TATICLINESeptember, 2000
// Monthly Scene E-Zine 151 Subscribers
Table Of Contents
Opening:
Message From the Editor
Letters From Our Readers
Features:
Static Line Stepping Up -- A Synopsis of Whats New
I Am A Tracker -- First, Last, and Always
LTP4 Party Report
Setup of your party EQ
Columns:
Music:
In Tune -- Zappers Whore from Coma 2
Retro Tunage -- Without Trying by Cybelius
Demo:
Screen Lit Vertigo -- Just a Touch of Funk by Digital Murder
Intro Watch -- Kirahvi by Addiction and Unique
General:
Scene Dirt -- News Rumors
Editorial -- Static Line: My Sport
Link List -- Get Somewhere in the Scene
Closing: Credits
Message From the Editor
Do we have a lot of new and intersting information for you this
month? First the behind-the-scenes stuff:
If you havnt noticed already, we switched our listserv. We are also
in the process of moving our website as well. But our old site is, for
the time being, still funcitonal. If you would like more information
about everything, read the feature article: Static Line Stepping Up --
A Synopsis of Whats New.
We also have a few other feature articles this month that would be of
some use to everyone. Tryhuk has sent in an article about setting up
your equilizer -- an often neglected peice of the audio equipment list.
Then, Seven is at it again with another party report from LTP4. We also
have an article from guest writer, PsiTron, about what tracking means to
him. Im sure many of you will share his views, and there will always
be those who disagree. It looks like debate fodder to me.
Well, it seems to be another successful month for us. The holiday
slowed me up a bit, but I got this issue out without too many snags. I
was sorta hoping that the Coma 2 official results would be in by now,
but I fear that I cant wait any longer.
Until next month!
--Coplan
Letters From Our Readers
-- Letter from PsiTron --
I thought I would put my two cents in about the article Vincent
Voois. Particularly the lower half of it. He mentioned about TiS and
scene.org getting flame for doing things to keep the site going. Well, I
have no problem with that, but I do believe that the commercialization
of the scene is a *BAD* thing, and TiS seems to be very good at
attempting to do that. I maintain that the scene is, or should be
underground. I have no thoughts of making money off my songs, and while
I do believe archives need to maintain themselves, there is a difference
between clickable banners and selling music and the VIP stuff TiS seems
to be doing.
As I recall, hornet.org operated off given space by cdrom.com. And
the reason they went down was not lack of funding but lacking time to
keep up hornet.org. Anyways, I may just write an article sometime on the
very subject, but I feel that I needed to interject in that manner.
Ah, okay,
--PsiTron formally TigerHawk of Nutropik
tigerhawk@stic.net
Static Line Stepping Up
A Synopsis of Whats New
By: Coplan
The observant have already noticed...
Most noticed this issue...
The last few issues have been mailed from a different e-mail address.
Yes, I have a new e-mail address: coplan@scenespot.org
This issue is the first issue that was not only mailed from my
scenespot address, but the first that was mailed THROUGH our new
listserv. I guess you could say that a lot has changed, and there is a
lot more to come.
As I am not a believer of hype, I will not tell you what is to come.
I will only tell you what exists.
SceneSpot is a domain on the web: http://www.scenespot.org
It is a domain that Ranger Rick and I have set up for a project
somewhat connected to Static Line. The goal of SceneSpot is not unlike
that of the late Hornet Archive -- albeit, a bit modernized.
Static Line is now mailed from OUR listserv. For the general reader,
this doesnt make much difference. Your issue will be delivered every
month as normal. But if you are going to subscribe or unsubscribe,
youll see that the web interface for our listserv makes things much
easier to handle. All you need to do is visit the Static Line list
information page: http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/staticline
and log in. Accounts are based on your recieving e-mail. If you forget
your password or if youre a long time subscriber, and dont have one,
worry not. You can have a password generated and mailed to you without
any hassle. Then you can log in and change your settings or
unsubscribe, even pause recipt for a few months.
Static Line will be logged in the listserv archives in addition to
our web site. On the website http://www.scenespot.org/staticline
Static Line is parsed into a database that allows you to do keyword
searches for a specific article. This makes browsing back issues a lot
easier. The old site will remain intact and fully functional, as we
have not yet implemented a supliment system for songs and demos related
to each issue.
As far as SceneSpot goes, what you see now is functional. Youre
welcome to play around and offer suggestions. I wont discuss any
features specifically, as SceneSpot has a long way until we officially
open up to the public. As Static Line readers, you are the first to see
what we are working on. At this point, we offer no support for
SceneSpot, but we are taking feedback, bug reports and suggestions. As
you return every so often, you will see some changes in the system. New
features may be added, bugs will be fixed, and functionality will
increase. The databases are stable -- so feel free to make an account
and change your preferences as you wish. Use Tune Tracker and the
Group Database. But most of all, tell us what you think. It will
help us to develop to your needs.
Here are all the important addresses:
SceneSpot: http://www.scenespot.org
Static Line: http://www.scenespot.org/staticline new
http://www.ic.L7.net/statline old
Static Line Subscriptions:
http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/staticline
--Coplan
I Am A Tracker - First, Last, and Always
By: PsiTron
I am a tracker, first, last, and always. I am not a musician with the
idea in mind that I will end up owning a mansion or driving a Porsche.
I am a scener who loves to make music and make it free. I am not going
to corrupt the scene by making someone pay for my album or release
preview songs to people with the same idea in mind. I will not, nor
will ever succumb to greed, for my life is not run by money, or fame,
but by the realization that life can be as shallow or as vivid as you
want it to be. I feel sorry for you if all you want from the scene is
that mansion or Porshe. If you want to become famous, more power to
you. Good luck in your endeavor. But that is not what the scene stands
for and that idea and action hurts the scene. If the sole purpose for
you being a scener is to make money, then you are helping to destroy a
medium that has always been and always should be free. Furthermore you
know little of what it means to be a scener.
I am a tracker, and thus I release tracks. Impulse Tracker is my
current one, though I am awaiting a new one to tinker with. A tracker,
too, not a sequencer. Perhaps in DOS, or even Linux. And in my dreams,
even DemOS perhaps one day a dream that will become a reality. I am
not an MP3er, but I dont scorn mp3s. I do scorn the fact that those
who use mp3s to promote themselves to fame primarily helped the
commercialization of the scene by trying to dig-up what should remain
underground. Like drugs, mp3s are not bad, it is the people that use
them as a tool for themselves and their longing for fame. I track, and
release those tracks with the idea in mind that what I am doing is a
specialized art form - a free art form. Sure, I could mp3 songs if I
wanted to, and use megabytes worth of riffs, but I track for the fun of
tracking 4-channel chips as well as pieces that, hopefully, captivate
the emotions of both myself and those listening to my songs. I track
because it uses less CPU power for the demos my group intends on
writing, and for blowing my mind and, with luck, the minds of others by
making this lead or that lead sound so amazing with all the effects I
have meticulously placed in the song. And when I think of mp3s, I then
think of what musicians like The Captain did with a mere 4-channels. Or
what Second Reality yes, I had to go there did on my 386DX/40 with
4MB of RAM. I track because I enjoy it and because I want to distribute
my songs to others freely, and in its native form.
I am a scener. Not of the mp3 scene, but of the demo scene. And
while, as Coplan said last issue, mp3z are here to stay, and in their
own right can be respected and admired, I respect much more the tracker
that can produce the same quality of music without the need of a 12MB
module or 4MB mp3. And I respect even more the tracker that is in the
scene for the scene. I hope I represent the scene, if not as it is, as
it once was and hopefully what it will again be. The scene that once was
a medium for artists to share their free music with others and to push
the limits of computing and the mind by combining music and code into
something nothing less than amazing. The scene that was underground and
unknown to most of the world, except those that were willing to peer
into it and its strange collection of code and mods.
Lastly, I am a writer, writing this article in hopes that I will make
a difference, both in those that might disagree with me, and those who
believe in the same things. For those that disagree, how small you have
become. But for those that agree with me, remember now that you are not
alone..and that we are the scene, let us not be afraid to express it.
And let us be loud in doing it. For many have said that: The scene is
what you make of it
What I have just tried to tell you, in hopefully somewhat of an
eloquent way is that I do not like how the scene is progressing. Some
say the scene is dying. I rather believe that the scene is trying to
commercialize, and rather than sit idly by in watch it, I hope to turn a
few heads with this. I hope to make you think, if you are one that is
using the scene as a platform for greed. The scene was not founded on
the principle of money, and has lived quite healthy without wealth.
Using the scene for such can only cause the infrastructure to crumble
and fall under the weight carried by the money bags some wish to hold in
their hands. Take note, however, a simplistic saying that has shaped the
way in which I think: What comes around, goes around.
Anyways, something to think about.
--PsiTron formally TigerHawk of Nutropik
tigerhawk@stic.net
LTP4 Party Report
By: Seven
I have the impression that LTP 4 is the party that has been hyped the
most in the past year. Not in the sense that the organizers themselves
had started a heavy spam campaign: it was a more subtle, disorganized
influence. Whenever sceners complained after going to big parties,
about gamers, leechers, or orgos going commercial, other people praised
LTP as a real non-gamer party with a good scenish atmosphere, with
thoughtful organizers etc. Apparently everyone who had visited LTP3
wanted to go there again, and a lot of other folks like me decided to
attend LTP4 too.
The only problem was that the partyplace had only enough room for 400
sceners, and somewhere during spring, Yes announced on csipd that
already 700 people had submitted a reservation on Orange Juice. Oops. I
wasnt one of those : Guess I should have acted sooner. Well, there
are other parties, right? So I put LTP4 out of my thoughts, but I still
felt a bit cheated. Couldnt the orgos just rent a bigger hall? Later I
learned that you had to send money via snail mail to confirm your
reservation, which Im reluctant to do too.
But 10 days before the party, Yes posted another message that only
the French people had to send money as a confirmation, and there were
still 90 places left for foreigners without reservations. Hmm... would
I? The party would start at 10 oclock Friday, and Baxter/Green whose
red car is my primary means of transport to demoparties had planned to
arrive at 22 hour. So most of the places would already been taken.
After a few mails to Chandra, one of the orgos, I was assured that
foreigners would not be denied access to the partyhall. So I could go
to LTP4 after all, yippee!
There wouldnt be a 4K-intro compo at LTP, but I would not have been
able to make something decent anyway: having left the university, I
started to work in the week before LTP. With a lot of other things on
my mind, I had very little time left for scene-related stuff.
-- Friday 25 August --
Baxter picked me up at home around 17.30 , and I was promoted to
navigator. He must not have trusted my map-reading skill very much,
because aside from the 3 maps from France, there were also copies from
Germany, Yugoslavia, Ostrich etc : Of course we didnt need those,
although I admit that weve seen a bit more from the Parisian suburbs
than weve wanted to see. But hey, youre only lost when you *admit*
that youre lost. When we arrived at the village Crosne, Baxter found
out that he didnt took the exact address with him. So we had to drive
randomly through Crosne, looking for freaky characters carrying their
hardware inside a big glass-and-wood pyramid. And voila: exactly at 22
oclock, we found the partyplace! Hows that for careful planning?
Having parked the car in an, hmm, creative way, we went to the
entrance. We quickly noted one of the few real problems at LTP: the
average French scener doesnt speak English very fluently, and we dont
speak French very fluently an understatement, yes. The girl at the
entrance found Baxters name easily on the reservation list, but when I
had explained that I hadnt reserved and wanted to pay now, she looked
at me suspiciously. With my best Frenglish, I told about Chandras
email, and after having spoken in a walkie-talkie, she said it was OK.
Phew!
We went inside the main hall to look for some other Belgian sceners,
who had left Belgium at noon, and had promised to hold places for us.
Taking the first few steps into the LTP 4 hall was like crashing into a
wall of hot air. It was really, really warm inside. At every table
three or more fans were blowing hot air, and people walked around in
their shorts. The second thing we noticed was the silence: you could
easily hear sounds from the other half of the partyplace. If youre
used to the Dutch parties with their deafening background-mix of
hundred of tunes, this is a shocking observation.
The partyplace was a large square hall, without windows and with red
curtains over all walls. A big podium with a very large bigscreen on it
was at one end of the hall, and the beamer and the organizers room was
located at the opposite side on a large balcony. In-between, some 400
sceners had installed their stuff on the tables. Scanning the rows, we
found no trace of the other Belgians, and moreover, there were no
unreserved places left : Luckily there was a tiny bit of empty room at
the left of the hall, so we set up some tables there with permission
from the orgos. While we installed our junk on it, some guys did a live
performance on the music of YMCA/the village people. Dressed up in weird
costumes I suppose like the original band, they danced on the podium
while the bigscreen showed a self-made demo/slideshow of the Village
people, synced to the music. Weird, but very funny.
At that time, CyberPhest/Inscene, A0a/Green and Djefke arrived from
Belgium. They hadnt left at noon, as we thought, but much later -- a
minor communication error. I was glad they didnt had engine-trouble or
an accident. Now the bigscreen was showing a karaoke-program with songs
from old French TV-series for kids. The nostalgic crowd sang along with
enthusiasm :
-- Saturday 26 August --
Some good demos have been shown at the bigscreen: Shad 2, Heaven 7,
VIP2, Real Reality,... Something really crazy is Icandoit/Sylex, a VIP2
clone written in Qbasic! Its low-res, looks ugly, and needs winamp to
play the music, but the idea is just great. Im having hardware
troubles at the moment: my CDrom refused to read my Win98 CD, which I
need to install my network driver. At the same time, the terrible heat
is aggravating the conflict between my TNT2 and my Ali chipset, which
causes my PC to crash after a few minutes. I give up trying to fix
it, and boot back to dos. At least I can write some notes for this
party report on that crappy machine.
I ask Baxter whether Green is making a demo for LTP4, but they
havent planned anything. Green is a pretty big group according to the
memberlist, but a lot of the members have started to work and are
inactive now. Theyve a lot of tools and engines, but not enough active
members. Ive the opposite problem: I want to move from 4K intros to
64K intros, but I dont have hardware-3D code and a scripting system
etc. So we decide to work together and make a for-fun demo. There are
problems though: much to my surprise, you cant just plug in a 2D
effect in a 3D engine. It has to use polygons, preferably with
non-changing textures. Also, weve no graphics or tunes, but well try
to fix something anyway. The deadline is 8 am at Sunday, so weve more
than 24 hours left. I can use A0as PC, since hes outside to escape
death by overheating.
Baxters idea for the name of the demos is Make some noise! When
theres nothing on the bigscreen, its really very quiet here, and the
silence gets on his nerves : Im trying to change a crystallize effect
in such a way that it uses polys If you dont know that effect, look
at Dake/Caladox article in Pain 00/00. From time to time I walk around
to relax a bit, and its true: I cant see any gamer here. Lots of
pixelers, 3D-artists, some coders here and there... outside, people sit
together to talk and have a drink. A really nice atmosphere.
Its now 5.36 in the morning, and the others are asleep. Im still
coding, and keeping an eye on the hardware. LTP is a great party with a
nice feeling, but its better not to be too careless.
When A0a returned to the hall, it was my turn to get some sleep. Due
the heat, most people are sleeping outside. Theres a large lawn around
the partyhall, and its scattered with sleeping bags, beer and
softdrink cans, and one or two small tents. Theres a plane flying
over, and suddenly the whole scene looks to me as if in some freaky
accident, a plane dropped all his sleeping passengers on the lawn, but
they didnt notice it and just slept on : Well, time to join them.
Its 9.50 and Im awake again, thanks to the hard ground. The
bigscreen is showing some more old demos, I think Amiga ones. The
organizers are selling croissants at a table next to the podium. From
time to time they announce things, but almost always in French only,
and before Baxter can turn down his speakers, most of the message is
over. So we just have to hope it wasnt something important :/
Around the noon, my 3D fractal code finally works. Time to pause and
cool down a bit outside. On the lawn before the small tent, PS is
sitting with the Haujobb guys. Other groups have made T-shirts or
banners before, but Haujobb is the first group with its own
scene-balloons. It has a white printed logo on it, a circle with the
name Haujobb, and a blocky human figure in it with a suspicious third
leg.
Back inside, the bigscreen is showing some of these funny adverts
that you can find on the partynetwork. A bit later, a representative
from a game/3D company gives a demonstration about the next generation
games. Superb visuals, Ive to admit, but theyve of course a way
larger budget than us poor sceners. So, no reason to feel inferior,
folks.
Djefke and some unknown guy are trying to copy something from Djefkes
PC, but his diskdrive is defective. It turns out that the guy is
Melwyn/Haujobb, looking for a copy of DeluxePaint II to make graphics
for an oldskool demo. DPII is one of the few graphic tools on my HD,
although I never use it, so with the good old DOS + norton commander we
can help him. Then I decide to try to add colors to my fractals, and
A0a and I spend about an hour debugging because I forgot to put
brackets around an if-statement. Doh!
Because were running low on food and beverage, A0a and I set out on
a mission to find a shop or a pizzeria. But Crosne isnt exactly a big
city, and half the shops are closed due to the holidays. In our best
French, we ask two old ladies who are waiting for the bus where we can
buy food. From the sounds they make, we can deduce that the baker is
open tomorrow :/ Not exactly useful. Pointing in the direction of the
partyplace, they ask if we are with those young people, and what we
do there. Des competitions avec lordinateur, we answer, and they
seem to understand, as if they are regular demoparty-goers themselves.
We decide to wait for the evening and then go fetch some food by car.
In the meantime, the competitions have started. There are separate
compos for chiptunes, 4-channel mods, multichannel mods, and MP3s, with
a total of 52 music-entries. I cant really judge the quality, because
1 Ive little musical knowledge, and 2 I didnt pay attention to all
songs, 52 is too much for me. In the handdrawn graphics compo, the
picture was first shown for a few seconds, and the operator of the
compo-PC started to zoom into details, so people can make up their own
mind about whether it was pure handdrawn or not. While the zooming made
little difference to me, I think its a very useful thing for
graphicians, and it would be nice when other parties imitate this. The
quality seemed quite high to me, and also the raytracing compo
contained some very nice entries.
Warning: It seems Ive been damn lazy again and the notes I made
werent all written in chronological order, so its possible Im
confusing which compos happened before and which after the power
breakdown. We apologize for the inconvenience
Beside the cans of softdrinks, the orgos now sell also cheap bottles
of water. We like that, yesyes. Wandering around, I talked a bit with
PS who informed me that the Haujobb demo which I had heard a lot of
positive things about might not be finished before the deadline. A
prophetical remark, it turned out later. I also met Valdor and Zyk from
Paradise Studios, another Belgian group which was at Inscene too. These
friendly guys come from the French-speaking part of Belgium, but
luckily Zyk can speak Dutch fluently. When I tell them about the
troubles we have with combining 2D and 3D effects in OpenGL, Zyk thinks
he knows a way to do that reasonably fast. Since I know zilch about
OpenGL, Ive to drag Baxter from behind his PC to listen to the
technical details. Soon theyre trying to code it, discussing about the
AGP-bandwidth and how Popsy Team could have added TV-snow to VIP2.
Last year there was a power failure, and the organizers have decided
to make that a tradition. So at the evening, everyone had to go outside
for one hour. First we wanted to buy some pizzas, but they were too
small and too expensive, so we hopped in Cyberphests car and drove to
the nearest Macdonald junkfood, we know. The parking was clearly
designed to inhibit anyone to park there and we had to wait in the queue
waaayyy too long, but at least the temperature was bearable :
When we were back inside the partyplace, something strange happened:
suddenly a lot of people ran to the outside. Being curious, we followed
them, but no one seems to know what has happened. Weird. Baxter and I
swap our CDroms so I can fix my PC, and after a while Ive a working
net-connection and a screen that works in 640*480*16color. While Real
Reality and other wild demos are slowly filling every kilobyte of my HD,
I go ask Zyk Valdor if they know what happened before. It seems that
during the power break, two or three local lamers had broken into the
backdoor of the hall, and had stolen Knos laptop and a bag with
personal stuff from the girl at the entrance. Later they had walked by
outside the fence around the lawn, and had shown the bag just to boast.
Someone had warned the organizers, and when those ran outside, other
sceners just followed. The thieves had of course ran away when they saw
maybe a hundred sceners coming their way. Well, I hope they get caught
eventually, and may they suffer from an itching back and too short arms.
-- Sunday 27 August --
Since I cant use ACDsee or a movieplayer in 16 colors, and cause Im
not interested in warez, Im just downloading random things with
filenames that seems to be scene-related. Djefke insist that I should
visit his FTP server and upload things. OK, we aim to please. Djefke has
the typical Linux-kind of humor, his background is a monumental C with
in green letters below it: Gods programming language :
Im feeling tired again and the compo-schedule has a gap of several
hours, so I head to the entrance with my sleeping bag and my pillow. The
sky is a bit too cloudy to my taste, Ill stay inside the pyramid-formed
entrance. I put my wallet underneath my pillow because its
uncomfortable when its in my pocket, and five minutes later I drifted
to dreamland.
Again I woke up after a few hours, my biorhythm must have lost track
about what time it is. When I stumble to my PC, I see on the LTP-website
that the schedule is delayed, so I put my pillow on my keyboard and fall
asleep again. Zzzz.. huh... what time is it? Ai! Neck hurts. Better turn
my head in a more comfortable position ... Zzzz again...
Outside it has started to rain, and it took Baxter 5 minutes before
he was awake enough to realize what was happening and had carried his
air mattress inside. By that time the Amiga compo had started, with only
a few entries. I cant really say how good they were, I dont know much
about the power of that machine :/ There was one oldskool PC demo, from
Haujobb. It looked like an old fantasy adventure game, with the heroes
Melwyn, Solarc and Inferno trying to rescue their friends from an evil
witch. BTW, Karhu is some kind of Finnish beer if you want to understand
the texts.
The 64K compo had only 5 entries, the Haujobb one Funkkin was
clearly the best. Style, rhythm, nice effects... 3States Antimoney was
quite different from their earlier stuff, pure black white effects,
but with their usual attitude.
Suddenly I noticed that my wallet wasnt in my pocket. Eek! Must have
forgotten it when I woke up! I raced to the entrance were I had slept,
asked the security guy if someone had found a wallet. No. Panic! Cursing
myself for my stupidity, I went to the balcony to ask the orgos if they
had found something... And yes, someone had brought it to them! Even my
money was still in it. A big thank-you from the bottom of my heart to
the honest person who found it.
Now someone from Haujobb is singing a song that I cant understand,
but it must be funny cause the audience is laughing. Later some guys
with guitars and drums start a long rock/rap set. Moby, Djam, Skal,
Traven and Willbe is the answer I get after asking my neighbors whos
in the band. Wow, a demo celebrity jam session :
And finally, its time for the democompo. In total, about 20 demos
were presented. Thats one and a half hour of totally new demos on a
large bigscreen with a loud soundsystem: This Is Heaven. Granted, some
of the were low-quality or boring, but some real gems were released. My
favorites in order of appearance were:
* ChildBone/Naa: A demo with a motioncaptured-driven skeleton, a bit
strange at the beginning but with some funny ideas. At the end, some
figures made of lights dance to a nice beat, and the audience started
to clap their hands, people jumped on the podium to dance along and
the orgos switched the hall lights synchronized to the music.
* Faded/Oror: A demo with a Message, always a dangerous thing, but this
one is quite good. Its long and with a lot of variation, has nice
effects, and if you take in account that this is a first demo, its
quite an accomplishment.
* Just a touch of funk: Digital murder: Whohoho! Remember the drummer at
the end of Jumpy? It seems Digital Murder improved their motion system
to new heights. Lip-synchronizing to the vocals! Breakdancing people!
Insane haircuts! Ugly wallpaper from the sixties! Groovy outdated
trousers! Karaoke! And just a little bit of funk! At the end, the
whole audience was stamping their feet, and you could feel the whole
hall vibrate.
* The mutant pouletz project2 / Mutant Inc: A 90 picture demo, no 3D,
no code. Theme: attack of the mutant chickens! Nice, nice, nice.
* Purple/Orion: Some good 3D, but no complex moving objects. Halfway,
when the camera moves through a forest with purple crystals, A0a and
I had a strange deja-vu feeling and we tried to pin down where it
came from. It was from the handdrawn graphics compo, there was a
picture presented with purple crystals, and it showed up in the demo
a bit later.
* Downtown/retro AC: A short demo with solid design, with a lot of
photos and a feeling that reminds me of their previous demo, Could be
you.
After the compo, someone from Haujobb climbed on the podium to tell
the audience that they didnt managed to finish their demo sounds of
disappointment from the sceners, but they thanked the organizers for
the great party. After that we downloaded all the entries, voted, and
swapped email addresses with the Paradise crew. Outside I met PS again
and he introduced me to Picard/Exceed, the coder of the great Mesha 4K
and co-coder of Heaven 7 and Spot. We couldnt talk very long because
in the hall, Melting Pot was doing a live impression of the Swan Lake
ballet I suppose they did the YMCA thing too. I missed the start, but
the rest was funny: weird dancing guys, wearing only those skimpy
ballet skirts, were shot down by a hunter, with thunder crashing
through the soundsystem. The bigscreen said For all your evenings or
codings, call the animation team of Melting Pot :
Yes and Chandra did the ending ceremony, and when Yes thanked all the
people that had helped during the event, he had to pause several times
because he was in tears. He also said that this was the last time he
would organize LTP, next year Chandra would take over. In fact, Chandra
had already done most of the things this year. So, next year LTP would
still have the same feeling it has now. At the moment, Knos was at the
police station to lodge a complaint about the theft of his laptop, but
who wished to do so could donate money to buy him a new laptop. Several
of the compo-winners actually donated their prizemoney for this good
cause. Respect out to them! I dont remember all winners, Digital Murder
won of course the democompo with Just a touch of funk, but for the other
results you should check scene.org or ojuice.net. Then the big
madeleine-fight started: the orgos had a big case with madeleines, a
kind of small cakes, which they threw at the audience, and the sceners
threw them back. Pure chaos it was : The distribution of the free
goodies from the sponsors CDs, pencils, cards and such stuff was a bit
less chaotic, but still a danger for life and limbs. Then Yes wished
everyone a safe journey back, who wanted to sleep could still do this
because the hall was still available for the night. And so LTP 4 ended.
-- Conclusion --
Except for the hardware troubles, LTP4 was one of the best parties
Ive ever visited. There were problems with compos, entries that didnt
work, but they were often re-played at the end of the compo. The
bigscreen was in use way more often that at other parties, showing lots
of scene-productions, and the whole atmosphere was really friendly.
Still there are two things Id like to see changed next year: better
announcements, in English for example, and a larger room with better
ventilation and a lower temperature. Thanks to the orgos and everyone I
met, hope to see you all at Bizarre2K.
--Seven
Setup of your party EQ
By: Tryhuk
So I finally visited my first demoparty. It was fiasko2k and I have
to say that I quite enjoyed it. But there were of course also some
things that I didnt like and one of them was inability of organizers to
setup the equalizer. In the result all tunes sounded more horrible than
they actually were although they were all really bad, especially in
the mid frequencies where is usually the most important music
information and vocals. So I decided to write a small tutorial how to
setup your equalizer.
I wont care here about removing reverb and echoes, that is a
different and more complicated thing, we will just take a look how to
make at least a minimum adaptation of sound to the room. I expect that
youve got a computer with a soundcard, an equalizer and some program
that displays power in the bands simple FFT analysis should be enough
and one high quality microphone - that means with flat characteristics
in the audible range if you dont have any of this kind, youll have to
make additional change to the final equalizer setting that should
compensate characteristics of the microphone. If youve got it all, we
can begin. To adaptation of equalizer to the room we use a white noise
or a pink noise. Lets take a look on the meaning of these two words
into acoustics faq:
What is white noise, pink noise?
The power spectral density of white noise is independent of frequency.
Since there is essentially the same energy between any two identical
frequency intervals for example 84-86Hz and 543-545Hz, white noise
narrow band FFT analysis will show as flat. However octave band analysis
will show the level to rise by 3dB per octave because each band has
twice the frequency range of the preceding octave. Pink noise is often
produced by filtering white noise and has the same power within each
octave. Narrow band analysis will show a fall in level with increasing
frequency, but third-octave band or octave band analysis will be flat.
Easy isnt it? The more clever readers will start to understand where
Im going. What you have to do is to generate a white or pink noise,
choice of the noise type depends on the spectral analyzer you have. If
the bands are octave based - that means every next frequency is the
double of the previous - use a pink noise, else use a white. Every good
sound editor can generate both types of noise, for example CoolEdit.
Now, when you got the noise, play it into the room and record it back
using the microphone. You can notice that the result is dependant on the
microphone position, but we cant do much with that. So, you record the
noise back and you can see in the spectral analyzer that the room works
as a band-stop for some range of frequencies. Its parameters depend on
the material of which are the walls made. There isnt too much you could
do about it, but if you want to fur the walls with a better material,
feel free to do so. We will skip this step and look on the result of
analysis, set up the equalizer to see a flat spectral analysis and
thats it! You got it! Now you can enhance bass and high frequencies a
bit, but not too much or you get into place where you started. Dont
forget that lot of people have enhanced bass already in the track, so
you would enhance it twice and that isnt what you want. This is also a
reason why are the parties won by dance tracks so often - they dont
build up on the critical mid frequencies that much. Music should sound
how the composer wrote it, so I prefer a flat equalizer.
I hope you understood what I said and I hope that organizers of the
smaller parties learn at least this quite simple but effective
technique.
--Tryhuk
In Tune
Zappers Whore from Coma 2
By: Coplan
Third at Coma 2
-- Introduction --
I was holding out for the first place tune from Coma 2 -- but it
hasnt been uploaded to the FTP site yet. Anyhow, after discussing the
rankings with many of the participants, I discovered that the first
place song wasnt well liked.
Instead, Phoenix talked me into reviewing the 3rd place entry. Im
glad he did, because its quite an impressive little tune.
The song does contain some very minor language.
-- Coplan --
First let me start out by pointing out the obvious. This song has
vocals. Let me also point out that this is an IT. I make a big deal of
this because one of the biggest excuses for useing the MP3 format is the
ability to use vocals without keeping the file size small. It can be
done efficiently in a module, and this is the perfect example.
The song is about 2,976 KB I rounded it up to 3 MB for the fact
sheet. It is also about 3 minutes and 15 seconds long. An MP3 version
of this song would actually be larger than the module format -- though
only by a little bit. Im glad that the IT version has been made
available.
Anyhow, I cant review a song like this without first attacking the
samples. I would like to play with the vocal samples a bit first.
There are 21, and they are all recorded clean. That is, there are no
echos or any other effects. In most cases, this is the best way to
handle voice samples, especially in a module. If you are concerned
about file size, you can make your voice samples a bit lesser quality
8-bit and maybe drop the resolution. Since you will track the echos
and effects, the quality will be shadowed out by the introduced effects
and echos. If you depend on your sample for the echo and effects, then
youre going to need a high quality sample -- and a much larger one at
that. So, 9 times out of 10, you want a clean voice sample so that you
can take advantage of this little file size saving trick. Just because
the internet is faster, that doesnt mean your songs should be larger.
You still have listeners on 56k modems, and they might not want to
download your 5MB track.
There is another quick note about the voice samples. Notice how some
of them look like they have huge chunks out of the center of them, or
that they fade out suddenly, then cut back in. This is evidence that
Zapper did a lot of editing with his samples. The reality is that you
may need to do this to get your vocals to line up properly, or get get
rid of the parts that just dont sound right. Zapper put a lot of work
into his vocal samples. Im glad to see it.
There are some other very good samples in this song as well. My
favorites are the guitars and the drums. One of my favorite things to
see is a sample matched with the music style. The snare is perfect for
the type of grungy/metal rock song that we have here. There are a lot
of guitar samples, and this is necessary. With any style of music, you
get a more realistic sound if you have several samples of the same
instrument being played differently. This is very important with
guitars and brass samples. Zapper knows this. Zapper did this with
his percussion and his guitars.
Since the voice samples were in need of some echos, lets check out
how Zapper handles such things. Im going to focus on pattern 22, so
that we are on the same page. In Pattern 22, check out channels 20-23.
These four channels are the root of the vocal echos. There are some
things to consider when working with echos, and this is a perfect
example. First to consider is the speed/tempo at which your module is
playing. Next is to consider is the echo itself. Do you want a vast
echo as if recorded in a valley or a shallow echo as if recorded in a
bathroom. Most people choose an echo somewhere in between. Zapper
apparently does something a little more complicated. The way the echos
work in this song, it would seem as though the performer were in an
concert hall with a complete shell wall behind and above him. Because
of the speed of the song, Zapper starts the source vocal, and the first
reverb on the same line. But look closely! He delays the source by 2
beats, and the reverb by 3. The result is a very subtle reverb -- the
echo bouncing off the floor. In channel 22, you have a longer delay.
Imagine this as the delay bouncing off the ceiling and the walls behind
and to either side of the performer. It is slightly quieter because it
would have a longer distance to travel before it would hit the
microphone Zapper cut its volume by a third. In channel 23, you get
the second true echo, the one that might bounce off the back of the
theatre, again softer, and a longer delay. Depending on the song,
youll want to place each of these elements in a different place
relative to each other. In this case, I would personally shorten the
distance of the last echo by two lines. That would then be more
characteristic of an concert hall, a likely place for this style of
music to be played. The current echo seems like it would take place in
an outdoor arena.
Among other things, I am pretty pleased with the guitar work in this
song. I have always been a fan of the heavier styles of guitar based
music, but I havnt been able to duplicate the feel of the guitar in a
tracked tune. One of the biggest reasons for the difficulty is finding
a complete guitar sample set that compliments the other instruments in
the song. The other is trying to get the grungy guitar riffs to melt
into each other. There are some tricks of the trade to do this, but
Ive never seen anything done this smoothly. I attribute most of
Zappers success to his samples. I wish I could understand guitars
better so that I could maybe explain this better, but I dont, so I
cant.
Meanwhile, since I dont get to listen to lyrics much in tracked
tunage, Im glad to hear them. Im also happy to comment on them .
Seriously, though, the vocals were given a lot of attention. Not only
is the sample work for the vocals tight, but the lyrics themselves are
quite appropriate. Its not the typical repeating vocals that you often
see in tracked music which is usually an electronic style anyhow, but
this is a metal tune, and it has grungy vocals. Its not a happy song,
but an angry song. And the vocals sound angry, even if you were to read
the lyrics from a page. It also helps that Zapper has a very good voice
for his lyrics.
All in all, the tune is worth a download. I hope that you all will
at least give it a try. Im hoping that the Coma 2 entries will all
appear soon, because Id like to see what took first and second over
this song. I cant begin to imagine those tunes. Until next time...
--Coplan
Song Information:
Title: Whore
Author: Zapper
Filename zipped/unzipped: whore.zip / whore.it IT 2.14
File Size zipped/unzipped: 2.8 MB / 3.0 MB
Source: ftp://ftp.scene.org/incoming/COMA00/mmul/whore.zip
Alternate: http://www.ic.l7.net/statline/current.htm
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!
Retro Tunage
Without Trying by Cybelius
By: Tryhuk
This month, it was really tough for me to choose a track for a
review. It isnt that there are a small variety of good tracks, it is
more because most of them didnt fit to my mood or the whole summers
habit. But I found one finally.
The song Without Trying appeared on the album FRUSTRATION, which
is rather oriented toward hardcore and punk. But it also contains some
lighter tracks. Like other tracks on this musicdisk, Without
Trying is characterized by bold guitar parts, which are
supported by precious bass and a percussion which sounds, in
some places, simple, but fits into the track. The track has some very
good samples, at least good at the time it came out. But most distinct
and important is the excellent work with the mood of the track: A great
musical idea and a really exquisite lead which is played on a violin.
It cant be described -- it has to be heard.
Even for being rather old tune, it is still an enjoyable piece, thanks
to natural talent of the author. If you like instrumental songs with
nice ideas, I think its worth a listen. When I remember the fiasko2k
music compo I heard this month, uh, I say that this song is superb.
Song Information:
Title: Without trying
Author: Cybelius
Release date: 11.8.1996 ?
Length: 3m37s 3m34s trimmed
Filename zipped/unzipped: ???.zip whole mdisk / without.s3m
File Size zipped/unzipped: ???kb whole mdisk / 1031kb
Source: http://www.hornet.org
--Tryhuk
Screen Lit Vertigo
Just a Touch of Funk by Digital Murder party version
By: Seven
Found at the LTP4 party network
1st place at the LTP4 democompo.
System requirements:
Nothing mentioned. How come Im not surprised anymore?
Win9x, DirectX, 11 MB HD.
Test Machine: PII 350 64MB, SB16, TNT2 M64 32MB, Win98
The credits:
Hulud, Alias Lakick
detailed credits are shown at the end of the demo, but scroll away
too fast
The demo:
At LTP4, at the start of this demo, the message This demo doesnt
use a 3D card was shown. Baxter found this a pity, because its a pure
3D demo, and exactly those demos benefit the most from that underrated
piece of hardware. Well, dont be afraid, GeForce freaks and Voodoo
people, you can select at the startup whether you want hardware
acceleration or not. BUT...the first time you run it, it wants to use
software only.
OK, what is it about? Its a kind of retro-designed pure 3D videoclip,
with an heavy overdose of funkiness. A man is dancing through the
streets, hes wearing a caddish white costume and has a kind of 1
massive block hairstyle. He meets two negros in brown costumes, and
another one in a white sport outfit, and they all follow him to a large
hall where they start to breakdance, together with two female backstage
singers.
This may seem very simple, but if you think its boring, then you
werent at LTP4 : To start, the animations are very very good, it
looks almost motion- captured. Also the movements of the mouths is
perfectly synced to the vocals. If youve just seen about ten demos
where only the camera and some particles moved, this really grabs your
attention. OK, the dancers move a little bit through the floor
sometimes and I recommend you not to try to mimic the breakdancing on a
planet with gravity, but this doesnt kill one percent of the feeling
of the demo.
Then there is the 3D. Its not of a very high quality, the models
dont have that much polys, and the textures arent high-detailed, but
everything fits in the retro-theme. Rooms with green flowered
wallpaper, an ugly sofa, a model car from the sixties, the weird chairs
at the end, the cloths... Everything pulls you back to the times of
funk.
And last but not least, there are some good ideas: a karaoke-part
with a white dot bouncing over the text, interlaced TV-snow filters,
and a part where the heads, the shoulders and the hair of the different
people are swapped randomly. None of these are hard to code, but it
adds more variation to the demo.
Except for the textures, there arent much pictures. A logo at the
start in a retro font, and some little flowers to make a framework,
thats it.
The music is credited as ShakeIt performed by L.A Connection. Yep,
its another commercial song, remember VIP2/Popsy Team Although now
credit is given in the party version. I dont have the time anymore to
check comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos regularly, but I wonder how the reactions
on this were. Needless to say, its a very funky song, and it adds a
lot of feeling to the demo.
Overall:
Back home, Just a touch of funk doesnt look as good as it was on the
bigscreen, but its still nice. The software rendering code is
impressive, the modeling is among the best Ive seen a scene
production, but I dont know what to think about the music. I wonder if
they had permission to use it :/ Anyway, its a good demo, so download
it, step in your time machine and let the funkiness be with you.
--Seven
Intro Watch
Kirahvi by Addiction and Unique
By: Gekko
9th at Assembly 2000 64k intro competition
download: ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/2000
requirements: Windows, DirectX
There were to be many parties - including major ones - this month. I
previously decided to write about one single new intro that would really
impress me. While I was amazed by several demos, unfortunately I havent
found a very impresive intro.
Kirahvi is - oldschool. Though it is nothing too amazing or
original, it has style. A slow chip music is the base of its abstract
mood. In the background there are a few fine logos and graphics. Effects
are running in front of them: particles, raytraced spheres, a distorted
tunnel. There are text scrollers all the time, this is a must in
oldschool... Apart from the last tunnel, which does not fit in the
picture, the whole intro is consistent in design. The colors are fine
and the effects fit the music. The best thing in Kirahvi is that it is
arranged well. This makes the intro worth to be watched several times.
--Gekko
Scene Dirt
News Rumors
By: Coplan
-- Static Line Gets a New Home --
For those of you who didnt read the feature Static Line Stepping
Up, Static Line has earned a new home on the web. There is still some
moving to do, but all the old issues are searchable/viewable at the
following address. Subscription information can also be obtained there.
http://www.scenespot.org/staticline
-- Orange Juice has Wallpapers --
All you OJuice fans out there can now show your spirits for the scene
news network by having an official Orange Juice Wallpaper.
http://www.ojuice.net/wallapers.html
-- Boozembly Report Posted --
Thanks to Psychic Symphony and his crazy ideas, a Boozembly writing
report has been set up. Actually, it is more like an index of drunken
handwriting.
http://demojournal.planet-d.net/boozembly/
-- The Party 2000 Announced --
The website wont be up until Sunday, but from the looks of things,
this looks to be a promising Denmark based demoparty.
http://www.theparty.dk/
--Coplan
Scene Dirt is a semi-regular column offering the latest tidbits of
information to its readers. If you have any bits of information that
you think should be here, contact coplan coplan.ic@rcn.com and offer
as much information as possible.
Editorial
Static Line: My Sport
By: Coplan
This is not a rant.
Its been two years that Ive been publishing this magazine. There
have been twenty-four 24 issues in all, and several hundred articles.
There are even more articles that were never published. I spend, on
average, about 5 or 6 hours compiling, proof reading and presenting each
issue. I probably spend almost that much in correspondance. That
doesnt count the hours of work that my staff contributes to each issue.
And many of you read it within an hour.
Again, this is not a rant.
With each issue, I begin my routine with one simple thought: I need
to get the next issue of Static Line completed. I dont say I want,
and it wouldnt seem that I get excited about compiling each issue. My
girlfriend questions my motive. From her point of view, she sees the
work that I pour into this magazine -- and the time I take away from
her. Thank god she is understanding, because I do it again every month.
And I WILL do it again every month.
Like many of you, I do things other than contribute to the demoscene.
In particular, I spend a lot of time swimming. I train almost
year-round for a small handful of competitions every year. Im not
nearly as gung-ho as I was in high school or college, but I still enjoy
it very much. But I dont enjoy the training. Oh no, training is
boreing. But I swim my 4 miles twice a day, every day, all year round.
I do it because I like competition. I like doing well in competition
the most. So, I guess that means I have to train.
So what does that have to do with Static Line? Simple, it is an
analogy. I love Static Line. I love reading the final product, I love
getting all these articles for the magazine. I love the final product
and I love conversing with our readers. But I cant get there if I
dont train, or do all the dirty work associated. So, I deal, and I
get to do all the fun stuff later.
What this means to you is that I will always strive to make Static
Line a better, stronger resource for you. Everyone has to contribute
somehow, consider this my contribution. All you have to do is continue
reading.
--Coplan
Link List
Demo Groups:
3g Design..............................http://3gdesign.cjb.net
Aardbei.....................................http://aardbei.com
Acid Rain..............................http://surf.to/acidrain
Agravedict........................http://www.agravedict.art.pl
Anakata..............................http://www.anakata.art.pl
ANDESA Soft International..................http://andesa.da.ru
Astral..............................http://astral.scene-hu.com
Astroidea........................http://astroidea.scene-hu.com
AtomiK....................................http://atomik.ini.hu
Bomb..................................http://bomb.planet-d.net
BlaBla..............................http://blabla.planet-d.net
Blasphemy..............................http://www.blasphemy.dk
Byterapers.....................http://www.byterapers.scene.org
Calodox.................................http://www.calodox.org
Chrome..............................http://chrome.scene-hu.com
CoPro.....................................http://www.copro.org
Damage...................................http://come.to/damage
Dance...................................http://dance.flipp.net
Defacto 2..............................http://www.defacto2.net
Dolops......................... ........http://dolOps.scene.hu
Exceed...........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/exceed
Fobia Design...........................http://www.fd.scene.org
GODS...................................http://www.idf.net/gods
Green.....................................http://green.dyns.cx
Grif........................http://arrabonet.gyor.hu/rattgrif
Haujobb......................................http://haujobb.de
Hellcore............................http://www.hellcore.art.pl
IJSKAST.............................http://www.ijskast.cjb.net
Immortals..............................http://imrt.home.ml.org
Infuse...................................http://www.infuse.org
Just For Fun...........................http://jff.planet-d.net
Kilobite...............................http://kilobite.cjb.net
Kolor................................http://www.kaoz.org/kolor
Kooma.....................................http://www.kooma.com
Label zero.........................http://labelzero.pganet.com
Mandula.........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/mandula
Monar................ftp://amber.bti.pl/pub/scene/distro/monar
Nextempire..................http://members.xoom.com/NEXTEMPIRE
Ninja Gefilus.........http://www.angelfire.com/or/ninjagefilus
Noice.....................................http://www.noice.org
Orion..............................http://orion.arfstudios.org
Popsy Team............................http://popsyteam.rtel.fr
Quad........................................http://www.quad.nl
Rage........................................http://www.rage.nu
Replay.......................http://www.shine.scene.org/replay
Retro A.C...........................http://www.retroac.cjb.net
Rhyme................................http://rhyme.scene-hu.com
Sista Vip..........................http://www.sistavip.exit.de
Skytech team............................http://www.skytech.org
Sunflower.......................http://sunflower.opengl.org.pl
Suspend......................http://www.optimus.wroc.pl/rappid
Tehdas...................................http://come.to/tehdas
Tesko..........................http://www.scentral.demon.co.uk
The Black Lotus.............................http://www.tbl.org
The Digital Artists Wired Nation.http://digitalartists.cjb.net
The Lost Souls...............................http://www.tls.no
TPOLM.....................................http://www.tpolm.com
Trauma.................................http://sauna.net/trauma
T-Rex.....................................http://www.t-rex.org
Unik.....................................http://www.unik.ca.tc
Universe..........................http://universe.planet-d.net
Vantage..................................http://www.vantage.ch
Music Groups:
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
Chill..........................http://www.bentdesign.com/chill
Chippendales......................http://www.sunpoint.net/cnd
Chiptune...............................http://www.chiptune.com
Da Jormas................................http://www.jormas.com
Fabtrax......http://www.cyberverse.com/boris/fabtrax/home.htm
Five Musicians.........................http://www.fm.scene.org
Fridge...........................http://www.ssmedion.de/fridge
Fusion Music Crew................http://members.home.nl/cyrex/
Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff
Ignorance.............................http://www.ignorance.org
Immortal Coil.............................http://www.ic.L7.net
Intense...........................http://intense.ignorance.org
Jecoute.................................http://jecoute.cjb.net
Kosmic Free Music Foundation.............http://www.kosmic.org
Level-d.................................http://www.level-d.com
Miasmah.............................http://www.miasmah.cjb.net
Milk.......................................http://milk.sgic.fi
Mah Music.............................http://come.to/mah.music
Maniacs of noise...............http://home.worldonline.nl/mon
MAZs Sound homepage.............http://www.th-zwickau.de/maz
Moplayaz..........................http://ssmedion.de/moplayaz
Mono211.................................http://www.mono211.com
Morbid Minds..............http://www.raveordie.com/morbidminds
Noise................................http://www.noisemusic.org
Noerror......................http://www.error-404.com/noerror/
One Touch Records......................http://otr.planet-d.net
Park..................................http://park.planet-d.net
Radical Rhythms.....http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/merrelli/rr
RBi Music.............................htpp://www.rbi-music.com
Ruff Engine................http://members.xoom.com/ruffengine
SHR8M......................................http://1st.to/shr8m
Sound Devotion................http://sugarbomb.x2o.net/soundev
Soundstate.........................http://listen.to/soundstate
Sunlikamelo-D...........http://www.error-404.com/sunlikamelo-d
Suspect Records........................http://www.tande.com/sr
Tequila........................http://www.defacto2.net/tequila
Tempo................................http://tempomusic.cjb.net
Tetris....................................http://msg.sk/tetris
Theralite...........................http://theralite.avalon.hr
Tokyo Dawn Records........................http://tdr.scene.org
UltraBeat.........................http://www.innerverse.com/ub
Vibrants................................http://www.vibrants.dk
Wiremaniacs.........................http://www.wiremaniacs.com
Others:
Arf!Studios..........................http://www.arfstudios.org
Calodox demolinks exchange.....http://calodox.planet-d.net/cde
coders..................................http://coderz.cjb.net
Comic Pirates.........................http://scene-central.com
Demonews Express.........http://www.teeselink.demon.nl/express
Demo fanclub........................http://jerware.org/fanclub
Demoscene.org news forum..............http://www.demoscene.org
Digital Undergrounds.....................http://dug.iscool.net
Doose charts...............................http://www.doose.dk
Dreams2 CD.........................http://nl.scene.org/dreams2
Freax...................http://freax.scene-hu.com/mainmenu.htm
GfxZone............................http://gfxzone.planet-d.net
Hugi size-compo...............http://home.pages.de/hugi-compo
Orange Juice.........................http://ojuice.citeweb.net
PC-demos explained.....http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained
Pixel...................................http://pixel.scene.org
Scenet....................................http://www.scenet.de
Sunray..............................http://sunray.planet-d.net
Swiss List.................http://www.profzone.ch/vantage/list
Swiss Scene Server.......................http://www.chscene.ch
TakeOver................................http://www.takeover.nl
Textmode Demo Archive.................http://tmda.planet-d.net
Hungarian scene page...................http://www.scene-hu.com
Trebel...................................http://www.trebel.org
Zen of Tracking.........................http://surf.to/the-imm
DiskMags / SceneMags:
Amber...............................http://amber.bti.pl/dimag
Amnesia...............http://amnesia-dist.future.easyspace.com
Demojournal....................http://demojournal.planet-d.net
Dragon......................http://www.wasp.w3.pl/pages/dragon
Fleur................................http://fleur.scene-hu.com
Heroin...................................http://www.heroin.net
Hugi........................http://home.pages.de/hugidownload
Music Massage......................http://www.scene.cz/massage
Planet Chartmag...........http://www.agravedict.art.pl/planet/
Pain..................................http://pain.planet-d.net
Scenial...........................http://www.scenial.scene.org
U Static Line......................http://www.ic.l7.net/statline
http://www.scenespot.org/staticline
Total Disaster...................http://www.totaldisaster.w.pl
TUHB.......................................http://www.tuhb.org
WildMag...........................http://www.wildmag.notrix.de
FTPs:
Amber.......................................ftp://amber.bti.pl
Cyberbox.....................................ftp://cyberbox.de
Flerp.....................................ftp://flerp.scene.hu
Scene.org..................................ftp://ftp.scene.org
Skynet archive.................ftp://acid2.stack.nl/pub/skynet
ACiD2 Archive.............................ftp://acid2.stack.nl
Editor: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
Assistant Editor: Gekko / Gergely Kutenich / gk@scene.hu
Columnists: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
Dilvish / Eric Hamilton / dilvie@yahoo.com
Gekko / Gergely Kutenich / gk@scene.hu
Louis Gorenfeld / gorenfeld@vrone.net
Setec / Jesper Pederson / jesped@post.tele.dk
Seven / Stefaan / Stefaan.VanNieuwenhuyze@rug.ac.be
SiN / Ian Haskin / sin@netcom.ca
Subliminal / Matt Friedly / sub@plazma.net
Tryhuk / Tryhuk Vojtech / xtryhu00@stud.fee.vutbr.cz
Virt / virt@bellsouth.net
Technical Consult: Ranger Rick / Ben Reed / ranger@scenespot.org
Static Line on the Web: http://www.scenespot.org/staticline
http://www.ic.l7.net/statline
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 151 Subscribers
Table Of Contents
Opening:
Message From the Editor
Letters From Our Readers
Features:
Static Line Stepping Up -- A Synopsis of Whats New
I Am A Tracker -- First, Last, and Always
LTP4 Party Report
Setup of your party EQ
Columns:
Music:
In Tune -- Zappers Whore from Coma 2
Retro Tunage -- Without Trying by Cybelius
Demo:
Screen Lit Vertigo -- Just a Touch of Funk by Digital Murder
Intro Watch -- Kirahvi by Addiction and Unique
General:
Scene Dirt -- News Rumors
Editorial -- Static Line: My Sport
Link List -- Get Somewhere in the Scene
Closing: Credits
Message From the Editor
Do we have a lot of new and intersting information for you this
month? First the behind-the-scenes stuff:
If you havnt noticed already, we switched our listserv. We are also
in the process of moving our website as well. But our old site is, for
the time being, still funcitonal. If you would like more information
about everything, read the feature article: Static Line Stepping Up --
A Synopsis of Whats New.
We also have a few other feature articles this month that would be of
some use to everyone. Tryhuk has sent in an article about setting up
your equilizer -- an often neglected peice of the audio equipment list.
Then, Seven is at it again with another party report from LTP4. We also
have an article from guest writer, PsiTron, about what tracking means to
him. Im sure many of you will share his views, and there will always
be those who disagree. It looks like debate fodder to me.
Well, it seems to be another successful month for us. The holiday
slowed me up a bit, but I got this issue out without too many snags. I
was sorta hoping that the Coma 2 official results would be in by now,
but I fear that I cant wait any longer.
Until next month!
--Coplan
Letters From Our Readers
-- Letter from PsiTron --
I thought I would put my two cents in about the article Vincent
Voois. Particularly the lower half of it. He mentioned about TiS and
scene.org getting flame for doing things to keep the site going. Well, I
have no problem with that, but I do believe that the commercialization
of the scene is a *BAD* thing, and TiS seems to be very good at
attempting to do that. I maintain that the scene is, or should be
underground. I have no thoughts of making money off my songs, and while
I do believe archives need to maintain themselves, there is a difference
between clickable banners and selling music and the VIP stuff TiS seems
to be doing.
As I recall, hornet.org operated off given space by cdrom.com. And
the reason they went down was not lack of funding but lacking time to
keep up hornet.org. Anyways, I may just write an article sometime on the
very subject, but I feel that I needed to interject in that manner.
Ah, okay,
--PsiTron formally TigerHawk of Nutropik
tigerhawk@stic.net
Static Line Stepping Up
A Synopsis of Whats New
By: Coplan
The observant have already noticed...
Most noticed this issue...
The last few issues have been mailed from a different e-mail address.
Yes, I have a new e-mail address: coplan@scenespot.org
This issue is the first issue that was not only mailed from my
scenespot address, but the first that was mailed THROUGH our new
listserv. I guess you could say that a lot has changed, and there is a
lot more to come.
As I am not a believer of hype, I will not tell you what is to come.
I will only tell you what exists.
SceneSpot is a domain on the web: http://www.scenespot.org
It is a domain that Ranger Rick and I have set up for a project
somewhat connected to Static Line. The goal of SceneSpot is not unlike
that of the late Hornet Archive -- albeit, a bit modernized.
Static Line is now mailed from OUR listserv. For the general reader,
this doesnt make much difference. Your issue will be delivered every
month as normal. But if you are going to subscribe or unsubscribe,
youll see that the web interface for our listserv makes things much
easier to handle. All you need to do is visit the Static Line list
information page: http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/staticline
and log in. Accounts are based on your recieving e-mail. If you forget
your password or if youre a long time subscriber, and dont have one,
worry not. You can have a password generated and mailed to you without
any hassle. Then you can log in and change your settings or
unsubscribe, even pause recipt for a few months.
Static Line will be logged in the listserv archives in addition to
our web site. On the website http://www.scenespot.org/staticline
Static Line is parsed into a database that allows you to do keyword
searches for a specific article. This makes browsing back issues a lot
easier. The old site will remain intact and fully functional, as we
have not yet implemented a supliment system for songs and demos related
to each issue.
As far as SceneSpot goes, what you see now is functional. Youre
welcome to play around and offer suggestions. I wont discuss any
features specifically, as SceneSpot has a long way until we officially
open up to the public. As Static Line readers, you are the first to see
what we are working on. At this point, we offer no support for
SceneSpot, but we are taking feedback, bug reports and suggestions. As
you return every so often, you will see some changes in the system. New
features may be added, bugs will be fixed, and functionality will
increase. The databases are stable -- so feel free to make an account
and change your preferences as you wish. Use Tune Tracker and the
Group Database. But most of all, tell us what you think. It will
help us to develop to your needs.
Here are all the important addresses:
SceneSpot: http://www.scenespot.org
Static Line: http://www.scenespot.org/staticline new
http://www.ic.L7.net/statline old
Static Line Subscriptions:
http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/staticline
--Coplan
I Am A Tracker - First, Last, and Always
By: PsiTron
I am a tracker, first, last, and always. I am not a musician with the
idea in mind that I will end up owning a mansion or driving a Porsche.
I am a scener who loves to make music and make it free. I am not going
to corrupt the scene by making someone pay for my album or release
preview songs to people with the same idea in mind. I will not, nor
will ever succumb to greed, for my life is not run by money, or fame,
but by the realization that life can be as shallow or as vivid as you
want it to be. I feel sorry for you if all you want from the scene is
that mansion or Porshe. If you want to become famous, more power to
you. Good luck in your endeavor. But that is not what the scene stands
for and that idea and action hurts the scene. If the sole purpose for
you being a scener is to make money, then you are helping to destroy a
medium that has always been and always should be free. Furthermore you
know little of what it means to be a scener.
I am a tracker, and thus I release tracks. Impulse Tracker is my
current one, though I am awaiting a new one to tinker with. A tracker,
too, not a sequencer. Perhaps in DOS, or even Linux. And in my dreams,
even DemOS perhaps one day a dream that will become a reality. I am
not an MP3er, but I dont scorn mp3s. I do scorn the fact that those
who use mp3s to promote themselves to fame primarily helped the
commercialization of the scene by trying to dig-up what should remain
underground. Like drugs, mp3s are not bad, it is the people that use
them as a tool for themselves and their longing for fame. I track, and
release those tracks with the idea in mind that what I am doing is a
specialized art form - a free art form. Sure, I could mp3 songs if I
wanted to, and use megabytes worth of riffs, but I track for the fun of
tracking 4-channel chips as well as pieces that, hopefully, captivate
the emotions of both myself and those listening to my songs. I track
because it uses less CPU power for the demos my group intends on
writing, and for blowing my mind and, with luck, the minds of others by
making this lead or that lead sound so amazing with all the effects I
have meticulously placed in the song. And when I think of mp3s, I then
think of what musicians like The Captain did with a mere 4-channels. Or
what Second Reality yes, I had to go there did on my 386DX/40 with
4MB of RAM. I track because I enjoy it and because I want to distribute
my songs to others freely, and in its native form.
I am a scener. Not of the mp3 scene, but of the demo scene. And
while, as Coplan said last issue, mp3z are here to stay, and in their
own right can be respected and admired, I respect much more the tracker
that can produce the same quality of music without the need of a 12MB
module or 4MB mp3. And I respect even more the tracker that is in the
scene for the scene. I hope I represent the scene, if not as it is, as
it once was and hopefully what it will again be. The scene that once was
a medium for artists to share their free music with others and to push
the limits of computing and the mind by combining music and code into
something nothing less than amazing. The scene that was underground and
unknown to most of the world, except those that were willing to peer
into it and its strange collection of code and mods.
Lastly, I am a writer, writing this article in hopes that I will make
a difference, both in those that might disagree with me, and those who
believe in the same things. For those that disagree, how small you have
become. But for those that agree with me, remember now that you are not
alone..and that we are the scene, let us not be afraid to express it.
And let us be loud in doing it. For many have said that: The scene is
what you make of it
What I have just tried to tell you, in hopefully somewhat of an
eloquent way is that I do not like how the scene is progressing. Some
say the scene is dying. I rather believe that the scene is trying to
commercialize, and rather than sit idly by in watch it, I hope to turn a
few heads with this. I hope to make you think, if you are one that is
using the scene as a platform for greed. The scene was not founded on
the principle of money, and has lived quite healthy without wealth.
Using the scene for such can only cause the infrastructure to crumble
and fall under the weight carried by the money bags some wish to hold in
their hands. Take note, however, a simplistic saying that has shaped the
way in which I think: What comes around, goes around.
Anyways, something to think about.
--PsiTron formally TigerHawk of Nutropik
tigerhawk@stic.net
LTP4 Party Report
By: Seven
I have the impression that LTP 4 is the party that has been hyped the
most in the past year. Not in the sense that the organizers themselves
had started a heavy spam campaign: it was a more subtle, disorganized
influence. Whenever sceners complained after going to big parties,
about gamers, leechers, or orgos going commercial, other people praised
LTP as a real non-gamer party with a good scenish atmosphere, with
thoughtful organizers etc. Apparently everyone who had visited LTP3
wanted to go there again, and a lot of other folks like me decided to
attend LTP4 too.
The only problem was that the partyplace had only enough room for 400
sceners, and somewhere during spring, Yes announced on csipd that
already 700 people had submitted a reservation on Orange Juice. Oops. I
wasnt one of those : Guess I should have acted sooner. Well, there
are other parties, right? So I put LTP4 out of my thoughts, but I still
felt a bit cheated. Couldnt the orgos just rent a bigger hall? Later I
learned that you had to send money via snail mail to confirm your
reservation, which Im reluctant to do too.
But 10 days before the party, Yes posted another message that only
the French people had to send money as a confirmation, and there were
still 90 places left for foreigners without reservations. Hmm... would
I? The party would start at 10 oclock Friday, and Baxter/Green whose
red car is my primary means of transport to demoparties had planned to
arrive at 22 hour. So most of the places would already been taken.
After a few mails to Chandra, one of the orgos, I was assured that
foreigners would not be denied access to the partyhall. So I could go
to LTP4 after all, yippee!
There wouldnt be a 4K-intro compo at LTP, but I would not have been
able to make something decent anyway: having left the university, I
started to work in the week before LTP. With a lot of other things on
my mind, I had very little time left for scene-related stuff.
-- Friday 25 August --
Baxter picked me up at home around 17.30 , and I was promoted to
navigator. He must not have trusted my map-reading skill very much,
because aside from the 3 maps from France, there were also copies from
Germany, Yugoslavia, Ostrich etc : Of course we didnt need those,
although I admit that weve seen a bit more from the Parisian suburbs
than weve wanted to see. But hey, youre only lost when you *admit*
that youre lost. When we arrived at the village Crosne, Baxter found
out that he didnt took the exact address with him. So we had to drive
randomly through Crosne, looking for freaky characters carrying their
hardware inside a big glass-and-wood pyramid. And voila: exactly at 22
oclock, we found the partyplace! Hows that for careful planning?
Having parked the car in an, hmm, creative way, we went to the
entrance. We quickly noted one of the few real problems at LTP: the
average French scener doesnt speak English very fluently, and we dont
speak French very fluently an understatement, yes. The girl at the
entrance found Baxters name easily on the reservation list, but when I
had explained that I hadnt reserved and wanted to pay now, she looked
at me suspiciously. With my best Frenglish, I told about Chandras
email, and after having spoken in a walkie-talkie, she said it was OK.
Phew!
We went inside the main hall to look for some other Belgian sceners,
who had left Belgium at noon, and had promised to hold places for us.
Taking the first few steps into the LTP 4 hall was like crashing into a
wall of hot air. It was really, really warm inside. At every table
three or more fans were blowing hot air, and people walked around in
their shorts. The second thing we noticed was the silence: you could
easily hear sounds from the other half of the partyplace. If youre
used to the Dutch parties with their deafening background-mix of
hundred of tunes, this is a shocking observation.
The partyplace was a large square hall, without windows and with red
curtains over all walls. A big podium with a very large bigscreen on it
was at one end of the hall, and the beamer and the organizers room was
located at the opposite side on a large balcony. In-between, some 400
sceners had installed their stuff on the tables. Scanning the rows, we
found no trace of the other Belgians, and moreover, there were no
unreserved places left : Luckily there was a tiny bit of empty room at
the left of the hall, so we set up some tables there with permission
from the orgos. While we installed our junk on it, some guys did a live
performance on the music of YMCA/the village people. Dressed up in weird
costumes I suppose like the original band, they danced on the podium
while the bigscreen showed a self-made demo/slideshow of the Village
people, synced to the music. Weird, but very funny.
At that time, CyberPhest/Inscene, A0a/Green and Djefke arrived from
Belgium. They hadnt left at noon, as we thought, but much later -- a
minor communication error. I was glad they didnt had engine-trouble or
an accident. Now the bigscreen was showing a karaoke-program with songs
from old French TV-series for kids. The nostalgic crowd sang along with
enthusiasm :
-- Saturday 26 August --
Some good demos have been shown at the bigscreen: Shad 2, Heaven 7,
VIP2, Real Reality,... Something really crazy is Icandoit/Sylex, a VIP2
clone written in Qbasic! Its low-res, looks ugly, and needs winamp to
play the music, but the idea is just great. Im having hardware
troubles at the moment: my CDrom refused to read my Win98 CD, which I
need to install my network driver. At the same time, the terrible heat
is aggravating the conflict between my TNT2 and my Ali chipset, which
causes my PC to crash after a few minutes. I give up trying to fix
it, and boot back to dos. At least I can write some notes for this
party report on that crappy machine.
I ask Baxter whether Green is making a demo for LTP4, but they
havent planned anything. Green is a pretty big group according to the
memberlist, but a lot of the members have started to work and are
inactive now. Theyve a lot of tools and engines, but not enough active
members. Ive the opposite problem: I want to move from 4K intros to
64K intros, but I dont have hardware-3D code and a scripting system
etc. So we decide to work together and make a for-fun demo. There are
problems though: much to my surprise, you cant just plug in a 2D
effect in a 3D engine. It has to use polygons, preferably with
non-changing textures. Also, weve no graphics or tunes, but well try
to fix something anyway. The deadline is 8 am at Sunday, so weve more
than 24 hours left. I can use A0as PC, since hes outside to escape
death by overheating.
Baxters idea for the name of the demos is Make some noise! When
theres nothing on the bigscreen, its really very quiet here, and the
silence gets on his nerves : Im trying to change a crystallize effect
in such a way that it uses polys If you dont know that effect, look
at Dake/Caladox article in Pain 00/00. From time to time I walk around
to relax a bit, and its true: I cant see any gamer here. Lots of
pixelers, 3D-artists, some coders here and there... outside, people sit
together to talk and have a drink. A really nice atmosphere.
Its now 5.36 in the morning, and the others are asleep. Im still
coding, and keeping an eye on the hardware. LTP is a great party with a
nice feeling, but its better not to be too careless.
When A0a returned to the hall, it was my turn to get some sleep. Due
the heat, most people are sleeping outside. Theres a large lawn around
the partyhall, and its scattered with sleeping bags, beer and
softdrink cans, and one or two small tents. Theres a plane flying
over, and suddenly the whole scene looks to me as if in some freaky
accident, a plane dropped all his sleeping passengers on the lawn, but
they didnt notice it and just slept on : Well, time to join them.
Its 9.50 and Im awake again, thanks to the hard ground. The
bigscreen is showing some more old demos, I think Amiga ones. The
organizers are selling croissants at a table next to the podium. From
time to time they announce things, but almost always in French only,
and before Baxter can turn down his speakers, most of the message is
over. So we just have to hope it wasnt something important :/
Around the noon, my 3D fractal code finally works. Time to pause and
cool down a bit outside. On the lawn before the small tent, PS is
sitting with the Haujobb guys. Other groups have made T-shirts or
banners before, but Haujobb is the first group with its own
scene-balloons. It has a white printed logo on it, a circle with the
name Haujobb, and a blocky human figure in it with a suspicious third
leg.
Back inside, the bigscreen is showing some of these funny adverts
that you can find on the partynetwork. A bit later, a representative
from a game/3D company gives a demonstration about the next generation
games. Superb visuals, Ive to admit, but theyve of course a way
larger budget than us poor sceners. So, no reason to feel inferior,
folks.
Djefke and some unknown guy are trying to copy something from Djefkes
PC, but his diskdrive is defective. It turns out that the guy is
Melwyn/Haujobb, looking for a copy of DeluxePaint II to make graphics
for an oldskool demo. DPII is one of the few graphic tools on my HD,
although I never use it, so with the good old DOS + norton commander we
can help him. Then I decide to try to add colors to my fractals, and
A0a and I spend about an hour debugging because I forgot to put
brackets around an if-statement. Doh!
Because were running low on food and beverage, A0a and I set out on
a mission to find a shop or a pizzeria. But Crosne isnt exactly a big
city, and half the shops are closed due to the holidays. In our best
French, we ask two old ladies who are waiting for the bus where we can
buy food. From the sounds they make, we can deduce that the baker is
open tomorrow :/ Not exactly useful. Pointing in the direction of the
partyplace, they ask if we are with those young people, and what we
do there. Des competitions avec lordinateur, we answer, and they
seem to understand, as if they are regular demoparty-goers themselves.
We decide to wait for the evening and then go fetch some food by car.
In the meantime, the competitions have started. There are separate
compos for chiptunes, 4-channel mods, multichannel mods, and MP3s, with
a total of 52 music-entries. I cant really judge the quality, because
1 Ive little musical knowledge, and 2 I didnt pay attention to all
songs, 52 is too much for me. In the handdrawn graphics compo, the
picture was first shown for a few seconds, and the operator of the
compo-PC started to zoom into details, so people can make up their own
mind about whether it was pure handdrawn or not. While the zooming made
little difference to me, I think its a very useful thing for
graphicians, and it would be nice when other parties imitate this. The
quality seemed quite high to me, and also the raytracing compo
contained some very nice entries.
Warning: It seems Ive been damn lazy again and the notes I made
werent all written in chronological order, so its possible Im
confusing which compos happened before and which after the power
breakdown. We apologize for the inconvenience
Beside the cans of softdrinks, the orgos now sell also cheap bottles
of water. We like that, yesyes. Wandering around, I talked a bit with
PS who informed me that the Haujobb demo which I had heard a lot of
positive things about might not be finished before the deadline. A
prophetical remark, it turned out later. I also met Valdor and Zyk from
Paradise Studios, another Belgian group which was at Inscene too. These
friendly guys come from the French-speaking part of Belgium, but
luckily Zyk can speak Dutch fluently. When I tell them about the
troubles we have with combining 2D and 3D effects in OpenGL, Zyk thinks
he knows a way to do that reasonably fast. Since I know zilch about
OpenGL, Ive to drag Baxter from behind his PC to listen to the
technical details. Soon theyre trying to code it, discussing about the
AGP-bandwidth and how Popsy Team could have added TV-snow to VIP2.
Last year there was a power failure, and the organizers have decided
to make that a tradition. So at the evening, everyone had to go outside
for one hour. First we wanted to buy some pizzas, but they were too
small and too expensive, so we hopped in Cyberphests car and drove to
the nearest Macdonald junkfood, we know. The parking was clearly
designed to inhibit anyone to park there and we had to wait in the queue
waaayyy too long, but at least the temperature was bearable :
When we were back inside the partyplace, something strange happened:
suddenly a lot of people ran to the outside. Being curious, we followed
them, but no one seems to know what has happened. Weird. Baxter and I
swap our CDroms so I can fix my PC, and after a while Ive a working
net-connection and a screen that works in 640*480*16color. While Real
Reality and other wild demos are slowly filling every kilobyte of my HD,
I go ask Zyk Valdor if they know what happened before. It seems that
during the power break, two or three local lamers had broken into the
backdoor of the hall, and had stolen Knos laptop and a bag with
personal stuff from the girl at the entrance. Later they had walked by
outside the fence around the lawn, and had shown the bag just to boast.
Someone had warned the organizers, and when those ran outside, other
sceners just followed. The thieves had of course ran away when they saw
maybe a hundred sceners coming their way. Well, I hope they get caught
eventually, and may they suffer from an itching back and too short arms.
-- Sunday 27 August --
Since I cant use ACDsee or a movieplayer in 16 colors, and cause Im
not interested in warez, Im just downloading random things with
filenames that seems to be scene-related. Djefke insist that I should
visit his FTP server and upload things. OK, we aim to please. Djefke has
the typical Linux-kind of humor, his background is a monumental C with
in green letters below it: Gods programming language :
Im feeling tired again and the compo-schedule has a gap of several
hours, so I head to the entrance with my sleeping bag and my pillow. The
sky is a bit too cloudy to my taste, Ill stay inside the pyramid-formed
entrance. I put my wallet underneath my pillow because its
uncomfortable when its in my pocket, and five minutes later I drifted
to dreamland.
Again I woke up after a few hours, my biorhythm must have lost track
about what time it is. When I stumble to my PC, I see on the LTP-website
that the schedule is delayed, so I put my pillow on my keyboard and fall
asleep again. Zzzz.. huh... what time is it? Ai! Neck hurts. Better turn
my head in a more comfortable position ... Zzzz again...
Outside it has started to rain, and it took Baxter 5 minutes before
he was awake enough to realize what was happening and had carried his
air mattress inside. By that time the Amiga compo had started, with only
a few entries. I cant really say how good they were, I dont know much
about the power of that machine :/ There was one oldskool PC demo, from
Haujobb. It looked like an old fantasy adventure game, with the heroes
Melwyn, Solarc and Inferno trying to rescue their friends from an evil
witch. BTW, Karhu is some kind of Finnish beer if you want to understand
the texts.
The 64K compo had only 5 entries, the Haujobb one Funkkin was
clearly the best. Style, rhythm, nice effects... 3States Antimoney was
quite different from their earlier stuff, pure black white effects,
but with their usual attitude.
Suddenly I noticed that my wallet wasnt in my pocket. Eek! Must have
forgotten it when I woke up! I raced to the entrance were I had slept,
asked the security guy if someone had found a wallet. No. Panic! Cursing
myself for my stupidity, I went to the balcony to ask the orgos if they
had found something... And yes, someone had brought it to them! Even my
money was still in it. A big thank-you from the bottom of my heart to
the honest person who found it.
Now someone from Haujobb is singing a song that I cant understand,
but it must be funny cause the audience is laughing. Later some guys
with guitars and drums start a long rock/rap set. Moby, Djam, Skal,
Traven and Willbe is the answer I get after asking my neighbors whos
in the band. Wow, a demo celebrity jam session :
And finally, its time for the democompo. In total, about 20 demos
were presented. Thats one and a half hour of totally new demos on a
large bigscreen with a loud soundsystem: This Is Heaven. Granted, some
of the were low-quality or boring, but some real gems were released. My
favorites in order of appearance were:
* ChildBone/Naa: A demo with a motioncaptured-driven skeleton, a bit
strange at the beginning but with some funny ideas. At the end, some
figures made of lights dance to a nice beat, and the audience started
to clap their hands, people jumped on the podium to dance along and
the orgos switched the hall lights synchronized to the music.
* Faded/Oror: A demo with a Message, always a dangerous thing, but this
one is quite good. Its long and with a lot of variation, has nice
effects, and if you take in account that this is a first demo, its
quite an accomplishment.
* Just a touch of funk: Digital murder: Whohoho! Remember the drummer at
the end of Jumpy? It seems Digital Murder improved their motion system
to new heights. Lip-synchronizing to the vocals! Breakdancing people!
Insane haircuts! Ugly wallpaper from the sixties! Groovy outdated
trousers! Karaoke! And just a little bit of funk! At the end, the
whole audience was stamping their feet, and you could feel the whole
hall vibrate.
* The mutant pouletz project2 / Mutant Inc: A 90 picture demo, no 3D,
no code. Theme: attack of the mutant chickens! Nice, nice, nice.
* Purple/Orion: Some good 3D, but no complex moving objects. Halfway,
when the camera moves through a forest with purple crystals, A0a and
I had a strange deja-vu feeling and we tried to pin down where it
came from. It was from the handdrawn graphics compo, there was a
picture presented with purple crystals, and it showed up in the demo
a bit later.
* Downtown/retro AC: A short demo with solid design, with a lot of
photos and a feeling that reminds me of their previous demo, Could be
you.
After the compo, someone from Haujobb climbed on the podium to tell
the audience that they didnt managed to finish their demo sounds of
disappointment from the sceners, but they thanked the organizers for
the great party. After that we downloaded all the entries, voted, and
swapped email addresses with the Paradise crew. Outside I met PS again
and he introduced me to Picard/Exceed, the coder of the great Mesha 4K
and co-coder of Heaven 7 and Spot. We couldnt talk very long because
in the hall, Melting Pot was doing a live impression of the Swan Lake
ballet I suppose they did the YMCA thing too. I missed the start, but
the rest was funny: weird dancing guys, wearing only those skimpy
ballet skirts, were shot down by a hunter, with thunder crashing
through the soundsystem. The bigscreen said For all your evenings or
codings, call the animation team of Melting Pot :
Yes and Chandra did the ending ceremony, and when Yes thanked all the
people that had helped during the event, he had to pause several times
because he was in tears. He also said that this was the last time he
would organize LTP, next year Chandra would take over. In fact, Chandra
had already done most of the things this year. So, next year LTP would
still have the same feeling it has now. At the moment, Knos was at the
police station to lodge a complaint about the theft of his laptop, but
who wished to do so could donate money to buy him a new laptop. Several
of the compo-winners actually donated their prizemoney for this good
cause. Respect out to them! I dont remember all winners, Digital Murder
won of course the democompo with Just a touch of funk, but for the other
results you should check scene.org or ojuice.net. Then the big
madeleine-fight started: the orgos had a big case with madeleines, a
kind of small cakes, which they threw at the audience, and the sceners
threw them back. Pure chaos it was : The distribution of the free
goodies from the sponsors CDs, pencils, cards and such stuff was a bit
less chaotic, but still a danger for life and limbs. Then Yes wished
everyone a safe journey back, who wanted to sleep could still do this
because the hall was still available for the night. And so LTP 4 ended.
-- Conclusion --
Except for the hardware troubles, LTP4 was one of the best parties
Ive ever visited. There were problems with compos, entries that didnt
work, but they were often re-played at the end of the compo. The
bigscreen was in use way more often that at other parties, showing lots
of scene-productions, and the whole atmosphere was really friendly.
Still there are two things Id like to see changed next year: better
announcements, in English for example, and a larger room with better
ventilation and a lower temperature. Thanks to the orgos and everyone I
met, hope to see you all at Bizarre2K.
--Seven
Setup of your party EQ
By: Tryhuk
So I finally visited my first demoparty. It was fiasko2k and I have
to say that I quite enjoyed it. But there were of course also some
things that I didnt like and one of them was inability of organizers to
setup the equalizer. In the result all tunes sounded more horrible than
they actually were although they were all really bad, especially in
the mid frequencies where is usually the most important music
information and vocals. So I decided to write a small tutorial how to
setup your equalizer.
I wont care here about removing reverb and echoes, that is a
different and more complicated thing, we will just take a look how to
make at least a minimum adaptation of sound to the room. I expect that
youve got a computer with a soundcard, an equalizer and some program
that displays power in the bands simple FFT analysis should be enough
and one high quality microphone - that means with flat characteristics
in the audible range if you dont have any of this kind, youll have to
make additional change to the final equalizer setting that should
compensate characteristics of the microphone. If youve got it all, we
can begin. To adaptation of equalizer to the room we use a white noise
or a pink noise. Lets take a look on the meaning of these two words
into acoustics faq:
What is white noise, pink noise?
The power spectral density of white noise is independent of frequency.
Since there is essentially the same energy between any two identical
frequency intervals for example 84-86Hz and 543-545Hz, white noise
narrow band FFT analysis will show as flat. However octave band analysis
will show the level to rise by 3dB per octave because each band has
twice the frequency range of the preceding octave. Pink noise is often
produced by filtering white noise and has the same power within each
octave. Narrow band analysis will show a fall in level with increasing
frequency, but third-octave band or octave band analysis will be flat.
Easy isnt it? The more clever readers will start to understand where
Im going. What you have to do is to generate a white or pink noise,
choice of the noise type depends on the spectral analyzer you have. If
the bands are octave based - that means every next frequency is the
double of the previous - use a pink noise, else use a white. Every good
sound editor can generate both types of noise, for example CoolEdit.
Now, when you got the noise, play it into the room and record it back
using the microphone. You can notice that the result is dependant on the
microphone position, but we cant do much with that. So, you record the
noise back and you can see in the spectral analyzer that the room works
as a band-stop for some range of frequencies. Its parameters depend on
the material of which are the walls made. There isnt too much you could
do about it, but if you want to fur the walls with a better material,
feel free to do so. We will skip this step and look on the result of
analysis, set up the equalizer to see a flat spectral analysis and
thats it! You got it! Now you can enhance bass and high frequencies a
bit, but not too much or you get into place where you started. Dont
forget that lot of people have enhanced bass already in the track, so
you would enhance it twice and that isnt what you want. This is also a
reason why are the parties won by dance tracks so often - they dont
build up on the critical mid frequencies that much. Music should sound
how the composer wrote it, so I prefer a flat equalizer.
I hope you understood what I said and I hope that organizers of the
smaller parties learn at least this quite simple but effective
technique.
--Tryhuk
In Tune
Zappers Whore from Coma 2
By: Coplan
Third at Coma 2
-- Introduction --
I was holding out for the first place tune from Coma 2 -- but it
hasnt been uploaded to the FTP site yet. Anyhow, after discussing the
rankings with many of the participants, I discovered that the first
place song wasnt well liked.
Instead, Phoenix talked me into reviewing the 3rd place entry. Im
glad he did, because its quite an impressive little tune.
The song does contain some very minor language.
-- Coplan --
First let me start out by pointing out the obvious. This song has
vocals. Let me also point out that this is an IT. I make a big deal of
this because one of the biggest excuses for useing the MP3 format is the
ability to use vocals without keeping the file size small. It can be
done efficiently in a module, and this is the perfect example.
The song is about 2,976 KB I rounded it up to 3 MB for the fact
sheet. It is also about 3 minutes and 15 seconds long. An MP3 version
of this song would actually be larger than the module format -- though
only by a little bit. Im glad that the IT version has been made
available.
Anyhow, I cant review a song like this without first attacking the
samples. I would like to play with the vocal samples a bit first.
There are 21, and they are all recorded clean. That is, there are no
echos or any other effects. In most cases, this is the best way to
handle voice samples, especially in a module. If you are concerned
about file size, you can make your voice samples a bit lesser quality
8-bit and maybe drop the resolution. Since you will track the echos
and effects, the quality will be shadowed out by the introduced effects
and echos. If you depend on your sample for the echo and effects, then
youre going to need a high quality sample -- and a much larger one at
that. So, 9 times out of 10, you want a clean voice sample so that you
can take advantage of this little file size saving trick. Just because
the internet is faster, that doesnt mean your songs should be larger.
You still have listeners on 56k modems, and they might not want to
download your 5MB track.
There is another quick note about the voice samples. Notice how some
of them look like they have huge chunks out of the center of them, or
that they fade out suddenly, then cut back in. This is evidence that
Zapper did a lot of editing with his samples. The reality is that you
may need to do this to get your vocals to line up properly, or get get
rid of the parts that just dont sound right. Zapper put a lot of work
into his vocal samples. Im glad to see it.
There are some other very good samples in this song as well. My
favorites are the guitars and the drums. One of my favorite things to
see is a sample matched with the music style. The snare is perfect for
the type of grungy/metal rock song that we have here. There are a lot
of guitar samples, and this is necessary. With any style of music, you
get a more realistic sound if you have several samples of the same
instrument being played differently. This is very important with
guitars and brass samples. Zapper knows this. Zapper did this with
his percussion and his guitars.
Since the voice samples were in need of some echos, lets check out
how Zapper handles such things. Im going to focus on pattern 22, so
that we are on the same page. In Pattern 22, check out channels 20-23.
These four channels are the root of the vocal echos. There are some
things to consider when working with echos, and this is a perfect
example. First to consider is the speed/tempo at which your module is
playing. Next is to consider is the echo itself. Do you want a vast
echo as if recorded in a valley or a shallow echo as if recorded in a
bathroom. Most people choose an echo somewhere in between. Zapper
apparently does something a little more complicated. The way the echos
work in this song, it would seem as though the performer were in an
concert hall with a complete shell wall behind and above him. Because
of the speed of the song, Zapper starts the source vocal, and the first
reverb on the same line. But look closely! He delays the source by 2
beats, and the reverb by 3. The result is a very subtle reverb -- the
echo bouncing off the floor. In channel 22, you have a longer delay.
Imagine this as the delay bouncing off the ceiling and the walls behind
and to either side of the performer. It is slightly quieter because it
would have a longer distance to travel before it would hit the
microphone Zapper cut its volume by a third. In channel 23, you get
the second true echo, the one that might bounce off the back of the
theatre, again softer, and a longer delay. Depending on the song,
youll want to place each of these elements in a different place
relative to each other. In this case, I would personally shorten the
distance of the last echo by two lines. That would then be more
characteristic of an concert hall, a likely place for this style of
music to be played. The current echo seems like it would take place in
an outdoor arena.
Among other things, I am pretty pleased with the guitar work in this
song. I have always been a fan of the heavier styles of guitar based
music, but I havnt been able to duplicate the feel of the guitar in a
tracked tune. One of the biggest reasons for the difficulty is finding
a complete guitar sample set that compliments the other instruments in
the song. The other is trying to get the grungy guitar riffs to melt
into each other. There are some tricks of the trade to do this, but
Ive never seen anything done this smoothly. I attribute most of
Zappers success to his samples. I wish I could understand guitars
better so that I could maybe explain this better, but I dont, so I
cant.
Meanwhile, since I dont get to listen to lyrics much in tracked
tunage, Im glad to hear them. Im also happy to comment on them .
Seriously, though, the vocals were given a lot of attention. Not only
is the sample work for the vocals tight, but the lyrics themselves are
quite appropriate. Its not the typical repeating vocals that you often
see in tracked music which is usually an electronic style anyhow, but
this is a metal tune, and it has grungy vocals. Its not a happy song,
but an angry song. And the vocals sound angry, even if you were to read
the lyrics from a page. It also helps that Zapper has a very good voice
for his lyrics.
All in all, the tune is worth a download. I hope that you all will
at least give it a try. Im hoping that the Coma 2 entries will all
appear soon, because Id like to see what took first and second over
this song. I cant begin to imagine those tunes. Until next time...
--Coplan
Song Information:
Title: Whore
Author: Zapper
Filename zipped/unzipped: whore.zip / whore.it IT 2.14
File Size zipped/unzipped: 2.8 MB / 3.0 MB
Source: ftp://ftp.scene.org/incoming/COMA00/mmul/whore.zip
Alternate: http://www.ic.l7.net/statline/current.htm
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!
Retro Tunage
Without Trying by Cybelius
By: Tryhuk
This month, it was really tough for me to choose a track for a
review. It isnt that there are a small variety of good tracks, it is
more because most of them didnt fit to my mood or the whole summers
habit. But I found one finally.
The song Without Trying appeared on the album FRUSTRATION, which
is rather oriented toward hardcore and punk. But it also contains some
lighter tracks. Like other tracks on this musicdisk, Without
Trying is characterized by bold guitar parts, which are
supported by precious bass and a percussion which sounds, in
some places, simple, but fits into the track. The track has some very
good samples, at least good at the time it came out. But most distinct
and important is the excellent work with the mood of the track: A great
musical idea and a really exquisite lead which is played on a violin.
It cant be described -- it has to be heard.
Even for being rather old tune, it is still an enjoyable piece, thanks
to natural talent of the author. If you like instrumental songs with
nice ideas, I think its worth a listen. When I remember the fiasko2k
music compo I heard this month, uh, I say that this song is superb.
Song Information:
Title: Without trying
Author: Cybelius
Release date: 11.8.1996 ?
Length: 3m37s 3m34s trimmed
Filename zipped/unzipped: ???.zip whole mdisk / without.s3m
File Size zipped/unzipped: ???kb whole mdisk / 1031kb
Source: http://www.hornet.org
--Tryhuk
Screen Lit Vertigo
Just a Touch of Funk by Digital Murder party version
By: Seven
Found at the LTP4 party network
1st place at the LTP4 democompo.
System requirements:
Nothing mentioned. How come Im not surprised anymore?
Win9x, DirectX, 11 MB HD.
Test Machine: PII 350 64MB, SB16, TNT2 M64 32MB, Win98
The credits:
Hulud, Alias Lakick
detailed credits are shown at the end of the demo, but scroll away
too fast
The demo:
At LTP4, at the start of this demo, the message This demo doesnt
use a 3D card was shown. Baxter found this a pity, because its a pure
3D demo, and exactly those demos benefit the most from that underrated
piece of hardware. Well, dont be afraid, GeForce freaks and Voodoo
people, you can select at the startup whether you want hardware
acceleration or not. BUT...the first time you run it, it wants to use
software only.
OK, what is it about? Its a kind of retro-designed pure 3D videoclip,
with an heavy overdose of funkiness. A man is dancing through the
streets, hes wearing a caddish white costume and has a kind of 1
massive block hairstyle. He meets two negros in brown costumes, and
another one in a white sport outfit, and they all follow him to a large
hall where they start to breakdance, together with two female backstage
singers.
This may seem very simple, but if you think its boring, then you
werent at LTP4 : To start, the animations are very very good, it
looks almost motion- captured. Also the movements of the mouths is
perfectly synced to the vocals. If youve just seen about ten demos
where only the camera and some particles moved, this really grabs your
attention. OK, the dancers move a little bit through the floor
sometimes and I recommend you not to try to mimic the breakdancing on a
planet with gravity, but this doesnt kill one percent of the feeling
of the demo.
Then there is the 3D. Its not of a very high quality, the models
dont have that much polys, and the textures arent high-detailed, but
everything fits in the retro-theme. Rooms with green flowered
wallpaper, an ugly sofa, a model car from the sixties, the weird chairs
at the end, the cloths... Everything pulls you back to the times of
funk.
And last but not least, there are some good ideas: a karaoke-part
with a white dot bouncing over the text, interlaced TV-snow filters,
and a part where the heads, the shoulders and the hair of the different
people are swapped randomly. None of these are hard to code, but it
adds more variation to the demo.
Except for the textures, there arent much pictures. A logo at the
start in a retro font, and some little flowers to make a framework,
thats it.
The music is credited as ShakeIt performed by L.A Connection. Yep,
its another commercial song, remember VIP2/Popsy Team Although now
credit is given in the party version. I dont have the time anymore to
check comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos regularly, but I wonder how the reactions
on this were. Needless to say, its a very funky song, and it adds a
lot of feeling to the demo.
Overall:
Back home, Just a touch of funk doesnt look as good as it was on the
bigscreen, but its still nice. The software rendering code is
impressive, the modeling is among the best Ive seen a scene
production, but I dont know what to think about the music. I wonder if
they had permission to use it :/ Anyway, its a good demo, so download
it, step in your time machine and let the funkiness be with you.
--Seven
Intro Watch
Kirahvi by Addiction and Unique
By: Gekko
9th at Assembly 2000 64k intro competition
download: ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/2000
requirements: Windows, DirectX
There were to be many parties - including major ones - this month. I
previously decided to write about one single new intro that would really
impress me. While I was amazed by several demos, unfortunately I havent
found a very impresive intro.
Kirahvi is - oldschool. Though it is nothing too amazing or
original, it has style. A slow chip music is the base of its abstract
mood. In the background there are a few fine logos and graphics. Effects
are running in front of them: particles, raytraced spheres, a distorted
tunnel. There are text scrollers all the time, this is a must in
oldschool... Apart from the last tunnel, which does not fit in the
picture, the whole intro is consistent in design. The colors are fine
and the effects fit the music. The best thing in Kirahvi is that it is
arranged well. This makes the intro worth to be watched several times.
--Gekko
Scene Dirt
News Rumors
By: Coplan
-- Static Line Gets a New Home --
For those of you who didnt read the feature Static Line Stepping
Up, Static Line has earned a new home on the web. There is still some
moving to do, but all the old issues are searchable/viewable at the
following address. Subscription information can also be obtained there.
http://www.scenespot.org/staticline
-- Orange Juice has Wallpapers --
All you OJuice fans out there can now show your spirits for the scene
news network by having an official Orange Juice Wallpaper.
http://www.ojuice.net/wallapers.html
-- Boozembly Report Posted --
Thanks to Psychic Symphony and his crazy ideas, a Boozembly writing
report has been set up. Actually, it is more like an index of drunken
handwriting.
http://demojournal.planet-d.net/boozembly/
-- The Party 2000 Announced --
The website wont be up until Sunday, but from the looks of things,
this looks to be a promising Denmark based demoparty.
http://www.theparty.dk/
--Coplan
Scene Dirt is a semi-regular column offering the latest tidbits of
information to its readers. If you have any bits of information that
you think should be here, contact coplan coplan.ic@rcn.com and offer
as much information as possible.
Editorial
Static Line: My Sport
By: Coplan
This is not a rant.
Its been two years that Ive been publishing this magazine. There
have been twenty-four 24 issues in all, and several hundred articles.
There are even more articles that were never published. I spend, on
average, about 5 or 6 hours compiling, proof reading and presenting each
issue. I probably spend almost that much in correspondance. That
doesnt count the hours of work that my staff contributes to each issue.
And many of you read it within an hour.
Again, this is not a rant.
With each issue, I begin my routine with one simple thought: I need
to get the next issue of Static Line completed. I dont say I want,
and it wouldnt seem that I get excited about compiling each issue. My
girlfriend questions my motive. From her point of view, she sees the
work that I pour into this magazine -- and the time I take away from
her. Thank god she is understanding, because I do it again every month.
And I WILL do it again every month.
Like many of you, I do things other than contribute to the demoscene.
In particular, I spend a lot of time swimming. I train almost
year-round for a small handful of competitions every year. Im not
nearly as gung-ho as I was in high school or college, but I still enjoy
it very much. But I dont enjoy the training. Oh no, training is
boreing. But I swim my 4 miles twice a day, every day, all year round.
I do it because I like competition. I like doing well in competition
the most. So, I guess that means I have to train.
So what does that have to do with Static Line? Simple, it is an
analogy. I love Static Line. I love reading the final product, I love
getting all these articles for the magazine. I love the final product
and I love conversing with our readers. But I cant get there if I
dont train, or do all the dirty work associated. So, I deal, and I
get to do all the fun stuff later.
What this means to you is that I will always strive to make Static
Line a better, stronger resource for you. Everyone has to contribute
somehow, consider this my contribution. All you have to do is continue
reading.
--Coplan
Link List
Demo Groups:
3g Design..............................http://3gdesign.cjb.net
Aardbei.....................................http://aardbei.com
Acid Rain..............................http://surf.to/acidrain
Agravedict........................http://www.agravedict.art.pl
Anakata..............................http://www.anakata.art.pl
ANDESA Soft International..................http://andesa.da.ru
Astral..............................http://astral.scene-hu.com
Astroidea........................http://astroidea.scene-hu.com
AtomiK....................................http://atomik.ini.hu
Bomb..................................http://bomb.planet-d.net
BlaBla..............................http://blabla.planet-d.net
Blasphemy..............................http://www.blasphemy.dk
Byterapers.....................http://www.byterapers.scene.org
Calodox.................................http://www.calodox.org
Chrome..............................http://chrome.scene-hu.com
CoPro.....................................http://www.copro.org
Damage...................................http://come.to/damage
Dance...................................http://dance.flipp.net
Defacto 2..............................http://www.defacto2.net
Dolops......................... ........http://dolOps.scene.hu
Exceed...........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/exceed
Fobia Design...........................http://www.fd.scene.org
GODS...................................http://www.idf.net/gods
Green.....................................http://green.dyns.cx
Grif........................http://arrabonet.gyor.hu/rattgrif
Haujobb......................................http://haujobb.de
Hellcore............................http://www.hellcore.art.pl
IJSKAST.............................http://www.ijskast.cjb.net
Immortals..............................http://imrt.home.ml.org
Infuse...................................http://www.infuse.org
Just For Fun...........................http://jff.planet-d.net
Kilobite...............................http://kilobite.cjb.net
Kolor................................http://www.kaoz.org/kolor
Kooma.....................................http://www.kooma.com
Label zero.........................http://labelzero.pganet.com
Mandula.........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/mandula
Monar................ftp://amber.bti.pl/pub/scene/distro/monar
Nextempire..................http://members.xoom.com/NEXTEMPIRE
Ninja Gefilus.........http://www.angelfire.com/or/ninjagefilus
Noice.....................................http://www.noice.org
Orion..............................http://orion.arfstudios.org
Popsy Team............................http://popsyteam.rtel.fr
Quad........................................http://www.quad.nl
Rage........................................http://www.rage.nu
Replay.......................http://www.shine.scene.org/replay
Retro A.C...........................http://www.retroac.cjb.net
Rhyme................................http://rhyme.scene-hu.com
Sista Vip..........................http://www.sistavip.exit.de
Skytech team............................http://www.skytech.org
Sunflower.......................http://sunflower.opengl.org.pl
Suspend......................http://www.optimus.wroc.pl/rappid
Tehdas...................................http://come.to/tehdas
Tesko..........................http://www.scentral.demon.co.uk
The Black Lotus.............................http://www.tbl.org
The Digital Artists Wired Nation.http://digitalartists.cjb.net
The Lost Souls...............................http://www.tls.no
TPOLM.....................................http://www.tpolm.com
Trauma.................................http://sauna.net/trauma
T-Rex.....................................http://www.t-rex.org
Unik.....................................http://www.unik.ca.tc
Universe..........................http://universe.planet-d.net
Vantage..................................http://www.vantage.ch
Music Groups:
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
Chill..........................http://www.bentdesign.com/chill
Chippendales......................http://www.sunpoint.net/cnd
Chiptune...............................http://www.chiptune.com
Da Jormas................................http://www.jormas.com
Fabtrax......http://www.cyberverse.com/boris/fabtrax/home.htm
Five Musicians.........................http://www.fm.scene.org
Fridge...........................http://www.ssmedion.de/fridge
Fusion Music Crew................http://members.home.nl/cyrex/
Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff
Ignorance.............................http://www.ignorance.org
Immortal Coil.............................http://www.ic.L7.net
Intense...........................http://intense.ignorance.org
Jecoute.................................http://jecoute.cjb.net
Kosmic Free Music Foundation.............http://www.kosmic.org
Level-d.................................http://www.level-d.com
Miasmah.............................http://www.miasmah.cjb.net
Milk.......................................http://milk.sgic.fi
Mah Music.............................http://come.to/mah.music
Maniacs of noise...............http://home.worldonline.nl/mon
MAZs Sound homepage.............http://www.th-zwickau.de/maz
Moplayaz..........................http://ssmedion.de/moplayaz
Mono211.................................http://www.mono211.com
Morbid Minds..............http://www.raveordie.com/morbidminds
Noise................................http://www.noisemusic.org
Noerror......................http://www.error-404.com/noerror/
One Touch Records......................http://otr.planet-d.net
Park..................................http://park.planet-d.net
Radical Rhythms.....http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/merrelli/rr
RBi Music.............................htpp://www.rbi-music.com
Ruff Engine................http://members.xoom.com/ruffengine
SHR8M......................................http://1st.to/shr8m
Sound Devotion................http://sugarbomb.x2o.net/soundev
Soundstate.........................http://listen.to/soundstate
Sunlikamelo-D...........http://www.error-404.com/sunlikamelo-d
Suspect Records........................http://www.tande.com/sr
Tequila........................http://www.defacto2.net/tequila
Tempo................................http://tempomusic.cjb.net
Tetris....................................http://msg.sk/tetris
Theralite...........................http://theralite.avalon.hr
Tokyo Dawn Records........................http://tdr.scene.org
UltraBeat.........................http://www.innerverse.com/ub
Vibrants................................http://www.vibrants.dk
Wiremaniacs.........................http://www.wiremaniacs.com
Others:
Arf!Studios..........................http://www.arfstudios.org
Calodox demolinks exchange.....http://calodox.planet-d.net/cde
coders..................................http://coderz.cjb.net
Comic Pirates.........................http://scene-central.com
Demonews Express.........http://www.teeselink.demon.nl/express
Demo fanclub........................http://jerware.org/fanclub
Demoscene.org news forum..............http://www.demoscene.org
Digital Undergrounds.....................http://dug.iscool.net
Doose charts...............................http://www.doose.dk
Dreams2 CD.........................http://nl.scene.org/dreams2
Freax...................http://freax.scene-hu.com/mainmenu.htm
GfxZone............................http://gfxzone.planet-d.net
Hugi size-compo...............http://home.pages.de/hugi-compo
Orange Juice.........................http://ojuice.citeweb.net
PC-demos explained.....http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained
Pixel...................................http://pixel.scene.org
Scenet....................................http://www.scenet.de
Sunray..............................http://sunray.planet-d.net
Swiss List.................http://www.profzone.ch/vantage/list
Swiss Scene Server.......................http://www.chscene.ch
TakeOver................................http://www.takeover.nl
Textmode Demo Archive.................http://tmda.planet-d.net
Hungarian scene page...................http://www.scene-hu.com
Trebel...................................http://www.trebel.org
Zen of Tracking.........................http://surf.to/the-imm
DiskMags / SceneMags:
Amber...............................http://amber.bti.pl/dimag
Amnesia...............http://amnesia-dist.future.easyspace.com
Demojournal....................http://demojournal.planet-d.net
Dragon......................http://www.wasp.w3.pl/pages/dragon
Fleur................................http://fleur.scene-hu.com
Heroin...................................http://www.heroin.net
Hugi........................http://home.pages.de/hugidownload
Music Massage......................http://www.scene.cz/massage
Planet Chartmag...........http://www.agravedict.art.pl/planet/
Pain..................................http://pain.planet-d.net
Scenial...........................http://www.scenial.scene.org
U Static Line......................http://www.ic.l7.net/statline
http://www.scenespot.org/staticline
Total Disaster...................http://www.totaldisaster.w.pl
TUHB.......................................http://www.tuhb.org
WildMag...........................http://www.wildmag.notrix.de
FTPs:
Amber.......................................ftp://amber.bti.pl
Cyberbox.....................................ftp://cyberbox.de
Flerp.....................................ftp://flerp.scene.hu
Scene.org..................................ftp://ftp.scene.org
Skynet archive.................ftp://acid2.stack.nl/pub/skynet
ACiD2 Archive.............................ftp://acid2.stack.nl
Editor: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
Assistant Editor: Gekko / Gergely Kutenich / gk@scene.hu
Columnists: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
Dilvish / Eric Hamilton / dilvie@yahoo.com
Gekko / Gergely Kutenich / gk@scene.hu
Louis Gorenfeld / gorenfeld@vrone.net
Setec / Jesper Pederson / jesped@post.tele.dk
Seven / Stefaan / Stefaan.VanNieuwenhuyze@rug.ac.be
SiN / Ian Haskin / sin@netcom.ca
Subliminal / Matt Friedly / sub@plazma.net
Tryhuk / Tryhuk Vojtech / xtryhu00@stud.fee.vutbr.cz
Virt / virt@bellsouth.net
Technical Consult: Ranger Rick / Ben Reed / ranger@scenespot.org
Static Line on the Web: http://www.scenespot.org/staticline
http://www.ic.l7.net/statline
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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