_//\\________________________________________________________________________
_\\__T_A_T_I_C___L_I_N_E________________________________________ March, 2002
__\\_________________________________________________________________________
\\//__ Monthly Scene E-Zine ________________________________ 260 Subscribers
_____________________________________________________________________________
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
Table Of Contents
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
Opening:
Message From the Editor
Letters From Our Readers
Features:
Party Report -- WOEST 2002
Journey Into Midi -- Part I: Culture Shock
Columns:
Music:
In Tune -- Quasimojo's "Main Gauche"
Demo:
Screen Lit Vertigo -- "Medium" by einklang.net (party-version)
General:
Editorial --
Link List -- Get Somewhere in the Scene
Closing:
Credits
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
Message From the Editor
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
Wow, March already. Spring is coming up soon, and the demoscene is
about to wake from its winter slumber. Winter has traditionally always
been a slow time for the scene. This year, however, it seems as though
there is actually a lot of things happening. Maybe it's just my
perspective, or maybe the scene is really waking up early this year.
Regardless, I'm glad to say that we're here, ready with our next issue
of Static Line.
This month, you will find a couple of interesting articles. Seven
went off to yet another demo party, WOEST 2002, and came back with
another party report. I dove into MIDI in January, and I have a little
article (the first in a mini series) that begins to share my experiences
with the world of MIDI. In a follow up of last issue's "Challenge for
2002", I have actually provided some ways in which you too can get
involved in the scene.
You got some good reading here. I hope this new issue brings a big
smile to your face.
FYI: Articles for the next issue of Static Line shall be directed
towards me no later than March 31st, 2002.
--Coplan
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
Party Report
WOEST 2002
By: Seven
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
After the rather bad Ambience 2k1 last year, the organizers of the
demoscene part of Ambience decided to go back to the roots. WOEST is a
much smaller party, both in time and in size: it starts on a saturday
noon, instead of the usual friday evening, and it takes place in a
former nuclear shelter providing place for at most 150 sceners (instead
of Hogeschool Venlo's +1000).
Since WOEST takes place in Venlo, the Netherlands just like Ambience,
and I'm still living in Ghent, Belgium, with no car, I had to take the
train to Antwerpen, Belgium with my PC case under my arm (people look
funny at you when you do that), where Djefke picked me up. Besides a
14-inch schreen and a keyboard for me, Djefke also stuffed his
full-tower PC, a laptop, an old Silicon Graphics station, a 14-inch and
17-inch screen, some hubs, a few headphones and a cooler in his small
green car. Some people really have too much hardware.
14:17:
After a perfect trip, we actually had difficulties first finding the
parking and then the entrance to the shelter. We paid the 17.50 Euro
entrance fee, which was the first time the Euro actually DID make my
life easier (not changing francs to guilders ever again :)) Since we
both paid 20 EUro, and the orgo at the cashpoint didn't have enough
change, he simply wrote the due amount on a paper and promised to
give it to us later, which he did. This may tell you something about the
size and athmosphere of WOEST.
While we set up, I noticed less than 20 other sceners in the single
large room, while 107 people had registered on the website. So we could
pick a table facing the bigscreen and I didn't have to get up to watch
during the whole party (lazy? me?). The bigscreen was only 2*2 meters,
but the soundsystem was almost as equally large. The orgos were showing
demos such as Boost/Doomsday, VIP2/Popsy Team, Medium/Einklang, Clone
meets clone/Fudge, etc etc. The bad aspect from this privileged position
became clear during the techno-styled demos such as Saint/Halcyon & Da
Jormas, which the Dutchmen like VERY much. We could enjoy the superior
sound quantity up to and beyond the capacity of our aural nerves.
We've just finished when a dutch scener comes asking if we have the
Turbo Pascal programming language with us. He introduces himself as
Cosmic Trance/FMC, and member of his group wants to learn to code demos.
It boggles my mind why anyone would use TP (DOS, Mode 13H) to code demos
in the 21st century, but I still have the proggy on a dusty corner of my
HD, so I burn it on CD, together with the Denthor tutorials and the rest
of C:/INFO/DEMOS/EFFECTS.
15:01:
Now an orgo is playing the original Castle Wolfenstein 3D on the
bigscreen. Infinite Reboot is here too, and we have a interesting talk
about his job, making a prototype game for the XBox. Apparently it costs
around 10.000 (ten thousand) dollar for an XBox development kit, and
each XBox game has to be approved of by Microsoft. So I think there's
little chance that there will ever be a demoscene on the XBox...
The bigscreen is showing ANSI's now. Pretty cool IMO.
15:19:
The rules for the surprise-music-compo are announced: 2-channel mod,
no real samples but stuff like dlls and such instead. It's a typical
surprise music requirement that guarantees lots of chiptunes.
16:49:
A movie about a gang of robbers trying to break into a Las Vegas
casino was partly shown, but because few people watch it, more demos are
shown: Fall Equals Winter/Replay, Just a touch of funk/Digital Murder,
and more. Avoozl has arrived, with some friends who start working on an
intro or demo they plan to release. Nice to see, I hope there will be
enough entries to make some good compos out of it.
17:14:
I'm wearing my headphones to protect my vulnerable ears from the
acoustic attack of Soepkip 7 and a Trepaan demo. The Soepkip series are
classics in the Dutch scene, but if you don't like gabba music and you
see a Dutch scener starting one up, stick your finger in your ears and
run.
18:33:
We're back from our hunt for food, and we managed to ambushed some
kebab. There was a long queue in the small store, but it was too cold
outside to go somewhere else. BTW, am I getting old or is it normal for
6-year old toddlers to wear earrings? Anyway, we're back in the sanity
of WOEST :)
19:41:
Everyone is staring at the bigscreen on which several Gameboy Advance
intros are shown (17 of them on 1 rom-image). FYI, the GBA has a 16-mhz
32-bit risc-CPU, 384 KB RAM and a 240*160 15-bit screen. Still, the GBA
scene can show tunnels, bumpmapping, 3D rabbits and of course all kinds
of oldkool effects. Even the first level of Doom is shown, albeit
without monsters and with a single texture consisting of black and white
squares, which make the level look like a giant kitchen :)
20:54:
After some searching, I've found Control/Green back and burn it on a
CD so the orgos can show it. To copy the CD, the orgo tried to start
windows, only to be greeted by the message "Windows has been
trepanized"! The audience bursts in laughter: the group Trepaan, famous
for their bad gabba demos, once made a demo that, when run, silently
disabled windows because windows is for lamers. Guess which demo the
organizers unwittingly ran some time before... After typing "win TREPAAN
RULES" or something like that, windows start correctly again :)
It's a pity only a small amount of different demos are shown, several
are already shown twice or three times (such as the Soepkip demos).
21:50
The bigscreen shows an Underworld concert. I'm trying to connect to
the network, but to no avail :( Yes, there is a small network, despite
what was said on the website (that was only to discourage gamers to
come).
There's also an old 386 standing on a lone table which is used as a
party PC: everyone can write their thoughts on it. Most of it is in
Dutch of course. Cosmic Trance tries to convince me to write on it, but
I already have a party report under construction :)
22:50:
After messing around in both Linux and Windows, I managed to at least
see other people on the network, but I can't connect to them :( The
Underword thingie is over, now some new demos are shown, from TPOLM and
others.
23:46:
Oh my god! An orgo (Freebase if I'm not mistaken) just announced
the karaoke compo: you've to sing along with a demo with lyrics
(Hyperventilation, VIP2 or Just a touch of funk) The horror! But they
can't find enough participants for it, so the idea dies a silent death.
2:22:
Just helped Cyrex/Fusion Music Crew with his rotating starfield in
turbo pascal. It's amazing how hard it is to remember the correct
formula for a rotation when you haven't used it for a while. Not to
mention the weird surprises that this ancient language holds in stock if
you're used to C/C++. After a lot of head-scratching we concluded that
"random(320) - 160" will never result in a small negative number, only
in small or huge positive ones <sigh>.
3:14:
Beat me repeatedly on the head with a large hammer: I've fixed the
problem with the network, by ... turning of my firewall <stupid me!>. No
wonder I couldn't make a connection :) I start leeching some Monty
Python episodes, while the bigscreen plays Shad, Dose2, Vip2 again,
Kasparove, Nowhere, Alien Sex Clone and more.
7:17:
Not much is happening. The Spaceball movie is shown, really a classic
on demoparties. Some sceners are trying to make the party report on the
386 reach the 1000th line, but they run out of inspiration and start to
write a porn story instead.
8:28:
Aha, Tribes/Pulse&Melon is shown. Still a great demo with fantastic
music. The Fulcrum/Matrix is shown too. I've asked Freebase and
Ile/Aardbei if there were any surprise coding rules announced. I'm not
interested anymore in competing, but I'm wondering if I missed them or
if there weren't any in the first place. It turns out there weren't, but
Ile ask what I would want for a surprise compo, clearly in an attempt to
make those the rules. I avoid the question and go back to fleshing out
this report while Ile tries to convince someone else it's possible to
make an effect in 64 bytes.
10:15:
Just watched Jet Li's The One: not a bad action movie, if you ignore
the technical/pseudo-scientific holes in it. The story and effects are
heavily influenced by The Matrix, but it's still enjoyable.
11:26:
The documentary "Pirates from Silicon Valley" is shown, about the
history of the PC, the first Apple computers, the young Bill Gates and
Steve Jobbs etc. I've seen the series already at university, so I amuse
myself by wathcing the audience. While they are laughing at the
stereotypical nerds that are interviewed and with the looks of Bill
Gates back then, almost everyone is still watching it with some
fascination, and it draws more attention than any demo shown so far.
12:27:
The compos have started, with the music compo first. Ile has taken
over my PC to code a 64 bytes intro. It seems that there will be a
surprise coding compo after all, and the rules are: create either an
effect in 64 bytes, or code a fully compliant SQL-server :)
13:51:
The music compo is over, and we can vote immediately by raising
hands. It's rather chaotic. First we're supposed to vote for only 3
songs, then we can vote as many times as we want. A second round of
rasing hands is done to rank the 3 highest songs of the first round.
Meanwhile my fingers started to itch to code a 64 byte intro too, so
Ile got himself another PC. Looking for ideas in my old code, I notice a
160-byte big "cellular automata" effect, which I try to squeeze down to
64B.
14:20:
The graphics and 64K intro compos are over, and it's nice to see how
many entries there are. 14 songs, 7 graphics, 6 intros... Not bad at all
for a 60-person party, even though many of them are joke-entries. The
Synergy intro was the clear winner, almost everyone voted for that one.
I've already submitted my entry, but I'm not very pleased with it:
it's only a static one-color screen with a certain pattern on it. After
seeing the animated effects of Jace/TBL and Ile, and noticing several
bytes of useless data that were still in the code, I started working on
it again.
14:49:
The surprise music compo was all-chiptunes, of course, and Xam/RVL won
it. Hint for the others: chiptunes that are hard on the ears will *not*
get many votes... Three wild demos were shown, and the Gameboy Advance
demo from Farbrausch got first.
Next the surprise coding compo starts, with 6 entries, all of which
requires the compo PC to be rebooted. In the meantime Ile invites Jal,
the oldest dutch scener, to tell stories about the time when everything
was much better in the Dutch demoscene :) Ile's entry wins, but I get
second place. Joy!
15:30:
The democompo is last: Farbrausch has made another techno demo in
their "fr-minus-Nr" series, and Jace/TBL has thrown together several
disconnected effects, some of which look like Winamp plugins. But the
fight for the first place is between Intershoelace/Wasniach and
Partyhack vl/ Lemon vs tpb, with the latter winning with 22 points vs 20
for the former.
Djefke and I start packing immediately afterwards. The prize ceremony
is rather short, as only the first place is rewarded. Since less people
came than expected, there are no monetary prizes. Instead, the winners
get chocolate easter bunnies, lollipops, CDs and bratwursten. As
Freebase said, the important thing is not cheap success but to get
respect :)
So, what can I say about WOEST? I think it was definitely worth
visiting: great atmosphere with 100% sceners, the bigscreen that's
almost constantly in use, 45 releases (meaning almost 2 out of 3 sceners
made something), friendly organizers. True, it's much smaller than the
demised Bizarre or Takeover parties, but I think the increase in
scene-feeling is worth it. Greets to all people I met there, hope to see
you at Mekka/Symposium!
(You can find the results and entries at http://woest.scene.org)
--Seven
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
Journey into MIDI
Part I: Culture Shock
By: Coplan
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
-=- Introduction -=-
My first sound card was a Sound Blaster 16, an industry standard. I
knew nothing about MIDI, aside from a couple of MID files that I had on
my hard drive and the fact that I had a free copy of Cakewalk that came
with my sound card. I never got into MIDI very much at that point, and
I was very naive when it came to the medium. I wasn't impressed with
the sound quality, and I didn't really care to experiment with it. Even
when I got my Gravis Ultrasound, I still wasn't impressed with MIDI. I
never would've given MIDI a chance, had it not been for one guy: Setec.
For years, the poor guy tried to convince this stubborn fool into
getting some sort of MIDI Synth. The money alone was enough to scare me
from that thought. But I was not fully convinced that I liked the sound
quality. Eventually, Setec started making recordings for me: of
instruments, of things he played, and so on. I'll admit, I was quite
surprised at the sound quality. I didn't expect anything MIDI to be
that good. So, I was interested.
It still took several months, but Setec finally convinced me to buy a
Roland XP-30. I'm working in the real world now, and I can afford to
spoil myself. So, after Christmas, I bought myself this wonderful peice
of equipment.
This article is actually the first among a series that I will write.
It will be more like a journal of sorts. I will share with you the
thoughts that are passing through my mind, and the things that I have
discovered while learning about MIDI. Each month, I will keep you
updated of my findings. It is my hope that my journey will open more
eyes to MIDI and maybe get a few more artists on the bandwagon.
Enjoy!
-=- Part I: Culture Shock -=-
One of the things that sold me on MIDI, specifically the Roland XP-30,
was the sound quality. Sure, I had Setec's recordings...but I had to
physically go down to a music store and play with it before I was fully
convinced of how good this thing sounded. I made several visits to the
local music shop, and spent many hours just playing with the thing. I
probably pissed a lot of people off, but with something this expensive,
I wanted to give it as much of a demo period as I could. Well, after a
month of playing with the XP-30, I finally bought one.
When I got it home, I hooked it directly up to my stereo for a while.
My computer was in peices, and I hadn't had any new parts yet. So, I
played and played with my new toy for a couple of days, until my parts
arrived. So I got my computer working again, and I hooked this thing up
to my computer utilizing the MIDI cables that I had bought. I strike a
key, and panic. I heard nothing going through my computer. This was
very disturbing. So I jumped online, and tried to track down anyone I
knew who knew MIDI. As it turns out, I made a common mistake. The
truth is, audio from your synth does not travel accross the MIDI cables.
The only purpose of the MIDI cable is to send MIDI data (not sound)
between the instruments (or in this case, my computer and my synth).
So, the reason I wasn't hearing sound was because I didn't have the
audio hooked into my computer. After a quick stop to Radio Shack, I was
finally able to plug my synth directly into my sound card's Line In
jack. Now I can hear sound.
It is also important to know that a MIDI synth has a Local Mode
setting. Most of the time, it doesn't hurt to have it set to On. That
is, it will control itself and play a note when you hit a note. If you
turn this off, it will send the "note on/off" data to the computer...but
unless something sends the information back to your synth, the audio
won't be played. If you're using some sort of MIDI sequencer, you might
have to turn Local Mode off so that you don't get double notes, or in
some cases hear a couple of different sound patches playing at the same
time.
Now before I go on, you must realize that I've been tracking for
almost 9 years now. I'm pretty set in my music ways, and I'm very
stubborn. The biggest step for me is realizing that I likely won't be
able to use Impulse Tracker anymore. Yes, IT has MIDI support. But it
requires the Sound Blaster MIDI interface, which plugs into your SB's
game port. I have an SB-Live which already has MIDI ports in it. So I
was not going to get that MIDI interface. Alas, that prevents me from
using Impulse Tracker for my MIDI sequencing. That is something very
scary for me.
But there is hope. There are a couple of programs out there that I
can use, and maybe even get used to. I have some demos for Cubase VST
and Cakewalk's Sonar. Both are commercial programs, and relatively
pricey. Both seem to work very similarly as well. But it's vastly
different from the world of tracking. So, I checked out the scene to see
what I could find.
A lot of people use and enjoy Buzz. For whatever reason, it seems to
crash a lot on my computer, especially whenever I try to use MIDI with
it. There are a couple of machines (plugins of a sort) that you can
download for Buzz that will allow you to sequence your MIDI. From people
I know who use it with their MIDI devices, it works pretty well. But,
it's not for me. I don't like Buzz very much.
Currently, I'm toying around with a program called Z-Tracker. ZT is a
pretty nice little program that very closely resembles Impulse Tracker.
That's a bonus to me...as it's very comfortable for me to use. This will
likely be my primary tracker for a while. The only drawback about this
one? You cannot load audio samples. It's a MIDI-only program.
Psycle, a program similar to Buzz, does not fully support MIDI yet at
all. It allows you to utilize your MIDI device for input, but that's
about it. Basically, you can hook up a MIDI keyboard to trigger notes.
But the sound must be done utilizing different machines within Psycle.
But rumor has it that they intend to implement some sort of MIDI output
support in Psycle 2.x. As this is still a rumor...we'll see how it goes.
I'm going to stay involved in this community, as I would love to have
the best of all worlds: Sound samples, MIDI support and soft-synths for
filtering and the like.
As I said, I'm doing most of my music experimentation in Z-Tracker
now. I'm slowly beginning to learn some things aboug MIDI, and the way
it works. As with everything else...there are always advantages and
disadvantages. One of the biggest advantages of the synth world is the
fact that you can dial up any number of samples without too much ease.
I know that I'm used to spending hours downloading songs and sample sets
to try to find the perfect piano, or violin, or what-not. But in a
matter of minutes, I can select from any number of violins already in my
synth. Later on down the road, my synth allows me to expand it by
adding patch modules. I might consider this, but for now, I have more
samples than I could have use for. Another big advantage of the MIDI
world is the fact that you don't have to worry about sample dynamics.
What I mean is that you need not worry about loading 5 piano samples
just to get a full range of the piano. This information is already
built into your patches on your synth. So, if you want a piano, you
load the piano...that's it.
But alas, I did say there were disadvantages. If you choose not to
use a program like Z-Tracker, and you prefer to use some of the
commercial software out there, it is to your benefit to learn how to
play piano. I do not play it very well, and that might be one of the
reasons I can't get used to such programs. You can use such programs as
Sonar and Cubase without having such piano skills, but you will find it
difficult to use. Another thing that drives me nuts is the way Channel
10 on your MIDI devices work. Channel 10, under most configurations, is
reserved for your percussion sets. While you can choose which percussion
set you want to use...it is rather difficult to get used to all your
percussion being utilized in one patch. The good news is that, if this
bugs you, you can still load your percussion in other patch-parts. The
bad news is that you can only load 16 parts in all. The biggest
disadvantage to MIDI...you can't remain a purist. As you might have
gathered from my introduction, MIDI files are not nearly as
cross-platform compatible as one might think. The data will transfer
flawlessly. But unless someone has the same synth you do, they likely
won't hear what you heard. Even if you write in General MIDI (a
universal standard for patch mapping), the sound quality will likely
differ. Therefore, if you want to share your music with others -- you'll
have to make a recording and release in MP3 format.
My reaction when I first heard about having only 16 parts to map out
for my music was "THAT's ALL?" Well, it really isn't as bad as you would
think it would be. Take your average IT. Most of mine have anywhere
between 8 and 24 samples. One of my tunes, which has 20 samples, can
easily be narrowed down. It loads 5 piano samples, 3 violin samples, and
3 clarinet samples. Considering I wouldn't have to load the excess
samples to maintain sound quality across a range, I would literally only
need to load 12 samples. But wait, 6 of them are percussion samples. In
MIDI, they all get to pass through the same channel (Channel 10), and I
have a full percussion set dependant on the note I play. So in
actuality, I really only need 7 patches or channels. That still gives me
plenty of room for more patches. And the reality is that the samples
found with your synth are much fuller, and much more wholesome. So, you
won't need to layer up the patches nearly as much as you would need to
layer patches in tracking.
Taking everything with a grain of salt, I am quite happy with the
MIDI world thus far. As I continue on, I will grow with experience, and
I will grow as a song writer. The XP-30 has given me a lot of
inspiration, and it takes a lot of the boreing stuff out of tracking --
like the sound sample searching. It's really a great medium to work in,
and I'm not at all dissappointed in my purchase. The only catch: You'll
find yourself playing with your synth the first few weeks. You won't
write anything of any significance, but you will have a whole bunch of
partial tunes. That's not a bad thing, it helps you learn. But you can't
be focused on releasing something every week, at least until you get
used to the medium.
--Coplan
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
In Tune
Quasimojo's "Main Gauche"
By: Coplan
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
-=- Corrections: -=-
Last issue, I did my 2001 favorites list, as I do every year. On that
list was a tune "Warlock" by Caravan. To refresh your memory, this was
a tune that was used for a demo, "Cadence & Cascade" by Andromeda
Software Development (ASD). Unfortunately, the tune is not an original
tune. It is in fact a tune from the late '60s or early '70s. The tune
was credited the way it should've been, and it was never said that it
was an original tune for the demo. My appologies over the confusion.
Regardless, it is a really good tune, and it was a good utilization of
such. Again, sorry about the confusion.
-=- Introduction -=-
I've been considering getting myself a synth for many years now.
Lately, I was finally able to afford one, but I still wasn't 100% sold
on the idea...even with my buddy Setec bugging me every other day.
Sure, I could sample off the thing...but I wanted to toy with it as
well. So it wouldn't be worth it to me unless I could do some MIDI
stuff with it as well. But keep in mind, this is a boy who used to
listen to MIDI files on his old fm synth SB16 before getting into
tracking. And I got into tracking because the potential for sound
quality was far better than what I heard from cheezy MIDI files.
So it was recommended that I check out ZTracker. I jumped on the
ZTracker site (http://ztracker.sourceforge.net) and grabbed some of the
tunes listed there. Quasimojo's tune, "Main Gauche", was listed among
the tunes created on ZTracker. So I grabbed it, and I was impressed.
Needless to say, I ordered my synth. (Check out my adventures in
"Journey into MIDI", a feature mini-column starting this issue).
-=- "Main Gauche" by Quasimojo -=-
Two things impress me most about this song:
1) The song was created utilizing ZTracker, which is a MIDI-only
tracking program. One cannot load samples into a song. I suppose
Quasimojo could've done a lot of post-processing, or tracked out
a drum track for this, or any combination of things. But that
doesn't make me loose respect for the song at all. The base was
started in ZTracker, and somehow was turned into the final product
we have today. The methodology isn't all that different from how
most trackers write their music.
2) "Main Gauche" is mellow, but it's damn fun to listen to. This is
one of those songs that, if played at a high school dance, the
people on the floor wouldn't know whether to slow dance or fast
dance. There's a lot of energy in the song, but you can also
chill to it. It's one of those songs that you can either crank
the volume, or turn it down. The dynamics of the song are
incredible and versatile in that aspect.
The song opens with a very faded nylon guitar riff and some static, as
if we were listening to some old record. It repeats a bit, and you can
almost hear the record skipping. I picture a talented DJ laying down
his tunes and his rhythms with his turn-tables. Then he layers on top
of that some of the most interesting percussion and base guitar riffs
you've ever heard in a song like this.
Let me dwell on the percussion for a little bit. This style of music
(Quasimojo calls it "Love 'n Light") allows for a large amount of
artistic license. Unless there were two or three drummers involved
with this song, the percussion is likely not exactly humanly possible.
But again, artistic license is something I'll allow in styles such as
this. He uses the high-hat as if it were being played with two hands:
one with the stick, the other ready to stop it from vibrating. The
effect is pretty cool. Something else I'd like to point out about the
percussion: The base drum. It seems like such a subtle thing, but base
drum rolls are not exactly easy to do on a drum set, even with dual
pedals. In a song like this, it adds an incredible depth to the song.
And yet, most people won't even notice it. Again, one of the unique
things about electronic styles is the fact that there are no limits.
Now I raved earlier about the dynamics of this song. Grab this song,
and do three things with it. First, listen to it at a normal volume.
You'll get the idea for how the song works, and you'll appreciate the
next two steps more. Second, pump up the volume (and if you can, make
sure you get some base response in there). That base guitar and the
percussion will take control of your mind, and you'll feel like you're a
part of the song. Finally, turn that volume down. Even if you still
have a lot of base present, you'll find that it fits pretty well into
the background. It doesn't interrupt your thoughts, and it certainly
doesn't get in the way. I don't know how he does it, but this is
something that few songs can do. There is one thing for sure: Quasimojo
did his homework when it came to the final mixing tweaks. The song is
mixed really well, and the sound quality is incredible.
Again, I have to throw in the fact that this was created with a MIDI
synthesizer. I wouldn't have believed it until I got my own, and
realized what I was missing all these years. From a creation point of
view, I am in awe when it comes to this song. From a music appreciation
point of view, well, I'm still in awe about this song. It's a great
tune, and I highly recommend this tune for almost anyone.
Song Information:
Title: Main Gauche
Author: Quasimojo
Release date: July 17, 2001
Length: 6:06
File Size: 4.8 MB
Source: http://www.chillproductions.com
--Coplan
"In Tune" is a regular column dedicated to the review of original and
singular works by fellow trackers. It is to be used as a tool to expand
your listening and writing horizons, but should not be used as a general
rating system. Coplan's 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 person's), 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!
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
Screen Lit Vertigo
"Medium" by einklang.net (party-version)
By: Seven
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
Found at www.scene.org
3th place at the Party 2k1.
System requirements:
11 MB HD, Windows, and I guess a 3D card with T&L is a must.
Test Machine: PIII 900 640MB, SB1024, GeForce 2MX 32MB, Win98
The Credits:
Pet: Code, design
Tjurn: BW ping pong
Photonic Labor: Makina gfx
(don't ask, that's what's in the credits)
The Demo:
Well, well. It's been a long time since I've seen one of these. A
techno-demo! And it's a pretty good one, which is an even more rare
occurence :) I'm not a fan of techno music, too monotonous for my taste.
The track of Medium is no exception, it starts with a "continue" voice
sample that is repeated over and over, and which is slowly joined by
more and more layers of percussion. There's a break halfway, in the
water-part of the demo, but after that it goes back to monotonous beats.
However, the code in this one is really good, IMHO. It starts with a
kind of tunnel, made of and filled with red transparent shrouds. It
looks very different from the usual run-of-the-mill tunnel effects.
Later a square pillar formed by thousands of orthogonal lines in
electric blue appears in the tunnel, the looks remind me a bit of Super
luxus lemmen paketti/MFX. The next part shows 2 morphing blobs, one
jellyfish and the other corkscrew-like, moving very smooth and with very
nice chrome-like reflections, not plasticy as happens too often. There's
a slower underwater part, during which the credits are shown too. The
last part features a kind of distorted 3D, it looks like the models have
been pulled through a bread-slicer, then rendered twice on top of each
other: once solid, and once sliced. It looks much cooler than it sounds,
believe me :)
Besides a little bear logo at the start, there are no real graphics,
just white flashing overlays of cogs. The syncing to the music is very
good, as is to be expected in this type of demo. Every color change,
flash or camera switch is synced to the beat.
Overall:
There are a few things I don't like about Medium, but they're all
inherent to the fact it's a techno-demo, so it wouldn't be fair to call
them bad points. Just like the music, the effects are very monotonous;
going on for several minutes before changing, and the flashing gets on
my nerves near the end. I'd also appreciate it if a demo just quits when
the music is over, now it leaves me wondering wether my PC is so slow
that the graphics have to catch up with the sound. But the demo is
definately good in it's genre, with its flashy color scheme and the
matching speed of the music and the visuals. So, if you're a fan of
techno, this one is certainly recommended.
--Seven
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
Editorial
Where to go now!
By: Coplan
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
-=- Introduction -=-
Last issue, the January issue, I put forth a challenge. When I
started releasing Static Line, my goal was, and still is, to get more
people involved within the scene. This may or may not be apparent all
whenever you read my words. One of the things that makes the scene so
glorious is the fact that there are so many people doing this as a
hobby. No one makes money from the scene. No one even breaks even.
People contribute to the scene because it's something they like to do.
Without human involvement, your involvement, the scene really does not
exist.
To be fair, I have already made a challenge to you, my readers. I
have already put forth a great deal of my conscience in hope that you
will want to become more involved. This month, I will point out a few
projects that might benefit from your contribution. Some of these might
sound like shameless plugs, and I'll admit that. But we could always use
some help as well.
-=- Writers -=-
Granted, you could easily write for Static Line. You know where to
get ahold of me, and you know where you can contribute. Maybe you'll
have interest in interviewing people at random. Maybe you'll want to
write technical articles about the finer points of coding demos. Or
technique articles about how to track good tunes in some of the more
current tracking programs. We're always looking for writers, and we're
always willing to consider any article that is sent our way. Be it for a
column, be it for a feature article, we'll at least check it out.
Aside from that, there are plenty of quality magazines out there that
could benefit from some good writers. One of the more famous magazines
is Hugi (http://www.hugi.de). Hugi is a diskmag with a whole coded
interface that comes out every few months, which might be an easier
schedule to keep than a weekly or monthly magazine. While the magazine
might seem to be packed full of articles all the time, I'm sure Claus
(Adok) wouldn't mind getting some extra articles. For that matter, you
could always start checking out any one of the magazines listed in our
links list, and maybe contact the editor about writing for them. And
don't feel you have to limit yourself to one magazine. Seven writes both
for Static Line and Hugi, for example. Sometimes, he even utilizes the
same articles.
No one says that you have to write articles either. Supposing you
like technical writing, and documentation. There are plenty of
open-source projects within the scene that could more than benefit from
some documentation. Cmicali (cmicali@users.sf.net), creator of ZTracker
(http://ztracker.sourceforge.net), could definately benefit from some
documentation of the project. By contributing to this project, you could
definately free up some time for Cmicali to continue coding his IT based
MIDI tracking program. There's also the Psycle soft-synth tracking
program (http://psycle.pastnotecut.org/), which has also requested
additional help for software documentation. Both of these programs are
starting to become more popular, and again, your contribution could
definately help these projects develop. For that matter, either project
(or any other project, for that matter) could definately use testers.
Use the program. If you find a bug, you've made a contribution. That's
easy enough.
-=- Coders -=-
I've already mentioned two large projects: ZTracker and Psycle. What
you might not know is that they both wouldn't mind some help as far as
the code is concerned. If you like coding, you might enjoy contributing
here.
Psycle is a software synth tracking program. In addition to the code
base for the main program (C++, Win32), Psycle could most benefit from
some additional machines (generators and/or effects). If you're
interested in contributing some code to this project, you will want to
visit the SourceForge project site
(http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/psycle) or or contact [JAZ]
(jaz_e@terra.es).
ZTracker is also an open source project. It too is coded for Win32 in
C++. To get involved with this project, you will want to visit either
the sourceforge site (http://sourceforge.net/projects/ztracker/) or
contact cmicali (again, at cmicali@users.sf.net).
If C++ isn't your thing, you can always help to maintain a site. I'm
sure you could contribute again to any one of the projects above. But
you could use standard HTML to help out another young project in the
works: h8 tracker (http://www.h8.prv.pl/). He might be angry that I say
this, but CTT (cct2@go2.pl) would definately benefit from a new site.
Sure, he might be talented with HTML, but why let him do that when he
could be coding the next popular tracking program?
Again, I'll have to mount a shameless plug as well. SceneSpot is
under redevelopment right now. If you know Perl and mySQL (the mySQL
part is easy to learn), you can definately contribute to our cause as
well. Currently, the development team consists of just one person:
myself. I could always use some company, and we're set up on a CVS, so
if you have Linux, you can always contribute to SceneSpot.
-=- Other Contributions -=-
There are hundreds of other ways to contribute to the scene:
Your favorite Demo or Tracking Competition might need some judges to
help determine who rocks, and who sucks. If you think this isn't much of
a contribution, think about what the competitors learn from your
decisions, your thoughts and your comments.
There might be a Demo Party that might be happening in your
neighborhood in the next couple of months. I garuntee that the
organizers could benefit from your help. There's always lots of running
around to do, and lots of things to prepare. For that matter, there are
probably things that you could do for them even if you're not in the
same part of the world. Maybe you work for a company that might be
willing to sponsor such an event. Just imagine what a donation of a
couple of sound cards or a couple of video cards might do to the prize
pool! If you have those resources...use them. The orgos will love you
for it.
But lets not forget about the queen mother of all contributions:
Spread the Word. Talk up the scene. Make some CDs of your tunes, and
other tunes, and share them with your friends. Talk to other sceners,
make them feel welcomed. Offer advice about their demos, their music and
their art. Have an opinion about things, and make sure you're not too
harsh or sharp tounged when you speak about your opinions. The goal is
to get people interested, keep people interested, get them to
contribute, and not frustrate them. A frustrated scener is the scener
who leaves next month. That scener, with guidence, could've been the
next Necros, or the next Vic. Wouldn't you feel good if you knew that
you were the guy that helped them get there? And wouldn't you feel
really incredible when he writes an article for "The Root" and states
that his start all began with you?
Yes, it's an Ego thing. You contribute to the scene to get
recognized. You contribute to the scene because you feel as though you
belong. So get recognized, and get known for your contributions. It's
fun, and you'll gain lots of friends around the world.
--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/la_scena
ModPlug Central Resources..........http://www.castlex.com/mods
<U> Norwegian Scene........................http://www.demoscene.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://www.alienprophets.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
<U> Dc5.........................................http://www.dc5.org
Delirium..............................http://delirium.scene.pl
Eclipse............................http://www.eclipse-game.com
Elitegroup..........................http://elitegroup.demo.org
Exceed...........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/~exceed
Fairlight.............................http://www.fairlight.com
Fobia Design...........................http://www.fd.scene.org
Freestyle............................http://www.freestylas.org
Fresh! Mindworks...................http://kac.poliod.hu/~fresh
Future Crew..........................http://www.futurecrew.org
Fuzzion.................................http://www.fuzzion.org
GODS...................................http://www.idf.net/gods
Halcyon...........................http://www.halcyon.scene.org
Haujobb..................................http://www.haujobb.de
Hellcore............................http://www.hellcore.art.pl
Infuse...................................http://www.infuse.org
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.chillproductions.com
Chippendales......................http://www.sunpoint.net/~cnd
Chiptune...............................http://www.chiptune.com
Da Jormas................................http://www.jormas.com
Fabtrax......http://www.cyberverse.com/~boris/fabtrax/home.htm
Fairlight Music.....................http://fairlight.scene.org
Five Musicians.........................http://www.fm.scene.org
Fusion Music Crew.................http://members.home.nl/cyrex
Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff
Hellven.................................http://www.hellven.org
Ignorance.............................http://www.ignorance.org
Immortal Coil.............................http://www.ic.l7.net
Intense...........................http://intense.ignorance.org
Jecoute.................................http://jecoute.cjb.net
Kosmic Free Music Foundation.............http://www.kosmic.org
Lackluster.....................http://www.m3rck.net/lackluster
Level-D.................................http://www.level-d.com
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 MAZ's sound
homepage..................http://www.maz-sound.com
Med.......................................http://www.med.fr.fm
Mo'playaz..........................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/ruff_engine
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 Triad's 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/di_mag
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/static_line
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---=------=--=------=--=--