scene.org File Archive

File download

<root>­/­mags­/­staticline/sl-025.txt

File size:
69 043 bytes (67.42K)
File date:
2004-01-27 23:03:07
Download count:
all-time: 3 008

Preview

_//\\________________________________________________________________________
_\\__T_A_T_I_C___L_I_N_E_____________________________________September, 2000
__\\_________________________________________________________________________
\\//__ Monthly Scene E-Zine ________________________________ 151 Subscribers
_____________________________________________________________________________


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Table Of Contents
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
     Opening:
           Message From the Editor
           Letters From Our Readers
     Features:
           Static Line Stepping Up -- A Synopsis of What's New
           I Am A Tracker -- First, Last, and Always
           LTP4 Party Report
           Setup of your party EQ
     Columns:
        Music:
           In Tune -- Zapper's "Whore" from Coma 2
           Retro Tunage -- "Without Trying" by Cybelius
        Demo:
           Screen Lit Vertigo -- "Just a Touch of Funk" by Digital Murder
           Intro Watch -- "Kirahvi" by Addiction and Unique
        General:
           Scene Dirt -- News & Rumors
           Editorial -- Static Line: My Sport
           Link List -- Get Somewhere in the Scene
           Closing: Credits

--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Message From the Editor
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

     Do we have a lot of new and intersting information for you this
  month?  First the behind-the-scenes stuff:

     If you havn't noticed already, we switched our listserv.  We are also
  in the process of moving our website as well.  But our old site is, for
  the time being, still funcitonal.  If you would like more information
  about everything, read the feature article: "Static Line Stepping Up --
  A Synopsis of What's New".

     We also have a few other feature articles this month that would be of
  some use to everyone.  Tryhuk has sent in an article about setting up
  your equilizer -- an often neglected peice of the audio equipment list.
  Then, Seven is at it again with another party report from LTP4.  We also
  have an article from guest writer, PsiTron, about what tracking means to
  him.  I'm sure many of you will share his views, and there will always
  be those who disagree.  It looks like debate fodder to me.  =)

     Well, it seems to be another successful month for us.  The holiday
  slowed me up a bit, but I got this issue out without too many snags.  I
  was sorta hoping that the Coma 2 (official) results would be in by now,
  but I fear that I can't wait any longer.

     Until next month!

             --Coplan


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Letters From Our Readers
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

  -=- Letter from PsiTron -=-
     I thought I would put my two cents in about the article Vincent
  Voois. Particularly the lower half of it. He mentioned about TiS and
  scene.org getting flame for doing things to keep the site going. Well, I
  have no problem with that, but I do believe that the commercialization
  of the scene is a *BAD* thing, and TiS seems to be very good at
  attempting to do that. I maintain that the scene is, or should be
  underground. I have no thoughts of making money off my songs, and while
  I do believe archives need to maintain themselves, there is a difference
  between clickable banners and selling music and the VIP stuff TiS seems
  to be doing.

     As I recall, hornet.org operated off given space by cdrom.com. And
  the reason they went down was not lack of funding but lacking time to
  keep up hornet.org. Anyways, I may just write an article sometime on the
  very subject, but I feel that I needed to interject in that manner.

     Ah, okay,

                --PsiTron (formally TigerHawk) of Nutropik
                        tigerhawk@stic.net


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Static Line Stepping Up
     A Synopsis of What's New
  By:  Coplan
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

     The observant have already noticed...

     Most noticed this issue...

     The last few issues have been mailed from a different e-mail address.
  Yes, I have a new e-mail address:  coplan@scenespot.org

     This issue is the first issue that was not only mailed from my
  scenespot address, but the first that was mailed THROUGH our new
  listserv.  I guess you could say that a lot has changed, and there is a
  lot more to come.

     As I am not a believer of hype, I will not tell you what is to come.
  I will only tell you what exists.

     SceneSpot is a domain on the web: http://www.scenespot.org

     It is a domain that Ranger Rick and I  have set up for a project
  somewhat connected to Static Line.  The goal of SceneSpot is not unlike
  that of the late Hornet Archive --  albeit, a bit modernized.

     Static Line is now mailed from OUR listserv.  For the general reader,
  this doesn't make much difference.  Your issue will be delivered every
  month as normal.  But if you are going to subscribe or unsubscribe,
  you'll see that the web interface for our listserv makes things much
  easier to handle.  All you need to do is visit the Static Line list
  information page:  http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/static_line
  and log in.  Accounts are based on your recieving e-mail.  If you forget
  your password (or if you're a long time subscriber, and don't have one),
  worry not.  You can have a password generated and mailed to you without
  any hassle.  Then you can log in and change your settings or
  unsubscribe, even pause recipt for a few months.

     Static Line will be logged in the listserv archives in addition to
  our web site.  On the website (http://www.scenespot.org/staticline)
  Static Line is parsed into a database that allows you to do keyword
  searches for a specific article.  This makes browsing back issues a lot
  easier.  The old site will remain intact and fully functional, as we
  have not yet implemented a supliment system for songs and demos related
  to each issue.

     As far as SceneSpot goes, what you see now is functional.  You're
  welcome to play around and offer suggestions.  I won't discuss any
  features specifically, as SceneSpot has a long way until we officially
  open up to the public.  As Static Line readers, you are the first to see
  what we are working on.  At this point, we offer no support for
  SceneSpot, but we are taking feedback, bug reports and suggestions.  As
  you return every so often, you will see some changes in the system.  New
  features may be added, bugs will be fixed, and functionality will
  increase.  The databases are stable -- so feel free to make an account
  and change your preferences as you wish.  Use "Tune Tracker" and the
  "Group Database."  But most of all, tell us what you think.  It will
  help us to develop to your needs.

  Here are all the important addresses:
     SceneSpot:    http://www.scenespot.org
     Static Line:  http://www.scenespot.org/staticline (new)
                   http://www.ic.L7.net/statline (old)
     Static Line Subscriptions:
                   http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/static_line

                --Coplan


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  I Am A Tracker - First, Last, and Always
  By:  PsiTron
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

     I am a tracker, first, last, and always. I am not a musician with the
  idea in mind that I will end up owning a mansion or driving a Porsche.
  I am a scener who loves to make music and make it free. I am not going
  to corrupt the scene by making someone pay for my album or release
  `preview' songs to people with the same idea in mind. I will not, nor
  will ever succumb to greed, for my life is not run by money, or fame,
  but by the realization that life can be as shallow or as vivid as you
  want it to be. I feel sorry for you if all you want from the scene is
  that mansion or Porshe. If you want to become famous, more power to
  you. Good luck in your endeavor. But that is not what the scene stands
  for and that idea and action hurts the scene. If the sole purpose for
  you being a scener is to make money, then you are helping to destroy a
  medium that has always been and always should be free. Furthermore you
  know little of what it means to be a scener.

     I am a tracker, and thus I release tracks. Impulse Tracker is my
  current one, though I am awaiting a new one to tinker with. A tracker,
  too, not a sequencer. Perhaps in DOS, or even Linux. And in my dreams,
  even DemOS (perhaps one day a dream that will become a reality). I am
  not an MP3er, but I don't scorn mp3's. I do scorn the fact that those
  who use mp3's to promote themselves to fame primarily helped the
  commercialization of the scene by trying to dig-up what should remain
  underground. Like drugs, mp3's are not bad, it is the people that use
  them as a tool for themselves and their longing for fame. I track, and
  release those tracks with the idea in mind that what I am doing is a
  specialized art form - a free art form. Sure, I could mp3 songs if I
  wanted to, and use megabytes worth of riffs, but I track for the fun of
  tracking 4-channel chips as well as pieces that, hopefully, captivate
  the emotions of both myself and those listening to my songs. I track
  because it uses less CPU power for the demos my group intends on
  writing, and for blowing my mind and, with luck, the minds of others by
  making this lead or that lead sound so amazing with all the effects I
  have meticulously placed in the song. And when I think of mp3's, I then
  think of what musicians like The Captain did with a mere 4-channels. Or
  what Second Reality (yes, I had to go there) did on my 386DX/40 with
  4MB of RAM. I track because I enjoy it and because I want to distribute
  my songs to others freely, and in it's native form.

     I am a scener. Not of the mp3 scene, but of the demo scene. And
  while, as Coplan said last issue, mp3z are here to stay, and in their
  own right can be respected and admired, I respect much more the tracker
  that can produce the same quality of music without the need of a 12MB
  module or 4MB mp3. And I respect even more the tracker that is in the
  scene for the scene. I hope I represent the scene, if not as it is, as
  it once was and hopefully what it will again be. The scene that once was
  a medium for artists to  share their free music with others and to push
  the limits of computing and the mind by combining music and code into
  something nothing less than amazing. The scene that was underground and
  unknown to most of the world, except those that were willing to peer
  into it and it's strange collection of code and mods.

     Lastly, I am a writer, writing this article in hopes that I will make
  a difference, both in those that might disagree with me, and those who
  believe in the same things. For those that disagree, how small you have
  become. But for those that agree with me, remember now that you are not
  alone..and that we are the scene, let us not be afraid to express it.
  And let us be loud in doing it. For many have said that: "The scene is
  what you make of it"

     What I have just tried to tell you, in hopefully somewhat of an
  eloquent way is that I do not like how the scene is progressing. Some
  say the scene is dying. I rather believe that the scene is trying to
  commercialize, and rather than sit idly by in watch it, I hope to turn a
  few heads with this. I hope to make you think, if you are one that is
  using the scene as a platform for greed. The scene was not founded on
  the principle of money, and has lived quite healthy without wealth.
  Using the scene for such can only cause the infrastructure to crumble
  and fall under the weight carried by the money bags some wish to hold in
  their hands. Take note, however, a simplistic saying that has shaped the
  way in which I think: "What comes around, goes around."

     Anyways, something to think about.

                --PsiTron (formally TigerHawk) of Nutropik
                        tigerhawk@stic.net

--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  LTP4 Party Report
  By:  Seven
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

     I have the impression that LTP 4 is the party that has been hyped the
  most in  the past year. Not in the sense that the organizers themselves
  had started a  heavy spam campaign: it was a more subtle, disorganized
  influence. Whenever  sceners complained after going to big parties,
  about gamers, leechers, or  orgos going commercial, other people praised
  LTP as a real non-gamer party with  a good scenish atmosphere, with
  thoughtful organizers etc. Apparently everyone  who had visited LTP3
  wanted to go there again, and a lot of other folks (like  me) decided to
  attend LTP4 too.

     The only problem was that the partyplace had only enough room for 400
  sceners,  and somewhere during spring, Yes announced on csipd that
  already 700 people  had submitted a reservation on Orange Juice. Oops. I
  wasn't one of those :(  Guess I should have acted sooner. Well, there
  are other parties, right? So I  put LTP4 out of my thoughts, but I still
  felt a bit cheated. Couldn't the  orgos just rent a bigger hall? Later I
  learned that you had to send money via  snail mail to confirm your
  reservation, which I'm reluctant to do too.

     But 10 days before the party, Yes posted another message that only
  the French people had to send money as a confirmation, and there were
  still 90 places  left for foreigners without reservations. Hmm... would
  I? The party would start at 10 o'clock Friday, and Baxter/Green (whose
  red car is my primary means of transport to demoparties) had planned to
  arrive at 22 hour. So most of the places would already been taken.
  After a few mails to Chandra, one of the orgos, I was assured that
  foreigners would not be denied access to the partyhall. So I could go
  to LTP4 after all, yippee!

     There wouldn't be a 4K-intro compo at LTP, but I would not have been
  able to make something decent anyway: having left the university, I
  started to work in the week before LTP. With a lot of other things on
  my mind, I had very little time left for scene-related stuff.


  -=- Friday 25 August -=-

     Baxter picked me up at home around 17.30 , and I was promoted to
  navigator. He must not have trusted my map-reading skill very much,
  because aside from the 3 maps from France, there were also copies from
  Germany, Yugoslavia, Ostrich etc :) Of course we didn't need those,
  although I admit that we've seen a bit more from the Parisian suburbs
  than we've wanted to see. But hey, you're only lost when you *admit*
  that you're lost. When we arrived at the village Crosne, Baxter found
  out that he didn't took the exact address with him. So we had to drive
  randomly through Crosne, looking for freaky characters carrying their
  hardware inside a big glass-and-wood pyramid. And voila: exactly at 22
  o'clock, we found the partyplace! How's that for careful planning?

     Having parked the car in an, hmm, "creative" way, we went to the
  entrance. We quickly noted one of the few real problems at LTP: the
  average French scener doesn't speak English very fluently, and we don't
  speak French very fluently (an understatement, yes). The girl at the
  entrance found Baxter's name easily on the reservation list, but when I
  had explained that I hadn't reserved and wanted to pay now, she looked
  at me suspiciously. With my best Frenglish, I told about Chandras
  email, and after having spoken in a walkie-talkie, she said it was OK.
  Phew!

     We went inside the main hall to look for some other Belgian sceners,
  who had left Belgium at noon, and had promised to hold places for us.
  Taking the first few steps into the LTP 4 hall was like crashing into a
  wall of hot air. It was really, really warm inside. At every table
  three or more fans were blowing hot air, and people walked around in
  their shorts. The second thing we noticed was the silence: you could
  easily hear sounds from the other half of the partyplace. If you're
  used to the Dutch parties with their deafening background-mix of
  hundred of tunes, this is a shocking observation.

     The partyplace was a large square hall, without windows and with red
  curtains over all walls. A big podium with a very large bigscreen on it
  was at one end of the hall, and the beamer and the organizers room was
  located at the opposite side on a large balcony. In-between, some 400
  sceners had installed their stuff on the tables. Scanning the rows, we
  found no trace of the other Belgians, and moreover, there were no
  unreserved places left :( Luckily there was a tiny bit of empty room at
  the left of the hall, so we set up some tables there with  permission
  from the orgos. While we installed our junk on it, some guys did a  live
  performance on the music of YMCA/the village people. Dressed up in weird
  costumes (I suppose like the original band), they danced on the podium
  while the bigscreen showed a self-made demo/slideshow of the Village
  people, synced to the music. Weird, but very funny.

     At that time, CyberPhest/Inscene, A0a/Green and Djefke arrived from
  Belgium. They hadn't left at noon, as we thought, but much later -- a
  minor communication error. I was glad they didn't had engine-trouble or
  an accident. Now the bigscreen was showing a karaoke-program with songs
  from old French TV-series for kids. The nostalgic crowd sang along with
  enthusiasm :)


  -=- Saturday 26 August -=-

     Some good demos have been shown at the bigscreen: Shad 2, Heaven 7,
  VIP2, Real Reality,... Something really crazy is Icandoit/Sylex, a VIP2
  clone written in  Qbasic! It's low-res, looks ugly, and needs winamp to
  play the music, but the idea is just great. I'm having hardware
  troubles at the moment: my CDrom refused to read my Win98 CD, which I
  need to install my network driver. At the same time, the terrible heat
  is aggravating the conflict between my TNT2 and my Ali chipset, which
  causes my PC to crash after a few minutes. I give up trying to fix
  it, and boot back to dos. At least I can write some notes for this
  party report on that crappy machine.

     I ask Baxter whether Green is making a demo for LTP4, but they
  haven't planned anything. Green is a pretty big group according to the
  memberlist, but a lot of the members have started to work and are
  inactive now. They've a lot of tools and engines, but not enough active
  members. I've the opposite problem: I want to move from 4K intros to
  64K intros, but I don't have hardware-3D code and a scripting system
  etc. So we decide to work together and make a for-fun demo. There are
  problems though: much to my surprise, you can't just plug in a 2D
  effect in a 3D engine. It has to use polygons, preferably with
  non-changing textures. Also, we've no graphics or tunes, but we'll try
  to fix something anyway. The deadline is 8 am at Sunday, so we've more
  than 24 hours left. I can use A0a's PC, since he's outside to escape
  death by overheating.

     Baxter's idea for the name of the demos is "Make some noise!" When
  there's nothing on the bigscreen, it's really very quiet here, and the
  silence gets on his nerves :) I'm trying to change a crystallize effect
  in such a way that  it uses polys (If you don't know that effect, look
  at Dake/Caladox article in Pain 00/00). From time to time I walk around
  to relax a bit, and it's true: I can't see any gamer here. Lot's of
  pixelers, 3D-artists, some coders here and there... outside, people sit
  together to talk and have a drink. A really nice atmosphere.

     It's now 5.36 in the morning, and the others are asleep. I'm still
  coding, and keeping an eye on the hardware. LTP is a great party with a
  nice feeling, but it's better not to be too careless.

     When A0a returned to the hall, it was my turn to get some sleep. Due
  the heat, most people are sleeping outside. There's a large lawn around
  the partyhall, and it's scattered with sleeping bags, beer and
  softdrink cans, and one or two small tents. There's a plane flying
  over, and suddenly the whole scene looks to me as if in some freaky
  accident, a plane dropped all his sleeping passengers on the lawn, but
  they didn't notice it and just slept on :) Well, time to join them.

     It's 9.50 and I'm awake again, thanks to the hard ground. The
  bigscreen is showing some more old demos, I think Amiga ones. The
  organizers are selling croissants at a table next to the podium. From
  time to time they announce things, but almost always in French only,
  and before Baxter can turn down his speakers, most of the message is
  over. So we just have to hope it wasn't something important :/

     Around the noon, my 3D fractal code finally works. Time to pause and
  cool down a bit outside. On the lawn before the small tent, PS is
  sitting with the Haujobb guys. Other groups have made T-shirts or
  banners before, but Haujobb is the first group with its own
  scene-balloons. It has a white printed logo on it, a circle with the
  name Haujobb, and a blocky human figure in it with a "suspicious third
  leg".

     Back inside, the bigscreen is showing some of these funny adverts
  that you can find on the partynetwork. A bit later, a representative
  from a game/3D company gives a demonstration about the next generation
  games. Superb visuals, I've to admit, but they've of course a way
  larger budget than us poor sceners. So, no reason to feel inferior,
  folks.

     Djefke and some unknown guy are trying to copy something from Djefkes
  PC, but his diskdrive is defective. It turns out that the guy is
  Melwyn/Haujobb, looking for a copy of DeluxePaint II to make graphics
  for an oldskool demo. DPII is one of the few graphic tools on my HD,
  although I never use it, so with the good old DOS + norton commander we
  can help him. Then I decide to try to add colors to my fractals, and
  A0a and I spend about an hour debugging because I forgot to put
  brackets around an if-statement. Doh!

     Because we're running low on food and beverage, A0a and I set out on
  a mission to find a shop or a pizzeria. But Crosne isn't exactly a big
  city, and half the shops are closed due to the holidays. In our best
  French, we ask two old ladies who are waiting for the bus where we can
  buy food. From the sounds they make, we can deduce that the baker is
  open tomorrow :/ Not exactly useful. Pointing in the direction of the
  partyplace, they ask if "we are with those young people", and what we
  do there. "Des competitions avec l'ordinateur", we answer, and they
  seem to understand, as if they are regular demoparty-goers themselves.

     We decide to wait for the evening and then go fetch some food by car.
  In the meantime, the competitions have started. There are separate
  compos for chiptunes, 4-channel mods, multichannel mods, and MP3s, with
  a total of 52 music-entries. I can't really judge the quality, because
  1) I've little musical  knowledge, and 2) I didn't pay attention to all
  songs, 52 is too much for me. In the handdrawn graphics compo, the
  picture was first shown for a few seconds,  and the operator of the
  compo-PC started to zoom into details, so people can make up their own
  mind about whether it was pure handdrawn or not. While the zooming made
  little difference to me, I think it's a very useful thing for
  graphicians, and it would be nice when other parties imitate this. The
  quality seemed quite high to me, and also the raytracing compo
  contained some very nice entries.

  (Warning: It seems I've been damn lazy again and the notes I made
  weren't all written in chronological order, so it's possible I'm
  confusing which compos happened before and which after the power
  breakdown. We apologize for the inconvenience)

     Beside the cans of softdrinks, the orgos now sell also cheap bottles
  of water. We like that, yesyes. Wandering around, I talked a bit with
  PS who informed me that the Haujobb demo (which I had heard a lot of
  positive things about) might not be finished before the deadline. A
  prophetical remark, it turned out later. I also met Valdor and Zyk from
  Paradise Studios, another Belgian group which was at Inscene too. These
  friendly guys come from the French-speaking part of Belgium, but
  luckily Zyk can speak Dutch fluently. When I tell them about the
  troubles we have with combining 2D and 3D effects in OpenGL, Zyk thinks
  he knows a way to do that reasonably fast. Since I know zilch about
  OpenGL, I've to drag Baxter from behind his PC to listen to the
  technical details. Soon they're trying to code it, discussing about the
  AGP-bandwidth and how Popsy Team could have added TV-snow to VIP2.

     Last year there was a power failure, and the organizers have decided
  to make that a tradition. So at the evening, everyone had to go outside
  for one hour. First we wanted to buy some pizzas, but they were too
  small and too expensive, so we hopped in Cyberphests car and drove to
  the nearest Macdonald (junkfood, we know). The parking was clearly
  designed to inhibit anyone to park there and we had to wait in the queue
  waaayyy too long, but at least the temperature  was bearable :)

     When we were back inside the partyplace, something strange happened:
  suddenly a lot of people ran to the outside. Being curious, we followed
  them, but no one seems to know what has happened. Weird. Baxter and I
  swap our CDroms so I can fix my PC, and after a while I've a working
  net-connection and a screen that works in 640*480*16color. While Real
  Reality and other wild demos are slowly filling every kilobyte of my HD,
  I go ask Zyk & Valdor if they know what happened before. It seems that
  during the power break, two or three local lamers had broken into the
  backdoor of the hall, and had stolen Knos' laptop and a bag with
  personal stuff from the girl at the entrance. Later they had walked by
  outside the fence around the lawn, and had shown the bag just to boast.
  Someone had warned the organizers, and when those ran outside, other
  sceners just followed. The thieves had of course ran away when they saw
  maybe a hundred sceners coming their way. Well, I hope they get caught
  eventually, and may they suffer from an itching back and too short arms.


  -=- Sunday 27 August -=-

     Since I can't use ACDsee or a movieplayer in 16 colors, and cause I'm
  not interested in warez, I'm just downloading random things with
  filenames that seems to be scene-related. Djefke insist that I should
  visit his FTP server and upload things. OK, we aim to please. Djefke has
  the typical Linux-kind of humor, his background is a monumental 'C' with
  in green letters below it: "God's programming language" :)

     I'm feeling tired again and the compo-schedule has a gap of several
  hours, so I head to the entrance with my sleeping bag and my pillow. The
  sky is a bit too cloudy to my taste, I'll stay inside the pyramid-formed
  entrance. I put my wallet underneath my pillow because it's
  uncomfortable when it's in my pocket, and five minutes later I drifted
  to dreamland.

     Again I woke up after a few hours, my biorhythm must have lost track
  about what time it is. When I stumble to my PC, I see on the LTP-website
  that the schedule is delayed, so I put my pillow on my keyboard and fall
  asleep again. Zzzz.. huh... what time is it? Ai! Neck hurts. Better turn
  my head in a more comfortable position ... Zzzz again...

     Outside it has started to rain, and it took Baxter 5 minutes before
  he was  awake enough to realize what was happening and had carried his
  air mattress inside. By that time the Amiga compo had started, with only
  a few entries. I can't really say how good they were, I don't know much
  about the power of that machine :/ There was one oldskool PC demo, from
  Haujobb. It looked like an old fantasy adventure game, with the heroes
  Melwyn, Solarc and Inferno trying to rescue their friends from an evil
  witch. BTW, Karhu is some kind of Finnish beer if you want to understand
  the texts.

     The 64K compo had only 5 entries, the Haujobb one (Funkkin) was
  clearly the best. Style, rhythm, nice effects... 3State's Antimoney was
  quite different from their earlier stuff, pure black & white effects,
  but with their usual attitude.

     Suddenly I noticed that my wallet wasn't in my pocket. Eek! Must have
  forgotten it when I woke up! I raced to the entrance were I had slept,
  asked the security guy if someone had found a wallet. No. Panic! Cursing
  myself for my stupidity, I went to the balcony to ask the orgos if they
  had found something... And yes, someone had brought it to them! Even my
  money was still in it. A big thank-you from the bottom of my heart to
  the honest person who found it.

     Now someone from Haujobb is singing a song that I can't understand,
  but it must be funny cause the audience is laughing. Later some guys
  with guitars and drums start a long rock/rap set. "Moby, Djam, Skal,
  Traven and Willbe" is the answer I get after asking my neighbors who's
  in the band. Wow, a demo celebrity jam session :)

     And finally, it's time for the democompo. In total, about 20 demos
  were  presented. That's one and a half hour of totally new demos on a
  large bigscreen with a loud soundsystem: This Is Heaven. Granted, some
  of the were low-quality or boring, but some real gems were released. My
  favorites (in order of appearance) were:

  * ChildBone/Naa: A demo with a motioncaptured-driven skeleton, a bit
    strange at the beginning but with some funny ideas. At the end, some
    figures made of lights dance to a nice beat, and the audience started
    to clap their hands, people jumped on the podium to dance along and
    the orgos switched the hall lights synchronized to the music.

  * Faded/Oror: A demo with a Message, always a dangerous thing, but this
    one is quite good. It's long and with a lot of variation, has nice
    effects, and if you take in account that this is a first demo, it's
    quite an accomplishment.

  * Just a touch of funk: Digital murder: Whohoho! Remember the drummer at
    the end of Jumpy? It seems Digital Murder improved their motion system
    to new heights. Lip-synchronizing to the vocals! Breakdancing people!
    Insane haircuts! Ugly wallpaper from the sixties! Groovy outdated
    trousers! Karaoke! And just a little bit of funk! At the end, the
    whole audience was stamping their feet, and you could feel the whole
    hall vibrate.

  * The mutant pouletz project2 / Mutant Inc: A 90 % picture demo, no 3D,
    no code. Theme: attack of the mutant chickens! Nice, nice, nice.

  * Purple/Orion: Some good 3D, but no complex moving objects. Halfway,
    when the camera moves through a forest with purple crystals, A0a and
    I had a strange deja-vu feeling and we tried to pin down where it
    came from. It was from the handdrawn graphics compo, there was a
    picture presented with purple crystals, and it showed up in the demo
    a bit later.

  * Downtown/retro AC: A short demo with solid design, with a lot of
    photos and  a feeling that reminds me of their previous demo, Could be
    you.

     After the compo, someone from Haujobb climbed on the podium to tell
  the audience that they didn't managed to finish their demo (sounds of
  disappointment from the sceners), but they thanked the organizers for
  the great party. After that we downloaded all the entries, voted, and
  swapped email addresses with the Paradise crew. Outside I met PS again
  and he introduced me to Picard/Exceed, the coder of the great Mesha 4K
  and co-coder of Heaven 7 and Spot. We couldn't talk very long because
  in the hall, Melting Pot was doing a live impression of the Swan Lake
  ballet (I suppose they did the YMCA thing too). I missed the start, but
  the rest was funny: weird dancing guys, wearing only those skimpy
  ballet skirts, were shot down by a hunter, with thunder crashing
  through the soundsystem. The bigscreen said "For all your evenings  or
  codings, call the animation team of Melting Pot" :)

     Yes and Chandra did the ending ceremony, and when Yes thanked all the
  people that had helped during the event, he had to pause several times
  because he was in tears. He also said that this was the last time he
  would organize LTP, next year Chandra would take over. In fact, Chandra
  had already done most of the things this year. So, next year LTP would
  still have the same feeling it has now. At the moment, Knos was at the
  police station to lodge a complaint about the theft of his laptop, but
  who wished to do so could donate money to buy him a new laptop. Several
  of the compo-winners actually donated their prizemoney for this good
  cause. Respect out to them! I don't remember all winners, Digital Murder
  won of course the democompo with Just a touch of funk, but for the other
  results you should check scene.org or ojuice.net. Then the  big
  madeleine-fight started: the orgos had a big case with madeleines, a
  kind of small cakes, which they threw at the audience, and the sceners
  threw them back. Pure chaos it was :) The distribution of the free
  goodies from the sponsors (CDs, pencils, cards and such stuff) was a bit
  less chaotic, but still a danger for life and limbs. Then Yes wished
  everyone a safe journey back, who wanted to sleep could still do this
  because the hall was still available for the night. And so LTP 4 ended.


  -=- Conclusion -=-

     Except for the hardware troubles, LTP4 was one of the best parties
  I've ever visited. There were problems with compos, entries that didn't
  work, but they were often re-played at the end of the compo. The
  bigscreen was in use way more often that at other parties, showing lots
  of scene-productions, and the whole atmosphere was really friendly.
  Still there are two things I'd like to see changed next year: better
  announcements, in English for example, and a larger room with better
  ventilation and a lower temperature. Thanks to the orgos and everyone I
  met, hope to see you all at Bizarre'2K.

                --Seven

--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Setup of your party EQ
  By:  Tryhuk
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

    So I finally visited my first demoparty. It was fiasko2k and I have
  to say that I quite enjoyed it. But there were of course also some
  things that I didn't like and one of them was inability of organizers to
  setup the equalizer. In the result all tunes sounded more horrible than
  they actually were (although they were all really bad), especially in
  the mid frequencies where is usually the most important "music
  information" and vocals. So I decided to write a small "tutorial" how to
  setup your equalizer.

    I won't care here about removing reverb and echoes, that is a
  different and more complicated thing, we will just take a look how to
  make at least a minimum adaptation of sound to the room. I expect that
  you've got a computer with a soundcard, an equalizer and some program
  that displays power in the bands (simple FFT analysis should be enough)
  and one high quality microphone - that means with flat characteristics
  in the audible range (if you don't have any of this kind, you'll have to
  make additional change to the final equalizer setting that should
  compensate characteristics of the microphone). If you've got it all, we
  can begin. To adaptation of equalizer to the room we use a "white noise"
  or a "pink noise". Let's take a look on the meaning of these two words
  into acoustics faq:

  "What is white noise, pink noise?

    The power spectral density of white noise is independent of frequency.
  Since there is essentially the same energy between any two identical
  frequency intervals (for example 84-86Hz and 543-545Hz), white noise
  narrow band FFT analysis will show as flat. However octave band analysis
  will show the level to rise by 3dB per octave because each band has
  twice the frequency range of the preceding octave. Pink noise is often
  produced by filtering white noise and has the same power within each
  octave. Narrow band analysis will show a fall in level with increasing
  frequency, but third-octave band or octave band analysis will be flat."

    Easy isn't it? The more clever readers will start to understand where
  I'm going. What you have to do is to generate a white or pink noise,
  choice of the noise type depends on the spectral analyzer you have. If
  the bands are octave based - that means every next frequency is the
  double of the previous - use a pink noise, else use a white. Every good
  sound editor can generate both types of noise, for example CoolEdit.

    Now, when you got the noise, play it into the room and record it back
  using the microphone. You can notice that the result is dependant on the
  microphone position, but we can't do much with that. So, you record the
  noise back and you can see in the spectral analyzer that the room works
  as a band-stop for some range of frequencies. Its parameters depend on
  the material of which are the walls made. There isn't too much you could
  do about it, but if you want to fur the walls with a better material,
  feel free to do so. We will skip this step and look on the result of
  analysis, set up the equalizer to see a flat spectral analysis and
  that's it! You got it! Now you can enhance bass and high frequencies a
  bit, but not too much or you get into place where you started. Don't
  forget that lot of people have enhanced bass already in the track, so
  you would enhance it twice and that isn't what you want. This is also a
  reason why are the parties won by dance tracks so often - they don't
  build up on the critical mid frequencies that much. Music should sound
  how the composer wrote it, so I prefer a flat equalizer.

    I hope you understood what I said and I hope that organizers of the
  smaller parties learn at least this quite simple but effective
  technique.

                --Tryhuk


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  In Tune
    Zapper's "Whore" from Coma 2
  By:  Coplan
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

  Third at Coma 2

  -=- Introduction -=-
     I was holding out for the first place tune from Coma 2 -- but it
  hasn't been uploaded to the FTP site yet.  Anyhow, after discussing the
  rankings with many of the participants, I discovered that the first
  place song wasn't well liked.

     Instead, Phoenix talked me into reviewing the 3rd place entry.  I'm
  glad he did, because it's quite an impressive little tune.

     The song does contain some very minor language.

  -=- Coplan -=-
     First let me start out by pointing out the obvious.  This song has
  vocals.  Let me also point out that this is an IT.  I make a big deal of
  this because one of the biggest excuses for useing the MP3 format is the
  ability to use vocals without keeping the file size small.  It can be
  done efficiently in a module, and this is the perfect example.

     The song is about 2,976 KB (I rounded it up to 3 MB for the fact
  sheet).  It is also about 3 minutes and 15 seconds long.  An MP3 version
  of this song would actually be larger than the module format -- though
  only by a  little bit.  I'm glad that the IT version has been made
  available.

     Anyhow, I can't review a song like this without first attacking the
  samples.  I would like to play with the vocal samples a bit first.
  There are 21, and they are all recorded clean.  That is, there are no
  echos or any other effects.  In most cases, this is the best way to
  handle voice samples, especially in a module.  If you are concerned
  about file size, you can make your voice samples a bit lesser quality
  (8-bit) and maybe drop the resolution.  Since you will track the echos
  and effects, the quality will be shadowed out by the introduced effects
  and echos.  If you depend on your sample for the echo and effects, then
  you're going to need a high quality sample -- and a much larger one at
  that.  So, 9 times out of 10, you want a clean voice sample so that you
  can take advantage of this little file size saving trick.  Just because
  the internet is faster, that doesn't mean your songs should be larger.
  You still have listeners on 56k modems, and they might not want to
  download your 5MB track.

     There is another quick note about the voice samples.  Notice how some
  of them look like they have huge chunks out of the center of them, or
  that they fade out suddenly, then cut back in.  This is evidence that
  Zapper did a lot of editing with his samples.  The reality is that you
  may need to do this to get your vocals to line up properly, or get get
  rid of the parts that just don't sound right.  Zapper put a lot of work
  into his vocal samples.  I'm glad to see it.

     There are some other very good samples in this song as well.  My
  favorites are the guitars and the drums.  One of my favorite things to
  see is a sample matched with the music style.  The snare is perfect for
  the type of grungy/metal rock song that we have here.  There are a lot
  of guitar samples, and this is necessary.  With any style of music, you
  get a more realistic sound if you have several samples of the same
  instrument being played differently.  This is very important with
  guitars and brass samples.  Zapper knows this.  Zapper did this with
  his percussion and his guitars.

     Since the voice samples were in need of some echos, lets check out
  how Zapper handles such things.  I'm going to focus on pattern 22, so
  that we are on the same page.  In Pattern 22, check out channels 20-23.
  These four channels are the root of the vocal echos.  There are some
  things to consider when working with echos, and this is a perfect
  example.  First to consider is the speed/tempo at which your module is
  playing.  Next is to consider is the echo itself.  Do you want a vast
  echo (as if recorded in a valley) or a shallow echo (as if recorded in a
  bathroom).  Most people choose an echo somewhere in between.  Zapper
  apparently does something a little more complicated.  The way the echos
  work in this song, it would seem as though the performer were in an
  concert hall with a complete shell wall behind and above him.  Because
  of the speed of the song, Zapper starts the source vocal, and the first
  reverb on the same line.  But look closely!  He delays the source by 2
  beats, and the reverb by 3.  The result is a very subtle reverb -- the
  echo bouncing off the floor.  In channel 22, you have a longer delay.
  Imagine this as the delay bouncing off the ceiling and the walls behind
  and to either side of the performer.  It is slightly quieter because it
  would have a longer distance to travel before it would hit the
  microphone (Zapper cut its volume by a third).  In channel 23, you get
  the second true echo, the one that might bounce off the back of the
  theatre, again softer, and a longer delay.  Depending on the song,
  you'll want to place each of these elements in a different place
  relative to each other.  In this case, I would personally shorten the
  distance of the last echo by two lines.  That would then be more
  characteristic of an concert hall, a likely place for this style of
  music to be played.  The current echo seems like it would take place in
  an outdoor arena.

     Among other things, I am pretty pleased with the guitar work in this
  song.  I have always been a fan of the heavier styles of guitar based
  music, but I havn't been able to duplicate the feel of the guitar in a
  tracked tune.  One of the biggest reasons for the difficulty is finding
  a complete guitar sample set that compliments the other instruments in
  the song.  The other is trying to get the grungy guitar riffs to melt
  into each other.  There are some tricks of the trade to do this, but
  I've never seen anything done this smoothly.  I attribute most of
  Zapper's success to his samples.  I wish I could understand guitars
  better so that I could maybe explain this better, but I don't, so I
  can't.

     Meanwhile, since I don't get to listen to lyrics much in tracked
  tunage,  I'm glad to hear them.  I'm also happy to comment on them =).
  Seriously, though, the vocals were given a lot of attention.  Not only
  is the sample work for the vocals tight, but the lyrics themselves are
  quite appropriate.  It's not the typical repeating vocals that you often
  see in tracked music (which is usually an electronic style anyhow), but
  this is a metal tune, and it has grungy vocals.  It's not a happy song,
  but an angry song.  And the vocals sound angry, even if you were to read
  the lyrics from a page.  It also helps that Zapper has a very good voice
  for his lyrics.

     All in all, the tune is worth a download.  I hope that you all will
  at  least give it a try.  I'm hoping that the Coma 2 entries will all
  appear  soon, because I'd like to see what took first and second over
  this song.  I can't begin to imagine those tunes.  Until next time...

                --Coplan

  Song Information:
     Title:  Whore
     Author:  Zapper
     Filename (zipped/unzipped):  whore.zip / whore.it (IT 2.14)
     File Size (zipped/unzipped):  2.8 MB / 3.0 MB
     Source:  ftp://ftp.scene.org/incoming/COMA00/mmul/whore.zip
        Alternate:  http://www.ic.l7.net/statline/current.htm

     "In Tune" is a regular column dedicated to the review of original and
  singular works by fellow trackers.  It is to be used as a tool to expand
  your listening and writing horizons, but should not be used as a general
  rating system.  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!


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Retro Tunage
    "Without Trying" by Cybelius
  By:  Tryhuk
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

     This month, it was really tough for me to choose a track for a
  review. It isn't that there are a small variety of good tracks, it is
  more because most of them didn't fit to my mood or the whole summer's
  habit. But I found one finally.

     The song "Without Trying" appeared on the album "FRUSTRATION", which
  is rather oriented toward hardcore and punk. But it also contains some
  lighter tracks. Like other tracks on this musicdisk, "Without
  Trying" is characterized by bold guitar parts, which are
  supported by precious bass and a percussion which sounds, in
  some places, simple, but fits into the track. The track has some very
  good samples, at least good at the time it came out. But most distinct
  and important is the excellent work with the mood of the track: A great
  musical idea and a really exquisite lead which is played on a violin.
  It can't be described -- it has to be heard.

    Even for being rather old tune, it is still an enjoyable piece, thanks
  to natural talent of the author. If you like instrumental songs with
  nice ideas, I think it's worth a listen. When I remember the fiasko2k
  music compo I heard this month, uh, I say that this song is superb.

  Song Information:
    Title:  Without trying
    Author:  Cybelius
    Release date:  11.8.1996 ?
    Length:  3m37s (3m34s trimmed)
    Filename (zipped/unzipped):  ???.zip (whole mdisk) / without.s3m
    File Size (zipped/unzipped):  ???kb (whole mdisk) / 1031kb
    Source:  http://www.hornet.org

                --Tryhuk


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Screen Lit Vertigo
    "Just a Touch of Funk" by Digital Murder (party version)
  By:  Seven
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

  Found at the LTP4 party network
  1st place at the LTP4 democompo.

  System requirements:
     Nothing mentioned. How come I'm not surprised anymore?
     Win9x, DirectX, 11 MB HD.

  Test Machine: PII 350 64MB, SB16, TNT2 M64 32MB, Win98

  The credits:
     Hulud, Alias & Lakick
     (detailed credits are shown at the end of the demo, but scroll away
     too fast)

  The demo:
     At LTP4, at the start of this demo, the message "This demo doesn't
  use a 3D card" was shown. Baxter found this a pity, because it's a pure
  3D demo, and  exactly those demos benefit the most from that underrated
  piece of hardware.  Well, don't be afraid, GeForce freaks and Voodoo
  people, you can select at the startup whether you want hardware
  acceleration or not. BUT...the first  time you run it, it wants to use
  software only.

     OK, what is it about? Its a kind of retro-designed pure 3D videoclip,
  with an  heavy overdose of funkiness. A man is dancing through the
  streets, he's wearing  a caddish white costume and has a kind of "1
  massive block" hairstyle. He meets  two negros in brown costumes, and
  another one in a white sport outfit, and they  all follow him to a large
  hall where they start to breakdance, together with  two female backstage
  singers.

     This may seem very simple, but if you think it's boring, then you
  weren't at  LTP4 :) To start, the animations are very very good, it
  looks almost motion-  captured. Also the movements of the mouths is
  perfectly synced to the vocals.  If you've just seen about ten demos
  where only the camera and some particles  moved, this really grabs your
  attention. OK, the dancers move a little bit  through the floor
  sometimes and I recommend you not to try to mimic the breakdancing on a
  planet with gravity, but this doesn't kill one percent of  the feeling
  of the demo.

     Then there is the 3D. It's not of a very high quality, the models
  don't have that much polys, and the textures aren't high-detailed, but
  everything fits  in the retro-theme. Rooms with green flowered
  wallpaper, an ugly sofa, a model  car from the sixties, the weird chairs
  at the end, the cloths... Everything pulls you back to the times of
  funk.

     And last but not least, there are some good ideas: a karaoke-part
  with a white dot bouncing over the text, interlaced TV-snow filters,
  and a part where the heads, the shoulders and the hair of the different
  people are swapped randomly.  None of these are hard to code, but it
  adds more variation to the demo.

     Except for the textures, there aren't much pictures. A logo at the
  start in a retro font, and some little flowers to make a framework,
  that's it.

     The music is credited as "ShakeIt performed by L.A Connection". Yep,
  it's another commercial song, remember VIP2/Popsy Team (Although now
  credit is given in the party version). I don't have the time anymore to
  check comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos regularly, but I wonder how the reactions
  on this were.  Needless to say, it's a very funky song, and it adds a
  lot of feeling to the  demo.

  Overall:
     Back home, Just a touch of funk doesn't look as good as it was on the
  bigscreen, but it's still nice. The software rendering code is
  impressive, the modeling is among the best I've seen a scene
  production, but I don't know what to think about the music. I wonder if
  they had permission to use it :/ Anyway, it's a good demo, so download
  it, step in your time machine and let the funkiness be with you.

                --Seven


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Intro Watch
     "Kirahvi" by Addiction and Unique
  By:  Gekko
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

  9th at Assembly 2000 64k intro competition

  download: ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/2000
  requirements: Windows, DirectX

     There were to be many parties - including major ones - this month. I
  previously decided to write about one single new intro that would really
  impress me. While I was amazed by several demos, unfortunately I haven't
  found a very impresive intro.

     "Kirahvi" is - oldschool. Though it is nothing too amazing or
  original, it has style. A slow chip music is the base of its abstract
  mood. In the background there are a few fine logos and graphics. Effects
  are running in front of them: particles, raytraced spheres, a distorted
  tunnel. There are text scrollers all the time, this is a must in
  oldschool... Apart from the last tunnel, which does not fit in the
  picture, the whole intro is consistent in design. The colors are fine
  and the effects fit the music. The best thing in Kirahvi is that it is
  arranged well. This makes the intro worth to be watched several times.

                --Gekko

--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Scene Dirt
    News & Rumors
  By:  Coplan
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

  -=- Static Line Gets a New Home -=-
     For those of you who didn't read the feature "Static Line Stepping
  Up", Static Line has earned a new home on the web.  There is still some
  moving to do, but all the old issues are searchable/viewable at the
  following address.  Subscription information can also be obtained there.

     http://www.scenespot.org/staticline


  -=- Orange Juice has Wallpapers -=-
     All you OJuice fans out there can now show your spirits for the scene
  news network by having an official Orange Juice Wallpaper.

     http://www.ojuice.net/wallapers.html


  -=- Boozembly Report Posted -=-
     Thanks to Psychic Symphony and his crazy ideas, a Boozembly writing
  report has been set up.  Actually, it is more like an index of drunken
  handwriting.

     http://demojournal.planet-d.net/boozembly/


  -=- The Party 2000 Announced -=-
     The website won't be up until Sunday, but from the looks of things,
  this looks to be a promising Denmark based demoparty.

     http://www.theparty.dk/


                --Coplan

  Scene Dirt is a semi-regular column offering the latest tidbits of
  information to its readers.  If you have any bits of information that
  you think should be here, contact coplan (coplan.ic@rcn.com) and offer
  as much information as possible.


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Editorial
    Static Line: My Sport
  By: Coplan
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

     This is not a rant.

     It's been two years that I've been publishing this magazine.  There
  have been twenty-four (24) issues in all, and several hundred articles.
  There are even more articles that were never published.  I spend, on
  average, about 5 or 6 hours compiling, proof reading and presenting each
  issue.  I probably spend almost that much in correspondance.  That
  doesn't count the hours of work that my staff contributes to each issue.

     And many of you read it within an hour.

     Again, this is not a rant.

     With each issue, I begin my routine with one simple thought:  "I need
  to get the next issue of Static Line completed."  I don't say "I want,"
  and it wouldn't seem that I get excited about compiling each issue.  My
  girlfriend questions my motive.  From her point of view, she sees the
  work that I pour into this magazine -- and the time I take away from
  her.  Thank god she is understanding, because I do it again every month.

     And I WILL do it again every month.

     Like many of you, I do things other than contribute to the demoscene.
  In particular, I spend a lot of time swimming.  I train almost
  year-round for a small handful of competitions every year.  I'm not
  nearly as gung-ho as I was in high school or college, but I still enjoy
  it very much.  But I don't enjoy the training.  Oh no, training is
  boreing.  But I swim my 4 miles twice a day, every day, all year round.
  I do it because I like competition.  I like doing well in competition
  the most.  So, I guess that means I have to train.

     So what does that have to do with Static Line?  Simple, it is an
  analogy.  I love Static Line.  I love reading the final product, I love
  getting all these articles for the magazine.  I love the final product
  and I love conversing with our readers.  But I can't get there if I
  don't "train," or do all the dirty work associated.  So, I deal, and I
  get to do all the fun stuff later.

     What this means to you is that I will always strive to make Static
  Line a better, stronger resource for you.  Everyone has to contribute
  somehow, consider this my contribution.  All you have to do is continue
  reading.

                --Coplan


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Link List
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

  Demo Groups:

      3g Design..............................http://3gdesign.cjb.net
      Aardbei.....................................http://aardbei.com
      Acid Rain..............................http://surf.to/acidrain
      Agravedict........................http://www.agravedict.art.pl
      Anakata..............................http://www.anakata.art.pl
      ANDESA Soft International..................http://andesa.da.ru
      Astral..............................http://astral.scene-hu.com
      Astroidea........................http://astroidea.scene-hu.com
      AtomiK....................................http://atomik.ini.hu
      Bomb..................................http://bomb.planet-d.net
      BlaBla..............................http://blabla.planet-d.net
      Blasphemy..............................http://www.blasphemy.dk
      Byterapers.....................http://www.byterapers.scene.org
      Calodox.................................http://www.calodox.org
      Chrome..............................http://chrome.scene-hu.com
      CoPro.....................................http://www.copro.org
      Damage...................................http://come.to/damage
      Dance...................................http://dance.flipp.net
      Defacto 2..............................http://www.defacto2.net
      Dolops......................... ........http://dolOps.scene.hu
      Exceed...........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/~exceed
      Fobia Design...........................http://www.fd.scene.org
      GODS...................................http://www.idf.net/gods
      Green.....................................http://green.dyns.cx
      Grif........................http://arrabonet.gyor.hu/~rattgrif
      Haujobb......................................http://haujobb.de
      Hellcore............................http://www.hellcore.art.pl
      IJSKAST.............................http://www.ijskast.cjb.net
      Immortals..............................http://imrt.home.ml.org
      Infuse...................................http://www.infuse.org
      Just For Fun...........................http://jff.planet-d.net
      Kilobite...............................http://kilobite.cjb.net
      Kolor................................http://www.kaoz.org/kolor
      Kooma.....................................http://www.kooma.com
      Label zero.........................http://labelzero.pganet.com
      Mandula.........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/~mandula
      Monar................ftp://amber.bti.pl/pub/scene/distro/monar
      Nextempire..................http://members.xoom.com/NEXTEMPIRE
      Ninja Gefilus.........http://www.angelfire.com/or/ninjagefilus
      Noice.....................................http://www.noice.org
      Orion..............................http://orion.arfstudios.org
      Popsy Team............................http://popsyteam.rtel.fr
      Quad........................................http://www.quad.nl
      Rage........................................http://www.rage.nu
      Replay.......................http://www.shine.scene.org/replay
      Retro A.C...........................http://www.retroac.cjb.net
      Rhyme................................http://rhyme.scene-hu.com
      Sista Vip..........................http://www.sistavip.exit.de
      Skytech team............................http://www.skytech.org
      Sunflower.......................http://sunflower.opengl.org.pl
      Suspend......................http://www.optimus.wroc.pl/rappid
      Tehdas...................................http://come.to/tehdas
      Tesko..........................http://www.scentral.demon.co.uk
      The Black Lotus.............................http://www.tbl.org
      The Digital Artists Wired Nation.http://digitalartists.cjb.net
      The Lost Souls...............................http://www.tls.no
      TPOLM.....................................http://www.tpolm.com
      Trauma.................................http://sauna.net/trauma
      T-Rex.....................................http://www.t-rex.org
      Unik.....................................http://www.unik.ca.tc
      Universe..........................http://universe.planet-d.net
      Vantage..................................http://www.vantage.ch

  Music Groups:

      Aisth.....................................http://www.aisth.com
      Aural planet........................http://www.auralplanet.com
      Azure...................................http://azure-music.com
      Blacktron Music Production...........http://www.d-zign.com/bmp
      Chill..........................http://www.bentdesign.com/chill
      Chippendales......................http://www.sunpoint.net/~cnd
      Chiptune...............................http://www.chiptune.com
      Da Jormas................................http://www.jormas.com
      Fabtrax......http://www.cyberverse.com/~boris/fabtrax/home.htm
      Five Musicians.........................http://www.fm.scene.org
      Fridge...........................http://www.ssmedion.de/fridge
      Fusion Music Crew................http://members.home.nl/cyrex/
      Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff
      Ignorance.............................http://www.ignorance.org
      Immortal Coil.............................http://www.ic.L7.net
      Intense...........................http://intense.ignorance.org
      Jecoute.................................http://jecoute.cjb.net
      Kosmic Free Music Foundation.............http://www.kosmic.org
      Level-d.................................http://www.level-d.com
      Miasmah.............................http://www.miasmah.cjb.net
      Milk.......................................http://milk.sgic.fi
      Mah Music.............................http://come.to/mah.music
      Maniacs of noise...............http://home.worldonline.nl/~mon
      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
  <U> Static Line......................http://www.ic.l7.net/statline
                                 http://www.scenespot.org/staticline
      Total Disaster...................http://www.totaldisaster.w.pl
      TUHB.......................................http://www.tuhb.org
      WildMag...........................http://www.wildmag.notrix.de

  FTPs:

      Amber.......................................ftp://amber.bti.pl
      Cyberbox.....................................ftp://cyberbox.de
      Flerp.....................................ftp://flerp.scene.hu
      Scene.org..................................ftp://ftp.scene.org
      Skynet archive.................ftp://acid2.stack.nl/pub/skynet
      ACiD2 Archive.............................ftp://acid2.stack.nl

--=--=--
----=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------
  Editor:            Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
  Assistant Editor:  Gekko / Gergely Kutenich / gk@scene.hu
  Columnists:        Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
                      Dilvish / Eric Hamilton / dilvie@yahoo.com
                      Gekko / Gergely Kutenich / gk@scene.hu
                      Louis Gorenfeld / gorenfeld@vrone.net
                      Setec / Jesper Pederson / jesped@post.tele.dk
                      Seven / Stefaan / Stefaan.VanNieuwenhuyze@rug.ac.be
                      SiN / Ian Haskin / sin@netcom.ca
                      Subliminal / Matt Friedly / sub@plazma.net
                      Tryhuk / Tryhuk Vojtech / xtryhu00@stud.fee.vutbr.cz
                      Virt / virt@bellsouth.net
  Technical Consult: Ranger Rick / Ben Reed / ranger@scenespot.org

  Static Line on the Web:  http://www.scenespot.org/staticline
                           http://www.ic.l7.net/statline

  Static Line Subscription Management:
     http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/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---=------=--=------=--=--