/\ /. \ _____ _____. _____ _____. // \ ______ .___\_ \_ | .___\_ \_ | // .\/ _ \_ | | | |____|_ _| | |____|_ | | | | |____| ______/ \_ | ______/ | | | ^\____ \| |____| | | |____| | |____| | | | | | | | | | | |____. |. | |. | |. | |. | | |. | | |: | |: | |: | |: | | |: | | || | || | || | ||_ | | || | | | | | | | | | \ | | | | | ^\_______/^\_______/|____| | \_____/| |\_______/^ cRu|________\ | | Issue #50 |. __|__ /\ ____ ____ |: \ / __/. \__\_ \___\_ \_ _. November, 2003 || / \ \__/ / / /___// | 300 Subscribers World Wide | /___/ \ / / __/_ / | | / / / / / / // | ^\____ /___/___/ /^\____ //____| \/ /___/ \/ --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Table Of Contents --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Opening: Message From the Editor Features: The Anatomy Of A Scale Interview With Legalize (Rich Thomson) Reviews: Music: On The Sideline -- "Pure Me (zverimix)" and "Pure Me (dogs trix mix)" The Lineup -- Monthly Music Listings Demo: Screen Lit Vertigo -- "Retox" and "Feed Your Machine" Opinion / Commentary: Coplan's Eyes -- A New Challenge Link List: Get Somewhere in the Scene Closing: Staff and Contact Information --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Message From the Editor --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Hi all, Apologies for the late issue this month. It's around that time of year where demoparties are thin on the ground, so I'm afraid we haven't got any party reports to bring you this month. However, we do have some good articles to bring you, including the third part of Dilvie's music theory articles and an interview with Legalize (who organised the Pilgrimage demoparty back in August, and wrote an article about it in issue #47), and this month, Coplan's Eyes are fixed on change in the demoscene. Staff writer Seven reviews two demos this month, Novus brings us this month's best music in the Lineup, and Ben takes a look at two remixes of "Pure Me". This month is also the 50th issue of Static Line, and by coincidence, we have exactly 300 subscribers at the time I'm writing this - and that's just the people who actually subscribe to the list; others might read it on the website ( http://staticline.scenespot.org/ ), or a friend might forward it to them, etc. Either way, Static Line couldn't have grown as much as it has without its readers and contributors. So, to everybody who reads the magazine - thank you! One quick notice that I forgot to mention last month - in issue #48, Secnuop's report on Pilgrimage mentioned Dilvie and his girlfriend Marcy. Her name is actually Maria, and they're happily married. Sorry about that! See you next month, and here's to another 50 issues! --Ciaran --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- The Anatomy of a Scale Tones, Intervals, and Triads By: Dilvie --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Now that we've gone over key signatures and had a brief look at modes, it's time to probe deeper into the anatomy of scales. Don't worry. I won't torture you with lame ascii art clef signs. Sibelius is much easier. If you're interested in notation, it's the best notation software I've seen. Check it out: . For this article, I created two printable reference sheets. You may need to scale them down in a print preview window to make them fit nicely on a page. I used PNG to make the files small, but the page size info was probably lost in the translation. Scale Tones Intervals and Triads Let's start out with the scale tones. The modern major and minor scales that have been in popular use in recent centuries are called diatonic (two toned) scales. The reason for that is that there are two types of steps in a diatonic scale: A half step (semitone) and a whole step (whole tone). The pattern of half steps and whole steps in the scale creates the character of the scale. That character is the difference between major and minor, and in chords, the difference as well between augmented and diminished. If you're confused about how those half step/whole step patterns work, you may want to refer to last month's article on modes before we press on. Each tone in the scale has a unique role to play in music, and, not surprisingly, they each have a name (other than the obvious: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). They are (in order), tonic, supertonic, mediant, subdominant, dominant, submediant, and the leading tone. Take a glance at the C Major intervals on the "Intervals and Triads" reference sheet for a visual that might help you understand how the roles differ. It will probably help to play each of the intervals while you're trying to understand their relationships. In a song, the tonic grounds us to the key. It helps us to understand what we're hearing and make some sense of it. Even when the tonic is not playing, the melody and harmony are still grounded by it. In fact, this mental tendency is so strong, some composers will drone on a single note (the tonic of the next key) for twenty or more bars in order to signal our brains that a key change is coming so that we don't get lost when it happens. To understand the roles of the other notes, it's important to understand the concept of triads. A triad is a chord with three notes in it. Chords are very simple. To construct one, start with any scale tone, and then add successive scale tones, skipping every other tone. The reason that the number three is so important here will become clear as you ponder the relationships between tonic, subdominant, and dominant triads. As you'll see, triads link the upper half of the octave to the lower half of the octave, and the third of every triad also plays a huge role in the quality of the chord, but we'll get to that later. The rood triad consists of 1, 3, and 5 (tonic, mediant, and dominant). Next to the root triad, the most influential triad in the key is the dominant triad, consisting of 5, 7, and 2 (dominant, leading tone, and supertonic). Normally, the dominant chord has a strong tendency to resolve to the root triad (tonic). This is true for a couple of reasons. The root of the dominant chord is the 5th of the tonic chord. This is called a common tone. Any two chords that have one or more chord tones in common tend to follow each other easily in music. In addition, the dominant chord has two tendency tones that "want" to resolve to the tonic. Tendency tones are tones that are dissonant with the tonic. In a nutshell, a dissonant interval is one that creates an audible rhythmic beating pattern when it's played. Consonant intervals blend smoothly and do not produce beat patterns. Tendency tones create contrast between the chaos of the dissonance, and the unity of the consonant tonic chord. Because the dominant chord contains two tendency tones, as well as the previously mentioned common tone, a move from the dominant (V) to the tonic (I) is considered a strong resolution. To recap, the Tonic is the root of the key, it grounds us in the music and helps us understand the harmonic relationships of the notes we hear. The dominant is an important tone because it is the 5th in the tonic triad. If you were really on the ball, you may have already noticed that it's also a 5th lower than the supertonic. In other words, it is the subdominant note in the supertonic key. Still with me? Good. Pressing on: The subdominant shares a similar role to the dominant. It is a 4th above the tonic, and a 5th below. The dominant is a 5th above the tonic, and a 4th below. The subdominant has a strong tendency to resolve to the dominant (see if you can guess why). For this reason, the progression I, IV, V, I is very common in music. The mediant is the third of the tonic chord. Mediant means middle. Get it? The submediant is the third of the subdominant chord. The mediant is a third above the tonic, and the submediant is a third below the tonic. We've already established that the leading tone "wants" to resolve to the tonic (which is why it's called the leading tone), but it's also interesting to note that the leading tone happens to be the third in the dominant triad (important to keep in mind when you learn about key changes). Speaking of key changes, one of the most common key changes is a move to the supertonic key, and that is where the supertonic gets its name. The supertonic is the dominant of the dominant -- PHWEW! That's all I'm going to try to cover in this article. If you're new to all this, you may want to keep those reference sheets handy and re-read this article a few times. Music theory isn't all that complicated, but I'm serving up a lot of fundamental concepts that often get neglected (even in college theory classes). --Dilvie --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Interview with Legalize (Rich Thomson) By: Coplan --=--=------=--=------=--=---- To many in the demo scene, Rich Thomson, aka Legalize, isn't anyone special. He's a programmer from Salt Lake City who has only been involved in the demo scene less than 2 years. He is best known for his involvement in the organization of the Pilgrimage Demo Party in his home town. It was not nearly the party one could expect of Europe, but it helped to carve more of an identity for the North American Demo Scene. His length of stay alone has caused many to dismiss his ideas. But after observing many of his tactics and some of his novel ideas, he is slowly earning more respect in the demo scene. This year, Pilgrimage was a small one day event. Next year is almost guaranteed to be larger. But what sets Rich apart from the traditional party organizer? That is something I wanted to find out. So I initiated this interview shortly after his demo party. Some of my questions are based on discussions found on SceneSpot.org. Others are based on an article he wrote for Static Line titled "Organizing a US Demo Party" which appears in Static Line #47 (August, 2003). As you will see, Rich is quite a role model for the demo scene, regardless of his prior involvements. The following is an account of the interview: COPLAN: First, I want to find out a bit more about you and your life. For the record, what is your full name and where (generally speaking) do you reside? RICH: Rich Thomson. Salt Lake City, Utah (USA) COPLAN: What do you do for a living? RICH: I write software. Currently I'm working in C# on a contract for LANDesk. (http://www.landesk.com) COPLAN: That sounds like a useful skill in the demo scene. Did that have any effect on your initial involvement in the demo scene? RICH: My involvement in programming got me interested in computer graphics. My involvement in computer graphics got me interested in Direct3D. My involvement in Direct3D introduced me to Phil Taylor. Phil Taylor introduced me to the demo scene. COPLAN: When and how did you discover the demo scene, and to what extent have you been involved ever since? RICH: SIGGRAPH 2002 at the demo scene panel discussion (http://www.scene.org:8080/dog/news.html) Phil Taylor had been talking about the demo scene on the DirectX Developer's list, but I didn't know what 'demo scene' was about. He recommended that I attend the SIGGRAPH panel discussion. After the panel discussion, I went to the demo scene [Birds of a Feather Session] hosted by Vince Scheib in a meeting room in the bottom of the convention center. Mostly I remember people there asking me about Direct3D and catching a glimpse or two of demos out of the corner of my eye. I had a little chat with Saku Lehtinen from the panel (Remedy Entertainment, Ltd.) at the [Birds of a Feather Session]. COPLAN: What are your primary contributions? RICH: My contributions so far are organizing Pilgrimage 2003 and doing outreach talks. I did most of the web content editing for the Pilgrimage web site. I'm working on some productions in my copious spare time :-). COPLAN: What kind of productions are you currently working on? RICH: 1) I've had an inkling of doing a hand-held Mandelbrot set browser for a long time. I was originally going to do it in home brew LCD screens and so-on. I could still do that, but it would be faster now to use one of the handheld consoles like GBA. That's been a long-term project that could result in a simple console demo. 2) I have a plan to create the world's largest fractal curve, that's probably the biggest conception of a wild demo the world's ever seen :-). 3) More likely what you'll see from me first is some sort of complex plane iterated equation fractal set plotter done in a novel way, perhaps a 256b demo. Amazingly enough, a search of 256b.com doesn't yield one! 4) I wanted to do a 256b for Pilgrimage, thinking that being so small it would be the least likely to consume my time :-). Still, there just wasn't time for that with everything else that went on. The idea involves (again) plotting a chaotic fractal set that is rendered as a point cloud. The trick is to get some decent antialiasing and gamma correction snuck into 256b. I think it is not so hard for 256b, and perhaps even in 128b. 5) I'm always working on some sort of novel fractal rendering. I might enter one into a graphics compo sometime. 6) I have some interest in algorithmic music generated through 1/f noise. I'd like to collaborate with a musician to generate something part algorithmically composed and part tracked/traditionally composed. 7) Fractal animations might be submitted for a wild demo. Yes... there is a reason my personal card says "fractal freak" on it :-). 8) More long-term I have ideas of bringing more storytelling to demos. I have some story lines I've been working on in my head. COPLAN: What is your part in any of these productions? RICH: Usually coding and design. COPLAN: Are these productions affiliated with any group? RICH: At this point, I'm flying mostly solo. I've formed Polygony with Mike No Worth. Mike does music and some coding. He's way better at the music than I am. I was thinking of asking Oman to join us as an artist. COPLAN: Most of our readers know you as the organizer behind the Pilgrimage Demo Party. Why did you decide to organize the Pilgrimage Demo Party (Held August 9th, 2003 in Salt Lake City)? RICH: I have always been interested in computer graphics, but always with an eye towards using the computer as an expressive medium. The idea of working on CAD programs, or even games, was never as interesting as working on a custom fractal rendering! Demos are the natural extension of that indulgence into an entire community of people who see computers as a new medium for expression, be it technical or aesthetic. COPLAN: What kind of obstacles did you uncover while organizing Pilgrimage? RICH: There were some logistical obstacles and some sociological ones. The logistic obstacles are the obvious things: getting a space, setting up the infrastructure for computer places and projection, and so-on. I was prepared for obstacles of this sort. The sociological ones were more unexpected and it surprised me how many negative comments were made when I told people what I had planned on doing. COPLAN: Were any of these comments from other party planners? RICH: Not as far as I could tell. There are a lot of yakkers in the demo scene. The negative comments came from yakkers. COPLAN: I imagine that's true in almost any population. Were any of these comments, even the negative ones, at all helpful? RICH: Some discussions on the party organizer's list were helpful, but there too there was a lot of long laundry lists of things not to do. We need more positive examples and stories of things that -worked- rather than things that didn't work, despite our tendency to focus on the screw- ups. Much of the simple "duh" style advice I offered in my party report was the sort of thing that would have helped me if it had gotten to me earlier. I don't think the Europeans are used to the idea of having to do outreach and education to the community in order to generate participation in the demo scene. Yes, they have to advertise their party and so-on, but there is a large enough audience of nearby sceners that they don't need to actively recruit new demo sceners in order to get started at this point. COPLAN: Did you find such comments discouraging; or did you find them as more of a challenge so that you could prove someone wrong? RICH: Neither really. They were irritating and frustrating more than anything. I never really heard back much from North American organizers until well after I had already figured out everything on my own and by that point their advice just seemed redundant. When I asked early on in my organizing, I didn't get any response. I chalk this up to human psychology more than anything else. I don't think people want to be involved with something until they know its not going to sour their reputation by being associated with it. Since I was completely new to the demo scene, unless people knew me from computer graphics circles (SIGGRAPH, usenet, Direct3D, etc.), then I was just some new guy who showed up out of the blue saying he was going to organize a demo party. I don't know how many of those kinds of guys have shown up before me, only to have all their plans turn out to be a cloud of hot air, but it seemed like people didn't want to be helping out Pilgrimage until it was really clear that this was For Real and it was Happening. Initially we didn't have a web site, we had no scene cred being newbies, and neither of us (Adam and myself) had organized anything like this before. In the very beginning, our activities were mostly internal and resulted in no externally visible change to an outsider, leading the doubters to conclude that nothing was going to happen. It got a little better after we got our initial web site up and running, but what really kicked things into gear was when we announced our sponsors and particularly prizes from ATI. COPLAN: Do you think that being located in a country which has traditionally had a more subdued contribution tot he demo scene had any effect on the planning of Pilgrimage? RICH: Its certainly easier to organize a party when you can tap an audience of potentially several hundred to several thousand demo sceners within a 500 mile radius. The closeness and density of sceners in European cities and countries makes it easier for a party to get off the ground and grow. Cities in the western US are far apart -- the next closest major city to Salt Lake City is Denver and that's still 350 miles away with the continental divide in between. COPLAN: Now that Pilgrimage is over, what have you learned from the experience? RICH: I've learned that more people need to be involved for it to be bigger :-). It was exhausting enough doing a one day event by myself, I couldn't do anything larger alone. I say "by myself", but Adam did help out where he could. COPLAN: What kind of changes and additions do you think you'll make for next year's Pilgrimage? RICH: The big thing is that we'd like to expand to a three day format. This is going into the selection for next year's party space, a process that has already begun. By expanding the event, it allows us to expand the range of compos, talks, seminars, etc. I believe that Pilgrimage should focus on education and bootstrapping the US demo scene for at least 5 years. There are lots of other changes as well, most of them small. The biggest organizational challenge is finding ways of getting more people involved in running the event. I have been thinking of a system whereby we create a list of "roles". A person acting in a role will have responsibilities that go with the role. For instance, a role might be "greeter" and the responsibilities would be to man the greeting table for a shift, say 4 hours, and do all the greeting person duties during that shift. Then you take every task that must be accomplished for the event to function smoothly and you allocate it to an appropriate role, creating roles as you need them. Then you find volunteers to take on the roles. The volunteers know exactly what is expected of them in that role, so there is no miscommunication. For Pilgrimage 2004, we need at least the following roles: - greeters - compo jury members - video postmaster - speakers - IT troubleshooter COPLAN: Aside from Pilgrimage, you've had your hand in a couple of demo scene outreach projects. Perhaps you can tell us about some of them and what effect (if any) they have had on the North American demo scene. RICH: I don't think they've had any measurable effect on the demo scene yet. Outreach projects are long-term efforts to build and sustain a local community around the demo scene. If you see these people only once you have to be really impressive or they have to be inspired in order to make them participating sceners in just one exposure. Persistent, long-term work at building the scene will have more effect than just a few isolated talks. We made a very good impression on First Night 2003, but neglected to have a contact sheet, mailing list, etc., setup to follow through on the connections we made that night. This was unfortunate because those contacts were lost, but First Night is a yearly event so we might be able to renew some of those contacts in a more permanent fashion for First Night 2004. The real challenge for us now is to put together a decent talk for high school classes and start hitting the circuit of schools. In the US, high school students are the perfect candidates for making demos: - they've acquired enough skills to be productive - they have the energy and time - they (usually) don't have to pay bills :) - they are willing to work hard for some cred in order to stand out Reaching out to high school students is probably the single most important thing that we can do to grow the demo scene in the US. COPLAN: First Night is a common event all over the United States, perhaps the world. Seeing as it was relatively successful for you, others might consider some sort of similar event in their town. What advice do you have for such an event? [Note: Rich wrote an article titled "Organizing a US Demo Party" for Static Line, Issue #47 released in August, 2003. This article is a great resource for outreach projects as well. Some of this might be a bit redundant relative to that article.] RICH: Read all the stuff I've posted about outreach so far :-). That's really the advice that I have and its more complete than anything I could write in a short space here. As I do more outreach, I am meta-izing my outreach efforts so that they can be reused by people in other locations. If we are going to build a demo scene in the US, I can't be the only person doing outreach. I plan on practicing my outreach techniques and meta-izing them into outreach tools that everyone can use. One small example of this is the pamphlet "What is the Demo Scene?" that I'm preparing as an evolution of my First Night pamphlet. This year at First Night, I'm preparing poster- board presentations on various slices of the demo scene: - what is a demo? - what is a demo party? - what is a coder? - what is a tracker? - what is real-time? These are intended to be short -- just a handful of paragraphs -- pieces of text in large type with pictures and diagrams to make it easy for those who don't want to read much. They will explain various slices of the demo scene in easy to chew bite-sized morsels. You place these on easels throughout any exhibit that you do so people can quickly learn for themselves about the demo scene without you having to say much. If they want to learn more the pamphlet elaborates into the details. COPLAN: Aside from the reports and articles you have posted online, what resources might a person use in development of an outreach event? RICH: Get resources on non-profit corporations, volunteer organizations, building a movement, guerilla marketing, corporate philanthropy, local, state and federal grants and organizing political campaigns. All of these structures have facets in common with organizing a successful long-term demo party. If you just want to organize an informal gathering of demo sceners in a loose fashion, then most of that stuff won't matter because you'll just be doing something ephemeral. Ephemeral one-shot events are fine. You should do what is within your grasp, and if that's what you can do, then do it! A classic organizing mistake is to bite off more than you can chew. Walk before you try to run. COPLAN: You set up a non-profit organization for your Pilgrimage demo party. I imagine your outreach projects will also fall under this organization. Is there any opportunity for other North American people or groups to affiliate themselves with your organization in order to carry out their own outreach projects? RICH: Yes, this is possible. The "nonprofits for dummies" book shows how you can work with an existing nonprofit corporation to operate under their organization as an umbrella before you can get your own situation going independently. You may never need to form an independent nonprofit corporation if you can find the right umbrella group. The umbrella organization usually has common or similar interests to those of your organization. Using this approach the umbrella organization applies for all grants, etc., and then transfers any monies to your organization. COPLAN: Have you considered having chapters of your organization throughout the country? RICH: Its a possibility, but not one I'd commit to yet. COPLAN: Can we expect to see any more of these outreach projects over the course of the next several months? RICH: Of course! COPLAN: I know it's only a short time (as of this writing) after the Pilgrimage party. But have you been able to recruit tentative helpers for more of your outreach projects or next years Pilgrimage? RICH: As far as the outreach goes, I think its still just myself and Adam. I do think that participation in Pilgrimage has gotten some local people interested to the extent that they might lend a hand as a volunteer next year. If we increase the party to a traditional 3-day affair, then we will need lots more volunteers than we had this year. COPLAN: Alright, how about some politics in the demo scene? A question that's often on debate in the demo scene: Do you think the demo scene is more or less healthy than it was 8-10 years ago? RICH: I can't say, since I only have been paying attention personally for about a year. However, I did a gross overall analysis of the number of parties in scene.org's ftp archive for each year. Based purely on the number of parties, you could say that there has been somewhat of a slump in recent years. However, this is only a gross look at the situation since it doesn't count sceners, only parties. Canada has had 7 demo parties to our 4, so we are certainly slacking in the US. The demo scene is a product of human culture and as such, it suffers setbacks and triumphs. Growth in the demo scene has never occurred linearly in a straight line. I do know that scene.org reports that they need to acquire about 350 GB of disk space per year in order to keep pace with all the productions. I don't see how you could say 350 GB/yr. is not healthy! COPLAN: What do you think might help the North American contribution to the demo scene? RICH: Outreach is needed to get people aware and involved. Outreach is one of those things where the turtle wins the race while the rabbit burns out. Persistent and consistent efforts are what will build the demo scene most in the USA. This will be the defining difference between a strong demo scene in the USA and a strong demo scene in Europe: in Europe, the scene evolved naturally out of the soup of PC experiences, whereas in the states I think it will take a more directed effort to intentionally build a demo scene. --Coplan --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- On The Sideline "Pure Me (sverimix)" by Prook and "Pure Me (dogs trix mix)" by Kakan By: Ben --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Sometimes less is more, especially when it comes to music. I've always been attracted to minimalist approaches, but it is difficult to explain why. I don't think it is because minimalist music is simpler but because it is more to the point. Often jingles are catchy because they have a strong idea that is easy to hum or tap along to. It is another area of composing skill, yet it is more soulful than technical, and more fun than elitist. This month I am reviewing two songs from a set of nine. These nine songs are remixes of "Pure Me" by Boop, and the songs are minimal electronic with varying styles. It sounds like the remixes are incremental, that is one remix is based off "Pure Me", and another remix may be based off the first remix. As a result some of the songs sound more similar to the original, and some stray way out into deep space. All nine songs are in a single .zip file. Boop's page is at http://www.pinerecords.com/boop/index2.html The track listing follows: 1 "Pure Me (original)" - by Boop 2 "Pure Me (deep Sweden)" - by Kakan 3 "Pure Me (snowball)" - by Kakan 4 "Pure Me (oops I did it again)" - Kakan 5 "Pure Me (never steal the golfish's food mix)" - Kakan 6 "Pure Me (zverimix)" - Prook 7 "Pure Me (comix fix mix)" - Prook 8 "Pure Me (dogs trix mix)" - Kakan 9 "Pure Me (shuffle your face mix)" - ? Each of these songs has its own qualities, and I enjoyed listening to all of them. I think "(snowball mix)" stays the truest to Boop's original style, literally containing several kinds of chirps and boops, and it has a beautiful sound. But two of these songs in particular stood out to me: "Pure Me (zverimix)" and "Pure Me (dogs trix mix)". One Orbital song I remember, "Shadows", combines a light breakbeat with bubbly, echoing synth boops, and vibraphone. I think the strong theme combined with the quiet yet busy drumline made the song memorable to me. "Pure Me (zverimix)" is done in a similarly enjoyable style, but it sounds a little less serious and more up-beat than "Shadows". At first I thought the main instrument was a plucked instrument, but upon closer listening, it sounds more like a marimba or xylophone. Only in this module it is much more polyphonic than a single xylophone, with frequent rapid echoes and the music literally sounds like bunnies hopping down a terrace. The sample list contains a line saying "(never steal the goldfish's food mix)", which leads me to believe "(zverimix)" is based off "(never steal the goldfish's food mix)". The songs are very different to listen to, but "(never steal)" has a similar but slower xylophone theme at 1:00 through 1:40 in the song. Prook presents a tightly sequenced song that in my opinion has a more clean sound than "Shadows" or "(never steal)". The percussion is lively, and I particularly like the mischievous flair of xylophones about 1:45 into "(sverimix)", where it sounds like it is about to spin out of control. "Pure Me (dog tricks mix)" is more mellow, and more of a quick ditty than a complete song. It begins with a soft, melodic synth. Kakan handles his key shifts elegantly and uses traditional progressions in an aesthetically pleasing way. Too many times I hear trackers using poor transitions, abruptly throwing the listener into a new octave or key without any grace. The tune sounds comfortably similar to church-service synth-choir, and a romantic theme. The song loops well, and would be fitting in a console RPG. The musical idea is pretty contemporary, but not one I hear often in modules. The first thing I thought upon hearing this was "Wow that's real music!", and I was disappointed that the song didn't expand on it longer than it did. One thing I'd like to note is that this didn't sound the same between any two mod players for me. To me "(zverimix)" sounded best in mikmod-3.1.x, compared to dumb-0.9.2 and xmms-modplug-2.04. For some reason the marimba lacked the bounce it had in the mikmod playback. Kakan's "(dog tricks mix)" sounds butchered by mikmod due to incorrect sustain on the main synth instruments. As always it is best to listen to these songs in the original tracker. In my opinion it is a small price to pay for being able to inspect the musical structure of the songs and produce true CD quality or better audio. Song Information: Title: "Pure Me (zverimix)" Authors: Prook (Original by Boop) File Size: 1M Source: ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/camomille/ File: cam-21-pureus_booprookkakan.zip Title: "Pure Me (dogs trix mix)" Authors: Kakan (Original by Boop) File Size: 1M Source: ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/camomille/ File: cam-21-pureus_booprookkakan.zip --Ben Collver --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- The Lineup By: Novus --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Welcome to The Lineup! Every month, I scour through the hundreds of new releases on the scene's major archive sites to find the best new music, saving you the trouble of having to download 20 instant-delete songs to find 1 that's worth keeping. If you're so inclined, you can send your feedback on The Lineup to vince_young@hotmail.com. I get my share of compliments, but what I'd really find useful are some negative comments, believe it or not, e-mail from folks who find The Lineup to be a complete and utter waste of time. I'm not perfect, so I know you're out there somewhere. Let me know what's wrong so I can make it right! In the meantime, you may consider the following 17 tunes to be the best tracks of October 2003: -=- THE BEST OF THE BEST -=- "Transcended State" - LauriT - electronica http://www.modarchive.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi/L/lt_trans.it -=- THE REST OF THE BEST -=- "Beastmaster's Tale" - Badliz - orchestral http://www.modarchive.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi/B/bz_vio2_m.it "Dreams Of Hope 2" - Awesome - demostyle ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/awesome/aws_hop2.zip "Everclear" - Firestar - fantasy ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/mephtik/mephtik_3/firestar-everclear.zip "Fish 'n Chips" - Edzes - pop http://edzes.boomdrak.no/FNC.XM "For A New World 2" - Awesome - dance ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/awesome/aws_fan2.zip "Future Dreams" - Awesome - demostyle ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/awesome/aws_futu.zip "House" - Bt_me - trance http://www.modarchive.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi/B/bt_me_h.xm "Jelly Donut" - Supervillian23 - house http://www.doomsday-device.com/jellydonut.it "Mnemonics" - Eftos - electronica http://eftos.members.easyspace.com/eftos_mnemonics.zip "Pan Galactic Gargoyle Blaster" - Gargoyle - funk http://www.tunestore.de/songs/pggb.zip "Seeker Of Dreams" - Awesome - demostyle ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/awesome/aws_seek.rar "The Farewell" - Turkanen - fantasy http://www.mbnet.fi/~eska/t-farewe.it "The Last Cowboy" - Awesome - fantasy ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/awesome/aws_last.zip "The Space Overture" - Awesome - fantasy ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/awesome/aws_spac.zip "The Space Overture 2" - Awesome - fantasy ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/awesome/aws_spa2.zip "Two Souls At Once" - Dwight Jack - light rock http://digilander.libero.it/dwj/overcl/5-2sa1.zip Latez! --Novus --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Screen Lit Vertigo "Retox" and "Feed Your Machine" By: Seven --=--=------=--=------=--=---- -=- "Retox" by Mystic -=- (party-version) Found at www.scene.org 1st place at the Mainframe Z003 demo compo System requirements: 11 MB HD, GeForce2MX or better. Needs DirectX9 and the .NET framework Test Machine: P4 2.6GHz 512MB DDR, Realtek AC'97, NVidia 488 GO 64MB, WinXP The credits: Code: Geezer Graphics: Czar Music: Geezer The demo: Retox is the first PC demo of Mystic, an old Amiga group that has been hibernating since 1999. Even though this is a two-man production (the rest of the group must be still asleep), it's very enjoyable, with a healthy supply of fresh effects. One of those is a "particle" effect with 3D lines instead of particles, creating spiky trees, spirals and other fractal-like forms. The rapid twirling makes it look like a 3D version of Second Reality's famous rotating bars effect at times. There's also a tower made of transparent pink polygons, that starts to curve and deform creating an almost kaleidoscopic effect, and another seldom-seen effect is the shadebob variant of metaballs, with the balls leaving a metallic tube behind as they move. Mystic has already learned a few PC tricks, such as Farbrauschs glow effect, although this copy is plagued by a visual glitch on the lower and right borders of the screen. And there's a lovely ice-blue part with a glowing, half-smooth half-polygonized blob that's obviously inspired by Kewlers Variform. On the other hand, I hope they realize their black backgrounds are very outdated, and even the occasional star field doesn't help much. There aren't any graphics, just a few run-of-the-mill textures, and a boring font. Still, the effects look nice enough to make you forget about the lack of pictures. There are a few 3D models, one double tunnel with holes in, rather angular for PC standards, and some spiky blobs. The music is a nice energetic electro-tune, starting slowly but growing more complex with time. From the very start, you notice how well synchronized the demo is: the slowly rising intro fits perfectly with first uncurling blue particle effect, the group name appears letter for letter on the first twangs of the lead instrument, and this attention to details continues during the rest of the demo. Especially the glow effect pulsating to the beats deserves kudos. Overall: I think Mystic's switch to the PC went pretty well, and this demo well worth checking out. I hope they can improve their weak points (no backgrounds, no pictures, and only 1 effect at any time) while keeping their originality, good design and perfect music-syncing. I'm already looking out for your next production, guys! -=- "Feed Your Machine" by Faktory -=- (party-version) Found at www.scene.org 11th place at the Assembly 2003 combined demo compo System requirements: 12.7 MB HD, Win9X, fast CPU recommended Test Machines: P3 900 640MB, Gamesurround 3, Radeon 8500 LE 64MB, Win98 SE (some parts very slow, and crashes when quitting the demo) P4 2.6GHz 512MB DDR, Realtek AC'97, NVidia 488 GO 64MB, WinXP (works OK) The credits: Code: Rawhed, Uttumuttu Graphics: Degrysin, Reverie, Rawhed, Rich Hancock Music: Squeek The demo: Summer is over, and the stream of releases has mostly dried up. This gives me the perfect excuse to dig up some old releases that didn't reach a high place in a compo, but that I still liked personally. :) And it's quite obvious why I like Feed Your Machine/Factory: I'm a coder, and this demo is very much a coders demo: plenty of original effects, albeit at the expense of design and other such (for coders) trivialities. My favorite effects are the smoke/fluid algorithms: there's a 2D smoke effect at the start, rather coarse but with realistic curling vortices, there's a field of frozen blue/red particles that slowly start to twirl in blurred patterns, and a full 3D smoke simulation in a cube at the end, with puffs of smoke appearing at the bottom, raising quickly only to curve downwards when hitting the ceiling. You can see the individual voxels if you look closely, but even at this limited resolution the amount of calculations must be pretty huge. Another recurring class of effects is collision detection: from the single mad cube dashing through a neatly ordered stack of his colleagues, scattering them everywhere, over a puppet falling realistically on the ground, to the collection of cubes, skulls, knots etc that fall on and over each other (with shadows, and rubber-vector look-alike post- processing!) Other parts worth mentioning are the fur-rendered dog (doesn't look quite like real hair but more like a toy dogs fur), a meta-ball effect morphing between a cube, a knot, and a skull, and an interesting 2D distortion filter. If you are wondering why this splendid piece of code didn't attract more votes at Assembly, you only need to look at the (lack of) design. Lots of objects are flat-shaded, and have ugly contrasting colors. At some points a transparent green equalizer is shown shortly at the edges of the screen, but it doesn't look too good and should have been left out IMHO. There's no coherence between the different parts, some parts are too short and others too long. There's a nice Faktory logo, and an OK head picture, but the other images seem to be stock photos photoshopped to have strange colors. The music is an .IT, which is still smaller then the corresponding Ogg so the size-optimizing part of my personality is glad with that :) The track is quite industrial, very noisy with a few interruptions where the slow melancholic lead (an organ?) comes to the foreground. It's not really my style of music, too monotone IMHO, and the syncing is overdone at points (ugly white flashes) Overall: The info file contains these credits: "design: uttumuttu & rawhed, we rule!! and apologize!! and need a really good designer!!" I can only agree :) Coders and design go together like cows and rocket science. If you're a coder, you should watch Feed Your Machine to get some inspiration on what to do with the ever-increasing amount of CPU/FPU/GPU cycles. But people with a delicate taste in colors better stay away from this one. --Seven --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Coplan's Eyes A New Challenge By: Coplan --=--=------=--=------=--=---- -=- Introduction -=- Every once in a while, I have to stand back and look at the demoscene. The past, present and future of the demoscene is an ever-changing pool of water and oil. I've been here a while, though not as long as many. But I've been here long enough to be able to characterize the scene. What was a problem back then is a problem now and is a problem that we will face in the future: Change. Change happens, and it always will. Some embrace change, some fight it. Sometimes it happens for the best, and sometimes it causes all sorts of problems. Since I jumped into the demoscene, I've seen much change. The OS of choice used to be DOS. Now it's Windows. Maybe some day it will be Linux or even MacOS. It used to be Fast Tracker vs. Impulse Tracker. Now it's Buzz vs. Renoise vs. Psycle vs. whoever else wants to contend. ANSI used to be popular, now its not. 2d used to be good enough. 3d pixel art was better. Now, 3d models are almost necessary. Size used to be the sign of skill. Now quality and the exceptional use of OpenGL or DirectX is the sign of a great programmer. Samples, which used to be in, are now out. Soft-synths and MIDI are in. And never mind the whole debate about music format. Even I jumped into that debate more often than I should have. I repeat: Change Happens. As a person in my position, I feel as though I need to remind people of this every so often. I do not claim to be the all-knowing observer of the scene. It is too vast of a territory to fully understand from one perspective. But I am wise, and I have many acquaintances. And I have formed a pretty good, general picture of the scene. And I know where people best fit. So I am going to offer a new challenge to the community that is vastly known as the Demoscene. And I use that term in the broadest sense of the word. I don't want to limit myself to any aspect, any media, any operating system, or anything else. I want to be broad in my challenge. -=- Goals -=- You need to pick a goal, and work towards that goal. It is very self- defeating to limit yourself to one program or one technique. That's like painting a panorama with three colors. It can be done, with the right three colors and patience. But your goal is not to mix the pain, your goal is to paint the panorama. Having lots of colors makes your goal easier to attain. But, again, it depends on what your goal is. Perhaps your goal is to limit yourself to three colors. Well, have at it. That's going to be a rewarding challenge. A goal is very simple to figure out. It may have a time limit, it may not. But the important thing about picking a goal is to work towards that goal. Set a goal, and make a plan. Your goal may be to write a song so that it can be entered into Competition X. The time limit alone will help you stay on track. It will also be a bit of a quality control as well. There's no challenge to falling in last place. But there is quite a bit of a challenge in trying to do well. Competition brings out the best in everyone. But sometimes your goal isn't time oriented. You might want to write a remix of a popular tune. But since you are doing it for your own benefit, there is no time constraint. This is where the plan is important. You may have to set milestones for yourself -- mini goals, so to speak. The easiest way to set a milestone is to set time limits for yourself. If you don't have constraints, you won't reach your goal. I have one caveat about goals. Sometimes it is actually beneficial to have an unattainable goal. This seems a bit misconstrued, but it's actually just an intended misstatement. True, you may not reach that goal. But in actuality, your goal is just to work towards that unattainable goal. This is what promotes learning. You may want to learn anything and everything about a given topic. That's never going to happen, but you'll learn as much as you possibly can along the way. I have a symphony that I've been working on since I was 15. I want to rival the works of Beethoven and Mozart. That will never happen, but I am constantly reworking the symphony, and I'm constantly updating the sound samples. I've ported the symphony 3 times now, and I still don't think I'll ever release it. But I've learned quite a bit about harmonics and dynamics of a classical concerto in the process. It's helped to improve my other music tremendously. So this symphony has become a learning tool, nothing else. -=- Learn -=- The status quo is far too easy to accept. It is much easier to do things the way you've always done them simply because you know how. This is the reason why many people (and I'm guilty of this as well) cling to legacy programs based on an OS that doesn't even exist anymore. This is why people cling to their old hardware just so they can do what they want to do. Now, before I go on, I have to redirect for a moment. Doing things the old way may be desirable. It might be fun for you to mess in that legacy program. We have whole scenes within the all-encompassing demoscene that focus on old hardware. The Amiga and C64 scenes thrive on this aspect. But that's the point, is it not? The point is to pull more out of obsolete hardware. But if that isn't your goal, then it never hurts to learn what's out there, at least. If your intent is to make the absolute best model of a human you've ever done, then the old legacy modeling programs might not cut it. Look into the latest technology. And that holds true with almost anything. The point of learning is to acquire the understanding necessary to complete your task, or in our case your goal. Leonardo da Vinci, a true renaissance man, explored many aspects of the world: Physics, anatomy, theology, literature, history, etc. What he learned enabled him to pain, design structures and understand the world in ways yet unimaginable; especially for his time. Art students in college are often required to take Anatomy courses to better understand how the body works. A musician might be required hours upon hours of music theory and music appreciation to understand what makes a song aesthetically pleasing. And while this may all be fill, it is necessary to complete the task that is expected of them. The same goes for you, Joe Scener. You might be a programmer specializing in OpenGL. OpenGL is evolving before our eyes, and the hardware that supports it is ever changing as well. The envelope is constantly being pushed. If you expect to be a good programmer, you really need to keep up with the times, as they are changing. Musicians face an even more daunting task. As audio technology gets better and better every year, more software comes out to support it and you almost have to re-learn your skills to keep up. Your goal is to create great and aesthetic music. The new technology makes this goal that much easier to reach, but for what cost? The time it takes you to learn the new technology? That's hardly a penalty, in my eyes. It's a difficult step to make, but it isn't unrealistic. If it were your career, you'd have to do it or you'd lose your job. I think that says enough. Fortunately for you, new software tends to be based on the old software, so it isn't always that difficult to learn. -=- Observation & Criticism -=- Observation is a difficult thing to accomplish - but it is essential to do any task correctly. Infants develop mobile skills and language skills through observation of their parents and other elders around them. Separate a newborn from human contact, and he'll imitate whatever is available. Remember Tarzan? Right. Observation is a very broad term, however, and it needs to be taken into consideration relative to the task at hand. It is very easy to look at a picture and say "That's a house" - whereas it is the sign of a true observer to notice the details of that house. But observation isn't about noticing details. It's about noticing the right details. And finding these details is about knowing what to look for. Context is always necessary. If at all possible, you'll want to gather information prior to making an observation. What is the intent of the work? Answer that question, and you know what details you need to look for. One can learn from observation very well. But in order to truly expand ones horizons, one needs to consider criticism. Criticism is a direct derivative of observation, but you will not grow as an artist, programmer, musician or whatever without criticism. It's easy enough to observe your own work, but it's not always easy to criticize it. This is something that most humans have difficult with. We tend to either be too critical or not critical enough when it comes to our own. Too critical can be destructive. An artist may delete some of his work simply because he believes it to be of poor quality, although it could have been a start into something potentially very good. Not critical enough is the reason why an artist may not work very hard on a given song. Things are "good enough". It is always a difficult balance, but finding that happy medium between passive and self-mutilation is important. It is also a very important skill to learn how to take criticism. You should be well aware by now that everyone has very different opinions. If you tried to follow everyone's advice, you wouldn't get anywhere. In fact, you'll probably find you revert back to one version or another repeatedly. No one is ever going to agree on everything, so face the facts: You can't please everyone. You need to take another look at your goals, and only take the criticism that aligns with that goal. You'll end up not using a good portion of the criticism. While that seems bad, it's really not. Your goal needs to be reached, and the criticism has to be something you agree with. Now, criticism has its place and you need to learn to be accepting of it. Most often, someone will point out something you hadn't thought of, or realized. Obviously, this is very useful information. Maybe you can tighten up your work a bit more and correct some of the mistakes. Other times, such criticism might be purely objective, and you can dismiss that if you disagree. But don't disagree too often. It's not wise to ignore what another person might contribute. Even the negative comments need to be considered. But consider everything, and take it with a grain of salt. -=- Balance -=- Life is a complicated stream of events. Some parts are up, some down. Some are fast, and some are slow. Inevitably, your hobby has to fit in there somewhere. Now, I've written many articles on this very topic in the past, so I will touch lightly on it this time. Besides, I could go on for several pages about how to balance your life, and you still wouldn't understand what to do next. But rather than inundate you with excessive amounts of information, it's probably best that I just make you aware that you need to have balance in your life. This is much easier said than done, especially when you start getting other people involved. But in order for you to be skilled in your craft, you need to have enough time to practice, experiment and learn. Without that, you have nothing. But in turn, if you don't balance your hobby's time with the other aspects of your life, you'll end up falling behind in something - and an unbalanced mind is an unproductive mind. In turn, you'll get nowhere without the focus necessary for your hobby. -=- Experiment -=- This topic could very easily fit under "Learn", but I have separated it out for a very important reason. Experimentation helps you maintain a broad scope and a narrow focus. Experimentation allows us to sample many different mediums, genres, styles and techniques without holding us to any one form. It goes without saying that there will be a lot of productions abandoned. But nothing goes to waste. Every failed experiment makes the completed production that much better in quality. You learn something from every mistake, from every trial and from every incomplete production. Especially if you are a coder, you can easily borrow something from previous failures, literally. But experimentation helps you to achieve the focus and desire to carry on. The only way to answer the question of "what if?" is to do it. If you dislike the outcome, now you know. If you enjoy some aspect of the outcome, it helps you to expand on what you already know. Who knows, you may even stumble upon something entirely new. And that makes all the failed experiments seem worthwhile. Experiment often. -=- Enjoy -=- Most of all, you want to have fun. A hobby is not a hobby unless it is at least somewhat enjoyable. If you're not enjoying something, try to figure out why. Maybe your technique is flawed. Maybe you just need a new technique. Or, sadly, maybe you picked the wrong hobby. As I said, a hobby is meant to be enjoyable. This is where you have to be selfish. You might be very good at something...but if you don't have fun doing it, it's not really worth it. If you have tried and you can't figure out any way to make it enjoyable for yourself, don't do it. You may disappoint some people. But they're not you. You need to be happy. -=- Conclusion -=- Well, all the details are set now. I have given you a template and some things to think about. Hopefully, each aspect that I have already discussed has you thinking. I'm hoping that you have a broader, more clear outlook on your contributions to the scene. But I have to pull it all together in a clean cut challenge that capitalizes. everything that I have spoken about today. I gave you the "how?", but now I provide the "what?": As a member of the community broadly known as the demoscene, I challenge you to improve yourself as an individual and a contributor to the demoscene. I challenge you to expand your horizons and become a specialist in your chosen aspect. Only through self improvement are you able to help improve the demoscene as it stands today. Your contributions, no matter how small, will affect the community in some way, no matter how minimal. But a lot of small contributions amounts to a large percentage of the demoscene. The demoscene thrives on contribution, it needs it. So share your ideas, spread your work and grow with the community. Grow and, in turn, challenge the rest of us. Help us to grow with you, and we'll help you to grow more. --Coplan --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Link List --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Portals: SceneSpot (Home of Static Line).......http://www.scenespot.org CFXweb.......................................http://cfxweb.net Czech Scene................................http://www.scene.cz Danish Scene..............................http://demo-scene.dk Demoscene.org.........................http://www.demoscene.org Demo.org...................................http://www.demo.org Diskmag.de...................................http://diskmag.de Greek Scene............................http://www.demoscene.gr Hungarian Scene........................http://www.demoscene.hu Italian Scene...........................http://run.to/la_scena Kahvi.....................................http://www.kahvi.org ModPlug Central Resources..........http://www.castlex.com/mods Noerror.................................http://www.noerror.org Norwegian Scene........................http://www.demoscene.no Orange Juice.............................http://www.ojuice.net Planet Zeus..........................http://www.planetzeus.net Polish Scene...............................http://www.scene.pl Pouet.net.................................http://www.pouet.net Russian Scene..........................http://www.demoscene.ru Scene.org.................................http://www.scene.org Scenergy on-line (8bit)............http://www.scenergy.natm.ru Scenet....................................http://www.scenet.de Spanish Scene............................http://www.escena.org Swiss Scene..............................http://www.chscene.ch United Trackers.................http://www.united-trackers.org Archives: Acid2.....................................ftp://acid2.stack.nl Amber.......................................ftp://amber.bti.pl Aminet.....................http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/~aminet/ Cyberbox.....................................ftp://cyberbox.de Hornet (1992-1996)........................ftp://ftp.hornet.org MOD Archive..........................http://www.modarchive.com <*> Music Massage......................http://www.scene.cz/massage Scene.org..................................ftp://ftp.scene.org Scene.org Austra........................ftp://ftp.au.scene.org Scene.org Netherlands...................ftp://ftp.nl.scene.org Swiss Scene FTP...........................ftp://ftp.chscene.ch Demo Groups: 3g Design..............................http://3gdesign.cjb.net 3State...................................http://threestate.com 7 Gods.........................................http://7gods.sk Aardbei.....................................http://aardbei.com Acid Rain..............................http://surf.to/acidrain Addict..................................http://addict.scene.pl Agravedict........................http://www.agravedict.art.pl Alien Prophets.....................http://www.alienprophets.dk Anakata..............................http://www.anakata.art.pl ASD....................................http://asd.demoscene.gr Astral..............................http://astral.scene-hu.com Astroidea........................http://astroidea.scene-hu.com BlaBla..............................http://blabla.planet-d.net Blasphemy..............................http://www.blasphemy.dk Bomb..................................http://bomb.planet-d.net Broncs..................................http://broncs.scene.cz Byterapers.....................http://www.byterapers.scene.org Bypass.................................http://bypass.scene.org Calodox.................................http://www.calodox.org Cocoon..............................http://cocoon.planet-d.net Confine.................................http://www.confine.org Damage...................................http://come.to/damage Dc5.........................................http://www.dc5.org Delirium..............................http://delirium.scene.pl Eclipse............................http://www.eclipse-game.com Elitegroup..........................http://elitegroup.demo.org Exceed...........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/~exceed Fairlight.............................http://www.fairlight.com Fobia Design...........................http://www.fd.scene.org Freestyle............................http://www.freestylas.org Fresh! Mindworks...................http://kac.poliod.hu/~fresh Future Crew..........................http://www.futurecrew.org Fuzzion.................................http://www.fuzzion.org GODS...................................http://www.idf.net/gods Halcyon...........................http://www.halcyon.scene.org Haujobb..................................http://www.haujobb.de Hellcore............................http://www.hellcore.art.pl Infuse...................................http://www.infuse.org Inquisition....................http://inquisition.demoscene.hu Kilobite...............................http://kilobite.cjb.net Kolor................................http://www.kaoz.org/kolor Komplex.................................http://www.komplex.org Kooma.....................................http://www.kooma.com Mandula.........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/~mandula Maturefurk...........................http://www.maturefurk.com Monar................ftp://amber.bti.pl/pub/scene/distro/monar MOVSD....................................http://movsd.scene.cz Nextempire...........................http://www.nextempire.com Noice.....................................http://www.noice.org Orange.................................http://orange.scene.org Orion................................http://orion.planet-d.net Outbreak................................http://www.outbreak.nu Popsy Team............................http://popsyteam.rtel.fr Prone................................http://www.prone.ninja.dk Purple....................................http://www.purple.dk Rage........................................http://www.rage.nu Replay.......................http://www.shine.scene.org/replay Retro A.C...........................http://www.retroac.cjb.net Sista Vip..........................http://www.sistavip.exit.de Skytech team............................http://www.skytech.org Skrju.....................................http://www.skrju.org Spinning Kids......................http://www.spinningkids.org Sunflower.......................http://sunflower.opengl.org.pl Talent.............................http://talent.eurochart.org The Black Lotus.............................http://www.tbl.org The Digital Artists Wired Nation.http://digitalartists.cjb.net The Lost Souls...............................http://www.tls.no TPOLM.....................................http://www.tpolm.com Trauma.................................http://sauna.net/trauma T-Rex.....................................http://www.t-rex.org Unik........................................http://www.unik.de Universe..........................http://universe.planet-d.net Vantage..................................http://www.vantage.ch Wipe....................................http://www.wipe-fr.org Music Labels, Music Sites: Aisth.....................................http://www.aisth.com Aural Planet........................http://www.auralplanet.com Azure...................................http://azure-music.com Blacktron Music Production...........http://www.d-zign.com/bmp BrothomStates.............http://www.katastro.fi/brothomstates Chill..........................http://www.chillproductions.com Chippendales......................http://www.sunpoint.net/~cnd Chiptune...............................http://www.chiptune.com Da Jormas................................http://www.jormas.com Fabtrax......http://www.cyberverse.com/~boris/fabtrax/home.htm Fairlight Music.....................http://fairlight.scene.org Five Musicians.........................http://www.fm.scene.org Fusion Music Crew.................http://members.home.nl/cyrex Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff Hellven.................................http://www.hellven.org Ignorance.............................http://www.ignorance.org Immortal Coil.............................http://www.ic.l7.net Intense...........................http://intense.ignorance.org Jecoute.................................http://jecoute.cjb.net Kosmic Free Music Foundation.............http://www.kosmic.org Lackluster.....................http://www.m3rck.net/lackluster Level-D.................................http://www.level-d.com Mah Music.............................http://come.to/mah.music Maniacs of noise...............http://home.worldonline.nl/~mon MAZ's sound homepage..................http://www.maz-sound.com Med.......................................http://www.med.fr.fm Miasmah.............................http://www.miasmah.cjb.net Milk.......................................http://milk.sgic.fi Mo'playaz..........................http://ssmedion.de/moplayaz Mono211.................................http://www.mono211.com Morbid Minds..............http://www.raveordie.com/morbidminds Moods..............................http://www.moodymusic.de.vu Mstation.....................http://mstation.org/software.html Nectarine Demoscene Radio................http://scenemusic.net Noise................................http://www.noisemusic.org One Touch Records......................http://otr.planet-d.net Park..................................http://park.planet-d.net pHluid..................................http://phluid.acid.org Radical Rhythms.....http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/merrelli/rr RBi Music.............................http://www.rbi-music.com Ruff Engine................http://members.xoom.com/ruff_engine SHR8M......................................http://1st.to/shr8m Sound Devotion................http://sugarbomb.x2o.net/soundev Soundstate.........................http://listen.to/soundstate Sunlikamelo-D.....................http://www.sunlikamelo-d.com Suspect Records........................http://www.tande.com/sr Tequila........................http://www.defacto2.net/tequila Tempo................................http://tempomusic.cjb.net Tetris....................................http://msg.sk/tetris Theralite...........................http://theralite.avalon.hr Tokyo Dawn Records........................http://tokyodawn.org Triad's C64 music archive.............http://www.triad.c64.org UltraBeat.........................http://www.innerverse.com/ub Vibrants................................http://www.vibrants.dk Zen of Tracking.........................http://surf.to/the-imm Programming: 3D engines..........http://cg.cs.tu-berlin.de/~ki/engines.html 3D programming portal.................http://www.3dgamedev.com Documents...............http://www.neutralzone.org/home/faqsys File format collection...................http://www.wotsit.org Game programming portal...............http://www.gamasutra.com LCC (free C compiler).........http://www.remcomp.com/lcc-win32 NASM (free Assembly compiler)......http://nasm.sourceforge.net Programming portal......................http://www.gamedev.net Programming portal.....................http://www.flipcode.com Programming portal......................http://www.exaflop.org Programming portal............http://www.programmersheaven.com Programming portal.....................http://www.freecode.com PTC video engine.........................http://www.gaffer.org Magazines: Amber (in pop-up window).............http://amber.planet-d.net Amnesia...............http://amnesia-dist.future.easyspace.com Demojournal....................http://demojournal.planet-d.net Eurochart.............................http://www.eurochart.org Hugi........................................http://www.hugi.de Jurassic Pack.......................http://www.jurassicpack.de PAiN.....................................http://pain.scene.org Shine (in pop-up window)................http://shine.scene.org Static Line....................http://staticline.scenespot.org Sunray..............................http://sunray.planet-d.net TUHB.......................................http://www.tuhb.org WildMag..................................http://www.wildmag.de Parties: Assembly (Finland).....................http://www.assembly.org Ambience (The Netherlands)..............http://www.ambience.nl <*> Breakpoint (Germany)..........http://breakpoint.untergrund.net Buenzli (Switzerland)......................http://www.buenz.li Dreamhack (Sweden)....................http://www.dreamhack.org Gravity (Poland)............http://www.demoscena.cp.pl/gravity Mekka-Symposium (Germany)...................http://ms.demo.org Pilgrimage (Utah, US)..............http://pilgrimage.scene.org ReAct (Greece).............................http://www.react.gr Takeover (The Netherlands).............,http://www.takeover.nl The Party (Denmark).....................http://www.theparty.dk Others: <*> CoolBPM.....................................http://coolbpm.com Demo secret parts....http://www.inf.bme.hu/~mandula/secret.txt Textmode Demo Archive.................http://tmda.planet-d.net Arf!Studios..........................http://www.arfstudios.org #coders..................................http://coderz.cjb.net Csound-tekno e-mail list...................................... ............http://plot.bek.no/mailman/listinfo/csoundtekno Demonews Express.........http://www.teeselink.demon.nl/express Demo fanclub........................http://jerware.org/fanclub Digital Undergrounds.....................http://dug.iscool.net Everything tracking..http://zolaweb.com/Zola/trax/tracking.htm Freax.....................................http://www.freax.hu/ GFXZone.................................http://www.gfxzone.org Mod-Radio.....................http://www.back2roots.org/Radio/ PC-demos explained.....http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained Pixel...................................http://pixel.scene.org #trax e-mail list............................................. .............http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/trax Underground Mine.............http://www.spinningkids.org/umine IRC Channels: Graphics.........................................ircnet #pixel Graphics (French)..............................ircnet #pixelfr Music......................................irc.scene.org #trax Music.............................................ircnet #trax Programming.....................................ircnet #coders Programming....................................efnet #flipcode Programming (French)............................ircnet #codefr Programming (German)........................ircnet #coders.ger Programming (Hungarian)......................ircnet #coders.hu Scene.........................................ircnet #thescene Scene (French)..................................ircnet #demofr Scene (Hungarian)............................ircnet #demoscene Zx-spectrum scene..................................ircnet #z80 --=--=-- ----=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------ -=- Staff -=- Editors: Ciaran / Ciaran Hamilton / staticline@theblob.org Ben / Ben Collver / collver1@comcast.net Staff Writers: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org Dilvie / Eric Hamilton / dilvie@dilvie.com Novus / Vince Young / vince_young@hotmail.com Psitron / Tim Soderstrom / tigerhawk@stic.net Setec / Jesper Pederson / jesped@post.tele.dk Seven / Stefaan VanNieuwenhuyze / seven7@pandora.be Tryhuk / Tryhuk Vojtech / vojtech.tryhuk@worldonline.cz Vill / Brian Frank / darkvill@yahoo.com The Watcher / Paul-Jan Pauptit / sprout@zonnet.nl The current issue of Static Line can always be found on the Web at: http://staticline.scenespot.org/issues/current_issue Static Line Subscription Management: http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/static_line If you would like to contribute an article to Static Line, be aware that we will format your article to 76 columns with two columns at the beginning of each line. Please avoid foul language and high ASCII characters. Contributions (Plain Text) should be e-mailed to (static_line-owner@scenespot.org) by the last Friday of each month. New issues are released on a monthly basis. See you next month! -eof---=------=--=------=--=--