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Table Of Contents
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Opening:
Message From the Editor
Letters From Our Readers
Features:
Party Report -- Buenzli '03
Modes
Build A MIDI System
Reviews:
Music:
In Tune -- "Decomposing Angels" by Matt Pollard
On The Sideline -- "Unnamed" and "Xor Life, 0xFF" by Salice
The Lineup -- Monthly Music Listings
Demo:
Screen Lit Vertigo --
"Ninja in a Box", "Weltenkonstrukt", and "85 Dollars"
Link List: Get Somewhere in the Scene
Closing: Staff and Contact Information
--=--=--
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Message From the Editor
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Hello!
Ciaran here. I've been back from my holiday for quite a few weeks now, and
yes, it was very nice, thanks for asking. :D Of course, as always happens,
my mailbox (my personal one, not the Static Line one) filled up with tons
of emails. But that's all sorted now, which is good. :)
This month, Seven brings us a party report from Buenzli '03, Dilvie
continues his music theory column from last month with an article on
modes, and Coplan talks about building your own MIDI system. We also have
the usual suspects: In Tune, On The Sideline, The Lineup and Screen Lit
Vertigo all make their regular appearances again this month.
If you haven't been to the site recently, check it out:
http://staticline.scenespot.org/ . Coplan recently designed a new style
for it, which Ben and I like. It's certainly better than what we had
before. :D
One last thing; if you're interested to see how the "Millenium 2003" party
went, take a look at http://www.mln.scenosaurus.org/en/mln2k3rep.html .
It has quite a lot of photos from the party, and makes pretty interesting
viewing.
Enjoy the issue!
--Ciaran
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Letters From Our Readers
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-=- A Message from TS -=-
Hello,
thanks for another issue of static line! Especially the evoke report was
nice, especially since I intended going there first. Now, with all its
details I was at least able to catch a small part of the atmosphere there
=)
The pilgrimage reports were different, at least if you're used to middle
european parties. But it's interesting to see the north american scene
rebooting, would be nice if they can establish some well-known groups and
productions again.
At first, I wondered why the current issue had far less tunes in The
Lineup. But then I noticed that the last one was a double-month issue, so
no summer hole is going on *happy listening*
This time, both "In Tune"s were also included in The Lineup. Was this
intended, or is it just coincidencial? ;)
So much for this time...
Greets,
--T$
-=- Reply from Ciaran -=-
Hi TS,
Thanks for your email; it's always nice to know we're appreciated. :)
Regarding the fact that both of the tunes in "In Tune" appeared in "The
Lineup" last month; it wasn't actually a coincidence, although it would
have been pretty cool if it had been. :D Coplan had been looking for songs
to review, and asked Novus for his draft of The Lineup, from which he then
picked two songs to review.
Good spotting, though. :D Thanks for reading!
--Ciaran
--=--=--
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Party Report
Buenzli '03
By: Seven
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
-=- Friday 29 August -=-
Lacking the services of my personal chauffeur Djefke, I had to go to
Switzerland by train. I left around noon in Belgium, and arrived in
Winterthur after 21 o'clock, having slept most of the time. I left the
station and realized 2 things: I had forgotten to exchange money, unlike
the other countries I've been to recently Switzerland is not part of the
European union so Euros are no use here. :( Second, I hadn't written down
the address of the party place on paper. Luckily I had saved some pages
from the Buenzli web site on my laptop, and luckily the "Liebestrasse 3"
address was on them somewhere. A small Winterthur map nicked from the
tourist info office was all I needed to get lost a few times before
finding the Kirchgemeindehaus (Church community building) that was the new
location of Buenzli. The party place was a huge monumental building, but
there was nobody at the entrance. I followed the "Buenzli" signs through
the empty entrance hall, to the huge stone staircase to the second floor,
where I found the info desk just before the main hall. I gave the other
part of my combi ticket, got a vote key and went inside.
22:16:
The main hall is huge and very classy, with a polished wooden floor, a big
podium with a giant church organ in the back, and a balcony above the main
floor with three rows of chairs for people who want to watch the compos
from above. Between the podium and the projector there is a small open
area where the tables have been replaces with a carpet, benches and
pillows. It's the chill-out area, but sometimes pillow fights break out
so it's not that peaceful. :) Melwyn is sitting there with the Calodox
guys (and girl), he's trying to show a game he programmed for his mobile
phone (Summer Sports IIRC) in between the fights. Behind the projector is
a row tables for the orgos, I see Fred and Unlock hard at work there.
Since it's too late to change money in a bank, I swap some Euros for
francs with Melwyn, so I can try out the "pizza buenzli" that's being sold
in the party place, one amongst with a choice of unhealthy fast food
items. :) It tastes OK, but eating near the chill-out area proves to be
dangerous with the low-flying pillows.
The big screen is larger then at Evoke or even Breakpoint, and currently
Amiga demos are shown, with the usual party info in between.
22:40:
The opening ceremony should have started at 22.00, so far nothing yet...
I went to the orgos to ask what the network settings should be, but their
network guy has disappeared. Everything should work with automatic DHCP,
though, and it does indeed. :) When I try to register at the party
intranet I can't find my vote key anymore, but I can get a new one from
the info desk without hassles. Phew! Unlike at Evoke, the network has a
gateway, so I can read Slashdot and my other favorite web sites when
nothing is scheduled (or delayed. :) )
23:08:
There's a DJ playing, with winamp plugins or so on the big screen. Tciny
uses my laptop to get the infamous Bronix video from scene.org and shows
it to Koyote, who's also doing his third party in one month.
23:58:
The opening ceremony has started, but the orgos need to change the frame
rate so the projector doesn't switch to a lower video resolution. There's
a montage of previous Buenzli-flashes, and Unlock welcomes everyone. Next
the Scene.org awards video is shown, I'm glad I can finally see it after
missing the ceremony at Breakpoint. I find Dixan/Spinning Kids, using the
chill-out area as intended: simply lying flat on his back and watching the
big screen.
The rules for the surprise compo: you can do whatever you want (music,
picture, demo, video,..) as long as it contains these three elements: a
cow (the Buenzli mascotte), an organ (from inside the party hall), and a
parking lot (as the orgos have found a nearby parking area where you can
stay the entire weekend for 10 Euros).
-=- Saturday 30 August -=-
1:20:
The big screen is showing all kinds of demos, from the very recent and
famous (Zoom3, I Feel Like A Computer) to the more oldskool ones
(Zilog/Sunflower, various Nooon demos, Tpolm classics,...).
I'm working on some tools (again), there are some boring things that need
to be coded and I usually delay and avoid such code as long as possible,
but here surrounded by sceners I feel I have enough inspiration to finish
them.
At 2:30, the kitchen closes as the cook has to sleep, and not long after
that I follow his example.
8:47:
I'm awake again, since an organizer is hammering at a wooden construction
on the podium. After a while it turns out to be an arena to play Whacky
Wheels live, one of the fun compos at Buenzli. Maybe I had slept longer
in the sleeping area in the basement, but I was too lazy to go there
tonight. :(
10:54:
Shifter has arrived with his girlfriend Zania, he's installing his shuttle
PC next to me. The big screen shows Amour/Orion, the demo that won
Buenzli last year, and Zania loves it so Shifter shows Easter Egge/Orion
and other funny French demos.
The Whacky Wheels compo still needs 8 more players before it can start.
11.34:
The Whacky Wheels compo is running, participants needs to play two by two
with direct elimination. You need to drive a small RC car through a maze
of cardboard boxes and wooden ramps, but it's easy to get stuck or land
upside down after a jump from a ramp. You need to drive three laps, but
points are also given for style. The whole race is filmed, and shown on
the big screen with the orignal chippy game music. Melwyn emerges as the
proud winner, but I think the best part was the MetalVotze guys chasing
each other in the wrong direction and generally sabotaging each other
instead of trying to win. :)
13:18:
I went to a bank to exchange some money, and ran back to the party place
cause it started to rain. At the entrance, I ran into Dixan, Melwyn,
Shifter and Zania, who went shopping so I went along. While an umbrella
was high on the list of items to be bought, in the end we left the shop
with lots of food, candy, fruit juice and vodka, but no umbrella.
There's another live DJ set on the podium, it's not bad IMHO.
14.19:
The group MetalVotze has auctioned some cans of spam with their own label,
the money goes to the Buenzli orgos but in the end one of the orgos bid
the most. :) I see on the visitor list on the party web site that
Skyrunner should be here as well, so I walk around until I find him. He
has of course entries for every music compo, as usual, but they are all
finished already so now he's working on the music for a 64K intro. Talk
about being a workaholic. :)
The big screen shows a Discloned Remix that I've never seen before, it
looks really spectacular.
15:37:
And a new fun compo starts: the OHP FX compo. This stands for "OverHead
Projector Effect", and each group has to use plastic sheets, markers and
transparent objects to show effects on a simple overhead projector.
Scrollers are pretty popular, blur can be done by lifting the plastic
sheet above the glass plate, and even oldskool hypnotic circles make an
appearance. Since there are only two groups, the winner is chosen by the
loudness of the applause.
16:44:
Another DJ show live on stage, they're called Shaper and while I'm not a
techno fan, I must say they are very good. The orgos ask that whoever is
using eDonkey or similar P2P programs to stop them because they are
blocking our uplink.
18:35:
The tracked music compo is about to start.
19:18:
There were 10 tracked songs, not bad for such a small party. I liked the
"Disco music still toolz" entry, an energetic song that got some people
dancing on the podium, and the "Flood of Energy" by Cyborg Jeff was nice
as well. Due to a lack of entries, the level design and alternative demo
compos are canceled. The deadline to submit demos, intros and wild
entries is moved 1 hour mater.
The graphics compo starts with some very good entries, but then titles and
pictures got mixed up so the compo has to restart. The Buenzli cow
inspires some nice pictures, one in a disco version and another in an
oldskool 16-color low-resolution mode. Of course there are some pretty
girl-pics as well, but at least it's limited to faces instead of boobies.
20:40:
The streamed music compo has started, there have been several nice tunes
already but few with vocals
21:54:
No less than 19 entries competed, which was more than were preselected at
Assembly! Gibraltar was a great entry with good vocals that'll probably
end in the top-3, and Skyrunners "Scener wie wir" is the first tune I hear
from him where I actually like the vocals (his instrumental stuff has
always been nice).
23:00:
The 64K intro compo was delayed because they had to fix a Linux problem
but it starts now. There were 5 entries, including one 4k intro that used
the Windows voice synthesizer to greet a lot of groups. The others were a
Fishtro2 tribute to Future Crew, a joke entry from Mandarine on Linux, and
2 normal 64Ks of varying quality.
To compensate for the hour-long delays in previous compos, the wild compo
starts 3 minutes earlier. :) There are some weird music videos, the
traditional "destroy the cow-mascotte" video, a couple of techno
animations and lots of short joke entries. My favorite is the
Lochmaschine anim, with a factory creating black walking blobs.
-=- Sunday 31 August -=-
0:49:
The demo compo had only 7 entries, some good, some bad. Mandarine made a
funny Demopajaa entry with South-park style characters, it's called 85
Dollars. Another good one was MFX's Ultimatum to Poland: Last days before
the war. It's pretty abstract, if you look carefully you can see the
outlines of tanks driving past.
The surprise compo has 5 entries, the best one is an animation of a cow
playing on an organ in a parking lot.
2:05:
Unlock calls Weasel on the podium for an announcement: it's Weasels
birthday so he gets a cake and everybody sings Happy Birthday. :)
9:27:
I'm back awake, way after the 8 o'clock voting deadline but i voted for
most compos beforehand. I ask Unlock how it's possible there are so many
more entries when the number of visitors is lower then last year. It
turns out you don't have to be physically present to compete, you can
submit entries via the net. And the low number of visitors (about 120) is
typical after a change in location, next year attendance should be up
again.
11:02:
There's no sign yet that the prize ceremony is about to start, as it
should. But I know there's a train to Zurich at least every 30 minutes,
so I don't fret about missing my train to Belgium. Yet.
A nice feature of the party web site is that it shows a list of IP-numbers
that haven't been patched against the Blaster worm yet, and the orgos have
CDs with the patch available. very wise, IMO.
The MetalVotze group is making annoyingly loud noises, of falling bombs,
explosions etc. During the night they played some Star Trek episode with
(apparently) funny german dubs, but it started to get annoying after the
tenth time or so :-/
Eventually the big screen says the prize giving ceremony is 1 hour
delayed, it should start at 11h 59m 59s, and so it does.
After the 0A000 orgos make some advertisement, we go right to the compo
results which are displayed using the breakpoint system. The prizes are
T-shirts, cowee puppets, some free entrance tickets for Scene Event, and
money, software licenses and sponsored hardware for the best entries.
Most results are predictably due to a large difference in quality between
the entries. The disco cow wins the graphics compo with twice as many
votes as the second place, Melwyn wins the streamed music compo with his
Gibraltar tune, and Dixan reaches second place. My wild demo favorite
loses with only 3 points from Gefangen/DaftN0!ze, and the 64K Run/Oezgyrs
get 1 point more then the talking 4K so it wins the intro compo.
Nectarine wins the demo compo, deservingly IMHO, and MFX gets second
place.
Following a strang tradition, the last loser of the graphics compo gets an
old Buenzli 2 t-shirt, which he has to return the next year so it can be
given to the last place of that Buenzlis graphics compo. :)
And with that, I pack my stuff, say goodbye to my friends and hurry off to
the station, where I'm still on time to catch my train. Buenzli 12 was a
pretty good party, too bad there weren't more people. The weather was
pretty bad, raining all the time, but then again I spend half of my time
coding, so I don't care. I've done probably more at Buenzli than in an
entire month in my free time, demo parties are really a great inspiration
to do some serious work. :) The next party near Belgium is still a long
time away (State Of The Art/France/December?), so I was glad I got a large
dose of partying this month. :) Greets to everyone I met, and see you
again later!
--Seven
--=--=--
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Modes
By: Dilvie
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
In the last article, we discussed some neat shortcuts to help you learn
the key signatures. I made a passing mention of the patterns of half
steps and whole steps that form the harmonic framework of a passage of
music. In this article, we're going to take the mystery out of modes.
Let H represent a half step, and W represent a whole step. The pattern
for Major (the Ionic mode) is W W H W W W H. The pattern for Minor
(Aeolian) is W H W W H W W. Here's an interesting way to visualize it:
W W H W W W H
W H W W H W W
If we repeat each sequence twice, it might become even more clear:
W W H W W W H W W H W W W H
W H W W H W W W H W W H W W
A whole step is made up of two half steps. As you can see, the different
modes are really exactly the same pattern. The only real difference is
that they have different starting and ending points, called offsets.
Change the offset, change the mode. So, here is a list of all the modes:
W H W W H W W Aeolian
H W W H W W W Locrian
W W H W W W H Ionian
W H W W W H W Dorian
H W W W H W W Phrygian
W W W H W W H Lydian
W W H W W H W Mixolydian
On a piano keyboard, you can play all of these modes without ever touching
the black keys. When you play a scale this way, it's called a "natural
scale." For Aeolian, simply play A - A (A minor). Locrian is B - B.
Ionian is C - C (C minor). Dorian is D - D, and so on. You can also play
the same modes starting from any key. Simply preserve the order of half
steps and whole steps, and you'll be playing in the right mode.
Modes are movable patterns. Shift around. Get creative. If you're a
keyboard player, it would really improve your jamming skills if you learn
how to play in any mode with any tonic (starting note). Guitar players
have it easy. Memorize a few finger patterns and those same patterns will
carry up and down the fret board without much in the way of revision. The
same finger patterns will often work with a variety of modes -- simply
start the scale on a different note.
There are a lot of advanced tricks that you can do modulating between
different modes and even blending parallel modes within the same passage,
but now that you've got some understanding of the basics, you have a good
foundation for further exploration.
--Dilvie
--=--=--
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Build a MIDI System
By: Coplan
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It wasn't too long ago that I started working in MIDI. My good friends,
Setec and Dilvie, somehow managed to talk me into spending my year-end
bonus on some MIDI equipment. As I experimented early on in my MIDI
experience, I learned quite a bit. And now, almost two years later, I
have a bit of valuable information that I can pass on. I know a lot of
people that have asked my thoughts on MIDI configurations, and I decided
it was worth writing an article.
First of all, let me say that I am not considered a MIDI guru by any
stretch of the imagination, but I know computers and enough about MIDI to
understand what you need. In this article, I will not teach you how to
run MIDI; however, I will give you a starting point should you decide to
get into MIDI. Please also keep in mind that I'm writing from a "real-
life" perspective. There are a lot of ideal machines out there to create
your MIDI studio on, but they aren't as cost effective. Budget is always
an issue in the real world - and keep this in mind, always. You are,
after all, a hobby-musician. You don't get paid for this.
Before I go on, I need to explain a little about MIDI. We'll consider a
simple setup. Say you have a keyboard/synth sitting outside your
computer. This gets hooked to your computer in two ways in order for you
to record things. It's connected via MIDI Cables through a MIDI
interface. Your sound card might already have one (I'll cover this a bit
more later). It also must be connected via audio cables. Contrary to
popular belief, the audio does not pass through the MIDI cables. Your
sequencing program (Cubase, Cakewalk Sonar, etc.) will record notes that
are made by pounding on your keyboard/synth. When you hit play in your
sequencer, it tells your synth to play said note. And that note gets
heard over the audio lines. So unless the audio is hooked into your
computer, you can't record it onto your computer.
The keyboard is considered a MIDI controller. There are several kinds of
controllers, but for the sake of this article, we'll use a keyboard. Some
synthesizers (like mine) have the keyboard built it. Others might be
rack-mountable modules that require an external controller. Many
controllers don't have built-in synthesizers. Your sound card may also
have an internal synthesizer, but it's nothing compared to the external
synthesizers on the market, or even some of the software synthesizers.
Contrary to popular belief, your sound card does not have to have a
synthesizer to work with MIDI music. Hell, these days, most games don't
even need your sound card to have a synthesizer.
With that in mind, lets get started. First of all, you need a machine.
Some of you already have nice machines, in which case you'll just want to
add on to it. Others might want to start from scratch. If you're into
building computers and you know your hardware very well, feel free to
build your own - but if you ever have problems with any of your hardware,
it'll be magnified by any Audio or Video editing programs you might use.
Considering what you'll be using, I would recommend some sort of Pentium
or Athlon chip. I would recommend against the Duron and Celeron
processors, as they won't work as smoothly as the other processors. Audio
editing can be pretty taxing, but believe me, you don't need the top of
the line. As things have been lately, the processors are getting cheaper
and cheaper. I have a 1.4GHz processor, and it works fine. You should be
able to get a 2GHz processor without breaking the bank.
Next comes the issue of Memory and storage. There really is no issue
here. RAM is cheap. Buy as much as you can afford, and get the fastest
RAM available to you for your motherboard. At a bare minimum, I would
recommend 512MB of RAM. When it comes to storage, many people think of
size - the bigger the hard drive, the better. Well, there is only some
truth to this. The fact is, even small hard drives these days are big. A
more important thing to worry about is speed. Right now, Seagate has some
of the best hard drives for two reasons: They're fast, and they're quiet.
If you ever plan to work with a microphone, you'll want a quiet hard drive
too. Hard drives can make a lot of noise, and noise will end up on your
recordings. This is just one place to quiet your computer down. Now
there's always the question of hard drive quantities. I would recommend
having a separate hard drive just for your music. Record your music
there, and store it there. Nothing else. Your programs should run off
the other hard drive. If you can afford it, I would even recommend
picking up an additional IDE controller card as well. Make your music
hard drive a master on its own controller, and it will work that much
faster. This seems extreme. But when you're recording to your hard drive
(and there is a lot of that in MIDI), your hard drive will be the
bottleneck. If your hard drive pauses too long, you will hear it in the
recording as a click or a skip. If nothing else, make sure you have a
good hard drive. Don't tighten the budget here.
As for the sound card, this is an important piece of equipment. It's your
interface to the MIDI world. There are several schools of thought on
sound cards, and I could write an entire article just on selecting a sound
card. But I'll be brief and tell you something you probably didn't
expect: Your Sound Blaster sucks! Don't get me wrong, they aren't
terrible cards -- for gaming. But there are a couple of reasons why your
Sound Blaster isn't ideal for MIDI. While it does have MIDI
inputs/outputs (either with special cables or with a front panel
interface), the latency on the SB is slow. What this means is that if you
have a software sampler (for example), and you hit a key, you might not
hear the note right away. It will sound fine when you do a playback, but
it makes you nuts when you're recording a channel. In addition, Sound
Blasters will always have a minor hiss when it comes to recording - they
have a poor signal-noise response curve, and since you'll be recording
from an outside source, this makes your song sound poor. If you already
have one of these cards, you might want to work with it for now. But keep
in mind that you'll want to get a new card later down the line. And when
you do, life will become that much cleaner and easier.
So what about the sound card selection then? For MIDI, you'll need both a
MIDI interface and audio inputs. I personally prefer to have the MIDI
interface built into the sound card, but this isn't necessary. M-Audio,
Edirol and Roland (among others) make MIDI interfaces that connect to your
computer through the USB port or a firewire port. If you want to keep
your Sound Blaster, this would be a way to go to fix the latency issue.
You can get one for as little as $50 USD. But assuming you want it built
into your sound card, that will definitely narrow down your options.
As for the audio inputs, this is a bigger deal than you think. Almost all
sound cards have some sort of stereo input with a mini-jack. Your
synthesizer will often have the left and right output channels separated.
They might have a headphone jack on there as well, but ideally, you'll
want to connect left and right up separately. This helps in the mixing
down the line if you have your channels separated. So finding a sound
card with multiple mono audio inputs is ideal. Most professional sound
cards have at least two mono-inputs. If you plan to expand down the line,
you might want more inputs. You can then hook multiple synths into your
sound card and mix them directly on your computer.
As I said earlier, your new sound card doesn't necessarily have to have a
built-in synthesizer. Expect to spend at least $350 for a good sound
card. Some of the more popular sound cards are the Terratec DMX 6fire,
Terratec EWS88 MT, ST Audio C-Port, ST Audio M-Port, M-Audio Audiophile,
M-Audio Delta or some of the Aardvark cards. What you get is more a
matter of preference and budget, but just make sure you get a good quality
card with 24bit/96KHz recording. On a side note, some people prefer to
use Software Synths as a cheaper solution. Supposing you want to do this,
you can save a lot by just getting a good MIDI interface for your MIDI
controller - even with software synths, having a controller is very
useful. But even still, a better sound card will result in a better
sounding song.
For many of you, the hardware selection can end here. Especially those of
you who have been tracking for a very long time, you might decide that
software is the way to go for your synthesis. There has been much debate
over whether or not to use software or hardware synths in your studio. If
you were to ask me, it simply comes down to preference. If you do decide
to use software synths, for at least part of your studio, processor speed
becomes that much more important when you're building your machine. For
every soft-synth you load, for every new channel you demanding from that
soft-synth, you're adding more load on your processor. Memory is also
important as you'll be loading quite a bit of software and associate
modules at one time. If you happen to have an older computer lying
around, you will want to look into a special system link feature offered
by Steinberg's sequencer, Cubase. I have had absolutely no experience
with the system link, but you can apparently synchronize two computers
together using Cubase. This would allow you to use that other machine as
a virtual synthesizer, thus freeing up some processor time for your
workhorse machine.
Even if you use software synths, as I said earlier, you will definitely
want to consider some sort of MIDI controller. While you could click away
on a piano roll, that's not a very practical method of writing a song -
and unlike the world of tracking, many sequencers don't allow you to map
notes to your PC keyboard, so it's only logical to have some controller
device. Which one you choose is a matter of preference. Make sure you're
comfortable with it, make sure it feels good. People with extensive piano
skills might want a full size keyboard with weighted keys to get that
piano-like feel. Others might be interested in one of the small profile
2.5 octave keyboards with lots of knobs to control lots of things in your
sequencer.
Be aware that there are alternative MID controllers, too. You can get a
controller that works similar to a woodwind (it looks like a plastic
clarinet) or a guitar (with buttons instead of strings). If you
specialize in either of these, you may want to consider such a device; but
as always with input devices, make sure you're 100% comfortable with the
device. Statistics and data won't truly tell you what you'll like. Go to
the music store and play with it. Do that a couple of times. It could
save you from a couple hundred dollar mistake (or if it's integrated with
a synth, a couple thousand dollar mistake).
For some, like me, software synthesis isn't all that comfortable of a
method. As I said, it's all truly a matter of preference. I personally
prefer to use external hardware synthesizers for my studio. There is
something about a tactile approach to selecting samples, modifying them
and playing with them all on your synth module. Synth modules are often
either rack-mount or table top forms. Some even have a built in MIDI
controller. Many companies offer their synths in either of these formats
- the ever popular Virus module comes all three ways, for example. There
are all different type of synthesizers and MIDI Devices. There are
samplers, there are noise generation modules, there are modelling synths,
drum machines and so on. I could really write a whole article about the
different types. But that would get tedious. And I couldn't give you a
general formula for picking your first synth. Look at the type of music
you do, and use that to determine the type of synth you would need; only
then should you start comparing brands and models.
I started with the notion that I write a lot of orchestral and soft-rock
music. I work mostly with real instruments - not so much with the techno
stuff, but I like to dabble in that now and again. So I wanted a synth
that would provide a lot of orchestral and studio instruments. I wasn't
so interested in tweaking or modifying my patches either, so I didn't need
anything with lots of modeling capabilities. I ended up buying a Roland
XP-30. It has a built-in MIDI controller and rather easy-to-use
interface. I can upgrade the synth by adding additional upgrade modules.
Three came with the synth, and I can add two more from a choice of about
20-30 different modules offered by Roland. I started with a large sample
set of orchestral instruments and I even got some good techno sounds; and
since it has a built-in controller, I can control my next synth with this
one. Someone like my friend Jesper (Setec), however, likes to create his
own sounds. He's got a modeling synth and he'll twist lots of knobs and
move lots of sliders through the course of his music writing. My XP-30
might not be ideal for him. He might be interested in something like the
Virus. Someone else might be interested in pulling sounds from other
recordings and modifying them for their own music. They may want to get a
sampler. Regardless of what you find, just make sure it's what you need.
These things can get expensive, and the moment you take it off the shelf,
its price drops significantly. You're never going to find the jack-of-
all-trades device. You're going to find one that is ideal for one aspect
of your music. Select the one that fulfills the largest gap in your
studio. You can always add more synths later on down the road. But if
you buy a synth, make sure you know it inside and out. Make sure you use
that machine to its full potential. You wouldn't want to waste a
beautiful piece of equipment like that.
So now all our hardware (or virtual hardware, as the case may be) is
accounted for. We have our beefy computer, our awesome sound card, our
synths; we need to get it all to work together. You need to look into
getting yourself a Sequencing program. There are many out there and lots
to choose from. Most of the popular ones are expensive. Expect to drop a
couple of hundred dollars (USD) on the sequencing program itself. You'll
have to do a lot of research here as well. Download all the trial
programs for any of the sequencing programs you might consider.
Steinberg's Cubase, Cakewalk's Sonar and others will almost always offer
some sort of trial version. It's important that you do this, because if
you don't like the interface or you're not comfortable with the
program.... you're not going to write anything. In fact, I would even
recommend doing this before you get your synth or other hardware. You
will be limited in what you can do, but you'll learn whether MIDI
sequencing is right for you.
There are a lot of other cheap solutions, and especially if you want to
work with a Sampler, this might be appropriate. Renoise can be yours, the
full version, for only about $40 last I checked. And it is powerful, and
it uses the tracking interface you're accustomed to. Impulse Tracker fans
might want to check out Ztracker. It's free! However, all of these will
have limitations in the world of MIDI. You won't be able to record your
MIDI tracks to audio tracks for extra effects. You might not even have
access to all the patches on your MIDI module; I can't with my XP-30 as
there are too many libraries in it that I have to access them utilizing a
different method. Cubase and Cakewalk both adapt to my synth quite well.
Ztracker and Renoise, however, do not. Besides, you'll also have to keep
some charts handy all the time so that you can punch in the bank and patch
numbers all the time; whereas in Cubase (and I'm sure in Sonar), you can
import your synth's patch list and select by patch name. It makes life
that much easier. But again, if you're using a sampler, these programs
might be enough. With a sampler, your sequencing program works just like
a tracker except that you'll be pulling off your module instead of your
hard drive. For many musicians, this is a preferred method to the
software alternative as it frees up a great deal of memory for your
computer as well as some processing time.
So there you have it. You're ready to start in the world of MIDI now. As
I've said before, and I'll say it 100 times, make sure you're comfortable
with your equipment before you buy. Don't get discouraged by the world of
MIDI. It's a very different animal than you're probably used to working
with. I've been in the world of MIDI for two years now, and there are
still some large question marks hanging in the air above my head. I've
still got a lot to learn, and I will probably never learn it all. But
it's a very happy medium to work in, and I'm glad I made the move. But
beware; once you start, you'll become more of an audiophile than you were
before. The rich sounds that you can get out of MIDI and the ease in
which you can dynamically tweak a song is matched by no other method of
electronic music writing. You'll want to buy more hardware the moment you
start playing with whatever it is you have. You'll want to get better
speakers, you'll want to add more modules to your setup. Trust me, it can
become a downward spiral. But isn't that what hobbies are for? Just
don't tell me that you weren't warned.
But as I said, I couldn't be happier with the move. And now that you know
what you need to get started, you probably won't be unhappy either. I
shall only offer one more piece of advice before I go: Ask lots of
questions. Ask questions of those who are into MIDI. Ask questions about
the programs they use, why they use them or why they don't use other
programs. Ask them about tips, tricks and what-not. My techniques might
not work for you, but someone else's might. They might share a similar
perspective that I might not. So don't limit yourself to asking one
person. Ask as many people as you can. But make sure you ask those
questions. It could become a beautiful start to a great hobby medium.
--Coplan
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
On The Sideline
"Unnamed" and "Xor Life, 0xFF" by Salice
By: Ben
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
"Unnamed" and "Xor Life, 0xFF" are part of a seven mod release by Salice,
and the whole release is minimal and melodic music. Both songs are good
music to space out to, or to turn on low and leave in the background. I
was unable to find a home page for Salice, but did find a release under
Milk (http://www.milk.scene.org/greenblu.html) and a CDR release
(http://neferiu.com/neferiu/discography_info.php?release=salice_salice).
"Unnamed" focuses more on the instrument than on the percussion. There is
little variation in the drums, but at least they aren't a canned loop!
The instrument is a small sine wave, and Salice times the notes and bends
their pitch to get interesting effects. Because of the simplicity and
playfulness of this song, I couldn't get the image of a nursery out of my
mind when listening to it.
"Xor Life, 0xFF" was a little more interesting in my opinion. Just the
title appeals to the geek side, saying "turn life upside-down as if
performing an 8-bit operation. The song, in a similar vein, sounds a bit
like a chip tune with a style I've heard described as "drilly". I find
this style is very satisfactory in this song: rapid bumps, clicks and pops
uplifting a sedate synth background. The chord instrument sounded vaguely
like a clock chime when going C, E, D, I kept expecting to hear it
continue lower-G, pause, lower-G, D, E, C.
Song Information:
Title: "Unnamed" and "Xor Life, 0xFF"
Author: Salice
File Size: 126k
Source: ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/mute/yesterday.zip
--Ben Collver
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
In Tune
"Decomposing Angels" by Matt Pollard
By: Coplan
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
This month, I managed to download a bunch of tunes. I'm writing about a
tune by the name of "Decomposing Angels" this month as it became the
surprise addition to my playlist. As anyone would, I have a tendency to
develop a brief opinion of a song based on my first impression. Often, I
download so much music that I rarely give a tune a second chance. This
wonderful little song by Matt Pollard surprised me the second time around.
I'll speak in broad terms. If you liked some of Radiohead's more
experimental music from "Amnesiac" and "Kid A", you will appreciate this
song. If you like Massive Attack, you'll like this song. If you like to
hear experimental sounds coming from your speakers, you'll definitely love
this song. I wouldn't really know how to classify the song other than
some sort of experimental style.
One of the things I find useful to people is when I tell them why my first
impression wasn't very favorable. While I did change my mind in the end,
and I do really like this song, many people (including myself on some
occasions) might not give a given song a second chance. First impressions
are very important to the unknown artist. You won't get anywhere if you
don't show your talents up front. That being said, the whole first two
minutes of the song is very experimental with lots of weird base sounds,
non-drum percussion and electronic bleeps in the background. I describe
it that way intentionally. Yes, the artist had a clear vision in mind at
this point, but the listener does not. I was not clear as to the
direction of the song, and therefore I didn't give the rest of the song
too much attention. At about the 2:25 minute mark, a piano is introduced
to the song, and the whole dynamic changes. But as I was initially not
interested, I wasn't giving this much thought.
But what is important to me, now that I like the song, is the fact that
the overall dynamic of the song has such depth to it. The intent of the
Matt Pollard is now a bit more clear to me. Whether or not my views are
the very same as Pollard's, I have some sort of vision. The song title
puts two very different images in my head. An angel, to me, is a very
beautiful thought: Caring, confident, graceful, fresh. Decomposition is
a terminal thought. Something has died, something has dissolved,
something isn't what it was. With that in mind, one would expect some
sort of time-line to the song. The beautiful parts would be first and the
rougher and more "decomposed" parts would be towards the end. But then I
had this thought: What if Pollard is portraying his realization of the
status quo? The whole beginning of the song can represent a repressed and
monotonous well being. Something is wrong, something isn't there. The
very notion only comes to us at about 1:45 where you hear the very first
indication that a piano is present. But it's only one note, an incomplete
thought. Then the epiphany comes to light at about 2:25. Suddenly, we're
aware what was missing, and we try the best to rebuild it. The piano does
quite well at portraying this vision, and it is very beautiful.
Alright, so what about the technical aspects of the song? I really can't
say much for the first 2 minutes or so. It's all clean as it could be,
and I don't really have many thoughts about how this part of the song is
composed. It works, and beyond that, I have nothing to say. The part
that won me over is the piano. The piano is very clear. The samples are
awesome. And to top it off, the mixing is incredible. You couldn't get a
piano to sound any more natural without striking the keys of the
instrument in person. But Pollard does one other thing very well:
Background mixing. Deep in the background are things that, unless you
were looking for them, are so subtle and so distant that you often
wouldn't even notice them. There are some strings in the background of
the second part of the song that I just now noticed my 10th time through.
And no, I'm not talking about the blatant ones in the foreground. There's
a whole section of strings in there. But they definitely provide a sense
of depth to the song. Some of the percussion is subtle to the point that
you wouldn't even miss it. And while you wouldn't miss it, you should be
glad it's there. There is a certain complexity to Pollard's style that I
admire. It's very complex, but so very simple. The leads are simple and
graceful, but the background parts are just the opposite. It's a very
nice balance.
I'm almost sorry I was so ready to dismiss this song the first time
through. I surely would've missed a truly wonderful song. So now I think
I will go through my collection one more time and listen to everything I
had previously thought poorly of. I have a lot of work ahead of me.
Song Information:
Title: Decomposing Angels
Author: Matt Pollard
Release date: Nov. 19, 2002
File Size: 6 MB
Source: http://www.hellven.org (Hellven release #93)
--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 using the addresses
found in the closing notes. Please do not send files attached to e-mail
without first contacting us. Thank you!
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
The Lineup
By: Novus
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
Welcome to The Lineup! Every month, I scour through the hundreds of new
releases on the scene's major archive sites to find the best new music,
saving you the trouble of having to download 20 instant-delete songs to
find 1 that's worth keeping.
In fact, that's precisely how Jesse Nijder uses The Lineup, as he
explained in his recent feedback e-mail:
"Thanks a lot for the monthly Lineup in Static Line, it saves me a
tremendous amount of time (which I really don't have) searching for the
best MODs. Apart from that, I'm still on a 56k dialup so it takes a very
long time to download even a few megs. Your list actually prevents me
from downloading tracks which are not worth the time, thank you for that.
;)"
You're welcome, Jesse, and thank you for "using as directed," as it were.
;) And if you're so inclined, you can send your feedback on The Lineup to
vince_young@hotmail.com. I get my share of compliments, but what I'd
really find useful are some negative comments, believe it or not, e-mail
from folks who find The Lineup to be a complete and utter waste of time.
I'm not perfect, so I know you're out there somewhere. Let me know what's
wrong so I can make it right!
A word about some of this month's selections... you may notice some
rather high-profile selections from Awesome this month that were actually
released several years ago, and you may have noticed similar selections
from other high-profile trackers in the past. Why are they there, you may
ask? Two reasons. First of all, to paraphrase NBC television's ads for
their re-runs, if you haven't heard it, it's new to you. As odd as it may
seem, there are plenty of folks reading this who may never have heard of
Awesome before, and this is their first exposure to his music. And that
brings me to reason two: I treat any song that appears on any of the sites
I monitor as a "new release" under the theory of reason number one. This
month, Awesome re-released a selection of his older tracks on both Cute
Trance Girls and Scene.org, so I treated them as "new." In selecting The
Best Of The Best, however, I tend to give weight to songs which truly are
new so as to give up-and-coming trackers more exposure. And there ya go,
a peek behind the curtain, as it were. :)
In the meantime, you may consider the following 19 tunes to be the best
tracks of September 2003:
-=- THE BEST OF THE BEST -=-
"Aeryn Sun" - Pro-Xex - fantasy
http://www.modarchive.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi/A/aerynsun.it
-=- THE REST OF THE BEST -=-
"Achilles" - Blacklily - orchestral
http://www.modarchive.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi/A/achilles3.it
"Ancient Stories" - Awesome - fantasy
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/awesome/aws_magi.zip
"Ancient Stories: High-Quality Version" - Awesome - fantasy
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/awesome/awesome-ancient_stories_hqversion.zip
(Re-mastered and somewhat re-arranged, with some interesting new twists.)
"Ancient Stories 2: A Kingdom Of Tales" - Awesome - fantasy
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/awesome/aws_anc2.zip
"Aquarium" - Awesome - fantasy
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/awesome/aws_aq16.zip
"Beyond The Heart" - Awesome - fantasy
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/awesome/aws_beyo.zip
"Dreaming" - Snu - classical piano
http://www.modplug.com/mods/nrdetail.php3?session=&detailno=10907
"For A New World" - Awesome - pop
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/awesome/aws_fanw.zip
"Free Man's Tango" - PPH - orchestral
ftp://ftp.scenesp.org/pub/modulez/PPH/pphfmt.zip
"Linearity" - Screamager - dance
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/screamager/k_lnrty.zip
"Mindy's Song" - Renzoku - pop
http://zakkat.tripod.com/MOD/WW627MS.zip
"Nultiply" - Eftos - dance
http://eftos.members.easyspace.com/eftos_nultiply.zip
"Plastic Reverie" - Decibelter - pop
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/decibelter/db_plast.zip
"The Chase" - Awesome - fantasy
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/awesome/aws_chas.zip
"The Different World" - Butch - fantasy
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/butch/b_dworld.zip
"The Proces" - Michael Brandt - trance
http://www.modarchive.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi?M/mike434b.s3m
"The Shadow Exploded" - Screamager - pop
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/screamager/k_shadow.zip
"The Unusual: Red Blood Remix" - Geniewiz - trance
http://www11.brinkster.com/geniewiz/Unusual.zip
(Original song tracked by DJ Deepvibe.)
Latez!
--Novus
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
Screen Lit Vertigo
"Ninja in a Box", "Weltenkonstrukt", and "85 Dollars"
By: Seven
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
-=- "Ninja In A Box" by TPOLM -=-
(party-version)
Found at www.scene.org
2nd place at the Evoke Z003 demo compo
System requirements: 9.4 MB HD, Win9x, DirectX9
Test Machine: P4 2.6GHz 512MB DDR, Realtek AC'97, NVidia 488 GO 64MB, WinXP
(Some parts had missing effects on an ATI Radeon 8500 LE 64MB)
The credits:
Code: Resika
Graphics: Fthr, Crkr
Music: Vaeinoke
The demo:
Ninja In A Box was actually submitted at Assembly, but much to the dismay
of Tpolm fans everywhere, it wasn't preselected :/ But it got its revenge
at Evoke! This collection of eastern wisdom is brought to you in a
yellow/red color scheme, with matching tints of pink and orange. Most of
the effects are made with big dots, which blend together to form fractals,
a tunnel, and endless patterns of hexagons or stars. The edge of the dots
is subtly smudged here and there, I suspect this barely-visible
improvement is the sole reason Tpolm used DirectX9 (with the result the
dots aren't visible on an ATI 8500 :() The ever-moving backgrounds show
moving bands of alternating colors, a bit like an oldskool palette cycle.
Twice the camera dives in a maze of cubes, filled with more dots
(reminding me positively of PacMan).
Ninja In A Box is a highly educational demo, containing many amazing facts
about ninjas, donuts and the nature of Buddha. To complete the Tpolm
experience, a host of bizarre animals wielding build-in bladed weapons
appear threatening to eat you, under the supervision of a seven-eyed
Jesus. The music is a bit atonal, mainly driven by the rhythm section.
Voice samples are used sparsely, and will only provoke more questions for
the meaning of the demo. Syncing is excellent, as could be expected.
Overall:
Ninja In A Box is a very stylish demo full of TPOLM weirdness, and as such
may shock young children or people with "average" taste. Check your
abnormality tolerance level before downloading this, if you are perfectly
happy with the Assembly results, chances this is not your cup of coffee.
If, on the other hand, you've a sneaking suspicion there is something
missing, try Ninja In A Box.
-=- "Weltenkonstrukt" by Smash Designs -=-
(party-version)
Found at www.scene.org
1st place at the Evoke Z003 demo compo
System requirements: 27 MB HD, Win9x, recent 3D card
Test Machine: P4 2.6GHz 512MB DDR, Realtek AC'97, NVidia 488 GO 64MB, WinXP
Test Machine #2: P3 900 640MB, Gamesurround III, Radeon 8500 LE 64MB,
Win98 SE
The credits:
Code: Kai, Tobi, Idefix
Graphics: AEG
Music: Sonic
The demo:
As with Adrenalin last year, Smash Designs pushes the envelope of 3D
modeling with their latest demo, Weltenkonstruct (Welten = worlds).
Instead of a fair, this time they decided to model an entire city! Parks,
shopping halls, a museum, a church, historical buildings, apartment
complexes,... Everything is in there, and the level of detail is simply
amazing. Look at the flowers and the trees, and the curved surfaces
everywhere...
Of course, nothing is perfect: where Adrenalin was populated by sprite-
people, which didn't look too great, Weltenkonstrukt is completely empty,
leaving a very desolate atmosphere. In addition, there are no shadows at
all, not even precalculated ones on the textures, so it looks very
synthetic.
There are few conventional effects: some sun flares shining through the
trees, and an antenna on top of a building broadcasting. There are
reflective surfaces everywhere, not only for windows or metal objects but
also for marble f.e. Impressive code-wise, but it adds to the plastic
feeling.
The music starts somewhat symphonic, like a movie-intro, during the start
in the underground garage. (Notice that besides the obvious joke on
EliteGroups Kasparov, there's a more subtle one: the sign above the robot
reads "women parking spot" :)) Once the camera gets in the open air, a
beat is added, electronic leads come in and the track evolves to an
energetic, but a bit repetitive demo tune.
Overall:
Weltenkonstrukt is not for everyone: it's a pure 3D camera flight with
great modeling but a synthetic look, it's huge (12 MB zipped, 27 unzipped,
long load time on slow PCs), and requires a decent 3D card to enjoy: my
ATI 8500 stutters very noticeably on 1024 * 768, and even the Nvidia 488
Go drops frames here and there. But if you're looking for something to
test your spanking new video card, or you simply want to be amazed by the
modeling, check this one out!
-=- "85 Dollars" by Nectarine -=-
(party-version)
Found at www.scene.org
1st place at the Buenzli 13 demo compo
System requirements: 15.4 MB HD, any PC that can run Demopajaa (wild guess:
Pentium II, TNT2 3D card, and say 128 MB ram (long loading time...))
Test Machine: P3 900 640MB, Gamesurround III, Radeon 8500 LE 64MB, Win98 SE
Test Machine #2: P4 2.6GHz 512MB DDR, Realtek AC'97, NVidia 488 GO 64MB,
WinXP
The credits:
Music & Demopajing: Med/Nectarine
Gfx: Sacri/Move
The demo:
Nectarine used Demopajaa, Moppi Productions demo system, and some simple
effect plugins to make a charming excentric demo. It's less coherent than
SuperJam Superheroes, but has the same wacky humor. The cast of South
Park style animated characters include some gangstas, a yodeling guitar
player and an happy DJ. There isn't any story, although it contains many
references to Superman(-darine) and other old pop culture icons. The
fonts and other graphic elements are old-fashioned as well (60-70 style).
The effects are rather simple, some flares, flashes, a bit of abstract 3D,
but nothing special at all. Still, the demo isn't boring, due to the
quick changes in style.
The music follows the same weirdness as the rest of the demo, the core is
a DJ mix with scratched vocals, but it can change without warning into
something more gangsta, and a few seconds later in an old French chanson.
Overall:
The mix of styles makes it hard to describe 85 Dollars, anything specific
I say only applies to a small part of the demo. It's funny, but it's not
as polished as Nectarines last release. It's also fairly big for a demo
that is only 2 and a half minutes long, but in these days of broadband who
cares? One warning: after selecting the resolution, it seems as if the
demo is crashed (nothing shown at all), but it's only loading. Give it
some time on slow computers.
--Seven
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
Link List
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
Portals:
SceneSpot (Home of Static Line).......http://www.scenespot.org
CFXweb.......................................http://cfxweb.net
Czech Scene................................http://www.scene.cz
Danish Scene..............................http://demo-scene.dk
Demoscene.org.........................http://www.demoscene.org
Demo.org...................................http://www.demo.org
Diskmag.de...................................http://diskmag.de
Greek Scene............................http://www.demoscene.gr
Hungarian Scene........................http://www.demoscene.hu
Italian Scene...........................http://run.to/la_scena
Kahvi.....................................http://www.kahvi.org
ModPlug Central Resources..........http://www.castlex.com/mods
Noerror.................................http://www.noerror.org
Norwegian Scene........................http://www.demoscene.no
Orange Juice.............................http://www.ojuice.net
Planet Zeus..........................http://www.planetzeus.net
Polish Scene...........................http://www.demoscena.pl
Pouet.net.................................http://www.pouet.net
Russian Scene..........................http://www.demoscene.ru
Scene.org.................................http://www.scene.org
Scenergy on-line (8bit)............http://www.scenergy.natm.ru
Scenet....................................http://www.scenet.de
Spanish Scene............................http://www.escena.org
Swiss Scene..............................http://www.chscene.ch
United Trackers.................http://www.united-trackers.org
Archives:
Acid2.....................................ftp://acid2.stack.nl
Amber.......................................ftp://amber.bti.pl
Aminet.....................http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/~aminet/
Cyberbox.....................................ftp://cyberbox.de
Hornet (1992-1996)........................ftp://ftp.hornet.org
MOD Archive..........................http://www.modarchive.com
Scene.org..................................ftp://ftp.scene.org
Scene.org Austra........................ftp://ftp.au.scene.org
Scene.org Netherlands...................ftp://ftp.nl.scene.org
Swiss Scene FTP...........................ftp://ftp.chscene.ch
Demo Groups:
3g Design..............................http://3gdesign.cjb.net
3State...................................http://threestate.com
7 Gods.........................................http://7gods.sk
Aardbei.....................................http://aardbei.com
Acid Rain..............................http://surf.to/acidrain
Addict..................................http://addict.scene.pl
Agravedict........................http://www.agravedict.art.pl
Alien Prophets.....................http://www.alienprophets.dk
Anakata..............................http://www.anakata.art.pl
ASD....................................http://asd.demoscene.gr
Astral..............................http://astral.scene-hu.com
Astroidea........................http://astroidea.scene-hu.com
BlaBla..............................http://blabla.planet-d.net
Blasphemy..............................http://www.blasphemy.dk
Bomb..................................http://bomb.planet-d.net
Broncs..................................http://broncs.scene.cz
Byterapers.....................http://www.byterapers.scene.org
Bypass.................................http://bypass.scene.org
Calodox.................................http://www.calodox.org
Cocoon..............................http://cocoon.planet-d.net
Confine.................................http://www.confine.org
Damage...................................http://come.to/damage
Dc5.........................................http://www.dc5.org
Delirium..............................http://delirium.scene.pl
Eclipse............................http://www.eclipse-game.com
Elitegroup..........................http://elitegroup.demo.org
Exceed...........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/~exceed
Fairlight.............................http://www.fairlight.com
Fobia Design...........................http://www.fd.scene.org
Freestyle............................http://www.freestylas.org
Fresh! Mindworks...................http://kac.poliod.hu/~fresh
Future Crew..........................http://www.futurecrew.org
Fuzzion.................................http://www.fuzzion.org
GODS...................................http://www.idf.net/gods
Halcyon...........................http://www.halcyon.scene.org
Haujobb..................................http://www.haujobb.de
Hellcore............................http://www.hellcore.art.pl
Infuse...................................http://www.infuse.org
Inquisition....................http://inquisition.demoscene.hu
Kilobite...............................http://kilobite.cjb.net
Kolor................................http://www.kaoz.org/kolor
Komplex.................................http://www.komplex.org
Kooma.....................................http://www.kooma.com
Mandula.........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/~mandula
Maturefurk...........................http://www.maturefurk.com
Monar................ftp://amber.bti.pl/pub/scene/distro/monar
MOVSD....................................http://movsd.scene.cz
Nextempire...........................http://www.nextempire.com
Noice.....................................http://www.noice.org
Orange.................................http://orange.scene.org
Orion................................http://orion.planet-d.net
Outbreak................................http://www.outbreak.nu
Popsy Team............................http://popsyteam.rtel.fr
Prone................................http://www.prone.ninja.dk
Purple....................................http://www.purple.dk
Rage........................................http://www.rage.nu
Replay.......................http://www.shine.scene.org/replay
Retro A.C...........................http://www.retroac.cjb.net
Sista Vip..........................http://www.sistavip.exit.de
Skytech team............................http://www.skytech.org
Skrju.....................................http://www.skrju.org
Spinning Kids......................http://www.spinningkids.org
Sunflower.......................http://sunflower.opengl.org.pl
Talent.............................http://talent.eurochart.org
The Black Lotus.............................http://www.tbl.org
The Digital Artists Wired Nation.http://digitalartists.cjb.net
The Lost Souls...............................http://www.tls.no
TPOLM.....................................http://www.tpolm.com
Trauma.................................http://sauna.net/trauma
T-Rex.....................................http://www.t-rex.org
Unik........................................http://www.unik.de
Universe..........................http://universe.planet-d.net
Vantage..................................http://www.vantage.ch
Wipe....................................http://www.wipe-fr.org
Music Labels, Music Sites:
Aisth.....................................http://www.aisth.com
Aural Planet........................http://www.auralplanet.com
Azure...................................http://azure-music.com
Blacktron Music Production...........http://www.d-zign.com/bmp
BrothomStates.............http://www.katastro.fi/brothomstates
Chill..........................http://www.chillproductions.com
Chippendales......................http://www.sunpoint.net/~cnd
Chiptune...............................http://www.chiptune.com
Da Jormas................................http://www.jormas.com
Fabtrax......http://www.cyberverse.com/~boris/fabtrax/home.htm
Fairlight Music.....................http://fairlight.scene.org
Five Musicians.........................http://www.fm.scene.org
Fusion Music Crew.................http://members.home.nl/cyrex
Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff
Hellven.................................http://www.hellven.org
Ignorance.............................http://www.ignorance.org
Immortal Coil.............................http://www.ic.l7.net
Intense...........................http://intense.ignorance.org
Jecoute.................................http://jecoute.cjb.net
Kosmic Free Music Foundation.............http://www.kosmic.org
Lackluster.....................http://www.m3rck.net/lackluster
Level-D.................................http://www.level-d.com
Mah Music.............................http://come.to/mah.music
Maniacs of noise...............http://home.worldonline.nl/~mon
MAZ's sound homepage..................http://www.maz-sound.com
Med.......................................http://www.med.fr.fm
Miasmah.............................http://www.miasmah.cjb.net
Milk.......................................http://milk.sgic.fi
Mo'playaz..........................http://ssmedion.de/moplayaz
Mono211.................................http://www.mono211.com
Morbid Minds..............http://www.raveordie.com/morbidminds
Moods..............................http://www.moodymusic.de.vu
Mstation.....................http://mstation.org/software.html
Nectarine Demoscene Radio................http://scenemusic.net
Noise................................http://www.noisemusic.org
One Touch Records......................http://otr.planet-d.net
Park..................................http://park.planet-d.net
pHluid..................................http://phluid.acid.org
Radical Rhythms.....http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/merrelli/rr
RBi Music.............................http://www.rbi-music.com
Ruff Engine................http://members.xoom.com/ruff_engine
SHR8M......................................http://1st.to/shr8m
Sound Devotion................http://sugarbomb.x2o.net/soundev
Soundstate.........................http://listen.to/soundstate
Sunlikamelo-D.....................http://www.sunlikamelo-d.com
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
Zen of Tracking.........................http://surf.to/the-imm
Programming:
3D engines..........http://cg.cs.tu-berlin.de/~ki/engines.html
3D programming portal.................http://www.3dgamedev.com
Documents...............http://www.neutralzone.org/home/faqsys
File format collection...................http://www.wotsit.org
Game programming portal...............http://www.gamasutra.com
LCC (free C compiler).........http://www.remcomp.com/lcc-win32
NASM (free Assembly compiler)......http://www.cryogen.com/nasm
Programming portal......................http://www.gamedev.net
Programming portal.....................http://www.flipcode.com
Programming portal......................http://www.exaflop.org
Programming portal............http://www.programmersheaven.com
Programming portal.....................http://www.freecode.com
PTC video engine.........................http://www.gaffer.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
Jurassic Pack...........................www.jurassicpack.de.vu
Pain..................................http://pain.planet-d.net
Scenial...........................http://www.scenial.scene.org
Shine...............................http://www.shine.scene.org
Static Line................http://www.scenespot.org/staticline
Sunray..............................http://sunray.planet-d.net
TUHB.......................................http://www.tuhb.org
WildMag..................................http://www.wildmag.de
Parties:
Assembly (Finland).....................http://www.assembly.org
Ambience (The Netherlands)..............http://www.ambience.nl
Buenzli (Switzerland)......................http://www.buenz.li
Dreamhack (Sweden)....................http://www.dreamhack.org
Gravity (Poland)............http://www.demoscena.cp.pl/gravity
Mekka-Symposium (Germany)...................http://ms.demo.org
Pilgrimage (Utah, US)..............http://pilgrimage.scene.org
ReAct (Greece).............................http://www.react.gr
Takeover (The Netherlands).............,http://www.takeover.nl
The Party (Denmark).....................http://www.theparty.dk
Others:
Demo secret parts....http://www.inf.bme.hu/~mandula/secret.txt
Textmode Demo Archive.................http://tmda.planet-d.net
Arf!Studios..........................http://www.arfstudios.org
#coders..................................http://coderz.cjb.net
Csound-tekno e-mail list......................................
............http://plot.bek.no/mailman/listinfo/csoundtekno
Demonews Express.........http://www.teeselink.demon.nl/express
Demo fanclub........................http://jerware.org/fanclub
Digital Undergrounds.....................http://dug.iscool.net
Everything tracking..http://zolaweb.com/Zola/trax/tracking.htm
Freax.....................................http://www.freax.hu/
GfxZone............................http://gfxzone.planet-d.net
Mod-Radio.....................http://www.back2roots.org/Radio/
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:
Graphics.........................................ircnet #pixel
Graphics (French)..............................ircnet #pixelfr
Music......................................irc.scene.org #trax
Music.............................................ircnet #trax
Programming.....................................ircnet #coders
Programming....................................efnet #flipcode
Programming (French)............................ircnet #codefr
Programming (German)........................ircnet #coders.ger
Programming (Hungarian)......................ircnet #coders.hu
Scene.........................................ircnet #thescene
Scene (French)..................................ircnet #demofr
Scene (Hungarian)............................ircnet #demoscene
Zx-spectrum scene..................................ircnet #z80
--=--=--
----=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------
-=- Staff -=-
Editors: Ciaran / Ciaran Hamilton / staticline@theblob.org
Ben / Ben Collver / collver1@comcast.net
Staff Writers: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
Dilvie / Eric Hamilton / dilvie@dilvie.com
Novus / Vince Young / vince_young@hotmail.com
Psitron / Tim Soderstrom / tigerhawk@stic.net
Setec / Jesper Pederson / jesped@post.tele.dk
Seven / Stefaan VanNieuwenhuyze/ seven7@pandora.be
Tryhuk / Tryhuk Vojtech / vojtech.tryhuk@worldonline.cz
Vill / Brian Frank / darkvill@yahoo.com
The Watcher / Paul-Jan Pauptit / sprout@zonnet.nl
The current issue of Static Line can always be found on the Web at:
http://staticline.scenespot.org/issues/current_issue
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http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/static_line
If you would like to contribute an article to Static Line, be aware that
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characters. Contributions (Plain Text) should be e-mailed to
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issues are released on a monthly basis.
See you next month!
-eof---=------=--=------=--=--