_//\\________________________________________________________________________ _\\__T_A_T_I_C___L_I_N_E_____________________________________ November, 2000 __\\_________________________________________________________________________ \\//__ Monthly Scene E-Zine ________________________________ 175 Subscribers _____________________________________________________________________________ --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Table Of Contents ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- Opening: Message From the Editor Letters From Our Readers Features: Building a Digital Orchestra -- Introduction Subtractive Synthesis -- The Basics The Root -- Jason Chong (Jase) Columns: Music: The Listener -- Music from Various Artist Retro Tunage -- Subsonica by various Demo: Screen Lit Vertigo -- Persistent by Wipe & Ukonx (final version) Intro Watch -- Fuzzion General: Editorial -- Welcome the New Scene! Scene Dirt -- News & Rumors Link List -- Get Somewhere in the Scene Closing: Credits --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Message From the Editor ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- Wow, this is an exciting issue. I'm sure you will agree. The Root is back with its next writer. This month, Jase (Jason Chong) guest writes and tells us about his scene experience. Dilvish is back with his next mini-series. He will, over the next few months, fill us in on some details about making realistic orchestral music. Setec is also back with an article about Subtractive Synthesis, just for all of you who wish to develop their own samples. Some minor notes about regular columns. As I have had problems with my keyboard this month, this whole issue was thrown together today. I haven't had the time to do a song review this month. Psitron was also unable to send in an article this month, but he will be back next time. Don't worry, the e-mail from Dilvish didn't scare him away. Until Next month. --Coplan --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Letters From Our Readers ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- -=- Letter from Eino Keskitalo -=- Shattered Skye had pretty much the something I look for in music; thanks for bringing it to my knowledge! And heaven thank Seven for ever getting better. Okay. See you, --Eino Keskitalo -=- Letter from Dilvish -=- I'd like to respond to PsiTron's first article. It didn't bore me, and it got a response, so he must be doing something right. I think his confusion is due only to his limited perspective, though. I would officially like to offer myself up for public persecution by stating that I absolutely believe 100% in MP3 music in the demoscene. I also believe at making money at it. Here's why: I don't know about the rest of you, but I have always been a musician first. Art always comes before technique. Period. Sometimes part of the art is to take on challenging mediums - such as the chiptune, that he loved to mention. In those cases, that is great. More power to you. I don't think there's a true scener alive that doesn't appreciate the power of a well tracked chip tune. When I think, "oh my god, that's only 4 channels!" or "all those killer sounds are the same sample!?" I am very impressed. I think what he's failed to consider though, is that trackers are not all coders - and even those of us who do both are not primarily concerned with optimizing for sample size, or staying within strict channel limitations. We are concerned primarily about making high quality music, and using whatever tools we have at our disposal to do it. The tracker has been an old, and dear friend to me for about 11 years now, but I must admit, my copy of Impulse Tracker is beginning to show it's age. I can't apply a correct sounding reverb to anything, or EQ my channels, or apply DSP effects. Instruments are great, and impulse tracker has many advanced sampler options available, but, no matter how hard I try, it will not load my gigabyte Yamaha C7 grand piano multi-sample for my classical solo, I can't modulate filter settings with an LFO, and I can't set different samples up to respond to different velocities. Oh, and I can't record my live techno performances in impulse tracker, either. Should I be expelled from the scene, simply because my tracker has become "part" of my toolset, rather than the whole toolchest? It startled me the other day to hear a total newbie spouting this holier-than-thou, "oldskool rulez" attitude. I was tracking when he was 5 years old, and he thinks he can tell me that I'm a traitor to "the scene", because yes, I track and release MP3's. I like to mixdown my tracks on the 32 bit, 24 channel hardware mixer I spent my hard-earned money on, and get a truly professional sound for work that has to measure up to professional standards. Should I be stomped on for making my living at what I have devoted my life to since I was very young? I sell my music, too, and make a profit. I've even done commissioned work. With all this bad publicity about traxinspace pulling in a little money for their hard work, I have to wonder - do you, the holier-than-thou kids who want to tell us how to release our music, whether or not we have a right to pay our rent with it, or anything else about how we should run our lives - do you want to grow up and shampoo carpets to pay your rent when you could be tracking instead? When it comes time for you to make that choice - do what you love to survive, or merely survive - what choice will you make? I don't regret mine for a moment. In short, if you have a problem with MP3's - don't release them. If you don't think it's right to make money from art - keep it a hobby. Don't try to tell us we're doing something wrong if we don't agree. Chances are, you'll just get laughed at, cause these attitudes are cliche, passe, and altogether washed out - remember that when you're pushing that floor buffer. --Dilvish -=- Letter from Noise Music's George Marinov -=- We at noisemusic reduced our staff to 5 musicians - shawnm, androo (stote), t.wilton (astradyne), esem (stereoman) and mikael altemark. we are currently doing some group reorganisation too. In the meantime you might want to check the following urls www.mp3.com/newobjectives (our mp3.com mirror) www.mp3.com/future-eater (unreleased cuts by stote) www.mp3.com/stereoman (rare & unreleased cuts by esem) Andreas saag and pinku vaaty have been signed and therefore their releases are taken out tobias wilton is soon to be signed to groovetech, esem is a forthcomming defocus artist and also will be releasing music for merck. while trying to keep up at our previous pace we experience server difficulties and other problems. we are still doing everything possible to bring you quality intelligent electronic music. --George Marinov (esem) of Noise Music --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Building a Digital Orchestra Introduction By: Dilvish ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- About a year ago, the editor of Static Line mentioned to me that it would be nice to have a series of articles describing the process of simulating a real orchestra electronically. Since then, I have been researching related topics off and on. This series is the result. I quickly found that I had been very naive on the subject. It's aspects span the full breadth of music theory, orchestration, instrumentation, wave physics, and digital signal processing. Much of the information contained here will be applicable to many other areas of music production, and perhaps even your fundamental view of the world around you. This series may include interviews on the subject with working composers, as well as a catalogue of technical subjects ranging from mathematics and tuning, to conducting and dynamics. At the outset of this work, I went around asking people if they thought it was possible to simulate the sound of a real orchestra using nothing but a computer, and a consumer level soundcard, such as the Sound Blaster Live. Typical responses ranged from "Yeah, right," to "No. Performance is an art that can't be programmed." Considering the development of technology in the last twenty years, though, I would have to disagree. Nearly everyone is familiar with the sounds of General MIDI coming from their PC's multimedia speakers. Most have heard MIDI renderings of classical music on them. It is hard to find anybody though, who would say that the quality rivals that of a real orchestra. For many, the "computer music" sound is quickly associated with cheap FM synth horns, or sampled crash cymbals that just fizzle. This doesn't have to be the case. Both technology and our understanding of electronic music have come a long way in two decades. It is now common to hear high quality electronic orchestra sounds in television and movie trailers. Many movie scores also feature electronic orchestral sounds, in addition to real strings. Several popular composers use them to "beef up" real orchestra sounds. If a personal computer were capable of realizing the sound of a real orchestra, you could download a 120k notation file and hear the professional sound of a real orchestra in your computer room rather than endure yet another rendering on the same General MIDI soundset. Amateur and professional composers alike would greatly appreciate having access to the sounds of a real orchestra at their fingertips, so that they would no longer have to imagine what their music will sound like if it were actually played. Another advantage for a professional musician is that they could produce low budget movie and television scores for a fraction of the cost of hiring a full orchestra with a recording crew. Unfortunately, simulating a real orchestra is not as simple as it may, at first, sound. Modern music synthesis technology takes advantage of a process called sampling. The idea is that you record a single note from the real instrument, and then play it back at different pitches. Typically, there are only one or two samples to represent the entire range and scope of each instrument. The problem here is that real instruments are capable of producing a huge range of sounds. Louder sounds produce an entirely different set of formants than softer sounds (typically, the number and amplitude of formants are increased, thus changing the over-all timbre of the sound in dramatically noticeable ways). Additionally, playing technique also affects timbre. Thus, a single sample of any given instrument is not sufficient to represent its full capabilities. We know this instinctively, so we perceive it as "fake" when we hear it, which is largely responsible for the recognizable "computer music" sound. The solution to that problem might seem easy enough: simply record a sufficient number of samples to represent the full scope of the instrument in question. However, this is not yet a practical solution for every situation. For several years now, professional sampler manufacturers have been endlessly expanding the storage capacity of the medium on which they store their samples. Nearly every modern professional sampler supports multi-samples, and sound programmers have taken good advantage of it. There now exists a single multi-sample set of a Yamaha C7 grand piano that is a full gigabyte in size (see note 1). In addition to the problems with sampling, there are many other considerations to be made when attempting to simulate a real orchestra. Special attention has to be paid to the techniques used for playing each particular instrument. For instance, most of the instruments in an orchestra are purely monophonic, meaning that they are incapable of sounding more than one note at a time. In addition, brass instruments move between notes with a perceptible portamento effect when notes are slurred. A realistic playback engine must "know" about the parameters required to simulate each instrument being played. In subsequent articles, I plan to go into extensive detail on the characteristics of each of the common orchestral instruments, including their playing techniques, and how they are used in orchestration. Another issue to consider is the room. Any good professional musician can tell you that the room is actually part of the instrument that needs to be considered in producing a good tone. A beautifully crafted violin can either bring tears of joy to the eyes when played in a great concert hall, or tears of agony when played in anechoic chambers. Reverb is the term used to describe the effect of the many echoes that bounce off the walls around the room until it eventually fades out. Bouncing wall reflections create a phenomenon known as standing waves. What this means is that the echo waves color the source wave by amplifying it in places where the waves correspond, and attenuating it in places where the waves are at odds with each other. This effect can be visualized by dropping something in a bathtub, and watching how the waves bounce off the sides and interact with each other. The room I am currently sitting in has a reverb time of about .6 seconds, resonates strongly at D#4 (622 hertz) and creates a notable resonant peak at about A#4 (approximately 466 hertz). I determined this by clapping my hands and listening. If I was at home with my FFT enabled dual channel Impulse Response (IR) analyzer, I could go into much greater detail about how this room would affect the sound of an instrument. The main point is that the effect is not subtle. We are simply very accustomed to hearing it every day, and our brain interprets it mainly as localization information. This how you know where a sound is coming from when you hear it. A good orchestra simulation should paint a mental image of the room that the virtual orchestra is playing in. The positions of each player relative to the position of the listener should be taken into account. It is possible to create such a simulation with existing signal processing technology. Unfortunately, I haven't seen any reverb plugins yet that would allow you enough control to do so. As I have demonstrated, there are many parameters that must be considered to accurately reproduce the sound of a real orchestra. The human body is a very complex machine, but it is still a system with parameters, which follows the same physical laws that a computer follows. Today's computers are capable of analyzing and modeling very complex data quickly. I believe that it is possible to nail down the parameters that make orchestral music what it is, and reproduce it electronically - but the task is not simple. Many volumes can be written on the subject, whose aspects range from the elementary laws of wave physics, to state-of-the-art psychoacoustics, not to mention instrumentation and conducting technique, dynamics, and the little articulations and "mistakes" that put the feeling in music. It's all just math in the end, and computers are very good at math. -=- Notes -=- 1) When we speak of sample-based instruments, a gigabyte is very large. My entire computer hard drive is capable of storing less than 20 gigabytes, total. And that is a lot. That's about 20 times larger than the largest hard drives in 1990. Typically, single sample sizes range from about 600 bytes up to about 5 megabytes. A gigabyte is approximately 200 times larger than that. Even today, most of the currently available hardware samplers are incapable of using a single multi-sample that large. For more information about the GigaPiano and other gigabyte instruments, see http://www.nemesysmusic.com/. -=- Vocabulary -=- Anechoic Chamber A room designed to absorb all sound, and produce no reverb. The effect is that if you are not in a direct line of sight with the sound source, you cannot hear it at all, since there are no sound reflections bouncing off the walls to reach you. Such a room would add absolutely nothing to the sound of a musical instrument, and makes a good demonstration of how reverb colors the sounds we hear. Cent A division of note pitch. There are 100 cents between each tone in the 12 tone equal tempered scale. Color Color is the over-all quality or timbre of a single wave. Chords are actually transmitted in a single wave that contains the frequency data of all of the sound sources, and thus, when spoken about in most music theory courses, color is a combination of chord choice, movement, and the individual timbre of each sound source. Cycle A wave travels in a curved line that moves from its center upward to a peak, downward to a valley, and then returns to center. The full path is called a cycle. The speed or frequency of these cycles determines pitch. Formants Resonant frequencies that give a tone (or instrument) its color by amplifying specific partials. Each instrument has its own particular set of formants that help define its unique sound. For an in depth look at how formants apply to instrument use, see "Relating Tuning and Timbre": http://eceserv0.ece.wisc.edu/~sethares/consemi.htm Fundamental The lowest frequency of a sound. It is also the frequency that we derive our perception of pitch from. Frequency The rate at which something occurs. In music, frequency is measured in Beats Per Minute (BPM), cycles per second (hertz), and cents. General MIDI Roland established the GENERAL MIDI standard in 1992 with the introduction of the Roland Sound Canvas series. The idea was to provide a standard set of 128 instrumental sounds from which to choose from. Previously, a part written for piano might have played back on a different computer with a bassoon sample. The specification was written to ensure that the instrumentation would remain the way the composer intended it to sound, no matter what hardware or software the end user happened to possess. General MIDI was adopted very quickly, and has revolutionized the way the public sees computer music. Golden Section A mathematical ratio (phi) represented by an irrational number (1.618033989...), found to be a repeating theme in nature, as in the formation of the solar system, the galaxies, the spiral shells of animals, and, of course, music (in the harmonic series, chord theory, structure, and rhythm). A more detailed explanation can be found here: http://evolutionoftruth.com/goldensection/neophite.htm. Harmonic Series The natural order of partials. The series may be determined by calculating for k=1 to infinity, 1/k. Close analysis of the nature of this series will reveal many patterns that relate to the Golden Section. Hertz A measurement of the frequency of a wave in cycles per second. MIDI The Musical Instrument Data Interchange format. MIDI is an open specification established by the music industry in the early 1980's to allow musical equipment from different manufacturers to communicate with each other. Part of the MIDI specification includes a file format now generally referred to as MIDI files. Partials Frequencies that are added to the fundamental (perceived pitch) to produce color in a tone. The content of partials for a single vibrating object is determined by the series of ratios: 1:1, 2:1, 3:2, 4:3, 5:4, and 5:3 respectively in a pattern known as the harmonic series. Portamento The effect of sliding between one note and the next. Sampler A musical device that uses and manipulates samples to produce music. Sampling The process of recording a single note from a real instrument, so that it can be played back at different pitches by music software to simulate the playing of the real instrument. Slurring Moving from one note to the next without a break between the notes. Timbre Tone quality. Determined by the number and amplitude of the formants present. Tone A vibration perceived as sound, represented by a musical note. Wavetable A collection of stored samples in memory from which the playback engine gets its wave data. Wave A sound wave. Sound travels through a medium (such as air) by vibrating tiny particles, causing a chain reaction that results in a wave. The process well demonstrated by observing ripples in a pond. --Dilvish --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Subtractive Synthesis The Basics By: Setec ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- -=- Introduction -=- Howdy. It has been ages since my last contribution to this great magazine. Unfortunately I have been so preoccupied lately that I really have not had the time to put something proper together. So what is this then? Well it is an introduction to the basics of one form of synthesis, properly the most well-known; subtractive synthesis. This is the form of synthesis that makes up all those retro Roland synthesizers; the TB-303 being the most known example (but also counting the Junos, Jupiters, etc). It also couples with sampling in a lot of modern sound modules such as the brand new Roland XV models, the E-Mu Proteuss series and well, just about any other all-purpose sound module. So why would you wanna know how it works? And why is something like this interesting in a "tracker" world? Well the thing is, if you know this theory properly you will be able to create any kind of sound or instrument that you like - within the obvious boundaries of subtractive synthesis. You will no longer need to adapt your music to suit your samples. This process can be reversed so that you can mold your sounds to suit whatever mood you are trying to create via your music. And this is a tremendous inspiration. It is also my belief that more and more trackers are starting to buy "real" music gear, mainly synthesizers. And while you could just do as your average Bob and stick with the presets on the synth, this is just plain dumb. You are buying an extremely versatile instrument (hopefully) and if you are not taking advantage of this, you are wasting money. And besides, you look seriously cool when you tweak all those knobs! =) -=- Waveforms and formants -=- The building blocks of subtractive synthesis are - not taking in account the synthesizers that couple subtractive synthesis with sampling - basic, simple geometric waveforms. Waveforms are what you see when you load a sample in SoundForge, CoolEdit, FastTracker or whatever program you use to view and edit your samples. Usually with sampled sounds these are quite complex waves, with no obvious geometric shape. These "building blocks" of subtractive synthesis are different. The most commonly used shapes are the triangle, square and saw waveforms. My talent at ascii-drawing is non-existent so let us just agree that these waveforms look exactly as their name implies, the saw waveform gradually extending from -1 to 1 (on the y-axis of a waveform), then dropping instantly to -1 and rising again. Other common waveforms are sine, super saw (a lot of saw waveforms slightly detuned from each other) and noise. So. Having made your choice of a basic waveform the synthesizer is now able to continuously loop this waveform over and over. In other words, you have now successfully produced a truly annoying buzz! This is not exactly the most interesting sound in the world. Mostly because that the partial shape of such a sound is quite dull. Partials? Now what is that? I have actually spoken of this in a very old article I wrote for this very same magazine. But to recap ... Any sound - if it consists of a definable pitch (not noise) - is made up of a fundamental frequency and any number of partials. These partials are multiples of the fundamental frequency and can be either harmonic (integer multiples) or inharmonic. So contrary to the common belief (of some people, anyway) when you hear a certain note played on a keyboard you are not only hearing a single frequency, but rather an entire spectrum of frequencies. This is also sometimes called the "color" of the sound or the "brightness". If a sound contains lots of partials it will appear "bright" in sound. A bass is not a very bright instrument (usually) whereas brasses contain a lot of partials and hence appear "bright" to the human ear. Returning to our building blocks, each of these have distinct partial structures. Generally speaking, sharp corners create partials. So a sine wave consists ONLY of the fundamental frequency. No partials at all. The square wave is a little more interesting in that it contains every other harmonic partial of the fundamental at decreasing volume. Saw waveforms have especially rich partial structure and this probably explains why they are most commonly used. -=- Filters -=- Okay, so I managed to drift quite far into that. Drawing attention to our buzz-sound from before, how do we make it more interesting? How do we alter the partials/overtones of such a sound? Enter the wonders of filters... Filters basically do one thing - they take a sound and they remove certain partials. Filters are probably the most important part of sub- tractive synthesis. Without filters we are stuck with that dull annoying buzz. With them, however, we have a very strong way of molding our sounds. A standard synthesizer will most likely consist of a single filter with three different modes of operation; high pass, band pass and low pass. The theory behind how these filters work is too complex for this article, but understanding what they actually DO is easy. Quite simply a high pass filter allows only partials above a certain frequency(the cutoff frequency) to pass, a low pass filter does the exact opposite and a band pass filter allows only a certain band (duh!) of frequencies to pass. Not exactly hard to grasp, is it? So what this means is that we are able to take our buzz saw waveform and turn it into a bass, simply by applying a low pass filter with a cutoff frequency set low. And the same buzz can be turned into a moscitto-like sound using a high pass filter. All of this needs to be heard though, so grab your synth - if you are fortunate enough to own one - or load one of the many free software synthesizers out there and start playing with the cutoff knob and the filter types. Okay. So altering the cutoff frequency of a set filter type is nice and all, but how do you make that wellknown squelchy bass-sound? Well, this is where the resonance setting comes into play. This is also a setting that will be adjustable on all synthesizers out there, and with good reason. What it does is that it creates a "peak" around the cutoff frequency, it amplifies the frequencies surrounding that point. It is not exactly easy to explain how this actual sounds (besides the obvious refference to a 303 bassline) so once again - go play! Most desent synthesizers will be able to set the resonnance high enough for the filter to go into self- oscillation. This occurs when the freqency at the cutoff point is amplified so much that it "takes over" as the fundamental frequency. If used properly (and subtlely!) this can be an interesting effect. Just do not overdo it, it really hurts the ears. If you have a fairly good synthesizer you will probably notice that it also has some sort of switch between -12dB/Oct and -24db/Oct (and possibly others) in the filter section. What this alters is the steepness of the filter. See, a filter cannot exactly "cut" frequencies above or below a certain threshold that exact. There will be some sort of slope extending beyond the cutoff frequency, where some of the frequencies can still be heard, although at lower amplitudes. The -12dB, -24dB switch determines the steepness of this slope. So at -12dB the frequencies above or below the cutoff point are attenuated by 12dB per octave. Once more, this setting has a musical value that is hard to describe. So try choosing a saw waveform, set the filter at low pass and choose a cutoff frequency that is somewhat average. You should be able to tell the difference between -12dB and -24dB per octave then. -=- Envelopes -=- This article is already much larger than I had anticipated. It seems I cannot help it. So I hope some of you are still with me, because this is where it really gets interesting. If we look at what we are able to create now, we have come quite far from where we started. But it is still only quite dull sounds that will evolve from a syntheziser consisting only of what I have described so far. One thing that we still have not touched is change over time. Change in partial structure, amplitude and pitch. One of the most important things that make us able to distinguish one instrument from the other is exactly that; change over time. This is where envelopes help. An envelope can be viewed as a waveform as well. Usually it is made up of four settings, Attack, Decay, Sustain and Release. The waveform that these make might look something like this: / \ / : \ / : \ god, i suck at this. / : \ / : \ / : : - - - - - - - - <--- Sustain level / : : :\ _ / : : : \ _ / : : : \ _ <-- attack time --><- decay ->- - - - - - - - <-release -> time time I hope this diagram makes SOME sense. Okay, so now we have yet another shape. What is it good for? Well, if we apply values ranging from 0 to 1 on the y-axis on such a shape and then link it to the filter cutoff frequency ...voila! We now have a sound that changes its frequency content over time. Marvelous. The same obviously goes for linking an envelope to the amplitude (the most obvious choice) and the pitch. If all of these elements are combined we now have quite an interesting sound in our hands ...or at least we can have. With all of these tools you have a tremendous amount to say in how the instrument will sound. And this is both an advantage and a disadvantage. It is not at all easy to begin with, learning what to alter to get a specific sound. It all comes with practise, but I hope that articles such as this one helps you. I know that it has helped me a lot to know such theory. And I really hope that this article has helped you as well. The thing is, I am not sure how "basic" I need to keep it. You may have found this article to be way to simple, or it may have all seemed difficult to grasp. I am very uncertain as to whether additional articles on the subject of synthesis should be simpler or if they should be more advanced. As of now I am thinking of making the next article a little more practical and less theoretical. So instead of just describing how subtractive synthesis works, I will try to show how to create different sounds with it. But this all depends on the feedback. So as always, you - the reader - eventually has the say in where these articles go. Let me know what you want to read about, what you would like to learn. It is not limited to being about subtractive synthesis only, I could cover FM synthesis and other forms of synthesis as well. I am not an allknowing oracle of synthesis theory but I do believe that I know my fair share of it. At least I know how to emulate a TB-303 ...;) -=- Notes -=- I am hoping to make this a series of articles that will appear from time to time with different subjects of synthesis theory. However, I want to know what YOU wanna read about. So mail me at jesped@post.tele.dk and let me know what the next article should cover. Also make it clear which level it should be in. Easier or more advanced than this one. By the way, I own a Roland JP-8080 synthesizer myself, a marvellous subtractive synthesis beast in the new breed of analogue wannabe synths. I also have the luxury of having a Roland JV-1080 and a Yamaha FS1R stacked on top of eachother, the former being a sound module (well, THE sound module I guess) that couples sampling with subtractive synthesis. The Yamaha FS1R is an entirely different story. It uses Frequency Modulation synthesis along with a new method called Formant Shaping. But I am gonna have to save those two for later articles ...:) --Setec --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- The Root How They Got Involved Sponsored By: Tryhuk By: Jason Chong (Jase) ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- I had always been and still am interested in making music on a computer. Ever since my first Apple 2 days, through the first SoundBlaster to now, I've always been looking for a way to express myself musically on a computer. It all started with my classical background. You may have read elsewhere I started violin when I was 7 and piano later on and advanced quite far with it. At the end of my high school years I bought an electric guitar and self taught myself (I just wanted to play all the Guns'n'Roses Appetite for Destruction stuff). However I couldn't output stuff satisfactorily on a computer until I discovered MIDI and mods. It started when I went to university in '92 where I first discovered the internet. This was kewl!! Downloading from ftp and fsp sites (the web had not taken off at all back then). I learned first about MIDI and after persuading my dad to buy me a Turtle Beach Multisound, I released a few midi tunes to the internet. I remember getting my first fan email, some guy who wrote orientalish MIDIs. I was stoked - people were downloading and listening to my stuff! However, I felt constrained by the limited number of sounds on MIDI. Then one day I downloaded Panic by Future Crew and discovered the demo scene. From there I experimented with mods. My overall output was not very much because I probably took too long to write each tune. People have also commented that I composed in many various styles. My musical tastes were so varied that I hadn't really finished exploring each style yet. However with my classical background, I was most happy with my orchestral output. To tell you the truth, I would have loved to be part of one of the larger music groups like Kosmic or been invited to join FM. But I didn't and I would partly blame my lack of output for this. It took a while for me to write tunes - a lot of planning and "optimisation" took place for each one. Each week I downloaded many mods which were quickly put together and you can see it in the tracks - I'm not saying that these were bad or anything, but I guess I took a lot of pride in my work and wanted to make sure everything I did tried not to sound like it was done on a computer. Of course my girlfriend (now wife) at the time always thought that it still sounded computerised. I did get invited to join Oxygen, a demo group based in my city (Perth, Australia). However, not much happened from that. Looking back I think that it doesn't really matter - I mean, the quality of your composing output doesn't really depend on whether you're part of some group or not (although they can encourage you, etc), it's what you can do yourself. So why did I stop tracking? One reason is that one day my sample collection, which I had taken tons of hours to compile from various sources and sorted into my own categories, got blown away in '96 with a hard drive crash. Without a sample collection, without a decent synthesizer, I knew it would be ages to rebuild a similar sort of collection and that was really offputting. Also, the amount of free time to spend composing was gone. '96 was my last year at uni with an honours paper to write. That meant the end of mucking about. I started full time work at a large international engineering company the following year ('97) and work life is very different!! My whole day got turned around - basically starting and ending 4 hours earlier (7am - 11pm instead of 11am - 3am). The year after that ('98) I got married and that ended even more late night netting. Nowadays, once in a while, I check to see what's happening in the scene. I sometimes keep in touch with some previous trackers. I know quite a few other trackers that were active in my days have pursued professional music careers in mixing, game/movie music composing, etc. I really admire them for that because I would love to have done that. However, I already chose engineering over professional violinist/musician as my career (for the more stable and possibly larger salary) and I would definitely have to study/work elsewhere (Sydney but probably overseas) to get enough demand or that sort of market. Maybe in my mid life crisis I might experiment :) So many things have changed - attitudes towards tracking, the number of composers, mod related web sites, hornet, windows demos, trackers and players, signal to noise ratio :). By attitudes, I've noticed that the old days of trying to make the mod as small as possible in file size are gone. Also, the emphasis on sound/sample quality is much more but the filesize restrictions helps a lot. Similarly, the old days of "optimisation" so that you would use as little channels as possible seems to have gone. I remember when people first started to be interested in mp3s and some people in the scene (and I was one of them) just didn't want to know about it - releasing music in an mp3 form would mean that people can't see the effort and technique you put into the mod - it was not elite :). They were also too big in filesize (back then!). However, mp3s have taken off so much now that you'd get many more people listening to your stuff if it's an mp3. And that is what I found most rewarding, knowing that thousands of people have listened to my music and enjoyed it. The positive feedback I got through email, although was a good ego booster, spurred me on to write more.. and I still get the occassional one now (after they've searched around for my new address) and this brings a smile to my face. So what's been happening since then? I got married to Su-Lyn (vocals on Call Me an Angel), I have a 17 month old daughter (Tallulah) and my wife is expecting a second baby in early Feb next year. I've also stopped using my PC except really for budgeting and netting. Ever since Su bought me a Playstation last Christmas, I've been hooked (especially Tony Hawk 1 and 2!!). Also I've redirected all my spare money into home theatre and DVDs. I'm still a software engineer at the same engineering firm since I graduated but the work environment there is really good. Coming home to my daughter smiling and wanting to play with me is better than receiving a whole ton of fan email :) Lately I was asked if I wanted to contribute to the Merregnon project. I couldn't refuse - especially since it was going to be orchestral based and the other big names involved in the project. I knew I hadn't tracked seriously for nearly 5 years - there were new trackers available, even on windows. I didn't have any samples, I still had my old Yamaha synth and my old Awe 32. I was out of it. But with some perseverance in MIDI, help from Fabian and some encouragement from my wife, I managed to do two orchestral tunes. Who knows, if it gets a good response I might start composing again!! --Jason Chong jchong@iinet.net.au http://www.iinet.net.au/~jchong/ --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- The Listener Music from Various Artist By: Tryhuk ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- -=- Lifetime -=- -=- -- El mobo & plug-in -=- This fine track won mp3 compo at this year's LTP. Because I think that previous LTPs had the best music releases out of all parties, I was really hot on this track. As you would expect, it is a guitar track. To be more exact, it's a track with electric guitars, bass guitars and some percussion. I heard some of his tracks that are available on his web site (www.elmobo.com), but I like this one best. It left me with an impression of a life jammed track, a track that doesn't sound too calculated and sounds good thanks to talented of musicians. It one moment it reminded me even on Pink Floyd. Song Information: Title: Lifetime Author: El mobo & plug-in Release date: aug. 2000 Length: 5m20s Filename: moby-lifetime.zip File Size: 6.09MB Source: ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/2000/ltp4/mp3/moby-lifetime.zip -=- High -=- -=- -- Astropolis -=- It is a winning song of asm00 mp3 compo, so I was curious how good it will be after the experience out of the previous ('99) multichannel compo. Although it is a pop song and builds on certified procedures, I wasn't disappointed. One has to admit that it is well done, with nice details. The author of the song didn't slip down to heavy powerful sound in the guitar parts, he rather let them play at a decent volume in the background, and this way he let the lead be heard with very good vocals. Other positive thing is that you can hear it many times and don't get completely bored. I also heard top ten multichannel entries and there was no entry that would I completely dislike, so try them also. Song Information: Title: High Author: Astropolis Release date: aug 2000 Length: 3m57s Filename: high_up_.zip File Size: 5.39MB Source: ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/2000/assembly00/mp3/high_up_.zip -=- Diskothequa luv -=- -=- -- krii -=- Nice comments from users voting on tokyo2051.org resulted in my download of this song. For those who don't know, you can now vote on the tokyo website for your favorite song and this way help to others to get the best releases. Style of the song is house, but it's rather that light style that vic does, not that heavy repetitive beat that you usually hear. Even being a house track, its drumline isn't simple at all, it is very evolved and particular sounds overlap well with other instruments (bassline, chords, leads) and form a very solid track. One might call it an energic summer disco song with no really special or significant moments, it rather builds an atmosphere, makes minor changes on it, like a wind on a calm water surface. But that doesn't mean that the song is boring, it's full of small details that keep the song living. Song Information: Title: Diskothequa luv Author: krii Release date: oct 2000 Length: 6m50s Filename: tokyo2051-krii-diskothequa_luv.mp3 File Size: 6.5MB Source: http://www.tokyo2051.org -=- One turn 5 remix -=- -=- -- Vic & Xhale -=- This song stole my heart immediately. It is a remix of an older miasmah release, which was originaly a minimalistic trip hop song. Vic woke it with a completely new technique with really great vocals and a bunch of instruments with interesting chord progression and well made tempo changes which give to the song a good swing. If you like vocal tunes it's must have, because I haven't heard vocals that good in a scene song for quite a long time. Song Information: Title: one turn 5 remix Author: Vic (original by xhale) Release date: aug. 2000 Length: 3m41s Filename: mia11_vic_oneturn5_remix.mp3 File Size: 3.56MB Source: http://www.miasmah.com ftp://scene.org/pub/music/groups/miasmah/mia11_vic_oneturn5_remix.mp3 --Tryhuk --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Retro Tunage Subsonica by various By: Tryhuk ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- Music disk "Subsonica" belongs among my favorites. It consists of 7 electronic tracks, but thanks to skills of all musicians, every track is original and recognizable. I think that just dropping the names here says a lot: Mellow-D, Skie, Hunz, gd, Stinger, Darkwolf, kxmode. As you see it's an elite company. I'll try to describe individual tracks (in no order): Geek - very "blur" track. It opens with mechanical sounds with strong echoes to evoke a feeling of empty space and into this a thin voice calls "mami". Songs starts to gather rhythmical elements and samples typical for experimental "blur" series. It fits very good with other tracks that MD made at the time and thanks to his "mami" it is a very recognizable and memorable song and one of my favorites here. Beyond ]|[ sigma - I have heard only a few tracks by skie, but this one is, IMHO, her best. Again, it is a distinct track, with melody made on non-melodic samples, excessive use of bass drum which can create a very good effect when you know how to use it (see lush by orbital), but it can also completely destroy the song. This fulfills the first case, IMHO. As a complete thing, it is rather an ambient song with some good points, but there's nothing you could really remember - a part of lead or chord transition. Surface Tension - In some points similar to songs of skie and stalker, but compared to "beyond ]|[ sigma" it is more lighter and melodic. It also has something from the music of 80ties, especially Jarre. Not everyone will like it, but I think that it is Darkwolf's best song (out of the stuff I heard of course) and it's worth checking. Sages - Most of Stinger's releases belong to house or ambient music, often mixing both genres in a new form. Similar way of crossing genres can be found also in music of stereoman and basehead, but all three produce very different result. Song "Sages" is specific by a repetitive bass line that plays on the place of bass drum and because rest of the percussion are brighter instruments, whole track sounds very light. Background sounds are in a style of dune (you can also find stinger's ambient releases under nick kaamos/soma) and piano works here on the place of lead. s.n.i.f.f. - This song brought me to music of gd and although I like also other his tracks, this one is still my favorite. It is again an electronic ambient experiment with melodic elements, light percussion and important bass line, similar to previous songs, but with its own sound, maybe more happy and playful. The Temple Gates - as you would expect in a case of song by Hunz, it is my favorite out of this musicdisk, though it's not his best. Whole song builds on an ethnical sound, which is evoked by a fast played guitar with bold cuts. Together with hunz's style of leads it makes an interesting creation. Simple, but works. The Syndicate - by kxmode isn't exception and its rough description would be same as in the case of previous tracks and so I won't try to produce here another crappy text and I leave your opinion on you. Just listen. As you see, whole disk contains tunes, that are worth downloading and thanks to a wide variety of good artists, I believe that you find here songs that you will also like. I like "Geek" by mellow-d the best. Song Information: Title: subsonica Author: various Release date: 09 dec 1996 Length: over 35 minutes Filename (zipped/unzipped): sub01.zip | many File Size (zipped/unzipped): 2MB | 4MB Source: ftp://us.hornet.org/pub/demos/music/disks/1996/sub01.zip --Tryhuk --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Screen Lit Vertigo Persistent by Wipe & Ukonx (final version) By: Seven ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- Found at www.scene.org 1st place at aRTS2K System requirements: 350 MHz, 64MB RAM, DirectX, 3.5 MB HD, Win9x (May have problems with NT). Test Machine: PII 350 64MB, SB16, TNT2 M64 32MB, Win98 The credits: Code: Belette, Dax, Deemphasis, Kor, Tsr Graphics: Dax, Gol, Unison, Kisscool Music: Dax, Unison The demo: As was stated in the info-file, I had to change the "512" to "640" in the overground.ini file before the demo would run. I was a bit disappointed at first, because the demo started rather boring: a transparent green ball rotates with a distorted perspective and flashes from time to time. Philosophical text fragments and sentences are shown stategically on top of this, in a white font and different letter sizes. How original (yawn). Luckily, more interesting effects are added on top of this in the next parts: weird tunnel variants, radial blur, horizontal shivering screens, waving water etc. These are most of the time combined with various semi-transparent pictures, of a Japanese girl with a dragon tattoo, gray design objects, a grinning graffiti-style face with a cigarette with fire effect. Also the texts have more varied subjects: slogans like "WIPE: enough said, let the coding begin" or "Destiny is not a matter of chance but a matter of choice", and a part of a food receipt is shown in the background :) The greets are in pure danish design, but otherwise it's hard to link the demo with a specific style The music is in mo3 format, which is a mod whose samples are MP3-compressed. It starts very ambient, with slow, echoing bells and ploinks, but adds more and more emphasis to the rhythm section. The echoing lead disappears in the second half of the tune, leaving just the percussion, but it still sounds quite relaxed. The info file explains (in French only) that all the samples are recorded at home. Respect for that, and also for the good synchronizing with the effects. Overall: The info file also mentions that this demo was made in only two weeks, and it was designed at the partyplace. The resulting style has a certain charm, but some people will dislike it. Personally I think the beginning could have been stronger, while other effects are too hard to notice. It took me some time before I saw the burning of the cigarette, or the rotating star-thing behind the Persistence logo. But the duration of the effects is short enough, the overall feeling is OK and the music ties everything together well. Worth checking out. --Seven --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Intro Watch Fuzzion By: Gekko ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- The intro corner is a bit special this month. The topic is not an intro but a group which has created a lot of intros lately. Our subject is Fuzzion. This group is from Spain; it is a merge of several smaller local groups (Savage, DSK, MCD). Besides making intros they have other releases, too, of course, and they are the organizers of the BCN party. Maybe nowadays they are the only Spanish demo group which is known abroad. There are a lot of members - 20 or so - so I won't list them all. The most active ones appear to be SML (music), BP (code), Ufix (code), Trace (gfx). Their homepage is www.fuzzion.org, all their releases can be downloaded from there. There is a group info-file attached to the releases, you can find all the little details there. First of all, what to download? My choice: DaCube 2 - 64k, Arroutada 7, 1999 http://fuzzion.planet-d.net/prods/svg_dcb2.zip DaCube 1.5 - 64k, Fallas 2000 ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/2000/fparty00/in64/dcb15.zip Style - 4k, Mekka 2000 ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/2000/mekkasymposium00/in4k/style.zip Primperan - 64k, Xuntas 2000 http://fuzzion.planet-d.net/prods/primp_pv.zip Once Again - demo (128k), Xuntas 2000 http://fuzzion.planet-d.net/prods/fzn_oa.zip BCN 2000 invitation - 64k, LTP4, 2000 http://fuzzion.planet-d.net/prods/bcn00invf.zip These are intros, so the downloads will only take a few seconds. They are for DOS, with the exception of BCN 2000 invitation (Windows). Fuzzion made four 4k intros so far. The first two are Pukamuka (what a name:) at Satellite 1999) and Style (Mekka 2000). Both are simple intros with raycasting and a little music. I like the latter because (you guessed it:) it has style. It is a flight in simple 3d scenes with fake-bugs (the screen and the music gets noisy). The other two are Despeich and Xperience (both were released at Euskal 8, 2000). These are not good, they resemble 1996 intros with their plasma effects and ugly computer generated palettes. The latter is a bit better because it has music and some design. There was one more 4k by them, Fuzzby. In fact it is a diskmag and it is a joke on Wilby (the 4k diskmag). From their 4k-s I would only recommend Style to be downloaded. The bigger intros are much better. In these they have the space to show their art. They have a special minimalist style which I like a lot. One kind of their intros are the wilder ones. I would put DaCube2, DaCube1.5 (64k-s) and the Style (4k) into this cathegory. In these there is a small story or poem and good minimalist effects. The music is usually a fast, loud and raging house music. The rest of their intros are different. They have a calm abstract mood. The music is usually an ambient tune. Primperan (64k, Xuntas 2000) is a very good intro. Its theme is medicine. Don't expect a story though and a lot of texts are in Spanish. The effects are so fine - little pills falling in a box, DNS, particles, and so on. This intro could have been a winner at a bigger demo party, too! Once Again (Xuntas 2000) was entered in the demo compo, but it is only 128 kilobytes. It is a gloomy little green dentro. It is playing with simple squares, pentagons, etc and a lot of good effects are made up of these. The BCN 2000 party invitation (LTP4) has reddish colors and a few transparent triangle effects. It's short and plain but it looks fine. By the way, the final version has a secret part, too. Just look into the EXE with Notepad to find out how to get it... These were the works of Fuzzion. These guys have style and original ideas, they are doing a good job. --Gekko --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Editorial Welcome the New Scene! and By: Coplan ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- A lot of people are probably going to dislike my views in this article. Please try not to be so critical of what I say. What I speak of is how I truly see the scene in the next few years. With every society (and the demoscene can be considered one), traditions change. I'm not suggesting that the methods of the demoscene need to change. Rather, I am suggesting that it might not be worth fighting the change. In the future of the scene, I see artists not only working with the traditional sample packs. I have seen a lot of percussion samples, and string samples that have been around forever. Today I saw a new song out that included a timpany sample that I swear is the one from "2nd Reality", and even then, I thought I heard that sample around somewhere. These old samples are starting to become a bit out-dated, and people are starting to realize this. People are taking quality much more to heart anymore. 8-bit samples don't seem to cut it anymore. With higher bandwidth and the ability to tranfer larger files, people are useing 16 bit samples at the highest resolution they can handle. I have friends in the scene that have been experimenting with alternative sources for samples. Rack mount midi-synth devices, piano-like keyboards with built in synthesizers, and the ability to download kurzweil samples for your own use are all indicitive of where the samples are heading. Some have sampled from these devices, and turned them into great mods. Other have composed in MIDI and released their MP3s. The point is that sound is much more important than method anymore. I have seen computer setups with what I like to call a "wall of computer and audio electronics". People are no longer useing cheap two-way pc speakers that plug into the back of your sound card. Some people, like myself, have hooked up their computers into external amplifiers which were meant for high quality home audio. It makes a huge difference with what you hear -- and in turn, what you write. Before I got a good stereo system hooked up to my computer, I personally used too much base. Base is good, but not if you can't hear the lead. Well, my music has evolved with this new audio spectrum, and I write much more balanced music. But the same is true for sample quality as well. People are able to pay much more attention to what comes out of their speakers. That timpany may have sounded good on your old two-way speakers, but it sounds crappy through amplified 3-way speakers and a powered subwoofer. Impulse Tracker was, and still is, a great tracking program. But it is very soon reaching it's peak. DOS is something that is starting to fade into the depths of MS-OS Hell. Windows ME still has a DOS Prompt, but the Windows Whistler (due out sometime late next year) doesn't look like it will support it. Whistler will be based on an NT kernel, and if anyone has tried to install IT on an NT machine, you know what i'm talking about. But the scene isn't about IT as a program anymore, just the format. There are plenty of windows based trackers out there: ModPlug Tracker, Buzz, and so on. Maybe one day, IT 3 might actually exist. Maybe some of these trackers will start to support higher end audio features, like 128-bit sampling, or MIDI input, or Dolby Digital Surround Sound. Is the scene going to go commercial? I don't think so. One of the things that keeps the scene alive is the fact that people can write their music without buying new programs all the time. Yes, trackers may start writing their music to be released on commercial CDs. Let's just hope that they will remember who helped them, and they might donate some of their profits to the writers of the freeware programs that they used. Perhaps these software writers should write a clause: If you sell any of your music generated useing this software, you must register and buy this software. I have seen some soft-synths that request that you send them a copy of your music or even a CD if you use their program to generate your samples. To me, this is logical. To the artist, this should seem just as logical. In basic economic theory, the coder might have every right in the world to charge you for his program if you release a commercial version of your song -- one that was generated useing his program. If all he asks for is a copy of your song, that doesn't set you back much, it's worth it. And any artist in this situation should recognize this, and make every effort to keep the software writers happy. Everyone in the scene has their own website it seems. I don't see that the concept of the music/demo group is dead. It just isn't nearly as tight as it used to be. After all, those who release their music through TiS, United Trackers or (soon enough) SceneSpot, they belong to a larger group. Sure, the group isn't about them, but the concept of a group in the first place was to get individule recognition. The reason that model worked was because people based their downloads on the group's reputation. One might say that TiS, UT or SS might prevent this, but it doesn't. If there is an internal rating system, one might find a reviewer that they like...and only download songs that the reviewer likes. The sites might even start to regulate the music that gets posted, requiring a given quality level. Then, we're right back to the group concept at a macro level. It could happen. What is in the future of the scene? One shouldn't worry so much. The world has a way of working things out and keeping enough people happy. The scene isn't a dictatorship, you can do what you wish while you're here. But the scene will evolve depending on what the majority of the people want to do. Maybe if you participate, you might find you don't dislike it nearly as much as you thought. --Coplan --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Scene Dirt News & Rumors By: Coplan ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- -=- Crytek Studios Looking for Programmers -=- Crytek has been putting up news all over the place that they are looking for programmers. They do a lot of work with commercial games, and it might be up your alley. http://www.ojuice.net/view_article.asp?id=1569 http://www.crytek.de/hp/jobs.htm -=- Imphobia Domain Questions -=- Some scene hater apparently registered the imphobia.com domain. Unfortunately for us, the imphobia.com domain is used to promote a porn site. THIS IS NOT DARKNESS' SITE. The website totes a few anti-scene prhases and such. Read the Orange Juice article for more information: http://www.ojuice.net/view_article.asp?id=1570 -=- Extended Mind Logo Competition -=- Starting today and ending November 20th, Extended Mind is having a logo competition. Maximum size is 640x480, 32bit color. Pictures should be sent to stonda85@hotmail.com. No prizes have been announced. --Coplan Scene Dirt is a semi-regular column offering the latest tidbits of information to its readers. If you have any bits of information that you think should be here, contact coplan (coplan.ic@rcn.com) and offer as much information as possible. --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Link List ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- Demo Groups: 3g Design..............................http://3gdesign.cjb.net Aardbei.....................................http://aardbei.com Acid Rain..............................http://surf.to/acidrain Agravedict........................http://www.agravedict.art.pl Anakata..............................http://www.anakata.art.pl ANDESA Soft International..................http://andesa.da.ru Astral..............................http://astral.scene-hu.com Astroidea........................http://astroidea.scene-hu.com AtomiK....................................http://atomik.ini.hu Bomb..................................http://bomb.planet-d.net BlaBla..............................http://blabla.planet-d.net Blasphemy..............................http://www.blasphemy.dk Byterapers.....................http://www.byterapers.scene.org Calodox.................................http://www.calodox.org Chrome..............................http://chrome.scene-hu.com CoPro.....................................http://www.copro.org Damage...................................http://come.to/damage Dance...................................http://dance.flipp.net Defacto 2..............................http://www.defacto2.net Dolops......................... ........http://dolOps.scene.hu Exceed...........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/~exceed Fobia Design...........................http://www.fd.scene.org <*> Fuzzion.................................http://www.fuzzion.org GODS...................................http://www.idf.net/gods Green.....................................http://green.dyns.cx Grif........................http://arrabonet.gyor.hu/~rattgrif Haujobb......................................http://haujobb.de Hellcore............................http://www.hellcore.art.pl IJSKAST.............................http://www.ijskast.cjb.net Immortals..............................http://imrt.home.ml.org Infuse...................................http://www.infuse.org Just For Fun...........................http://jff.planet-d.net Kilobite...............................http://kilobite.cjb.net Kolor................................http://www.kaoz.org/kolor Kooma.....................................http://www.kooma.com Label zero.........................http://labelzero.pganet.com Mandula.........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/~mandula Monar................ftp://amber.bti.pl/pub/scene/distro/monar Nextempire..................http://members.xoom.com/NEXTEMPIRE Ninja Gefilus.........http://www.angelfire.com/or/ninjagefilus Noice.....................................http://www.noice.org Orion..............................http://orion.arfstudios.org Popsy Team............................http://popsyteam.rtel.fr Quad........................................http://www.quad.nl Rage........................................http://www.rage.nu Replay.......................http://www.shine.scene.org/replay Retro A.C...........................http://www.retroac.cjb.net Rhyme................................http://rhyme.scene-hu.com Sista Vip..........................http://www.sistavip.exit.de Skytech team............................http://www.skytech.org Sunflower.......................http://sunflower.opengl.org.pl Suspend......................http://www.optimus.wroc.pl/rappid Tehdas...................................http://come.to/tehdas Tesko..........................http://www.scentral.demon.co.uk The Black Lotus.............................http://www.tbl.org The Digital Artists Wired Nation.http://digitalartists.cjb.net The Lost Souls...............................http://www.tls.no TPOLM.....................................http://www.tpolm.com Trauma.................................http://sauna.net/trauma T-Rex.....................................http://www.t-rex.org Unik.....................................http://www.unik.ca.tc Universe..........................http://universe.planet-d.net Vantage..................................http://www.vantage.ch Music Groups: Aisth.....................................http://www.aisth.com Aural planet........................http://www.auralplanet.com Azure...................................http://azure-music.com Blacktron Music Production...........http://www.d-zign.com/bmp 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 Fridge...........................http://www.ssmedion.de/fridge Fusion Music Crew................http://members.home.nl/cyrex/ Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff Ignorance.............................http://www.ignorance.org Immortal Coil.............................http://www.ic.L7.net Intense...........................http://intense.ignorance.org Jecoute.................................http://jecoute.cjb.net Kosmic Free Music Foundation.............http://www.kosmic.org 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.th-zwickau.de/~maz 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 Radical Rhythms.....http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/merrelli/rr RBi Music.............................htpp://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 UltraBeat.........................http://www.innerverse.com/ub Vibrants................................http://www.vibrants.dk Wiremaniacs.........................http://www.wiremaniacs.com Others: Arf!Studios..........................http://www.arfstudios.org Calodox demolinks exchange.....http://calodox.planet-d.net/cde #coders..................................http://coderz.cjb.net Comic Pirates.........................http://scene-central.com Demonews Express.........http://www.teeselink.demon.nl/express Demo fanclub........................http://jerware.org/fanclub Demoscene.org news forum..............http://www.demoscene.org Digital Undergrounds.....................http://dug.iscool.net Doose charts...............................http://www.doose.dk Dreams2 CD.........................http://nl.scene.org/dreams2 Freax...................http://freax.scene-hu.com/mainmenu.htm GfxZone............................http://gfxzone.planet-d.net Hugi size-compo...............http://home.pages.de/~hugi-compo Orange Juice.........................http://ojuice.citeweb.net PC-demos explained.....http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained Pixel...................................http://pixel.scene.org Scenet....................................http://www.scenet.de Sunray..............................http://sunray.planet-d.net Swiss List.................http://www.profzone.ch/vantage/list Swiss Scene Server.......................http://www.chscene.ch TakeOver................................http://www.takeover.nl Textmode Demo Archive.................http://tmda.planet-d.net Hungarian scene page...................http://www.scene-hu.com Trebel...................................http://www.trebel.org Zen of Tracking.........................http://surf.to/the-imm DiskMags / SceneMags: Amber...............................http://amber.bti.pl/di_mag Amnesia...............http://amnesia-dist.future.easyspace.com Demojournal....................http://demojournal.planet-d.net Dragon......................http://www.wasp.w3.pl/pages/dragon Fleur................................http://fleur.scene-hu.com Heroin...................................http://www.heroin.net Hugi........................http://home.pages.de/~hugidownload Music Massage......................http://www.scene.cz/massage Planet Chartmag...........http://www.agravedict.art.pl/planet/ Pain..................................http://pain.planet-d.net Scenial...........................http://www.scenial.scene.org Static Line......................http://www.ic.l7.net/statline http://www.scenespot.org/staticline Total Disaster...................http://www.totaldisaster.w.pl TUHB.......................................http://www.tuhb.org WildMag...........................http://www.wildmag.notrix.de FTPs: Amber.......................................ftp://amber.bti.pl Cyberbox.....................................ftp://cyberbox.de Flerp.....................................ftp://flerp.scene.hu Scene.org..................................ftp://ftp.scene.org Skynet archive.................ftp://acid2.stack.nl/pub/skynet ACiD2 Archive.............................ftp://acid2.stack.nl --=--=-- ----=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------ Editor: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org Columnists: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org Dilvish / Eric Hamilton / dilvie@yahoo.com Gekko / Gergely Kutenich / mont@tar.hu Louis Gorenfeld / gorenfeld@vrone.net Psitron / Tim Soderstrom / TigerHawk@stic.net Setec / Jesper Pederson / jesped@post.tele.dk Seven / Stefaan / Stefaan.VanNieuwenhuyze@rug.ac.be SiN / Ian Haskin / sin@netcom.ca Subliminal / Matt Friedly / sub@plazma.net Tryhuk / Tryhuk Vojtech / xtryhu00@stud.fee.vutbr.cz Virt / virt@bellsouth.net Technical Consult: Ranger Rick / Ben Reed / ranger@scenespot.org Static Line on the Web: http://www.scenespot.org/staticline 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---=------=--=------=--=--