TATICLINE December, 2001
// Monthly Scene E-Zine 243 Subscribers
Table Of Contents
Opening:
Message From the Editor
Letters From Our Readers
Features:
SceneSpot Update
Coma 3 Party Report
Law of Convolution -- Fundamentals of Synthesis
Memory Madness
Columns:
Music:
In Tune -- dreamcoat by mistrial
The Listener -- Music from Aural Planet and funkymuskrat
Demo:
Screen Lit Vertigo -- Gerbera, Polyester Pimp Deluxe
and Don Quijote V2.0
General:
Editorial -- The Scene Rebirth
Link List -- Get Somewhere in the Scene
Closing:
Credits
Message From the Editor
well, as promised, were back! Yes, it was another crazy few months,
and Im sorry we missed a month in there. But I assure you, it was well
worth it. We have a lot to share with you this month, as you will see.
We have some very special feature articles for you this month.
First, we have a first-hand record of Coma 2 in a party report from the
one and only Phoenix aka: feen. Then, Seven offers his take on how
the availability of cheap RAM might affect the demoscene in Memory
Madness. If you want to get caught up on what Ive been doing with
SceneSpot, you can learn about that this month too in my SceneSpot
Update. And finally, we have a very special article from Setec
concerning some more basics on synthesis theory, the Law of
Convolution.
Of course, all our regular columns are back as well, and plenty of
reading to do there as well.
As always, were always looking for more articles, more columns and
so on. The larger we can build our writing staff, the better this
magazine will be. If you have any interest in writing, even if you
dont know what youd write about, e-mail me at coplan@scenespot.org.
Well, thats all for now. I will let you read on through this issue
of Static Line. Until next month, enjoy!
--Coplan
SceneSpot Update
By: Coplan
Id like to take this opportunity to get everyone up to date on the
latest happenings for SceneSpot. For those of you yet unaware,
SceneSpot is a Scene web resource project that is currently being
undertaken in conjunction with Static Line. While SceneSpot hosts
Static Line, and Static Line drives most of the site, there are still
many features that SceneSpot has to offer the average user. Check out
SceneSpot: http://www.scenespot.org
Its been around for a while, but Tune Tracker keeps growing. Tune
Tracker is basically a way for people to announce their song releases
and keep track of other peoples song releases. Many of our members
currently use it often, but the user base is growing, which means more
songs keep popping up. But now, Tune Tracker should be easier to
navigate, as we have finally installed an index system to browse more
than the latest tunes. And the search function now works for Tune
Tracker as well. In the future, one can expect some more in-depth
searching, and broader features of Tune Tracker as well. On a side
note, you must be a SceneSpot member to submit songs to Tune Tracker,
but you need not be a member to view the latest releases.
The Links database is finally fully functional. Members and
non-members alike can submit links to the database. If approved, these
links get collected into the database for all to see. Its a good way
to get your scene related sites noticed. Eventually, this database
will replace the vast links list that appears at the end of every
Static Line issue.
For those of you who arent aware, any member can submit news to the
site. This can be party announcements, software releases, and other
scene happenings. Its a good place to stick your news brief.
There is much more to come in the next few months. A voting booth
should be popping up soon, in which you will have a voice in what gets
developed next. Tune Tracker will continue to grow with many new
features planned, and the Group database will also continue to grow.
Keep checking back for the latest news and resources on SceneSpot. And
as always, if you think you have something you might be able to
contribute, send an e-mail to coplan@scenespot.org and let us know what
you can do.
As always, thank you for your feedback and support as we strive to
make SceneSpot the perfect site for you.
--Coplan
Coma 3 Party Report
By: Phoenix
I havent written one of these reports in years, so either Im going
to have to write nonstop without thinking or else it wont get done.
So, lets begin.
Friday, November 16, 2001: After buying some party food/drinks, and
waiting far too long for an oil change, Im on the road somewhere around
3pm. The trip goes well, though with no-one else to talk with for 6
hours, a bit dull. I had expected tighter security at customs. But even
with a purchase of vodka at the duty free shop, I was pratically waved
through into Canada once again. I couldnt find the right exit for the
University of Montreal well, I didnt know quite what to look for, but
after a stop and map-check, I found my way back and reached the site
shortly after 9pm, right when parking became free.
Coma was held in the Polytechnic building of the university, on the
top 6th floor. A few signs directed me up an elevator. I saw some
people on laptops down the hall, but they were just students! Who in
their right mind does classwork on a Friday night? : Further down was
the room for Coma. I signed a sheet, filled out computer info for
security purposes, and scoped it out.
The room was rather small, but at least there were some people there.
I found fellow DC5-mate TheFinn, who had flown all the way from Oregon!
no fear of terrorists here. We managed to get a cart and brought my
stuff up. This was actually the first party Id brought my computer to,
and I had several boxes with CDs, ads and misc stuff. I was able to set
up close to the entrance. I was told I would have my own projector to
show demos with, but I found out that some other university group took
it, oh well. I had to settle with my old 15 monitor. This year there
was a network connection, and TheFinn was on trax for a short while,
but I didnt bother hooking up to it. More people started coming in,
and it appeared that more people were around the first night than the
first night of Coma2 in 2000. I met up once again with the Suboptical
guys + Anterabae/Astrid, a couple guys from Maryland, DCB including
Snibble!, some ex-NAID organizers, and a few people I hadnt seen in
years, including Depth/Excused and Mental Floss former fellow Kosmic
musician. After showing some demos on my machine, we headed to the
first couple compos, wild and animation. Instead of a dinky screen,
they were held in an auditorium, just across the hall! This was pretty
cool, but the entries didnt quite live up to it :. The wild compo
included mixed computer animation and film from Zelkor/Razor1911 and a
silly short film made by some ex-NAID organizers, though it wasnt made
for Coma. The best animation was a stereoscopic one, where you relax
your focus to get a fake 3D effect. I couldnt do it but I saw many
others holding fingers up to their eyes trying. Afterwards I put on a
pair of headphones and entered the 10 minute tracking compo.. well, I
felt I had to enter something! I dubbed my short tune I am an old
fart.
The next morning I didnt sleep, having had much caffeinated Mt. Dew
Absolut Citron I went out to breakfast with Sylphin and Mr. Khan,
where we discussed NAID, the naid.net site, and jobs, while bearing with
some horrible fussy American lady next to us. Back at the party, I met
up with Anonym/Padua, known well in the European C64 scene, and the
thematic compo was announced. The theme was cucumbers. I
contemplated making a demo, but I didnt get around to it. The guys
from Suboptical Sylphin Vastator, backed up by Kindred and Diver777
were still frantically working on their demo. I checked out a seminar
for Game Boy Advance coding. Unfortunately I was getting tired by this
point, and found myself almost falling asleep. It was put on by Gladius
or was it Phil Rate? and RV. It was kind of neat to see all the
technical capabilities of the system, but it kind of seemed like one big
ad for their Paragon 5 music system. Following this was, huzzah, my one
big ad for MindCandy, the DemoDVD project! But I tried to have fun. We
made promotional Video CDs for Coma, which had 7 demos on them, but I
only had time to make nine copies. So I played a name that demo game
to give them away. Around 20-30 people showed up for the giveaway,
which wasnt too bad since that was nearly half the people present at
Coma at the time. After this came the gfx and music compos, which I
must say left me disappointed. But it makes me want to get back into
tracking, since maybe now I can win a compo :.
Saturday night I went into Montreal with a bunch of guys looking for
food. We found a Middle Eastern place called, get this, Monssieur
Falafel. Almost as amusing as PFK. : It was a quite cold walk, but a
lot of fun talking about the North American scene and ripping on the
lamers within. I missed the 10 minute gfx compo, but life goes on.
Finally came the demo competition. This year there were 13 entries,
one more than last year. That wasnt too bad, considering the rather
short notice and somber mood this year. But then, this was the only
compo with serious prizes. Two-time Coma winner Creative Impact returned
with Project Ayumi, trying 3d character animation this time.
Unfortunately, it had an unfinished feel to it and seemed to bore the
crowd enough into giving them a relatively shameful 7th place. Which is
too bad, since they put a good amount of effort into it and I liked the
music too. Subopticals demo looked and sounded nice on the big
screen, which is typically what they aim for. It ended up 4th though I
imagine it confused the audience a little toward the end. MadBrain, a
young multi-talented guy from the Quebec city area, made a demo with
nothing but cubes. The crowd was entertained and gave it 3rd place. It
included house scenes, a guy driving wildly with cube wheels, cube
fire, and a cube fountain, among other things. 2nd place went to the
recently reformed Razor 1911 demo group, this time based in France but
with a French- canadian member as well. It was pleasing to the ears and
eyes, nothing fancy, something which may not have done so well in Europe
but just fine in Canada. And the winner? A trio of Montrealeans dubbing
themselves The Project created a humor piece called ABCDemo which
was one large laugh-out-loud demoscene satire. It features two
faintly-familiar-looking cartoon characters, dubbed simply Fido and
Bobo, who show a five-step how-to-make-a-demo tape. The voice acting
is great, the jabs are even better, but what they rip on is actually now
considered old and outdated, at least by the Euros. Still, the crowd
enjoyed it enough to vote it the winner. They got 500 Canadian or
so, which is at least better than the single French-language games most
everyone else won.
After the awards were given out, I finally got some sleep. There was
just one classroom for sleeping, but all the Montreal people went home
so there was plenty of room and it was more than quiet enough. By the
time I got up Sunday and found the shower yes, there was just one, two
floors down, most everyone had left. I said goodbye to the remaining
few, handed out my two remaining VideoCDs, and headed for home, once
again without trouble.
So to sum up, here are some pros and cons of Coma3, compared to last
year:
Pros:
- Better location. I didnt like the 6th floor bit, but it was cool to
be back at a university. And the auditorium across the hall was
great! Much better than a church basement. I wouldnt complain if
Coma4 were held in the same place. And next time we should just take
over the whole damned floor, who needs to study over the weekend
anyway. :
- Better big screen, for sure! The audio was high quality, but IMO not
loud enough :.
- Friendly atmosphere. You can talk to about anyone there, though some
people were a bit shy.
- Nothing got stolen, of mine at least. My stuff was right out in the
open, so maybe I was lucky.
- The demos were a little bit more entertaining than last year.
- The organizers did a pretty good job of moving things along and making
sure people got where they needed to.
Cons:
- There just was not enough enthusiasm or interest. I hate having to
blame the hard-working organizers, but I saw very little advertising
for Coma3, and there just werent enough activities. How about some
outdoor compos? Live performances? Demo shows? okay, I shouldve
brought it upon myself to do more of the latter There were around
100 people at the demo compo, but during the rest of the party it was
hard to count more than 40 or so. The reason? The rest just didnt
feel it was worth staying around the whole time. With more people
helping out, that can be changed next time. One suggestion is for more
sceners/ex-sceners with scene-related jobs games, gfx, music to have
their companies sponsor the next Coma. More prize money always
results in better compo entries. :
- There were 13 demos, true. But count the number of American demos.
None. ZERO. This felt like a nail-in-the-coffin for the American
scene, even when the Canadians were still pushing on. I dont know if
the current war and terror scare can be blamed for this, maybe. As a
citizen of the U.S. of A., I feel this shrinking trend can be
reversed. Just look at all the sceners on ojuice.net with American
flags next to their names. Where are they? We cant really call it a
North American scene when just one country is productive. At least
I had the DemoDVD excuse. :
- Some people complained about the public-only voting. Its true that
people tend to vote for demos with weird/silly gimmicks in them,
regardless of quality, but Im not sure if having a jury would have
changed the results much. Voting was done on a 1-to-10 scale per
entry, which was good, but having a jury voting more on technicality
couldnt hurt.
- We still have a loooong way to go to get back up to a NAID-level
party.
There, I hope I didnt bore you to tears with my Coma3 report. I had
a fun time, and Im still hopeful for the Western hemisphere. See you
at Coma4!
--feen/dc5 aka Phoenix/Hornet
Law of Convolution
Fundamentals of Synthesis
By: Jesper Pedersen aka: Setec
This article focuses on the fundamental law of sound synthesis: The
law of convolution. It is a very short, simple law, but the implications
of it are tremendous. And it is my experience that it is rarely
understood properly by people without any synthesis theory background,
due to the fact that at first it is not entirely intuitive.
Before rushing into the actual law, we need to establish a few basic
concepts. Mainly the representation of sound in the time-domain and the
frequency-domain. These are simply two different ways of visualizing
sound, which are however vital to the understanding of the law of
convolution.
NOTE : All of this requires the fundamental understanding that a sound
consists of multiple frequencies, determining the timbre of the sound.
If these concepts are a bit hazy to you, I suggest you read a former
article of mine, See the Sines: Basics of Sound published in Static
Line issue 9: March, 1999. You might want to also check out another
article, Subtractive Synthesis: The Basics published in Static Line
issue 27: November, 2000. Both articles are available at the
SceneSpot/Static Line site: http://www.scenespot.org/staticline .
Time-Domain:
One way to represent sound is to use a graph showing time along the
x-axis and change in air pressure along the y-axis. This is the
representation you usually see in a sample editor and in the sample
windows of trackers. It is the most common way to visualize sound. So
what can be visualized using this domain? Mainly, changes in amplitude
over time, since the amount of change in air pressure is - in a
simplified case - perceived as amplitude. This is very intuitive and all
of you probably understand this.
One thing, however, that the time-domain is not that good at
visualizing is the harmonic contents of a sound. It might give you an
idea as to how bright the sound is, but you wont be able to really
visualize the complete harmonic contents. Which brings us to...
Frequency-domain:
In this domain, the x-axis represents frequency and the y-axis
amplitude. So this directly gives you the harmonic contents of the
sound, the amplitude of each frequency contained in the sound. So what
are we lacking here? Well, exactly what the time-domain was so good at
picturing changes in amplitude. The 2-dimensional version of the
frequency-domain gives you the harmonic contents AT A FIXED TIME. It
does not contain any information about how the harmonics change over
time, it gives you the contents at one instant in time. This is why
sometimes, 3-dimensional graphs are used for frequency-domains, time
being the third axis.
Okay, so you should have a pretty clear idea of the different domains
and their use. So here is what it is all about, the law of convolution:
Convolution in the time-domain is equal to multiplication
in the frequency-domain and vice versa.
Now, the object of this article isnt to explain what convolution is.
This is a topic that reaches far beyond the scope of this article, but
something I might touch in later articles. However, the idea I want to
get across here is that:
Multiplication in the time-domain is equal to a CHANGE in
the frequency-domain and vice versa.
So without specifying excactly what is changed and how, the
implications of this law are still surprising. If you are not yet
impressed by any of this, stop to think for a moment about this last
version of the law whenever you multiply one waveform with another in
the time-domain, the harmonic contents of the sound is changed. Still
not surprised?
This actually means that whenever you apply an amplitude envelope in
your sampler or in a tracker or whatever editor you use, you are not
only changing the time-domain of the sound, you are also altering the
harmonic contents of the sound. Now if this seems to go against your
everyday experience - and indeed intuition - then it is because the
amplitude modulation you will usually apply via envelopes will consist
of a waveform with a VERY low frequency. So although harmonics are added
to the sound, they are two low-pitched for you to hear them. But as soon
as the modulation waveform reaches an audible frequency, you will start
hearing these changes.
This fundamental law of synthesis reaches far beyond the concepts
that I have described in this article. Reverberation is another area
that uses this law with great results. Even filters can be simulated
using so-called Impulse Responses and convolution in the time-domain.
To understand the basic ideas of IRs and their use, it must be
understood that a single horizontal line in the time-domain - an Impulse
- contains ALL frequencies at equal levels, a vertical line in the
frequency domain. Whereas a single horizontal line in the
frequency-domain naturally corresponds to a sine wave, which is the only
wave containing just a single frequency.
So what are Impulse Responses? These are recordings of the response of
something to an Impulse. This means that there is an IR for the room you
are sitting in. Your room will bounce sound of walls, creating
reflections of the sound, what is usually known as reverberation. These
reflections will create a sound that contains several different versions
of the intial Impulse, spread out in time and with varying amplitude.
Now, convolution works by combining a source sound with an IR, so
that at each and every time-domain component of the IR, the source sound
is played back at an amplitude corresponding to the current IR
component. See how this will work to create an effect to make it sound
as if the source sound is played in the room where the IR was recorded?
We are excactly duplicating the reflections of the room, their position
in time as well as their amplitude. And from the law of convolution this
means that we are changing the harmonic contents of the sound as well.
This is why reverb doesnt simply add room to the sound, it also
changes the timbre of the sound quite a lot.
IRs can be recorded - or simulated more often - for filters as well.
Or microphones, guitar amplifiers, etc. And so, all these components can
be simulated through convolution. With - as always - a convolution in
the time-domain creating changes in the frequency domain.
Well, it seemed like I ended up describing - in simple terms -
convolution as well. It is a very interesting topic and one that reaches
into pretty much any area of synthesis. Now the way I described how
convolution works is correct, but you can imagine that realizing it
exactly how I described it - actually playing the source sample at each
point of the IR - is a pretty demanding task. An IR lasting, say 5
seconds, will contain:
5s * 44100Hz 220500 samples
And according to how I described it, this is how many times the
source sound would have to be played and mixed. Quite a lot, and pretty
heavy on even the fastest processors.
So rather than doing this, sound processors use advanced mathematical
theories to reach the same goal. But the fundamental idea of how
convolution works remains. And the law of convolution is always there.
Aint it clever? :
As usual, any comments, questions or corrections you might have, feel
free to mail me about it. I am not a genious when it comes to sound
synthesis, this is purely a study on a hobby level, so if I have any of
these concepts mixed up or misunderstood, please correct me.
--Jesper Pedersen
Setec / pHluid
jesper@befunk.com
Memory Madness
By: Seven
We all know computers and their components become faster, better
and/or cheaper every year. Its a fact of life, a law of nature, and
Ive become so accustomed to it that I sometimes find myself wondering
in a shop why the food or the clothes havent dropped significantly in
price the last six months. But even then Im sometimes taken aback by
the speed of progress.
Last week I was reading The Register www.theregister.co.uk where
they mentioned that the prices of RAM chips were at an all-time low. I
checked the website of my local hardware shop, and behold: a 512 MB
PC133 DIMM costs only 116 Euro! I jumped on my bike, raced to the shop
and placed an order.
To clue some of you youngsters in: the first time I bought extra
memory, 5 or 6 years ago, I paid about the same for a 4 MB chip. Exactly
one year ago, I paid 100 Euro for my extra 64MB! Were talking about a
7-fold increase in MB per Euro, in one single year! In fact, if I didnt
have a crappy motherboard with only two yes 2 memory slots, I would
have gone for the 3 times 256 MB, which costs only 99 Euro. Three
quarters of a gigabyte RAM, Ive had a harddisk a fraction of that size!
Its madness, I tell you!
Of course the situation today is exceptional: theres a recession,
the PC market is saturated, the events of 9-11 havent helped consumer
confidence in any way, but the memory manufacturers are still producing
lots of chips. Theres a gross overproduction, chips are sold at dumping
prizes and the manufacturers are basically waiting to see whos gonna go
bankrupt first, so that production will decrease and prizes will rise
again As a reference, a 128 MB SIMM EDO costs a whopping 483 Euro!
Thats 4 times *more* for 4 times *less* memory, of an outdated and
slower type, simple because it isnt made anymore . Maybe the launch of
WinXP will result in people buying more memory or new computers, but if
that will be enough to eliminate the big stockpiles? Who knows...
Anyway, when my order arrives Ill have 128 + 512 640 MB RAM. As a
wise man once said, 640 MB should be enough for everybody! or
something like that : That obscene large amount of memory has got me
thinking about a few things. For instance, were quickly nearing the 4
Gigabyte limit thats imposed on all 32-bit CPUs. In fact its worse,
because many operating systems reserve a large hunk of the memory space
for their own use Win9x uses 2 GB and WinNT 1 GB, IIRC. And you dont
want to upgrade from 2 to 3 or 4 Gig RAM if only the OS can profit from
that extra headroom. I hope from the bottom of my heart that by that
time well have all upgraded to 64-bit processors, instead of falling
victim to, say, MS XMS-32 or EMM for WinXP, or similar hacks from
the era of the 640KB DOS limit. If you dont know what Im talking
about, praise yourself very lucky.
But, to stop bragging and to go back on the topic of this fine mag:
How will this influence the demoscene? Will it result in more and more
sloppy coding? Will people use uncompressed BMPs or TIFFs for the images
in the demos, because there too lazy to use a decompression lib, and
hey, memory is cheap? Will they keep all the MP3s of their super-duper
multi-part demo in memory from the start, instead of deallocating one
when its been played, and loading another when showing a picture or
using another thread? Will we see This demo needs at least 2 GB
RAM-errormessages in future productions?
The answer to the previous questions is definately Yes!, simply
because all of these things happen already OK, except that last one.
Adding memory is not going to improve the situation. But I certainly
hope that there will be at least a few coders who actually make use of
the extra capacity. For example, imagine this: some years ahead, you
watch a normal 3D demo, but its optimized for memory and CPU usage.
While youre admiring some nifty effects that the 3D card is drawing
with pixel shaders, the CPU is secretly doing software raytracing,
rendering to the 2 Gig memory. At the end of the 5-minutes demo, a 30
second movie is shown, at the same quality of Shrek or Final Fantasy.
That would be something impressive! Technically, at least.
In short, I hope that the coders, especially those with a job and a
big fat PC, will not squander all that memory, but will either create
never-seen-before effects, or remember the kids who had to use their
dads old PC with only 512 MB RAM, and the sceners in countries where
new hardware is a luxury for the happy few, and thus optimize their demo
so that it runs on a 2-year old PC. Yes I know its unlikely, but I can
hope...
/Rant
--Seven
In Tune
dreamcoat by mistrial
By: Coplan
-- Introduction --
Here I am, ever wandering about the net, ever trying to find some
good music to listen to. For me to like a tune, it only has to do one
of to things: 1 relax me or 2 entertain me. There are very few
tunes that Ive listened to that do both. I dont mean to make it
sound like Im really that obtuse. In all honesty, entertainment and
relaxation are two opposite emotions to me. But, on the rare occasion,
I have a relaxing tune with so much dynamics in it that I am also
entertained at some level.
The song, dreamcoat, by mistrial of Hellven just happens to be
one of those songs. So, Ill share it with you today.
-- The Tune --
Let me start by saying this is not your typical song. I actually am
not quite sure how one would classify this one. I would say its a
blend between DnB, Ambient and Trance. But then again, Ive never been
good at classifying these borderline styles and especially with the
electronic styles, there are so many sub-styles as well.
As I said in my introduction, this song is very relaxing. If you turn
it down below that critical volume point, you can just sit and dream the
day away. Its the type of song that you might be able to use in one of
those old continuous, repeating demos. You could loop this song for
hours, and not really notice that it ever ended. Dont get me wrong, I
have nothing against songs with no definate mood changes. This is why
ambient music was created, isnt it? But the song has a very even,
mellow tone throughout the song.
Need I remind you, I did also say that the song was very entertaining
as well. When I say entertaining, I dont mean that the average
mellow tune doesnt entertain me. I mean it has a very interesting and
unique feel to it. Its one of those songs that has a feeling like no
other. This song in particular has a very characteristic percussion.
This is why I think one could easily classify the tune as a DNB song.
While it is by no means the focus of the song, it definately adds a
level to the song that is almost required in a tune like this. The
percussion itself is always evolving throughout the song. It creates
the mood of the song, for the most part, and it truly defines the song.
There are a few parts in the song where there is no percussion, and it
is at these points that you appreciate the amount of time that was
dedicated to the development of such an interesting percussion line.
It pulls you it, it gets you excited, and then it dissappears, making
you want for more.
There is a lot of perepheral things happening throughout the song as
well. Those subtle little q-blips and that very low-volume, low
frequency clean synth in the background add a very unique depth to the
song. In a musical style that is not rock, these little things are
essential, and quite often make the song -- sometimes even without being
noticed. These are the things that made Jean M. Jarre the world famous
composer that he is. These are the things that put Mike Oldfield on the
map as crazy as his music is. And these are the things that mistrial
pinned down for this song. Brilliant work.
Otherwise, the song might seem a bit repetative and simple to some.
But thats the beauty of music. Simplicity can have as much affect on
a person as a truly complex and dynamic tune. Just because its
simple, though, doesnt mean that it isnt going to be dynamic. This
is a perfect example of how dynamic a simple tune can sound. But I
will agree, the chord progression is very repetative. And considering
it is carried out in the foreground of this song, it might drive some
traditional thinkers nuts. But I find it very refreshing that it is
used in such a way. There is still enough going on in the song to keep
your interest throughout the entire score.
-- Conclusion --
Well, dreamcoat might not be a download for everyone. If youre
into DNB and/or ambient, you will definately want to grab it. The
mixing quality of the song is very well done. The sample quality is
also very impressive. As a whole, the song sounds like it was mixed
very professionally.
If you do grab the song, I have one warning. While Ive been writing
this review, and a little before perhaps, the song has been repeating on
my stereo. Its been repeating for well over an hour now. I could stop
it right now, and it would still repeat in my head for another few
hours. Play it a couple of times, but stop it before it etches itself
into your brain.
--Coplan
Song Information:
Title: dreamcoat
Author: mistrial of Hellven
Release date: November 15, 2001
Length: 6.24
File Size: 5.85 MB
Source: http://www.hellven.org
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 from Aural Planet and funkymuskrat
By: Tryhuk
Its been quite a long time since I wrote something for Static Line
and paid a full attention to it. There were an unhealthy many reasons
for this, and I wont torture you with them. The point reason I am
mentioning this is that I want to cater again to young readers to
support the magazine. Although any magazine needs its regular staff, it
also needs articles from its readers, something that will spice up
every issue. We all had to be readers first and if you want the Static
Line to live, you have to help it.
I felt quite funny when I started to write a first review for this
issue. It really sucked compared to articles Ive written for previous
issues. Unfortunately for you, this doesnt stop me from mentioning a
few interesting songs I heard during last few days.
-- Stimulation 2 by Aural Planet --
http://www.auralplanet.com/download/free/Aural20Planet20-20stimulation2.mp3
I believe that everyone knows this great group. Stimulation 2 is
one of the free releases at the side of the commercial CDs: Lightflow
and Part Second. Its style nears most to dnb. A reason for this is
that a lot of attention has been given to the beat of course. Still,
its drum line has elements of progressive styles like 2step, which tend
to mix simple house beats with styles that have richer drum line. No
matter what style this track is, it is an effective composition that
pulsates with energy. I know this review doesnt help much, but a few
days ago it really fit to my mood and made the workday less painful.
-- ...presenting Superbeat by funkymuskrat --
http://hellven.microspy.org/hv054-funkymuskrat-presentingsuperbeat.mp3
As you would guess, Ive always been a fan of Ari aka: Stalker, aka:
funkymuskrat. The reason: His obvious talent for mixing experimental
elements of his own with awesome leads which are simple, but work
amazingly well. He also has a very good feeling for chord progressions,
like Necros, and this all makes for his unique music. His latest release
for Hellven is exactly one of his exceptional tunes that demonstrates
his musical ability. Ari has also released a musicdisk made in
cooperation with clover. It contains 5 tracks of chill out music. If
you are into this style, you might as well give it a try. I have to
mention it again: Ari belongs to people with style.
Well, I feel this is enough for today. But as a bonus, Ill mention
another tune: Plateau by Mosaik aka: Radix. It is a pleasant
ambient work. Nothing else to say. You can find it at:
http://www.scene.org/radix/mp3/mosaik-plateau.mp3
Then of course, there are releases by tdr which keeps high standards.
But it is too difficult to pick one release. Youll have to choose for
yourself what fits to your taste best. I wasnt disappointed, but I also
wasnt excited that much by any of the tracks.
See you next month.
--Tryhuk
Screen Lit Vertigo
Gerbera, Polyester Pimp Deluxe and Don Quijote V2.0
By: Seven
-- Gerbera by Moppi Productions --
final version
Found at moppi.inside.org
2nd place at the Assembly 2001 democompo.
System requirements:
7.8 MB HD, +500Mhz CPU and mucho RAM, windows, OpenGL compatible
3D card Radeon cards crash according to the info file
Test Machine: PIII 900 192MB, SB1024, GeForce 2MX 32MB, Win98
The Credits:
Code: memon
3D: memon, gstep
Design: sumo, memon, gstep
Music: sumo lounge, dj holik
Guest Star: johnny park
The Demo:
Unless youve lived under a rock the past month, you already know
that the first place at Assembly was taken by the Amiga demo
Lapsuus/Mature Furk. Since I know zilch of coding on an Amiga, Ill skip
it and review the second place, Gerbera by Moppi Productions. In case
you dont remember, Moppi Productions are the folks that brought us the
cute cartoon-rendered Kolme pienta pukkia Three little goats and Hannu
Kerttu 2000 Hansel and Gretel 2000.
Their latest production has cartoon-rendering too, but rather than
using it all the way, Gerbera mixes it with flatshaded objects,
photorealistic textures, video fragments and simple icons. This could
easily result in a demo that hurts your eyes, but Moppi manages to keep
everything in equilibrium, making the different styles complement each
other. It starts with solid black ribbons surrounded by really fluffy
clouds. Next we meet two friendly-looking robots, one DJ-ing and the
other dancing. Although they are rendered cartoon-style with black
outlines, the interior of the polys is not flat-colored but has a
metallic shading, giving them a very distinct look. The robots live in a
hi-tech but rather desolate world, void of any non-mechanical life.
There are giant floating objects cities, or maybe factories slowly
hovering over the highways. On top of the 3D scenes, there are smaller
effects like flocks of wireframe squares, morphing transparant curves
and lines, and bars with horizontal blur. Short slogans are sprinkled
through the demo, balancing between nonsense and thought-provoking. Some
examples: Dirt makes us honest. Honesty makes us devoted or Preset
goals makes us blind for real ones. Trust us, you wouldnt like that.
The music is DNB-ish, and very relaxed. Theres a slow melodic
background with short recurring melodic themes, with on top of that a
flurry of beats, scratches and little robot sounds. This dual speed fits
the demo very well, with the slowness of the scrolling backgrounds and
the floating cities on one hand, and the speedier secondary effects on
the other.
Overall:
Gerbera is a very original and well-balanced demo. It has excellent
design, good-looking visuals and a great soundtrack, and manages to
create a solid atmosphere. It requires quite some horsepower those
fuzzy clouds make the framerate drop noticably, even though my machine
exceeds the requirements, so some people may not be able to enjoy
Gerbera until their next upgrade. And one minor point that Ive noticed
in way too much demos: please please please, hide that ugly mouse
pointer when you create your render window!
-- Don Quijote V2.0 by Frogwise --
party-version
Found at www.scene.org
2nd place at the TRSAC PC democompo.
System requirements:
7,7 MB HD, Windows, a Geforce 3D card with OpenGL. Lots of RAM helps
Test Machine: PIII 900 192MB, SB1024, GeForce 2MX 32MB, Win98
The credits:
Code: Phat cat
2D/3D: Skinny panda
Music: Wentakura/Uprough
The Demo:
Don Quijote V2.0 is a 3D demo with a story, mixed with minimalistic
design elements. Most of you probably know the tale of the crazy knight
Don Quijote or Don Quixote, Google returns 53800 vs 74000 matches who
fights windmills with his servant Sancho. In the demo, two planes named
after the knight and his helper attack a facility that at first seems to
be a nuclear factory for genetically modified crops, but later it
transforms in something quite different. The story is nice, but develops
too slowly, IMHO some of the first parts could have been cut or
shortened.
The landscapes and 3D objects look nice and finished, the artist
hasnt used ultra-detailed textures everywhere but instead has resorted
to simple gradients where applicable. It reminds me of Le Petit Prince,
but without the cartoon rendering. Contrasting with the 3D eyecandy are
the simple Danish design elements: the startup logo, the very
minimalistic credits, the numbering of the parts in the upper left
corner, the texts of the story in different fontsizes and directions,...
The music starts slowly, almost ambient, but goes into a disco-ish
beat with an occasional voice sample. Its weird, but then so is the
demo. The volume changes a lot without reason, and the sound effects
seem some seconds out of sync with the images. Besides, the planes sound
more like tractors.
Overall:
Don Quijote V2.0 is a different kind of 3D demo, not quite like the
usual camera flights. The models and the texts have a funny touch, and
you can even perceive a nature-friendly morale if you watch it enough.
If youre convinced 3D animations belong to the wild compos only, you
can skip this one safely, but if youre still doubting a little, check
it out. But remember to lower the resolution, a default of 1024x768 is a
bit heavy unless youve a geforce 3.
-- Polyester Pimp Deluxe by The pimp brigade --
final version
Found at ftp.chscene.ch/parties/TRSAC/trsac01/PCDemo
latest version at http://www.demoscene.org/pleksolar/TPB-01.zip
1st place at the TRSAC01 PC democompo.
System Requirements: 7.3 MB HD, Windows, CPU 350 Mhz, works on a TNT
but a Gforce is preferred.
Test Machine: PIII 900 192MB, SB1024, GeForce 2MX 32MB, Win98
The Credits:
Code: Plek/Solar, Ile/Aardbei
Graphics: Shifter/TKB
Music: Okkie/Rbi
The demo:
As you can see from the credits, the Pimp Brigade consists of a bunch
of Dutch sceners from various well-established groups. Usually the
result of such a cooperation is a joke entry or a demo with an
incoherent feeling, but Polyester Pimp Deluxe is actually a pretty good
production. Its a effect-driven demo, no 3D environments or stories,
but it follows a not-so-serious blaxploitation theme. Think of pictures
of blacks with large hairdos, slogans like Bitch and Superfly!, plus
a very fitting funky soundtrack. They also follow a kind of theme in the
effects: a main effect in the foreground, and a simple effect made with
moving cubes in the background. The code isnt very original: metaballs,
morphing blob, particle effect, twirling object-with-tubes-on and such,
all of which weve seen hundreds times before. On the other hand, the 3D
objects are a bit special, the color scheme is easier on the eyes that
the famous dutch TBL-goa-colors, and the speed by which the effects
change is right on: long enough to get an appreciation of what you see,
but too short to become boring. And there are in fact two effects that I
liked a lot: an explosion of cubes, probably inspired by the wild demo
Red Dot/Oryx 2nd at Bizarre99, and some weird-looking globes with
flares at the end, when the music has already ended.
Overall:
Polyester Pimp Deluxe is a nice demo with good code, solid design and
a pinch of humour. Its not the best demo youll ever see, but its
certainly above the average.
--Seven
Editorial
The Scene Rebirth
By: Coplan
I had a bad day a few days ago, and I jumped back in trax for the
first time in weeks. Yes, I still frequent the channel enough to know
whats going on in most fellow traxers lives. Mind you, for a while,
that wasnt very many people. But I jumped in that fine day, and trax
was the busiest Ive seen it since the mid to late 90s. What gives?
Thinking it might have been a fluke, Ive been visiting the channel
every night when I get home from work Work, you know, that thing that
prevents me from getting this mag out on schedule?. Sure enough, the
channel has been hopping. Im idleing in there as I write this, and
there are 36 people logged into the channel. If you use the old handy
trax-active-member-calculation formula, you will know that only 8 of us
are really active. But were all online, and we still chat about things
that may or may not relate to the scene.
Coma 3 was just held, and while it is still a very small party by
most demo party standards, it still had a record showing. Part of this
is obviously due to the fact that the organizers are starting to get
the hang of running a party. Part of this has to do with the fact that
return-party-goers bring their friends. Part has to do with the fact
that it is the third party, and people expect all of the above. Well,
regardless, a good portion of that has to do with a somewhat renewed
activity in the scene.
Is the Scene reviving itself?
I have always argued that the scene was not so much dead as it was
evolving. From day one, the scene has been growing in size, and
changing in medium, technology and skill. Technology has become so
advanced that the scene has almost become an eclectic art-form, to some.
The scene is no longer at the cutting edge of technology as it once was.
Hell, the scene isnt even ahead of the gaming industry anymore yes, it
used to be, then DOOM came out. The scene did change, and the scene
did evolve. Its no longer about being the most innovative. Its now
about being the most creative with the tools we have. Its no longer
about doing things that no one else can. Its about putting some
thought into our creations. The scene, in any aspect, has started to
become a fine art, of sorts. It is practiced by few well, a lot, but
considering the number of people on the net. Even fewer participate
regularly. But its still here, and its starting to catch interest
again.
But before we whip out the party hats, and start drinking to the
re-awakening, realize that it hasnt completely happened yet. We can
still miss the boat if we dont all act now. If you have anything you
can contribute to the scene, dont hesitate. If you have any reason to
go to a party, do it. If you have any reason to host a party, or a
competition, or anything, do it. Frequent sites like SceneSpot
shameless plug or Orange Juice. Post messages at naid.net for you
North American Demosceners. Do whatever it takes to become a part of
the scene. It helps draw curiosity from others, and thats the pool we
want to tap into. Outsiders support the scene as much as the insiders,
never forget that. If what were doing is cool, the insiders have
something to show off. Then the insider want to be here. Its all
circular, but effective.
Push the scene, for what its worth. Its worth a lot more than you
think it is. Its a lot more alive than you believe it is. Its alive,
its well, its growing...and its very hungry for more.
Feed it!
--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
Danish Scene..............................http://demo-scene.dk
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
Planet Zeus..........................http://www.planetzeus.net
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
Outbreak................................http://www.outbreak.nu
Popsy Team............................http://popsyteam.rtel.fr
Prone................................http://www.prone.ninja.dk
Purple....................................http://www.purple.dk
Rage........................................http://www.rage.nu
Replay.......................http://www.shine.scene.org/replay
Retro A.C...........................http://www.retroac.cjb.net
Sista Vip..........................http://www.sistavip.exit.de
Skytech team............................http://www.skytech.org
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
Fairlight Music.....................http://fairlight.scene.org
Five Musicians.........................http://www.fm.scene.org
Fusion Music Crew.................http://members.home.nl/cyrex
Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff
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://www.wildmag.de
Parties:
Assembly Finland.....................http://www.assembly.org
Ambience The Netherlands..............http://www.ambience.nl
Dreamhack Sweden....................http://www.dreamhack.org
Buenzli Switzerland......................http://www.buenz.li
Gravity Poland............http://www.demoscena.cp.pl/gravity
Mekka-Symposium Germany...................http://ms.demo.org
Takeover The Netherlands.............,http://www.takeover.nl
The Party Denmark.....................http://www.theparty.dk
Others:
Demo secret parts....http://www.inf.bme.hu/mandula/secret.txt
Textmode Demo Archive.................http://tmda.planet-d.net
Arf!Studios..........................http://www.arfstudios.org
coders..................................http://coderz.cjb.net
Demonews Express.........http://www.teeselink.demon.nl/express
Demo fanclub........................http://jerware.org/fanclub
Digital Undergrounds.....................http://dug.iscool.net
Doose charts...............................http://www.doose.dk
Freax................................http://freax.scene-hu.com
GfxZone............................http://gfxzone.planet-d.net
PC-demos explained.....http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained
Pixel...................................http://pixel.scene.org
* trax e-mail list.............................................
.............http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/trax
Underground Mine.............http://www.spinningkids.org/umine
IRC Channels:
Scene.........................................ircnet thescene
Programming.....................................ircnet coders
Programming....................................efnet flipcode
Graphics.........................................ircnet pixel
Music.............................................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 243 Subscribers
Table Of Contents
Opening:
Message From the Editor
Letters From Our Readers
Features:
SceneSpot Update
Coma 3 Party Report
Law of Convolution -- Fundamentals of Synthesis
Memory Madness
Columns:
Music:
In Tune -- dreamcoat by mistrial
The Listener -- Music from Aural Planet and funkymuskrat
Demo:
Screen Lit Vertigo -- Gerbera, Polyester Pimp Deluxe
and Don Quijote V2.0
General:
Editorial -- The Scene Rebirth
Link List -- Get Somewhere in the Scene
Closing:
Credits
Message From the Editor
well, as promised, were back! Yes, it was another crazy few months,
and Im sorry we missed a month in there. But I assure you, it was well
worth it. We have a lot to share with you this month, as you will see.
We have some very special feature articles for you this month.
First, we have a first-hand record of Coma 2 in a party report from the
one and only Phoenix aka: feen. Then, Seven offers his take on how
the availability of cheap RAM might affect the demoscene in Memory
Madness. If you want to get caught up on what Ive been doing with
SceneSpot, you can learn about that this month too in my SceneSpot
Update. And finally, we have a very special article from Setec
concerning some more basics on synthesis theory, the Law of
Convolution.
Of course, all our regular columns are back as well, and plenty of
reading to do there as well.
As always, were always looking for more articles, more columns and
so on. The larger we can build our writing staff, the better this
magazine will be. If you have any interest in writing, even if you
dont know what youd write about, e-mail me at coplan@scenespot.org.
Well, thats all for now. I will let you read on through this issue
of Static Line. Until next month, enjoy!
--Coplan
SceneSpot Update
By: Coplan
Id like to take this opportunity to get everyone up to date on the
latest happenings for SceneSpot. For those of you yet unaware,
SceneSpot is a Scene web resource project that is currently being
undertaken in conjunction with Static Line. While SceneSpot hosts
Static Line, and Static Line drives most of the site, there are still
many features that SceneSpot has to offer the average user. Check out
SceneSpot: http://www.scenespot.org
Its been around for a while, but Tune Tracker keeps growing. Tune
Tracker is basically a way for people to announce their song releases
and keep track of other peoples song releases. Many of our members
currently use it often, but the user base is growing, which means more
songs keep popping up. But now, Tune Tracker should be easier to
navigate, as we have finally installed an index system to browse more
than the latest tunes. And the search function now works for Tune
Tracker as well. In the future, one can expect some more in-depth
searching, and broader features of Tune Tracker as well. On a side
note, you must be a SceneSpot member to submit songs to Tune Tracker,
but you need not be a member to view the latest releases.
The Links database is finally fully functional. Members and
non-members alike can submit links to the database. If approved, these
links get collected into the database for all to see. Its a good way
to get your scene related sites noticed. Eventually, this database
will replace the vast links list that appears at the end of every
Static Line issue.
For those of you who arent aware, any member can submit news to the
site. This can be party announcements, software releases, and other
scene happenings. Its a good place to stick your news brief.
There is much more to come in the next few months. A voting booth
should be popping up soon, in which you will have a voice in what gets
developed next. Tune Tracker will continue to grow with many new
features planned, and the Group database will also continue to grow.
Keep checking back for the latest news and resources on SceneSpot. And
as always, if you think you have something you might be able to
contribute, send an e-mail to coplan@scenespot.org and let us know what
you can do.
As always, thank you for your feedback and support as we strive to
make SceneSpot the perfect site for you.
--Coplan
Coma 3 Party Report
By: Phoenix
I havent written one of these reports in years, so either Im going
to have to write nonstop without thinking or else it wont get done.
So, lets begin.
Friday, November 16, 2001: After buying some party food/drinks, and
waiting far too long for an oil change, Im on the road somewhere around
3pm. The trip goes well, though with no-one else to talk with for 6
hours, a bit dull. I had expected tighter security at customs. But even
with a purchase of vodka at the duty free shop, I was pratically waved
through into Canada once again. I couldnt find the right exit for the
University of Montreal well, I didnt know quite what to look for, but
after a stop and map-check, I found my way back and reached the site
shortly after 9pm, right when parking became free.
Coma was held in the Polytechnic building of the university, on the
top 6th floor. A few signs directed me up an elevator. I saw some
people on laptops down the hall, but they were just students! Who in
their right mind does classwork on a Friday night? : Further down was
the room for Coma. I signed a sheet, filled out computer info for
security purposes, and scoped it out.
The room was rather small, but at least there were some people there.
I found fellow DC5-mate TheFinn, who had flown all the way from Oregon!
no fear of terrorists here. We managed to get a cart and brought my
stuff up. This was actually the first party Id brought my computer to,
and I had several boxes with CDs, ads and misc stuff. I was able to set
up close to the entrance. I was told I would have my own projector to
show demos with, but I found out that some other university group took
it, oh well. I had to settle with my old 15 monitor. This year there
was a network connection, and TheFinn was on trax for a short while,
but I didnt bother hooking up to it. More people started coming in,
and it appeared that more people were around the first night than the
first night of Coma2 in 2000. I met up once again with the Suboptical
guys + Anterabae/Astrid, a couple guys from Maryland, DCB including
Snibble!, some ex-NAID organizers, and a few people I hadnt seen in
years, including Depth/Excused and Mental Floss former fellow Kosmic
musician. After showing some demos on my machine, we headed to the
first couple compos, wild and animation. Instead of a dinky screen,
they were held in an auditorium, just across the hall! This was pretty
cool, but the entries didnt quite live up to it :. The wild compo
included mixed computer animation and film from Zelkor/Razor1911 and a
silly short film made by some ex-NAID organizers, though it wasnt made
for Coma. The best animation was a stereoscopic one, where you relax
your focus to get a fake 3D effect. I couldnt do it but I saw many
others holding fingers up to their eyes trying. Afterwards I put on a
pair of headphones and entered the 10 minute tracking compo.. well, I
felt I had to enter something! I dubbed my short tune I am an old
fart.
The next morning I didnt sleep, having had much caffeinated Mt. Dew
Absolut Citron I went out to breakfast with Sylphin and Mr. Khan,
where we discussed NAID, the naid.net site, and jobs, while bearing with
some horrible fussy American lady next to us. Back at the party, I met
up with Anonym/Padua, known well in the European C64 scene, and the
thematic compo was announced. The theme was cucumbers. I
contemplated making a demo, but I didnt get around to it. The guys
from Suboptical Sylphin Vastator, backed up by Kindred and Diver777
were still frantically working on their demo. I checked out a seminar
for Game Boy Advance coding. Unfortunately I was getting tired by this
point, and found myself almost falling asleep. It was put on by Gladius
or was it Phil Rate? and RV. It was kind of neat to see all the
technical capabilities of the system, but it kind of seemed like one big
ad for their Paragon 5 music system. Following this was, huzzah, my one
big ad for MindCandy, the DemoDVD project! But I tried to have fun. We
made promotional Video CDs for Coma, which had 7 demos on them, but I
only had time to make nine copies. So I played a name that demo game
to give them away. Around 20-30 people showed up for the giveaway,
which wasnt too bad since that was nearly half the people present at
Coma at the time. After this came the gfx and music compos, which I
must say left me disappointed. But it makes me want to get back into
tracking, since maybe now I can win a compo :.
Saturday night I went into Montreal with a bunch of guys looking for
food. We found a Middle Eastern place called, get this, Monssieur
Falafel. Almost as amusing as PFK. : It was a quite cold walk, but a
lot of fun talking about the North American scene and ripping on the
lamers within. I missed the 10 minute gfx compo, but life goes on.
Finally came the demo competition. This year there were 13 entries,
one more than last year. That wasnt too bad, considering the rather
short notice and somber mood this year. But then, this was the only
compo with serious prizes. Two-time Coma winner Creative Impact returned
with Project Ayumi, trying 3d character animation this time.
Unfortunately, it had an unfinished feel to it and seemed to bore the
crowd enough into giving them a relatively shameful 7th place. Which is
too bad, since they put a good amount of effort into it and I liked the
music too. Subopticals demo looked and sounded nice on the big
screen, which is typically what they aim for. It ended up 4th though I
imagine it confused the audience a little toward the end. MadBrain, a
young multi-talented guy from the Quebec city area, made a demo with
nothing but cubes. The crowd was entertained and gave it 3rd place. It
included house scenes, a guy driving wildly with cube wheels, cube
fire, and a cube fountain, among other things. 2nd place went to the
recently reformed Razor 1911 demo group, this time based in France but
with a French- canadian member as well. It was pleasing to the ears and
eyes, nothing fancy, something which may not have done so well in Europe
but just fine in Canada. And the winner? A trio of Montrealeans dubbing
themselves The Project created a humor piece called ABCDemo which
was one large laugh-out-loud demoscene satire. It features two
faintly-familiar-looking cartoon characters, dubbed simply Fido and
Bobo, who show a five-step how-to-make-a-demo tape. The voice acting
is great, the jabs are even better, but what they rip on is actually now
considered old and outdated, at least by the Euros. Still, the crowd
enjoyed it enough to vote it the winner. They got 500 Canadian or
so, which is at least better than the single French-language games most
everyone else won.
After the awards were given out, I finally got some sleep. There was
just one classroom for sleeping, but all the Montreal people went home
so there was plenty of room and it was more than quiet enough. By the
time I got up Sunday and found the shower yes, there was just one, two
floors down, most everyone had left. I said goodbye to the remaining
few, handed out my two remaining VideoCDs, and headed for home, once
again without trouble.
So to sum up, here are some pros and cons of Coma3, compared to last
year:
Pros:
- Better location. I didnt like the 6th floor bit, but it was cool to
be back at a university. And the auditorium across the hall was
great! Much better than a church basement. I wouldnt complain if
Coma4 were held in the same place. And next time we should just take
over the whole damned floor, who needs to study over the weekend
anyway. :
- Better big screen, for sure! The audio was high quality, but IMO not
loud enough :.
- Friendly atmosphere. You can talk to about anyone there, though some
people were a bit shy.
- Nothing got stolen, of mine at least. My stuff was right out in the
open, so maybe I was lucky.
- The demos were a little bit more entertaining than last year.
- The organizers did a pretty good job of moving things along and making
sure people got where they needed to.
Cons:
- There just was not enough enthusiasm or interest. I hate having to
blame the hard-working organizers, but I saw very little advertising
for Coma3, and there just werent enough activities. How about some
outdoor compos? Live performances? Demo shows? okay, I shouldve
brought it upon myself to do more of the latter There were around
100 people at the demo compo, but during the rest of the party it was
hard to count more than 40 or so. The reason? The rest just didnt
feel it was worth staying around the whole time. With more people
helping out, that can be changed next time. One suggestion is for more
sceners/ex-sceners with scene-related jobs games, gfx, music to have
their companies sponsor the next Coma. More prize money always
results in better compo entries. :
- There were 13 demos, true. But count the number of American demos.
None. ZERO. This felt like a nail-in-the-coffin for the American
scene, even when the Canadians were still pushing on. I dont know if
the current war and terror scare can be blamed for this, maybe. As a
citizen of the U.S. of A., I feel this shrinking trend can be
reversed. Just look at all the sceners on ojuice.net with American
flags next to their names. Where are they? We cant really call it a
North American scene when just one country is productive. At least
I had the DemoDVD excuse. :
- Some people complained about the public-only voting. Its true that
people tend to vote for demos with weird/silly gimmicks in them,
regardless of quality, but Im not sure if having a jury would have
changed the results much. Voting was done on a 1-to-10 scale per
entry, which was good, but having a jury voting more on technicality
couldnt hurt.
- We still have a loooong way to go to get back up to a NAID-level
party.
There, I hope I didnt bore you to tears with my Coma3 report. I had
a fun time, and Im still hopeful for the Western hemisphere. See you
at Coma4!
--feen/dc5 aka Phoenix/Hornet
Law of Convolution
Fundamentals of Synthesis
By: Jesper Pedersen aka: Setec
This article focuses on the fundamental law of sound synthesis: The
law of convolution. It is a very short, simple law, but the implications
of it are tremendous. And it is my experience that it is rarely
understood properly by people without any synthesis theory background,
due to the fact that at first it is not entirely intuitive.
Before rushing into the actual law, we need to establish a few basic
concepts. Mainly the representation of sound in the time-domain and the
frequency-domain. These are simply two different ways of visualizing
sound, which are however vital to the understanding of the law of
convolution.
NOTE : All of this requires the fundamental understanding that a sound
consists of multiple frequencies, determining the timbre of the sound.
If these concepts are a bit hazy to you, I suggest you read a former
article of mine, See the Sines: Basics of Sound published in Static
Line issue 9: March, 1999. You might want to also check out another
article, Subtractive Synthesis: The Basics published in Static Line
issue 27: November, 2000. Both articles are available at the
SceneSpot/Static Line site: http://www.scenespot.org/staticline .
Time-Domain:
One way to represent sound is to use a graph showing time along the
x-axis and change in air pressure along the y-axis. This is the
representation you usually see in a sample editor and in the sample
windows of trackers. It is the most common way to visualize sound. So
what can be visualized using this domain? Mainly, changes in amplitude
over time, since the amount of change in air pressure is - in a
simplified case - perceived as amplitude. This is very intuitive and all
of you probably understand this.
One thing, however, that the time-domain is not that good at
visualizing is the harmonic contents of a sound. It might give you an
idea as to how bright the sound is, but you wont be able to really
visualize the complete harmonic contents. Which brings us to...
Frequency-domain:
In this domain, the x-axis represents frequency and the y-axis
amplitude. So this directly gives you the harmonic contents of the
sound, the amplitude of each frequency contained in the sound. So what
are we lacking here? Well, exactly what the time-domain was so good at
picturing changes in amplitude. The 2-dimensional version of the
frequency-domain gives you the harmonic contents AT A FIXED TIME. It
does not contain any information about how the harmonics change over
time, it gives you the contents at one instant in time. This is why
sometimes, 3-dimensional graphs are used for frequency-domains, time
being the third axis.
Okay, so you should have a pretty clear idea of the different domains
and their use. So here is what it is all about, the law of convolution:
Convolution in the time-domain is equal to multiplication
in the frequency-domain and vice versa.
Now, the object of this article isnt to explain what convolution is.
This is a topic that reaches far beyond the scope of this article, but
something I might touch in later articles. However, the idea I want to
get across here is that:
Multiplication in the time-domain is equal to a CHANGE in
the frequency-domain and vice versa.
So without specifying excactly what is changed and how, the
implications of this law are still surprising. If you are not yet
impressed by any of this, stop to think for a moment about this last
version of the law whenever you multiply one waveform with another in
the time-domain, the harmonic contents of the sound is changed. Still
not surprised?
This actually means that whenever you apply an amplitude envelope in
your sampler or in a tracker or whatever editor you use, you are not
only changing the time-domain of the sound, you are also altering the
harmonic contents of the sound. Now if this seems to go against your
everyday experience - and indeed intuition - then it is because the
amplitude modulation you will usually apply via envelopes will consist
of a waveform with a VERY low frequency. So although harmonics are added
to the sound, they are two low-pitched for you to hear them. But as soon
as the modulation waveform reaches an audible frequency, you will start
hearing these changes.
This fundamental law of synthesis reaches far beyond the concepts
that I have described in this article. Reverberation is another area
that uses this law with great results. Even filters can be simulated
using so-called Impulse Responses and convolution in the time-domain.
To understand the basic ideas of IRs and their use, it must be
understood that a single horizontal line in the time-domain - an Impulse
- contains ALL frequencies at equal levels, a vertical line in the
frequency domain. Whereas a single horizontal line in the
frequency-domain naturally corresponds to a sine wave, which is the only
wave containing just a single frequency.
So what are Impulse Responses? These are recordings of the response of
something to an Impulse. This means that there is an IR for the room you
are sitting in. Your room will bounce sound of walls, creating
reflections of the sound, what is usually known as reverberation. These
reflections will create a sound that contains several different versions
of the intial Impulse, spread out in time and with varying amplitude.
Now, convolution works by combining a source sound with an IR, so
that at each and every time-domain component of the IR, the source sound
is played back at an amplitude corresponding to the current IR
component. See how this will work to create an effect to make it sound
as if the source sound is played in the room where the IR was recorded?
We are excactly duplicating the reflections of the room, their position
in time as well as their amplitude. And from the law of convolution this
means that we are changing the harmonic contents of the sound as well.
This is why reverb doesnt simply add room to the sound, it also
changes the timbre of the sound quite a lot.
IRs can be recorded - or simulated more often - for filters as well.
Or microphones, guitar amplifiers, etc. And so, all these components can
be simulated through convolution. With - as always - a convolution in
the time-domain creating changes in the frequency domain.
Well, it seemed like I ended up describing - in simple terms -
convolution as well. It is a very interesting topic and one that reaches
into pretty much any area of synthesis. Now the way I described how
convolution works is correct, but you can imagine that realizing it
exactly how I described it - actually playing the source sample at each
point of the IR - is a pretty demanding task. An IR lasting, say 5
seconds, will contain:
5s * 44100Hz 220500 samples
And according to how I described it, this is how many times the
source sound would have to be played and mixed. Quite a lot, and pretty
heavy on even the fastest processors.
So rather than doing this, sound processors use advanced mathematical
theories to reach the same goal. But the fundamental idea of how
convolution works remains. And the law of convolution is always there.
Aint it clever? :
As usual, any comments, questions or corrections you might have, feel
free to mail me about it. I am not a genious when it comes to sound
synthesis, this is purely a study on a hobby level, so if I have any of
these concepts mixed up or misunderstood, please correct me.
--Jesper Pedersen
Setec / pHluid
jesper@befunk.com
Memory Madness
By: Seven
We all know computers and their components become faster, better
and/or cheaper every year. Its a fact of life, a law of nature, and
Ive become so accustomed to it that I sometimes find myself wondering
in a shop why the food or the clothes havent dropped significantly in
price the last six months. But even then Im sometimes taken aback by
the speed of progress.
Last week I was reading The Register www.theregister.co.uk where
they mentioned that the prices of RAM chips were at an all-time low. I
checked the website of my local hardware shop, and behold: a 512 MB
PC133 DIMM costs only 116 Euro! I jumped on my bike, raced to the shop
and placed an order.
To clue some of you youngsters in: the first time I bought extra
memory, 5 or 6 years ago, I paid about the same for a 4 MB chip. Exactly
one year ago, I paid 100 Euro for my extra 64MB! Were talking about a
7-fold increase in MB per Euro, in one single year! In fact, if I didnt
have a crappy motherboard with only two yes 2 memory slots, I would
have gone for the 3 times 256 MB, which costs only 99 Euro. Three
quarters of a gigabyte RAM, Ive had a harddisk a fraction of that size!
Its madness, I tell you!
Of course the situation today is exceptional: theres a recession,
the PC market is saturated, the events of 9-11 havent helped consumer
confidence in any way, but the memory manufacturers are still producing
lots of chips. Theres a gross overproduction, chips are sold at dumping
prizes and the manufacturers are basically waiting to see whos gonna go
bankrupt first, so that production will decrease and prizes will rise
again As a reference, a 128 MB SIMM EDO costs a whopping 483 Euro!
Thats 4 times *more* for 4 times *less* memory, of an outdated and
slower type, simple because it isnt made anymore . Maybe the launch of
WinXP will result in people buying more memory or new computers, but if
that will be enough to eliminate the big stockpiles? Who knows...
Anyway, when my order arrives Ill have 128 + 512 640 MB RAM. As a
wise man once said, 640 MB should be enough for everybody! or
something like that : That obscene large amount of memory has got me
thinking about a few things. For instance, were quickly nearing the 4
Gigabyte limit thats imposed on all 32-bit CPUs. In fact its worse,
because many operating systems reserve a large hunk of the memory space
for their own use Win9x uses 2 GB and WinNT 1 GB, IIRC. And you dont
want to upgrade from 2 to 3 or 4 Gig RAM if only the OS can profit from
that extra headroom. I hope from the bottom of my heart that by that
time well have all upgraded to 64-bit processors, instead of falling
victim to, say, MS XMS-32 or EMM for WinXP, or similar hacks from
the era of the 640KB DOS limit. If you dont know what Im talking
about, praise yourself very lucky.
But, to stop bragging and to go back on the topic of this fine mag:
How will this influence the demoscene? Will it result in more and more
sloppy coding? Will people use uncompressed BMPs or TIFFs for the images
in the demos, because there too lazy to use a decompression lib, and
hey, memory is cheap? Will they keep all the MP3s of their super-duper
multi-part demo in memory from the start, instead of deallocating one
when its been played, and loading another when showing a picture or
using another thread? Will we see This demo needs at least 2 GB
RAM-errormessages in future productions?
The answer to the previous questions is definately Yes!, simply
because all of these things happen already OK, except that last one.
Adding memory is not going to improve the situation. But I certainly
hope that there will be at least a few coders who actually make use of
the extra capacity. For example, imagine this: some years ahead, you
watch a normal 3D demo, but its optimized for memory and CPU usage.
While youre admiring some nifty effects that the 3D card is drawing
with pixel shaders, the CPU is secretly doing software raytracing,
rendering to the 2 Gig memory. At the end of the 5-minutes demo, a 30
second movie is shown, at the same quality of Shrek or Final Fantasy.
That would be something impressive! Technically, at least.
In short, I hope that the coders, especially those with a job and a
big fat PC, will not squander all that memory, but will either create
never-seen-before effects, or remember the kids who had to use their
dads old PC with only 512 MB RAM, and the sceners in countries where
new hardware is a luxury for the happy few, and thus optimize their demo
so that it runs on a 2-year old PC. Yes I know its unlikely, but I can
hope...
/Rant
--Seven
In Tune
dreamcoat by mistrial
By: Coplan
-- Introduction --
Here I am, ever wandering about the net, ever trying to find some
good music to listen to. For me to like a tune, it only has to do one
of to things: 1 relax me or 2 entertain me. There are very few
tunes that Ive listened to that do both. I dont mean to make it
sound like Im really that obtuse. In all honesty, entertainment and
relaxation are two opposite emotions to me. But, on the rare occasion,
I have a relaxing tune with so much dynamics in it that I am also
entertained at some level.
The song, dreamcoat, by mistrial of Hellven just happens to be
one of those songs. So, Ill share it with you today.
-- The Tune --
Let me start by saying this is not your typical song. I actually am
not quite sure how one would classify this one. I would say its a
blend between DnB, Ambient and Trance. But then again, Ive never been
good at classifying these borderline styles and especially with the
electronic styles, there are so many sub-styles as well.
As I said in my introduction, this song is very relaxing. If you turn
it down below that critical volume point, you can just sit and dream the
day away. Its the type of song that you might be able to use in one of
those old continuous, repeating demos. You could loop this song for
hours, and not really notice that it ever ended. Dont get me wrong, I
have nothing against songs with no definate mood changes. This is why
ambient music was created, isnt it? But the song has a very even,
mellow tone throughout the song.
Need I remind you, I did also say that the song was very entertaining
as well. When I say entertaining, I dont mean that the average
mellow tune doesnt entertain me. I mean it has a very interesting and
unique feel to it. Its one of those songs that has a feeling like no
other. This song in particular has a very characteristic percussion.
This is why I think one could easily classify the tune as a DNB song.
While it is by no means the focus of the song, it definately adds a
level to the song that is almost required in a tune like this. The
percussion itself is always evolving throughout the song. It creates
the mood of the song, for the most part, and it truly defines the song.
There are a few parts in the song where there is no percussion, and it
is at these points that you appreciate the amount of time that was
dedicated to the development of such an interesting percussion line.
It pulls you it, it gets you excited, and then it dissappears, making
you want for more.
There is a lot of perepheral things happening throughout the song as
well. Those subtle little q-blips and that very low-volume, low
frequency clean synth in the background add a very unique depth to the
song. In a musical style that is not rock, these little things are
essential, and quite often make the song -- sometimes even without being
noticed. These are the things that made Jean M. Jarre the world famous
composer that he is. These are the things that put Mike Oldfield on the
map as crazy as his music is. And these are the things that mistrial
pinned down for this song. Brilliant work.
Otherwise, the song might seem a bit repetative and simple to some.
But thats the beauty of music. Simplicity can have as much affect on
a person as a truly complex and dynamic tune. Just because its
simple, though, doesnt mean that it isnt going to be dynamic. This
is a perfect example of how dynamic a simple tune can sound. But I
will agree, the chord progression is very repetative. And considering
it is carried out in the foreground of this song, it might drive some
traditional thinkers nuts. But I find it very refreshing that it is
used in such a way. There is still enough going on in the song to keep
your interest throughout the entire score.
-- Conclusion --
Well, dreamcoat might not be a download for everyone. If youre
into DNB and/or ambient, you will definately want to grab it. The
mixing quality of the song is very well done. The sample quality is
also very impressive. As a whole, the song sounds like it was mixed
very professionally.
If you do grab the song, I have one warning. While Ive been writing
this review, and a little before perhaps, the song has been repeating on
my stereo. Its been repeating for well over an hour now. I could stop
it right now, and it would still repeat in my head for another few
hours. Play it a couple of times, but stop it before it etches itself
into your brain.
--Coplan
Song Information:
Title: dreamcoat
Author: mistrial of Hellven
Release date: November 15, 2001
Length: 6.24
File Size: 5.85 MB
Source: http://www.hellven.org
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 from Aural Planet and funkymuskrat
By: Tryhuk
Its been quite a long time since I wrote something for Static Line
and paid a full attention to it. There were an unhealthy many reasons
for this, and I wont torture you with them. The point reason I am
mentioning this is that I want to cater again to young readers to
support the magazine. Although any magazine needs its regular staff, it
also needs articles from its readers, something that will spice up
every issue. We all had to be readers first and if you want the Static
Line to live, you have to help it.
I felt quite funny when I started to write a first review for this
issue. It really sucked compared to articles Ive written for previous
issues. Unfortunately for you, this doesnt stop me from mentioning a
few interesting songs I heard during last few days.
-- Stimulation 2 by Aural Planet --
http://www.auralplanet.com/download/free/Aural20Planet20-20stimulation2.mp3
I believe that everyone knows this great group. Stimulation 2 is
one of the free releases at the side of the commercial CDs: Lightflow
and Part Second. Its style nears most to dnb. A reason for this is
that a lot of attention has been given to the beat of course. Still,
its drum line has elements of progressive styles like 2step, which tend
to mix simple house beats with styles that have richer drum line. No
matter what style this track is, it is an effective composition that
pulsates with energy. I know this review doesnt help much, but a few
days ago it really fit to my mood and made the workday less painful.
-- ...presenting Superbeat by funkymuskrat --
http://hellven.microspy.org/hv054-funkymuskrat-presentingsuperbeat.mp3
As you would guess, Ive always been a fan of Ari aka: Stalker, aka:
funkymuskrat. The reason: His obvious talent for mixing experimental
elements of his own with awesome leads which are simple, but work
amazingly well. He also has a very good feeling for chord progressions,
like Necros, and this all makes for his unique music. His latest release
for Hellven is exactly one of his exceptional tunes that demonstrates
his musical ability. Ari has also released a musicdisk made in
cooperation with clover. It contains 5 tracks of chill out music. If
you are into this style, you might as well give it a try. I have to
mention it again: Ari belongs to people with style.
Well, I feel this is enough for today. But as a bonus, Ill mention
another tune: Plateau by Mosaik aka: Radix. It is a pleasant
ambient work. Nothing else to say. You can find it at:
http://www.scene.org/radix/mp3/mosaik-plateau.mp3
Then of course, there are releases by tdr which keeps high standards.
But it is too difficult to pick one release. Youll have to choose for
yourself what fits to your taste best. I wasnt disappointed, but I also
wasnt excited that much by any of the tracks.
See you next month.
--Tryhuk
Screen Lit Vertigo
Gerbera, Polyester Pimp Deluxe and Don Quijote V2.0
By: Seven
-- Gerbera by Moppi Productions --
final version
Found at moppi.inside.org
2nd place at the Assembly 2001 democompo.
System requirements:
7.8 MB HD, +500Mhz CPU and mucho RAM, windows, OpenGL compatible
3D card Radeon cards crash according to the info file
Test Machine: PIII 900 192MB, SB1024, GeForce 2MX 32MB, Win98
The Credits:
Code: memon
3D: memon, gstep
Design: sumo, memon, gstep
Music: sumo lounge, dj holik
Guest Star: johnny park
The Demo:
Unless youve lived under a rock the past month, you already know
that the first place at Assembly was taken by the Amiga demo
Lapsuus/Mature Furk. Since I know zilch of coding on an Amiga, Ill skip
it and review the second place, Gerbera by Moppi Productions. In case
you dont remember, Moppi Productions are the folks that brought us the
cute cartoon-rendered Kolme pienta pukkia Three little goats and Hannu
Kerttu 2000 Hansel and Gretel 2000.
Their latest production has cartoon-rendering too, but rather than
using it all the way, Gerbera mixes it with flatshaded objects,
photorealistic textures, video fragments and simple icons. This could
easily result in a demo that hurts your eyes, but Moppi manages to keep
everything in equilibrium, making the different styles complement each
other. It starts with solid black ribbons surrounded by really fluffy
clouds. Next we meet two friendly-looking robots, one DJ-ing and the
other dancing. Although they are rendered cartoon-style with black
outlines, the interior of the polys is not flat-colored but has a
metallic shading, giving them a very distinct look. The robots live in a
hi-tech but rather desolate world, void of any non-mechanical life.
There are giant floating objects cities, or maybe factories slowly
hovering over the highways. On top of the 3D scenes, there are smaller
effects like flocks of wireframe squares, morphing transparant curves
and lines, and bars with horizontal blur. Short slogans are sprinkled
through the demo, balancing between nonsense and thought-provoking. Some
examples: Dirt makes us honest. Honesty makes us devoted or Preset
goals makes us blind for real ones. Trust us, you wouldnt like that.
The music is DNB-ish, and very relaxed. Theres a slow melodic
background with short recurring melodic themes, with on top of that a
flurry of beats, scratches and little robot sounds. This dual speed fits
the demo very well, with the slowness of the scrolling backgrounds and
the floating cities on one hand, and the speedier secondary effects on
the other.
Overall:
Gerbera is a very original and well-balanced demo. It has excellent
design, good-looking visuals and a great soundtrack, and manages to
create a solid atmosphere. It requires quite some horsepower those
fuzzy clouds make the framerate drop noticably, even though my machine
exceeds the requirements, so some people may not be able to enjoy
Gerbera until their next upgrade. And one minor point that Ive noticed
in way too much demos: please please please, hide that ugly mouse
pointer when you create your render window!
-- Don Quijote V2.0 by Frogwise --
party-version
Found at www.scene.org
2nd place at the TRSAC PC democompo.
System requirements:
7,7 MB HD, Windows, a Geforce 3D card with OpenGL. Lots of RAM helps
Test Machine: PIII 900 192MB, SB1024, GeForce 2MX 32MB, Win98
The credits:
Code: Phat cat
2D/3D: Skinny panda
Music: Wentakura/Uprough
The Demo:
Don Quijote V2.0 is a 3D demo with a story, mixed with minimalistic
design elements. Most of you probably know the tale of the crazy knight
Don Quijote or Don Quixote, Google returns 53800 vs 74000 matches who
fights windmills with his servant Sancho. In the demo, two planes named
after the knight and his helper attack a facility that at first seems to
be a nuclear factory for genetically modified crops, but later it
transforms in something quite different. The story is nice, but develops
too slowly, IMHO some of the first parts could have been cut or
shortened.
The landscapes and 3D objects look nice and finished, the artist
hasnt used ultra-detailed textures everywhere but instead has resorted
to simple gradients where applicable. It reminds me of Le Petit Prince,
but without the cartoon rendering. Contrasting with the 3D eyecandy are
the simple Danish design elements: the startup logo, the very
minimalistic credits, the numbering of the parts in the upper left
corner, the texts of the story in different fontsizes and directions,...
The music starts slowly, almost ambient, but goes into a disco-ish
beat with an occasional voice sample. Its weird, but then so is the
demo. The volume changes a lot without reason, and the sound effects
seem some seconds out of sync with the images. Besides, the planes sound
more like tractors.
Overall:
Don Quijote V2.0 is a different kind of 3D demo, not quite like the
usual camera flights. The models and the texts have a funny touch, and
you can even perceive a nature-friendly morale if you watch it enough.
If youre convinced 3D animations belong to the wild compos only, you
can skip this one safely, but if youre still doubting a little, check
it out. But remember to lower the resolution, a default of 1024x768 is a
bit heavy unless youve a geforce 3.
-- Polyester Pimp Deluxe by The pimp brigade --
final version
Found at ftp.chscene.ch/parties/TRSAC/trsac01/PCDemo
latest version at http://www.demoscene.org/pleksolar/TPB-01.zip
1st place at the TRSAC01 PC democompo.
System Requirements: 7.3 MB HD, Windows, CPU 350 Mhz, works on a TNT
but a Gforce is preferred.
Test Machine: PIII 900 192MB, SB1024, GeForce 2MX 32MB, Win98
The Credits:
Code: Plek/Solar, Ile/Aardbei
Graphics: Shifter/TKB
Music: Okkie/Rbi
The demo:
As you can see from the credits, the Pimp Brigade consists of a bunch
of Dutch sceners from various well-established groups. Usually the
result of such a cooperation is a joke entry or a demo with an
incoherent feeling, but Polyester Pimp Deluxe is actually a pretty good
production. Its a effect-driven demo, no 3D environments or stories,
but it follows a not-so-serious blaxploitation theme. Think of pictures
of blacks with large hairdos, slogans like Bitch and Superfly!, plus
a very fitting funky soundtrack. They also follow a kind of theme in the
effects: a main effect in the foreground, and a simple effect made with
moving cubes in the background. The code isnt very original: metaballs,
morphing blob, particle effect, twirling object-with-tubes-on and such,
all of which weve seen hundreds times before. On the other hand, the 3D
objects are a bit special, the color scheme is easier on the eyes that
the famous dutch TBL-goa-colors, and the speed by which the effects
change is right on: long enough to get an appreciation of what you see,
but too short to become boring. And there are in fact two effects that I
liked a lot: an explosion of cubes, probably inspired by the wild demo
Red Dot/Oryx 2nd at Bizarre99, and some weird-looking globes with
flares at the end, when the music has already ended.
Overall:
Polyester Pimp Deluxe is a nice demo with good code, solid design and
a pinch of humour. Its not the best demo youll ever see, but its
certainly above the average.
--Seven
Editorial
The Scene Rebirth
By: Coplan
I had a bad day a few days ago, and I jumped back in trax for the
first time in weeks. Yes, I still frequent the channel enough to know
whats going on in most fellow traxers lives. Mind you, for a while,
that wasnt very many people. But I jumped in that fine day, and trax
was the busiest Ive seen it since the mid to late 90s. What gives?
Thinking it might have been a fluke, Ive been visiting the channel
every night when I get home from work Work, you know, that thing that
prevents me from getting this mag out on schedule?. Sure enough, the
channel has been hopping. Im idleing in there as I write this, and
there are 36 people logged into the channel. If you use the old handy
trax-active-member-calculation formula, you will know that only 8 of us
are really active. But were all online, and we still chat about things
that may or may not relate to the scene.
Coma 3 was just held, and while it is still a very small party by
most demo party standards, it still had a record showing. Part of this
is obviously due to the fact that the organizers are starting to get
the hang of running a party. Part of this has to do with the fact that
return-party-goers bring their friends. Part has to do with the fact
that it is the third party, and people expect all of the above. Well,
regardless, a good portion of that has to do with a somewhat renewed
activity in the scene.
Is the Scene reviving itself?
I have always argued that the scene was not so much dead as it was
evolving. From day one, the scene has been growing in size, and
changing in medium, technology and skill. Technology has become so
advanced that the scene has almost become an eclectic art-form, to some.
The scene is no longer at the cutting edge of technology as it once was.
Hell, the scene isnt even ahead of the gaming industry anymore yes, it
used to be, then DOOM came out. The scene did change, and the scene
did evolve. Its no longer about being the most innovative. Its now
about being the most creative with the tools we have. Its no longer
about doing things that no one else can. Its about putting some
thought into our creations. The scene, in any aspect, has started to
become a fine art, of sorts. It is practiced by few well, a lot, but
considering the number of people on the net. Even fewer participate
regularly. But its still here, and its starting to catch interest
again.
But before we whip out the party hats, and start drinking to the
re-awakening, realize that it hasnt completely happened yet. We can
still miss the boat if we dont all act now. If you have anything you
can contribute to the scene, dont hesitate. If you have any reason to
go to a party, do it. If you have any reason to host a party, or a
competition, or anything, do it. Frequent sites like SceneSpot
shameless plug or Orange Juice. Post messages at naid.net for you
North American Demosceners. Do whatever it takes to become a part of
the scene. It helps draw curiosity from others, and thats the pool we
want to tap into. Outsiders support the scene as much as the insiders,
never forget that. If what were doing is cool, the insiders have
something to show off. Then the insider want to be here. Its all
circular, but effective.
Push the scene, for what its worth. Its worth a lot more than you
think it is. Its a lot more alive than you believe it is. Its alive,
its well, its growing...and its very hungry for more.
Feed it!
--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
Danish Scene..............................http://demo-scene.dk
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
Planet Zeus..........................http://www.planetzeus.net
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
Outbreak................................http://www.outbreak.nu
Popsy Team............................http://popsyteam.rtel.fr
Prone................................http://www.prone.ninja.dk
Purple....................................http://www.purple.dk
Rage........................................http://www.rage.nu
Replay.......................http://www.shine.scene.org/replay
Retro A.C...........................http://www.retroac.cjb.net
Sista Vip..........................http://www.sistavip.exit.de
Skytech team............................http://www.skytech.org
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
Fairlight Music.....................http://fairlight.scene.org
Five Musicians.........................http://www.fm.scene.org
Fusion Music Crew.................http://members.home.nl/cyrex
Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff
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://www.wildmag.de
Parties:
Assembly Finland.....................http://www.assembly.org
Ambience The Netherlands..............http://www.ambience.nl
Dreamhack Sweden....................http://www.dreamhack.org
Buenzli Switzerland......................http://www.buenz.li
Gravity Poland............http://www.demoscena.cp.pl/gravity
Mekka-Symposium Germany...................http://ms.demo.org
Takeover The Netherlands.............,http://www.takeover.nl
The Party Denmark.....................http://www.theparty.dk
Others:
Demo secret parts....http://www.inf.bme.hu/mandula/secret.txt
Textmode Demo Archive.................http://tmda.planet-d.net
Arf!Studios..........................http://www.arfstudios.org
coders..................................http://coderz.cjb.net
Demonews Express.........http://www.teeselink.demon.nl/express
Demo fanclub........................http://jerware.org/fanclub
Digital Undergrounds.....................http://dug.iscool.net
Doose charts...............................http://www.doose.dk
Freax................................http://freax.scene-hu.com
GfxZone............................http://gfxzone.planet-d.net
PC-demos explained.....http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained
Pixel...................................http://pixel.scene.org
* trax e-mail list.............................................
.............http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/trax
Underground Mine.............http://www.spinningkids.org/umine
IRC Channels:
Scene.........................................ircnet thescene
Programming.....................................ircnet coders
Programming....................................efnet flipcode
Graphics.........................................ircnet pixel
Music.............................................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---------------------
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