TATICLINE March, 2002
// Monthly Scene E-Zine 260 Subscribers
Table Of Contents
Opening:
Message From the Editor
Letters From Our Readers
Features:
Party Report -- WOEST 2002
Journey Into Midi -- Part I: Culture Shock
Columns:
Music:
In Tune -- Quasimojos Main Gauche
Demo:
Screen Lit Vertigo -- Medium by einklang.net party-version
General:
Editorial --
Link List -- Get Somewhere in the Scene
Closing:
Credits
Message From the Editor
Wow, March already. Spring is coming up soon, and the demoscene is
about to wake from its winter slumber. Winter has traditionally always
been a slow time for the scene. This year, however, it seems as though
there is actually a lot of things happening. Maybe its just my
perspective, or maybe the scene is really waking up early this year.
Regardless, Im glad to say that were here, ready with our next issue
of Static Line.
This month, you will find a couple of interesting articles. Seven
went off to yet another demo party, WOEST 2002, and came back with
another party report. I dove into MIDI in January, and I have a little
article the first in a mini series that begins to share my experiences
with the world of MIDI. In a follow up of last issues Challenge for
2002, I have actually provided some ways in which you too can get
involved in the scene.
You got some good reading here. I hope this new issue brings a big
smile to your face.
FYI: Articles for the next issue of Static Line shall be directed
towards me no later than March 31st, 2002.
--Coplan
Party Report
WOEST 2002
By: Seven
After the rather bad Ambience 2k1 last year, the organizers of the
demoscene part of Ambience decided to go back to the roots. WOEST is a
much smaller party, both in time and in size: it starts on a saturday
noon, instead of the usual friday evening, and it takes place in a
former nuclear shelter providing place for at most 150 sceners instead
of Hogeschool Venlos +1000.
Since WOEST takes place in Venlo, the Netherlands just like Ambience,
and Im still living in Ghent, Belgium, with no car, I had to take the
train to Antwerpen, Belgium with my PC case under my arm people look
funny at you when you do that, where Djefke picked me up. Besides a
14-inch schreen and a keyboard for me, Djefke also stuffed his
full-tower PC, a laptop, an old Silicon Graphics station, a 14-inch and
17-inch screen, some hubs, a few headphones and a cooler in his small
green car. Some people really have too much hardware.
14:17:
After a perfect trip, we actually had difficulties first finding the
parking and then the entrance to the shelter. We paid the 17.50 Euro
entrance fee, which was the first time the Euro actually DID make my
life easier not changing francs to guilders ever again : Since we
both paid 20 EUro, and the orgo at the cashpoint didnt have enough
change, he simply wrote the due amount on a paper and promised to
give it to us later, which he did. This may tell you something about the
size and athmosphere of WOEST.
While we set up, I noticed less than 20 other sceners in the single
large room, while 107 people had registered on the website. So we could
pick a table facing the bigscreen and I didnt have to get up to watch
during the whole party lazy? me?. The bigscreen was only 2*2 meters,
but the soundsystem was almost as equally large. The orgos were showing
demos such as Boost/Doomsday, VIP2/Popsy Team, Medium/Einklang, Clone
meets clone/Fudge, etc etc. The bad aspect from this privileged position
became clear during the techno-styled demos such as Saint/Halcyon Da
Jormas, which the Dutchmen like VERY much. We could enjoy the superior
sound quantity up to and beyond the capacity of our aural nerves.
Weve just finished when a dutch scener comes asking if we have the
Turbo Pascal programming language with us. He introduces himself as
Cosmic Trance/FMC, and member of his group wants to learn to code demos.
It boggles my mind why anyone would use TP DOS, Mode 13H to code demos
in the 21st century, but I still have the proggy on a dusty corner of my
HD, so I burn it on CD, together with the Denthor tutorials and the rest
of C:/INFO/DEMOS/EFFECTS.
15:01:
Now an orgo is playing the original Castle Wolfenstein 3D on the
bigscreen. Infinite Reboot is here too, and we have a interesting talk
about his job, making a prototype game for the XBox. Apparently it costs
around 10.000 ten thousand dollar for an XBox development kit, and
each XBox game has to be approved of by Microsoft. So I think theres
little chance that there will ever be a demoscene on the XBox...
The bigscreen is showing ANSIs now. Pretty cool IMO.
15:19:
The rules for the surprise-music-compo are announced: 2-channel mod,
no real samples but stuff like dlls and such instead. Its a typical
surprise music requirement that guarantees lots of chiptunes.
16:49:
A movie about a gang of robbers trying to break into a Las Vegas
casino was partly shown, but because few people watch it, more demos are
shown: Fall Equals Winter/Replay, Just a touch of funk/Digital Murder,
and more. Avoozl has arrived, with some friends who start working on an
intro or demo they plan to release. Nice to see, I hope there will be
enough entries to make some good compos out of it.
17:14:
Im wearing my headphones to protect my vulnerable ears from the
acoustic attack of Soepkip 7 and a Trepaan demo. The Soepkip series are
classics in the Dutch scene, but if you dont like gabba music and you
see a Dutch scener starting one up, stick your finger in your ears and
run.
18:33:
Were back from our hunt for food, and we managed to ambushed some
kebab. There was a long queue in the small store, but it was too cold
outside to go somewhere else. BTW, am I getting old or is it normal for
6-year old toddlers to wear earrings? Anyway, were back in the sanity
of WOEST :
19:41:
Everyone is staring at the bigscreen on which several Gameboy Advance
intros are shown 17 of them on 1 rom-image. FYI, the GBA has a 16-mhz
32-bit risc-CPU, 384 KB RAM and a 240*160 15-bit screen. Still, the GBA
scene can show tunnels, bumpmapping, 3D rabbits and of course all kinds
of oldkool effects. Even the first level of Doom is shown, albeit
without monsters and with a single texture consisting of black and white
squares, which make the level look like a giant kitchen :
20:54:
After some searching, Ive found Control/Green back and burn it on a
CD so the orgos can show it. To copy the CD, the orgo tried to start
windows, only to be greeted by the message Windows has been
trepanized! The audience bursts in laughter: the group Trepaan, famous
for their bad gabba demos, once made a demo that, when run, silently
disabled windows because windows is for lamers. Guess which demo the
organizers unwittingly ran some time before... After typing win TREPAAN
RULES or something like that, windows start correctly again :
Its a pity only a small amount of different demos are shown, several
are already shown twice or three times such as the Soepkip demos.
21:50
The bigscreen shows an Underworld concert. Im trying to connect to
the network, but to no avail : Yes, there is a small network, despite
what was said on the website that was only to discourage gamers to
come.
Theres also an old 386 standing on a lone table which is used as a
party PC: everyone can write their thoughts on it. Most of it is in
Dutch of course. Cosmic Trance tries to convince me to write on it, but
I already have a party report under construction :
22:50:
After messing around in both Linux and Windows, I managed to at least
see other people on the network, but I cant connect to them : The
Underword thingie is over, now some new demos are shown, from TPOLM and
others.
23:46:
Oh my god! An orgo Freebase if Im not mistaken just announced
the karaoke compo: youve to sing along with a demo with lyrics
Hyperventilation, VIP2 or Just a touch of funk The horror! But they
cant find enough participants for it, so the idea dies a silent death.
2:22:
Just helped Cyrex/Fusion Music Crew with his rotating starfield in
turbo pascal. Its amazing how hard it is to remember the correct
formula for a rotation when you havent used it for a while. Not to
mention the weird surprises that this ancient language holds in stock if
youre used to C/C++. After a lot of head-scratching we concluded that
random320 - 160 will never result in a small negative number, only
in small or huge positive ones sigh.
3:14:
Beat me repeatedly on the head with a large hammer: Ive fixed the
problem with the network, by ... turning of my firewall stupid me!. No
wonder I couldnt make a connection : I start leeching some Monty
Python episodes, while the bigscreen plays Shad, Dose2, Vip2 again,
Kasparove, Nowhere, Alien Sex Clone and more.
7:17:
Not much is happening. The Spaceball movie is shown, really a classic
on demoparties. Some sceners are trying to make the party report on the
386 reach the 1000th line, but they run out of inspiration and start to
write a porn story instead.
8:28:
Aha, Tribes/PulseMelon is shown. Still a great demo with fantastic
music. The Fulcrum/Matrix is shown too. Ive asked Freebase and
Ile/Aardbei if there were any surprise coding rules announced. Im not
interested anymore in competing, but Im wondering if I missed them or
if there werent any in the first place. It turns out there werent, but
Ile ask what I would want for a surprise compo, clearly in an attempt to
make those the rules. I avoid the question and go back to fleshing out
this report while Ile tries to convince someone else its possible to
make an effect in 64 bytes.
10:15:
Just watched Jet Lis The One: not a bad action movie, if you ignore
the technical/pseudo-scientific holes in it. The story and effects are
heavily influenced by The Matrix, but its still enjoyable.
11:26:
The documentary Pirates from Silicon Valley is shown, about the
history of the PC, the first Apple computers, the young Bill Gates and
Steve Jobbs etc. Ive seen the series already at university, so I amuse
myself by wathcing the audience. While they are laughing at the
stereotypical nerds that are interviewed and with the looks of Bill
Gates back then, almost everyone is still watching it with some
fascination, and it draws more attention than any demo shown so far.
12:27:
The compos have started, with the music compo first. Ile has taken
over my PC to code a 64 bytes intro. It seems that there will be a
surprise coding compo after all, and the rules are: create either an
effect in 64 bytes, or code a fully compliant SQL-server :
13:51:
The music compo is over, and we can vote immediately by raising
hands. Its rather chaotic. First were supposed to vote for only 3
songs, then we can vote as many times as we want. A second round of
rasing hands is done to rank the 3 highest songs of the first round.
Meanwhile my fingers started to itch to code a 64 byte intro too, so
Ile got himself another PC. Looking for ideas in my old code, I notice a
160-byte big cellular automata effect, which I try to squeeze down to
64B.
14:20:
The graphics and 64K intro compos are over, and its nice to see how
many entries there are. 14 songs, 7 graphics, 6 intros... Not bad at all
for a 60-person party, even though many of them are joke-entries. The
Synergy intro was the clear winner, almost everyone voted for that one.
Ive already submitted my entry, but Im not very pleased with it:
its only a static one-color screen with a certain pattern on it. After
seeing the animated effects of Jace/TBL and Ile, and noticing several
bytes of useless data that were still in the code, I started working on
it again.
14:49:
The surprise music compo was all-chiptunes, of course, and Xam/RVL won
it. Hint for the others: chiptunes that are hard on the ears will *not*
get many votes... Three wild demos were shown, and the Gameboy Advance
demo from Farbrausch got first.
Next the surprise coding compo starts, with 6 entries, all of which
requires the compo PC to be rebooted. In the meantime Ile invites Jal,
the oldest dutch scener, to tell stories about the time when everything
was much better in the Dutch demoscene : Iles entry wins, but I get
second place. Joy!
15:30:
The democompo is last: Farbrausch has made another techno demo in
their fr-minus-Nr series, and Jace/TBL has thrown together several
disconnected effects, some of which look like Winamp plugins. But the
fight for the first place is between Intershoelace/Wasniach and
Partyhack vl/ Lemon vs tpb, with the latter winning with 22 points vs 20
for the former.
Djefke and I start packing immediately afterwards. The prize ceremony
is rather short, as only the first place is rewarded. Since less people
came than expected, there are no monetary prizes. Instead, the winners
get chocolate easter bunnies, lollipops, CDs and bratwursten. As
Freebase said, the important thing is not cheap success but to get
respect :
So, what can I say about WOEST? I think it was definitely worth
visiting: great atmosphere with 100 sceners, the bigscreen thats
almost constantly in use, 45 releases meaning almost 2 out of 3 sceners
made something, friendly organizers. True, its much smaller than the
demised Bizarre or Takeover parties, but I think the increase in
scene-feeling is worth it. Greets to all people I met there, hope to see
you at Mekka/Symposium!
You can find the results and entries at http://woest.scene.org
--Seven
Journey into MIDI
Part I: Culture Shock
By: Coplan
-- Introduction --
My first sound card was a Sound Blaster 16, an industry standard. I
knew nothing about MIDI, aside from a couple of MID files that I had on
my hard drive and the fact that I had a free copy of Cakewalk that came
with my sound card. I never got into MIDI very much at that point, and
I was very naive when it came to the medium. I wasnt impressed with
the sound quality, and I didnt really care to experiment with it. Even
when I got my Gravis Ultrasound, I still wasnt impressed with MIDI. I
never wouldve given MIDI a chance, had it not been for one guy: Setec.
For years, the poor guy tried to convince this stubborn fool into
getting some sort of MIDI Synth. The money alone was enough to scare me
from that thought. But I was not fully convinced that I liked the sound
quality. Eventually, Setec started making recordings for me: of
instruments, of things he played, and so on. Ill admit, I was quite
surprised at the sound quality. I didnt expect anything MIDI to be
that good. So, I was interested.
It still took several months, but Setec finally convinced me to buy a
Roland XP-30. Im working in the real world now, and I can afford to
spoil myself. So, after Christmas, I bought myself this wonderful peice
of equipment.
This article is actually the first among a series that I will write.
It will be more like a journal of sorts. I will share with you the
thoughts that are passing through my mind, and the things that I have
discovered while learning about MIDI. Each month, I will keep you
updated of my findings. It is my hope that my journey will open more
eyes to MIDI and maybe get a few more artists on the bandwagon.
Enjoy!
-- Part I: Culture Shock --
One of the things that sold me on MIDI, specifically the Roland XP-30,
was the sound quality. Sure, I had Setecs recordings...but I had to
physically go down to a music store and play with it before I was fully
convinced of how good this thing sounded. I made several visits to the
local music shop, and spent many hours just playing with the thing. I
probably pissed a lot of people off, but with something this expensive,
I wanted to give it as much of a demo period as I could. Well, after a
month of playing with the XP-30, I finally bought one.
When I got it home, I hooked it directly up to my stereo for a while.
My computer was in peices, and I hadnt had any new parts yet. So, I
played and played with my new toy for a couple of days, until my parts
arrived. So I got my computer working again, and I hooked this thing up
to my computer utilizing the MIDI cables that I had bought. I strike a
key, and panic. I heard nothing going through my computer. This was
very disturbing. So I jumped online, and tried to track down anyone I
knew who knew MIDI. As it turns out, I made a common mistake. The
truth is, audio from your synth does not travel accross the MIDI cables.
The only purpose of the MIDI cable is to send MIDI data not sound
between the instruments or in this case, my computer and my synth.
So, the reason I wasnt hearing sound was because I didnt have the
audio hooked into my computer. After a quick stop to Radio Shack, I was
finally able to plug my synth directly into my sound cards Line In
jack. Now I can hear sound.
It is also important to know that a MIDI synth has a Local Mode
setting. Most of the time, it doesnt hurt to have it set to On. That
is, it will control itself and play a note when you hit a note. If you
turn this off, it will send the note on/off data to the computer...but
unless something sends the information back to your synth, the audio
wont be played. If youre using some sort of MIDI sequencer, you might
have to turn Local Mode off so that you dont get double notes, or in
some cases hear a couple of different sound patches playing at the same
time.
Now before I go on, you must realize that Ive been tracking for
almost 9 years now. Im pretty set in my music ways, and Im very
stubborn. The biggest step for me is realizing that I likely wont be
able to use Impulse Tracker anymore. Yes, IT has MIDI support. But it
requires the Sound Blaster MIDI interface, which plugs into your SBs
game port. I have an SB-Live which already has MIDI ports in it. So I
was not going to get that MIDI interface. Alas, that prevents me from
using Impulse Tracker for my MIDI sequencing. That is something very
scary for me.
But there is hope. There are a couple of programs out there that I
can use, and maybe even get used to. I have some demos for Cubase VST
and Cakewalks Sonar. Both are commercial programs, and relatively
pricey. Both seem to work very similarly as well. But its vastly
different from the world of tracking. So, I checked out the scene to see
what I could find.
A lot of people use and enjoy Buzz. For whatever reason, it seems to
crash a lot on my computer, especially whenever I try to use MIDI with
it. There are a couple of machines plugins of a sort that you can
download for Buzz that will allow you to sequence your MIDI. From people
I know who use it with their MIDI devices, it works pretty well. But,
its not for me. I dont like Buzz very much.
Currently, Im toying around with a program called Z-Tracker. ZT is a
pretty nice little program that very closely resembles Impulse Tracker.
Thats a bonus to me...as its very comfortable for me to use. This will
likely be my primary tracker for a while. The only drawback about this
one? You cannot load audio samples. Its a MIDI-only program.
Psycle, a program similar to Buzz, does not fully support MIDI yet at
all. It allows you to utilize your MIDI device for input, but thats
about it. Basically, you can hook up a MIDI keyboard to trigger notes.
But the sound must be done utilizing different machines within Psycle.
But rumor has it that they intend to implement some sort of MIDI output
support in Psycle 2.x. As this is still a rumor...well see how it goes.
Im going to stay involved in this community, as I would love to have
the best of all worlds: Sound samples, MIDI support and soft-synths for
filtering and the like.
As I said, Im doing most of my music experimentation in Z-Tracker
now. Im slowly beginning to learn some things aboug MIDI, and the way
it works. As with everything else...there are always advantages and
disadvantages. One of the biggest advantages of the synth world is the
fact that you can dial up any number of samples without too much ease.
I know that Im used to spending hours downloading songs and sample sets
to try to find the perfect piano, or violin, or what-not. But in a
matter of minutes, I can select from any number of violins already in my
synth. Later on down the road, my synth allows me to expand it by
adding patch modules. I might consider this, but for now, I have more
samples than I could have use for. Another big advantage of the MIDI
world is the fact that you dont have to worry about sample dynamics.
What I mean is that you need not worry about loading 5 piano samples
just to get a full range of the piano. This information is already
built into your patches on your synth. So, if you want a piano, you
load the piano...thats it.
But alas, I did say there were disadvantages. If you choose not to
use a program like Z-Tracker, and you prefer to use some of the
commercial software out there, it is to your benefit to learn how to
play piano. I do not play it very well, and that might be one of the
reasons I cant get used to such programs. You can use such programs as
Sonar and Cubase without having such piano skills, but you will find it
difficult to use. Another thing that drives me nuts is the way Channel
10 on your MIDI devices work. Channel 10, under most configurations, is
reserved for your percussion sets. While you can choose which percussion
set you want to use...it is rather difficult to get used to all your
percussion being utilized in one patch. The good news is that, if this
bugs you, you can still load your percussion in other patch-parts. The
bad news is that you can only load 16 parts in all. The biggest
disadvantage to MIDI...you cant remain a purist. As you might have
gathered from my introduction, MIDI files are not nearly as
cross-platform compatible as one might think. The data will transfer
flawlessly. But unless someone has the same synth you do, they likely
wont hear what you heard. Even if you write in General MIDI a
universal standard for patch mapping, the sound quality will likely
differ. Therefore, if you want to share your music with others -- youll
have to make a recording and release in MP3 format.
My reaction when I first heard about having only 16 parts to map out
for my music was THATs ALL? Well, it really isnt as bad as you would
think it would be. Take your average IT. Most of mine have anywhere
between 8 and 24 samples. One of my tunes, which has 20 samples, can
easily be narrowed down. It loads 5 piano samples, 3 violin samples, and
3 clarinet samples. Considering I wouldnt have to load the excess
samples to maintain sound quality across a range, I would literally only
need to load 12 samples. But wait, 6 of them are percussion samples. In
MIDI, they all get to pass through the same channel Channel 10, and I
have a full percussion set dependant on the note I play. So in
actuality, I really only need 7 patches or channels. That still gives me
plenty of room for more patches. And the reality is that the samples
found with your synth are much fuller, and much more wholesome. So, you
wont need to layer up the patches nearly as much as you would need to
layer patches in tracking.
Taking everything with a grain of salt, I am quite happy with the
MIDI world thus far. As I continue on, I will grow with experience, and
I will grow as a song writer. The XP-30 has given me a lot of
inspiration, and it takes a lot of the boreing stuff out of tracking --
like the sound sample searching. Its really a great medium to work in,
and Im not at all dissappointed in my purchase. The only catch: Youll
find yourself playing with your synth the first few weeks. You wont
write anything of any significance, but you will have a whole bunch of
partial tunes. Thats not a bad thing, it helps you learn. But you cant
be focused on releasing something every week, at least until you get
used to the medium.
--Coplan
In Tune
Quasimojos Main Gauche
By: Coplan
-- Corrections: --
Last issue, I did my 2001 favorites list, as I do every year. On that
list was a tune Warlock by Caravan. To refresh your memory, this was
a tune that was used for a demo, Cadence Cascade by Andromeda
Software Development ASD. Unfortunately, the tune is not an original
tune. It is in fact a tune from the late 60s or early 70s. The tune
was credited the way it shouldve been, and it was never said that it
was an original tune for the demo. My appologies over the confusion.
Regardless, it is a really good tune, and it was a good utilization of
such. Again, sorry about the confusion.
-- Introduction --
Ive been considering getting myself a synth for many years now.
Lately, I was finally able to afford one, but I still wasnt 100 sold
on the idea...even with my buddy Setec bugging me every other day.
Sure, I could sample off the thing...but I wanted to toy with it as
well. So it wouldnt be worth it to me unless I could do some MIDI
stuff with it as well. But keep in mind, this is a boy who used to
listen to MIDI files on his old fm synth SB16 before getting into
tracking. And I got into tracking because the potential for sound
quality was far better than what I heard from cheezy MIDI files.
So it was recommended that I check out ZTracker. I jumped on the
ZTracker site http://ztracker.sourceforge.net and grabbed some of the
tunes listed there. Quasimojos tune, Main Gauche, was listed among
the tunes created on ZTracker. So I grabbed it, and I was impressed.
Needless to say, I ordered my synth. Check out my adventures in
Journey into MIDI, a feature mini-column starting this issue.
-- Main Gauche by Quasimojo --
Two things impress me most about this song:
1 The song was created utilizing ZTracker, which is a MIDI-only
tracking program. One cannot load samples into a song. I suppose
Quasimojo couldve done a lot of post-processing, or tracked out
a drum track for this, or any combination of things. But that
doesnt make me loose respect for the song at all. The base was
started in ZTracker, and somehow was turned into the final product
we have today. The methodology isnt all that different from how
most trackers write their music.
2 Main Gauche is mellow, but its damn fun to listen to. This is
one of those songs that, if played at a high school dance, the
people on the floor wouldnt know whether to slow dance or fast
dance. Theres a lot of energy in the song, but you can also
chill to it. Its one of those songs that you can either crank
the volume, or turn it down. The dynamics of the song are
incredible and versatile in that aspect.
The song opens with a very faded nylon guitar riff and some static, as
if we were listening to some old record. It repeats a bit, and you can
almost hear the record skipping. I picture a talented DJ laying down
his tunes and his rhythms with his turn-tables. Then he layers on top
of that some of the most interesting percussion and base guitar riffs
youve ever heard in a song like this.
Let me dwell on the percussion for a little bit. This style of music
Quasimojo calls it Love n Light allows for a large amount of
artistic license. Unless there were two or three drummers involved
with this song, the percussion is likely not exactly humanly possible.
But again, artistic license is something Ill allow in styles such as
this. He uses the high-hat as if it were being played with two hands:
one with the stick, the other ready to stop it from vibrating. The
effect is pretty cool. Something else Id like to point out about the
percussion: The base drum. It seems like such a subtle thing, but base
drum rolls are not exactly easy to do on a drum set, even with dual
pedals. In a song like this, it adds an incredible depth to the song.
And yet, most people wont even notice it. Again, one of the unique
things about electronic styles is the fact that there are no limits.
Now I raved earlier about the dynamics of this song. Grab this song,
and do three things with it. First, listen to it at a normal volume.
Youll get the idea for how the song works, and youll appreciate the
next two steps more. Second, pump up the volume and if you can, make
sure you get some base response in there. That base guitar and the
percussion will take control of your mind, and youll feel like youre a
part of the song. Finally, turn that volume down. Even if you still
have a lot of base present, youll find that it fits pretty well into
the background. It doesnt interrupt your thoughts, and it certainly
doesnt get in the way. I dont know how he does it, but this is
something that few songs can do. There is one thing for sure: Quasimojo
did his homework when it came to the final mixing tweaks. The song is
mixed really well, and the sound quality is incredible.
Again, I have to throw in the fact that this was created with a MIDI
synthesizer. I wouldnt have believed it until I got my own, and
realized what I was missing all these years. From a creation point of
view, I am in awe when it comes to this song. From a music appreciation
point of view, well, Im still in awe about this song. Its a great
tune, and I highly recommend this tune for almost anyone.
Song Information:
Title: Main Gauche
Author: Quasimojo
Release date: July 17, 2001
Length: 6:06
File Size: 4.8 MB
Source: http://www.chillproductions.com
--Coplan
In Tune is a regular column dedicated to the review of original and
singular works by fellow trackers. It is to be used as a tool to expand
your listening and writing horizons, but should not be used as a general
rating system. Coplans opinions are not the opinions of the Static
Line Staff.
If you have heard a song you would like to recommend either your own,
or another persons, We can be contacted through e-mail useing the
addresses found in the closing notes. Please do not send files attached
to e-mail without first contacting us. Thank you!
Screen Lit Vertigo
Medium by einklang.net party-version
By: Seven
Found at www.scene.org
3th place at the Party 2k1.
System requirements:
11 MB HD, Windows, and I guess a 3D card with TL is a must.
Test Machine: PIII 900 640MB, SB1024, GeForce 2MX 32MB, Win98
The Credits:
Pet: Code, design
Tjurn: BW ping pong
Photonic Labor: Makina gfx
dont ask, thats whats in the credits
The Demo:
Well, well. Its been a long time since Ive seen one of these. A
techno-demo! And its a pretty good one, which is an even more rare
occurence : Im not a fan of techno music, too monotonous for my taste.
The track of Medium is no exception, it starts with a continue voice
sample that is repeated over and over, and which is slowly joined by
more and more layers of percussion. Theres a break halfway, in the
water-part of the demo, but after that it goes back to monotonous beats.
However, the code in this one is really good, IMHO. It starts with a
kind of tunnel, made of and filled with red transparent shrouds. It
looks very different from the usual run-of-the-mill tunnel effects.
Later a square pillar formed by thousands of orthogonal lines in
electric blue appears in the tunnel, the looks remind me a bit of Super
luxus lemmen paketti/MFX. The next part shows 2 morphing blobs, one
jellyfish and the other corkscrew-like, moving very smooth and with very
nice chrome-like reflections, not plasticy as happens too often. Theres
a slower underwater part, during which the credits are shown too. The
last part features a kind of distorted 3D, it looks like the models have
been pulled through a bread-slicer, then rendered twice on top of each
other: once solid, and once sliced. It looks much cooler than it sounds,
believe me :
Besides a little bear logo at the start, there are no real graphics,
just white flashing overlays of cogs. The syncing to the music is very
good, as is to be expected in this type of demo. Every color change,
flash or camera switch is synced to the beat.
Overall:
There are a few things I dont like about Medium, but theyre all
inherent to the fact its a techno-demo, so it wouldnt be fair to call
them bad points. Just like the music, the effects are very monotonous
going on for several minutes before changing, and the flashing gets on
my nerves near the end. Id also appreciate it if a demo just quits when
the music is over, now it leaves me wondering wether my PC is so slow
that the graphics have to catch up with the sound. But the demo is
definately good in its genre, with its flashy color scheme and the
matching speed of the music and the visuals. So, if youre a fan of
techno, this one is certainly recommended.
--Seven
Editorial
Where to go now!
By: Coplan
-- Introduction --
Last issue, the January issue, I put forth a challenge. When I
started releasing Static Line, my goal was, and still is, to get more
people involved within the scene. This may or may not be apparent all
whenever you read my words. One of the things that makes the scene so
glorious is the fact that there are so many people doing this as a
hobby. No one makes money from the scene. No one even breaks even.
People contribute to the scene because its something they like to do.
Without human involvement, your involvement, the scene really does not
exist.
To be fair, I have already made a challenge to you, my readers. I
have already put forth a great deal of my conscience in hope that you
will want to become more involved. This month, I will point out a few
projects that might benefit from your contribution. Some of these might
sound like shameless plugs, and Ill admit that. But we could always use
some help as well.
-- Writers --
Granted, you could easily write for Static Line. You know where to
get ahold of me, and you know where you can contribute. Maybe youll
have interest in interviewing people at random. Maybe youll want to
write technical articles about the finer points of coding demos. Or
technique articles about how to track good tunes in some of the more
current tracking programs. Were always looking for writers, and were
always willing to consider any article that is sent our way. Be it for a
column, be it for a feature article, well at least check it out.
Aside from that, there are plenty of quality magazines out there that
could benefit from some good writers. One of the more famous magazines
is Hugi http://www.hugi.de. Hugi is a diskmag with a whole coded
interface that comes out every few months, which might be an easier
schedule to keep than a weekly or monthly magazine. While the magazine
might seem to be packed full of articles all the time, Im sure Claus
Adok wouldnt mind getting some extra articles. For that matter, you
could always start checking out any one of the magazines listed in our
links list, and maybe contact the editor about writing for them. And
dont feel you have to limit yourself to one magazine. Seven writes both
for Static Line and Hugi, for example. Sometimes, he even utilizes the
same articles.
No one says that you have to write articles either. Supposing you
like technical writing, and documentation. There are plenty of
open-source projects within the scene that could more than benefit from
some documentation. Cmicali cmicali@users.sf.net, creator of ZTracker
http://ztracker.sourceforge.net, could definately benefit from some
documentation of the project. By contributing to this project, you could
definately free up some time for Cmicali to continue coding his IT based
MIDI tracking program. Theres also the Psycle soft-synth tracking
program http://psycle.pastnotecut.org/, which has also requested
additional help for software documentation. Both of these programs are
starting to become more popular, and again, your contribution could
definately help these projects develop. For that matter, either project
or any other project, for that matter could definately use testers.
Use the program. If you find a bug, youve made a contribution. Thats
easy enough.
-- Coders --
Ive already mentioned two large projects: ZTracker and Psycle. What
you might not know is that they both wouldnt mind some help as far as
the code is concerned. If you like coding, you might enjoy contributing
here.
Psycle is a software synth tracking program. In addition to the code
base for the main program C++, Win32, Psycle could most benefit from
some additional machines generators and/or effects. If youre
interested in contributing some code to this project, you will want to
visit the SourceForge project site
http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/psycle or or contact JAZ
jaze@terra.es.
ZTracker is also an open source project. It too is coded for Win32 in
C++. To get involved with this project, you will want to visit either
the sourceforge site http://sourceforge.net/projects/ztracker/ or
contact cmicali again, at cmicali@users.sf.net.
If C++ isnt your thing, you can always help to maintain a site. Im
sure you could contribute again to any one of the projects above. But
you could use standard HTML to help out another young project in the
works: h8 tracker http://www.h8.prv.pl/. He might be angry that I say
this, but CTT cct2@go2.pl would definately benefit from a new site.
Sure, he might be talented with HTML, but why let him do that when he
could be coding the next popular tracking program?
Again, Ill have to mount a shameless plug as well. SceneSpot is
under redevelopment right now. If you know Perl and mySQL the mySQL
part is easy to learn, you can definately contribute to our cause as
well. Currently, the development team consists of just one person:
myself. I could always use some company, and were set up on a CVS, so
if you have Linux, you can always contribute to SceneSpot.
-- Other Contributions --
There are hundreds of other ways to contribute to the scene:
Your favorite Demo or Tracking Competition might need some judges to
help determine who rocks, and who sucks. If you think this isnt much of
a contribution, think about what the competitors learn from your
decisions, your thoughts and your comments.
There might be a Demo Party that might be happening in your
neighborhood in the next couple of months. I garuntee that the
organizers could benefit from your help. Theres always lots of running
around to do, and lots of things to prepare. For that matter, there are
probably things that you could do for them even if youre not in the
same part of the world. Maybe you work for a company that might be
willing to sponsor such an event. Just imagine what a donation of a
couple of sound cards or a couple of video cards might do to the prize
pool! If you have those resources...use them. The orgos will love you
for it.
But lets not forget about the queen mother of all contributions:
Spread the Word. Talk up the scene. Make some CDs of your tunes, and
other tunes, and share them with your friends. Talk to other sceners,
make them feel welcomed. Offer advice about their demos, their music and
their art. Have an opinion about things, and make sure youre not too
harsh or sharp tounged when you speak about your opinions. The goal is
to get people interested, keep people interested, get them to
contribute, and not frustrate them. A frustrated scener is the scener
who leaves next month. That scener, with guidence, couldve been the
next Necros, or the next Vic. Wouldnt you feel good if you knew that
you were the guy that helped them get there? And wouldnt you feel
really incredible when he writes an article for The Root and states
that his start all began with you?
Yes, its an Ego thing. You contribute to the scene to get
recognized. You contribute to the scene because you feel as though you
belong. So get recognized, and get known for your contributions. Its
fun, and youll gain lots of friends around the world.
--Coplan
Link List
Portals:
Orange Juice.............................http://www.ojuice.net
Scene.org.................................http://www.scene.org
SceneSpot.............................http://www.scenespot.org
CFXweb.......................................http://cfxweb.net
Pouet.net.................................http://www.pouet.net
Demoscene.org.........................http://www.demoscene.org
Scenet....................................http://www.scenet.de
Demo.org...................................http://www.demo.org
Czech Scene................................http://www.scene.cz
Danish Scene..............................http://demo-scene.dk
Hungarian Scene........................http://www.scene-hu.com
Italian Scene...........................http://run.to/lascena
ModPlug Central Resources..........http://www.castlex.com/mods
U Norwegian Scene........................http://www.demoscene.no
Planet Zeus..........................http://www.planetzeus.net
Polish Scene...........................http://www.demoscena.pl
Russian Scene..........................http://www.demoscene.ru
Spanish Scene............................http://www.escena.org
Swiss Scene..............................http://www.chscene.ch
Archives:
Acid2.....................................ftp://acid2.stack.nl
Amber.......................................ftp://amber.bti.pl
Cyberbox.....................................ftp://cyberbox.de
Hornet 1992-1996........................ftp://ftp.hornet.org
Scene.org..................................ftp://ftp.scene.org
Scene.org Austra........................ftp://ftp.au.scene.org
Scene.org Netherlands...................ftp://ftp.nl.scene.org
Swiss Scene FTP...........................ftp://ftp.chscene.ch
Demo Groups:
3g Design..............................http://3gdesign.cjb.net
3State...................................http://threestate.com
7 Gods.........................................http://7gods.sk
Aardbei.....................................http://aardbei.com
Acid Rain..............................http://surf.to/acidrain
Addict..................................http://addict.scene.pl
Agravedict........................http://www.agravedict.art.pl
Alien Prophets.....................http://www.alienprophets.dk
Anakata..............................http://www.anakata.art.pl
Astral..............................http://astral.scene-hu.com
Astroidea........................http://astroidea.scene-hu.com
BlaBla..............................http://blabla.planet-d.net
Blasphemy..............................http://www.blasphemy.dk
Bomb..................................http://bomb.planet-d.net
Broncs..................................http://broncs.scene.cz
Byterapers.....................http://www.byterapers.scene.org
Bypass.................................http://bypass.scene.org
Calodox.................................http://www.calodox.org
Cocoon..............................http://cocoon.planet-d.net
Confine.................................http://www.confine.org
Damage...................................http://come.to/damage
U Dc5.........................................http://www.dc5.org
Delirium..............................http://delirium.scene.pl
Eclipse............................http://www.eclipse-game.com
Elitegroup..........................http://elitegroup.demo.org
Exceed...........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/exceed
Fairlight.............................http://www.fairlight.com
Fobia Design...........................http://www.fd.scene.org
Freestyle............................http://www.freestylas.org
Fresh! Mindworks...................http://kac.poliod.hu/fresh
Future Crew..........................http://www.futurecrew.org
Fuzzion.................................http://www.fuzzion.org
GODS...................................http://www.idf.net/gods
Halcyon...........................http://www.halcyon.scene.org
Haujobb..................................http://www.haujobb.de
Hellcore............................http://www.hellcore.art.pl
Infuse...................................http://www.infuse.org
Kilobite...............................http://kilobite.cjb.net
Kolor................................http://www.kaoz.org/kolor
Komplex.................................http://www.komplex.org
Kooma.....................................http://www.kooma.com
Mandula.........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/mandula
Maturefurk...........................http://www.maturefurk.com
Monar................ftp://amber.bti.pl/pub/scene/distro/monar
MOVSD....................................http://movsd.scene.cz
Nextempire...........................http://www.nextempire.com
Noice.....................................http://www.noice.org
Orange.................................http://orange.scene.org
Orion................................http://orion.planet-d.net
Outbreak................................http://www.outbreak.nu
Popsy Team............................http://popsyteam.rtel.fr
Prone................................http://www.prone.ninja.dk
Purple....................................http://www.purple.dk
Rage........................................http://www.rage.nu
Replay.......................http://www.shine.scene.org/replay
Retro A.C...........................http://www.retroac.cjb.net
Sista Vip..........................http://www.sistavip.exit.de
Skytech team............................http://www.skytech.org
Spinning Kids......................http://www.spinningkids.org
Sunflower.......................http://sunflower.opengl.org.pl
Talent.............................http://talent.eurochart.org
The Black Lotus.............................http://www.tbl.org
The Digital Artists Wired Nation.http://digitalartists.cjb.net
The Lost Souls...............................http://www.tls.no
TPOLM.....................................http://www.tpolm.com
Trauma.................................http://sauna.net/trauma
T-Rex.....................................http://www.t-rex.org
Unik........................................http://www.unik.de
Universe..........................http://universe.planet-d.net
Vantage..................................http://www.vantage.ch
Wipe....................................http://www.wipe-fr.org
Music Labels, Music Sites:
Aisth.....................................http://www.aisth.com
Aural Planet........................http://www.auralplanet.com
Azure...................................http://azure-music.com
Blacktron Music Production...........http://www.d-zign.com/bmp
BrothomStates.............http://www.katastro.fi/brothomstates
Chill..........................http://www.chillproductions.com
Chippendales......................http://www.sunpoint.net/cnd
Chiptune...............................http://www.chiptune.com
Da Jormas................................http://www.jormas.com
Fabtrax......http://www.cyberverse.com/boris/fabtrax/home.htm
Fairlight Music.....................http://fairlight.scene.org
Five Musicians.........................http://www.fm.scene.org
Fusion Music Crew.................http://members.home.nl/cyrex
Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff
Hellven.................................http://www.hellven.org
Ignorance.............................http://www.ignorance.org
Immortal Coil.............................http://www.ic.l7.net
Intense...........................http://intense.ignorance.org
Jecoute.................................http://jecoute.cjb.net
Kosmic Free Music Foundation.............http://www.kosmic.org
Lackluster.....................http://www.m3rck.net/lackluster
Level-D.................................http://www.level-d.com
Miasmah.............................http://www.miasmah.cjb.net
Milk.......................................http://milk.sgic.fi
Mah Music.............................http://come.to/mah.music
Maniacs of noise...............http://home.worldonline.nl/mon
MAZs sound homepage..................http://www.maz-sound.com
Med.......................................http://www.med.fr.fm
Moplayaz..........................http://ssmedion.de/moplayaz
Mono211.................................http://www.mono211.com
Morbid Minds..............http://www.raveordie.com/morbidminds
Noise................................http://www.noisemusic.org
Noerror.......................http://www.error-404.com/noerror
One Touch Records......................http://otr.planet-d.net
Park..................................http://park.planet-d.net
pHluid..................................http://phluid.acid.org
Radical Rhythms.....http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/merrelli/rr
RBi Music.............................http://www.rbi-music.com
Ruff Engine................http://members.xoom.com/ruffengine
SHR8M......................................http://1st.to/shr8m
Sound Devotion................http://sugarbomb.x2o.net/soundev
Soundstate.........................http://listen.to/soundstate
Sunlikamelo-D...........http://www.error-404.com/sunlikamelo-d
Suspect Records........................http://www.tande.com/sr
Tequila........................http://www.defacto2.net/tequila
Tempo................................http://tempomusic.cjb.net
Tetris....................................http://msg.sk/tetris
Theralite...........................http://theralite.avalon.hr
Tokyo Dawn Records........................http://tokyodawn.org
Triads C64 music archive.............http://www.triad.c64.org
UltraBeat.........................http://www.innerverse.com/ub
Vibrants................................http://www.vibrants.dk
Wiremaniacs.........................http://www.wiremaniacs.com
Zen of Tracking.........................http://surf.to/the-imm
Programming:
Programming portal......................http://www.gamedev.net
Programming portal.....................http://www.flipcode.com
Game programming portal...............http://www.gamasutra.com
3D programming portal.................http://www.3dgamedev.com
Programming portal......................http://www.exaflop.org
Programming portal............http://www.programmersheaven.com
Programming portal.....................http://www.freecode.com
NASM free Assembly compiler......http://www.cryogen.com/nasm
LCC free C compiler.........http://www.remcomp.com/lcc-win32
PTC video engine.........................http://www.gaffer.org
3D engines..........http://cg.cs.tu-berlin.de/ki/engines.html
Documents...............http://www.neutralzone.org/home/faqsys
File format collection...................http://www.wotsit.org
Magazines:
Amber...............................http://amber.bti.pl/dimag
Amnesia...............http://amnesia-dist.future.easyspace.com
Demojournal....................http://demojournal.planet-d.net
Eurochart.............................http://www.eurochart.org
Heroin...................................http://www.heroin.net
Hugi........................................http://www.hugi.de
Music Massage......................http://www.scene.cz/massage
Pain..................................http://pain.planet-d.net
Scenial...........................http://www.scenial.scene.org
Shine...............................http://www.shine.scene.org
Static Line................http://www.scenespot.org/staticline
Sunray..............................http://sunray.planet-d.net
TUHB.......................................http://www.tuhb.org
WildMag..................................http://www.wildmag.de
Parties:
Assembly Finland.....................http://www.assembly.org
Ambience The Netherlands..............http://www.ambience.nl
Dreamhack Sweden....................http://www.dreamhack.org
Buenzli Switzerland......................http://www.buenz.li
Gravity Poland............http://www.demoscena.cp.pl/gravity
Mekka-Symposium Germany...................http://ms.demo.org
Takeover The Netherlands.............,http://www.takeover.nl
The Party Denmark.....................http://www.theparty.dk
Others:
Demo secret parts....http://www.inf.bme.hu/mandula/secret.txt
Textmode Demo Archive.................http://tmda.planet-d.net
Arf!Studios..........................http://www.arfstudios.org
coders..................................http://coderz.cjb.net
Demonews Express.........http://www.teeselink.demon.nl/express
Demo fanclub........................http://jerware.org/fanclub
Digital Undergrounds.....................http://dug.iscool.net
Doose charts...............................http://www.doose.dk
Freax................................http://freax.scene-hu.com
GfxZone............................http://gfxzone.planet-d.net
PC-demos explained.....http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained
Pixel...................................http://pixel.scene.org
trax e-mail list.............................................
.............http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/trax
Underground Mine.............http://www.spinningkids.org/umine
IRC Channels:
Scene.........................................ircnet thescene
Programming.....................................ircnet coders
Programming....................................efnet flipcode
Graphics.........................................ircnet pixel
Music.............................................ircnet trax
Scene French..................................ircnet demofr
Programming French............................ircnet codefr
Graphics French..............................ircnet pixelfr
Scene Hungarian............................ircnet demoscene
Programming Hungarian......................ircnet coders.hu
Programming German........................ircnet coders.ger
Editor: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
Writers: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
Dilvish / Eric Hamilton / dilvie@yahoo.com
Psitron / Tim Soderstrom / tigerhawk@stic.net
Setec / Jesper Pederson / jesped@post.tele.dk
Seven / Stefaan VanNieuwenhuyze/ seven7@writeme.com
Tryhuk / Tryhuk Vojtech / vojtech.tryhuk@worldonline.cz
Technical Consult: Ranger Rick / Ben Reed / ranger@scenespot.org
Static Line on the Web: http://www.scenespot.org/staticline
Static Line Subscription Management:
http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/staticline
If you would like to contribute an article to Static Line, be aware
that we will format your article with two spaces at the beginning and one
space at the end of each line. Please avoid foul language and high ascii
characters. Contributions should be mailed to Coplan
coplan@scenespot.org.
See you next month!
-eof---------------------
// Monthly Scene E-Zine 260 Subscribers
Table Of Contents
Opening:
Message From the Editor
Letters From Our Readers
Features:
Party Report -- WOEST 2002
Journey Into Midi -- Part I: Culture Shock
Columns:
Music:
In Tune -- Quasimojos Main Gauche
Demo:
Screen Lit Vertigo -- Medium by einklang.net party-version
General:
Editorial --
Link List -- Get Somewhere in the Scene
Closing:
Credits
Message From the Editor
Wow, March already. Spring is coming up soon, and the demoscene is
about to wake from its winter slumber. Winter has traditionally always
been a slow time for the scene. This year, however, it seems as though
there is actually a lot of things happening. Maybe its just my
perspective, or maybe the scene is really waking up early this year.
Regardless, Im glad to say that were here, ready with our next issue
of Static Line.
This month, you will find a couple of interesting articles. Seven
went off to yet another demo party, WOEST 2002, and came back with
another party report. I dove into MIDI in January, and I have a little
article the first in a mini series that begins to share my experiences
with the world of MIDI. In a follow up of last issues Challenge for
2002, I have actually provided some ways in which you too can get
involved in the scene.
You got some good reading here. I hope this new issue brings a big
smile to your face.
FYI: Articles for the next issue of Static Line shall be directed
towards me no later than March 31st, 2002.
--Coplan
Party Report
WOEST 2002
By: Seven
After the rather bad Ambience 2k1 last year, the organizers of the
demoscene part of Ambience decided to go back to the roots. WOEST is a
much smaller party, both in time and in size: it starts on a saturday
noon, instead of the usual friday evening, and it takes place in a
former nuclear shelter providing place for at most 150 sceners instead
of Hogeschool Venlos +1000.
Since WOEST takes place in Venlo, the Netherlands just like Ambience,
and Im still living in Ghent, Belgium, with no car, I had to take the
train to Antwerpen, Belgium with my PC case under my arm people look
funny at you when you do that, where Djefke picked me up. Besides a
14-inch schreen and a keyboard for me, Djefke also stuffed his
full-tower PC, a laptop, an old Silicon Graphics station, a 14-inch and
17-inch screen, some hubs, a few headphones and a cooler in his small
green car. Some people really have too much hardware.
14:17:
After a perfect trip, we actually had difficulties first finding the
parking and then the entrance to the shelter. We paid the 17.50 Euro
entrance fee, which was the first time the Euro actually DID make my
life easier not changing francs to guilders ever again : Since we
both paid 20 EUro, and the orgo at the cashpoint didnt have enough
change, he simply wrote the due amount on a paper and promised to
give it to us later, which he did. This may tell you something about the
size and athmosphere of WOEST.
While we set up, I noticed less than 20 other sceners in the single
large room, while 107 people had registered on the website. So we could
pick a table facing the bigscreen and I didnt have to get up to watch
during the whole party lazy? me?. The bigscreen was only 2*2 meters,
but the soundsystem was almost as equally large. The orgos were showing
demos such as Boost/Doomsday, VIP2/Popsy Team, Medium/Einklang, Clone
meets clone/Fudge, etc etc. The bad aspect from this privileged position
became clear during the techno-styled demos such as Saint/Halcyon Da
Jormas, which the Dutchmen like VERY much. We could enjoy the superior
sound quantity up to and beyond the capacity of our aural nerves.
Weve just finished when a dutch scener comes asking if we have the
Turbo Pascal programming language with us. He introduces himself as
Cosmic Trance/FMC, and member of his group wants to learn to code demos.
It boggles my mind why anyone would use TP DOS, Mode 13H to code demos
in the 21st century, but I still have the proggy on a dusty corner of my
HD, so I burn it on CD, together with the Denthor tutorials and the rest
of C:/INFO/DEMOS/EFFECTS.
15:01:
Now an orgo is playing the original Castle Wolfenstein 3D on the
bigscreen. Infinite Reboot is here too, and we have a interesting talk
about his job, making a prototype game for the XBox. Apparently it costs
around 10.000 ten thousand dollar for an XBox development kit, and
each XBox game has to be approved of by Microsoft. So I think theres
little chance that there will ever be a demoscene on the XBox...
The bigscreen is showing ANSIs now. Pretty cool IMO.
15:19:
The rules for the surprise-music-compo are announced: 2-channel mod,
no real samples but stuff like dlls and such instead. Its a typical
surprise music requirement that guarantees lots of chiptunes.
16:49:
A movie about a gang of robbers trying to break into a Las Vegas
casino was partly shown, but because few people watch it, more demos are
shown: Fall Equals Winter/Replay, Just a touch of funk/Digital Murder,
and more. Avoozl has arrived, with some friends who start working on an
intro or demo they plan to release. Nice to see, I hope there will be
enough entries to make some good compos out of it.
17:14:
Im wearing my headphones to protect my vulnerable ears from the
acoustic attack of Soepkip 7 and a Trepaan demo. The Soepkip series are
classics in the Dutch scene, but if you dont like gabba music and you
see a Dutch scener starting one up, stick your finger in your ears and
run.
18:33:
Were back from our hunt for food, and we managed to ambushed some
kebab. There was a long queue in the small store, but it was too cold
outside to go somewhere else. BTW, am I getting old or is it normal for
6-year old toddlers to wear earrings? Anyway, were back in the sanity
of WOEST :
19:41:
Everyone is staring at the bigscreen on which several Gameboy Advance
intros are shown 17 of them on 1 rom-image. FYI, the GBA has a 16-mhz
32-bit risc-CPU, 384 KB RAM and a 240*160 15-bit screen. Still, the GBA
scene can show tunnels, bumpmapping, 3D rabbits and of course all kinds
of oldkool effects. Even the first level of Doom is shown, albeit
without monsters and with a single texture consisting of black and white
squares, which make the level look like a giant kitchen :
20:54:
After some searching, Ive found Control/Green back and burn it on a
CD so the orgos can show it. To copy the CD, the orgo tried to start
windows, only to be greeted by the message Windows has been
trepanized! The audience bursts in laughter: the group Trepaan, famous
for their bad gabba demos, once made a demo that, when run, silently
disabled windows because windows is for lamers. Guess which demo the
organizers unwittingly ran some time before... After typing win TREPAAN
RULES or something like that, windows start correctly again :
Its a pity only a small amount of different demos are shown, several
are already shown twice or three times such as the Soepkip demos.
21:50
The bigscreen shows an Underworld concert. Im trying to connect to
the network, but to no avail : Yes, there is a small network, despite
what was said on the website that was only to discourage gamers to
come.
Theres also an old 386 standing on a lone table which is used as a
party PC: everyone can write their thoughts on it. Most of it is in
Dutch of course. Cosmic Trance tries to convince me to write on it, but
I already have a party report under construction :
22:50:
After messing around in both Linux and Windows, I managed to at least
see other people on the network, but I cant connect to them : The
Underword thingie is over, now some new demos are shown, from TPOLM and
others.
23:46:
Oh my god! An orgo Freebase if Im not mistaken just announced
the karaoke compo: youve to sing along with a demo with lyrics
Hyperventilation, VIP2 or Just a touch of funk The horror! But they
cant find enough participants for it, so the idea dies a silent death.
2:22:
Just helped Cyrex/Fusion Music Crew with his rotating starfield in
turbo pascal. Its amazing how hard it is to remember the correct
formula for a rotation when you havent used it for a while. Not to
mention the weird surprises that this ancient language holds in stock if
youre used to C/C++. After a lot of head-scratching we concluded that
random320 - 160 will never result in a small negative number, only
in small or huge positive ones sigh.
3:14:
Beat me repeatedly on the head with a large hammer: Ive fixed the
problem with the network, by ... turning of my firewall stupid me!. No
wonder I couldnt make a connection : I start leeching some Monty
Python episodes, while the bigscreen plays Shad, Dose2, Vip2 again,
Kasparove, Nowhere, Alien Sex Clone and more.
7:17:
Not much is happening. The Spaceball movie is shown, really a classic
on demoparties. Some sceners are trying to make the party report on the
386 reach the 1000th line, but they run out of inspiration and start to
write a porn story instead.
8:28:
Aha, Tribes/PulseMelon is shown. Still a great demo with fantastic
music. The Fulcrum/Matrix is shown too. Ive asked Freebase and
Ile/Aardbei if there were any surprise coding rules announced. Im not
interested anymore in competing, but Im wondering if I missed them or
if there werent any in the first place. It turns out there werent, but
Ile ask what I would want for a surprise compo, clearly in an attempt to
make those the rules. I avoid the question and go back to fleshing out
this report while Ile tries to convince someone else its possible to
make an effect in 64 bytes.
10:15:
Just watched Jet Lis The One: not a bad action movie, if you ignore
the technical/pseudo-scientific holes in it. The story and effects are
heavily influenced by The Matrix, but its still enjoyable.
11:26:
The documentary Pirates from Silicon Valley is shown, about the
history of the PC, the first Apple computers, the young Bill Gates and
Steve Jobbs etc. Ive seen the series already at university, so I amuse
myself by wathcing the audience. While they are laughing at the
stereotypical nerds that are interviewed and with the looks of Bill
Gates back then, almost everyone is still watching it with some
fascination, and it draws more attention than any demo shown so far.
12:27:
The compos have started, with the music compo first. Ile has taken
over my PC to code a 64 bytes intro. It seems that there will be a
surprise coding compo after all, and the rules are: create either an
effect in 64 bytes, or code a fully compliant SQL-server :
13:51:
The music compo is over, and we can vote immediately by raising
hands. Its rather chaotic. First were supposed to vote for only 3
songs, then we can vote as many times as we want. A second round of
rasing hands is done to rank the 3 highest songs of the first round.
Meanwhile my fingers started to itch to code a 64 byte intro too, so
Ile got himself another PC. Looking for ideas in my old code, I notice a
160-byte big cellular automata effect, which I try to squeeze down to
64B.
14:20:
The graphics and 64K intro compos are over, and its nice to see how
many entries there are. 14 songs, 7 graphics, 6 intros... Not bad at all
for a 60-person party, even though many of them are joke-entries. The
Synergy intro was the clear winner, almost everyone voted for that one.
Ive already submitted my entry, but Im not very pleased with it:
its only a static one-color screen with a certain pattern on it. After
seeing the animated effects of Jace/TBL and Ile, and noticing several
bytes of useless data that were still in the code, I started working on
it again.
14:49:
The surprise music compo was all-chiptunes, of course, and Xam/RVL won
it. Hint for the others: chiptunes that are hard on the ears will *not*
get many votes... Three wild demos were shown, and the Gameboy Advance
demo from Farbrausch got first.
Next the surprise coding compo starts, with 6 entries, all of which
requires the compo PC to be rebooted. In the meantime Ile invites Jal,
the oldest dutch scener, to tell stories about the time when everything
was much better in the Dutch demoscene : Iles entry wins, but I get
second place. Joy!
15:30:
The democompo is last: Farbrausch has made another techno demo in
their fr-minus-Nr series, and Jace/TBL has thrown together several
disconnected effects, some of which look like Winamp plugins. But the
fight for the first place is between Intershoelace/Wasniach and
Partyhack vl/ Lemon vs tpb, with the latter winning with 22 points vs 20
for the former.
Djefke and I start packing immediately afterwards. The prize ceremony
is rather short, as only the first place is rewarded. Since less people
came than expected, there are no monetary prizes. Instead, the winners
get chocolate easter bunnies, lollipops, CDs and bratwursten. As
Freebase said, the important thing is not cheap success but to get
respect :
So, what can I say about WOEST? I think it was definitely worth
visiting: great atmosphere with 100 sceners, the bigscreen thats
almost constantly in use, 45 releases meaning almost 2 out of 3 sceners
made something, friendly organizers. True, its much smaller than the
demised Bizarre or Takeover parties, but I think the increase in
scene-feeling is worth it. Greets to all people I met there, hope to see
you at Mekka/Symposium!
You can find the results and entries at http://woest.scene.org
--Seven
Journey into MIDI
Part I: Culture Shock
By: Coplan
-- Introduction --
My first sound card was a Sound Blaster 16, an industry standard. I
knew nothing about MIDI, aside from a couple of MID files that I had on
my hard drive and the fact that I had a free copy of Cakewalk that came
with my sound card. I never got into MIDI very much at that point, and
I was very naive when it came to the medium. I wasnt impressed with
the sound quality, and I didnt really care to experiment with it. Even
when I got my Gravis Ultrasound, I still wasnt impressed with MIDI. I
never wouldve given MIDI a chance, had it not been for one guy: Setec.
For years, the poor guy tried to convince this stubborn fool into
getting some sort of MIDI Synth. The money alone was enough to scare me
from that thought. But I was not fully convinced that I liked the sound
quality. Eventually, Setec started making recordings for me: of
instruments, of things he played, and so on. Ill admit, I was quite
surprised at the sound quality. I didnt expect anything MIDI to be
that good. So, I was interested.
It still took several months, but Setec finally convinced me to buy a
Roland XP-30. Im working in the real world now, and I can afford to
spoil myself. So, after Christmas, I bought myself this wonderful peice
of equipment.
This article is actually the first among a series that I will write.
It will be more like a journal of sorts. I will share with you the
thoughts that are passing through my mind, and the things that I have
discovered while learning about MIDI. Each month, I will keep you
updated of my findings. It is my hope that my journey will open more
eyes to MIDI and maybe get a few more artists on the bandwagon.
Enjoy!
-- Part I: Culture Shock --
One of the things that sold me on MIDI, specifically the Roland XP-30,
was the sound quality. Sure, I had Setecs recordings...but I had to
physically go down to a music store and play with it before I was fully
convinced of how good this thing sounded. I made several visits to the
local music shop, and spent many hours just playing with the thing. I
probably pissed a lot of people off, but with something this expensive,
I wanted to give it as much of a demo period as I could. Well, after a
month of playing with the XP-30, I finally bought one.
When I got it home, I hooked it directly up to my stereo for a while.
My computer was in peices, and I hadnt had any new parts yet. So, I
played and played with my new toy for a couple of days, until my parts
arrived. So I got my computer working again, and I hooked this thing up
to my computer utilizing the MIDI cables that I had bought. I strike a
key, and panic. I heard nothing going through my computer. This was
very disturbing. So I jumped online, and tried to track down anyone I
knew who knew MIDI. As it turns out, I made a common mistake. The
truth is, audio from your synth does not travel accross the MIDI cables.
The only purpose of the MIDI cable is to send MIDI data not sound
between the instruments or in this case, my computer and my synth.
So, the reason I wasnt hearing sound was because I didnt have the
audio hooked into my computer. After a quick stop to Radio Shack, I was
finally able to plug my synth directly into my sound cards Line In
jack. Now I can hear sound.
It is also important to know that a MIDI synth has a Local Mode
setting. Most of the time, it doesnt hurt to have it set to On. That
is, it will control itself and play a note when you hit a note. If you
turn this off, it will send the note on/off data to the computer...but
unless something sends the information back to your synth, the audio
wont be played. If youre using some sort of MIDI sequencer, you might
have to turn Local Mode off so that you dont get double notes, or in
some cases hear a couple of different sound patches playing at the same
time.
Now before I go on, you must realize that Ive been tracking for
almost 9 years now. Im pretty set in my music ways, and Im very
stubborn. The biggest step for me is realizing that I likely wont be
able to use Impulse Tracker anymore. Yes, IT has MIDI support. But it
requires the Sound Blaster MIDI interface, which plugs into your SBs
game port. I have an SB-Live which already has MIDI ports in it. So I
was not going to get that MIDI interface. Alas, that prevents me from
using Impulse Tracker for my MIDI sequencing. That is something very
scary for me.
But there is hope. There are a couple of programs out there that I
can use, and maybe even get used to. I have some demos for Cubase VST
and Cakewalks Sonar. Both are commercial programs, and relatively
pricey. Both seem to work very similarly as well. But its vastly
different from the world of tracking. So, I checked out the scene to see
what I could find.
A lot of people use and enjoy Buzz. For whatever reason, it seems to
crash a lot on my computer, especially whenever I try to use MIDI with
it. There are a couple of machines plugins of a sort that you can
download for Buzz that will allow you to sequence your MIDI. From people
I know who use it with their MIDI devices, it works pretty well. But,
its not for me. I dont like Buzz very much.
Currently, Im toying around with a program called Z-Tracker. ZT is a
pretty nice little program that very closely resembles Impulse Tracker.
Thats a bonus to me...as its very comfortable for me to use. This will
likely be my primary tracker for a while. The only drawback about this
one? You cannot load audio samples. Its a MIDI-only program.
Psycle, a program similar to Buzz, does not fully support MIDI yet at
all. It allows you to utilize your MIDI device for input, but thats
about it. Basically, you can hook up a MIDI keyboard to trigger notes.
But the sound must be done utilizing different machines within Psycle.
But rumor has it that they intend to implement some sort of MIDI output
support in Psycle 2.x. As this is still a rumor...well see how it goes.
Im going to stay involved in this community, as I would love to have
the best of all worlds: Sound samples, MIDI support and soft-synths for
filtering and the like.
As I said, Im doing most of my music experimentation in Z-Tracker
now. Im slowly beginning to learn some things aboug MIDI, and the way
it works. As with everything else...there are always advantages and
disadvantages. One of the biggest advantages of the synth world is the
fact that you can dial up any number of samples without too much ease.
I know that Im used to spending hours downloading songs and sample sets
to try to find the perfect piano, or violin, or what-not. But in a
matter of minutes, I can select from any number of violins already in my
synth. Later on down the road, my synth allows me to expand it by
adding patch modules. I might consider this, but for now, I have more
samples than I could have use for. Another big advantage of the MIDI
world is the fact that you dont have to worry about sample dynamics.
What I mean is that you need not worry about loading 5 piano samples
just to get a full range of the piano. This information is already
built into your patches on your synth. So, if you want a piano, you
load the piano...thats it.
But alas, I did say there were disadvantages. If you choose not to
use a program like Z-Tracker, and you prefer to use some of the
commercial software out there, it is to your benefit to learn how to
play piano. I do not play it very well, and that might be one of the
reasons I cant get used to such programs. You can use such programs as
Sonar and Cubase without having such piano skills, but you will find it
difficult to use. Another thing that drives me nuts is the way Channel
10 on your MIDI devices work. Channel 10, under most configurations, is
reserved for your percussion sets. While you can choose which percussion
set you want to use...it is rather difficult to get used to all your
percussion being utilized in one patch. The good news is that, if this
bugs you, you can still load your percussion in other patch-parts. The
bad news is that you can only load 16 parts in all. The biggest
disadvantage to MIDI...you cant remain a purist. As you might have
gathered from my introduction, MIDI files are not nearly as
cross-platform compatible as one might think. The data will transfer
flawlessly. But unless someone has the same synth you do, they likely
wont hear what you heard. Even if you write in General MIDI a
universal standard for patch mapping, the sound quality will likely
differ. Therefore, if you want to share your music with others -- youll
have to make a recording and release in MP3 format.
My reaction when I first heard about having only 16 parts to map out
for my music was THATs ALL? Well, it really isnt as bad as you would
think it would be. Take your average IT. Most of mine have anywhere
between 8 and 24 samples. One of my tunes, which has 20 samples, can
easily be narrowed down. It loads 5 piano samples, 3 violin samples, and
3 clarinet samples. Considering I wouldnt have to load the excess
samples to maintain sound quality across a range, I would literally only
need to load 12 samples. But wait, 6 of them are percussion samples. In
MIDI, they all get to pass through the same channel Channel 10, and I
have a full percussion set dependant on the note I play. So in
actuality, I really only need 7 patches or channels. That still gives me
plenty of room for more patches. And the reality is that the samples
found with your synth are much fuller, and much more wholesome. So, you
wont need to layer up the patches nearly as much as you would need to
layer patches in tracking.
Taking everything with a grain of salt, I am quite happy with the
MIDI world thus far. As I continue on, I will grow with experience, and
I will grow as a song writer. The XP-30 has given me a lot of
inspiration, and it takes a lot of the boreing stuff out of tracking --
like the sound sample searching. Its really a great medium to work in,
and Im not at all dissappointed in my purchase. The only catch: Youll
find yourself playing with your synth the first few weeks. You wont
write anything of any significance, but you will have a whole bunch of
partial tunes. Thats not a bad thing, it helps you learn. But you cant
be focused on releasing something every week, at least until you get
used to the medium.
--Coplan
In Tune
Quasimojos Main Gauche
By: Coplan
-- Corrections: --
Last issue, I did my 2001 favorites list, as I do every year. On that
list was a tune Warlock by Caravan. To refresh your memory, this was
a tune that was used for a demo, Cadence Cascade by Andromeda
Software Development ASD. Unfortunately, the tune is not an original
tune. It is in fact a tune from the late 60s or early 70s. The tune
was credited the way it shouldve been, and it was never said that it
was an original tune for the demo. My appologies over the confusion.
Regardless, it is a really good tune, and it was a good utilization of
such. Again, sorry about the confusion.
-- Introduction --
Ive been considering getting myself a synth for many years now.
Lately, I was finally able to afford one, but I still wasnt 100 sold
on the idea...even with my buddy Setec bugging me every other day.
Sure, I could sample off the thing...but I wanted to toy with it as
well. So it wouldnt be worth it to me unless I could do some MIDI
stuff with it as well. But keep in mind, this is a boy who used to
listen to MIDI files on his old fm synth SB16 before getting into
tracking. And I got into tracking because the potential for sound
quality was far better than what I heard from cheezy MIDI files.
So it was recommended that I check out ZTracker. I jumped on the
ZTracker site http://ztracker.sourceforge.net and grabbed some of the
tunes listed there. Quasimojos tune, Main Gauche, was listed among
the tunes created on ZTracker. So I grabbed it, and I was impressed.
Needless to say, I ordered my synth. Check out my adventures in
Journey into MIDI, a feature mini-column starting this issue.
-- Main Gauche by Quasimojo --
Two things impress me most about this song:
1 The song was created utilizing ZTracker, which is a MIDI-only
tracking program. One cannot load samples into a song. I suppose
Quasimojo couldve done a lot of post-processing, or tracked out
a drum track for this, or any combination of things. But that
doesnt make me loose respect for the song at all. The base was
started in ZTracker, and somehow was turned into the final product
we have today. The methodology isnt all that different from how
most trackers write their music.
2 Main Gauche is mellow, but its damn fun to listen to. This is
one of those songs that, if played at a high school dance, the
people on the floor wouldnt know whether to slow dance or fast
dance. Theres a lot of energy in the song, but you can also
chill to it. Its one of those songs that you can either crank
the volume, or turn it down. The dynamics of the song are
incredible and versatile in that aspect.
The song opens with a very faded nylon guitar riff and some static, as
if we were listening to some old record. It repeats a bit, and you can
almost hear the record skipping. I picture a talented DJ laying down
his tunes and his rhythms with his turn-tables. Then he layers on top
of that some of the most interesting percussion and base guitar riffs
youve ever heard in a song like this.
Let me dwell on the percussion for a little bit. This style of music
Quasimojo calls it Love n Light allows for a large amount of
artistic license. Unless there were two or three drummers involved
with this song, the percussion is likely not exactly humanly possible.
But again, artistic license is something Ill allow in styles such as
this. He uses the high-hat as if it were being played with two hands:
one with the stick, the other ready to stop it from vibrating. The
effect is pretty cool. Something else Id like to point out about the
percussion: The base drum. It seems like such a subtle thing, but base
drum rolls are not exactly easy to do on a drum set, even with dual
pedals. In a song like this, it adds an incredible depth to the song.
And yet, most people wont even notice it. Again, one of the unique
things about electronic styles is the fact that there are no limits.
Now I raved earlier about the dynamics of this song. Grab this song,
and do three things with it. First, listen to it at a normal volume.
Youll get the idea for how the song works, and youll appreciate the
next two steps more. Second, pump up the volume and if you can, make
sure you get some base response in there. That base guitar and the
percussion will take control of your mind, and youll feel like youre a
part of the song. Finally, turn that volume down. Even if you still
have a lot of base present, youll find that it fits pretty well into
the background. It doesnt interrupt your thoughts, and it certainly
doesnt get in the way. I dont know how he does it, but this is
something that few songs can do. There is one thing for sure: Quasimojo
did his homework when it came to the final mixing tweaks. The song is
mixed really well, and the sound quality is incredible.
Again, I have to throw in the fact that this was created with a MIDI
synthesizer. I wouldnt have believed it until I got my own, and
realized what I was missing all these years. From a creation point of
view, I am in awe when it comes to this song. From a music appreciation
point of view, well, Im still in awe about this song. Its a great
tune, and I highly recommend this tune for almost anyone.
Song Information:
Title: Main Gauche
Author: Quasimojo
Release date: July 17, 2001
Length: 6:06
File Size: 4.8 MB
Source: http://www.chillproductions.com
--Coplan
In Tune is a regular column dedicated to the review of original and
singular works by fellow trackers. It is to be used as a tool to expand
your listening and writing horizons, but should not be used as a general
rating system. Coplans opinions are not the opinions of the Static
Line Staff.
If you have heard a song you would like to recommend either your own,
or another persons, We can be contacted through e-mail useing the
addresses found in the closing notes. Please do not send files attached
to e-mail without first contacting us. Thank you!
Screen Lit Vertigo
Medium by einklang.net party-version
By: Seven
Found at www.scene.org
3th place at the Party 2k1.
System requirements:
11 MB HD, Windows, and I guess a 3D card with TL is a must.
Test Machine: PIII 900 640MB, SB1024, GeForce 2MX 32MB, Win98
The Credits:
Pet: Code, design
Tjurn: BW ping pong
Photonic Labor: Makina gfx
dont ask, thats whats in the credits
The Demo:
Well, well. Its been a long time since Ive seen one of these. A
techno-demo! And its a pretty good one, which is an even more rare
occurence : Im not a fan of techno music, too monotonous for my taste.
The track of Medium is no exception, it starts with a continue voice
sample that is repeated over and over, and which is slowly joined by
more and more layers of percussion. Theres a break halfway, in the
water-part of the demo, but after that it goes back to monotonous beats.
However, the code in this one is really good, IMHO. It starts with a
kind of tunnel, made of and filled with red transparent shrouds. It
looks very different from the usual run-of-the-mill tunnel effects.
Later a square pillar formed by thousands of orthogonal lines in
electric blue appears in the tunnel, the looks remind me a bit of Super
luxus lemmen paketti/MFX. The next part shows 2 morphing blobs, one
jellyfish and the other corkscrew-like, moving very smooth and with very
nice chrome-like reflections, not plasticy as happens too often. Theres
a slower underwater part, during which the credits are shown too. The
last part features a kind of distorted 3D, it looks like the models have
been pulled through a bread-slicer, then rendered twice on top of each
other: once solid, and once sliced. It looks much cooler than it sounds,
believe me :
Besides a little bear logo at the start, there are no real graphics,
just white flashing overlays of cogs. The syncing to the music is very
good, as is to be expected in this type of demo. Every color change,
flash or camera switch is synced to the beat.
Overall:
There are a few things I dont like about Medium, but theyre all
inherent to the fact its a techno-demo, so it wouldnt be fair to call
them bad points. Just like the music, the effects are very monotonous
going on for several minutes before changing, and the flashing gets on
my nerves near the end. Id also appreciate it if a demo just quits when
the music is over, now it leaves me wondering wether my PC is so slow
that the graphics have to catch up with the sound. But the demo is
definately good in its genre, with its flashy color scheme and the
matching speed of the music and the visuals. So, if youre a fan of
techno, this one is certainly recommended.
--Seven
Editorial
Where to go now!
By: Coplan
-- Introduction --
Last issue, the January issue, I put forth a challenge. When I
started releasing Static Line, my goal was, and still is, to get more
people involved within the scene. This may or may not be apparent all
whenever you read my words. One of the things that makes the scene so
glorious is the fact that there are so many people doing this as a
hobby. No one makes money from the scene. No one even breaks even.
People contribute to the scene because its something they like to do.
Without human involvement, your involvement, the scene really does not
exist.
To be fair, I have already made a challenge to you, my readers. I
have already put forth a great deal of my conscience in hope that you
will want to become more involved. This month, I will point out a few
projects that might benefit from your contribution. Some of these might
sound like shameless plugs, and Ill admit that. But we could always use
some help as well.
-- Writers --
Granted, you could easily write for Static Line. You know where to
get ahold of me, and you know where you can contribute. Maybe youll
have interest in interviewing people at random. Maybe youll want to
write technical articles about the finer points of coding demos. Or
technique articles about how to track good tunes in some of the more
current tracking programs. Were always looking for writers, and were
always willing to consider any article that is sent our way. Be it for a
column, be it for a feature article, well at least check it out.
Aside from that, there are plenty of quality magazines out there that
could benefit from some good writers. One of the more famous magazines
is Hugi http://www.hugi.de. Hugi is a diskmag with a whole coded
interface that comes out every few months, which might be an easier
schedule to keep than a weekly or monthly magazine. While the magazine
might seem to be packed full of articles all the time, Im sure Claus
Adok wouldnt mind getting some extra articles. For that matter, you
could always start checking out any one of the magazines listed in our
links list, and maybe contact the editor about writing for them. And
dont feel you have to limit yourself to one magazine. Seven writes both
for Static Line and Hugi, for example. Sometimes, he even utilizes the
same articles.
No one says that you have to write articles either. Supposing you
like technical writing, and documentation. There are plenty of
open-source projects within the scene that could more than benefit from
some documentation. Cmicali cmicali@users.sf.net, creator of ZTracker
http://ztracker.sourceforge.net, could definately benefit from some
documentation of the project. By contributing to this project, you could
definately free up some time for Cmicali to continue coding his IT based
MIDI tracking program. Theres also the Psycle soft-synth tracking
program http://psycle.pastnotecut.org/, which has also requested
additional help for software documentation. Both of these programs are
starting to become more popular, and again, your contribution could
definately help these projects develop. For that matter, either project
or any other project, for that matter could definately use testers.
Use the program. If you find a bug, youve made a contribution. Thats
easy enough.
-- Coders --
Ive already mentioned two large projects: ZTracker and Psycle. What
you might not know is that they both wouldnt mind some help as far as
the code is concerned. If you like coding, you might enjoy contributing
here.
Psycle is a software synth tracking program. In addition to the code
base for the main program C++, Win32, Psycle could most benefit from
some additional machines generators and/or effects. If youre
interested in contributing some code to this project, you will want to
visit the SourceForge project site
http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/psycle or or contact JAZ
jaze@terra.es.
ZTracker is also an open source project. It too is coded for Win32 in
C++. To get involved with this project, you will want to visit either
the sourceforge site http://sourceforge.net/projects/ztracker/ or
contact cmicali again, at cmicali@users.sf.net.
If C++ isnt your thing, you can always help to maintain a site. Im
sure you could contribute again to any one of the projects above. But
you could use standard HTML to help out another young project in the
works: h8 tracker http://www.h8.prv.pl/. He might be angry that I say
this, but CTT cct2@go2.pl would definately benefit from a new site.
Sure, he might be talented with HTML, but why let him do that when he
could be coding the next popular tracking program?
Again, Ill have to mount a shameless plug as well. SceneSpot is
under redevelopment right now. If you know Perl and mySQL the mySQL
part is easy to learn, you can definately contribute to our cause as
well. Currently, the development team consists of just one person:
myself. I could always use some company, and were set up on a CVS, so
if you have Linux, you can always contribute to SceneSpot.
-- Other Contributions --
There are hundreds of other ways to contribute to the scene:
Your favorite Demo or Tracking Competition might need some judges to
help determine who rocks, and who sucks. If you think this isnt much of
a contribution, think about what the competitors learn from your
decisions, your thoughts and your comments.
There might be a Demo Party that might be happening in your
neighborhood in the next couple of months. I garuntee that the
organizers could benefit from your help. Theres always lots of running
around to do, and lots of things to prepare. For that matter, there are
probably things that you could do for them even if youre not in the
same part of the world. Maybe you work for a company that might be
willing to sponsor such an event. Just imagine what a donation of a
couple of sound cards or a couple of video cards might do to the prize
pool! If you have those resources...use them. The orgos will love you
for it.
But lets not forget about the queen mother of all contributions:
Spread the Word. Talk up the scene. Make some CDs of your tunes, and
other tunes, and share them with your friends. Talk to other sceners,
make them feel welcomed. Offer advice about their demos, their music and
their art. Have an opinion about things, and make sure youre not too
harsh or sharp tounged when you speak about your opinions. The goal is
to get people interested, keep people interested, get them to
contribute, and not frustrate them. A frustrated scener is the scener
who leaves next month. That scener, with guidence, couldve been the
next Necros, or the next Vic. Wouldnt you feel good if you knew that
you were the guy that helped them get there? And wouldnt you feel
really incredible when he writes an article for The Root and states
that his start all began with you?
Yes, its an Ego thing. You contribute to the scene to get
recognized. You contribute to the scene because you feel as though you
belong. So get recognized, and get known for your contributions. Its
fun, and youll gain lots of friends around the world.
--Coplan
Link List
Portals:
Orange Juice.............................http://www.ojuice.net
Scene.org.................................http://www.scene.org
SceneSpot.............................http://www.scenespot.org
CFXweb.......................................http://cfxweb.net
Pouet.net.................................http://www.pouet.net
Demoscene.org.........................http://www.demoscene.org
Scenet....................................http://www.scenet.de
Demo.org...................................http://www.demo.org
Czech Scene................................http://www.scene.cz
Danish Scene..............................http://demo-scene.dk
Hungarian Scene........................http://www.scene-hu.com
Italian Scene...........................http://run.to/lascena
ModPlug Central Resources..........http://www.castlex.com/mods
U Norwegian Scene........................http://www.demoscene.no
Planet Zeus..........................http://www.planetzeus.net
Polish Scene...........................http://www.demoscena.pl
Russian Scene..........................http://www.demoscene.ru
Spanish Scene............................http://www.escena.org
Swiss Scene..............................http://www.chscene.ch
Archives:
Acid2.....................................ftp://acid2.stack.nl
Amber.......................................ftp://amber.bti.pl
Cyberbox.....................................ftp://cyberbox.de
Hornet 1992-1996........................ftp://ftp.hornet.org
Scene.org..................................ftp://ftp.scene.org
Scene.org Austra........................ftp://ftp.au.scene.org
Scene.org Netherlands...................ftp://ftp.nl.scene.org
Swiss Scene FTP...........................ftp://ftp.chscene.ch
Demo Groups:
3g Design..............................http://3gdesign.cjb.net
3State...................................http://threestate.com
7 Gods.........................................http://7gods.sk
Aardbei.....................................http://aardbei.com
Acid Rain..............................http://surf.to/acidrain
Addict..................................http://addict.scene.pl
Agravedict........................http://www.agravedict.art.pl
Alien Prophets.....................http://www.alienprophets.dk
Anakata..............................http://www.anakata.art.pl
Astral..............................http://astral.scene-hu.com
Astroidea........................http://astroidea.scene-hu.com
BlaBla..............................http://blabla.planet-d.net
Blasphemy..............................http://www.blasphemy.dk
Bomb..................................http://bomb.planet-d.net
Broncs..................................http://broncs.scene.cz
Byterapers.....................http://www.byterapers.scene.org
Bypass.................................http://bypass.scene.org
Calodox.................................http://www.calodox.org
Cocoon..............................http://cocoon.planet-d.net
Confine.................................http://www.confine.org
Damage...................................http://come.to/damage
U Dc5.........................................http://www.dc5.org
Delirium..............................http://delirium.scene.pl
Eclipse............................http://www.eclipse-game.com
Elitegroup..........................http://elitegroup.demo.org
Exceed...........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/exceed
Fairlight.............................http://www.fairlight.com
Fobia Design...........................http://www.fd.scene.org
Freestyle............................http://www.freestylas.org
Fresh! Mindworks...................http://kac.poliod.hu/fresh
Future Crew..........................http://www.futurecrew.org
Fuzzion.................................http://www.fuzzion.org
GODS...................................http://www.idf.net/gods
Halcyon...........................http://www.halcyon.scene.org
Haujobb..................................http://www.haujobb.de
Hellcore............................http://www.hellcore.art.pl
Infuse...................................http://www.infuse.org
Kilobite...............................http://kilobite.cjb.net
Kolor................................http://www.kaoz.org/kolor
Komplex.................................http://www.komplex.org
Kooma.....................................http://www.kooma.com
Mandula.........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/mandula
Maturefurk...........................http://www.maturefurk.com
Monar................ftp://amber.bti.pl/pub/scene/distro/monar
MOVSD....................................http://movsd.scene.cz
Nextempire...........................http://www.nextempire.com
Noice.....................................http://www.noice.org
Orange.................................http://orange.scene.org
Orion................................http://orion.planet-d.net
Outbreak................................http://www.outbreak.nu
Popsy Team............................http://popsyteam.rtel.fr
Prone................................http://www.prone.ninja.dk
Purple....................................http://www.purple.dk
Rage........................................http://www.rage.nu
Replay.......................http://www.shine.scene.org/replay
Retro A.C...........................http://www.retroac.cjb.net
Sista Vip..........................http://www.sistavip.exit.de
Skytech team............................http://www.skytech.org
Spinning Kids......................http://www.spinningkids.org
Sunflower.......................http://sunflower.opengl.org.pl
Talent.............................http://talent.eurochart.org
The Black Lotus.............................http://www.tbl.org
The Digital Artists Wired Nation.http://digitalartists.cjb.net
The Lost Souls...............................http://www.tls.no
TPOLM.....................................http://www.tpolm.com
Trauma.................................http://sauna.net/trauma
T-Rex.....................................http://www.t-rex.org
Unik........................................http://www.unik.de
Universe..........................http://universe.planet-d.net
Vantage..................................http://www.vantage.ch
Wipe....................................http://www.wipe-fr.org
Music Labels, Music Sites:
Aisth.....................................http://www.aisth.com
Aural Planet........................http://www.auralplanet.com
Azure...................................http://azure-music.com
Blacktron Music Production...........http://www.d-zign.com/bmp
BrothomStates.............http://www.katastro.fi/brothomstates
Chill..........................http://www.chillproductions.com
Chippendales......................http://www.sunpoint.net/cnd
Chiptune...............................http://www.chiptune.com
Da Jormas................................http://www.jormas.com
Fabtrax......http://www.cyberverse.com/boris/fabtrax/home.htm
Fairlight Music.....................http://fairlight.scene.org
Five Musicians.........................http://www.fm.scene.org
Fusion Music Crew.................http://members.home.nl/cyrex
Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff
Hellven.................................http://www.hellven.org
Ignorance.............................http://www.ignorance.org
Immortal Coil.............................http://www.ic.l7.net
Intense...........................http://intense.ignorance.org
Jecoute.................................http://jecoute.cjb.net
Kosmic Free Music Foundation.............http://www.kosmic.org
Lackluster.....................http://www.m3rck.net/lackluster
Level-D.................................http://www.level-d.com
Miasmah.............................http://www.miasmah.cjb.net
Milk.......................................http://milk.sgic.fi
Mah Music.............................http://come.to/mah.music
Maniacs of noise...............http://home.worldonline.nl/mon
MAZs sound homepage..................http://www.maz-sound.com
Med.......................................http://www.med.fr.fm
Moplayaz..........................http://ssmedion.de/moplayaz
Mono211.................................http://www.mono211.com
Morbid Minds..............http://www.raveordie.com/morbidminds
Noise................................http://www.noisemusic.org
Noerror.......................http://www.error-404.com/noerror
One Touch Records......................http://otr.planet-d.net
Park..................................http://park.planet-d.net
pHluid..................................http://phluid.acid.org
Radical Rhythms.....http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/merrelli/rr
RBi Music.............................http://www.rbi-music.com
Ruff Engine................http://members.xoom.com/ruffengine
SHR8M......................................http://1st.to/shr8m
Sound Devotion................http://sugarbomb.x2o.net/soundev
Soundstate.........................http://listen.to/soundstate
Sunlikamelo-D...........http://www.error-404.com/sunlikamelo-d
Suspect Records........................http://www.tande.com/sr
Tequila........................http://www.defacto2.net/tequila
Tempo................................http://tempomusic.cjb.net
Tetris....................................http://msg.sk/tetris
Theralite...........................http://theralite.avalon.hr
Tokyo Dawn Records........................http://tokyodawn.org
Triads C64 music archive.............http://www.triad.c64.org
UltraBeat.........................http://www.innerverse.com/ub
Vibrants................................http://www.vibrants.dk
Wiremaniacs.........................http://www.wiremaniacs.com
Zen of Tracking.........................http://surf.to/the-imm
Programming:
Programming portal......................http://www.gamedev.net
Programming portal.....................http://www.flipcode.com
Game programming portal...............http://www.gamasutra.com
3D programming portal.................http://www.3dgamedev.com
Programming portal......................http://www.exaflop.org
Programming portal............http://www.programmersheaven.com
Programming portal.....................http://www.freecode.com
NASM free Assembly compiler......http://www.cryogen.com/nasm
LCC free C compiler.........http://www.remcomp.com/lcc-win32
PTC video engine.........................http://www.gaffer.org
3D engines..........http://cg.cs.tu-berlin.de/ki/engines.html
Documents...............http://www.neutralzone.org/home/faqsys
File format collection...................http://www.wotsit.org
Magazines:
Amber...............................http://amber.bti.pl/dimag
Amnesia...............http://amnesia-dist.future.easyspace.com
Demojournal....................http://demojournal.planet-d.net
Eurochart.............................http://www.eurochart.org
Heroin...................................http://www.heroin.net
Hugi........................................http://www.hugi.de
Music Massage......................http://www.scene.cz/massage
Pain..................................http://pain.planet-d.net
Scenial...........................http://www.scenial.scene.org
Shine...............................http://www.shine.scene.org
Static Line................http://www.scenespot.org/staticline
Sunray..............................http://sunray.planet-d.net
TUHB.......................................http://www.tuhb.org
WildMag..................................http://www.wildmag.de
Parties:
Assembly Finland.....................http://www.assembly.org
Ambience The Netherlands..............http://www.ambience.nl
Dreamhack Sweden....................http://www.dreamhack.org
Buenzli Switzerland......................http://www.buenz.li
Gravity Poland............http://www.demoscena.cp.pl/gravity
Mekka-Symposium Germany...................http://ms.demo.org
Takeover The Netherlands.............,http://www.takeover.nl
The Party Denmark.....................http://www.theparty.dk
Others:
Demo secret parts....http://www.inf.bme.hu/mandula/secret.txt
Textmode Demo Archive.................http://tmda.planet-d.net
Arf!Studios..........................http://www.arfstudios.org
coders..................................http://coderz.cjb.net
Demonews Express.........http://www.teeselink.demon.nl/express
Demo fanclub........................http://jerware.org/fanclub
Digital Undergrounds.....................http://dug.iscool.net
Doose charts...............................http://www.doose.dk
Freax................................http://freax.scene-hu.com
GfxZone............................http://gfxzone.planet-d.net
PC-demos explained.....http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained
Pixel...................................http://pixel.scene.org
trax e-mail list.............................................
.............http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/trax
Underground Mine.............http://www.spinningkids.org/umine
IRC Channels:
Scene.........................................ircnet thescene
Programming.....................................ircnet coders
Programming....................................efnet flipcode
Graphics.........................................ircnet pixel
Music.............................................ircnet trax
Scene French..................................ircnet demofr
Programming French............................ircnet codefr
Graphics French..............................ircnet pixelfr
Scene Hungarian............................ircnet demoscene
Programming Hungarian......................ircnet coders.hu
Programming German........................ircnet coders.ger
Editor: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
Writers: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
Dilvish / Eric Hamilton / dilvie@yahoo.com
Psitron / Tim Soderstrom / tigerhawk@stic.net
Setec / Jesper Pederson / jesped@post.tele.dk
Seven / Stefaan VanNieuwenhuyze/ seven7@writeme.com
Tryhuk / Tryhuk Vojtech / vojtech.tryhuk@worldonline.cz
Technical Consult: Ranger Rick / Ben Reed / ranger@scenespot.org
Static Line on the Web: http://www.scenespot.org/staticline
Static Line Subscription Management:
http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/staticline
If you would like to contribute an article to Static Line, be aware
that we will format your article with two spaces at the beginning and one
space at the end of each line. Please avoid foul language and high ascii
characters. Contributions should be mailed to Coplan
coplan@scenespot.org.
See you next month!
-eof---------------------
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