_//\\________________________________________________________________________ _\\__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 . 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 . 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 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 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---=------=--=------=--=--