_//\\________________________________________________________________________ _\\__T_A_T_I_C___L_I_N_E________________________________________ March, 2001 __\\_________________________________________________________________________ \\//__ Monthly Scene E-Zine ________________________________ 205 Subscribers _____________________________________________________________________________ --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Table Of Contents ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- Opening: Message From the Editor Letters From Our Readers Features: ZTracker Review - A MIDI Tracker Columns: Music: In tune -- Wayfinder's "Resurection (The Race Part IV)" The Listener -- Music from Hellven, Park Retro Tunage -- Dust to Dust by Leviathan Demo: Screen Lit Vertigo -- Amiga Demos Intro Watch -- "256b.com" and "Metazlo" General: Scene Sense: -- Round 2 - The Battle of the OS Editorial -- Rebuttle to PsiTron Link List -- Get Somewhere in the Scene Closing: Credits --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Message From the Editor ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- It seems as though I forgot this part when I e-mailed it. I appologize for all of those who got the e-mail without the Message from the Editor. I've been a bit abscent minded lately. I'm sure you all don't mind. Anyhow, this is a pretty full issue, as we got all columns accounted for this month. I think hell might freeze over, as I am reviewing an MP3 this month. Then, Seven went nuts with his new high-speed internet connection, and reviewed a bunch of old-skool amiga demos. Then, Gekko introduces us to 128 byte (yes, 128 byte) intros. Setec comes back for a brief article about ZTracker, a midi-tracking program for those with great sound hardware, and a need to use a tracker. Then, Tryhuk brings us plenty of music to listen to, including his monthly selection of classic tunage. Finally, PsiTron and I duke it out over the OS issue. Until next month, enjoy! --Coplan --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Letters From Our Readers ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- -=- Letter from DarkFury -=- I saw much response and people's talk about OS usage. I'm assuming it was at least somewhat in response to Psitron's article in Static Line #29. I'd like to say, I'm glad to see proponents of more than windows/linux/ect just bashing each other. Dilvish's discussion on what is required for a useful OS design was a good overview of just what is needed for a good platform (See "Letters" issue #30). As you mentioned in your conclusion to SL #30 was that we can't exclude those who simply spread demos or give ideas to trackers/coders/artists because they do contribute. We used to have a scene designation for people that distributed demos (ie. couriers) although i remember that being a diskette and bbs thing, i see many people today who share demos with there friends in similar ways. CDs and home viewings are much easier today, but that doesnt mean the job has changed. Also, I've seen a good deal of credits for 'design' or 'ideas' in demos recently, this doesnt really take anything but creativity and good design sense. Second, I agree, we should encourage the growth of the scene, but we can't limit it only to the most popular platforms. The changeover from amiga to pc wasnt just a one step deal, and currently while we may still have the same essential architecture, windows is heavily reliant on APIs and not much else, while some parts of the abstraction inherent in this design are great for support and compatibility, they do incur a good deal of performance decrease. There are many ways to get around this though, for anyone who cares, it's not easy but i'd say as a real performance freak that it's worth it. The problem I really see today is the lack of actual enthusiasm about the scene. example - In NA more than anywhere else, we have a huge lack of demo parties for how many sceners there are (or atleast were). So as I've thought for a long time now, the answer isnt to chose the scene's OS/software/hardware/motto but to encourage everyone to do their part. The real problem is simply narrow-mindedness that's keeping many from doing all the amazing things that are possible. We have 1+ GHz processors and we're still seeing the same old stuff... I'm seeing better grafix on 3d accelerators, but not nessacerily on faster systems... assuming everyone is a gamer or a video editor so they must have the newest card is NOT the way to go, it does give some really impressive things to those that do have that, but we need to keep that whole 'availabilty to the masses' idea in mind as well. --DarkFury of Nutropik -=- Letter from Cmicali -=- I saw there is a list of new and old trackers in the latest static line... i was wondering if you could get someone to do a review, or at least mention a tracker i am developing. It started as a tool for myself, but there was enough interest from others that i developed it publicly. I wanted to move to MIDI and real hardware, but i hate regular sequencers, and i love Impulse Tracker, so i made a win32/dx version of impulse tracker that is midi only. it's called zt, and it's available at http://ztracker.sourceforge.net/ .. it's open source and still in development, but it is very useable and many people are already using it. You can check some tracks made with just zt at that site. Thanks! :) --C.micali (aka zephyr) -=> Reply from Coplan: I know it took a while, but we have been playing around with ztracker a bit since it came out. Setec has agreed to write a brief review of the program for us, and you can find it in this issue of Static Line. It's an interesting program, and the review is worth checking out. --Coplan -=- Letter from SagaCity -=- A small excerpt from an article in the last issue of static line: It is clear to many that Windows lacks that real-time support and stability to provide a good home for the demo (or video game) community. And after that the author rambles on about how we need a new OS and all that. This kind of talk is utterly pointless. It is completely pointless to develop a new 'demo-only' OS. It is completely pointless to try supporting the hundreds (thousands) of different videocards and soundcards. It is completely pointless to try making it compatible with other OS-ses. Why? Windows does all that. --SagaCity --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- ZTracker Review A MIDI Tracker By: Setec ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- -=- Introduction -=- About two years ago, I went out and spent a fortune on a synthesizer module and a MIDI keyboard to go with it. I felt like taking my music one step further and got into the MIDI part of musicmaking. So having brought home this newly aquired gear I loaded Cubase and expected music to come pouring out of me ...to this day I have still not completed a tune in Cubase! Or any other topnotch sequencer for that matter. I realized that I was craving for a tracker interface. Whenever I tried to make something, I kept longing for that extremely precise control you have in trackers. The intuitive layout of things, the ability to easily handle multiple tracks at once. None of these things seemed simple in Cubase. Making small riffs had me going nuts, it was so impractical. So much work to get something that I could have easily cooked up in five secs in ft2. So here comes salvation it seems: ZTracker. ZTracker is basically Impulse Tracker ripped of all sample facilities and, instead, blessed with full MIDI implementation. So instead of a sample and an instrument page you get a single instrument page that allows you to link each instrument to a specific MIDI out port and channel. My prayers have been heard! -=- Interface and features -=- As hinted, the overall interface is very much the same as that of IT, so if you are used to Impulse Tracker you shouldn't have too much trouble switching to ZTracker. The pattern editor is almost a complete replicate of IT's, and it seems like all hotkeys are kept the same as well. The only major difference here is the fact that each note entry, in place of the usual effect column, has a "note lenth" column. This specifies - obviously - a length in ticks until a note off message is sent. I personally really disliked this approach at first, until I emailed Christopher (the ZTracker developer) and realized that the good old note off command was also available. Somehow this usual approach seems more natural to me, but I can see how the ability to specify an exact note length can come in handy at times. Anyway, having both options sure cannot hurt! The note length column does have one side effect though; there is no effect column in the standard viewmode. To access the effects you need to switch to a view that allows you only three tracks visible at a time. For me personally, this is a bit of a letdown. Especially when you look at how well MIDI effects are implement. A simple Sxxyy command allows you to send any CC messages you wish. Marvelous for making filter sweeps and any other realtime effects you might want. Your synthesizer really sets the limit here. Whatever it will do, ZTracker will allow you to tell it to. This all just makes it that much more regretable that the effects column has been hidden this well. The option to exchange the - for me, rarely used - note length column with effects would have been wonderful. Block functions are also nearly identical to IT. Copying, Pasting, interpolating volume and effect data, transposing are all implemeted. But it doesn't stop at that. ZTracker introduces an absolutely marvelous way to enter volume and effect data. Pressing shift-` presents you with mousedrawing mode, something I have never seen in a tracker before. This is extremely useful for any sweeps of volume or effect data. Just hold down left mouse button and drag it down the track. The horizontal position of the mouse will set the effect data for the corresponding row of the track. It really cannot be any simpler than this. The earlier mentioned note length option also adds a few block commands. One really useful command is ctrl-` which sets all note lengths in the selected block to the length betweens consecutive notes. This implies that note off messages are not automatically send on new note entires. This is one thing you really need to remember. Awful harmonics when i first tried to sequence a small string section. :) The order list is identical to IT, so no surprises here. The obvious differences are the instrument pages. Basically the idea of instruments are the same as those in any standard tracker. Only now instead of supplying each instrument with a number of samples you link it to a specific MIDI channel on a specfic MIDI out port. Each instruments has the following variables: bank, patch, default volume, default length, global volume, transpose and channel. Worth noting is that the global volume setting - one thing that really tends to make mixing easier - is still available. Also the possibility to send bank and patch settings to your MIDI module is great, if you don't want to setup performances for each tune (this is actually how I do it, but nevermind that). There is an update device command that sends bank and patch data to the corresponding channel so it seems all options are covered. Visually this all looks a lot like the instrument editor in IT, so the interface is the same, the options just differ. There are no volume or panning envelope pages though, so any such settings need to be made externally on your module. No hassle, though it would have been marvellous if such envelopes were available. This is dreaming though, and it would probably be pretty hard to implement. Plus the amount of midi messages nescessary would probably clutter the device quite rapidly. -=- Chatting with the outside world -=- I experienced absolutely no problems with ZTracker and my MIDI modules. Everything was peachy, timing was acurate and all messages seemed to work perfectly. Also, it seems quite stable. My windows usually seems to die quite often but after thorough testing I didn't manage to kill ZTracker one single time. Always impressive for a windows application. :) It is also worth noting that ZTracker happily loads .IT files, which is marvelous if you - like me - fancy trying to remake some of your old work with external hardware. It loads patterns and order lists and just whipes the samples so you are free to link each instrument with any channel you want. Speaking of samples, it is worth mentioning that ZTracker in NO Way supports samples! There is simply no sample playback facility so if you want that option you need to use a software sampler that is linkable via midi. It is a shame, really. Sample possibilities would really ensure that ZTracker would be the ONLY tracker I ever used from now on. As things are - software sampler being as unstable as I think they are - I am afraid I won't really be able to make a complete tune in ZTracker. Still, it might very well turn out to be the backbone of all riffs and chord progressions. -=- Conclusion -=- This is a wonderful tracker. The implementation of midi is thorough and flawless. Every possible aspect I could think of seems to be there, and the interface is as straightforward as any other tracker. The transition from an ordinary tracker is as easy as can be. I cannot help feeling that it is a bit of a shame about the lack of sample playback facilities. Christopher - the developer - makes it pretty clear in the readme that something like that will never be a part of ZTracker and I can understand that it would add a huge workload to what is probably already a big project. I just wish he could somehow team up with Pulse and merge Impulse Tracker and ZTracker. Having all those features available in one tracker would certainly make it the center of all my music production. I would probably never see a need for any high-end sequencer again, except perhaps for final mastering. An application that blended the two trackers would be a godsend. The only other issues I have are minor ones. Including a help function that simply listed the commands and such would be nice, and I would like the ability to set a default pattern length as well (it uses 128 lines now, which seems a little long to me). I love this tracker. I have been looking for something like this for a very long time and when I finally found it, I would have never thought it to be this complete. I have stated it a lot already, but the implementation of midi is sooo flawless. If you have the need to control external gear via midi, and you are a little tired of working with Cubase or a similar sequencer, well then this is exactly what you need! ZTracker efficiently brings external gear into the world of tracking. You will love it! -=- Notes -=- ZTracker - developed by Christopher Micali (micali@concentric.net) This program is 100% Free and is available for download at: http://ztracker.sourceforge.net The application was tested using Windows 98 and an external Roland USB MIDI interface as well as a Terratec EWS64xl soundcard. Neither had any problems at all working with ZTracker. The SoundBlaster Live is supposed to work perfectly with ZTracker as well. --Setec --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- In Tune Wayfinder's "Resurection (The Race Part IV)" By: Coplan ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- It's a cold day in hell. Coplan (the guy who likes to refer to himself in third person) is reviewing an MP3. I have reasons. For one, most of my favorite groups and trackers are now releasing mostly in MP3 format. Next is the fact that I fell in love with trance lately, and I have been doing some tunes offered in both MP3 and IT (mind you, the MP3 sounds better cross-platform). Then, I realized that soundcards are still far from an exact science, especially while using an old tracker like IT, or Fast Tracker (mind you, I can't actually get Fast Tracker working). I went around visiting some of my favorite sites two weeks ago, and I started collecting scene MP3s. Some of which are very good, and with some of the post-processing that I assume is being done makes the tunes sound very professional. This month, I'm going to review yet another Wayfinder song. I know it seems as though I review his music a lot, but I think he deserves it. It just goes to show that he's a tracker that has found a groove, and can release one successful song after another without fading. I admire that, and I'm a bit jeleous. Since it is an MP3, I will have to go about things differently. The song opens kinda quiet, with nothing but a simple little base line. Then the drums start to kick in, specifically the base drum. In a more traditional style song, I would pick on the percussion, as it is very monotonous (base drum, synth-claps, hi-hat, crashes). But this is a trance tune, and there is no such thing as a trance tune without this monotonous beat. If you're composing within a certain style, know the style's definition, and make sure you follow most of the requirements before you claim it to be of the said style. Anyhow, i'm drifting again. What makes this song for me is the piano and the high pitched trance-pads. The piano work reminds me of a Robert Miles song (commercial artist from a couple years back, famous for songs like "Children" and so on). Yes, it's a bit repetative, and it's a simple riff, but somehow, I'm pulled into the song for this reason. Then, in comes the trance pads. If played flat, I think the pads would be pretty boring. But since Wayfinder has done lots of post-processing, adding lots of echos and effects, the pads sound truly mesmerizing. Something a lot of people will overlook in a song like this is the fact that there is a rigid chord progression in effect. In some parts of the song, you will hear some low strings in the background. At other parts, the strings raise an octave, and carry out the chord progression at the higher octave. The chord progression remains almost unchanged throughout the song (no key changes or anything). If I had a modular version of this song, I'd be willing to bet that if I were to mute those string channels, the song would come off as very obtuse with very little depth what-so-ever. It's these little things that can make or break a song. If someone tells you that they don't like a song, but they aren't sure why...9 out of 10 times, it's for something simple like that. A friend of mine, who's a DJ, loves to come to me every so often and ask for all the MP3s that I have along the dance/trance/club/etc. genres. I'm going to set this one aside for him. He will burn it to CD, and using his new Pro-Scratch 1 (http://www.americandj.com), he'll be mixing between CDs. This song is pretty easy to mix into another song, as there is a very long time at the end for the DJ to blend in the next song. I know it's nothing that was intended by Wayfinder (or maybe it was), but it's something I thought I should point out. BTW, for you DJ's out there, you really should check out that Pro-Scratch 1. Anyhow, the tune is among my favorite trance tunes, especially from Azure (http://www.azure-music.com). If you havn't visted their site yet, you should. It's good tunes to load into your favorite MP3 player. --Coplan Song Information: Title: Resurrection (The Race Part IV) Author: Wayfinder of Azure Filename: az-17.mp3 File Size: 9.5 MB Source: http://www.azure-music.com "In Tune" is a regular column dedicated to the review of original and singular works by fellow trackers. It is to be used as a tool to expand your listening and writing horizons, but should not be used as a general rating system. Coplan's opinions are not the opinions of the Static Line Staff. If you have heard a song you would like to recommend (either your own, or another person's), We can be contacted through e-mail useing the addresses found in the closing notes. Please do not send files attached to e-mail without first contacting us. Thank you! --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- The Listener Music from Hellven, Park By: Tryhuk ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- Another month gone and once again I'm writing reviews in the last minute. This is the reason why I will take it a bit faster, but I believe it will be enough to point you on some of the interesting music that came out during last month. "Urbanism" - is a new musicdisk by hellven featuring altemark and alphaconspiracy as guest stars. I got to say that I like their tracks best. Altemark came up with industrial "gospel", a song with an unusual sound that combines heavy industrial sound with very rhytmic percussion, embosomed with sharp rusty sounds. This track is definitely worth listening, especially because of its strong dictating tempo. Necros came of course with "electronic style", a remix of depeche mode. Also a well done and interesting song. Of course there are also other interesting tracks, like "looking out - cityscape" by virt, a typical demoscenish ambient flight with blippish sounds, in the second part slipping off to pop. And I can't forget to mention a co-op of members of oldskoolers night55, xerxes and scirocco. Their "roughcut" is directing to a new down-tempo synth based electronic style and with success. http://urbanism.hellven.org/ Charity Ep - easy album with no potential hits, but with calming, enjoyable music. I would like to point here only one: "goodnight kiss" by nagz. It is that kind of meditative, floating, moody track we used to hear from dune and with a significant influence from blade runner. I think it's most enjoyable track out of this months selection and my personal pick - don't miss it. http://www.parkstudios.net/ TDR releases - tokyo didn't sleep and released a bunch of good songs. Among best of them belong "move on (d-soul mix)" by josef saddler, a bit moby like mix of house and soul, a dreamy "fais moi fremir" with nice female vocals and sensitive saxophone or kriis "blunt times" signed as rhytmic soul, but again succesfully balancing on the edge of styles. All of the tracks are on that high level that they can't be described, they have to be heard and I'm afraid that more detailed selection is a matter of your personal taste. http://www.tokyodawn.org Theralite features Xhale "in collaboration with frode kloevtveit and roger langvik on trumpet and bass. again with the claustrophobic confined dark atmosphere and the minimalistic breaks but this time on a more tripped out downbeat side" (i stole this definition from their website. perfect things don't have to be improved) http://theralite.avalon.hr/releases/thera013.html OF course I wanted to mention "ddd" by fun tourist and "halfmoon" by esem, but both tracks are reviewed at goodstuff, so go there for a review. Just a note - both tracks are superb. http://konsumer.de/goodstuff/ And fot those who are disgusted by large mp3 releases, here is a great chip musicdisk "merry christmas" from fairlight members: ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/fairlight/flt_012-merry_christmas.zip --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Retro Tunage Dust to Dust by Leviathan By: Tryhuk ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- It makes me sad when I realize how much does the scene forget on the people who were really good at the time, but they just didn't release enough crap to have it laying on every ftp. Among them belongs Leviathan. I still remember his "Dust to Dust" as one of the best tracked songs I ever heard. It opens with a nice bass and a slow tambourine that dictates the tempo. In the background is an organ and in a moment song bass catches the tempo and the song starts to gather percussion. This slowly grades to first strong moment where some of lead instruments appear. I intentionaly say some, because one of the strongest points on this tune is how the leads are handled. But I'd like to mention bassline first, because it is in this track often played almost on the place of lead and it is handled really well. I remember I read somewhere that A.Dvorak (czech composer) said once that from the bass you can recognize the composer. Although he meant rather a bass note in the chord progression, this song brought me to remind this citation. As the leads Leviathan uses an organ, which is also often used as a background instrument. Next it is an electric guitar and of course a piano. Melody is very good (more, it is lovely) in the whole track at all, but when I forget the melody, I like a lot how the instruments in the lead cooperate - organ plays the melody and guitar repeats it. They go on with the melody - organ plays and guitar repeats. I feel that this is a right point to stop this review. All I have to say is that it is a damned good song that flows really well and it is one of best tracked guitar tunes. And one more thing. It has full five hornet stars. Song Information: Title: Dust to Dust Author: Leviathan Release date: 1995 Length: 3m40s Filename (zipped/unzipped): k-dust.zip/k-dust.s3m File Size (zipped/unzipped): 257k/400k Source: hornet archive ftp://us.hornet.org/pub/demos/music/songs/1995/k/k-dust.zip --Tryhuk --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Screen Lit Vertigo Amiga Demos By: Seven ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- Finally I've internet access at home (cable of course), so I should never have to mess around with diskettes anymore to get new demos. You've no idea how easily disks can go defective if you've got to transport them by bike during the winter from work to your home, forcing you to go back after working hours and try to copy it again, and again... Needless to say, one of the first sites I visited was scene.org, looking for the latest productions. Alas, we're in february, everybody is hibernating and the few small parties that have happened since last month didn't bring us any high-quality releases :( Performance 2001 is ending today but its demos haven't been uploaded yet and the SL deadline is today). Then I read on Orange Juice that a number of Amiga demos from '94-95 had been converted to mpg's for a videoCD project. Aha, that's something to test my bandwidth on... Half a gigabyte of mpgs later, I decided to do a quick review of these oldskool gems, because some of them are really great. Of course I can't comment on the technical side, since I've never owned an amiga myself. You can find all these mpgs at http://www.byterapers.com/~sivu/amiga So, here we go: Name/Group: Nexus 7/Andromeda Year: 1995 Size: 61 MB Duration: 6 min Comments: This seems to be a technical showoff, no story, just well-synced fullscreen effects like landscapes, a 3D discoball, motion blur and original parts named "gouraud pulse", "shade cluster" and "plasma zoom". Our friend the Luxo lamp is in there too, albeit a little bit more primitive than f.e. in Spot/Exceed. Instead of greetings, they send insults to some other amiga scener. Oldskool attitude, yes. Name/Group: Deep/CNCD & Parallax Year: 1995 Size: 37 MB Duration: 3 min 30 Comments: Some great pictures in here, sometimes used in effects like polar distortion or as the background of a transparent refracting cube. Two tunnel-variants are shown, one textured with a 3D landscape, the other intersecting with a cube. There's one 3D part with totaly psychotic colors and too much motionblur (and the mpg artifacts don't help either), but the rest is OK. Name/Group: Deep (Psilocybin mix)/CNCD & Parallax Year: 1995 Size: 42 MB Duration: 4 min Comments: Basically an heavy upgrade of Deep: more colorful parts, more complex objects, a lot of very weird texts, and female body parts sprinkled through the demo. The 3D plasma landcape and the rubber pilar at the end look great too. If you don't want to download both Deep and Psilocybin mix, choose this one. Name/Group: Baygon/Melon Design Year: ? Size: 40 MB Duration: 4 min Comments: Has some Danish design but without the high resolution: a 2-color twirl effect, wireframe 3D objects, b/w graphics, space invader monsters, 50 % of the soundtrack is made of a "back to school" sample, which got a bit on my nerves. 1/3th of the demo is text shown at the end (no scroller, just static). Name/Group: Booo 2/Melon Design Year: ? Size: 22 MB Duration: 2 min Comments: A short jokedemo. After a short fakir-intro with sitar music, some flashing b/w effects are shown with a house tune. The message at the end is very oldskool too: "256 colors bring no talent", followed by a fine 32-color picture. Name/Group: Ninja /Melon Design Year: 1994 Size: 22 MB Duration: 2 min Comments: A cartoon-style demo about a ninja slicing someones head off. No effects, little story, just 100% graphics. The movie-style music really fits with it. Halfway there's a 1-second stall, but maybe that's a download error. Name/Group: Planet M. /Melon Design Year: ? Size: 46 MB Duration: 4 min 30 Comments: This demo doesn't really fit in any category. It starts with some gray low-res animations of girl faces, followed by a really ugly spiral in contrasting colors. The melon logo is used in a lot of effects, it's for example projected in 3d on a 2d naked body. An original part is the 3D cube that moves to the screen and "hits" it, causing the corners to be flattened. The music starts very gently, but changes quickly to a 100% beats tune. Name/Group: Mina Omistan /Movement Year: ? Size: 25 MB Duration: 2 min 10 Comments: A videodemo with a very low-fi soundtrack: some screamed vocals over a drum and a guitar sample. The mono-color video fragments show an asian putting on sunglasses, a drummer, someone playing a guitar,... The dancing tuaregs don't really fit in, but they're funny :) Name/Group: Zif / Parallax Year: 1995 Size: 62 MB Duration: 6 min Comments: A heavy 3D demo, with lots of phong/metal shaded objects inside: a face, a car, the letters of the credits,... Sometimes the framerate slows down noticeably :/ The start and end logos are great, and there are some more handdrawn pictures too. I don't really like the music: 50% beats, 50% more beats. Name/Group: Gevalia / Polka brothers Year: ? Size: 23 MB Duration: 2 min 10 Comments: Very fast-paced demo, with some great effects: weird wireframe tunnels, a 2D animated crocodile, more fast anims seen through a dot filter, a fast tunnel made of xor-ed b/w polys... Add to this a good picture of a demon, plus that jazz-on-speed music... wow! A pity it's so short, and some texts are non-english :/ Name/Group: Prey / Polka brothers Year: 1994 Size: 53 MB Duration: 5 min 10 Comments: At the start, there's some kind of "feeling-buildup": scary texts, a drawing of a man and a woman fighting with a knife, and horror- style music. But after that, Prey becomes a full-screen-effects-with- pulsating-music type demo: polar effects, 2 intersecting sine surfaces, a texture mapped tunnel in ugly colors (are those amiga coders colorblind, or is it just very hard to do that? I guess the latter). There's an excellent picture at the end of a monster having catched a little boy, I suppose the demo's name originates from that. Name/Group: Twisted / Polka brothers Year: 1994 Size: 59 MB Duration: 5 min 40 Comments: My favourite of the pack: perfect syncing on a stirring soundtrack that switches between rock, house and pure demostyle, great design (those cubes turning into TV-screens! The poems you just can't read completely in time!) and lots of splendid visuals: fractal, wireframe and solid tunnels, long dotfilter animations, a fire effect, several short movie fragments... If this was the normal level of the amiga scene in 1994, I can understand that they looked down upon the PC scene. Name/Group: Faktory / Virtual Dreams & Fairlight Year: ? Size: 25 MB Duration: 2 min 20 Comments: A short weird demo, with a "man VS machine: who's in control" theme. The effects include twisting tunnels and a bumpmapped morphing metal-surface, the pictures that are shown allong are mostly photo-based. There are few 3D objects, but that screen with a robot-hand looked cool :) Name/Group: Sumea / Virtual Dreams & Fairlight Year: 1996 Size: 31 MB Duration: 3 min Comments: This demo has the most advanced 3D of all: it starts with a ride through a sewer tunnel, till we bump into a TV showing a ball-with-holes-and- a-lightsource-within. Some balls jumping through hoops are very motionblurred, I prefer the part where balls fall on the floor, breaking in hundreds of pieces (good physics!). There's one very colorful picture of a man standing, the music is house/goa with distorted voice samples in it. Sorry to the cable-deprived part of the scene for reviewing such large productions, I truly hope next month will bring us many good & small PC demos :) --Seven --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Intro Watch "256b.com" and "Metazlo" By: Gekko ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- -=- http://www.256b.com -=- I would bet most coders out there have been to at least one demo party in their life. And while at that party, they probably watched all the 4k and 64k demos, and listend and watched all the music and gfx. But at more than one point were there another compo at that party. One that wasn't announced that much. More kept behind the "Big boys". The secret number no one ever mentioned was a compilation of three digits 2,5 and 6 and included the character 'b'. Together they formed the word '256b'. When was the first time anyone ever came up with the idea for a 256byte compo? I don't know. I am however sure that back in 1995, Steve Havelka organized the '256Byte Game Contest' on internet for a small numer of coders. The idea was, as the name suggests, to write the funniest and best game in only 256 bytes, and the winner was awarded $5. Today, there have been numerous 256b compos, and they have been in all kinds of shapes and categories. Demos have contained some of the most profound coding instructions ever seen, and have featured stuff like phong toruses, tunnel effects, bumpmapping and etcetera. However, this wasn't the case back in the middle 90's when plasmas were still trendy, and would make you win any compo. Until the increasing usage of the FPU (math co-processor), doing 3-D in 256 byes was something people thought impossible. There were however the psuedo ones, such as 'Sqwerz3' by Matju/Trimaje and 'SukaForte' by PaN/Spinning Kids, both in '96, but nothing that was 'true' 3-D with the rest of the demoscene. I wasn't until at Coven '97 when Fysx presented his demo called 'Sputnik' that the world realised what could be done in what people called "A ridiculous size". Sputnik featured the worlds first phong torus in 256 bytes. After that the barriers had ben broken. 3-D seemed like easy when implementing the FPU. And some weirdo even did it in 128 bytes! 'Til a couple of days ago I did not have the slightest clue why people were so obsessed with the '256 byte' size limit. But when going through an old and discarded hard drive I found the answer in one of the info files for the 256b Game Contest back in '95. The file said that the inspiration came from Steve Wozniak, who appearently wrote an entire machine language monitor in under 256 bytes on the Altair 8800. Ofcourse, back then in 1975, the RAM of the 8800 was, yeah you guessed right, 256 bytes. Gotten hungry to see what people have made in this tiny size? Check out www.256b.com and see for yourself. Insomniac (webmaster of 256b.com) email: insomniac@256b.com url: http://www.256b.com -=- Metazlo -=- 4k intro by Upi/Throb 3rd place at Mindresources 2001, Russia Download: ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/incoming/MINDRESOURCES01/in4k/metazlo_f.zip Requirements: Windows, OpenGL, 3d video card, sound card There is a lack of activity on the scene in the beginning of the year, but now seems to have lasted even till the end of February. In the month, apart from this intro, I have not seen any outstanding release. This intro is for coders only. It can impress a programmer very much, but it would not qualify for a piece of art. It contains meta-balls and meta-toruses, which are very complex effects, especially in 4 kilobytes. On the other hand, there has been little effort invested in the design and objects appear to be blocky. There is music, but it is so repetitive that it gets on one's nerves after a few seconds. This is probably the reason why it did not win in the competition. --Gekko --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Scene Sense Round 2 - The Battle of the OS By: PsiTron ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- Last month, Smash wrote a rather in-depth article stating that he thought Windows was, in fact, a very viable location for the scene to be in. It is quite clear that our opinions differ, but if he intends on saying I am absolutely wrong, I intend on making my apparent wrongness quite clear. I do not intend on stepping on any toes, I respect his opinion as I hope he respects mine, but I think it is important to defend what I think is a very different interpretation of the scene. In actuality I believe this goes closer to the heart of the matter: There are currently different ideas about what the scene is and how it should be run. A lot of commotion has been stirred in regards to allow anyone to access what the scene has. I have no problems with that, but should the scene go out of it's way to complete such a task. Should the scene simply stay on an operating system that even idiots can make fun of and ridicule? Should the scene merely go with whatever is popular? I say no, because the scene is much more than eye candy for the average Joe. For Joe (and I'm sorry for anyone reading this named Joe =) is not going to much care about the hard work that went into it. He is not going to care about what a tracker is or perhaps even what assembly is. True, he might says something like "wow" or "cool", but he will not appreciate the culture involved in it. And yes, deny it or not, shrug it off if you wish, the scene has a culture. And that culture has a history. Is it a coincidence that before Windows the scene happened to be on the most powerful computers at the time? I think not, because the scene is not about saying some profound message in a demo. It originated in doing the impossible and while one could argue that one could do impossible things with Windows, one should not have to. Because the scene has also been committed to excellence, the elite (even by self-proclamation) have pushed the scene forward, not backward as the case I am seeing. Part of the reason Windows sucks so much (aside from the fact that a certain company made it) is that it is so damn user-friendly that, in trying to make it idiot proof, they sacrifice usability. If you think the scene ought to do the same, what is the point or purpose of a demo in the first place. Go and throw down with an MPEG made in 3D Studio MAX and tack some audio onto it if you'd rather. Why spend countless hours slaving over a computer tracking, coding, pixeling, whatever, if you drown it in the dirty swamp that infests our lives enough already? So people who are not going to understand the significance of it all merely have easier access to it? As a scener, I am not here for the average Joe near as much as I am here for myself, then for the scene. Having said that, if one wants exposure, it really does not matter what OS the scene may be on as long as it is on the Internet. If someone wants to watch a demo THAT bad, they will likely begin to use Linux, demOS or whatever. To say that Windows is the one and only operating system for the scene is ludicrous. That is just undermining better alternatives for the betterment of all users. Why should the scene continue to use Windows because everyone else does (and for another statistic, 85% of all computers have Windows on them, a tad bit more realistic than 99%). There are infinite possibilities and solutions to make the scene better, but if one is unwilling to change because the rest of the world is unwilling to change, well, no one's going to change. All we will all be stuck with the crap that most complain about every day. Do we want that? Does the scene benefit from that? Of course not, and Linux is merely a possible solution that I rather enjoy. True, hardware support might be lacking (if you noticed I mentioned this in my last article), but Linux is very stable (hence instead of demos dying right in mid demo, they will just not work) and, consequently, most new hardware is present in new releases of the kernel. True, 3D Hardware support is lacking slightly in Linux, but likewise there is not much demand for it, unfortunately. However, I must say that Unreal Tournament runs noticeably faster in Linux than it does in Windows. By no means am I saying Linux is perfect, few (if any) operating systems these days are, or even that change will happen instantly and overnight. The point I am simply trying to make is that the scene has options and it is not just Windows. The bottom line however is that both the OS war and the war over Scene-Ideals are far from over. The only deciding factor will seem to be time because, like it or not, change takes time. But if it is anything I have learned about the scene is that it is, in fact, always changing - sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. And, after having read this, you may think I am crazy and, well, stupid. But I give you my two cents, nonetheless, on what I think it best for the scene, and while some may think it is worth just that - two cents - I do it just so some may see another side of the same coin. --PsiTron --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Editorial Rebuttle to PsiTron By: Coplan ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- It's not often that I'll jump into a mass argument, but this one is a hot one, and frankly, I'd like to put an end to it. Plain and simple, I disagree with PsiTron on many things relative to his OS War. I have asked him not to continue with this discussion next month. But I will allow feedback, and I will carry out my side of the argument right here. Has the scene ever truly flocked towards power? Possibly, back during the days of Amiga. But that has nothing to do with Amiga being the most powerful OS at the time. At the time, OS was hardware specific. The fact that people used Amiga for the demoscene has to do with the fact that they could. Mind you, tracking evolved from one simple fact that the Amiga could do it, and its competitors could not. So, lets stick with modern times. What are the major OS's out there? You can't compare simple statistics. The reality is that Mac OS (of any version) is installed on 12% of the machines out there, Linux on 8% and some Microsoft platform (NT, 2000, 98, DOS, etc) is installed on 69% of the computers out there. That leaves another 11% to other operating systems including Unix, OS/2 and so on. But that doesn't take into account the use of said computers. What about the home market? Well, I would hope that the majority of you don't do your demo and tracking work at your place of employment, you do it on your home computer. Of the home market (and this is the important number), Mac OS is installed on 10% of the computers, Linux on another 8%, Microsoft's OS's on 80% leaving only 4% for other alternatives. Even still, of the small 8% of linux computers used at home, I'd be willing to say that most of them are used by geeks who have a lot invested in the internet. Linux is great as a network machine. But when it comes down to it, it sucks as a multimedia machine. Don't get me wrong, I am a big supporter of Linux and the OpenSource community. I participate in it myself, and I do my best to promote it when I can -- and when it seems logical. But for Linux, their time has yet to come. Until the time comes that video cards come with two CDs (one for windows, one for linux), and sound cards get 100% support for linux (Creative offers drivers for their sound cards, but they aren't 100% supported), Linux is no place for anyone willing to do things like music or demos. So this comes down to my point, again. And I'll repeat it whenever I'm asked. What is the best place for the demoscene and computer based music scene? I'll simply respond with "Wherever the people are." As I said in my column in issue #30, we cannot forget the average listener of your tunes and the average watcher of your demos. You'd be surprised to find out that almost a 3rd of them don't write music or code. Why the hell should the demoscene move if all our popular applications are meant for the Windows OS (or DOS)? I'm not a huge fan of Windows, but I know that tracking is next to impossible in Linux. When someone ports IT to linux, maybe I'll reconsider that fact. But I boot to windows to track, and that's something that I have grown to accept. So, it seems as though PsiTron is a one-man army fighting a pointless cause. The scene might jump to Linux one day, but it won't be until the OS is more widely recognized. Even PsiTron himself has admitted that "85% of all computers have Windows on them". The statistic is grossly in-accurate, but even so.... Why shut out 85% of the computer users out there to stage a small revolution so only 15% of the people can enjoy the scene. Of those 15%, how many actually use linux? And of the Linux users, how many know how to track or code demos? How many care? Like it or not, you are going to use Microsoft OS's for the scene for a while. Might as well get used to it. --Coplan --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Link List ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- Portals: Orange Juice.............................http://www.ojuice.net Scene.org.................................http://www.scene.org SceneSpot.............................http://www.scenespot.org CFXweb.......................................http://cfxweb.net Pouet.net.................................http://www.pouet.net Demoscene.org.........................http://www.demoscene.org Scenet....................................http://www.scenet.de Demo.org...................................http://www.demo.org Czech Scene................................http://www.scene.cz Hungarian Scene........................http://www.scene-hu.com Italian Scene...........................http://run.to/la_scena ModPlug Central Resources..........http://www.castlex.com/mods Norvegian Scene............http://www.neutralzone.org/scene.no Polish Scene...........................http://www.demoscena.pl Russian Scene..........................http://www.demoscene.ru Spanish Scene............................http://www.escena.org Swiss Scene..............................http://www.chscene.ch Archives: Acid2.....................................ftp://acid2.stack.nl Amber.......................................ftp://amber.bti.pl Cyberbox.....................................ftp://cyberbox.de Hornet (1992-1996)........................ftp://ftp.hornet.org Scene.org..................................ftp://ftp.scene.org Scene.org Austra........................ftp://ftp.nl.scene.org Scene.org Netherlands...................ftp://ftp.au.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://alienprophets.ninja.dk Anakata..............................http://www.anakata.art.pl Astral..............................http://astral.scene-hu.com Astroidea........................http://astroidea.scene-hu.com BlaBla..............................http://blabla.planet-d.net Blasphemy..............................http://www.blasphemy.dk Bomb..................................http://bomb.planet-d.net Broncs..................................http://broncs.scene.cz Byterapers.....................http://www.byterapers.scene.org <*> Bypass.................................http://bypass.scene.org Calodox.................................http://www.calodox.org Cocoon..............................http://cocoon.planet-d.net Confine.................................http://www.confine.org Damage...................................http://come.to/damage Eclipse............................http://www.eclipse-game.com Elitegroup..........................http://elitegroup.demo.org Exceed...........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/~exceed Fairlight.............................http://www.fairlight.com Fobia Design...........................http://www.fd.scene.org Freestyle............................http://www.freestylas.org Fresh! Mindworks...................http://kac.poliod.hu/~fresh Future Crew..........................http://www.futurecrew.org Fuzzion.................................http://www.fuzzion.org GODS...................................http://www.idf.net/gods Halcyon...........................http://www.halcyon.scene.org Haujobb..................................http://www.haujobb.de Hellcore............................http://www.hellcore.art.pl Infuse...................................http://www.infuse.org Kilobite...............................http://kilobite.cjb.net Kolor................................http://www.kaoz.org/kolor Komplex.................................http://www.komplex.org Kooma.....................................http://www.kooma.com Mandula.........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/~mandula Maturefurk...........................http://www.maturefurk.com Monar................ftp://amber.bti.pl/pub/scene/distro/monar MOVSD....................................http://movsd.scene.cz Nextempire...........................http://www.nextempire.com Noice.....................................http://www.noice.org Orange.................................http://orange.scene.org Orion................................http://orion.planet-d.net 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 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.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 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 Lackluster.....................http://www.m3rck.net/lackluster Level-D.................................http://www.level-d.com Miasmah.............................http://www.miasmah.cjb.net Milk.......................................http://milk.sgic.fi Mah Music.............................http://come.to/mah.music Maniacs of noise...............http://home.worldonline.nl/~mon MAZ's sound homepage..................http://www.maz-sound.com Med.......................................http://www.med.fr.fm Mo'playaz..........................http://ssmedion.de/moplayaz Mono211.................................http://www.mono211.com Morbid Minds..............http://www.raveordie.com/morbidminds Noise................................http://www.noisemusic.org Noerror.......................http://www.error-404.com/noerror One Touch Records......................http://otr.planet-d.net Park..................................http://park.planet-d.net <*> pHluid..................................http://phluid.acid.org Radical Rhythms.....http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/merrelli/rr RBi Music.............................http://www.rbi-music.com Ruff Engine................http://members.xoom.com/ruff_engine 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 Triad's C64 music archive.............http://www.triad.c64.org UltraBeat.........................http://www.innerverse.com/ub Vibrants................................http://www.vibrants.dk Wiremaniacs.........................http://www.wiremaniacs.com Zen of Tracking.........................http://surf.to/the-imm Programming: Programming portal......................http://www.gamedev.net Programming portal.....................http://www.flipcode.com Game programming portal...............http://www.gamasutra.com 3D programming portal.................http://www.3dgamedev.com Programming portal......................http://www.exaflop.org Programming portal............http://www.programmersheaven.com Programming portal.....................http://www.freecode.com NASM (free Assembly compiler)......http://www.cryogen.com/nasm LCC (free C compiler).........http://www.remcomp.com/lcc-win32 PTC video engine.........................http://www.gaffer.org 3D engines..........http://cg.cs.tu-berlin.de/~ki/engines.html Documents...............http://www.neutralzone.org/home/faqsys File format collection...................http://www.wotsit.org Magazines: Amber...............................http://amber.bti.pl/di_mag Amnesia...............http://amnesia-dist.future.easyspace.com Demojournal....................http://demojournal.planet-d.net Eurochart.............................http://www.eurochart.org Heroin...................................http://www.heroin.net Hugi........................................http://www.hugi.de Music Massage......................http://www.scene.cz/massage Pain..................................http://pain.planet-d.net Scenial...........................http://www.scenial.scene.org Shine...............................http://www.shine.scene.org Static Line................http://www.scenespot.org/staticline Sunray..............................http://sunray.planet-d.net TUHB.......................................http://www.tuhb.org WildMag...............................http://wildmag.notrix.de Parties: Assembly (Finland).....................http://www.assembly.org Ambience (The Netherlands)..............http://www.ambience.nl Dreamhack (Sweden)....................http://www.dreamhack.org Buenzli (Switzerland)......................http://www.buenz.li Gravity (Poland)............http://www.demoscena.cp.pl/gravity Mekka-Symposium (Germany)...................http://ms.demo.org Takeover (The Netherlands).............,http://www.takeover.nl The Party (Denmark).....................http://www.theparty.dk Others: Demo secret parts....http://www.inf.bme.hu/~mandula/secret.txt Textmode Demo Archive.................http://tmda.planet-d.net Arf!Studios..........................http://www.arfstudios.org #coders..................................http://coderz.cjb.net Demonews Express.........http://www.teeselink.demon.nl/express Demo fanclub........................http://jerware.org/fanclub Digital Undergrounds.....................http://dug.iscool.net Doose charts...............................http://www.doose.dk Freax................................http://freax.scene-hu.com GfxZone............................http://gfxzone.planet-d.net PC-demos explained.....http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained Pixel...................................http://pixel.scene.org IRC Channels: Scene.........................................ircnet #thescene Programming.....................................ircnet #coders Programming....................................efnet #flipcode Graphics.........................................ircnet #pixel Music.............................................ircnet #trax Scene (French)..................................ircnet #demofr Programming (French)............................ircnet #codefr Graphics (French)..............................ircnet #pixelfr Scene (Hungarian)............................ircnet #demoscene Programming (Hungarian)......................ircnet #coders.hu Programming (German)........................ircnet #coders.ger --=--=-- ----=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------ Editor: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org Columnists: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org Dilvish / Eric Hamilton / dilvie@yahoo.com Gekko / Gergely Kutenich / mont@tar.hu Psitron / Tim Soderstrom / tigerhawk@stic.net Setec / Jesper Pederson / jesped@post.tele.dk Seven / Stefaan VanNieuwenhuyze/ seven7@writeme.com Tryhuk / Tryhuk Vojtech / vojtech.tryhuk@worldonline.cz Technical Consult: Ranger Rick / Ben Reed / ranger@scenespot.org Static Line on the Web: http://www.scenespot.org/staticline Static Line Subscription Management: http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/static_line 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---=------=--=------=--=--