TATICLINE May, 2000
// Monthly Scene E-Zine 126 Subscribers
Table Of Contents
Opening:
Message From the Editor
Letters From Our Readers
Features:
Mekka Symposium 2000 Results
Columns:
Music:
In Tune -- Wayfinders Hymn
Inside the Virtual Studio -- Buzz Tracker
The Listener -- Music From Carlos, Necros and more
Retro Tunage -- Nightvision by Sandman
Demo:
Screen Lit Vertigo -- Sleepless by Smash Designs
Intro Watch -- Tac2 by Tazadum Final Version
Intro Watch -- Mekka 2000 Intro Reviews
General:
Scene Dirt -- News Rumors
Call to Keyboards -- Demoparties Required
Link List -- Get Somewhere in the Scene
Closing:
Credits
Message From the Editor
Wow, what a busy month! I cant speak for everyone, but finals are
almost over. I took a break to throw this together for you all -- not
that anyone can just THROW this together anymore. Its getting big, is
it not? Nothing wrong with that. Anyhow, this months issue is a few
days early because of finals.
Good job spreading the word folks! We have 14 new readers, bringing
us to a total of 126 readers. Keep spreading the word, and sharing our
issues.
This month, we got a lot in here. For one, Mekka just ended not too
long ago, and we have a whole bunch of tidbits about that competition.
We have an abridged form of the results, and a few demo reviews and song
reviews related to it as well.
Dilvish is back! You didnt really think hed stay away that long,
did you? Well, its not his Zen column, but hes providing us with
tidbits of information about the Virtual Studio, this month, he
covers Buzz Tracker.
We are growing quite nicely...but I wouldnt mind haveing a few more
non-review columns in here. Maybe a few interviewers, or something
else? If youre interested in joining staff, contact me.
--Coplan
Letters From Our Readers
-- Letter from Eggbird --
Static line rules. but with this boost in size now that dj kinda
cooled down a bit, why not change to bi-weekly instead of monthly?
--Eggbird
egbert@teeselink.demon.nl
- Reply from Coplan:
Its funny that you should mention that. With Static Line growing in
size, that is definitely an option. Static Line started as a Monthly
Magazine so we could maintain both Quality and Content. But, if Content
has increased to this level, it is very possible that we may switch to a
bi-weekly magazine. What does everyone else think?
--Coplan
Mekka Symposium 2000 Results
Abridged Version
Prepared By: Coplan
The following results account for only the top three placements in
each category of Mekka 2000. For the general public, the complete
listings are not necessarily that meaningful. If you would like to view
the complete results, they can be found at the following web address:
http://ms.demo.org/2000/final-re.txt
Wild
1 Bitte 8 Bit Hitmen
2 Metro Tomac / Suburban
3 Hau Strange Haujobb
SID Music
1 Chaos 2000 DJB GRG
2 Freak-Show Alien/WoW/Surprise Productions
3 Logical Control/dIGITAL
Progressive Music
1 Morning Light wayfinder
2 The Joss Tune phred
3 Morning Star - remix Netpoet / Park
PlayStation Demo
1 Strange Worlds Haujobb
2 Monophobia Witchcraft
3 Mups - The Demo Silvia, Soraya Jan of Mups
Pixel Gfx
1 Jesus 2000 Acryl/Scoopex,Haujobb
2 Evil in me Raven/Nuance
3 Deep Throat Bifrost of Loonies
PC Demo
1 Sleepless Smash Designs
2 Mikro Strange Haujobb
3 Nature Suxx Federation Against Nature
PC 64K Intro
1 Heaven Seven Exceed
2 Matrix Addict
3 Some bookprint
and a broken heart Replay
PC 4K Intro
1 Toasty Freestyle
2 Meuk Ritz/Revolution
3 SuperQuadric KILLER/NEXTEMPIRE
MP3 Music
1 Brother In The Sky Chromag / Haujobb
2 Sommerparty Virgill
3 Record Royale wayfinder
Fast Intro
1 Jobbsuche Pap Skyrunner
2 Da Krisch Plack Thorax
3 HaujobbJaujop Fuzzion
C64 Graphis
1 Oppa Roxx Rayden/Breeze/Cyberpunx
2 Rider JailBird/Tempest/Padua
3 cyclone de linterieur Cyclone
C64 Demo
1 Deus Ex Machina Crest
2 +H2K Plush
3 T4 SDS
C64 4K Intro
1 +H4K Krill, Caprice, Fanta
2 Matrix The Movie - Intro
Cover Allitaice/SCS-TRC Top Secret/WOW/Cult
3 My Vision TUM
Amiga Demo
1 Cybercinematastic Loonies
2 Back to the roots Haujobb
3 First Awakening Creative Minds
Amiga 64K Intro
1 Gift Gush2 Potion
2 Strange Distortion Craid-Hellfire-SolarC-Roz
3 Omnicrom Loaderror / Ephidrena
Amiga 4K Intro
1 Bier Loaderror/Ephidrena
2 Wave 2000 Azure Platon
3 Art Of 4k Shape/DCS+Kure/RNO
Alternative Music
1 Ive A Jazzy Feeling BZZ !FAKE! STOLEN FROM CARLOS/MANDULA
2 Break Down Baby Chromag of Haujobb
3 Nine Millimeter Virgill
Alternative Gfx
1 Sakraler Monumentalbau Shadow / Digital Overflow
2 Hope Strange Inferno / Haujobb
3 Synthetic Heaven JCS / Haujobb
32K Game
1 t32 Myth
2 Pong 32K Freestyle
3 Duzzle Dobble Mr. Van / Secretly
In Tune
Wayfinders Hymn
By: Coplan and Setec
-- Introduction --
Well, its been a while, but I promised myself I would review
Wayfinders somewhat latest tune from Azure: Hymn. I was on trax
one night, and I heard someone mention that a new group, Azure, was out
there, so I went to check it out. Low and behold, the first tune from
the group was written by co-founder Wayfinder. Ive reviewed tunes from
Wayfinder in the past, and so I decided to grab it. Just happens that
Setec also grabbed the tune, and we both like it. So, Wayfinder is now
one of the few people that has had more than one formal review in Static
Line. Hope no-one minds trust me, you shouldnt.
-- Coplan --
First let me look at the surface of the tune, before I get into the
technical aspects of the entire trance peice. I am not one that is very
good at classifying music just ask Setec how many times I called some
of his music Trance when in fact it wasnt. But, with the creation of
Azure, Im starting to at least understand a bit more about trance.
What difference is it to me, I know that I like a lot of it, and
Hymn by Wayfinder is no exception.
I must say, this is another one of those songs that I feel I need to
move to. Maybe its the static base drum beat in the background. In
many cases, I dont like the boom-boom-boom-boom-ba-boom of the base
drums in music that I listen to, but I have noticed that in a few songs
it works very nicely. This is one of them. Ive decided that it has a
lot to do with the supporting music. Listen to the base line -- its
easier to hear at the beginning of the song. I think thats the key,
the base line seems to add an additional depth to the song.
Lets add more layers shall we? What about all those acids in the
background, and all those strings on occasion, and the rest of the
percussion? This song has quite a nice subtle mix of just about
everything there, and Wayfinder has given a lot of attention to each.
Dont let the base drum fool you, the percussion is actually quite well
done. It is simple things such as cutting the base drum out on
occasion, and having ride cymbols pop in when were at a peak moment in
the song. But, the boy knows how to take breaks when needed. We cant
have every moment in the song traveling with full-frontal-motion. We
gotta get some variety in there.
Now, all that isnt enough for me to love the dynamics of a song.
Mind you, for me, I can have a lot of respect for the dymanics of a
song, but I dont necessarily like the song. The same hold true the
other way, I may like a song, but that doesnt mean its technically
amazing. This song obviously demonstrates a bit more than tracking.
After talking with Wayfinder one night on trax, I discovered that he
sequenced all the acids and the leads apart from the tracker. Its a
good thing I talked to him, because I might just assume that he ripped
his samples from some existing song -- recording and clipping as
necessary. But thats not the case. And when I go back and listen to
all his lead samples, and his acid samples, theres no way he couldve
done the method I had initially thought. There was a great deal of
time put into the sequencing of those little blocks of audio bits.
After talking to Dilvish and Setec a lot these days, I must say, this
is starting to become a not so uncommon method of creating tunes. I am
starting to sway that direction myself, simply because the quality is
incredible compared to what I can do with a tracker alone.
As I finish up, let me remind you that you should probably follow up
on some of the groups that youre buddies are affiliated with. Azure
has a few new songs up there, including one from Tawan a guest writer
titled Fantasy. It is definately worth checking out.
--Coplan
-- Setec --
Wayfinder recently announced the founding of a new music group -
Azure - entirely centered on making trance music. This piece, Hymn, is
the first release for the group and has been crafted by Wayfinder
himself.
I will try to make this review as based on techique as I can, since I
really do not enjoy the style particularly. And techincally this is a
marvelous piece. The sample quality and overall mixing is splendid and
could well be a professionally mastered single of sorts.
It starts off with your off-the-shelf standard four on four trance
beat, only in this tune it actually sounds quite good. And naturally all
of it is blended with a single bass on the upbeats. No news here. :
But then comes a really tasty distorted 303-like sound that lays
neatly somewhere in the back of the mix. This transcends into a nice
nifty chord progression that moves along quietly for a while until the
wellknown machine gun snare hits and a no-drum section enters, with a
quite nice progression and later on a REALLY great synth lead section
with loads of good filtering. This of course brings back the percussion
and bass and moves along with the chorus of the track, being that
previously mentioned chord progression and synth lead.
Then all of the sudden it breaks into a drums only part that slowly
brings back that distorted 303 riff and later on the chords once more. I
kinda felt like the whole thing basically just repeated at this point. I
wouldve really liked to have seen some more flavour added to this
second time around. Like a layered beat on top, more sounds, whatever.
Something to distinguish the second time from the first.
The track goes into the main chorus part again, with no further
change in anything but the time it is played in. This continues for a
while and then breaks into only drums and bass once more, slowly fading
out and then climbing into a final cymbal hit.
This is a really hard piece for me to comment on, because I can truly
enjoy the techique and admire the overall sound of the piece. On the
other hand, it is just plain too dull for my liking. The chord
progression used is good, the synth lead is awesome, it is not that. It
is just that it does not alter at all throughout the piece. I am not
sure if this is just what trance is all about and whether I am just
being an arse. I just dont enjoy it after a few listens. More spice,
Wayfinder. Add a b-part to keep the attention of the listener for more
than one go at the main part. As it is now it is like a two minute track
repeated two times. Well-crafted, extraordinarily mixed, but a tad too
dull ...
It is still worth a download though. Especially if you usually dig
trance ...I am actually looking forward to the next release by Azure.
--Setec
Song Information:
Title: Hymn
Author: Wayfinder
Filename zipped/unzipped: az-01.zip / az-01.it IT 2.14
File Size zipped/unzipped: 3.4 MB / 3.8 MB
Source: http://azure.zerion.com
Alternate: http://ic.l7.net/statline/current.html
In Tune is a regular column dedicated to the review of original and
singular works by fellow trackers. It is to be used as a tool to expand
your listening and writing horizons, but should not be used as a general
rating system. Coplans and Setecs opinions are not the opinions of
the Static Line Staff.
If you have heard a song you would like to recommend either your own,
or another persons, We can be contacted through e-mail useing the
addresses found in the closing notes. Please do not send files attached
to e-mail without first contacting us. Thank you!
Inside the Virtual Studio
Buzz Tracker
By: Dilvish
Things are looking good these days for the digital music makers.
There are several advanced trackers in the works, a selection of virtual
recording studios, plug-ins galore, real-time software synthesizers,
very high quality i/o hardware, and even a new operating system that
looks ideal for music production. In my next few articles, Ill take a
look at some of the new software that might be of interest to digital
music makers, and share my impressions with you. From there, Ill give
my predictions on the directions of digital music production, and share
tips, techniques, and the secrets of the pros, ranging from advice about
the latest gear, to ideas that might help you make your digital
arrangements sound more realistic, and expressive. I hope you enjoy it.
Since a lot of readers are familiar and comfortable with the tracker
style interface, Ill start off with a look at some of the new trackers.
In this issue, Ill take a look at the modern pioneer of tracking,
Oskari Tammelins Buzz Tracker digital composer. Tracking technology
has changed a bit over the last few years. Weve gone from 4 channel
forced hard panning with 8 bit samples to 64+ channels of 16 bit samples
with panning envelopes and NNAs. So what could be next?
If you havent seen Buzz, youre missing an important step in the
evolution of the tracker, and what looks like a merger between the
familiar realm of tracking, and the new world of the virtual recording
studio.
Buzz combines familiar pattern based editing with virtual instruments
and effects. Machines that you can plug together with cables, just like
in a real studio environment. Many people are developing machines for
Buzz, and the best part is, both Buzz, and the majority of its machines
are freely available for download.
Unfortunately, in my opinion the interface suffers from a lack of
experience, and is counter-intuitive for many users. I personally found
that while I enjoy having a tracker interface to work with, the
shortcomings, especially the limited transport controls, detract from my
creativity.
It would be really nice if there was better support for MIDI
connectivity, and an intelligent audio/midi routing system. Also
missing is a graphical channel mixer. It would be nice to use those
nice Buzz effects as channel inserts, or auxiliary devices. It could
save us a bit of CPU power, and give us better control over the final
sound at the same time.
While Buzz makes no claim at being a virtual recording studio it
calls itself a digital composer, it is already well on its way, and it
would sure be nice if users had the option of recording, mixing, and
sequencing an entire composition using nothing but Buzz itself.
Of course, many users have jumped these hurtles without a hitch, and
swear by Buzz as the *only* tracker worth using. So whats my opinion?
If you havent seen it, GET IT. Its free, innovative, and so far, the
very deffinition of the new tracker generation.
That all sounds great, so are the real down sides? As a tracker, the
interface falls a bit short of what most of us are accustomed to. I
miss the alt+arrow key combinations for jumping from one track to the
next, transport controls and key combinations for playing *only* the
current pattern though you can solo the current machine with CTRL-L, I
prefer the looping pattern playback that other trackers provide, play
from current position, skip forward/skip back, etc... Another thing Id
like to do is edit multiple patterns side-by-side. A bass generator
track next to my drum kit, for example.
The pattern sequencer has similar flaws in the transport controls, as
well as being a fairly big pain to work with - few users will understand
what to do here without first consulting the documentation. Before you
can do anything in the sequencer, you have to hit CTRL-Enter and select
a machine. There is no visible documentation on the screen indicating
that you need to do this, so first time users if theyre like me and
avoid documentation until theyve played with something for a while and
cant figure it out will be at a total loss here.
Once you do bring up the instrument selection, youll see a list of
the machines that youve created patterns for. While you can use your
mouse to highlight a machine, double clicking does not select it. You
have to press Enter here. That done, a list of available patterns
appears on the right side of the screen. You can give each pattern a
descriptive name, which is nice, but as far as I can tell, the only way
to audition the pattern is to put it in your sequence list, and press
play.
While you can use your mouse to set the song position, and press
play, as far is I can tell, theres no keyboard command to play from the
current position. Fortunately, there are some neat features that almost
make up for the drawbacks here. For example, you can select a pattern,
and set start and end points to loop the pattern. If you use variable
pattern sizes, it wouldnt be hard to create some interesting cyclic
effects using this feature. Duplicating that effect would be
considerably more difficult in trackers like IT and FT2, requiring
considerable work if you want to do something as simple as to offset
your bassline cycle a little bit.. you would have to manually edit every
pattern involved. If you could set BPM and TPB for each individual
pattern, youd really have a lot of freedom to experiment!
You can, however, change BPM during the course of the song, by
editing Master patterns. These patterns control mix pan values for
your various instruments and effect returns, much like a real mixer -
however, they dont give you any aditional EQ or dynamics control, and,
of course, its the tracker interface - no way to set level sliders or
knobs or record mixer automation -- yet... creating smooth fades and
changes will take a lot of work and dedication for now. Thankfully,
there is a feature that allows you to interpolate between selected
values. What this means is that you can select a volume row, set the
start value, and the end value, hit CTRL-I, and have all the values in
between filled in for you. The only problem with that is that it is
strictly linear. It would be nice if we could adjust a curve shape, or
even set a follow path graphically. However, I have a feeling that this
feature is just a hint of the potential power Buzz has to offer.
The Wavetable editor is not immune to interface problems... sample
browsing could be simplified greatly if it was easier to set keyboard
focus where you want it to be. I know I personally prefer to keep my
hands on the keyboard at all times, if I can help it, using the mouse
for things that the mouse is good at, like editing envelopes, or
tweaking volumes or cut-off filters in a realtime preview mode. The
Wavetable loader has trouble with many common sample formats, including
many forms of .WAV files, so I hope you have a sample converter handy.
It seems to handle most of my .XI files without too much trouble, but it
is obvious here that Buzz tracker is still a young program with a long
way to go.
My favorite feature of the Wavetable is the ADSR editor. This by
itself is almost enough to make up for the shortcomings. Along with
allowing you to draw your own envelopes, the ADSR editor allows you to
select betwen linear and logarithmic control over each parameter, as
well as set the resolution the number of points between one parameter
and the next. Now if only we could assign those nice envelopes to
effect parameters from the machine list...
What really sets Buzz tracker apart from the rest of the crowd is the
machine setup screen. Here, you can choose from a variety of software
synths and effects processors, among which the sample tracker is only
one. There are many machine developers with their own homes on the web,
offering buzz machines free to download... some of them better than
others, but most of them worth at least checking out. As a matter of
fact, Buzz has enough software synths available that you can create
whole songs without ever using a single sample. Many people do just
that, and it sounds really good. The flexibility in machine routing is
really nice, allowing you to create all kinds of wild effects - Buzz
makes a terrific techno composer just for this reason.
In short, Buzz tracker gets my compliments for its many innovations,
flexibility, and power, but it never fails to leave me feeling like
there is much missing. Im sure that as it continues to evolve, that
feeling will begin to fade, but for now, its frustrating enough to send
me back to Impulse tracker for most of my tracking work.
On the other hand, Buzz is a very powerful program that allows to you
create soundscapes you can only dream about in other trackers. If you
havent tried it out, I urge you to at least download it - play with it
for a few days.. compose a few songs in it. Kick the tires. Many
people do this, and never look back. Maybe youll be one of them.
Buzz 1.2 is slated to be released shortly, and it looks like it will
add a host of new features, so chances are, a few of my current
complaints will no longer be issues in a short while. Slated features
include, among other things, presets, templates, better help files, and
new icons.
If you have any questions, tips tricks, or advice on using Buzz,
feel free to mail them to me at dilvie@yahoo.com. Ill try to answer
any questions, as well as post your tips in upcoming articles.
Thats it for now. You can find more info about Buzz at the
following URLs:
http://www.buzz2.com/
http://www.buzztrack.com/
--Dilvish
The Listener
Music from Carlos, Necros and more
By: Tryhuk
-- Giants steps musicdisk --
-- -- Carlos --
Music by Carlos is like a water. You would expect that it will flow
down only, but as you get to rapids it jumps up and down and it is so
living that you have to do your best to hold on and not to drown.
His new musicdisk again features what came out during the time since
the first beep musicdisk and it is again a lot jazzy. As I said,
Hungarians have sometimes very wild music and weird mood changes, and
for some people it is so incomprehensible, that they just cant get over
it. If you dont mind this wild style of changes, you may find out that
this musicdisk contains some very good tracks like Autumn, which is is
a sequel to Streets of Budapest and appears on the disk as the intro
song. Autumn naturally follows the original song, keeps the same
theme, main difference between the tracks is, that Autumn is much
calmer, it follows the same melody with almost same instruments, but in
completely different way which makes it interesting even for people who
know the original it also appears on the disk. Thats a sign of good
musician.
As the tracks go, style of the music changes many times, sometimes
its pure club jazz, sometimes it moves to funk and other styles and you
wont probably like all the tracks. But it sounds so real and living
that you can turn it on and imagine that youre sitting in some caffe
restaurant where Donau is beneath you. If you like jazz and missed some
of the tracks by Carlos, I recommend it to you.
Song Information:
Title: Giant Steps
Author: Carlos / Jecoute
Release date: march 2000
Length: 47m44s
Filename zipped/unzipped: giant.zip / many files
File Size zipped/unzipped: 8.5 mb / 17.5 kb
Source: http://jecoute.cjb.net
-- Ubik --
-- -- alpha conspiracy --
Its not usual to write about track from one artist in two
consecutive issues of any diskmag, but I just couldnt help myself,
because this track is so good.
Necros says that this track is an attempt to produce a track that
would mix sound of garage groups and electronica. Once it starts, it
sounds like a normal melodic, half ambient, repetitive electronic track
with a bit guitarish sound. But then comes the percussion with room
reverb and gives the track whole new, heavier sound, which is brighted
by the background fsol-like sounds. Drumline is quite simple and played
mostly on lowfreq percs which help to keep that heavy sound in
combination with other light sounding instruments. Through the whole
track goes one theme with small pauses only. This also helps to keep up
that garage group feeling and gives more space for mixing skills of
andy.
When Ive listened to it for the third time, it also reminded me on
Zodiac, whos tracks also have that mix of garage group sound and scene
alternative trax. Still, among those two attempts is a big difference
that cant be easily described and has to be heard.
Song Information:
Title: Ubik
Author: Alpha conspiracy
Release date: april 2000
Length: 4m13s
Filename: ubik.mp3
File Size: 4 mb
Source: http://www.alphaconspiracy.com
-- Other interesting tracks: --
First Park release is a melancholic EP which features 4 tracks
by amovevelvet, falcon and netpoet. It is a slow and melancholic music
for lazy afternoon. It has a bit triphop sound, mostly be the alternative
background sounds. Soft and nice.
park.planet-d.net parkallstars-melancholikep.zip 3mb april 2000
Also be sure to grab hq version of falcons tracks french connection,
an excellent mix of triphop, orchestral music and jazz. It has been
released through Aural Planet.
www.auralplanet.com Aural Planet - French Connection 7.235mb 2000
Live is fatal by Wayfinder is one of the current four releases
4/4/00 of a new group Azure which concentrates on making good trance
music. I have to say that Wayfinder is one of the few trance-making
musicians whom i respect and his latest azure releases only prove that he
is the best. If youre interested on tracking technique, check out hymn
1st release pattern 36 which contains a part of the original lead
sequence that has been saved into wav and then loaded again.
azure.zerion.com Az-02.mp3 5887 kb 5m00s
virtuel kaleidoskope is level-ds excellent multipurpose disk which
features 17 tracks however some of them were released before, 19 drawings
and some poems by ps. I would define style of this musicdisk as sweet
melancholic. Unfortunatelly some of the tracks/pictures are too sweet even
for me. Anyway there are also some really good pieces, so best way is to
grab tracks/pictures by your favourite musician/graphician.
vk.planet-d.net 22.305 mb all files packed april 2000
--Tryhuk
Retro Tunage
Nightvision by Sandman
By: Tryhuk
I wanted to write a retro about a track by a person who wasnt member
of FM or FC and Coplan came with idea of this song by Sandman.
Alexander Brandon aka Siren aka Sandman didnt appear in fm, but we
can say that he was a student of necros and he is also member of
Straylight, a commercial group which made music for games like Crusader
or Unreal. Other members of this group were necros, basehead still
active and leviathan if i remember it correctly. From this company
comes also his imho biggest success - game Unreal, where he cooperated
with Michiel Van Den Bos. Unreal was that large project, that some of
the scene releases had to appear in it and this song belongs among the
few elite.
Originaly it was released in 1996 as KFMF track and soon a package
with demostyle videoclip followed.
It opens with rhythmicaly very strong part with very bold percussion.
As the song goes, alex adds background sounds and lets them slowly take
over the song. Final state is almost ambient and this part also contains
the strongest theme of the lead. Both parts alternate in the song and
that is a strong technique - you get the rhythm, then you slowdown and
listen to a good melody and than you get again the tempo and run again.
It sounds that you wont have too much rest, but siren gives simpler
drumline into the beginning of each part and that produces effect of
half tempo, so you have enough time to adapt your hearbeat and song
sounds more smooth. That reminds me on recent song by moloko, where she
cuts from loud part and in the next silent sequence she fades in
bassdrum which hits perfectly like the heartbeat and then song continues
- very impressive technique.
You may easily find out that alex is very good musician with sense for
mood changes, extremely good leads and very good work with tempo. He
also belongs among those musicians who release only a small part of
their work and so you get to high quality tunes only and you can be sure
that you dont get any crap. If you like this song, get also his other
releases mostly kfmf and be sure to get his oracle musicdisk juni
production - coop with Sirus. It can be found at scene.org in musicdisk
section, I think.
Song Information:
Title: Nightvision
Author: Sandman Siren / KFMF
Release date: dec 1996
Length: 3m41s
Filename zipped/unzipped: ktv1296.zip / kvision.s3m
File Size zipped/unzipped: 505 kb / 575 kb
Source: www.kosmic.org - 1996 releases
--Tryhuk
Screen Lit Vertigo
Sleepless by Smash Designs party-version
By: Seven
Found at ftp.scene.org/pub/incoming/ms2000/demos
1st place at Mekka Symposium 2000
System requirements:
8.2 MB HD, no mentions about CPU-power or RAM guess: Pentium MMX
64MB Indoor Demo Music System used, so most sound vidcards
supported.
Test Machine: PII 350 64MB SB16, Win98 in dos-mode BOOTGUI 0
The demo:
Aha! Just as Im trying to buy a 3D-card You need a 3D-card that
still supports AGP 1.0 ? Im not sure ... silence, Smash Designs
brings us a demo with the message Software-rendering still rocks! And
I can only agree :. Last year Smash Designs won MS2000 with Event
Horizon, and now they do it again with Sleepless, a demo based on the
same improved engines. So this is again a heavy 3D DOS-demo, viewable
in every possible resolution and color depth, including the weird ASCII
C64 modes.
Warning: Sleepless is about 50 story, and the review contains spoilers.
So you may want to watch it first and read the review later.
The opening sequence looks like that of a cheap horror-movie: we move
through a forest of bare trees, at night under the full moon, with the
outline and the windows of an old mansion visible in the distance. The
credits are shown while some typical slow, dark movie-music plays, with
violins and cymbals going crescendo. It feels a bit cliche, but it gets
you in the mood. Next we see a room inside the mansion, filled with
antique furniture and a fireplace, and a man in a black suit, reading
an ancient book. With a sudden crash, one of the windows is blown open,
even though it is a push-up window. The man closes it, but then more
strange things start to happen: the pendulum starts to turn backwards,
the books of the library fly away from the shelves, and at the end the
man is floating around too.
Here the story-based 3D sequence is abandoned for more normal
demo-effects: bump-mapped tunnels with a morphing blob, a phong-shaded
hand under an invisible spotlight, casting animal-like shadows on the
wall, and a tree with visible rays of light, again casting a shadow.
Also the music changes from a movie-soundtrack + sound-FX to a
happier demo-tune.
For the non-coders:
Shadows are much harder to calculate than illumination like phong or
gouraud shading. That is because not only do you have to check every
poly against every lightsource N*M operations, but you also have to
check if there is another poly between them N*N*M operation. But you
can fake shadows by not letting objects cast shadows on themselves,
only on a background. That way you can draw the objects as usual, and
you need to calculate the shadows only when drawing the background.
These half-shadows are the ones used here.
The screen stays black for some seconds while the next part is
loaded. Its a new 3D-sequence, of a girl in a modern apartment, waking
up and opening the curtains. There are some nice faked light-effects,
like the LEDS of the alarm clock and the sun shining through the
curtains. The girl is dressed in underwear only, what else did you
expect in a demo? When she looks in a large mirror, she notices that
the sheets on the bed in the mirror float in the air, while those in
the real world are still lying on the bed. So the mirror-world differs
from the real world, and she walks through the mirror, into outer space
between the start, the sun and the earth. Quite psychedelic, he?
We zoom in on the Earth, which is rather ugly textured. Theres a
cross-fade into a voxel-scape of islands with changing level-of-detail:
the voxels closer to the camera are more detailed then those at the
horizon. The bad side is that the edge between maximum and lesser
detail is quite visible. Also an ugly peak is visible at the corner
where the height-map wraps around. After another cross-fade the girl is
sitting in a rowing boat on the sea. The movements of the boat and the
waves are fairly realistic.
After some more loading black screen! boo! the last part comes up:
the interior of a 3D temple, where the man the girl meet each other.
The contrast made me laugh: the man with red tie, white shirt and sharp
black suit, the girl in her 2-piece underwear. Very demo-style, yes :.
They are holding hands while several colored particle-streams rotate
around them, a la Tribes. Then we zoom out of a TV-set showing these
images, into the apartment of the girl thats watching the TV. Again
this gives me a deja-vu Moai/Nomad, f.e.
Overall:
Sleepless is a story-based 3D-demo, so some people will find it boring
after watching it once. Thats a matter of taste. But nobody can deny
that this demo is very good technically. The 3D engine is very advanced
and pretty fast. It runs still smooth in 512*384, only in 640*400 some
parts start to slow down. OK, all the 3D freaks with their GE-force
cards are now laughing, but not everyone has a 3D-card yet :. About
the models: Smash Designs choose to use human characters, which are of
course more interesting then static objects or camera rides through
empty rooms, but they are also far more difficult to animate realistic.
I think they did it above average, although its clearly no
motion-captured quality. The main bad point are the motionless faces,
its hard to feel anything for a character with the emotional
expression of a stone. I think thats the next step, animated faces
will make demos a good deal more realistic then better skeleton-based
animation. The soundtrack is an important factor in the atmosphere of
this demo. Especially in the 3D-sequences when there is no music, the
sound of footsteps, the wind and the cracks of the fire really push you
into the right feeling. Apart from the symphonic intro, the tunes are
normal demo music with synths, drums, bells and the like, and a good
rhythm/melody mix. The only thing I missed were pictures. There are
some small pictures of OK quality, but the two 5-second breaks during
the loading of the next part would have been a perfect occasion to show
a full-screen image. Overall Sleepless is a very enjoyable demo, well
worth the 7.7 MB download.
--Seven
Intro Watch
Tac2 by Tazadum Final Version
By: Gekko
64k intro
winner at Trax 2000 Sweden
Download:
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/2000/trax2000/in64/taztac2-refinal2.zip
Requirements:
- MMX
- 64 Mb RAM
- Windows 95 or newer
- DirectX: 640x480, 24 or 32 bits/pixel mode
Credits:
Demol - programming
Zeal - programming
Claw - programming
Sombie - graphics
Steffo - music
The previous release of Tazadum was Fiesta Mexicana Dreamhack 1999.
That is an average one the code is not bad, but the intro itself is
quite ugly, to be honest. After that one this intro was a surprise, at
least for me.
TAC 2 is a very fine intro. Every little detail is fine-tuned. The
music is a good chiptune-like song. The video is kept together with it
very neatly. One specific style follows through the whole intro: high
resolution with a movie type wide screen, flat shaded 3d objects,
randomly fading horizontal lines and fine colors fitting each other.
There is a small poem going on line by line.
There are a lot of effects, including rather complex ones, too, like
raytracing or 3d morphing. Still, the intro does not look just simply
like a sequence of effects - the music and the design connects them very
well.
TAC 2 does not show revolutionary ideas, but it is very beautiful in
every aspect. This is the way an intro should look like in 2000.
--Gekko
Intro Watch
Mekka 2000 Intro Reviews
By: Gekko
Mekka 2000 party Germany was held in 21-24th April 2000 - in two
weeks time. Here is a quick review on the intro releases. These are
based on my very first impressions it can happen that I could not get
something for the first few times I watched them. The order of the
intros reflect my own opinion.
I tried to find out the nationalities of the authors, too, although I
was unsure in some cases. These intros were made in various places of
the world from this it is obvious that Mekka 2000 was not just a
local German party at all.
Download:
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/party/2000/MEKKASYMPOSIUM2000/...
-- 64kb intro competition --
Heaven 7
by Exceed Hungary
result at Mekka 2000: 1/9 winner
req: DOS, GUS + Windows version
Heaven 7 is an amazing intro. The number 7 in the title is an
allusion to the famous intro Bakkslide 7, which, as they state, gave
much inspiration to the authors. Still, Heaven Seven is completely
different. A nice tune gives the background, while there is a poem being
shown line by line. The whole screen is in a constant movement the
effects and the lines of the poem continually zoom and fade. There are
very spectacular effects, most of them are particles or raytracing -
with Picards extreamly fast engine. The two most impressive ones are
the opening part, where a human figure made up of particles is running
in the light and a raytracing effect, a kind of morphing fractal made
up of spheres. There are several annoying grammar mistakes in the poem,
which substract much of the pathos of the production I hope these will
be corrected in the final version.
Plainwork
by Unik Germany
result at Mekka 2000: 8/9
req: Windows 95, DirectX
This is a very fine intro. The design is similar to Whiskers intros
everything is minimal: flat shaded objects, plain squares, and so on.
Neither of the effects are original, but all are beautiful the colors
are in order, too. A-move wrote a fine song which fits in the intro
well.
Some bookprint and a broken heart
by Replay Sweden
result at Mekka 2000: 3/9
req: Windows 95, DirectX
This is another intro by Whisker very minimal: white background with
a few flat shaded 3d objects. Besides these there is a kind of
caleidoscope effect. In the centre of the intro there is a poem. This is
meaningful - deep, I would say unlike the previous Replay intros. It is
about loss of love and misunderstanding.
Boys
by Funktion Sweden
result at Mekka 2000: 4/9
req: Windows 95, DirectX
Yet another intro by Whisker, Boys has hardly any connection to its
title. It has a minimalist style there are flat shaded 3d objects,
circles, and similar effects. The tune is typical of Chavez, with heavy
bass drums. These together make a good intro.
Genesis
by Magic Dreams Germany
result at Mekka 2000: 5/9
req: Windows 95, DirectX 7 3d video card
The code is fine there is a quite good 3d engine with additional
effects like shadows and reflection. There are many 3d scenes, although
there is no story or any connection among them. The textures are
beautiful there are no still pictures. The music is not bad, but it is
nothing special.
Matrix
by Agravedict Poland
result at Mekka 2000: 2/9
req: DOS only, SB
This intro is about some silly thoughts on the film Matrix. The
music is a demotune not bad, but it is very repetitive and gets
boring after a time. There is a raytracer, a rather complex 3d engine
and transparent light spots. The code is quite good, but the design is
not. The colors are weird. The green color of the letters does not fit
anything else in the intro.
Falco - The Space Runner
by Cryogen Poland
result at Mekka 2000: 9/9
req: DOS, GUS + Windows version
I felt although I may be wrong that it is a typical wanna-be-Jizz
intro. The effects, the music and the design indicate this. The music is
a psychadelic trance chiptune - probably the case is that the coders
had no software synthetiser but the musician was expected to make a
Jizz-like song in a few kilobytes. The intro is very colorful too
colorful, in fact this is due to the generated textures. There are
several bitmap effects and environment-mapped 3d objects. The intro has
a kind of theme, as the name suggests, but it is not really clear for
me. There is a flying spaceship and a still picture of a robot I could
not make up anything sensible from these. All in all, this intro is not
really coherent and lacks style but the code is rather good. It is not
a bad intro.
Butterbestellen
by Tum and Colorfast Germany
result at Mekka 2000: 6/9
req: Windows 95, DirectX, OpenGL 3d video card
It is a 3d effect intro, without any story or theme. The graphics and
the music are mediocre. The design is weak, the colors are strange and
do not fit each other. It kept flickering - but it can happen that it is
just my machines fault. Still there are a few good or above-average
effects, for example a morphing cylinder. I think that the authors are
new to the scene if this is the case then this intro was a good start.
Destination: nowhere
by INTerror Poland
result at Mekka 2000: 7/9
req: 32 MB RAM, DOS only, GUS or SB
It is a typical intro. In my opinion the musician attempts to copy
Jizz. The design is terrible. The colors are almost random. There is one
still picture of a man holding a bottle - it is ugly and does not fit
into the intro. The code is rather good. There are mountains and rivers
in the 3d scenes although they look very artificial. There are the
usual effects like transparent light spots. In the last effect the
screen is tiled up and all the previous effects are shown in the little
tiles. It is not bad, but it reminds me to Boost 2 by Doomsday.
--Gekko
Scene Dirt
News Rumors
By: Coplan
As per recomendation of Psychic Symphony/Demojournal, I am going to
include tidbits from his news breifs in this section in addition to
other sorts of news that I dig up. So, to many of you who read both
mags, some of this might not be news.
-- First issue of Planet Chartsmag --
First issue of Planet Chartsmag is out. Find it at
ftp://amber.bti.pl/incoming/ also soon on scene.org or direct from
http://www.agravedict.art.pl/planet/
-- Arf!Studios News Server --
Arf!studios has created a news server to cut back on the spam
happening with the big associates discussions on the mailing list:
http://news.arfstudios.org
http://www.arfstudios.org
-- Song Rip at Mekka 2000 --
A person, so-called BZZ e-mail address zbatky@apcc.com stole a song
by the famous Hungarian scener jazz musician Carlos/Mandula. This song
was the soundtrack of the Rage 1998 winner demo Dis. This person entered
the tune under his own name to the alternative music competition of
Mekka 2000 jazzy.zip. The organizers did not realize this cheating. To
make things even more complicated, Carlos also entered his new song
there, Autumn in Budapest autumn.zip read review by Tryhuk in this
issue. This song ranked 10th while the other won!
-- Hornet Is Back --
Last month, Hornet Archive appeared to have lost its Domain. But,
have no fear, for those of you still useing their wonderful search
engine to search through oldskool works, the Hornet Archive is back
online under its old Domain. Thank God this section is News and
Rumors
--Coplan
Scene Dirt is a semi-regular column offering the latest tidbits of
information to its readers. If you have any bits of information that
you think should be here, contact coplan coplan.ic@rcn.com and offer
as much information as possible.
Call to Keyboards
Wrapup: The Fall of Another Great SceneMag
New Topic: Demoparties Required
By: Coplan
-- Wrap Up: The Fall of Another Great SceneMag --
Eino Keskitalos Reply:
Someone asked me the other day when was the last time I released a
tune. So I jumped on my FTP server and checked: October 1999. In
fact, I only released four songs in 1999. That is way below average,
im sure. So, then the person in-turn asked why I dont make any
effort to promote the scene. So, I explained that I publish Static
Line, and he responded: Since when was a magazine contribution?
If you put it that way, the only sensible answer is: A monthly
newsletter of quality is sooo much more a contribution than an average
unheard tune lost in the depths of Trax in space or Mod Archive.
ASCII textfile is the least discriminating scene product in regards
of for example, processing power or equipment.
--Eino Keskitalo
eino.keskitalo@purkki.mbnet.fi
Sevens Reply:
Hi, Sevens keyboard again: As a writer for Static line and the former
version of DemoJournal, I can assure you that a diskmag DEFINITELY is a
contribution to the demoscene Grin. The point I wanted to make: diskmags
are not just a mean of communication, they are also archives of the
demo-scene history.
My first contact with the scene was via the PC underground book,
which came with a CD with demos and one issue of Imphobia. The demos
blew me away, but reading Imphobia 7 really showed me the community of
sceners behind the demos. When I got the Hornet CD, I read all 122
issues of DemoNews on it, and that way I learned the major trends and
events that happened years before. For example, everyone knows that
Future Crew made the fantastic Second Reality demo, that won Assembly
93. But how many people know that Future Crew, as the PC organizers of
Assembly93, changed the compo-machine to a more powerful CPU,
presumably because Second Reality needed it? And that there was aproblem
with the SoundBlaster Pro, playing only in mono, except for the last
demo Second Reality which used a lot of stereo effects? I know that
articles are not always 100 true, so you have to be careful about what
you believe, but now I understand why some people think so negatively
about Future Crew. For a newbie, this kind of knowledge is near to
impossible to get just by reading newsgroups or chatting on IRC. The
only way is to read old diskmags, something that I encourage everyone to
do : Seven out.
--Seven
Stefaan.VanNieuwenhuyze@rug.ac.be
-- New Topic: Demoparties Required --
Dont jump to conclusions, Im not debating about the existance of
Demoparties. However, Im debating the reasons for attendance. I guess
this time, CTK is a bit of a personal exploration.
I have never been to a demoparty. Never!
I have also never heard anyone complain about me never attending. I
am hoping that one day, I will attend one *Cough* Coma people, decide
on a date, please. But I guess the question is -- what am I or any
other person missing?
Again, im not questioning the existance of such. And Im sure its
a good time. But what I want people to do with this months CTK is to
fill everyone in on why YOU like to go to demoparties. Do you have fun?
Were you dissapointed? Do you attend them regularly because you cant
get enough? Are they essential to the personal understanding of The
Scene? Why or why not?
Okay, a short topic, but Im curious. Im sure many others are as
well.
--Coplan
Link List
Featured Site: Demonews Express
http://www.teeselink.demon.nl/express
Writeup By: Coplan
This is a pretty cool little site I happened upon the other day.
Essentially, the site is nothing but a customizable frame that allows
you to define your own links within a pull-down menu. It will then
display the selected site in the lower frame.
It can be used for almost anything, but since the default settings are
for Scene News sites, well mention it.
Featured Site: Goodstuff
http://www.artloop.de/goodstuff
Writeup By: Tryhuk
Goodstuff is a site, which seeks out good songs. Sometimes, even
every day, you can find there a link and comments on a new tune and
because the songs are selected by a-move, andromeda, jazz, kenny
beltrey, netpoet, velvet, argus and xenon, you can be sure that youll
find here only a good stuff. Go now.
Featured Site: Noerror
http://www.error-404.com/noerror/
Writeup By: Tryhuk
Noerror is a new site with most fresh music news. Must visit for
every scene music lover.
Featured Site: Fabtrax
http://www.cyberverse.com/boris/fabtrax/home.htm
Writeup By: Tryhuk
fabtrax doesnt care necessarily about most fresh releases, but it
contains reviews of all time legends, links and info. Needs a lot of
work to be done, but it looks good and if youre new to the scene, it
is surely interesting place to visit.
Featured Site: Music Massage
http://www.scene.cz/massage
Writeup By: Tryhuk
Massage is a module review show which features every 2 weeks eight
carefully selected non-mp3 tracks. Heres a part of manifesto:
To spread good music. thats my goal. Im trying to support you,
the listeners, with high quality modules. Its simple. I give
you the latest productions as well as oldskool mods. But its top
class music, no boring shit. Im searching through the net. Well
known labels as well as new stars.
I think that after seeing/hearing 8 issues i can say that adamm has a good
taste and I can recommend this magazine to people who are interested also
in music labels like CBR, Kyoto republic, Rebound and other.
Groups:
3g Design..............................http://3gdesign.cjb.net
Aardbei.....................................http://aardbei.com
Acid Rain..............................http://surf.to/acidrain
Agravedict........................http://www.agravedict.art.pl
Anakata..............................http://www.anakata.art.pl
ANDESA Soft International..................http://andesa.da.ru
Astral..............................http://astral.scene-hu.com
Astroidea........................http://astroidea.scene-hu.com
AtomiK....................................http://atomik.ini.hu
Bomb..................................http://bomb.planet-d.net
BlaBla..............................http://blabla.planet-d.net
Blasphemy..............................http://www.blasphemy.dk
Byterapers.....................http://www.byterapers.scene.org
Calodox.................................http://www.calodox.org
Chrome..............................http://chrome.scene-hu.com
CoPro.....................................http://www.copro.org
Damage...................................http://come.to/damage
Dance...................................http://dance.flipp.net
Defacto 2..............................http://www.defacto2.net
Dolops......................... ........http://dolOps.scene.hu
Exceed...........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/exceed
Fobia Design...........................http://www.fd.scene.org
GODS...................................http://www.idf.net/gods
Green.....................................http://green.dyns.cx
Grif........................http://arrabonet.gyor.hu/rattgrif
Haujobb......................................http://haujobb.de
Hellcore............................http://www.hellcore.art.pl
IJSKAST.............................http://www.ijskast.cjb.net
Immortals..............................http://imrt.home.ml.org
Infuse...................................http://www.infuse.org
Just For Fun...........................http://jff.planet-d.net
Kilobite...............................http://kilobite.cjb.net
Kolor................................http://www.kaoz.org/kolor
Kooma.....................................http://www.kooma.com
Label zero.........................http://labelzero.pganet.com
Mandula.........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/mandula
Monar................ftp://amber.bti.pl/pub/scene/distro/monar
Nextempire..................http://members.xoom.com/NEXTEMPIRE
Ninja Gefilus.........http://www.angelfire.com/or/ninjagefilus
Noice.....................................http://www.noice.org
Orion..............................http://orion.arfstudios.org
Quad........................................http://www.quad.nl
Rage........................................http://www.rage.nu
Replay.......................http://www.shine.scene.org/replay
Retro A.C...........................http://www.retroac.cjb.net
Rhyme................................http://rhyme.scene-hu.com
Skytech team............................http://www.skytech.org
Sunflower.......................http://sunflower.opengl.org.pl
Suspend......................http://www.optimus.wroc.pl/rappid
Tehdas...................................http://come.to/tehdas
Tesko..........................http://www.scentral.demon.co.uk
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.ca.tc
Universe..........................http://universe.planet-d.net
Vantage..................................http://www.vantage.ch
Music:
Aisth.....................................http://www.aisth.com
Aural planet........................http://www.auralplanet.com
Azure..................................http://azure.zerion.com
Blacktron Music Production...........http://www.d-zign.com/bmp
Chill..........................http://www.bentdesign.com/chill
Chippendales......................http://www.sunpoint.net/cnd
Chiptune...............................http://www.chiptune.com
Da Jormas................................http://www.jormas.com
* Fabtrax......http://www.cyberverse.com/boris/fabtrax/home.htm
Five Musicians.........................http://www.fm.scene.org
Fridge...........................http://www.ssmedion.de/fridge
Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff
Ignorance.............................http://www.ignorance.org
Immortal Coil.............................http://www.ic.L7.net
Intense...........................http://intense.ignorance.org
Jecoute.................................http://jecoute.cjb.net
Kosmic Free Music Foundation.............http://www.kosmic.org
Level-d.................................http://www.level-d.com
Miasmah.............................http://www.miasmah.cjb.net
Milk.......................................http://milk.sgic.fi
Mah Music.............................http://come.to/mah.music
Maniacs of noise...............http://home.worldonline.nl/mon
MAZs Sound homepage.............http://www.th-zwickau.de/maz
Moplayaz..........................http://ssmedion.de/moplayaz
Mono211.................................http://www.mono211.com
Morbid Minds..............http://www.raveordie.com/morbidminds
Noise................................http://www.noisemusic.org
* Noerror......................http://www.error-404.com/noerror/
One Touch Records......................http://otr.planet-d.net
Park..................................http://park.planet-d.net
Radical Rhythms.....http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/merrelli/rr
RBi Music.............................htpp://www.rbi-music.com
Ruff Engine................http://members.xoom.com/ruffengine
SHR8M......................................http://1st.to/shr8m
Sound Devotion................http://sugarbomb.x2o.net/soundev
Soundstate.........................http://listen.to/soundstate
Sunlikamelo-D...........http://www.error-404.com/sunlikamelo-d
Suspect Records........................http://www.tande.com/sr
Tequila........................http://www.defacto2.net/tequila
Tempo................................http://tempomusic.cjb.net
Theralite...........................http://theralite.avalon.hr
Tokyo Dawn Records........................http://tdr.scene.org
UltraBeat.........................http://www.innerverse.com/ub
Vibrants................................http://www.vibrants.dk
Wiremaniacs.........................http://www.wiremaniacs.com
Others:
Arf!Studios..........................http://www.arfstudios.org
Calodox demolinks exchange.....http://calodox.planet-d.net/cde
coders..................................http://coderz.cjb.net
Comic Pirates.........................http://scene-central.com
* Demonews Express.........http://www.teeselink.demon.nl/express
Demo fanclub........................http://jerware.org/fanclub
Demoscene.org news forum..............http://www.demoscene.org
Digital Undergrounds.....................http://dug.iscool.net
Doose charts...............................http://www.doose.dk
Dreams2 CD.........................http://nl.scene.org/dreams2
Freax...................http://freax.scene-hu.com/mainmenu.htm
GfxZone............................http://gfxzone.planet-d.net
Hugi size-compo...............http://home.pages.de/hugi-compo
Orange Juice.........................http://ojuice.citeweb.net
PC-demos explained.....http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained
Pixel...................................http://pixel.scene.org
Scenet....................................http://www.scenet.de
Sunray..............................http://sunray.planet-d.net
Swiss List.................http://www.profzone.ch/vantage/list
Swiss Scene Server.......................http://www.chscene.ch
TakeOver................................http://www.takeover.nl
Textmode Demo Archive.................http://tmda.planet-d.net
Hungarian scene page...................http://www.scene-hu.com
Trebel...................................http://www.trebel.org
Zen of Tracking.........................http://surf.to/the-imm
DiskMags / SceneMags:
Amber...............................http://amber.bti.pl/dimag
Amnesia...............http://amnesia-dist.future.easyspace.com
Demojournal....................http://demojournal.planet-d.net
Dragon......................http://www.wasp.w3.pl/pages/dragon
Fleur................................http://fleur.scene-hu.com
Heroin...................................http://www.heroin.net
Hugi........................http://home.pages.de/hugidownload
* Music Massage......................http://www.scene.cz/massage
* Planet Chartmag...........http://www.agravedict.art.pl/planet/
Pain..................................http://pain.planet-d.net
Scenial...........................http://www.scenial.scene.org
Static Line......................http://www.ic.l7.net/statline
Total Disaster...................http://www.totaldisaster.w.pl
TUHB.......................................http://www.tuhb.org
WildMag...........................http://www.wildmag.notrix.de
FTPs:
Amber.......................................ftp://amber.bti.pl
Cyberbox.....................................ftp://cyberbox.de
Flerp.....................................ftp://flerp.scene.hu
Scene.org..................................ftp://ftp.scene.org
Skynet archive.................ftp://acid2.stack.nl/pub/skynet
ACiD2 Archive.............................ftp://acid2.stack.nl
Editor: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan.ic@rcn.com
Assistant Editor: Gekko / Gergely Kutenich / gk@scene.hu
Columnists: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan.ic@rcn.com
Dilvish / Eric Hamilton / dilvie@yahoo.com
Gekko / Gergely Kutenich / gk@scene.hu
Louis Gorenfeld / gorenfeld@vrone.net
Setec / Jesper Pederson / jesped@post.tele.dk
Seven / Stefaan / Stefaan.VanNieuwenhuyze@rug.ac.be
SiN / Ian Haskin / sin@netcom.ca
Subliminal / Matt Friedly / sub@plazma.net
Tryhuk / Tryhuk Vojtech / xtryhu00@stud.fee.vutbr.cz
Virt / virt@bellsouth.net
Technical Consult: Draggy / Nicolas St. Pierre / draggy@kosmic.org
Jim / Jim Nicholson / jim@kosmic.org
Static Line on the Web: http://www.ic.l7.net/statline
ftp://flerp.scene.hu/scene/DiskMag/StaticLine
To subscribe to the Static Line mailing list, send an e-mail message
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If you would like to contribute an article to Static Line, be aware
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See you next month!
-eof---------------------
// Monthly Scene E-Zine 126 Subscribers
Table Of Contents
Opening:
Message From the Editor
Letters From Our Readers
Features:
Mekka Symposium 2000 Results
Columns:
Music:
In Tune -- Wayfinders Hymn
Inside the Virtual Studio -- Buzz Tracker
The Listener -- Music From Carlos, Necros and more
Retro Tunage -- Nightvision by Sandman
Demo:
Screen Lit Vertigo -- Sleepless by Smash Designs
Intro Watch -- Tac2 by Tazadum Final Version
Intro Watch -- Mekka 2000 Intro Reviews
General:
Scene Dirt -- News Rumors
Call to Keyboards -- Demoparties Required
Link List -- Get Somewhere in the Scene
Closing:
Credits
Message From the Editor
Wow, what a busy month! I cant speak for everyone, but finals are
almost over. I took a break to throw this together for you all -- not
that anyone can just THROW this together anymore. Its getting big, is
it not? Nothing wrong with that. Anyhow, this months issue is a few
days early because of finals.
Good job spreading the word folks! We have 14 new readers, bringing
us to a total of 126 readers. Keep spreading the word, and sharing our
issues.
This month, we got a lot in here. For one, Mekka just ended not too
long ago, and we have a whole bunch of tidbits about that competition.
We have an abridged form of the results, and a few demo reviews and song
reviews related to it as well.
Dilvish is back! You didnt really think hed stay away that long,
did you? Well, its not his Zen column, but hes providing us with
tidbits of information about the Virtual Studio, this month, he
covers Buzz Tracker.
We are growing quite nicely...but I wouldnt mind haveing a few more
non-review columns in here. Maybe a few interviewers, or something
else? If youre interested in joining staff, contact me.
--Coplan
Letters From Our Readers
-- Letter from Eggbird --
Static line rules. but with this boost in size now that dj kinda
cooled down a bit, why not change to bi-weekly instead of monthly?
--Eggbird
egbert@teeselink.demon.nl
- Reply from Coplan:
Its funny that you should mention that. With Static Line growing in
size, that is definitely an option. Static Line started as a Monthly
Magazine so we could maintain both Quality and Content. But, if Content
has increased to this level, it is very possible that we may switch to a
bi-weekly magazine. What does everyone else think?
--Coplan
Mekka Symposium 2000 Results
Abridged Version
Prepared By: Coplan
The following results account for only the top three placements in
each category of Mekka 2000. For the general public, the complete
listings are not necessarily that meaningful. If you would like to view
the complete results, they can be found at the following web address:
http://ms.demo.org/2000/final-re.txt
Wild
1 Bitte 8 Bit Hitmen
2 Metro Tomac / Suburban
3 Hau Strange Haujobb
SID Music
1 Chaos 2000 DJB GRG
2 Freak-Show Alien/WoW/Surprise Productions
3 Logical Control/dIGITAL
Progressive Music
1 Morning Light wayfinder
2 The Joss Tune phred
3 Morning Star - remix Netpoet / Park
PlayStation Demo
1 Strange Worlds Haujobb
2 Monophobia Witchcraft
3 Mups - The Demo Silvia, Soraya Jan of Mups
Pixel Gfx
1 Jesus 2000 Acryl/Scoopex,Haujobb
2 Evil in me Raven/Nuance
3 Deep Throat Bifrost of Loonies
PC Demo
1 Sleepless Smash Designs
2 Mikro Strange Haujobb
3 Nature Suxx Federation Against Nature
PC 64K Intro
1 Heaven Seven Exceed
2 Matrix Addict
3 Some bookprint
and a broken heart Replay
PC 4K Intro
1 Toasty Freestyle
2 Meuk Ritz/Revolution
3 SuperQuadric KILLER/NEXTEMPIRE
MP3 Music
1 Brother In The Sky Chromag / Haujobb
2 Sommerparty Virgill
3 Record Royale wayfinder
Fast Intro
1 Jobbsuche Pap Skyrunner
2 Da Krisch Plack Thorax
3 HaujobbJaujop Fuzzion
C64 Graphis
1 Oppa Roxx Rayden/Breeze/Cyberpunx
2 Rider JailBird/Tempest/Padua
3 cyclone de linterieur Cyclone
C64 Demo
1 Deus Ex Machina Crest
2 +H2K Plush
3 T4 SDS
C64 4K Intro
1 +H4K Krill, Caprice, Fanta
2 Matrix The Movie - Intro
Cover Allitaice/SCS-TRC Top Secret/WOW/Cult
3 My Vision TUM
Amiga Demo
1 Cybercinematastic Loonies
2 Back to the roots Haujobb
3 First Awakening Creative Minds
Amiga 64K Intro
1 Gift Gush2 Potion
2 Strange Distortion Craid-Hellfire-SolarC-Roz
3 Omnicrom Loaderror / Ephidrena
Amiga 4K Intro
1 Bier Loaderror/Ephidrena
2 Wave 2000 Azure Platon
3 Art Of 4k Shape/DCS+Kure/RNO
Alternative Music
1 Ive A Jazzy Feeling BZZ !FAKE! STOLEN FROM CARLOS/MANDULA
2 Break Down Baby Chromag of Haujobb
3 Nine Millimeter Virgill
Alternative Gfx
1 Sakraler Monumentalbau Shadow / Digital Overflow
2 Hope Strange Inferno / Haujobb
3 Synthetic Heaven JCS / Haujobb
32K Game
1 t32 Myth
2 Pong 32K Freestyle
3 Duzzle Dobble Mr. Van / Secretly
In Tune
Wayfinders Hymn
By: Coplan and Setec
-- Introduction --
Well, its been a while, but I promised myself I would review
Wayfinders somewhat latest tune from Azure: Hymn. I was on trax
one night, and I heard someone mention that a new group, Azure, was out
there, so I went to check it out. Low and behold, the first tune from
the group was written by co-founder Wayfinder. Ive reviewed tunes from
Wayfinder in the past, and so I decided to grab it. Just happens that
Setec also grabbed the tune, and we both like it. So, Wayfinder is now
one of the few people that has had more than one formal review in Static
Line. Hope no-one minds trust me, you shouldnt.
-- Coplan --
First let me look at the surface of the tune, before I get into the
technical aspects of the entire trance peice. I am not one that is very
good at classifying music just ask Setec how many times I called some
of his music Trance when in fact it wasnt. But, with the creation of
Azure, Im starting to at least understand a bit more about trance.
What difference is it to me, I know that I like a lot of it, and
Hymn by Wayfinder is no exception.
I must say, this is another one of those songs that I feel I need to
move to. Maybe its the static base drum beat in the background. In
many cases, I dont like the boom-boom-boom-boom-ba-boom of the base
drums in music that I listen to, but I have noticed that in a few songs
it works very nicely. This is one of them. Ive decided that it has a
lot to do with the supporting music. Listen to the base line -- its
easier to hear at the beginning of the song. I think thats the key,
the base line seems to add an additional depth to the song.
Lets add more layers shall we? What about all those acids in the
background, and all those strings on occasion, and the rest of the
percussion? This song has quite a nice subtle mix of just about
everything there, and Wayfinder has given a lot of attention to each.
Dont let the base drum fool you, the percussion is actually quite well
done. It is simple things such as cutting the base drum out on
occasion, and having ride cymbols pop in when were at a peak moment in
the song. But, the boy knows how to take breaks when needed. We cant
have every moment in the song traveling with full-frontal-motion. We
gotta get some variety in there.
Now, all that isnt enough for me to love the dynamics of a song.
Mind you, for me, I can have a lot of respect for the dymanics of a
song, but I dont necessarily like the song. The same hold true the
other way, I may like a song, but that doesnt mean its technically
amazing. This song obviously demonstrates a bit more than tracking.
After talking with Wayfinder one night on trax, I discovered that he
sequenced all the acids and the leads apart from the tracker. Its a
good thing I talked to him, because I might just assume that he ripped
his samples from some existing song -- recording and clipping as
necessary. But thats not the case. And when I go back and listen to
all his lead samples, and his acid samples, theres no way he couldve
done the method I had initially thought. There was a great deal of
time put into the sequencing of those little blocks of audio bits.
After talking to Dilvish and Setec a lot these days, I must say, this
is starting to become a not so uncommon method of creating tunes. I am
starting to sway that direction myself, simply because the quality is
incredible compared to what I can do with a tracker alone.
As I finish up, let me remind you that you should probably follow up
on some of the groups that youre buddies are affiliated with. Azure
has a few new songs up there, including one from Tawan a guest writer
titled Fantasy. It is definately worth checking out.
--Coplan
-- Setec --
Wayfinder recently announced the founding of a new music group -
Azure - entirely centered on making trance music. This piece, Hymn, is
the first release for the group and has been crafted by Wayfinder
himself.
I will try to make this review as based on techique as I can, since I
really do not enjoy the style particularly. And techincally this is a
marvelous piece. The sample quality and overall mixing is splendid and
could well be a professionally mastered single of sorts.
It starts off with your off-the-shelf standard four on four trance
beat, only in this tune it actually sounds quite good. And naturally all
of it is blended with a single bass on the upbeats. No news here. :
But then comes a really tasty distorted 303-like sound that lays
neatly somewhere in the back of the mix. This transcends into a nice
nifty chord progression that moves along quietly for a while until the
wellknown machine gun snare hits and a no-drum section enters, with a
quite nice progression and later on a REALLY great synth lead section
with loads of good filtering. This of course brings back the percussion
and bass and moves along with the chorus of the track, being that
previously mentioned chord progression and synth lead.
Then all of the sudden it breaks into a drums only part that slowly
brings back that distorted 303 riff and later on the chords once more. I
kinda felt like the whole thing basically just repeated at this point. I
wouldve really liked to have seen some more flavour added to this
second time around. Like a layered beat on top, more sounds, whatever.
Something to distinguish the second time from the first.
The track goes into the main chorus part again, with no further
change in anything but the time it is played in. This continues for a
while and then breaks into only drums and bass once more, slowly fading
out and then climbing into a final cymbal hit.
This is a really hard piece for me to comment on, because I can truly
enjoy the techique and admire the overall sound of the piece. On the
other hand, it is just plain too dull for my liking. The chord
progression used is good, the synth lead is awesome, it is not that. It
is just that it does not alter at all throughout the piece. I am not
sure if this is just what trance is all about and whether I am just
being an arse. I just dont enjoy it after a few listens. More spice,
Wayfinder. Add a b-part to keep the attention of the listener for more
than one go at the main part. As it is now it is like a two minute track
repeated two times. Well-crafted, extraordinarily mixed, but a tad too
dull ...
It is still worth a download though. Especially if you usually dig
trance ...I am actually looking forward to the next release by Azure.
--Setec
Song Information:
Title: Hymn
Author: Wayfinder
Filename zipped/unzipped: az-01.zip / az-01.it IT 2.14
File Size zipped/unzipped: 3.4 MB / 3.8 MB
Source: http://azure.zerion.com
Alternate: http://ic.l7.net/statline/current.html
In Tune is a regular column dedicated to the review of original and
singular works by fellow trackers. It is to be used as a tool to expand
your listening and writing horizons, but should not be used as a general
rating system. Coplans and Setecs opinions are not the opinions of
the Static Line Staff.
If you have heard a song you would like to recommend either your own,
or another persons, We can be contacted through e-mail useing the
addresses found in the closing notes. Please do not send files attached
to e-mail without first contacting us. Thank you!
Inside the Virtual Studio
Buzz Tracker
By: Dilvish
Things are looking good these days for the digital music makers.
There are several advanced trackers in the works, a selection of virtual
recording studios, plug-ins galore, real-time software synthesizers,
very high quality i/o hardware, and even a new operating system that
looks ideal for music production. In my next few articles, Ill take a
look at some of the new software that might be of interest to digital
music makers, and share my impressions with you. From there, Ill give
my predictions on the directions of digital music production, and share
tips, techniques, and the secrets of the pros, ranging from advice about
the latest gear, to ideas that might help you make your digital
arrangements sound more realistic, and expressive. I hope you enjoy it.
Since a lot of readers are familiar and comfortable with the tracker
style interface, Ill start off with a look at some of the new trackers.
In this issue, Ill take a look at the modern pioneer of tracking,
Oskari Tammelins Buzz Tracker digital composer. Tracking technology
has changed a bit over the last few years. Weve gone from 4 channel
forced hard panning with 8 bit samples to 64+ channels of 16 bit samples
with panning envelopes and NNAs. So what could be next?
If you havent seen Buzz, youre missing an important step in the
evolution of the tracker, and what looks like a merger between the
familiar realm of tracking, and the new world of the virtual recording
studio.
Buzz combines familiar pattern based editing with virtual instruments
and effects. Machines that you can plug together with cables, just like
in a real studio environment. Many people are developing machines for
Buzz, and the best part is, both Buzz, and the majority of its machines
are freely available for download.
Unfortunately, in my opinion the interface suffers from a lack of
experience, and is counter-intuitive for many users. I personally found
that while I enjoy having a tracker interface to work with, the
shortcomings, especially the limited transport controls, detract from my
creativity.
It would be really nice if there was better support for MIDI
connectivity, and an intelligent audio/midi routing system. Also
missing is a graphical channel mixer. It would be nice to use those
nice Buzz effects as channel inserts, or auxiliary devices. It could
save us a bit of CPU power, and give us better control over the final
sound at the same time.
While Buzz makes no claim at being a virtual recording studio it
calls itself a digital composer, it is already well on its way, and it
would sure be nice if users had the option of recording, mixing, and
sequencing an entire composition using nothing but Buzz itself.
Of course, many users have jumped these hurtles without a hitch, and
swear by Buzz as the *only* tracker worth using. So whats my opinion?
If you havent seen it, GET IT. Its free, innovative, and so far, the
very deffinition of the new tracker generation.
That all sounds great, so are the real down sides? As a tracker, the
interface falls a bit short of what most of us are accustomed to. I
miss the alt+arrow key combinations for jumping from one track to the
next, transport controls and key combinations for playing *only* the
current pattern though you can solo the current machine with CTRL-L, I
prefer the looping pattern playback that other trackers provide, play
from current position, skip forward/skip back, etc... Another thing Id
like to do is edit multiple patterns side-by-side. A bass generator
track next to my drum kit, for example.
The pattern sequencer has similar flaws in the transport controls, as
well as being a fairly big pain to work with - few users will understand
what to do here without first consulting the documentation. Before you
can do anything in the sequencer, you have to hit CTRL-Enter and select
a machine. There is no visible documentation on the screen indicating
that you need to do this, so first time users if theyre like me and
avoid documentation until theyve played with something for a while and
cant figure it out will be at a total loss here.
Once you do bring up the instrument selection, youll see a list of
the machines that youve created patterns for. While you can use your
mouse to highlight a machine, double clicking does not select it. You
have to press Enter here. That done, a list of available patterns
appears on the right side of the screen. You can give each pattern a
descriptive name, which is nice, but as far as I can tell, the only way
to audition the pattern is to put it in your sequence list, and press
play.
While you can use your mouse to set the song position, and press
play, as far is I can tell, theres no keyboard command to play from the
current position. Fortunately, there are some neat features that almost
make up for the drawbacks here. For example, you can select a pattern,
and set start and end points to loop the pattern. If you use variable
pattern sizes, it wouldnt be hard to create some interesting cyclic
effects using this feature. Duplicating that effect would be
considerably more difficult in trackers like IT and FT2, requiring
considerable work if you want to do something as simple as to offset
your bassline cycle a little bit.. you would have to manually edit every
pattern involved. If you could set BPM and TPB for each individual
pattern, youd really have a lot of freedom to experiment!
You can, however, change BPM during the course of the song, by
editing Master patterns. These patterns control mix pan values for
your various instruments and effect returns, much like a real mixer -
however, they dont give you any aditional EQ or dynamics control, and,
of course, its the tracker interface - no way to set level sliders or
knobs or record mixer automation -- yet... creating smooth fades and
changes will take a lot of work and dedication for now. Thankfully,
there is a feature that allows you to interpolate between selected
values. What this means is that you can select a volume row, set the
start value, and the end value, hit CTRL-I, and have all the values in
between filled in for you. The only problem with that is that it is
strictly linear. It would be nice if we could adjust a curve shape, or
even set a follow path graphically. However, I have a feeling that this
feature is just a hint of the potential power Buzz has to offer.
The Wavetable editor is not immune to interface problems... sample
browsing could be simplified greatly if it was easier to set keyboard
focus where you want it to be. I know I personally prefer to keep my
hands on the keyboard at all times, if I can help it, using the mouse
for things that the mouse is good at, like editing envelopes, or
tweaking volumes or cut-off filters in a realtime preview mode. The
Wavetable loader has trouble with many common sample formats, including
many forms of .WAV files, so I hope you have a sample converter handy.
It seems to handle most of my .XI files without too much trouble, but it
is obvious here that Buzz tracker is still a young program with a long
way to go.
My favorite feature of the Wavetable is the ADSR editor. This by
itself is almost enough to make up for the shortcomings. Along with
allowing you to draw your own envelopes, the ADSR editor allows you to
select betwen linear and logarithmic control over each parameter, as
well as set the resolution the number of points between one parameter
and the next. Now if only we could assign those nice envelopes to
effect parameters from the machine list...
What really sets Buzz tracker apart from the rest of the crowd is the
machine setup screen. Here, you can choose from a variety of software
synths and effects processors, among which the sample tracker is only
one. There are many machine developers with their own homes on the web,
offering buzz machines free to download... some of them better than
others, but most of them worth at least checking out. As a matter of
fact, Buzz has enough software synths available that you can create
whole songs without ever using a single sample. Many people do just
that, and it sounds really good. The flexibility in machine routing is
really nice, allowing you to create all kinds of wild effects - Buzz
makes a terrific techno composer just for this reason.
In short, Buzz tracker gets my compliments for its many innovations,
flexibility, and power, but it never fails to leave me feeling like
there is much missing. Im sure that as it continues to evolve, that
feeling will begin to fade, but for now, its frustrating enough to send
me back to Impulse tracker for most of my tracking work.
On the other hand, Buzz is a very powerful program that allows to you
create soundscapes you can only dream about in other trackers. If you
havent tried it out, I urge you to at least download it - play with it
for a few days.. compose a few songs in it. Kick the tires. Many
people do this, and never look back. Maybe youll be one of them.
Buzz 1.2 is slated to be released shortly, and it looks like it will
add a host of new features, so chances are, a few of my current
complaints will no longer be issues in a short while. Slated features
include, among other things, presets, templates, better help files, and
new icons.
If you have any questions, tips tricks, or advice on using Buzz,
feel free to mail them to me at dilvie@yahoo.com. Ill try to answer
any questions, as well as post your tips in upcoming articles.
Thats it for now. You can find more info about Buzz at the
following URLs:
http://www.buzz2.com/
http://www.buzztrack.com/
--Dilvish
The Listener
Music from Carlos, Necros and more
By: Tryhuk
-- Giants steps musicdisk --
-- -- Carlos --
Music by Carlos is like a water. You would expect that it will flow
down only, but as you get to rapids it jumps up and down and it is so
living that you have to do your best to hold on and not to drown.
His new musicdisk again features what came out during the time since
the first beep musicdisk and it is again a lot jazzy. As I said,
Hungarians have sometimes very wild music and weird mood changes, and
for some people it is so incomprehensible, that they just cant get over
it. If you dont mind this wild style of changes, you may find out that
this musicdisk contains some very good tracks like Autumn, which is is
a sequel to Streets of Budapest and appears on the disk as the intro
song. Autumn naturally follows the original song, keeps the same
theme, main difference between the tracks is, that Autumn is much
calmer, it follows the same melody with almost same instruments, but in
completely different way which makes it interesting even for people who
know the original it also appears on the disk. Thats a sign of good
musician.
As the tracks go, style of the music changes many times, sometimes
its pure club jazz, sometimes it moves to funk and other styles and you
wont probably like all the tracks. But it sounds so real and living
that you can turn it on and imagine that youre sitting in some caffe
restaurant where Donau is beneath you. If you like jazz and missed some
of the tracks by Carlos, I recommend it to you.
Song Information:
Title: Giant Steps
Author: Carlos / Jecoute
Release date: march 2000
Length: 47m44s
Filename zipped/unzipped: giant.zip / many files
File Size zipped/unzipped: 8.5 mb / 17.5 kb
Source: http://jecoute.cjb.net
-- Ubik --
-- -- alpha conspiracy --
Its not usual to write about track from one artist in two
consecutive issues of any diskmag, but I just couldnt help myself,
because this track is so good.
Necros says that this track is an attempt to produce a track that
would mix sound of garage groups and electronica. Once it starts, it
sounds like a normal melodic, half ambient, repetitive electronic track
with a bit guitarish sound. But then comes the percussion with room
reverb and gives the track whole new, heavier sound, which is brighted
by the background fsol-like sounds. Drumline is quite simple and played
mostly on lowfreq percs which help to keep that heavy sound in
combination with other light sounding instruments. Through the whole
track goes one theme with small pauses only. This also helps to keep up
that garage group feeling and gives more space for mixing skills of
andy.
When Ive listened to it for the third time, it also reminded me on
Zodiac, whos tracks also have that mix of garage group sound and scene
alternative trax. Still, among those two attempts is a big difference
that cant be easily described and has to be heard.
Song Information:
Title: Ubik
Author: Alpha conspiracy
Release date: april 2000
Length: 4m13s
Filename: ubik.mp3
File Size: 4 mb
Source: http://www.alphaconspiracy.com
-- Other interesting tracks: --
First Park release is a melancholic EP which features 4 tracks
by amovevelvet, falcon and netpoet. It is a slow and melancholic music
for lazy afternoon. It has a bit triphop sound, mostly be the alternative
background sounds. Soft and nice.
park.planet-d.net parkallstars-melancholikep.zip 3mb april 2000
Also be sure to grab hq version of falcons tracks french connection,
an excellent mix of triphop, orchestral music and jazz. It has been
released through Aural Planet.
www.auralplanet.com Aural Planet - French Connection 7.235mb 2000
Live is fatal by Wayfinder is one of the current four releases
4/4/00 of a new group Azure which concentrates on making good trance
music. I have to say that Wayfinder is one of the few trance-making
musicians whom i respect and his latest azure releases only prove that he
is the best. If youre interested on tracking technique, check out hymn
1st release pattern 36 which contains a part of the original lead
sequence that has been saved into wav and then loaded again.
azure.zerion.com Az-02.mp3 5887 kb 5m00s
virtuel kaleidoskope is level-ds excellent multipurpose disk which
features 17 tracks however some of them were released before, 19 drawings
and some poems by ps. I would define style of this musicdisk as sweet
melancholic. Unfortunatelly some of the tracks/pictures are too sweet even
for me. Anyway there are also some really good pieces, so best way is to
grab tracks/pictures by your favourite musician/graphician.
vk.planet-d.net 22.305 mb all files packed april 2000
--Tryhuk
Retro Tunage
Nightvision by Sandman
By: Tryhuk
I wanted to write a retro about a track by a person who wasnt member
of FM or FC and Coplan came with idea of this song by Sandman.
Alexander Brandon aka Siren aka Sandman didnt appear in fm, but we
can say that he was a student of necros and he is also member of
Straylight, a commercial group which made music for games like Crusader
or Unreal. Other members of this group were necros, basehead still
active and leviathan if i remember it correctly. From this company
comes also his imho biggest success - game Unreal, where he cooperated
with Michiel Van Den Bos. Unreal was that large project, that some of
the scene releases had to appear in it and this song belongs among the
few elite.
Originaly it was released in 1996 as KFMF track and soon a package
with demostyle videoclip followed.
It opens with rhythmicaly very strong part with very bold percussion.
As the song goes, alex adds background sounds and lets them slowly take
over the song. Final state is almost ambient and this part also contains
the strongest theme of the lead. Both parts alternate in the song and
that is a strong technique - you get the rhythm, then you slowdown and
listen to a good melody and than you get again the tempo and run again.
It sounds that you wont have too much rest, but siren gives simpler
drumline into the beginning of each part and that produces effect of
half tempo, so you have enough time to adapt your hearbeat and song
sounds more smooth. That reminds me on recent song by moloko, where she
cuts from loud part and in the next silent sequence she fades in
bassdrum which hits perfectly like the heartbeat and then song continues
- very impressive technique.
You may easily find out that alex is very good musician with sense for
mood changes, extremely good leads and very good work with tempo. He
also belongs among those musicians who release only a small part of
their work and so you get to high quality tunes only and you can be sure
that you dont get any crap. If you like this song, get also his other
releases mostly kfmf and be sure to get his oracle musicdisk juni
production - coop with Sirus. It can be found at scene.org in musicdisk
section, I think.
Song Information:
Title: Nightvision
Author: Sandman Siren / KFMF
Release date: dec 1996
Length: 3m41s
Filename zipped/unzipped: ktv1296.zip / kvision.s3m
File Size zipped/unzipped: 505 kb / 575 kb
Source: www.kosmic.org - 1996 releases
--Tryhuk
Screen Lit Vertigo
Sleepless by Smash Designs party-version
By: Seven
Found at ftp.scene.org/pub/incoming/ms2000/demos
1st place at Mekka Symposium 2000
System requirements:
8.2 MB HD, no mentions about CPU-power or RAM guess: Pentium MMX
64MB Indoor Demo Music System used, so most sound vidcards
supported.
Test Machine: PII 350 64MB SB16, Win98 in dos-mode BOOTGUI 0
The demo:
Aha! Just as Im trying to buy a 3D-card You need a 3D-card that
still supports AGP 1.0 ? Im not sure ... silence, Smash Designs
brings us a demo with the message Software-rendering still rocks! And
I can only agree :. Last year Smash Designs won MS2000 with Event
Horizon, and now they do it again with Sleepless, a demo based on the
same improved engines. So this is again a heavy 3D DOS-demo, viewable
in every possible resolution and color depth, including the weird ASCII
C64 modes.
Warning: Sleepless is about 50 story, and the review contains spoilers.
So you may want to watch it first and read the review later.
The opening sequence looks like that of a cheap horror-movie: we move
through a forest of bare trees, at night under the full moon, with the
outline and the windows of an old mansion visible in the distance. The
credits are shown while some typical slow, dark movie-music plays, with
violins and cymbals going crescendo. It feels a bit cliche, but it gets
you in the mood. Next we see a room inside the mansion, filled with
antique furniture and a fireplace, and a man in a black suit, reading
an ancient book. With a sudden crash, one of the windows is blown open,
even though it is a push-up window. The man closes it, but then more
strange things start to happen: the pendulum starts to turn backwards,
the books of the library fly away from the shelves, and at the end the
man is floating around too.
Here the story-based 3D sequence is abandoned for more normal
demo-effects: bump-mapped tunnels with a morphing blob, a phong-shaded
hand under an invisible spotlight, casting animal-like shadows on the
wall, and a tree with visible rays of light, again casting a shadow.
Also the music changes from a movie-soundtrack + sound-FX to a
happier demo-tune.
For the non-coders:
Shadows are much harder to calculate than illumination like phong or
gouraud shading. That is because not only do you have to check every
poly against every lightsource N*M operations, but you also have to
check if there is another poly between them N*N*M operation. But you
can fake shadows by not letting objects cast shadows on themselves,
only on a background. That way you can draw the objects as usual, and
you need to calculate the shadows only when drawing the background.
These half-shadows are the ones used here.
The screen stays black for some seconds while the next part is
loaded. Its a new 3D-sequence, of a girl in a modern apartment, waking
up and opening the curtains. There are some nice faked light-effects,
like the LEDS of the alarm clock and the sun shining through the
curtains. The girl is dressed in underwear only, what else did you
expect in a demo? When she looks in a large mirror, she notices that
the sheets on the bed in the mirror float in the air, while those in
the real world are still lying on the bed. So the mirror-world differs
from the real world, and she walks through the mirror, into outer space
between the start, the sun and the earth. Quite psychedelic, he?
We zoom in on the Earth, which is rather ugly textured. Theres a
cross-fade into a voxel-scape of islands with changing level-of-detail:
the voxels closer to the camera are more detailed then those at the
horizon. The bad side is that the edge between maximum and lesser
detail is quite visible. Also an ugly peak is visible at the corner
where the height-map wraps around. After another cross-fade the girl is
sitting in a rowing boat on the sea. The movements of the boat and the
waves are fairly realistic.
After some more loading black screen! boo! the last part comes up:
the interior of a 3D temple, where the man the girl meet each other.
The contrast made me laugh: the man with red tie, white shirt and sharp
black suit, the girl in her 2-piece underwear. Very demo-style, yes :.
They are holding hands while several colored particle-streams rotate
around them, a la Tribes. Then we zoom out of a TV-set showing these
images, into the apartment of the girl thats watching the TV. Again
this gives me a deja-vu Moai/Nomad, f.e.
Overall:
Sleepless is a story-based 3D-demo, so some people will find it boring
after watching it once. Thats a matter of taste. But nobody can deny
that this demo is very good technically. The 3D engine is very advanced
and pretty fast. It runs still smooth in 512*384, only in 640*400 some
parts start to slow down. OK, all the 3D freaks with their GE-force
cards are now laughing, but not everyone has a 3D-card yet :. About
the models: Smash Designs choose to use human characters, which are of
course more interesting then static objects or camera rides through
empty rooms, but they are also far more difficult to animate realistic.
I think they did it above average, although its clearly no
motion-captured quality. The main bad point are the motionless faces,
its hard to feel anything for a character with the emotional
expression of a stone. I think thats the next step, animated faces
will make demos a good deal more realistic then better skeleton-based
animation. The soundtrack is an important factor in the atmosphere of
this demo. Especially in the 3D-sequences when there is no music, the
sound of footsteps, the wind and the cracks of the fire really push you
into the right feeling. Apart from the symphonic intro, the tunes are
normal demo music with synths, drums, bells and the like, and a good
rhythm/melody mix. The only thing I missed were pictures. There are
some small pictures of OK quality, but the two 5-second breaks during
the loading of the next part would have been a perfect occasion to show
a full-screen image. Overall Sleepless is a very enjoyable demo, well
worth the 7.7 MB download.
--Seven
Intro Watch
Tac2 by Tazadum Final Version
By: Gekko
64k intro
winner at Trax 2000 Sweden
Download:
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/2000/trax2000/in64/taztac2-refinal2.zip
Requirements:
- MMX
- 64 Mb RAM
- Windows 95 or newer
- DirectX: 640x480, 24 or 32 bits/pixel mode
Credits:
Demol - programming
Zeal - programming
Claw - programming
Sombie - graphics
Steffo - music
The previous release of Tazadum was Fiesta Mexicana Dreamhack 1999.
That is an average one the code is not bad, but the intro itself is
quite ugly, to be honest. After that one this intro was a surprise, at
least for me.
TAC 2 is a very fine intro. Every little detail is fine-tuned. The
music is a good chiptune-like song. The video is kept together with it
very neatly. One specific style follows through the whole intro: high
resolution with a movie type wide screen, flat shaded 3d objects,
randomly fading horizontal lines and fine colors fitting each other.
There is a small poem going on line by line.
There are a lot of effects, including rather complex ones, too, like
raytracing or 3d morphing. Still, the intro does not look just simply
like a sequence of effects - the music and the design connects them very
well.
TAC 2 does not show revolutionary ideas, but it is very beautiful in
every aspect. This is the way an intro should look like in 2000.
--Gekko
Intro Watch
Mekka 2000 Intro Reviews
By: Gekko
Mekka 2000 party Germany was held in 21-24th April 2000 - in two
weeks time. Here is a quick review on the intro releases. These are
based on my very first impressions it can happen that I could not get
something for the first few times I watched them. The order of the
intros reflect my own opinion.
I tried to find out the nationalities of the authors, too, although I
was unsure in some cases. These intros were made in various places of
the world from this it is obvious that Mekka 2000 was not just a
local German party at all.
Download:
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/party/2000/MEKKASYMPOSIUM2000/...
-- 64kb intro competition --
Heaven 7
by Exceed Hungary
result at Mekka 2000: 1/9 winner
req: DOS, GUS + Windows version
Heaven 7 is an amazing intro. The number 7 in the title is an
allusion to the famous intro Bakkslide 7, which, as they state, gave
much inspiration to the authors. Still, Heaven Seven is completely
different. A nice tune gives the background, while there is a poem being
shown line by line. The whole screen is in a constant movement the
effects and the lines of the poem continually zoom and fade. There are
very spectacular effects, most of them are particles or raytracing -
with Picards extreamly fast engine. The two most impressive ones are
the opening part, where a human figure made up of particles is running
in the light and a raytracing effect, a kind of morphing fractal made
up of spheres. There are several annoying grammar mistakes in the poem,
which substract much of the pathos of the production I hope these will
be corrected in the final version.
Plainwork
by Unik Germany
result at Mekka 2000: 8/9
req: Windows 95, DirectX
This is a very fine intro. The design is similar to Whiskers intros
everything is minimal: flat shaded objects, plain squares, and so on.
Neither of the effects are original, but all are beautiful the colors
are in order, too. A-move wrote a fine song which fits in the intro
well.
Some bookprint and a broken heart
by Replay Sweden
result at Mekka 2000: 3/9
req: Windows 95, DirectX
This is another intro by Whisker very minimal: white background with
a few flat shaded 3d objects. Besides these there is a kind of
caleidoscope effect. In the centre of the intro there is a poem. This is
meaningful - deep, I would say unlike the previous Replay intros. It is
about loss of love and misunderstanding.
Boys
by Funktion Sweden
result at Mekka 2000: 4/9
req: Windows 95, DirectX
Yet another intro by Whisker, Boys has hardly any connection to its
title. It has a minimalist style there are flat shaded 3d objects,
circles, and similar effects. The tune is typical of Chavez, with heavy
bass drums. These together make a good intro.
Genesis
by Magic Dreams Germany
result at Mekka 2000: 5/9
req: Windows 95, DirectX 7 3d video card
The code is fine there is a quite good 3d engine with additional
effects like shadows and reflection. There are many 3d scenes, although
there is no story or any connection among them. The textures are
beautiful there are no still pictures. The music is not bad, but it is
nothing special.
Matrix
by Agravedict Poland
result at Mekka 2000: 2/9
req: DOS only, SB
This intro is about some silly thoughts on the film Matrix. The
music is a demotune not bad, but it is very repetitive and gets
boring after a time. There is a raytracer, a rather complex 3d engine
and transparent light spots. The code is quite good, but the design is
not. The colors are weird. The green color of the letters does not fit
anything else in the intro.
Falco - The Space Runner
by Cryogen Poland
result at Mekka 2000: 9/9
req: DOS, GUS + Windows version
I felt although I may be wrong that it is a typical wanna-be-Jizz
intro. The effects, the music and the design indicate this. The music is
a psychadelic trance chiptune - probably the case is that the coders
had no software synthetiser but the musician was expected to make a
Jizz-like song in a few kilobytes. The intro is very colorful too
colorful, in fact this is due to the generated textures. There are
several bitmap effects and environment-mapped 3d objects. The intro has
a kind of theme, as the name suggests, but it is not really clear for
me. There is a flying spaceship and a still picture of a robot I could
not make up anything sensible from these. All in all, this intro is not
really coherent and lacks style but the code is rather good. It is not
a bad intro.
Butterbestellen
by Tum and Colorfast Germany
result at Mekka 2000: 6/9
req: Windows 95, DirectX, OpenGL 3d video card
It is a 3d effect intro, without any story or theme. The graphics and
the music are mediocre. The design is weak, the colors are strange and
do not fit each other. It kept flickering - but it can happen that it is
just my machines fault. Still there are a few good or above-average
effects, for example a morphing cylinder. I think that the authors are
new to the scene if this is the case then this intro was a good start.
Destination: nowhere
by INTerror Poland
result at Mekka 2000: 7/9
req: 32 MB RAM, DOS only, GUS or SB
It is a typical intro. In my opinion the musician attempts to copy
Jizz. The design is terrible. The colors are almost random. There is one
still picture of a man holding a bottle - it is ugly and does not fit
into the intro. The code is rather good. There are mountains and rivers
in the 3d scenes although they look very artificial. There are the
usual effects like transparent light spots. In the last effect the
screen is tiled up and all the previous effects are shown in the little
tiles. It is not bad, but it reminds me to Boost 2 by Doomsday.
--Gekko
Scene Dirt
News Rumors
By: Coplan
As per recomendation of Psychic Symphony/Demojournal, I am going to
include tidbits from his news breifs in this section in addition to
other sorts of news that I dig up. So, to many of you who read both
mags, some of this might not be news.
-- First issue of Planet Chartsmag --
First issue of Planet Chartsmag is out. Find it at
ftp://amber.bti.pl/incoming/ also soon on scene.org or direct from
http://www.agravedict.art.pl/planet/
-- Arf!Studios News Server --
Arf!studios has created a news server to cut back on the spam
happening with the big associates discussions on the mailing list:
http://news.arfstudios.org
http://www.arfstudios.org
-- Song Rip at Mekka 2000 --
A person, so-called BZZ e-mail address zbatky@apcc.com stole a song
by the famous Hungarian scener jazz musician Carlos/Mandula. This song
was the soundtrack of the Rage 1998 winner demo Dis. This person entered
the tune under his own name to the alternative music competition of
Mekka 2000 jazzy.zip. The organizers did not realize this cheating. To
make things even more complicated, Carlos also entered his new song
there, Autumn in Budapest autumn.zip read review by Tryhuk in this
issue. This song ranked 10th while the other won!
-- Hornet Is Back --
Last month, Hornet Archive appeared to have lost its Domain. But,
have no fear, for those of you still useing their wonderful search
engine to search through oldskool works, the Hornet Archive is back
online under its old Domain. Thank God this section is News and
Rumors
--Coplan
Scene Dirt is a semi-regular column offering the latest tidbits of
information to its readers. If you have any bits of information that
you think should be here, contact coplan coplan.ic@rcn.com and offer
as much information as possible.
Call to Keyboards
Wrapup: The Fall of Another Great SceneMag
New Topic: Demoparties Required
By: Coplan
-- Wrap Up: The Fall of Another Great SceneMag --
Eino Keskitalos Reply:
Someone asked me the other day when was the last time I released a
tune. So I jumped on my FTP server and checked: October 1999. In
fact, I only released four songs in 1999. That is way below average,
im sure. So, then the person in-turn asked why I dont make any
effort to promote the scene. So, I explained that I publish Static
Line, and he responded: Since when was a magazine contribution?
If you put it that way, the only sensible answer is: A monthly
newsletter of quality is sooo much more a contribution than an average
unheard tune lost in the depths of Trax in space or Mod Archive.
ASCII textfile is the least discriminating scene product in regards
of for example, processing power or equipment.
--Eino Keskitalo
eino.keskitalo@purkki.mbnet.fi
Sevens Reply:
Hi, Sevens keyboard again: As a writer for Static line and the former
version of DemoJournal, I can assure you that a diskmag DEFINITELY is a
contribution to the demoscene Grin. The point I wanted to make: diskmags
are not just a mean of communication, they are also archives of the
demo-scene history.
My first contact with the scene was via the PC underground book,
which came with a CD with demos and one issue of Imphobia. The demos
blew me away, but reading Imphobia 7 really showed me the community of
sceners behind the demos. When I got the Hornet CD, I read all 122
issues of DemoNews on it, and that way I learned the major trends and
events that happened years before. For example, everyone knows that
Future Crew made the fantastic Second Reality demo, that won Assembly
93. But how many people know that Future Crew, as the PC organizers of
Assembly93, changed the compo-machine to a more powerful CPU,
presumably because Second Reality needed it? And that there was aproblem
with the SoundBlaster Pro, playing only in mono, except for the last
demo Second Reality which used a lot of stereo effects? I know that
articles are not always 100 true, so you have to be careful about what
you believe, but now I understand why some people think so negatively
about Future Crew. For a newbie, this kind of knowledge is near to
impossible to get just by reading newsgroups or chatting on IRC. The
only way is to read old diskmags, something that I encourage everyone to
do : Seven out.
--Seven
Stefaan.VanNieuwenhuyze@rug.ac.be
-- New Topic: Demoparties Required --
Dont jump to conclusions, Im not debating about the existance of
Demoparties. However, Im debating the reasons for attendance. I guess
this time, CTK is a bit of a personal exploration.
I have never been to a demoparty. Never!
I have also never heard anyone complain about me never attending. I
am hoping that one day, I will attend one *Cough* Coma people, decide
on a date, please. But I guess the question is -- what am I or any
other person missing?
Again, im not questioning the existance of such. And Im sure its
a good time. But what I want people to do with this months CTK is to
fill everyone in on why YOU like to go to demoparties. Do you have fun?
Were you dissapointed? Do you attend them regularly because you cant
get enough? Are they essential to the personal understanding of The
Scene? Why or why not?
Okay, a short topic, but Im curious. Im sure many others are as
well.
--Coplan
Link List
Featured Site: Demonews Express
http://www.teeselink.demon.nl/express
Writeup By: Coplan
This is a pretty cool little site I happened upon the other day.
Essentially, the site is nothing but a customizable frame that allows
you to define your own links within a pull-down menu. It will then
display the selected site in the lower frame.
It can be used for almost anything, but since the default settings are
for Scene News sites, well mention it.
Featured Site: Goodstuff
http://www.artloop.de/goodstuff
Writeup By: Tryhuk
Goodstuff is a site, which seeks out good songs. Sometimes, even
every day, you can find there a link and comments on a new tune and
because the songs are selected by a-move, andromeda, jazz, kenny
beltrey, netpoet, velvet, argus and xenon, you can be sure that youll
find here only a good stuff. Go now.
Featured Site: Noerror
http://www.error-404.com/noerror/
Writeup By: Tryhuk
Noerror is a new site with most fresh music news. Must visit for
every scene music lover.
Featured Site: Fabtrax
http://www.cyberverse.com/boris/fabtrax/home.htm
Writeup By: Tryhuk
fabtrax doesnt care necessarily about most fresh releases, but it
contains reviews of all time legends, links and info. Needs a lot of
work to be done, but it looks good and if youre new to the scene, it
is surely interesting place to visit.
Featured Site: Music Massage
http://www.scene.cz/massage
Writeup By: Tryhuk
Massage is a module review show which features every 2 weeks eight
carefully selected non-mp3 tracks. Heres a part of manifesto:
To spread good music. thats my goal. Im trying to support you,
the listeners, with high quality modules. Its simple. I give
you the latest productions as well as oldskool mods. But its top
class music, no boring shit. Im searching through the net. Well
known labels as well as new stars.
I think that after seeing/hearing 8 issues i can say that adamm has a good
taste and I can recommend this magazine to people who are interested also
in music labels like CBR, Kyoto republic, Rebound and other.
Groups:
3g Design..............................http://3gdesign.cjb.net
Aardbei.....................................http://aardbei.com
Acid Rain..............................http://surf.to/acidrain
Agravedict........................http://www.agravedict.art.pl
Anakata..............................http://www.anakata.art.pl
ANDESA Soft International..................http://andesa.da.ru
Astral..............................http://astral.scene-hu.com
Astroidea........................http://astroidea.scene-hu.com
AtomiK....................................http://atomik.ini.hu
Bomb..................................http://bomb.planet-d.net
BlaBla..............................http://blabla.planet-d.net
Blasphemy..............................http://www.blasphemy.dk
Byterapers.....................http://www.byterapers.scene.org
Calodox.................................http://www.calodox.org
Chrome..............................http://chrome.scene-hu.com
CoPro.....................................http://www.copro.org
Damage...................................http://come.to/damage
Dance...................................http://dance.flipp.net
Defacto 2..............................http://www.defacto2.net
Dolops......................... ........http://dolOps.scene.hu
Exceed...........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/exceed
Fobia Design...........................http://www.fd.scene.org
GODS...................................http://www.idf.net/gods
Green.....................................http://green.dyns.cx
Grif........................http://arrabonet.gyor.hu/rattgrif
Haujobb......................................http://haujobb.de
Hellcore............................http://www.hellcore.art.pl
IJSKAST.............................http://www.ijskast.cjb.net
Immortals..............................http://imrt.home.ml.org
Infuse...................................http://www.infuse.org
Just For Fun...........................http://jff.planet-d.net
Kilobite...............................http://kilobite.cjb.net
Kolor................................http://www.kaoz.org/kolor
Kooma.....................................http://www.kooma.com
Label zero.........................http://labelzero.pganet.com
Mandula.........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/mandula
Monar................ftp://amber.bti.pl/pub/scene/distro/monar
Nextempire..................http://members.xoom.com/NEXTEMPIRE
Ninja Gefilus.........http://www.angelfire.com/or/ninjagefilus
Noice.....................................http://www.noice.org
Orion..............................http://orion.arfstudios.org
Quad........................................http://www.quad.nl
Rage........................................http://www.rage.nu
Replay.......................http://www.shine.scene.org/replay
Retro A.C...........................http://www.retroac.cjb.net
Rhyme................................http://rhyme.scene-hu.com
Skytech team............................http://www.skytech.org
Sunflower.......................http://sunflower.opengl.org.pl
Suspend......................http://www.optimus.wroc.pl/rappid
Tehdas...................................http://come.to/tehdas
Tesko..........................http://www.scentral.demon.co.uk
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.ca.tc
Universe..........................http://universe.planet-d.net
Vantage..................................http://www.vantage.ch
Music:
Aisth.....................................http://www.aisth.com
Aural planet........................http://www.auralplanet.com
Azure..................................http://azure.zerion.com
Blacktron Music Production...........http://www.d-zign.com/bmp
Chill..........................http://www.bentdesign.com/chill
Chippendales......................http://www.sunpoint.net/cnd
Chiptune...............................http://www.chiptune.com
Da Jormas................................http://www.jormas.com
* Fabtrax......http://www.cyberverse.com/boris/fabtrax/home.htm
Five Musicians.........................http://www.fm.scene.org
Fridge...........................http://www.ssmedion.de/fridge
Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff
Ignorance.............................http://www.ignorance.org
Immortal Coil.............................http://www.ic.L7.net
Intense...........................http://intense.ignorance.org
Jecoute.................................http://jecoute.cjb.net
Kosmic Free Music Foundation.............http://www.kosmic.org
Level-d.................................http://www.level-d.com
Miasmah.............................http://www.miasmah.cjb.net
Milk.......................................http://milk.sgic.fi
Mah Music.............................http://come.to/mah.music
Maniacs of noise...............http://home.worldonline.nl/mon
MAZs Sound homepage.............http://www.th-zwickau.de/maz
Moplayaz..........................http://ssmedion.de/moplayaz
Mono211.................................http://www.mono211.com
Morbid Minds..............http://www.raveordie.com/morbidminds
Noise................................http://www.noisemusic.org
* Noerror......................http://www.error-404.com/noerror/
One Touch Records......................http://otr.planet-d.net
Park..................................http://park.planet-d.net
Radical Rhythms.....http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/merrelli/rr
RBi Music.............................htpp://www.rbi-music.com
Ruff Engine................http://members.xoom.com/ruffengine
SHR8M......................................http://1st.to/shr8m
Sound Devotion................http://sugarbomb.x2o.net/soundev
Soundstate.........................http://listen.to/soundstate
Sunlikamelo-D...........http://www.error-404.com/sunlikamelo-d
Suspect Records........................http://www.tande.com/sr
Tequila........................http://www.defacto2.net/tequila
Tempo................................http://tempomusic.cjb.net
Theralite...........................http://theralite.avalon.hr
Tokyo Dawn Records........................http://tdr.scene.org
UltraBeat.........................http://www.innerverse.com/ub
Vibrants................................http://www.vibrants.dk
Wiremaniacs.........................http://www.wiremaniacs.com
Others:
Arf!Studios..........................http://www.arfstudios.org
Calodox demolinks exchange.....http://calodox.planet-d.net/cde
coders..................................http://coderz.cjb.net
Comic Pirates.........................http://scene-central.com
* Demonews Express.........http://www.teeselink.demon.nl/express
Demo fanclub........................http://jerware.org/fanclub
Demoscene.org news forum..............http://www.demoscene.org
Digital Undergrounds.....................http://dug.iscool.net
Doose charts...............................http://www.doose.dk
Dreams2 CD.........................http://nl.scene.org/dreams2
Freax...................http://freax.scene-hu.com/mainmenu.htm
GfxZone............................http://gfxzone.planet-d.net
Hugi size-compo...............http://home.pages.de/hugi-compo
Orange Juice.........................http://ojuice.citeweb.net
PC-demos explained.....http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained
Pixel...................................http://pixel.scene.org
Scenet....................................http://www.scenet.de
Sunray..............................http://sunray.planet-d.net
Swiss List.................http://www.profzone.ch/vantage/list
Swiss Scene Server.......................http://www.chscene.ch
TakeOver................................http://www.takeover.nl
Textmode Demo Archive.................http://tmda.planet-d.net
Hungarian scene page...................http://www.scene-hu.com
Trebel...................................http://www.trebel.org
Zen of Tracking.........................http://surf.to/the-imm
DiskMags / SceneMags:
Amber...............................http://amber.bti.pl/dimag
Amnesia...............http://amnesia-dist.future.easyspace.com
Demojournal....................http://demojournal.planet-d.net
Dragon......................http://www.wasp.w3.pl/pages/dragon
Fleur................................http://fleur.scene-hu.com
Heroin...................................http://www.heroin.net
Hugi........................http://home.pages.de/hugidownload
* Music Massage......................http://www.scene.cz/massage
* Planet Chartmag...........http://www.agravedict.art.pl/planet/
Pain..................................http://pain.planet-d.net
Scenial...........................http://www.scenial.scene.org
Static Line......................http://www.ic.l7.net/statline
Total Disaster...................http://www.totaldisaster.w.pl
TUHB.......................................http://www.tuhb.org
WildMag...........................http://www.wildmag.notrix.de
FTPs:
Amber.......................................ftp://amber.bti.pl
Cyberbox.....................................ftp://cyberbox.de
Flerp.....................................ftp://flerp.scene.hu
Scene.org..................................ftp://ftp.scene.org
Skynet archive.................ftp://acid2.stack.nl/pub/skynet
ACiD2 Archive.............................ftp://acid2.stack.nl
Editor: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan.ic@rcn.com
Assistant Editor: Gekko / Gergely Kutenich / gk@scene.hu
Columnists: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan.ic@rcn.com
Dilvish / Eric Hamilton / dilvie@yahoo.com
Gekko / Gergely Kutenich / gk@scene.hu
Louis Gorenfeld / gorenfeld@vrone.net
Setec / Jesper Pederson / jesped@post.tele.dk
Seven / Stefaan / Stefaan.VanNieuwenhuyze@rug.ac.be
SiN / Ian Haskin / sin@netcom.ca
Subliminal / Matt Friedly / sub@plazma.net
Tryhuk / Tryhuk Vojtech / xtryhu00@stud.fee.vutbr.cz
Virt / virt@bellsouth.net
Technical Consult: Draggy / Nicolas St. Pierre / draggy@kosmic.org
Jim / Jim Nicholson / jim@kosmic.org
Static Line on the Web: http://www.ic.l7.net/statline
ftp://flerp.scene.hu/scene/DiskMag/StaticLine
To subscribe to the Static Line mailing list, send an e-mail message
to majordomo@kosmic.org with subscribe staticline your e-mail in
the message text. You will then be asked to confirm your addition to the
mailing list. Expect a new issue during the first weekend of each
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To unsubscribe from the mailing list, send an e-mail message to
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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
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characters. Contributions should be mailed to Coplan
coplan.ic@rcn.com.
See you next month!
-eof---------------------
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