of this scene
stuff at the time, but looking back, it makes me sadder now than it ever
did then.
I never stopped writing music. I have a recording studio in my
apartment and despite the fact that I rarely produce anything Im
pleased with, Ive never thought to give up. It is undeniable that to
this day, writing music has never felt as exciting to me as it did when
I was a tracker. Even now when Im programming riffs into my Roland
MC-303 or recording a riff with my Kurzweil, my brain instinctively
starts to figure out how to reproduce them in tracked form. I guess old
habits die hard. My name is Aaron Zafran, better known to many as
Xenoc. I am a student. I am a musician, and I will always be a tracker.
--Aaron Zafran, a.k.a Xenoc.
azafran@vt.edu
In Tune
Music from T-Tracker and Nightflowers
By: Coplan
-- Introduction --
So I hopped on Trax-in-Space to see what the latest tunage was from
some other trackers, and I decided to visit the top charts. I grabbed
some of the tunes listed there, and I decided Id give them a review.
As of this writing, the songs are ranked as follows:
1: Be What U Wanna Be t-tracker
2: GDream - We Are Not Alone: Space Invasion Remix Nightflowers
3: Firestorm t-tracker
All songs are available from Trax In Space: http://www.traxinspace.com
-- Be What U Wanna Be / T-Tracker --
The top ranked song from Trax-in-Space is sort of a trancy tune that
reminds me of some early 90s video game music. Trust me, that is not a
cut on the quality of the song. Some of my favorite music is game music
Legend of Zeldas music, Metroid, and so on. I recently got a new
subwoofer, so I can fully appreciate this song. If you arent fortunate
enough to have one though, it probably wont bother you to hear it
without a subwoofer, as T-Tracker has done a wonderful mixing job.
The tune is very complex, and of a quality that I could not duplicate.
The base riff alone could be raised a few octaves and passed off as a
lead, as it has incredible depth to its performance. I find the
percussion quite interesting as well. Aside from the standard drum kit,
there are a few other percussive instruments in there that definately
add to the song.
I would say that this is one of those songs that you should grab if
you happen to like trance or dance. It wouldnt be the greatest song I
ever download, but it is very entertaining, and fun to listen to. My
girlfriend just likes to dance to it she approves!.
-- GDream - We Are Not Alone: Space Invasion Remix / Nightflowers --
All you serious Trance freaks out there will love this tune. This
fits the definition of Trance to the T, as you got every element in
this tune. I wish I had the original, as Id like to see how much has
been innovated by Nightflowers. Unlike many trance tunes, GDream
isnt all that repetative. The tune seems to evolve through different
stages, each stage a bit more complex and more interesting than the
previous. All the while, the tune continues to move and pull you
through to the end.
The song contains some sounds Ive never heard anywhere else, and for
that I am quite relieved. After all, I was beginning to believe that
ever trance artist was using the same sample set. The ending is what
did it for me, as the opening seemed a bit unoriginal for me. Thats
not to say that the ending was entirely original, but at least it was
away from the norm. My girlfriend continues to dance, and so I guess
she approves of this song as well. All I need is some pretty colored
lights and some strobes, perhaps even some foam -- and we can have
ourselves a little party. Another tune definately worth a download.
-- Firestorm / T-Tracker --
Well, it seems as though T-Tracker is a pretty popular tracker. Two
songs in the top three is impressive. Firestorm isnt nearly as good
as T-Trackers number one song at this time. When I listen to this
tune, I cant help but to question its placement on the charts. Mind
you, the tune is better than the average tune out there, but I dont
believe that its entirely anything special. Though, Ive listened to
the song many times now, and it is very relaxing.
Now I cant entirely tear this song apart, as it has some very good
contributing elements. The strings in the background are very tight and
well done. The chord progression is also well chosen. This is,
however, probably an experiment for T-Tracker, as he usually has much
higher quality music. I must stress that, as the other music from
T-Tracker that I have heard is wonderful. But my girlfriend has stopped
dancing, and I think that says it all.
--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 Listener
Music by Keith303, Esem and Willbe
By: Tryhuk
-- LoveSexDestuction / keith303 -
My big passion is traveling by trains and one of major reasons why I
like this track is that it evokes in me that feeling. Trees are running
behind windows, track claps in a regular rhythm and wheels whistle on
the switches. There are many ways to express our feelings about trains.
Smash did it in his last train where you can hear the breath of steam.
Necros did it in Point of departure where you could hear trains
flying. Keith303 didnt stay behind and he made a definitely original
electronic track with all aspects of modern music, not only in the use
of original samples or complex drum lines, but also with massive
filtering and manipulation of the sound spectrum. And because Keith303
left the scene, this song can easily be a last one that youll ever hear
from him.
Song name: LoveSexDestuction
Artist: keith303
File Size: 5.2mb
Location: http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/91/keith303.html
-- 2sided/esem -
2sided seems to be an mp3.com only release, because I didnt see it
mentioned on any of the scene labels. Anyway it is a very nice song. It
follows the line of his earlier works that were built on decent ambient
and soft percussion, repetitive sine melodies and frequent secondary
sounds that push the track forward a make out of it a trip instead of a
boring loop. Although this track might not seem too special, I always
liked this kind of music and I wasnt disappointed by this download.
Song name: 2sided
Artist: esem
File Size: 3.6mb
Location: http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/165/georgemarinov.html
-- greed hungry mix / willbe -
Last track I want to mention today is willbes contribution to compo
of Laurent Garnier if I remember it correctly. Unfortunately I didnt
hear the original track that was remixed so I cant judge how the remix
turned out compared to original. All I can say that I like it and once
again it is a track that is worth downloading. If you havent heard it
yet, you still have time to get it.
Song name: greed hungry remix
Artist: willbe
Location: http://mp3.com/willbe
Retro Tunage
Remember by Beek
By: Tryhuk
It seems to me that I didnt write about a MOD for quite a long time
and thats a scandal for this kind of column. So here you have it. It
is a song by Beek and it appeared on the musicdisk Mango. Its name is
remember, a name that man would give to some sweet sad dreamy song.
IMHO it fulfills this expectation, but it still stays decent, no real
shitty sweetness. People that have heard it may ask me what is so
special about this song, why it deserved it to be mentioned here while
there are many other superb songs. Reason is simple: I wanted to mention
a song that isnt special at all, it is just a well made tune.
Thats all I wanted to say, sorry for the shortness of the review, but
Im once again too tired to review. So if you want to have something
special here, next time sit down to your computer for a while and write
about your favorite song. Thank you for your attention.
Song Information:
Title: Remember
Author: Beek
Release date: 1998
Length: 3m05s
Filename unzipped/zipped: remember.mod / mango.zip
File Size unzipped/zipped: 470kb / 2mb
Source: some functional hornet mirror
--Tryhuk
Screen Lit Vertigo
Le Petit Prince by Kolor party-version
By: Seven
Found at the party network, but you can try www.scene.org
1st place at the Mekka/Symposium 2001 PC democompo.
System requirements:
Windows9x or higher, an openGL supporting 3D card, a soundcard.
Recommended: Windows2K, a Geforce2 and a Pentium III processor.
Test Machine: PIII 900 192MB, SB128, GeForce 2MX 32MB, Win98
The Credits:
Code: shiva
Meshes, textures, gfx: noize
Music, gfx: raytrayza
The Demo:
For those whove never heard about Le Petit Prince the little
prince, it is a very good and well-known childrens tale written by
Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Its about a little boy from the stars that
leaves his home planet, visiting several very small planets that are
each inhabited by one stereotypical person a king, a businessman, a
drunk etc, and eventually lands on Earth. Its an excellent book,
simple yet thought-provoking, and recommended reading for both children
and adults.
The only theme of the book that Kolor kept in the demo is that of a
little boy visiting tiny planets. Each planet has a theme: a park, snow,
the beach, the desert, and technology. Everything on the planets is
rendered in a cartoon-style, with black lines on all edges of 3D
objects. The objects are colored in soft tints that go well together,
and clouds and seas use transparency. Theres a certain amount of
parallelism between the worlds: the birds in the snow world become
little flying robots in the techno world, the balloon in the park become
a sattelite in the beach world and giant halogen bulbs in the desert
world. Between the different worlds, a scrolling image is shown of the
fuzzy rendered planet youre leaving, and/or the one youre visiting
next. Each planet has icons associated with it: fish for the beach,
cogwheels for the tech-planet etc. Camera switches on a planet are
sometimes made with circular or star-formed holes filled with the
second scene, that appear in the current scene and quickly grow till
they cover it completely.
The music is very relaxed, with an ambient background and idm
instruments on the foreground: beeps, sweeps etc. Theres little hard
syncing, except when we switch to a new planet. There are also a few
soundeffects, like the sweeping sound of the waving antena on the snow
planet, or a swoosch when a big spaceship flies over the tech-planet.
Overall:
Le Petit Prince is mainly a design/3D demo. There are no real
demo-effects, and while the cartoon rendering looks great, its not
extremely hard to do especially with 3D cards, 3 Little Goats/M0ppi
productions did it in software in 97. There isnt much of a story
either, on most planets the boy simply explores the world. Its simply a
collection of very detailed, well-designed and beautiful worlds.
Everything fits together in harmony. The only inperfection I could see
was that on a few places the overviews of the park and desert planet,
and the beach when the boy surfs and dives you can see two copies of
the boy at the same time if you look carefully. Overall, its a great
demo to watch and relax with. Go get it if you havent yet.
--Seven
Editorial
The Ever-Evolving Scene
By: Coplan
As I finished reading Xenocs article, I had to admit, I often look
back at the scene with depression. Call me one of those grumpy old
men, but I must admit, things were better then.
Technology had yet to come to the point that it is now. Truth be
told, graphics and audio are starting to get so close to realism these
days that any improvement is almost a mute point. What made the scene
wonderful back then? The scene was cutting edge. If you wanted to see
cool effects and cool music, the scene was the place to be. Most games
took advantage of some of the products of the scene: mod music, pixel
art, and so on. And thats only when I jumped in the scene...about 7
years ago.
As far as the history of computers is concerned, at least the history
of personal computers, the demoscene is in fact very old. Prior to my
existance in the scene, the scene was the cutting edge. When I jumped
in, it was still on the edge, but the edge was much more broad, and the
game industry wasnt far behind. Now? Theres no competition anymore.
The Demoscene consists of people exploring a dying artform be it demos,
music, pixel, whatever.
So is the scene dead? No. Ive said this many times before,
especially since Ive started this magazine. I come back every so many
months and remind everyone that the scene is not dead. But questions
arise, and Im left to answer them myself, even if I am the one who
asked. I have to constantly reassure myself that the scene is still
alive and I am in fact a part of something. And there are still some
that think I wear rose colored glasses and look out unto the world
without a clue of what the demoscene is truly about. And that might be
true, but that depends on whos asking.
Though I might be considered oldskool, there are many oldskoolers
before me, and they would disagree with my thoughts about the scene.
What I embrace and what they embraced are two different things. They
embraced a demoscene that lead the computer scene market. Today, those
oldskoolers are computer programmers, hardware designers, musicians,
producers and basically the forefront of modern technology. And they
started with the demoscene, ever used to the fact that they were
revolutionaries in the world of modern computers. I, however, embrace
an artform of old times. I embrace a technique called tracking, which
is still very functional and easy to find in todays world. But it might
very well be on its way off the popularity charts. I dont think that
tracking will ever officially die, however. Contrary to what some
software developers might think, there isnt much one can do to improve
the quality of the standard tracking programs. But there are people out
there to keep things up to date with the modern computer. While IT does
not run in Windows 2000, there might be a program that does the same
things as IT and does run in Windows 2000. But the concept is still
there, and the art form is still as it always was.
My point is that the demoscene as a whole has to be divided down into
its components: Philosophy, Art, Meaning. The art will not change.
Conceptually, the art has never changed. The means in achieving the
art, however, has change, but the product will not. The meaning is a
very personal thing, and it is the basis for any one persons
involvement in the art. This is what causes each and every product to
be unique in such that it is an expression of that one person. Meaning
is ever evolving and has very little effect, if any, on the evolution of
the demoscene. However, the philosophy is the overall collective
purpose in the scene. Yes, you will find groups who believe they have a
different philosophy from the rest of the scene, but combine everyones
philosophy and you get one common denominator. In the early years of
the scene, the philosophy was to be the cutting edge of the computer
world. Today, the philosophy of the demoscene is simply to promote a
long standing art-form that is under-celebrated.
The cutting edge is no longer reachable by one or a few people on
their little computers at home. No, as sad as it is to admit it, the
future of computing lies in the hands of big corporations and large
scale movements such as the open source scene. The Demoscene isnt the
movement it used to be. But it is still a society, and it is a society
that many choose to be in. Im proud of all of you who are still here.
--Coplan
Link List
Portals:
Orange Juice.............................http://www.ojuice.net
Scene.org.................................http://www.scene.org
SceneSpot.............................http://www.scenespot.org
CFXweb.......................................http://cfxweb.net
Pouet.net.................................http://www.pouet.net
Demoscene.org.........................http://www.demoscene.org
Scenet....................................http://www.scenet.de
Demo.org...................................http://www.demo.org
Czech Scene................................http://www.scene.cz
Hungarian Scene........................http://www.scene-hu.com
Italian Scene...........................http://run.to/lascena
ModPlug Central Resources..........http://www.castlex.com/mods
Norvegian Scene............http://www.neutralzone.org/scene.no
Polish Scene...........................http://www.demoscena.pl
Russian Scene..........................http://www.demoscene.ru
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://alienprophets.ninja.dk
Anakata..............................http://www.anakata.art.pl
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
* 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
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
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
* 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.bentdesign.com/chill
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
Five Musicians.........................http://www.fm.scene.org
Fusion Music Crew.................http://members.home.nl/cyrex
Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff
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
Miasmah.............................http://www.miasmah.cjb.net
Milk.......................................http://milk.sgic.fi
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
Moplayaz..........................http://ssmedion.de/moplayaz
Mono211.................................http://www.mono211.com
Morbid Minds..............http://www.raveordie.com/morbidminds
Noise................................http://www.noisemusic.org
Noerror.......................http://www.error-404.com/noerror
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
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://wildmag.notrix.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
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
* Underground Mine.............http://www.spinningkids.org/umine
IRC Channels:
Scene.........................................ircnet thescene
Programming.....................................ircnet coders
Programming....................................efnet flipcode
Graphics.........................................ircnet pixel
Music.............................................ircnet trax
Scene French..................................ircnet demofr
Programming French............................ircnet codefr
Graphics French..............................ircnet pixelfr
Scene Hungarian............................ircnet demoscene
Programming Hungarian......................ircnet coders.hu
Programming German........................ircnet coders.ger
Editor: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
Writers: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
Dilvish / Eric Hamilton / dilvie@yahoo.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
Technical Consult: 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 with two spaces at the beginning and one
space at the end of each line. Please avoid foul language and high ascii
characters. Contributions should be mailed to Coplan
coplan@scenespot.org.
See you next month!
-eof---------------------
// Monthly Scene E-Zine 209 Subscribers
Table Of Contents
Opening:
Message From the Editor
Letters From Our Readers
Features:
Party Review -- Mekka/Symposium 2001
The Root -- How they Got Involved This Month: Xenoc
Columns:
Music:
In Tune -- Music from T-Tracker and Nightflowers
The Listener -- Music by Keith303, Esem and Willbe
Retro Tunage -- Remember by Beek
Demo:
Screen Lit Vertigo -- Le Petit Prince by Kolor party-version
General:
Editorial -- The Ever-Evolving Scene
Link List -- Get Somewhere in the Scene
Closing:
Credits
Message From the Editor
Welcome to our 33rd issue of Static Line. We have a good issue for
you, packed full of all the stuff you love: song reviews, demo
reviews, and our two most popular features. In addition to all the
typical stuff this month, youll also find yourself with a wonderful
The Root written by Xenoc. Most of you will probably know Xenoc for
his participation in the demoscene, and now you can hear his story.
Then, Seven has visted yet another demoparty. This time, he reports on
the Mekka / Symposium, 2001.
Again, I must remind you all that Static Line is always looking for
new writers. If you think you have anything to contribute to Static
Line, be it a regular column, or a feature writer, please send me an
e-mail: coplan@scenespot.org.
And if you havnt checked out SceneSpot lately, you might want to do so.
After all, weve added many new features, and were growing more and
more every day. You can help us grow. Come visit us:
http://www.scenespot.org
--Coplan
Party Review
Mekka/Symposium 2001
By: Seven
-- Friday 13 --
Its spring, and the scene is slowly gathering speed again. The
long-awaited Mekka/Symposium 2001 starts today in Fallingbostel, a good
600 Km from my appartment in Belgium, so I took a day off to get there
on time. Hey, its Friday 13, it brings bad luck if you work today :
Baxter arrives at 11 oclock, and we load my junk in the car in
record time. Next we drive to Antwerp to pick up Djefke and his
equipment. He takes two monitors and two keyboards with him, because he
promised these to a British scener on pixel who could only bring the
case of his PC. With a lot of effort we manages to fit everything in the
car. It reminds me of Block-Out, that old 3D tetris game :
The rest of the 7-hour trip from Belgium over the Netherlands to
Germany goes without troubles. We didnt get lost and had no significant
accidents, only Baxter grumbled a bit that he had get up sooner than
usual, and thus couldnt eat a decent meal before he left. At the
Dutch-German border, we were a bit nervous because Baxter had seen on
the news yesterday that the Dutch custom officers were confiscating all
products of animal origin, due to the foot and mouth disease. They even
went so far to confiscate chocolate easter eggs dunno why, milk or
eggs dont transmit it IIRC but maybe the custom officers just like to
eat them themselves, and guess what I had hidden in my backpack to
celebrate Easter on sunday :/ Luckily the custom officers were lunching
and we didnt even had to stop.
We talked about the demo that we planned to make at the party. Its
been since LTP4 that we wanted to release something, but things always
got delayed : So, now well release something just for the heck of it,
no matter how unfinished it is. We aim for a ranking in the middle :
When we arrived at the partyplace, the parking was already quite
filled. We parked temporary next to the entrance, to facilitate
unloading. Walking through the entrance hall, I saw scene-posters from
Pain, Buenzli, Haujobb and other groups/mags/parties sticked to the
doors and the walls. The main hall was largely filled already, so we
quickly paid the entrance fee 70 DM, about 35 Euro and scanned the
hall for three consecutive empty seats. Alas, the few such places were
already reserved :/ Since there was plenty of empty space near the
entrance, we asked the organisers for a table to set up there. They had
one left, a wobbling, sqeaky one, but it didnt break under the weight
of our monitors so we were well pleased. We put it next to the info
desk, far away from the *large* speakers on the podium. During our
installation I already ran into Diver, PS/Calodox and Skyrunner, and the
whole place has a really great athmosphere.
The main partyplace is a single sporthall, very large, with a ceiling
that looks like the bottom of a wooden ship. On one end, theres a
podium with a large big screen. Over a hundred chairs are put in front
of the podium, and after each compo this part of the floor will become
more and more covered with bottles, cups and cans. It was almost
dangerous to walk there the last day : Only after a day I noticed
theres a balcony behind the bigscreen which can be reached via two
stairs to the left and the right of the bigscreen. A lot of C64 sceners
are sitting there, as wel as in the right corner next to the bigscreen.
There are numerous banners on the walls, an Amiga scener has brought his
own beamer with which he projects stuff on the ceiling, some people have
brought christmas lights to decorate their machines... And then there
are the fashion statements: the guys from Centric all wear something
like a white body-covering desinfection suit with a big orange C on the
back, and dust masks. I notice a few really weird hats, and someone
from the group Sundancers Inc. IIRC wears a T-shirt with the message
Save the scroller! In the back of the hall everyone could write his
groupname/logo/whatever on a large paper banner. By the end of the
party, it was completely filled.
18:46:
Baxter is cursing at C++, since hes using Java at work and now
considers that a much better language. I try to install VC++, which
crashes of course, but for the sake of our demo I do not give up in
disgust. A bit later my old projects compile again, so I try to convert
them to that DemoGL framework Baxter wants to use.
On the bigscreen, the timetable is shown, plus useful info like the
prices of the cables, CDs and the rest you can buy at the info desk.
Another screen is added later: a request for everyone in the hall to sit
a bit closer to each other, in order to make room for the other sceners
that are still arriving.
21:00
The opening ceremony starts, inspired on the olympic games:
Steeler runs to the podium with a self-made Olympic torch a flashlight
with red plastic strips, and lights the bigscreen with a fullscreen
oldskool fire-effect. The entire crew presents itself on the podium,
and then the intro of the C64 game Summer Games is shown.
22:41
Welle Erdball is giving a live performance, loud but very good.
Its a German music group which plays rock music with synthesizers,
theyve made commercial music for the nintendo/gameboy. Avoozl is
helping Baxter and me on how we can draw a lot of dots quickly in
openGL. Warp, who is sitting next to Avoozl, shows me his entry for the
32K game compo: a strange 2-player mutation of Pacman, based on an
ancient C64 game.
-- Saturday 14 --
1.25
Crests demoshow is over. For over two hours, hes been showing a
selection of the very best PC demos and intros. I especially liked to
see those GUS-only intros like Paper or Clone meets clone, its been a
long time since Ive seen them *with* sound never had a GUS...
Djefke, who is responsible for the public relations in Access Denied,
is using his secret weapon: beer. More precisely: Belgian beer. Need we
say more? Hoardes of sceners suddenly want to talk with him Of course,
I dont want to imply youre any bit less interesting without beer,
Djefke : One of them is Phoenix/Hornet from America, nowadays using
the handle Feen, who decided to visit MS2k1 just a few days before. Wow,
I never expected to meet a Hornet member in real life. My second
scene-CD was the Hornet Underground CD, and Ive read all issues of
Demojournal, so this brings back some memories.
2:54
In the row in front of us, some guys are working on a *very*
impressive animated model of a scorpion. Its clearly for a demo, and
its depressing to watch if you still got to figure out the basics of
openGL :/ Baxter goes to sleep in his car, since the sleeping area is
completely filled. A few minutes later, a guy from the scorpion-demo
asks if Ive a copy of Visual Studio. I hand him over Baxters CDs, and
it turns out theyre from Federation Against Nature, the group who made
the best raytrace-demo so far: Nature Suxx. In fact, the scorpion is
part of the sequel they are making now: Nature Still Suxx! I really like
raytracing demos, so Im more than happy to hear this.
4:18
Night in Fallingbostel, everything is very quiet. Im trying to get a
mandelbrot zoom working. Yeah, I know fractal zoomers were fashionable
maybe five years ago, but its just for in the background of another
effect.
In the row next to us, Mat!/Ozone is sleeping with his head on his
keyboard. His screensaver shows Beavis and Butt-head peering out the
monitor, saying Look! The sucker is asleep! A self-made paper piggy
bank is attached to his Amiga, with a notice If you have 5000 DM and
you dont need them, I accept it... :- Give me your money and feel
better! Mat!/Ozone: Im REALLY very poor. Now I understand why the
party website said about the entrance fee: free for girls and Mat!/Ozone
9:00
PS is using Baxters PC to debug a demo he made with someone else, but
unfortunately the coder is not at the partyplace. Dake Fred/Calodox
are helping him. Im typing over some code from a Graphic Gems book, on
how to do fast delaunay triangulation. This should somehow help me to do
a fast voronoi effect, but unfortunately the book doesnt tell how to
convert between them :/ The rest of the hall is *still* very quiet.
10:05
Oh oh, after he woke up, Feen cant find his jacket anymore, and his
plane ticket is in it! The orgos ask over the PA if someone has seen it,
but no-one reacts :
Since Djefke is now awake, he can keep an eye on the hardware and
its my turn to catch some sleep.
12:22
Im back awake again my average sleeping time on a concrete floor
seems to be 2 hours, and after eating a bit I talk with Pampy, another
american scener, about voronoi cells. The first compo is alternative
graphics, meaning raytracing and photoshopped pics, should start at
13.00. Lets hope there are no delays...
14:34
The first compo was one hour delayed, but it was of very high quality.
There were 57 entries, out of which 36 entries were preselected. Its
hard to choose from 36 pictures when you see them only once for maybe 20
seconds each, but they will be shown a second time tomorrow. During the
compo, they played more Welle Erdball music, which is really a fitting
soundtrack for a demoparty.
16:12
The Second Reality show has passed in order following versions of
that classic demo were shown: the C64 clone by Smash Design, the wild
version Real Reality by Never, the original PC version by Future Crew,
and as a bonus Future Crews Unreal demo, on which Second Reality was
the sequel.
After this we all go outside to watch the harddisk-throwing compo.
Theres some discrimination in this compo: the girls who compete can
throw with small, modern harddisks, while the guys have to throw big,
ancient harddrives that are at least four times as large. Is that fair?
An exception is made for Mat!, who is allowed to throw with the girls
harddisk OK, because there were no more girls who wanted to compete,
and maybe because Mat isnt exactly very large.
16:59
Oh boy! Theres a TV-crew walking around, and they were interviewing
an organizer in the row in front of us. When they were finished, the
interviewer asked if he could interview me, and I didnt immediately
found an excuse to say no : So five minutes later I was looking at the
camera, rather nervous I might add, with my back to my screen Can you
show something on your screen? Something impressive please?, answering
questions like Where are you from?, Why are you in the scene?, Are
you looking for a job here?, Do you think the newest hardware makes it
easier to make a demo? etc. At least it seems theyre genuinly
interested in the scene, and dont try to make it look like a freakshow.
Hmm, on second thought, then why did they interview *me*? huge grin.
Since I dont have TV at home, let alone cable, Ill ask Skyrunner if
he can tape it program Nano on 3Sat, tuesday and watch if Im shown on
it.
20:45
Since even coders cant live on bread and orange juice alone, we hop
in the car and go on a food hunt. I could really go for some pizza, but
the McDonalds are closer, so french fries and hamburgers it is...
Unfortunately we missed the 64K amiga intros in the meantime, but
someone recorded them on a digital camera and put the avi on the LAN, so
I can watch them in thumbnail format.
A tad later, the PC 4K intro compo starts. One word: magnificent!
After all the parties with none or only a few low-quality entries, its
great to see a compo with 10 entries, several of which are simply
groundbraking. My favourite is Juggler, featuring a realtime raytraced
juggler, with reflections etc plus music. Then theres Varus, with
streams of lights traveling through accelerated 3D environments, also
with music, and there are 4K versions of Heaven 7 and Kasparov with
music thats even more boring than the original :... Wow, wow, wow.
Next a virtual newsreader announces several fake demo-related
newsitems, quite funny but I dont remember them anymore. Sorry.
21:54
More entertainment from the organizers: a scene-version of the TV-show
Who wants to be a millionaire? It has the bombastic soundeffects, the
three types of jokers of which the ask-the-public and phone-a-friend
jokers are a tiny bit manipulated by the orgos, and questions ranging
from how many channels has a 4-channel module to how do you set the
border color on a C64 to black ? Answer D: poke 54296, 0. Its much
better than the real thing.
23:07
Finally its time for the hand-pixeled graphics! Again a preselection
is necessary, but still over 40 high-quality pictures are shown. Voting
will be very, very difficult. Its a pity theyre not yet? available
on the website, because I wont be able to remember exactly which name
on the voting site matches which picture :/
-- Sunday 15 --
2:28
Djefkes favourite 3D package refuses to install, and hence he cant
supply us with the 3D models we wanted to put in our demo. Since the
progress on the rest of the demo is very slow, we once again decide to
delay it to the next party : Oh well, at least I have the openGL
documentation, so I keep learning at home :/
Baxter, Phoenix and Pampy are watching some pixar movies plus all the
Hybris/NEMESIS wild demos from The Party99 to 2K1. They get better each
year, Back To Basics is really hilarious.
The C64 music compo is happening now, and people are dancing on the
podium. I feel much too tired to do that, so I pull my sleeping bag over
my ears and take another nap.
6:08
Awake again. Boy, this feels strange: normally, a demoparty is almost
over on sunday morning, but now its only halfway : I discuss some
things I cant remember anymore with Djefke and Feen, who unfortunately
still hasnt got his jacket back. Ive a bad feeling it might be stolen,
but Feen looks depressed enough already so I keep quiet :/
8:54
Breakfast time: the organizers are selling fresh sandwiches, and
while Im eating I download the full version of Real Reality including
the making of part that was missing on my current copy.
Another info-screen has popped up on the bigscreen since some time,
it reads: FEELING DIRTY? The showers are open for boys/girls from XX
to YY. For a 4-day party, showers are indeed more than just a detail.
11:16
I went outside to catch some fresh air, and was surprised to see
everything covered with snow. Thats what happens if you spend too much
time inside, you lose track of what happens to the world outside : Some
sceners are standing around a fire, keeping it burning despite the snow.
PS informs me that Yes and Chandra from Orange Juice are not sure if
LTP5 will happen this year. I really, really hope it will, as LTP4 was
the best party I visited last year. After a while the cold forces me
back inside, cause Im not wearing a coat.
The Amiga 4K compo starts, with some nice productions but nothing as
spectacular as the best PC 4K intros. I guess the limited CPU power
makes the biggest difference. One entry has no visual effects, but
generates 8 yes, eight different chiptunes! Unfortunately this takes a
good 20 minutes, so my opinion about it balances between awe and
boredom.
13:37
After reading the Halloween documents www.opensource.org/halloween
some time ago, I had decided to give Linux a try, but being the cautious
type I preferred to have a Linux guru around in case I screwed up. Since
Djefke is a hardcore Linux evangelist, now seems to be a good time to
take the risk. While I struggle with the Suse installer, LILO and
loadlin, the C64 graphics are shown. Feen tells me they have only 16
colors, and the resolution is probably very limited too, but from the
back of the hall they look almost as sharp and colorful as the PC
graphics :
16:07
Linux works, to the extend that I can type this in the Midnight
Commander, yipee! This turns out to be a bad idea, as I have to convert
the line-endings of the new paragraph when I continue in Notepad. After
the C64 graphics compo followed the console demos compo: stuff for the
Gameboy Advanced and the Dreamcast etc, about 5 entries in all. All
chairs and other horizontal surfaces in the first part of the hall are
occupied, so Ive to watch them from a distance.
To fill the gap till the next compo, those wicked orgos have thrown
in ChillZone, a live jam-session with synthesizers, guitars and brace
yourselves digeridoos! For the ignorant: a didgeridoo is an Australian
wood-wind instrument that looks like a 2-meter long cigar and sounds
like a blowfly with a cold. In addition, everyone who had an instrument
was invited to join in. Vickey, Tomcat/Greenrooms girlfriend started to
dance on the podium, more people followed her example and by the time
the delayed PC 64K intro compo was ready to begin, it had to be delayed
even longer because the dancers and the audience didnt want to stop
The 64K intro compo wasnt as spectacular as the 4K intro compo, most
of the 17 intros used the same accelerated effects. Art by Farbrausch
Scoopex was something special, it used 3D in child-drawing style like
cartoon-style rendering but with disconnected lines and almost flat
colors that cross the lines. Further honorable mentions to Rise for the
original progress cube and the impressive cityscape, and for The
Milkyway Experience for the nice spacecut effect. As I had trouble to
keep concentrated during the compo, Ill sleep during the MP3 compo in
order to be fully awake during the demo compos.
18:06
The C64 4K intro compo has started. One features realtime raytracing
in textmode, albeit so slow that you can see the individual frames being
drawn. Most intros have music too, but what impresses me the most is the
large number of entries: over 20! Thats twice as much as in the PC
compo, for a machine that has only a fraction of the PCs active scene!
Of course, there isnt *that* much you can do on a C64 besides
programming on it :
21:57
The demo compos are being delayed due to the large nr of entries. In
the meantime, another round of Who whants to be a scenionaire is
played with Mat!/Ozone as contestant, and later everyone can bring stuff
to the orgos to be shown on the bigscreen such as the inevitable All
Your Base animation.
23:10
Still no democompos, but theres an improvized real-time coding compo
for the C64: coders have 1 minute the time to program live on the
bigscreen simple effects like making the border of the screen flash.
Just before the democompos, the classic game Bomberman is played on
the bigscreen. Steeler dedicates this game to a friend of him who was a
famous hardware designer but died a few weeks ago. For the challenge,
the players have to use very big and clumsy control pads. As a result,
most levels are won by the player who does *not* blows up himself.
And after the Bomberman game, the demo compos start!
-- Monday 16 --
3:31
Wow! First 22 amiga demos, then 15 minutes pause, and then 27 PC
demos. Man, Im feeling dizzy! The Amiga demos were almost all very well
designed, but the effects are of course not up to par with the PC demos.
The Black Lotus made IMHO the best one, Perfect Circle, with a very
impressive Mandelbrot rotozoom effect. The PC demos were on average of a
lower quality than the amiga ones, and I wouldnt have mind a
preselection. Still there were many excellent ones. Propaganda/INF is my
favourite one, lots of great effects changing rapidly, perfectly synced
to the music a japanese rock MP3, as usual. Nature Still Sucks also
looks really great, although the framerate is on the low side at some
parts. Kolor has also made a very nice demo in a cute cartoon-style, Le
Petit Prince, which will no doubt end up high in the results.
The C64 demos follow, but I can hardly concentrate anymore. I
randomly try the URL ftp.party in the explorer, and guess what? The
majority of the entries is already available online. I keep one eye on
the bigscreen while I start downloading them, and after the C64 demo
compo ends the bigscreen shows several URLs where you can download the
entries : Now you can also exchange your wristband for a voting key,
which is necessary to submit the voting form. The orgos take no risks
that someone fakes a votekey: mine was
8JHkdW5QwA3aPY-w2c--Ayhcz88D, that a full 31 mixed-case characters.
Try to type that correctly when youve had less then 10 hours sleep in 3
days!
7:21
Voting is over, already from 6 oclock. That made a rather small
timeframe for people to submit their votes, and since many sceners went
to sleep after the compos, they missed the deadline. It was also
impossible, in the time given, to relisten/rewatch all the entries for
more accurate voting :
Feen and I talk about Hornet and the American demoscene, and I buy a
NAIDorabilia CD from him to add to my scene CD collection. Nowadays
everyone has a CD burner and broadband internet access, so official
scene CDs become a rarity...
11:46
The fast intro compo entries are shown, which had to feature an
olympic flame, donuts, an advertisement, and some more compulsory
subjects. Finally the prize ceremony starts. Instead of the usual
third-second-first place announcing, all entries of a compo are shown
together. After each name is a growing bar, and the entry whose bar
grows the largest has the most results and wins. The tension in the
audience rises as one bar after another stops growing :
In the 4K intro compo, the raytraced Juggler wins, followed by Varus.
In the 64K compo Art takes the first place, which I personally didnt
like that much. The second and third places go to Haujobbs intro and
the Rise intro. Le Petit Prince/Kolor wins the democompo, followed by
Mozaik/Haujobb and Propaganda/INF. Im disappointed that Nature Still
Suxx reaches only the fifth place, IMHO they deserved a higher ranking.
A lot of sceners have started packing and are leaving the place, even
before the prize ceremony. When the rows before us are half-empty, Feen
and I go take a look at the location where he has last seen his jacket,
and lo and behold: we find it under a table tucked behind a cardboard
box! Even better, the plane ticket is still in it. So Phoenix isnt
stuck here in Fallingbostel, Im sure thats a load off his shoulders :
1:30
We start to pack our stuff and swap email addresses with Pampy and
Feen. Skyrunner, who has made the music for the winning Juggler 4K,
gives me one of the several identical issues of the Go64! magazine he
has won. I know the 4K compo doesnt have big money prizes, but that
must be one of the most useless prizes ever, especially because last
year, he also won several copies of exactly the same issue!
After we say goodbye to our friends, we drive off to Belgium. The
trip home doesnt go as smooth, we spend two hours in traffic jams. I
try to sleep, and later I read that Go64! mag. Its hard to believe
they still made papermags for the C64 in 1999! The articles are
interesting though: reports from demoscene parties, articles on how to
etch your own printed circuits hint: wear sunscreen to protect against
sunburns from the UV lamp, and be careful with those hazardeous
chemicals, and how to mask non-maskable interrupts. Theres one gem of
a quote I just have to share with you, about how the C64 sceners see the
PC sceners: Go64! september 1999, p 12:
Nobody seems to have any artistic skill anymore - graphics are
scanned or raytraced, samples are mixed together in the fast tracker to
mindless Mod music without any hint of imagination or devotion.
There you have it, stop the Mod vs MP3 debate, lets all go back to
SID chiptunes :
-- Back home --
The next day, someone had converted the Nano program to .avi and had
put it on the net already. It was only a 5-minutes item, but they
managed to give a decent explanation what the demoscene is, and they
showed screenshots from demos and 4Ks and stuff. My interview was cut
out, probably for aesthetical reasons :
All in all, Ms2K1 was definately the best party Ive visited yet. At
first I was a bit dissapointed that we didnt finish our demo, but after
the compo it was clear that there were already enough demos, and ours
would only have lowered the average quality. Lots of kudos to the
organizing, for speaking English, properly announcing delays, providing
entertainment inbetween the compos, and much much more. The amount of
entries in all compos was very good, more often too high than too low,
and the general atmosphere was great. The only improvement I can see is
in the voting. The IMHO perfect system would be: after each compo, all
entries are made available for download, people can vote whenever they
want, and votes can be submitted for each compo separately, instead of
all at once. Implement that and next years edition will be really the
perfect party.
--Seven
The Root
How They Got Involved
Sponsored By: Tryhuk
By: Aaron Zafran Xenoc
When I sit down and listen to old tunes from the scene, I get
depressed. Yes, depressed. Perhaps this isnt the reaction that one
would expect from a guy who will emphatically tell you that the days of
trax, music contests remember? MC1-6?, and envy of Five Musicians
were some of the best of his life. Its hard to explain what it was
about the scene that has kept these memories so dear to me. Yet, its
also hard to explain the feeling I get when a total stranger recognizes
my name on a mailing list and sends me an email that essentially is
comprised of Xenoc! Your music kicked ass! Why dont you track any
more? I think somewhere near the root of my depression lies the fact
that if I had to explain why I stopped tracking, Id have to say that
Im not entirely sure.
Anyway, maybe this will all make more sense if I start at the
beginning. Im going to venture an educated guess and say that I
started tracking around November of 1994. I was 13 years old. A guy by
the handle of The Kamikaze Gerbil lol ran a BBS that I frequented, and
one day he sent me a MOD that he had written. It wasnt so much that I
was inspired by the song, but more that in the true spirit of
adolescence, I was determined to write a better one. So, I downloaded
Scream Tracker 3.x and proceeded to churn out a horrendously repetitive
and dissonant piece that I still hide in a secret directory on my hard
drive so nobody finds it.
I discovered at that point that writing music is not easy. And for
those of you that seem to think tracking makes it easier-you couldnt be
more incorrect. Nonetheless, I continued to pursue tracking, and I
improved slowly but surely, learning from the masters: Purple Motion,
Skaven, Elwood, Necros, etc... It wasnt long that my obsessive and
socially inhibiting use of BBSes led me to discover demo/tracking
groups, and the desire to be a part of one of these prestigious
foundations immediately consumed me.
Of course, I ended up being accepted to an art/ANSi group as their
only musician, but hey, youve got to start somewhere, right? The group
went by the name Rulerz of Chaos, or RoC, and I wouldnt be surprised if
not a single person reading this has any recollection of RoCs
existence. But it was the insignificant publicity that RoC provided
that sent me on my path to becoming part of the real demoscene. One
day, I received an email from a guy by the handle of Nova. He lived in
Canada, and wanted me to join a group by the name of COaR! Yes, I know
you havent heard of that group either. We never released a goddamned
thing. But it was Nova who introduced me to trax.
Before I entered trax, tracking was merely a hobby. The big names
of tracking that I had grown to idolize seemed so far away, so
inaccessible. And then, that first day I logged onto IRC and joined
trax, my jaw dropped. Necros was in the same chat room that I was in.
NECROS! Holy crap! Of course, I was far too intimidated to say
anything to anyone in there, but I grinned stupidly in awe as the chat
rolled by.
In time, that intimidation dissolved, and the relationships I formed
in trax led me to apply to pHluid, which was the tracking division of
ACiD. I became one of the more active members that pHluid had at the
time, and for some reason my music stood out according to many among
the releases that followed. But, I was somewhat disappointed with
pHluid throughout my time as part of it, and if I recall correctly, my
departure from the group was not only messy but also very embarrassing.
I believe a portion of an email from a very angry and immature
15-year-old Xenoc was published in Demonews, a widely read scenemag.
At that point, I became a senior member of Analogue Music, which was
a group run by a guy by the handle of Mind Bender, who did not track. I
believe this single fact was probably the reason that Analogue didnt
live up to the potential it had. Nonetheless, we had some pretty decent
and well-known musicians under our belt, and our releases were generally
approved of. Things were good, I was writing music, getting good
feedback, and felt like I was moving up in the world of tracking. It
was this era of my tracking history that holds the fondest memories for
me.
And suddenly, everything started to fall apart. Administrative
nonsense tore Analogue apart. Every time I logged onto IRC there were
issues to be addressed, people to be lured in or kicked out. There was
talk of for-profit endeavors, which was against everything the tracking
scene stood for. The scene had decidedly begun to lose its edge, not
just for me, but for many others as well. Anyone who was involved at
the time would likely agree with me when I say that you could feel the
overall morale of trackers dropping.
Slowly, I faded out of the scene, observing tragedies that followed
from a distance. Hornet Archive was suddenly no more, and soon it was
announced that there was a good chance there would be no MC7. My social
life began to pick up and I didnt really care about any of this scene
stuff at the time, but looking back, it makes me sadder now than it ever
did then.
I never stopped writing music. I have a recording studio in my
apartment and despite the fact that I rarely produce anything Im
pleased with, Ive never thought to give up. It is undeniable that to
this day, writing music has never felt as exciting to me as it did when
I was a tracker. Even now when Im programming riffs into my Roland
MC-303 or recording a riff with my Kurzweil, my brain instinctively
starts to figure out how to reproduce them in tracked form. I guess old
habits die hard. My name is Aaron Zafran, better known to many as
Xenoc. I am a student. I am a musician, and I will always be a tracker.
--Aaron Zafran, a.k.a Xenoc.
azafran@vt.edu
In Tune
Music from T-Tracker and Nightflowers
By: Coplan
-- Introduction --
So I hopped on Trax-in-Space to see what the latest tunage was from
some other trackers, and I decided to visit the top charts. I grabbed
some of the tunes listed there, and I decided Id give them a review.
As of this writing, the songs are ranked as follows:
1: Be What U Wanna Be t-tracker
2: GDream - We Are Not Alone: Space Invasion Remix Nightflowers
3: Firestorm t-tracker
All songs are available from Trax In Space: http://www.traxinspace.com
-- Be What U Wanna Be / T-Tracker --
The top ranked song from Trax-in-Space is sort of a trancy tune that
reminds me of some early 90s video game music. Trust me, that is not a
cut on the quality of the song. Some of my favorite music is game music
Legend of Zeldas music, Metroid, and so on. I recently got a new
subwoofer, so I can fully appreciate this song. If you arent fortunate
enough to have one though, it probably wont bother you to hear it
without a subwoofer, as T-Tracker has done a wonderful mixing job.
The tune is very complex, and of a quality that I could not duplicate.
The base riff alone could be raised a few octaves and passed off as a
lead, as it has incredible depth to its performance. I find the
percussion quite interesting as well. Aside from the standard drum kit,
there are a few other percussive instruments in there that definately
add to the song.
I would say that this is one of those songs that you should grab if
you happen to like trance or dance. It wouldnt be the greatest song I
ever download, but it is very entertaining, and fun to listen to. My
girlfriend just likes to dance to it she approves!.
-- GDream - We Are Not Alone: Space Invasion Remix / Nightflowers --
All you serious Trance freaks out there will love this tune. This
fits the definition of Trance to the T, as you got every element in
this tune. I wish I had the original, as Id like to see how much has
been innovated by Nightflowers. Unlike many trance tunes, GDream
isnt all that repetative. The tune seems to evolve through different
stages, each stage a bit more complex and more interesting than the
previous. All the while, the tune continues to move and pull you
through to the end.
The song contains some sounds Ive never heard anywhere else, and for
that I am quite relieved. After all, I was beginning to believe that
ever trance artist was using the same sample set. The ending is what
did it for me, as the opening seemed a bit unoriginal for me. Thats
not to say that the ending was entirely original, but at least it was
away from the norm. My girlfriend continues to dance, and so I guess
she approves of this song as well. All I need is some pretty colored
lights and some strobes, perhaps even some foam -- and we can have
ourselves a little party. Another tune definately worth a download.
-- Firestorm / T-Tracker --
Well, it seems as though T-Tracker is a pretty popular tracker. Two
songs in the top three is impressive. Firestorm isnt nearly as good
as T-Trackers number one song at this time. When I listen to this
tune, I cant help but to question its placement on the charts. Mind
you, the tune is better than the average tune out there, but I dont
believe that its entirely anything special. Though, Ive listened to
the song many times now, and it is very relaxing.
Now I cant entirely tear this song apart, as it has some very good
contributing elements. The strings in the background are very tight and
well done. The chord progression is also well chosen. This is,
however, probably an experiment for T-Tracker, as he usually has much
higher quality music. I must stress that, as the other music from
T-Tracker that I have heard is wonderful. But my girlfriend has stopped
dancing, and I think that says it all.
--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 Listener
Music by Keith303, Esem and Willbe
By: Tryhuk
-- LoveSexDestuction / keith303 -
My big passion is traveling by trains and one of major reasons why I
like this track is that it evokes in me that feeling. Trees are running
behind windows, track claps in a regular rhythm and wheels whistle on
the switches. There are many ways to express our feelings about trains.
Smash did it in his last train where you can hear the breath of steam.
Necros did it in Point of departure where you could hear trains
flying. Keith303 didnt stay behind and he made a definitely original
electronic track with all aspects of modern music, not only in the use
of original samples or complex drum lines, but also with massive
filtering and manipulation of the sound spectrum. And because Keith303
left the scene, this song can easily be a last one that youll ever hear
from him.
Song name: LoveSexDestuction
Artist: keith303
File Size: 5.2mb
Location: http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/91/keith303.html
-- 2sided/esem -
2sided seems to be an mp3.com only release, because I didnt see it
mentioned on any of the scene labels. Anyway it is a very nice song. It
follows the line of his earlier works that were built on decent ambient
and soft percussion, repetitive sine melodies and frequent secondary
sounds that push the track forward a make out of it a trip instead of a
boring loop. Although this track might not seem too special, I always
liked this kind of music and I wasnt disappointed by this download.
Song name: 2sided
Artist: esem
File Size: 3.6mb
Location: http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/165/georgemarinov.html
-- greed hungry mix / willbe -
Last track I want to mention today is willbes contribution to compo
of Laurent Garnier if I remember it correctly. Unfortunately I didnt
hear the original track that was remixed so I cant judge how the remix
turned out compared to original. All I can say that I like it and once
again it is a track that is worth downloading. If you havent heard it
yet, you still have time to get it.
Song name: greed hungry remix
Artist: willbe
Location: http://mp3.com/willbe
Retro Tunage
Remember by Beek
By: Tryhuk
It seems to me that I didnt write about a MOD for quite a long time
and thats a scandal for this kind of column. So here you have it. It
is a song by Beek and it appeared on the musicdisk Mango. Its name is
remember, a name that man would give to some sweet sad dreamy song.
IMHO it fulfills this expectation, but it still stays decent, no real
shitty sweetness. People that have heard it may ask me what is so
special about this song, why it deserved it to be mentioned here while
there are many other superb songs. Reason is simple: I wanted to mention
a song that isnt special at all, it is just a well made tune.
Thats all I wanted to say, sorry for the shortness of the review, but
Im once again too tired to review. So if you want to have something
special here, next time sit down to your computer for a while and write
about your favorite song. Thank you for your attention.
Song Information:
Title: Remember
Author: Beek
Release date: 1998
Length: 3m05s
Filename unzipped/zipped: remember.mod / mango.zip
File Size unzipped/zipped: 470kb / 2mb
Source: some functional hornet mirror
--Tryhuk
Screen Lit Vertigo
Le Petit Prince by Kolor party-version
By: Seven
Found at the party network, but you can try www.scene.org
1st place at the Mekka/Symposium 2001 PC democompo.
System requirements:
Windows9x or higher, an openGL supporting 3D card, a soundcard.
Recommended: Windows2K, a Geforce2 and a Pentium III processor.
Test Machine: PIII 900 192MB, SB128, GeForce 2MX 32MB, Win98
The Credits:
Code: shiva
Meshes, textures, gfx: noize
Music, gfx: raytrayza
The Demo:
For those whove never heard about Le Petit Prince the little
prince, it is a very good and well-known childrens tale written by
Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Its about a little boy from the stars that
leaves his home planet, visiting several very small planets that are
each inhabited by one stereotypical person a king, a businessman, a
drunk etc, and eventually lands on Earth. Its an excellent book,
simple yet thought-provoking, and recommended reading for both children
and adults.
The only theme of the book that Kolor kept in the demo is that of a
little boy visiting tiny planets. Each planet has a theme: a park, snow,
the beach, the desert, and technology. Everything on the planets is
rendered in a cartoon-style, with black lines on all edges of 3D
objects. The objects are colored in soft tints that go well together,
and clouds and seas use transparency. Theres a certain amount of
parallelism between the worlds: the birds in the snow world become
little flying robots in the techno world, the balloon in the park become
a sattelite in the beach world and giant halogen bulbs in the desert
world. Between the different worlds, a scrolling image is shown of the
fuzzy rendered planet youre leaving, and/or the one youre visiting
next. Each planet has icons associated with it: fish for the beach,
cogwheels for the tech-planet etc. Camera switches on a planet are
sometimes made with circular or star-formed holes filled with the
second scene, that appear in the current scene and quickly grow till
they cover it completely.
The music is very relaxed, with an ambient background and idm
instruments on the foreground: beeps, sweeps etc. Theres little hard
syncing, except when we switch to a new planet. There are also a few
soundeffects, like the sweeping sound of the waving antena on the snow
planet, or a swoosch when a big spaceship flies over the tech-planet.
Overall:
Le Petit Prince is mainly a design/3D demo. There are no real
demo-effects, and while the cartoon rendering looks great, its not
extremely hard to do especially with 3D cards, 3 Little Goats/M0ppi
productions did it in software in 97. There isnt much of a story
either, on most planets the boy simply explores the world. Its simply a
collection of very detailed, well-designed and beautiful worlds.
Everything fits together in harmony. The only inperfection I could see
was that on a few places the overviews of the park and desert planet,
and the beach when the boy surfs and dives you can see two copies of
the boy at the same time if you look carefully. Overall, its a great
demo to watch and relax with. Go get it if you havent yet.
--Seven
Editorial
The Ever-Evolving Scene
By: Coplan
As I finished reading Xenocs article, I had to admit, I often look
back at the scene with depression. Call me one of those grumpy old
men, but I must admit, things were better then.
Technology had yet to come to the point that it is now. Truth be
told, graphics and audio are starting to get so close to realism these
days that any improvement is almost a mute point. What made the scene
wonderful back then? The scene was cutting edge. If you wanted to see
cool effects and cool music, the scene was the place to be. Most games
took advantage of some of the products of the scene: mod music, pixel
art, and so on. And thats only when I jumped in the scene...about 7
years ago.
As far as the history of computers is concerned, at least the history
of personal computers, the demoscene is in fact very old. Prior to my
existance in the scene, the scene was the cutting edge. When I jumped
in, it was still on the edge, but the edge was much more broad, and the
game industry wasnt far behind. Now? Theres no competition anymore.
The Demoscene consists of people exploring a dying artform be it demos,
music, pixel, whatever.
So is the scene dead? No. Ive said this many times before,
especially since Ive started this magazine. I come back every so many
months and remind everyone that the scene is not dead. But questions
arise, and Im left to answer them myself, even if I am the one who
asked. I have to constantly reassure myself that the scene is still
alive and I am in fact a part of something. And there are still some
that think I wear rose colored glasses and look out unto the world
without a clue of what the demoscene is truly about. And that might be
true, but that depends on whos asking.
Though I might be considered oldskool, there are many oldskoolers
before me, and they would disagree with my thoughts about the scene.
What I embrace and what they embraced are two different things. They
embraced a demoscene that lead the computer scene market. Today, those
oldskoolers are computer programmers, hardware designers, musicians,
producers and basically the forefront of modern technology. And they
started with the demoscene, ever used to the fact that they were
revolutionaries in the world of modern computers. I, however, embrace
an artform of old times. I embrace a technique called tracking, which
is still very functional and easy to find in todays world. But it might
very well be on its way off the popularity charts. I dont think that
tracking will ever officially die, however. Contrary to what some
software developers might think, there isnt much one can do to improve
the quality of the standard tracking programs. But there are people out
there to keep things up to date with the modern computer. While IT does
not run in Windows 2000, there might be a program that does the same
things as IT and does run in Windows 2000. But the concept is still
there, and the art form is still as it always was.
My point is that the demoscene as a whole has to be divided down into
its components: Philosophy, Art, Meaning. The art will not change.
Conceptually, the art has never changed. The means in achieving the
art, however, has change, but the product will not. The meaning is a
very personal thing, and it is the basis for any one persons
involvement in the art. This is what causes each and every product to
be unique in such that it is an expression of that one person. Meaning
is ever evolving and has very little effect, if any, on the evolution of
the demoscene. However, the philosophy is the overall collective
purpose in the scene. Yes, you will find groups who believe they have a
different philosophy from the rest of the scene, but combine everyones
philosophy and you get one common denominator. In the early years of
the scene, the philosophy was to be the cutting edge of the computer
world. Today, the philosophy of the demoscene is simply to promote a
long standing art-form that is under-celebrated.
The cutting edge is no longer reachable by one or a few people on
their little computers at home. No, as sad as it is to admit it, the
future of computing lies in the hands of big corporations and large
scale movements such as the open source scene. The Demoscene isnt the
movement it used to be. But it is still a society, and it is a society
that many choose to be in. Im proud of all of you who are still here.
--Coplan
Link List
Portals:
Orange Juice.............................http://www.ojuice.net
Scene.org.................................http://www.scene.org
SceneSpot.............................http://www.scenespot.org
CFXweb.......................................http://cfxweb.net
Pouet.net.................................http://www.pouet.net
Demoscene.org.........................http://www.demoscene.org
Scenet....................................http://www.scenet.de
Demo.org...................................http://www.demo.org
Czech Scene................................http://www.scene.cz
Hungarian Scene........................http://www.scene-hu.com
Italian Scene...........................http://run.to/lascena
ModPlug Central Resources..........http://www.castlex.com/mods
Norvegian Scene............http://www.neutralzone.org/scene.no
Polish Scene...........................http://www.demoscena.pl
Russian Scene..........................http://www.demoscene.ru
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://alienprophets.ninja.dk
Anakata..............................http://www.anakata.art.pl
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
* 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
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
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
* 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.bentdesign.com/chill
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
Five Musicians.........................http://www.fm.scene.org
Fusion Music Crew.................http://members.home.nl/cyrex
Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff
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
Miasmah.............................http://www.miasmah.cjb.net
Milk.......................................http://milk.sgic.fi
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
Moplayaz..........................http://ssmedion.de/moplayaz
Mono211.................................http://www.mono211.com
Morbid Minds..............http://www.raveordie.com/morbidminds
Noise................................http://www.noisemusic.org
Noerror.......................http://www.error-404.com/noerror
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
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://wildmag.notrix.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
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
* Underground Mine.............http://www.spinningkids.org/umine
IRC Channels:
Scene.........................................ircnet thescene
Programming.....................................ircnet coders
Programming....................................efnet flipcode
Graphics.........................................ircnet pixel
Music.............................................ircnet trax
Scene French..................................ircnet demofr
Programming French............................ircnet codefr
Graphics French..............................ircnet pixelfr
Scene Hungarian............................ircnet demoscene
Programming Hungarian......................ircnet coders.hu
Programming German........................ircnet coders.ger
Editor: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
Writers: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
Dilvish / Eric Hamilton / dilvie@yahoo.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
Technical Consult: 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 with two spaces at the beginning and one
space at the end of each line. Please avoid foul language and high ascii
characters. Contributions should be mailed to Coplan
coplan@scenespot.org.
See you next month!
-eof---------------------
log in to add a comment.