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cRu|________\ | | Issue #45
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June, 2003 || / \ \__/ / / /___// |
341 Subscribers World Wide | /___/ \ / / __/_ / |
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Table Of Contents
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Opening:
Message From the Editor
Letters From Our Readers
Features:
A Time for Change -- Farewell to the Editor Chair
Party Report -- Breakpoint '03
How to Kill Your Compo in 10 Weeks
Reviews:
Music:
On The Sideline -- "My Sky" by Jimmy Redfern and Astradyne
The Lineup -- Monthly Music Listings
Demo:
Screen Lit Vertigo -- "FR-025: The Popular Demo" and "Relais"
Opinion / Commentary:
Coplan's Eyes -- Inspiration From a Different View
Link List: Get Somewhere in the Scene
Closing: Staff and Contact Information
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Message From the Editor
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Welcome to issue #45 of Static Line!
This issue marks the beginning of a new era for the magazine. Let me
introduce myself - I'm Ciaran Hamilton, and I'll be editing this magazine
along with Ben Collver, starting from this issue.
Static Line has been running for almost five years now under Coplan's
editorship, and that's a long time for a magazine such as this one to keep
going. The magazine has always strived to carry interesting and meaningful
articles, and that won't be changing. Coplan isn't gone entirely either -
he'll still be writing some articles (including In Tune), as well as a
regular article called "Coplan's Eyes", which you can read near the end of
this issue. Be sure to check out his feature article this month, too.
Also in this issue, we've got a Breakpoint '03 party report from Seven, a
feature on how *not* to run a music compo from Novus, and a review of "My
Sky" from Ben. The Lineup and two demo reviews from Seven also make their
regular appearance this month.
A few important things to note: for the moment, new submissions for the
magazine should be emailed to static_line-owner@scenespot.org instead of
the usual address. This should only be a temporary change, so don't delete
the old address from your address books just yet. :)
Also, please note the new URL for the magazine archives -
ftp://staticline.scenespot.org/issues/ . If you prefer using HTTP to
download your issues, you can now do so at
http://staticline.scenespot.org/issues/ . The old location will still work
as a mirror, but the above address is now the 'official' location.
Enjoy the issue, and we'll see you next month!
--Ciaran and Ben
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Letters From Our Readers
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-=- A Message from Eino Keskitalo -=-
A fine issue (44), special thanks to PsiTron for his insight on ReNoise,
as I am one of those people who still need to find a friendly tracking
enviroment on a modern machine. Unfortunately, Sk@le crashed right after
starting up on my machine. ReNoise I definitely have to give a try.
Intresting proposals about centralizing the scene in Web. In my rather
non-authoritave opinion, you'll need a few activists, a good working
concept and everyone to participate - else you'll end up creating just
another portal. But you've probably thought all this before, so I'll just
say that personally, I right now don't have the time to follow the scene
very thoroughly. With the Internet, the scene seems to be happening
globally rather than locally, which would be easier to follow and
participate (or be motivated to participate).
--Eino
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A Time for Change
Farewell to the Editor Chair
By: Coplan
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It's a dark and dreary day when you come to the realization that you no
longer have the time, or the patience to do something that always brought
you joy. Even more appropriate is the fact that it's been raining over my
house for 22 of the 31 days this past month. But the Sun came out
sometime in the last week, and life didn't seem so dreary.
It's a fact, I haven't had the time or the patience to continue my editing
of Static Line. But two guys came along that helped me realize that
Static Line will carry on...and I feared that this would not be the case.
Thanks to Ben and Ciaran, Static Line will carry out without my seat at
the Editor's Desk.
Many of you already know where Static Line came from. It was formed out
of the ashes of TraxWeekly, a magazine that I contributed to for a couple
of months before it folded. Static Line was my next project. Ironically,
it only started because I wanted some place to review music. I never
thought that Static Line would've been around for 45 issues. I never
thought it would've lived 5 years. And now that it has, I almost felt
like I couldn't give it up.
But people's lives change.
Back in 1998, when Static Line was born, I was doing no more than
contributing a few hours of studying a day for my college career. I
didn't have a serious girlfriend, and I sure as hell didn't have any
money to do much else. Today, I'm 26, getting ready to sit for my
licensure as a Registered Landscape Architect (belive me, this is a lot
harder that it would seem), I have a fiancee, and I'm saving for a house.
I work 50+ hours per week in my prestigiuos career as a designer for a
Civil Engineering firm, and I still like to write music when I can. I'm
afraid there isn't much room for editing Static Line.
So a few days ago, I thought the magazine was going to be doomed.
Something I was not real happy about. Then comes along Ben and Ciaran,
each of their own accord, to offer their torch-carrying abilities. Not
only were each of them willing, but between them, they have done a lot to
change the future of Static Line. They both have a lot of energy and
passion. And a lot of great ideas. Worry not, Static Line will still
always be the same great magazine that I have been building for over five
years now. But two fresh new minds might wake it up a bit and make it
that much better. The magazine is in great hands.
In addition, I will still be writing editiorials for the magazine, and
when I can I'll be continuing my music reviews as well. But writing an
article is far less time consuming than pulling together a magazine of
this caliber. And that is why you might want to join me in welcoming (and
thanking) your two new editors.
To many more years:
--Coplan
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Party Report
Breakpoint '03
By: Seven
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I really liked Mekka/Symposium the previous two times I attended, so I was
very happy to hear that it wouldn't really stop after all, but instead be
replaced with Breakpoint. The location was moved to the south (Bingen
instead of Fallingbostel, still in Germany), but they kept the date and
duration(Easter weekend, friday till monday). The remaining M/S organisers
were reinforced with orgos from Underground Conference and Evoke, and they
had promised they would try hard to keep the scenish atmosphere.
Another reason for me to look forward to Breakpoint was the Scene.org
Awards ceremony. The idea to celebrate the best demos of the past year
with a kind of demoscene Oscars has been floating around for quite some
time (I remember Abyss/Future Crew talking about it in an old diskmag),
but this year the Scene.org guys actually put their shoulders to the wheel
to make it a reality. I felt very honored when Melwyn asked me to be part
of the jury, so I gladly accepted. The actual voting had been done some
time ago, but the results weren't told to anyone yet, not even to the jury
members. So I was quite anxious to be there, to meet the nominees and the
other sceners in the jury.
I had already taken the Friday before and Tuesday after Breakpoint off
from work, when a family member died. Some things are more important than
the demoscene, so I didn't leave for Breakpoint until Saturday noon, after
the funeral. Thanks to Hilde & Nico who drove me to the station, as I
still don't have a car.
-=- Saturday 19 April -=-
The trip to Germany took several hours longer then expected, because I
first got confused about what my endstation was, and then at Bingen I
couldn't get the doors of the wagon to open, forcing me to go back from
Mainz to Bingen via a slow local train. Luckily I could still catch the
last shuttle bus to the party place, with only 7 minutes leeway on a
7-hour journey. At the station, the organiser Gizmo had told me there were
about 1000 visitors so far, there wasn't a single delay in the schedule,
and Variform/Kewlers had won no less than 3 Scene.org Awards!
It took the small bus 20 minutes to drive to the top of a nearby hill,
where the abandoned army base was located in which Breakpoint took place.
I talked a bit with Storm/ex-Kolor, and some guys from
Surprise!Productions. XXX/Haujobb welcomed us at the entrance, and a
moment later I ran into Melwyn who confirmed my suspicion that I had
missed both the Awards ceremony and the afterparty for the winners,
nominees and jury members :( Determined not to miss anything else, I
dropped my luggage at one of the few remaining empty places and headed to
the bigscreen.
22:04:
The C64 compo has just started. The first one was an invitation demo for
Coop 2003, and was of lower quality then the remaining 3 entries. The
cooperation between Metalvotze and another C64 group is nice, but the
bluescreen-like effect that's repeated after every part gets boring fast
(and the noise hurts my ears). I think Love or the Beertime 3 demo will
get the first place.
Looking around in search for familiar faces, I first noticed Avoozel &
Warp, two nice Dutch sceners I've met at WOEST last year. A bit later and
much to my surpise, I ran into Phoenix/Hornet, who once again had made the
trip from the USA to Europe for the sake of demo-partying. I was even more
amazed when he introduced his two friends as Dan Wright and Jeremy
Williams! In case you don't remember, Dan aka Pallbearer/Toxic Zombies
started the famous Hornet archive and the DemoNews newsletter, and now
sells CDs from demoscene musicians via Fusecon. Jeremy was the founder of
the Demoscene fanclub, and both guys are now part of the Mindcandy DVD
crew. In fact, they had a survey about the second Mindcandy volume with
them (If you want to have your voice heard, go to www.demodvd.org and tell
them which Amiga demos you'd like to see!) The Hornet archive CD was in no
small part responsible for getting me hooked on demos, and I've read all
the old Demonews issues, so meeting Dan was a bit like meeting a celebrity
(I'm afraid I was just rambling incoherently to him. Sorry Dan :)) It's
always a bit weird to meet sceners you know but have never met before, you
usually have some vague idea of how they should look, which usually turns
out wrong, f.e. I always imagined Dan had black hair.
Unlock is the next scener I recognize, and he has the new Pain T-shirts
with him! I also met Sir Garbagetruck, who was dressed a bit more
demoscene-ish. I had previously only known him as a nick on the Nectarine
radio. But since I skipped lunch today, I have to cut the conversation in
search for food. Outside the partyplace one of the two food stalls is
still open, and while I order some fries, I notice the guy standing next
to me holding a Scene.org award statue! He's Nytrik/Cocoon, and the award
is for the best graphics in 2002. Raw Confessions has actually been in the
works for two years, which accounts for the differences in style and
details of the scenes. It's too bad they're not releasing anything at
Breakpoint, but Guile has become a father, and thus has less time now.
Skyrunner is also ordering some food, and as usual he has submitted an
entry in the tracked compo. Confusion ensues when I ask whether it was
preselected, he says it wasn't, but it *was* played. It turns out not all
tunes that passed the preselection were played on the soundsystem, so you
have three states: not preselected, preselected song(which you can still
get from the main FTP and vote for), and played songs.
23:27:
The next compo is over: 28 great freestyle graphics were shown. After so
many entries, it's hard to even remember the first picture (I think it was
something with a killer easter rabbit). There was a lot of variation in
styles, and also in the tools used to make them. This info was shown
before each entry, and after a first look on the finished result, the
orgos showed the different stages of the creation, that each graphician
had to provide. Finally the complete image was shown again, and the orgos
zoomed in on details. This is IMHO a much better way to run a graphics
compo, than simple showing each image for 30 seconds.
-=- Sunday 20 April -=-
The wild compo is next, and has all kind of entries: a stop-motion lego
story about zombies, a modern rendered version of the famous C64 demo
Desert Dreams/Kefrens, a real-life version of a C64 demo (think Real
Reality/Never, but more oldskool), a videoclip about "sceners in the sun"
(to the tune of "Seasons in the sun", but with their own lyrics), several
normal rendered animations, of which the one from The Silents was probably
the best, a PalmPilot entry without sound, and of course a bunch of
joke/low quality entries, with several about the war in Iraq.
2:11:
I just went to the campfire, had some long conversations with Unlock, Newt
and Kusma. One topic was how friendly everyone is at a demoparty, and how
very little (if anything) gets stolen, give the amount of portable
hardware there is. My cynical side thinks this is at least partly because
the average visitor can afford both a computer and the trip + entrance fee
etc, so he's not really poor.
Unfortunately a campfire can only warm 50% of your body at the same time
(if we exclude cremation), and it was getting rather cold, so I went back
inside to defreeze my back. Just as at Mekka/Symposium, the surprise
coding compo is not about size-optimizing, but about making a demo with
specific topics (This year: heating tubes, overcrowded shuttle busses, MS
is dead and more). That's more then a solo-coder can do, so I decided not
to spend my time on it. Instead I got the network running on my laptop,
and checked the schedule. After trying to make some overview shots of the
partyhall with my new camera, I decided to call it a day and unrolled my
sleeping bag.
7:30:
Back awake, but it's now really cold. I know PS is somewhere at the
partyplace, but I haven't seen him yet. An educated guess leads me to the
campfire, and indeed: there he is. We talk a bit about the awards (he was
a jury member too), while some really drunk guy who can hardly sit
upright, amuses everyone by singing along with his cd-player (something
like "tarara boem tara, my beautiful communist").
No much is happening, so I'll use the occasion to describe the partyplace.
The main hall is a big army hangar, it's more narrow then the
Mekka/Symposium hall but a bit longer. There's a podium with a bigscreen
on the far end, the screen is rather small compared to MS. The soundwalls
on both sides of the screen are almost the same size. The 10 meters in
front of the stage are filled with chairs, so you can watch the compos
comfortably, but as there is only a single corridor between the tables,
there's a jam after each compo when everyone wants to go outside or back
to their place. Warm air is blown inside via large plastic tubes. The
entrance of the hall is connected to a large green tent, which contains
the info desk, the beamer team and the rest of the orgos-only space. The
remaining 2/3 of the tent is filled with the (very small) second stage,
and some tables and benches so people can eat there while enjoying the
various DJ-acts. Outside the tent are two food wagons, selling pizzas,
french fries, sandwiches etc, the usual party food. A second hall,
parrallel to the main hall, is used as sleeping hall, it's also heated.
The toilets are in two seperate toilet-wagons. In front of the tent is a
meadow, and at the far end of it is the fireplace, quite close to the
bushes in fact. I hope we won't start too many forest fires :)
9:19:
Steeler and his co-presentator XXX, who has a big black moustache for the
occasion, are giving away leftover prizes. Yeah, Breakpoint is so well
organised they have too many prizes for the main compos, so they invent
things like "best sleeping performance on stage", "best cyber security",
and "first person who can bring 4 beers to the stage" :) The prizes
weren't very seriously either, old C64 game roms and such. In the end they
just threw what was left in the audience, I got hold of a genuine 650MB
CD-R. Woohoo!
9:35:
Bad news: So far, the orgos have not received a single Amiga 64K intro.
That's really a disappointment, especially after the amazing Planet Potion
intro last year at MS'02. The deadline is extended an hour, but I doubt
this is going to change a lot...
10:29:
And indeed, due to the lack of entries the Amiga 64K compo is cancelled :(
11:35:
Besides the usual announcements like "Name/Group, please come to the
infodesk, your entry doesn't work!", the orgos have also asked if anybody
had insulin with them. Sounds like a diabetic got sick, I hope they find
some. On a brighter note, the bigscreen is showing the weather forecast:
22 degrees, sunny with few clouds. People cheer and applaud, as the
weather was rather gloomy yesterday.
The PC 64K compo has been delayed until the shuttle bus arrives. The bus
drives around during the whole duration of the party, between the
partyplace, several hotels and the station, so those who prefer to sleep
in a cozy bed can do so. During the compo it became obvious that the 12
entries had been sorted by the orgos, from bad to good. The second-to-last
entry was Candytron from Farbrausch, which aims squarely at the "my
instinct votes for boobies"-crowd with one very well animated 3D model (a
bit anorectic, though). It has only a few effects, but they look good and
the soundtrack with synthetic vocals is incredible for a 64K. The last
entry was Project Genesis from the new Hungarian group Conspiracy, which
last almost 10 minutes, has several soundtracks, and a variety of effects
and 3D scenes, but the design isn't very coherent. They're pretty well
matched, I'm curious which one will win!
The console demo compo has been delayed for an unspecified time, and all
the competitors have been called to the info desk. I heard there's some
problem with the video system :/
15:28:
Sorry for the long gap, but the weather is splendid and most people are
outside, sitting in the sun and having a good time. The green stickers
from Madwizards can be seen everywhere, with the slogan "The real party is
outside!", and I have to agree. My 5 liters of Jupiler (Belgian beer) are
long gone, and I'm meeting new people left and right. Since I don't
remember faces easily, especially after several months (between
demoparties), I'm taking pictures of everyone who dares to cross my path.
The SID music compo is in progress, but I'm only back inside to flush my
cameras flash card to the laptop.
17:49:
I had a discussion about code vs design with Bhead, a friendly guy from T-
Rex, the Russian group who made "Broadband". He offered me some white wiry
snack that tasted between fish and cheese. I couldn't read the Russian
writing on the package, but he said it was dried squid. Yummie :) Some
guys had caught a green lizard, and they were daring each other to lick
it. In the end we put the frightened animal back in it's natural habitat,
before someone/something got hurt.
There's one very original fun-compo: build your own balloon. One team is
testing their entry, taped together from large plastic sheets, above the
barbeque.
I partially missed the fast intro compo, but from the ones I caught, I
liked the South Park-inspired one best. I'll need to check them all at
home, together with the compos I've missed. Especially in the 4K compo
there seems to be some very good productions...
The C64 graphics compo is happening now, 16-color images at a very low
resolution. There are several anti-war/anti-USA pictures but I'm not
impressed with their quality. My favourite is a greyscale image of the
Eifel tower, it looks almost photographic (insofar this is possible within
the limit of the format).
18:34:
I'm eating a pizza while listening to the streaming music compo, but I'll
probably go back outside when I've finished. Since the orgos put some
powerful speakers outside, there's little reason to stay in the dark hall
for the non-visual compos. There are no separate instrumental/vocal
categories, unlike at Assembly or SOTA.
20:59:
The Amiga demo compo is over, with only 3 entries. Madwizards made a very
impressive contribution with Fate Fits Karma, but I think the audience
preferred TBLs MAGIA. It reminds me a lot of Little Nel, their winning
demo of last year. Too bad Phoenix and the other Hornet guys missed it,
they just came back when the endscreen was shown :( They've been taking
notes during all compos, which is probably the most fair way to vote, due
to the stringent limitations of the human brain during parties :) )
21:39:
The technical difficulties with the console compo have been solved, and 5
entries are shown, 3 of which are for the GameBoy Advance3. It's very
clear which one will win: Phloam/Unique, the only one featuring multiple
parts and complex 3D scenes.
Another good point that the orgos copied from Mekka/Symposium is that all
entries are available for download directly after the compo. Dan Wright
has missed some wild demos, and to be able to vote fairly he watches them
on my laptop, before the demo compo starts.
-=- Monday 21 April -=-
0:04:
There were 21 demos, again shown in increasing quality. One didn't work,
and several low-quality techno demos took way too long IMHO, but a vocal
part of the public still liked them. There were quite some invitation
demos of varying quality, and about 7 high-quality entries. I really
liked Relais/Kolor, a heavy 3D demo with cute robots in a airship station,
and The Popular Demo/Farbrausch (announced on the bigscreen as "hund" =
dog.) starring a mirror-ball man dancing in various splendid scenes.
Federation Against Nature made two entries, I prefered the one in the
tradition of Nature Sucks: pure software raytracing (nice for the people
with more CPU than GPU power).
[ Editor's note: "Relais" and "The Popular Demo" are reviewed later on by
Seven in this very issue. ]
Since this was the last compo, a lot of people are going to sleep in their
hotel, the sleeping hall or simply on the floor. I hope they noticed the
change in the voting deadline: instead of 5 o'clock, it is now 1 o'clock
for paper voting and 2 o'clock for network voting. You have to exchange
your wristband for a voting form or a voting key, and while this may be a
good protection against fake voting etc, I really think the extra hassle
at a moment when everyone is dead tired will result in far less votes.
3:46:
I've been talking with Raymon from Unique, he's running Phloam on his GBA,
and the colors look much better than in the taped version on the
bigscreen. It reminds me of the demos of 94/95, and the hardware is in
fact not that different from an old 386: 16.75 Mhz processor, 240*160
screen. The memory is very small, only 256 KB, but reading data from the
cardridge is faster then from harddisk.
I also had the chance to meet Gargaj and Boyc from Conspiracy, the new
group formed by three old Hungarian groups. True to their name, they kept
the existence of their group a secret till Breakpoint, which wasn't always
easy: when you're in a group which has the potential to beat Farbrausch,
you get exited about it. The reason they formed Conspiracy was to show
that Hungary can still make great demo, and to pull more newbies into the
scene. I hope they succeed! Enumerating the nationalities of the visitors
we know, PS, Melwyn, Gargaj, Boisy and I concluded there were people from
at least 19 different countries at Breakpoint. Not bad for a "new" party
:)
8:40:
I'm woken up by some announcement, it's in German so I understand it only
a little bit, it seems something got stolen and they ask to return it,
please :( On a more positive note, almost all party T-shirts are sold out.
(Later it turned out nothing was stolen, it was just a drunk guy who
didn't remember where he had put his stuff)
I've just bought a pack of Slengpung playing cards at the info desk. I
guess everyone knows that Slengpung is the main demoparty-photo archive,
and they've selected 54 well-known demosceners and put their pictures on
playing cards. The result can easily be used to convince non-sceners that
the scene is mainly about getting terribly drunk, given the state of some
sceners on the cards :)
10.28:
I've been socializing with the dutch guys, Avoozle, Inopia & Cosmic
Trance. Skrebbel draws my attention to the fact there are only two bus
runs after the price ceremony, which could cause problems: I think at most
30 people fit in the bus, and there are hundreds of sceners :/ The
American guys are back from their hotel, but luckily they had voted before
they left the previous night.
The prize ceremony was scheduled at 11, but it's just been delayed one
hour. I'm not sure how long it will take, but I'm starting to worry:
there'll probably be only a single shuttle bus I can take after the prize
ceremony, and I really have to catch my train to Belgium (the Thalys
requires a reservation, so you can't just take the next if you miss it).
11:55:
Newt had an iBook running MacOS X with her, since I use a Mac at work we
could debate its good and bad points. Later the topic turned to the (lack
of) girls in the demoscene, and when she complained it was hard to get to
know other girls, I introduced her to Clary/Drifters, who I had met
earlier. Zito/MOOds, Clarys friend gave me a MOOds promoCD, containing all
their releases of last year and a number of Amiga demos in movie format.
By giving these away, he hopes that more people get to know the Amiga
scene. I asked if he knew the DemoDVD team was planning an Amiga DemoDVD,
and presented Phoenix to him. You can vote for your favourite Amiga demos
on the survey, but it's probably way better if the Amiga scene
participates directly :)
12:10:
Everybody is waiting for the prize ceremony. I'm starting to wrap up, so
I'm ready to catch the bus. The floor in front of the stage is not only
covered with the usual flyers, plastic cups and beer cans, but also with a
lot of broken bottles. While picking a fragment out the sole of my shoe, I
think about the dangerous combination of drunk sceners with a floor that's
a health hazard. If someone stumbles here, they'll have to carry him to
the hospital :(
Before the ceremony begins, Steeler auctions off the last remaining
Breakpoint organiser T-shirt. The money goes to Scene.org, to pay for
bigger harddrives and maybe the next Scene.org awards. In the end,
Muhmac/Freestyle is willing to pay 80 euros for it.
The way the winners are announced is also inherited from Mekka/Symposium:
a graph is shown with rising vote bars, one for each entry, and one by one
the bars stop growing. Then the 3 winners are called to the stage, given
their prizes and their picture is taken. The winning demos were also shown
again on the bigscreen.
The most thrilling IMO were the PC 64K intro results, where the bars for
Candytron and Project Genesis kept growing long after the others ended.
Tomcat/Greenroom and Vicky went crazy when Conspiracy (their fellow
Hungarians) won the compo. For the Amiga demos Magia/TBL snatched the
first prize away from MadWizards, just like they (Madwizards) had
predicted in their Fate Fits Karma. I was a bit disappointed that
Relais/Kolor didn't beat The Popular Demo/Farbrausch, but its mood was
probably a bit too subtle to stand up against Farbrauschs sparkling
eyecandy. Federation Against Nature got the third place for their
raytracing demo. Skyrunner won the third place in the tracked music compo,
and had to go back on stage because due to the excitement he had forgotten
to thank the audience for making his old dream of winning a
Mekka/Symposium compo come true. Unique won the console demo, as expected.
All three places in the freestyle gfx compo were won by Haujobb members,
and the wild compo was won by the Silents (although the next 6 wild
entries were all rather close).
After the last compo results, Steeler gave a little speech to thank the
sponsors, and also the audience. Appearently we behaved much better then
at MS: there were no damages, not a single theft , and very few deaths
(and nobody important too) :) The bad news was that Bingen city and the
German government, who both owned this old army depot, had decided to
level the place next year, but the orgos would search for another
location, because Breakpoint definately will happen again next year!
I quickly say goodbye to the friends in my vicinity, and carry my bags
outside. The overcrowded bus gets us to the Bingen station in time, and
the rest of the trip goes without any problems (I'm asleep most of it
anyway :))
I'm really glad I visited Breakpoint, even if I missed the first day and
the Scene.Org awards. I've never talked so much and met so many new people
at a demoparty, there was an incredibly friendly and kind atmosphere
during these 4 days. Even a couple of guys at the campfire who weren't
sceners, but were visiting to see what it was about, said the feeling is
much more open then at a music festival for example. If friendliness had
mass, Breakpoint would have created a black hole :) I really hope to see
everyone I met again at the next party, probably Assembly. Till then!
--Seven
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
How to Kill Your Compo in 10 Weeks
By: Novus
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
Ever wondered why monthly compos get no respect?
Go ahead. Take 1st Place in March's round of the UbErNiFtY c0mp0, post it
on your website, brag about it on #trax, and trumpet the news on message
boards across the scene. Odds are you'll be met with one big yawn, with
maybe a slight bump in your downloads. Why? Because UbErNiFtY c0mp0 will
be closed and forgotten by next month.
Sad, ain't it? Way too many monthly compos nowadays shut down after
absurdly short times. That's not just a recent phenomenon either. That's a
pattern that stretches all the way to my first exposure to the web-based
tracking scene in 1996, perhaps even earlier. And when monthly compos come
and go so quickly, it's no wonder that so few people take them seriously.
The problem is that for so many monthly compos out there, this seems to be
the entirety of the planning that goes into them:
"Hmm... I need to draw more visitors to my website so more people will
download my music... Hey, I know! I'll run a compo! I'll get a couple of
my friends to be judges, slap together a website, set a deadline, and
that's it! It can't be THAT hard, can it?"
Yes. Yes it can be THAT hard.
Compos are time-consuming, especially judged compos. Just do the math.
Let's say you open a judged compo and get 10 entries. I'm guessing here,
but the average length of most tracks seems to be about 5 minutes. So
right away, you're talking 50 minutes to hear all the entries. But that's
if you just play each song once. To be fair, you really need to listen to
each entry 3 or 4 times. That 50 minutes just turned into 200. And then
you have to write some comments about each entry, another 15 minutes per
song, multiplied by 10 songs, and that's 150 more minutes for a total of
350.
That's 6 hours for just 10 entries. And anyone who's ever thrown open a
compo and done a semi-decent job of promoting it knows that 10 entries is
an aburdly low number. You're gonna get more.
Assuming that you plan ahead and leave yourself plenty of time, it's still
possible to pull it all off. But too many compo-organizers don't plan
ahead. Instead, they open their compo, give people a month to enter their
tunes, and announce that the results will be up a week after the entry
deadline.
And then Real Life attacks. They can't spare 6 hours to judge the songs.
They miss the results date, and then often make yet another critical
mistake: they don't even bother to let their visitors know what's going
on.
So people stop by for a day or two, don't see the results, get bored, and
quit visiting the compo website. And finally, weeks later, the organizer
gets all the results up, announces he's now accepting entries for the next
round, and gets 2 entries because nobody cares about his compo anymore.
And he shuts it down.
Multiply that scenario by several dozen since 1996, and it's no wonder
monthly compos have such a crappy reputation.
Folks, if you're gonna run a compo, a little planning goes a LONG way. I
hate to use my Complete MOD Compo as an example since it smacks of self-
promotion, but alas, it's the only compo I have any inside knowledge of.
And hey, it's been open for 16 months now, so I must be doing something
right...
When I started CMC in 2002, I knew that my busy job schedule was going to
wreak havoc on my free time, so I nixed the idea of making it a judged
compo. So, I went with a public-voting compo, which requires less of my
time. I also looked for ways to streamline things on the backend so that I
could do minor tasks such as counting votes while I had free-time at my
job, saving the harder work for when I was home.
For quality purposes, I decided to pre-screen all the entries and only let
the best ones compete. But I realized that if too many people entered
songs, I'd never have enough time to screen them all. And similarly, if
CMC didn't have enough voters, it would all be meaningless. So, I killed
two birds with one stone by requiring all contestants to vote on the
current month's crop of songs. That guarantees a consistent supply of
voters and keeps me from getting overwhelmed with too many entries.
Please keep in mind that I'm not saying that all compos should be carbon-
copies of mine. What I'm trying to stress is the importance of planning
ahead. If your compo is going to run smoothly, you need to spend hours
ahead of time thinking about the details of how your compo will run, how
you'll find the time to run it right, and how you'll head-off potential
problems before they can even develop.
Also keep in mind that the main focus of your attention should be your
visitors, not the musicians who enter songs. If you run a compo, finding
entries will probably not be a problem. Finding visitors WILL be,
especially repeat-visitors. If nobody's around to download the winning
song, then winning your compo won't mean much. If you focus on attracting
more visitors, those increased hits will lead to everything else you're
looking for, including more and better entries, high-profile competitors,
and a good reputation.
I like monthly compos. They provide a great outlet for trackers to promote
their music and get feedback, and they can play a valuable role in the
tracking scene. If you want to run a monthly compo, by all means, go for
it! But the scene needs one more failed monthly compo like I need an
extra hole in my head. So please: plan ahead, and run it right.
--Novus
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
On The Sideline
"My Sky" by Jimmy Redfern and Astradyne
By: Ben
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
-=- Introduction -=-
Greetings and salutations. This is my first column and music review. I
can't hope it will compare to Coplan's In Tune, and most of the time I
will be reviewing songs by my musical superiors. That stated, please do
not cut me any slack! Send any feedback, flames or otherwise.
-=- "My Sky" by Jimmy Redfern and Astradyne -=-
I have always liked this style. It starts out with a slow, smooth melody,
then introduces a crisp, frenetic breakbeat sequence. What do you call
this style? I think it is more drum & bass than ambient, because I
believe the melody is only there to hold the drumming together. The
samples are are not feats of audiophile engineering. Some of the drum and
synth samples are 8 bit, and some of the sustain loops were not clean.
Unfortunately the drum sequences are pre-cut loops rather than tracked,
but there is tracked percussion accompanying them. No matter, I believe
the point of this song is to perk you up with breakbeat goodness.
If you look at the tracks, you'll see many channels with notes that are
not even consciously heard while listening to the song. There are subtle
echoes and great variety in the drumming. This keeps the song interesting
and makes it worth listening to years after it was composed. What were
the composers thinking when they created this? I vaguely remember reading
somewhere that My Sky is a spoof of another song. The ending is melodic
like the beginning, only more smooth and the synth chords remind me a bit
of Aphex Twin.
This song is very cute, and for me it was a great introduction to
N.O.I.S.E. This group has been prolific over the years and has produced
some high quality tunes. If you haven't given them a listen, I highly
recommend them, even their MP3s.
Song Information:
Title: My Sky
Author: Jimmy Redfern and Astradyne
Length: 6:18
Filename: no-mysky.zip
File Size: 2 MB
Source: ftp://ftp.noisemusic.org/pub/users/wnoise/1998/
--Ben
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
The Lineup
By: Novus
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
Welcome to The Lineup! Every month, I scour through the hundreds of new
releases on the scene's major archive sites to find the best new music,
saving you the trouble of having to download 20 instant-delete songs to
find 1 that's worth keeping.
More feedback came in this month, this time from Kern802, who wrote
thusly:
"Keep up the good work! I really appreciate the service you are providing
by selecting the best scene music each month. A couple of issues back, I
downloaded the songs you listed and put them in my mp3 player and they
kept me company on many long drives. Right now I'm downloading another
batch and I'm looking forward to hearing them. I don't have any criticisms
or recommendations, except to let you know that I personally like trance/
dance/ electronica/ experimental, and would like more of that. Again, I
just wanted to let you know that your hard work _is_ appreciated by the
scene!"
Thanks for the kind words. :) You can add YOUR feedback, positive or
negative (and so far, it's all been positive...) by e-mailing me at
vince_young@hotmail.com.
In the meantime, you may consider the following 30 tunes to be the best
tracks of March 2003:
[ Editor's note: You'll find the songs for April and May in next month's
issue. ]
-=- THE BEST OF THE BEST -=-
"Soundtrack To A Midnight Kiss" - HomesickAlien - fantasy
http://lysis.audio-stream.net/hsa/hsa_soundtrack.zip
-=- THE REST OF THE BEST -=-
"Alice Cooper: Remix" - Slash - demostyle
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/slash/slash_atd_attentio.zip
"Another Day" - Future Element - dance
http://www.geocities.com/dinu.geo/another.zip
"Broken Dimension" - Dipa - fantasy
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/dipa/brokendimension.zip
"Criteria" - Narfy - fantasy
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/narfy/criteria.zip
"Dataf*ck" - Djkor - drum'n'bass
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/cornercut/016crc.zip
"Depression" - Future Element - dance
http://www.geocities.com/dinu.geo/dprs.zip
"Dream Wielder" - Narfy - light rock
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/narfy/dreamwielder.zip
"Emerald" - Vibe - pop
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/cornercut/008crc.zip
"Establishing Contact" - Wizard - electronica
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/wizard/wiz_cont.zip
"Feel The Rythm" - Dipa - dance
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/dipa/feeltherythm.zip
"Floating Liquid God" - Mellow-D - demostyle
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/fm/fm-blurr.zip
"Heaven Number Eight" - Butch - fantasy
http://data.modarchive.com/B/b_heaven.it.zip
"Human Essence" - Vibe - pop
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/cornercut/025crc.zip
"It's Night Forever" - Dipa - fantasy
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/dipa/itsnightforever.zip
"Jade" - Narfy - pop
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/narfy/jade.zip
"Midnight" - Narfy - electronica
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/narfy/midnite.zip
"Negation" - Mellow-D - pop
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/fm/fm-negat.zip
"Pleasure Of A Holiday" - Slash - dance
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/slash/slash_atd_pleasure_on_case_of_a_holiday.zip
"Put The Wrong Things Right" - Phred - electronica
http://cgi.ethz.ch/~phkeller/modules/right.zip
"Rescue" - Monad - progressive rock
http://koti.mbnet.fi/helunder/omamusa/MON_5B.IT
"Revolting Minds" - Neuron - techno
http://modplug.com/mods/nrdetail.php3?session=&detailno=10522
"Shift" - Narfy - pop
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/narfy/shift.zip
"Short Circuit" - Szartd - trance
http://www.cutetrancegirls.com/music/artists/szartd/CMC-Szartd-ShortCircuit.xm
(Sorry for the uber-long URL...)
"Spit The Mike" - Wizard - dance
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/wizard/wiz_stm.zip
"Sunlight" - Technoiz - dance
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/cornercut/015crc.zip
"The Awakening Of The Evil" - Sphenx - orchestral
http://data.modarchive.com/S/spx-theawekeningoftheevil.it.zip
"The Vibes" - Vibe - pop
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/cornercut/023crc.zip
"Two Screenshots Of Life" - Vibe - pop
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/cornercut/012crc.zip
"Warcry" - Monad - progressive rock
http://koti.mbnet.fi/helunder/omamusa/MON_12B.IT
Latez!
--Novus
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
Screen Lit Vertigo
"FR-025: The Popular Demo" and "Relais"
By: Seven
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
-=- "FR-025: The Popular Demo" by Farbrausch -=-
(party-version)
Found at Breakpoint partynet, but also available via scene.org
1st place at the Breakpoint 2003 PC democompo
System requirements: 11 Mb HD, Windows, a Gefore 2 MX or higher
Test Machines:
P3 900Mh 640MB, Gamesurround III, Radeon 8500 LE 64MB, Win98 SE
P4 2.6Gh 512MB DDR, Realtek AC97 audio, Geforce4 488 Go 64MB, WinXP
The credits:
code: Chaos
music: Wayfinder, Ronny, Andreas Thiele
3D & visuals: GiZmo, Fiver2, Phaser
Animation: Sarah Hill
The demo:
Just like last year, Farbrausch did their best to release a kick-ass demo
on their own party, but where FR-020 (In Control) stranded on third place,
FR-025 managed to win the top position. The Popular Demo (a name that
seems to be a self-fulfilling prophecy) is a pure 3D demo that goes
squarily for the highest eyecandy factor, and has a matching soundtrack.
It has no real story, but a simple theme: a dancing mirrorball-man walking
through several scenes. This sounds simple and plain, but the scenes look
incredibly: a disco hall whose walls, floor and ceiling are plastering
with illuminated mirrors, a flying disc with hundreds of mirror-people
dancing, and my favourite: a passageway outside at night, with the wind
blowing brightly colored leafs under arcs of floating blue lights (reminds
me a lot of VIP2/Popsy Team).
Most of the sparkling, glittering feel of the demo is caused by a single
effect: having the brightest lights "glow over" into their surroundings, a
bit like a soft fuzzy flare. Radial blur is also used a lot. The only
scene that I don't really like is the simple square room with the
mirrorball, I guess the aim of it is to demonstrate the mathematically
correct way the mirrorballs lightspots move over the wall, but its's too
simplistic compared to the other scenes.
The movements of the dancers are very realistic, at first I thought it was
done with motion capturing but the credits mention bones, so I'm not sure.
But in scenes with a lot of dancers becomes visible they all do one of the
3 or 4 different movements. Something strange: on my laptop with its GF4
Go (which is not really a GF4 but more a souped-up GF2), one room with
hundreds of dancers is initially empty, and the dancers pop up after a few
seconds, where on my ATI 9500LE they're there immediately. The word "Hund"
(German for dog) on the screen in that scene is probably the working title
of FR-025, during the competition at Breakpoint the demo was introduced on
the bigscreen as "Hund/Hund".
The music is quite good IMHO, it's a happy pop/disco track that fits the
dazzling visuals. The vocals at the start aren't jarring with the music,
as those in In Control where when I heard it the first time, but they
sound a bit too distorted, too much filtered. Syncing is excellent, as
usually, and I like the additional touches such as the vocals appearing
around the head of the dancer, or the sweeping sounds the rotating rings
make when they pass close to the camera.
Overall:
FR-025 is an instant classic, designed to win the BP compo: impressive
visuals, great soundtrack, very colorful and spreading a sugar-sweet
happiness. Like a Hollywood blockbuster, it migh feel a bit empty but
you're too entertained to care. If you haven't watched it yet, you should
do so ASAP!
-=- "Relais" -=-
(party-version)
Demo: Found at Breakpoint partynet, but also available via scene.org
Divx (640*480, 25 FPS, 68 MB):
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/demos/groups/kolor/relais_by_kolor.avi
2nd place at the Breakpoint 2003 PC democompo.
System requirements: Windows 2K or XP, P3, 256 MB RAM (512 recommended),
and a real Geforce 3 64MB (so no ATI cards, no Geforce 4 MX/GO) (Geforce 4
128 MB recommended), 12 MB HD.
The credits:
Code: Shiva, Siriuz
Music: Pressure, Raytraza
2D: Raytrayza
3D: Noize, Pandur/bm
The demo:
Relais is one of the pickiest demos I've seen regarding the
hardware/software it will run on, neither of my 2 machines were adequate
:( So I had to wait for the DivX version to watch it again. (Off-topic: I
hope ODD will release their World Domination, that won the Gathering, in
the same way, cause that one won't run either.)
Just like FR-025, Relais is a pure 3D demo, but that's the only
similarity. Instead of brightly-coloured disco environments, Relais
creates a melancholic world of baroque airships, from very simple crafts
that are barely more than a wing with one propeller, to giant floating
gardens and greenhouses with sails. There doesn't seems to be a single
living being in this world, the ships are operated and maintained by a
variety of robots. It reminds me of the deserted atmosphere of Myst, but
on the airships of Final Fantasy (yes, I'm comparing a demo to games, stop
throwing the tomatoes!) The mood grows gradually darker, with the robots
sawing down trees, and one of them lonely in an asylum.
As mentioned in the .txt file, they had to save on texture, sound and
geometry quality to fit inside the 12 MB limit, so there is some
variation. The models of the ships are very detailed, the robots a bit
less so, and a few objects look plain ugly (the hexagonal windlass f.e.
Surely they had polys to spare in that scene? Compare with the superb
whale skeleton!) There are no standalone 2D images, except the building
plans of the ships, overlayed at various points, together with fragments
of German text. There are almost no effects, except the very realistic
reflections in a mirror and an indoor fountain. The emphasis is on the
models and the fairly good animation (it's hard to call it realistic for
robots) that goes in slowmotion from time to time. Some textures look too
fuzzy, but that may be partially caused by the DivX compression.
The music builds up slowly at the start, very ambient with weird noises,
which are later accompagnied by a complicated drumline. There isn't much
variation in it, to my untrained ears, but it fits the mysterious mood of
the visuals.
Overall:
Personally I liked Relais better than FR-025, because I enjoy stories that
leave a lot to the imagination. It makes you wonder who the builders of
the robots where, what happened to them, etc etc. But even if you don't
like story demos, Relais is worth watching at least once, for it's
impressive modelling and coherent design. If you've more bandwidth than
CPU/GPU power, go for the .avi (URL above).
--Seven
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
Coplan's Eyes
Inspiration From a Different View
By: Coplan
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
So I write a lot about inspiration. I must write a new inspiration
article once every few months. But this is different this time. I'm
engaged now, and it has changed my perspective about things. I'm planning
for a wedding, I'm saving to buy a house, and I'm trying to control my
finances, among other things.
But my inspiration right now isn't Love.
Love is a great inspiration, mind you. But it's overdone. How many of
you find inspiration from love, or lack thereof? Have a bad fight with
your significant other, and you have a great new song. Meet someone new,
and out pops a ballad. That's all fine and dandy, but lets get to
something you can control: Time and Task. Time and Task management is
something that's very essential when you live with someone, or are
planning to do so. This can also be applied to your art form as well.
In the engineering world, we refer to Time and Task as T=<Tk. It's purely
the basis of business. If a task should take 1 hour, you better make sure
it takes you 1 hour or less. Otherwise, there is no profit.
Alright...but that's business. That surely can't be applied to
inspiration, or can it? Time and Task can be thought of in two ways.
First is the simple fact that you need time to complete the task. Second
is the fact that you shouldn't waste time doing a task that can't be done
in the allowed amount of time. This comes down to organizing your time.
Lets start with the first point. Hypothetically speaking, you want to
write a new song. You got great ideas in your head, but you havn't had
the time to work it out. A good friend of mine has set a routine for
himself so that he has the time to do his music. Every Sunday morning, he
wakes up at 9:00, sits down at his computer and begins tinkering with his
ideas. First of all, he makes sure he goes to bed at the same time every
night. It sounds like a sacrifice, but he never sleeps in. When he's not
working, he gets his other tasks out of the way. He'll pay his bills on a
tuesday, he does his wash on a wednesday, and he does his housework on
saturday. All this is done so he can be 100% sure that he'll have time on
Sunday morning to work on a tune. You have to have time to work out your
ideas. And if you schedule this as well as anything else, you'll train
your mind and your body to prepare for that time. You'll develop a bit of
a mode where you'll be ready to write music every damn Sunday.
So where's the second point come in? Well, as I said, this friend of mine
pays his bills. He only has to do that once per month. The other three
weeks in that month is also spent working on some musical ideas. But lets
do the math here. He gets home at 7:00 at night. Dinner cooked, eaten
and cleaned up no later than 8:30. Check e-mail, catch up on some news,
and it's already 9:30, and he goes to bed at 11:30. That's only two hours
to work on something. Well, the task at hand, writing a song, will not
happen. He knows himself well enough to know that he cannot write a song
in two hours. And unless he gets a huge portion of it fleshed out, it
will never be finished. The train of thought will be lost. So that two
hour period is spent doing other music related things. He might set up a
whole bunch of songs to be downloaded (for ideas). He'll pratice his
piano playing so that he won't get rusty. He'll maybe flesh out a few
drum riffs, or a few basic chord progressions. Maybe he'll prepare a few
sample libraries for possible song ideas. Anything that is created in
this manner is just placed in his overall collection of libraries, riffs
and so on for future reference. After all, no song will be written that
night.
But what about Sunday? Well, as I said, he starts at 9:00, and he'll
start mapping out a song idea. Maybe he maps out a couple of song ideas.
And maybe he'll find one to run with. He'll make a quick sandwich and
take a very short break for lunch...but he can continue working on a song
idea the whole rest of the afternoon. But here's where that task
management comes in again. By the time lunch comes around, if he doesn't
have any song ideas brewing, there's no point in wasting the afternoon.
If after four hours he still has nothing, the music hardware is turned
off, and he turns his mind to other tasks. So today wasn't the day that a
great new song was released. Do some other things around the house and
get some other tasks out of the way so you might have more time to tinker
next week.
So how is all this inspirational? It's not the same kind of inspiration
that you would otherwise think of when it cames to that topic. You're
mind isn't getting ideas from all this. BUT, this is a preventative
measure from burning out or from loosing stride in your creation process.
You assure your mind that you have plenty of time to attempt a new song
(or whatever art it is you practice), and your mind is more relaxed.
There isn't a limitation of time so the thought doesn't get in your way.
Suppose you get a great idea and you run with it. If after two hours you
look at the clock and realize you have to be somewhere...face it, that
song will never be finished. But if you have nowhere to go and no
intrusions...you surely won't feel limited in any way.
So I'll let you in on a little secret. My friend is really me. And this
is a technique that was introduced to me by my fiancee. After all, I
spend a lot of time with her, and she was fully aware of my hobbies. She
was fully aware of my problem with time. But she pointed out to me that
my limitation is not total time...just time allocation. Life is much
simpler if you break everything into chunks and allocate a place for it.
--Coplan
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
Link List
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
Portals:
SceneSpot (Home of Static Line).......http://www.scenespot.org
CFXweb.......................................http://cfxweb.net
Czech Scene................................http://www.scene.cz
Danish Scene..............................http://demo-scene.dk
Demoscene.org.........................http://www.demoscene.org
Demo.org...................................http://www.demo.org
Diskmag.de...................................http://diskmag.de
Greek Scene............................http://www.demoscene.gr
Hungarian Scene........................http://www.demoscene.hu
Italian Scene...........................http://run.to/la_scena
ModPlug Central Resources..........http://www.castlex.com/mods
Noerror.................................http://www.noerror.org
Norwegian Scene........................http://www.demoscene.no
Orange Juice.............................http://www.ojuice.net
Planet Zeus..........................http://www.planetzeus.net
Polish Scene...........................http://www.demoscena.pl
Pouet.net.................................http://www.pouet.net
Russian Scene..........................http://www.demoscene.ru
Scene.org.................................http://www.scene.org
Scenergy on-line (8bit)............http://www.scenergy.natm.ru
Scenet....................................http://www.scenet.de
Spanish Scene............................http://www.escena.org
Swiss Scene..............................http://www.chscene.ch
<*> United Trackers.................http://www.united-trackers.org
Archives:
Acid2.....................................ftp://acid2.stack.nl
Amber.......................................ftp://amber.bti.pl
Cyberbox.....................................ftp://cyberbox.de
Hornet (1992-1996)........................ftp://ftp.hornet.org
Scene.org..................................ftp://ftp.scene.org
Scene.org Austra........................ftp://ftp.au.scene.org
Scene.org Netherlands...................ftp://ftp.nl.scene.org
Swiss Scene FTP...........................ftp://ftp.chscene.ch
<*> MOD Archive..........................http://www.modarchive.com
<*> aminet.....................http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/~aminet/
Demo Groups:
3g Design..............................http://3gdesign.cjb.net
3State...................................http://threestate.com
7 Gods.........................................http://7gods.sk
Aardbei.....................................http://aardbei.com
Acid Rain..............................http://surf.to/acidrain
Addict..................................http://addict.scene.pl
Agravedict........................http://www.agravedict.art.pl
Alien Prophets.....................http://www.alienprophets.dk
Anakata..............................http://www.anakata.art.pl
ASD....................................http://asd.demoscene.gr
Astral..............................http://astral.scene-hu.com
Astroidea........................http://astroidea.scene-hu.com
BlaBla..............................http://blabla.planet-d.net
Blasphemy..............................http://www.blasphemy.dk
Bomb..................................http://bomb.planet-d.net
Broncs..................................http://broncs.scene.cz
Byterapers.....................http://www.byterapers.scene.org
Bypass.................................http://bypass.scene.org
Calodox.................................http://www.calodox.org
Cocoon..............................http://cocoon.planet-d.net
Confine.................................http://www.confine.org
Damage...................................http://come.to/damage
Dc5.........................................http://www.dc5.org
Delirium..............................http://delirium.scene.pl
Eclipse............................http://www.eclipse-game.com
Elitegroup..........................http://elitegroup.demo.org
Exceed...........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/~exceed
Fairlight.............................http://www.fairlight.com
Fobia Design...........................http://www.fd.scene.org
Freestyle............................http://www.freestylas.org
Fresh! Mindworks...................http://kac.poliod.hu/~fresh
Future Crew..........................http://www.futurecrew.org
Fuzzion.................................http://www.fuzzion.org
GODS...................................http://www.idf.net/gods
Halcyon...........................http://www.halcyon.scene.org
Haujobb..................................http://www.haujobb.de
Hellcore............................http://www.hellcore.art.pl
Infuse...................................http://www.infuse.org
Inquisition....................http://inquisition.demoscene.hu
Kilobite...............................http://kilobite.cjb.net
Kolor................................http://www.kaoz.org/kolor
Komplex.................................http://www.komplex.org
Kooma.....................................http://www.kooma.com
Mandula.........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/~mandula
Maturefurk...........................http://www.maturefurk.com
Monar................ftp://amber.bti.pl/pub/scene/distro/monar
MOVSD....................................http://movsd.scene.cz
Nextempire...........................http://www.nextempire.com
Noice.....................................http://www.noice.org
Orange.................................http://orange.scene.org
Orion................................http://orion.planet-d.net
Outbreak................................http://www.outbreak.nu
Popsy Team............................http://popsyteam.rtel.fr
Prone................................http://www.prone.ninja.dk
Purple....................................http://www.purple.dk
Rage........................................http://www.rage.nu
Replay.......................http://www.shine.scene.org/replay
Retro A.C...........................http://www.retroac.cjb.net
Sista Vip..........................http://www.sistavip.exit.de
Skytech team............................http://www.skytech.org
Skrju.....................................http://www.skrju.org
Spinning Kids......................http://www.spinningkids.org
Sunflower.......................http://sunflower.opengl.org.pl
Talent.............................http://talent.eurochart.org
The Black Lotus.............................http://www.tbl.org
The Digital Artists Wired Nation.http://digitalartists.cjb.net
The Lost Souls...............................http://www.tls.no
TPOLM.....................................http://www.tpolm.com
Trauma.................................http://sauna.net/trauma
T-Rex.....................................http://www.t-rex.org
Unik........................................http://www.unik.de
Universe..........................http://universe.planet-d.net
Vantage..................................http://www.vantage.ch
Wipe....................................http://www.wipe-fr.org
Music Labels, Music Sites:
Aisth.....................................http://www.aisth.com
Aural Planet........................http://www.auralplanet.com
Azure...................................http://azure-music.com
Blacktron Music Production...........http://www.d-zign.com/bmp
BrothomStates.............http://www.katastro.fi/brothomstates
Chill..........................http://www.chillproductions.com
Chippendales......................http://www.sunpoint.net/~cnd
Chiptune...............................http://www.chiptune.com
Da Jormas................................http://www.jormas.com
Fabtrax......http://www.cyberverse.com/~boris/fabtrax/home.htm
Fairlight Music.....................http://fairlight.scene.org
Five Musicians.........................http://www.fm.scene.org
Fusion Music Crew.................http://members.home.nl/cyrex
Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff
Hellven.................................http://www.hellven.org
Ignorance.............................http://www.ignorance.org
Immortal Coil.............................http://www.ic.l7.net
Intense...........................http://intense.ignorance.org
Jecoute.................................http://jecoute.cjb.net
Kosmic Free Music Foundation.............http://www.kosmic.org
Lackluster.....................http://www.m3rck.net/lackluster
Level-D.................................http://www.level-d.com
Mah Music.............................http://come.to/mah.music
Maniacs of noise...............http://home.worldonline.nl/~mon
MAZ's sound homepage..................http://www.maz-sound.com
Med.......................................http://www.med.fr.fm
Miasmah.............................http://www.miasmah.cjb.net
Milk.......................................http://milk.sgic.fi
Mo'playaz..........................http://ssmedion.de/moplayaz
Mono211.................................http://www.mono211.com
Morbid Minds..............http://www.raveordie.com/morbidminds
Moods.............................http://www.moodymusic.de.vu/
Noise................................http://www.noisemusic.org
One Touch Records......................http://otr.planet-d.net
Park..................................http://park.planet-d.net
pHluid..................................http://phluid.acid.org
Radical Rhythms.....http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/merrelli/rr
RBi Music.............................http://www.rbi-music.com
Ruff Engine................http://members.xoom.com/ruff_engine
SHR8M......................................http://1st.to/shr8m
Sound Devotion................http://sugarbomb.x2o.net/soundev
Soundstate.........................http://listen.to/soundstate
Sunlikamelo-D...........http://www.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://tokyodawn.org
Triad's C64 music archive.............http://www.triad.c64.org
UltraBeat.........................http://www.innerverse.com/ub
Vibrants................................http://www.vibrants.dk
Wiremaniacs.........................http://www.wiremaniacs.com
Zen of Tracking.........................http://surf.to/the-imm
Programming:
Programming portal......................http://www.gamedev.net
Programming portal.....................http://www.flipcode.com
Game programming portal...............http://www.gamasutra.com
3D programming portal.................http://www.3dgamedev.com
Programming portal......................http://www.exaflop.org
Programming portal............http://www.programmersheaven.com
Programming portal.....................http://www.freecode.com
NASM (free Assembly compiler)......http://www.cryogen.com/nasm
LCC (free C compiler).........http://www.remcomp.com/lcc-win32
PTC video engine.........................http://www.gaffer.org
3D engines..........http://cg.cs.tu-berlin.de/~ki/engines.html
Documents...............http://www.neutralzone.org/home/faqsys
File format collection...................http://www.wotsit.org
Magazines:
Amber...............................http://amber.bti.pl/di_mag
Amnesia...............http://amnesia-dist.future.easyspace.com
Demojournal....................http://demojournal.planet-d.net
Eurochart.............................http://www.eurochart.org
Heroin...................................http://www.heroin.net
Hugi........................................http://www.hugi.de
Music Massage......................http://www.scene.cz/massage
Jurassic Pack...........................www.jurassicpack.de.vu
Pain..................................http://pain.planet-d.net
Scenial...........................http://www.scenial.scene.org
Shine...............................http://www.shine.scene.org
Static Line................http://www.scenespot.org/staticline
Sunray..............................http://sunray.planet-d.net
TUHB.......................................http://www.tuhb.org
WildMag..................................http://www.wildmag.de
Parties:
Assembly (Finland).....................http://www.assembly.org
Ambience (The Netherlands)..............http://www.ambience.nl
Dreamhack (Sweden)....................http://www.dreamhack.org
Buenzli (Switzerland)......................http://www.buenz.li
Gravity (Poland)............http://www.demoscena.cp.pl/gravity
Mekka-Symposium (Germany)...................http://ms.demo.org
ReAct (Greece).............................http://www.react.gr
Takeover (The Netherlands).............,http://www.takeover.nl
The Party (Denmark).....................http://www.theparty.dk
Others:
Demo secret parts....http://www.inf.bme.hu/~mandula/secret.txt
Textmode Demo Archive.................http://tmda.planet-d.net
Arf!Studios..........................http://www.arfstudios.org
#coders..................................http://coderz.cjb.net
Demonews Express.........http://www.teeselink.demon.nl/express
Demo fanclub........................http://jerware.org/fanclub
Digital Undergrounds.....................http://dug.iscool.net
Doose charts...............................http://www.doose.dk
Freax................................http://freax.scene-hu.com
GfxZone............................http://gfxzone.planet-d.net
PC-demos explained.....http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained
Pixel...................................http://pixel.scene.org
#trax e-mail list.............................................
.............http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/trax
Underground Mine.............http://www.spinningkids.org/umine
<*> csound-tekno e-mail list......................................
............http://plot.bek.no/mailman/listinfo/csoundtekno
IRC Channels:
Scene.........................................ircnet #thescene
Programming.....................................ircnet #coders
Programming....................................efnet #flipcode
Graphics.........................................ircnet #pixel
Music......................................irc.scene.org #trax
Music.............................................ircnet #trax
Scene (French)..................................ircnet #demofr
Programming (French)............................ircnet #codefr
Graphics (French)..............................ircnet #pixelfr
Programming (German)........................ircnet #coders.ger
Scene (Hungarian)............................ircnet #demoscene
Programming (Hungarian)......................ircnet #coders.hu
Zx-spectrum scene..................................ircnet #z80
--=--=--
----=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------
-=- Staff -=-
Editors: Ciaran / Ciaran Hamilton / staticline@theblob.org
Ben / Ben Collver / collver1@attbi.com
Staff Writers: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
Dilvie / Eric Hamilton / dilvie@yahoo.com
Novus / Vince Young / vince_young@hotmail.com
Psitron / Tim Soderstrom / tigerhawk@stic.net
Setec / Jesper Pederson / jesped@post.tele.dk
Seven / Stefaan VanNieuwenhuyze/ seven7@writeme.com
Tryhuk / Tryhuk Vojtech / vojtech.tryhuk@worldonline.cz
Vill / Brian Frank / darkvill@yahoo.com
The Watcher / Paul-Jan Pauptit / watcher@tuhb.org
The current issue of Static Line can always be found on the Web at:
http://staticline.scenespot.org/issues/current_issue
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http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/static_line
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See you next month!
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