/\ /. \ _____ _____. _____ _____. // \ ______ .___\_ \_ | .___\_ \_ | // .\/ _ \_ | | | |____|_ _| | |____|_ | | | | |____| ______/ \_ | ______/ | | | ^\____ \| |____| | | |____| | |____| | | | | | | | | | | |____. |. | |. | |. | |. | | |. | | |: | |: | |: | |: | | |: | | || | || | || | ||_ | | || | | | | | | | | | \ | | | | | ^\_______/^\_______/|____| | \_____/| |\_______/^ cRu|________\ | | Issue #52 |. __|__ /\ ____ ____ |: \ / __/. \__\_ \___\_ \_ _. March, 2004 || / \ \__/ / / /___// | 315 Subscribers World Wide | /___/ \ / / __/_ / | | / / / / / / // | ^\____ /___/___/ /^\____ //____| \/ /___/ \/ --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Table Of Contents --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Opening: Message From the Editor Features: Party Report -- State Of The Art 2: st(ART) Review -- Assembly '02 DVDs Reviews: Music: In Tune -- "Music by Telephone Voices" by Bliss On The Sideline -- "00" by Richie Warburton The Lineup -- Monthly Music Listings Demo: Screen Lit Vertigo -- "FR-36", "Coma" and "Interceptor" Opinion / Commentary: Coplan's Eyes -- Tradition Link List: Get Somewhere in the Scene Closing: Staff and Contact Information --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Message From the Editor --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Hello, Welcome to another issue of Static Line. :) Apologies for the delay in releasing this issue - my personal life got in the way of releasing Static Line, and I needed to take a break. On the plus side, though, it does mean that this issue is once again full of the good stuff. :D We have a party report on State Of The Art 2 by Seven (with accompanying reviews in Screen Lit Vertigo), a double-length Lineup, and Coplan returns this month with his column, In Tune. You may remember that last issue I reported that I had bought the Assembly '02 DVDs, with the promise that I'd be reviewing them in another issue. Well, this is that issue. :) If you're wondering why I chose the '02 DVDs instead of something more recent... well, read the review. It explains all. :) Finally, Ben reviews "00" in the Sideline, and Coplan reflects on tradition in Coplan's Eyes. For those who aren't subscribed to the list, I sent out some news about a week ago to the list, which I'll repeat here: 1) Firstly, Olivier Lapicque has released the source code for the ModPlug Tracker's under the GPL. You can get it from http://www.modplug.com/modplug/developer.php3 . 2) Secondly, there's now a Windows version of CheeseTracker, a popular tracker that until now, only ran on Linux. It's in beta at the moment, and I haven't tried it, but you can get it from http://reduz.com.ar/~reduz/cheesetracker-0.9.6-win32-beta.zip . Apologies to the list subscribers; this is the second time you'lll have heard this information. :) Anyway, enjoy the issue, and we'll see you next month. No, really, we will. :) --Ciaran --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Party Report State Of The Art 2: st(ART) By: Seven --=--=------=--=------=--=---- -=- Friday 23 January -=- 19:39: We've just arrived at the partyplace, after Djefke picked me up in Belgium around 18 o'clock. It's nice to have a party almost on our doorstep, relativily speaking :) We didn't have much trouble finding Le Fresnoy, the French national studio of modern art. It's the same building in which the party took place in December 2002, but this time it's not part of a bigger exhibition on digital art. This trouble with sponsors was the reason that the party was first cancelled, then un-cancelled and moved to a later date, albeit under a different name due to trademark problems. But after all the confusion and doubt, I'm still glad the spiritual successor of the LTP parties is alive and kicking! We're among the first visitors. At the moment the main hall looks almost desolated - only 20 people have so far, while there is easily room for 400. There's still a boxing ring in the center like last year - very useful for prize ceremonies and drinking binges - but now there is only one bigscreen, and the scaffold with the comfy sofas on top has disappeared too :-/ The bigscreen was showing Second Reality when we walked in, which is the perfect soundtrack to start a party with. Setting up the hardware was a snap, the thoughtful organizers have provided outlets, switches and UTP cables for each place at the table, plus bottles of water just in case you get thirsty when the bar is closed! Wonder/Sunflower is shown next, and Broadband/T-rex, so they must be playing the Mindcandy DVD. It's obviously a godsend for orgos trying to build a scenish athmosphere at their party, without sacrificing too much manpower from the multitude of other tasks. While carrying our machines, beer and other stuff inside, we speculated on why there aren't yet many visitors. After all, there were over 200 people on the reservation list. But that number includes those that had reserved before the party was cancelled, and maybe they couldn't come at the current date. In addition, the orgos didn't email everyone when st(ART) was cancelled, nor when the new date was known, so if you didn't read the Orange Juice website or check the st(ART) website, you could think it was still cancelled... The lack of a big sponsor also means the entrance price is slightly higher (20 euros now), and that there's no free food like last time, but of course any demoparty is a good one, so I'm not complaining (no, am not! :) ) For all the hardware DJefke has brought (including a complete mixer panel just for his headphones), he still doesn't have a frontside USB port, so I get to use his handy USB light :) I should buy one myself, it's perfect for typing party reports when the lights in the hall are out. 19:59: Le Fresnoy has its own movie theater, and this year the orgos are allowed to use it! The schedule for tonight includes the 3 Matrix movies, and tomorrow there are presentations about special effects, plus a collection of short animations from various festivals. I take a quick peek - at the moment a professor is explaining a theory about virtual reality and the deeper meaning of The Matrix, but as it is all in French I can hardly understand it (and the web is filled with Matrix crackpot theories, should I be interested in them). Very slowly more people are arriving; a quick count nets a grand total of 30 computers. Not that everyone has brought a computer, but screens are easier to count than sceners scurrying around. DJefke has appointed himself as the spelling-checker of my notes for this report, I'm not sure he's very brave or just pedantic. 20:58: The first Matrix movie is about to start, but as I have it on DVD I'll skip this one. In a small room between the bar and the theater, someone from Le Fresnoy is giving a demonstration of some paint program on impressive hardware: a Silicon Graphics Tezro workstation with a huge (easily 25") widescreen CRT, a fiberchannel RAID box, a big tablet etc. The Tezro is a rectangular purple box with rounded edges and a square front with glowing SGI logo, it's about twice as wide as my PC so I wonder what kind of hardware is in it, given that its diskspace is in a separate box? 21:45 The bigscreen has been showing old amiga demos for some time (the usual classics), but now it displays party info, although the music is still soundtracks from demos. I preferred the system of last year, where the party info was shown overlayed on the demos. We've finally got neighbours at the table (we almost started to feel lonely), the guys & girl from Syn[rj]. They're working on a demo and an intro, both look quite nice. I'd estimate about 45 computer and 60 people are in the main hall now. It's obvious this won't be quite as big as State Of The Art 2002, I hope the orgos won't be discouraged to organize it again next year... 22:32: It had to happen: another invasion from the Germans. Last year XXX/Haujobb was the only German here, but this time he has brought some friends with him, including Poty the Evoke organizer. They hand us at least 10 flyers for the Evoke 2004, and we chat about that, the next Breakpoint, the Digitale Kultur Verein, educating gamers at LANs, the Aldi shops, and the quality of various brands of beer. Meanwhile the bigscreen shows old DOS demos: 73 Million Seconds/Pulse, Genocyd/GMF, Zylog/Sunflower and other goodness that bring back memories of our happy youth. 23:01 The second part of the Matrix should start in 20 minutes, I've seen it only once so I'll check if the fanboys' theory is correct ("It HAS a great story! You just need to watch it several times and meditate about it for a few months before you can understand it!"). You can also order pizza & beer at the entrance, if you're already hungry or thirsty. -=- Saturday 24 January -=- 1:40: Reloaded does indeed make more sense once you've seen Revolutions, but it's not *that* much of an improvement. But what do I see? The bigscreen shows adverts for PAiN and Buenzli! I figure Unlock and/or Fred from Calodox must be here, as they're both on the reservation list. Alas, they're nowhere to be found (turned out the adverts were send via email :-/ ), but I run into the Dutch delegation: Shifter, Mnemonic and Avoozl, who are working on an Xbox demo. Maybe Skrebbel wil arrive too tomorrow, but that's uncertain. 4:06: Matrix Revolution was more or less as I remember it, too many religious undertones. I'm starting to get sleepy, so I follow Djefkes example, unroll my sleeping bag in the dark hallway next to the tables, and doze off. 9:12: Awake, again. I actually woke because of the announcements that croissants and coffee are available in the bar, and that you can take a shower for a limited time. A nice change from last year is that all announcements are now bilingual, although the heavy accent and noisy speakers make it non- trivial to understand the English parts. 10:52: I'm back from a minor shopping spree, buying some food etc from a local supermarket. The Evoke partyvideo is playing, causing all Germans to enthousiastically sing along with the famous Monkey Meeting song. Another count around the room shows there are over 80 PCs now, or (random guess) easily 120 people. While it's not nearly near the capacity of the hall, it should be enough to warranty some decent competitions. 11:21: It's French demo hour, with some good ones like Jumpy! or Just A Touch Of Funk from Digital Murder. The conferences will start in 10 minutes, but I think I'll learn more from NeHes OpenGL tutorials. Yes, I'm once again trying to learn some decent 3D, and the lack of free time in real life means my best chance to succeed is at demoparties... 11:36: Now it's Doxygen tribute time: all demos from this famous French group are played in chronological order. I recognize Contrast, I remember I really didn't like Clawz music when I fist saw it, but now it has kinda grown on me :) 13:17: It's starting to get cold in here. The FTP to submit your productions is finally open, and if you want you can test your production on the compo machine. Of course, real coders prefer the thrill of a crash right during the compo! (No, *I* am not releasing anything here :)) Another conference is about to start, but I'm still struggling with OpenGL. 13:52: Since the NeHe tutorials are rather basic, I bribe Avoozl with beer to answer some OpenGL questions. He has lots of time to do so, as he cross- compiles his code on a 266 Mhz laptop, which requires a zen-like patience. He demonstrates his Xbox demo with and without blur, until an unhandled exception results in the Xboxs startup LED blinking serenily (the equivalent of a bluescreen). I guess I better leave him debugging :) 14:32: Willbe and Chaosnet give another live concert this year, with Skal/Bomb as guest artist. I recognize the Purple/Orion soundtrack, including vocals, now played on a keyboard and 2 guitars. 17:42: I'm back after getting more sleep, otherwise I wouldn't be able to stay awake during the compos. Now the oldskool side of the Mindcandy DVD is playing, it's nice to see the bigscreen in use for most of the time. There's a party website that's fairly often updated, so it's not necessary anymore to show the same info 75% of the time on the screen. 18:08: The first compos are over: the fast GFX compo, in which you had to make a texture for a 3D fish model. My favourite was one that made the fish look like a cow. Next is the chiptune compo, it had only 4 short entries but most are enjoyable. There's a problem with the voting system though, so the orgos announce they'll disable it until they've found the problem. 19:46: Since not everyone can survive a party on beer alone (hi Toby!), DJefke and I went to a nearby pizza shop to order some healthy nourishment on the go. Back at Le Fresnoy we noticed the pizzas weren't sliced, and neither of us had a knife, but a pizza eaten messily tastes twice as good :) The voting "problem" that caused valid votekeys to be rejected, has been solved! Was it a bug? A hacker? Alien intervention? No, it turned out that the font used to print the votekeys does not discern between a I (capital i), l (small L) and 1(one). How simple can it be? :) So people with those characters in their key have to try a few times, luckily a voting code is only 8 chars long so that's doable. 20:18: The theater is showing short animations made by students of various arts schools. Most are OK, but some have just a single idea that's spun out too long, or are too "artistic" for their own good. I'm surprized at the amount of people in there, but then I remember local people can buy cheap tickets for the movies without having to pay entrance for st(ART). 21:14: The tracked music compo had only 4 entries, a bit disappointing but that's what you get if you do 3 separate music compos (chiptunes, tracked and freestyle). The quality was OK, I guess. Coming next: the wild demo compo. 21:51: The wild demo compo consisted of 2 fake advertisements, made by the same group, one for Coca Cola and a parody on Fight Club. "First The Third"/Kaleido (the dutch Xbox demo) wasn't very good IMO (not my style of music), but it was the only coded entry, so that counts for something (Shifter is looking over my shoulder right now so I can't be TOO negative :) ). Skrebbel has arrived, against all expectations, so the risk of joke- entries has suddenly increased. We try to distract him with beer, which seems to work for now! 22:11: The GFX compo had no less then 10 entries. I think the one from Nytrik/Cocoon (Blind Routine) will be the winner. The bigscreen shows random funny movies, now it's some amateur superhero fighting parody. 23:21: There's a chillout room with bean bags, but as everyone there is asleep, the bags are moved to the boxing ring, with copious amounts of beer. Sitting/hanging there we listen to the freestyle music compo, wich has 9 entries. Oops no, 10 entries, we forgot one. Oops, 11 entries, we forgot another! The orgos seem to have some trouble with this compo, but they apologise and play the missing songs, so that's the best you can hope for. In the meantime XXX is learning new useful Dutch phrases: besides "I am an elephant, do you want to see my trunk?" or "Bicycle thief! Do you have a fishing permit?", he can now also say "You have lewdly touched me!" He happily demonstrates his new ability to every puzzled Dutchmen around him. It must be someone's birthday, as the orgos sing "Happy Birthday" over the announcement system. We didn't quite hear who it was, but sing along anyway. Meanwhile Skrebbel and Djefke have started making a joke demo, with less then 40 minutes to go. Undeterred by the fact they've no sourcecode or compiler, they take the Groen! jokedemo from Evoke and start editing the data files with MS Paint or something similarly primitive. -=- Sunday 25 January -=- 00:36: The last non-code compo is over: from the 4 raytraced pics, I liked "My own little world" and "Robot sale" best. The first picture was hardly visible, a white robot on a white background is not the best combination to be displayed on abeamer... The famous Greek scener Optimus is here as wel, he's quite drunk and his dance attemps are almost as hilarious as Tobys dutch insults, but he sure seems to enjoy the party. 1:21: We're still waiting for the game compo, which brings back memories of last years multi-hour delay. But in the meantime you can already download all shown releases from the FTP, which will hopefully improve the quality of the voting. 2:09: The 100K game compo was not spectacular: on the boring side we had a Tetris clone with zero new options, and a badly drawn joke game of armwrestling. More interesting was the "throw a cap on a bottle" game, very simple but the catch is that if you fail, you become drunk: double or blurred vision, everything waves... The most elaborate was an Attax AI game, it's a simple boardgame for two players but the author has included an SDK to program your own computer-adversary. The 4K compo had only 3 entries. The only remarkable one was from Calodox for the ZX80. It ran on an emulator, and features multiple parts, which had to be loaded in memory one by one because the ZX80 only has 1 KB of memory, as the orgos explained. The textmode effects were OK, but the starfield and the 3D cube were hard to see on the bigscreen (thin black lines on a white background, projected with a fuzzy beamer = white screen...) 3:09: Everyone is waiting for the 64K intro compo. Skrebbel (who has managed to finish *something* to submit, although I doubt anyone would call it a demo) is passionately discussing with Pandur/Black Maiden and the polish E-tag/Exodus what makes a good demo :) Conspiracy blows away all competition in the 64K compo with a very detailed and beautiful voyage through the universe. Not that there's *so* much competition: SynRJ has a decent entry, Morph, but the other two are either too short (the realtime raytraced one) or a joke-entry. 4:08: And the democompo is over as well, I was afraid there wouldn't be much to see as the other compos had a lack of entries, but this one goes to 11! Coma/Cocoon was probably the best, a very computer-based demo (think space invaders, print circuits and robot-voices) with more Danish design than we're used from them. Red by Ketchup Killers was nice to, it was a bit weird but we Belgians are like that :) Black Maiden had a grayscale 3D demo called "Interceptor" featuring very detailed models of insects, and robots looking like insects, a bit boring but the audience seemed to like it. 10:28: Yawn! I'm back among the living, and after eating some croissants I head to the first floor were the showers are located. 11:24: There was quite a queue for the showers, but during the long wait I was entertained by the language explorations of Toby ("Je m'appele Natalie!") and Etienne ("Il parle n'importe quoi!") Waiting for the prize ceremony, I start fleshing out this report from the short notes. 13:08: The bigscreen is once again playing oldies, some of which I haven't seen in a long time: Heaven 7/Exceed, Squeezed and Moai by Nomad, and other DOS demos. People are being interviewed in the ring, with a professional camera and lighting etc. I wonder if this is for an art project from Le Fresnoy, or for a local TV station looking for footage for a hacker/gamer documentary film. There is at least one other big camera filming, from the balcony. I'm still peacefully typing when a dark form appears behind my shoulder, and I hear Skrebbel scream in my ear: "Whoa! Party report!": 14:35: yo~ folks, they're playing some sort of demomix right now, badly mixed though (music is constantly ahead of the visuals, and well, watching some discloned remix with fr-08 music just doesn't quite pull it). great idea, however. the party is really atmospheric, but -guess what- rather dull. for some oddish reason french people just seem not to be able to manage to ever leave their computer once they've got it up and running. communication is for wussies, i guess. (kudos to jb and florent for being the exceptions that confirm the rule, though). anyways, this is like the best partyplace ever (ehr. after scene event, naturally), plus the organising is very very smooth. you should all come next year. yes, also the germans. End of the dutch delirium, back to me, Seven :) Hmm, that "end of the delirium" might have been a tad premature. The bigscreen finally plays Toypusher/Purple, which Shifter and Skrebbel have been loudly requesting at various times during the party. They bounce around the hall in an epileptic approximation of dancing, happy as children on their birthday. I for one welcome anything that keeps them of my back :) 16:01: With a mere hour delay, the price ceremony will begin now! We all gather on one side of the ring. The highlights: Cocoon wins the democompo, and gets amongst other stuff, a week at Le Fresnoy to play with all kinds of very expensive and professional graphic toys (Good thing a French group won that prize, I guess :)). Since their main coder was on holiday, they couldn't put quite as much stuff in it as they wanted, so the final may be quite different. Unfortunately even the final will probably be ATI-only. Black Maiden gets the second place, and they demonstrate the close friendship between the french and the germans by reciting all the french words that are also used in German: croissant, trottoir, enfant terrible etc etc. Pipidemics invitation demo for the Synthesis 4 party reaches third place, and all three winner are played on the bigscreen, from last to first. Conspiracy wins the 64K intro compo, no question there. The Kaleido guys win the wild compo, much to their surprise, and Shifter takes the occasion to plug Scene Event once more. The graphics compos had so few entries that the winners were already obvious, and Med/Mandarine is the big music winner, with 2nd places at the chip and freestyle categories, and 1st in tracked. So, how did st(ART) 2004 compare to SOTA 2002? The good: - No power outages anymore. - Much better english announcements. - The schedule was kept better. - Our own movie theater. And the bad: - A bit more expensive, although the orgos did try to keep the cost for food etc very low. This is rather caused by the fact that almost everything was for free at SOTA :) - Less visitors, which resulted in few entries for some compos :( This is of course due to the cancellation inbetween the old and the new date, a problem that should now be permanantly fixed. Anyway, I definately enjoyed st(ART) and hope to be there again (and meet more of you!) next year. --Seven --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Review Assembly '02 DVDs By: Ciaran --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Firstly, if you've been to a demoparty before, please bear with me. For reasons that will be explained below, this review might be a little more enthusiastic than your average review... Let me start this review by telling you why I got this DVD, instead of something a bit more recent. Late last year, I saw a news item on Orange Juice advertising the upcoming release of the Assembly '03 DVDs, and I was suddenly taken by the idea of finding out what the atmosphere at a demoparty was, as I've never been to a demoparty. I've seen quite a few demos that were originally released at parties, but - apart from some short clips on the "Demographics" featurette on the MindCandy DVD - I've never actually seen what it's like *at* a demoparty. At the time, the '03 DVDs weren't out, and I decided that I didn't really want to wait, so I ordered the '02 DVDs. At about the same time, I also heard about NAIDorabilia, a CD containing demos, clips, etc. from the NAID parties of 1995 and 1996. Since it looked pretty good, I went and ordered that as well. (I'll be reviewing NAIDorabilia in another issue.) For those unaware, Assembly is one of the most well-known demoparties. It's held each year, around August, in Finland. The Assembly DVDs are a set of two DVDs compiled after the event each year by Assembly Organizing (the volunteer group who has the unenviable - but satisfying - task of organising Assembly each year). Of course, it contains all the results of the competitions, including all the demos, music, drawings, etc. However, it also contains other cool stuff, such as photos from the party and clips from AssemblyTV (a live broadcast from the party made available on the Internet and the cable TV network in the Helsinki region). It was these two things that I was most interested in personally; I wanted a feeling of actually being at the party. The first thing I noticed when I put the first DVD in the drive was the interface; it's made up of HTML files, which was good because it meant that I could use the interface on Linux as well (or indeed, any operating system for which a Web browser is available). The first DVD contains - among other things - information about the event, a photo gallery, information on the sponsors, and of course the competition results, including all the entries (even the ones which were disqualified). Unlike most people - who would probably be more interested in the demos themselves - I was most interested in the photo gallery on this DVD. And wow, there are some great photos. Even taking into account the fact that I haven't seen many pictures of a demoparty (and am thus more likely to be wowed at what I see), the photos are still pretty awesome; they do a good job of conveying the size of the party. In my opinion, the best ones are when the whole place is dark except for the countless computer monitors and other assorted lights... (again, if you know the feeling from experience, I apologise for rehashing what you know already. ;-)) After looking at the photos and reading more about the party, I decided I would leave the rest of this DVD for later and check out the second one, which mostly contains videos of all the seminars from Assembly '02, and various clips from AssemblyTV, including the welcome and the two (yes, two) prize ceremonies, as well as some interviews. I spent quite some time with this disc. Even though all the clips on this disc (and others) are available to download separately from the scene.org FTP site, it's still nice to have them all in one place, and the prize ceremonies in particular told me a lot about the atmosphere at these parties. It's a shame that there weren't any clips on the DVD where they just walked around and, say, interviewed random people about how it was, or just filmed some of the stuff going on. But then, that would probably be old hat to people other than me, and I guess that since this DVD is probably meant for people who know more about parties than me, it makes sense. Note that I haven't seen the 2003 DVDs, so I don't know whether they've improved on that there. Also on disc two are the "Kill ALL audio and lights!" animations from the '01 and '02 parties. As far as I can gather, the animation is shown before the prize ceremonies; the message being that you don't want any audio or lights distracting you. The animations are rather cute (well, anything featuring Tux is cute, even if one of the penguins *does* get crushed by a stonking great block...), and pretty funny too. After watching most of the second disc (not the seminars, though - maybe I'll watch them later), I went back to the first disc and began to check out some of the stuff there. As I said above, this disc contains the compo entries. Before now, I don't think I've ever quite understood the sheer breadth of skills represented by these compos. There were all sorts of compos, including some specialist compos hosted by Nokia and ASUS. To my surprise, there were also some gaming compos - now, I don't know where I picked this up from, but before I got the DVDs, I thought that Assembly was a no- gaming party. I'm well aware of the tension between 'sceners' and 'gamers', and I was glad to see that Assembly catered to both. (In the opening ceremony, Abyss gave a bit of a talk about it and how he didn't want it to ruin the party. He even half-jokingly said that "I'm your mother!" :)) Unfortunately, I couldn't watch a lot of the entries that were in video format, as I didn't have the right codec - and the latest DivX codec on the Internet looked a bit... I dunno. Iffy. It would have been nice if the videos could have all been converted to one particular codec version beforehand. However, I'm aware that there would have been problems with the quality, due to it being compressed twice. I could probably have coped with it, though. One other small gripe I have: on the DVD case I saw a reference to "Assembly '02 in One Minute". I had looked almost everywhere in the HTML interface for this, and was about to give up and find it from the DVD contents itself. However, I then I saw a link to it on the "Overview" page on disc one, about halfway down the page. It's not a particularly obvious place; I expected it to be on the left menu somewhere. However, gripes aside, this video is again pretty good. It's a time-lapse video of the entire event taken from a static camera, shortened down to just over one minute. It's pretty interesting, and allows you to put into perspective the time taken to prepare the party place against the duration of the party itself. It's also really cool to watch the monitors flicker on and off at that sort of speed. :D In closing, I'd say that these DVDs are pretty cool. However, they could probably do with a bit more to allow people like me to see what really goes on at the party itself; it could make all the difference towards encouraging more people to come. As for me, I now feel I need to go to Assembly at least once. :D One last word: As I've said above, I haven't seen the Assemby '03 DVDs. It's likely that some of the points I mentioned won't apply to them. Just to let you know. You can order the DVDs at http://asm03.assembly.org/Party_program/Merchandise/ASM02_DVD?cl=en . --Ciaran --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- In Tune "Music by Telephone Voices" by Bliss By: Coplan --=--=------=--=------=--=---- If I were a famous musician that was popular today, I'd be expected to have some sort of playlist posted naming my current favorite tunes. It seems to be the trend. Anyhow, with the advent of iTunes and its dynamic playlists, I've been keeping such a "favorites playlist". It will pull my top 25 songs based on two criteria: the rating I have set in iTunes, and the frequency it has been played. Well, for the first time in a long while, I actually looked at my playlist ranked by number of plays. Sitting there in third place was a 'scene song by a guy known as Bliss. And I havn't yet reviewed this song. The song is called "Music by Telephone Voices", by Bliss. It took me a while to figure out why I liked this song. It's definitely not one of those songs you'll love the first time around. You won't hate it, but it won't stand out in your mind. What it comes down to is the dynamics of the song. Bliss has this wonderful talent for mixing several different aspects of a medium together to make one large production. Lets start with the basics. The percussion is nothing fancy. It's a simple snare hit once per measure, a base drum altering between 1 hit and 2 hits after every snare hit. The high-hat is hitting on the quarter- measure on a constant basis. Nothing exciting, but that's not the point. Nor is it the focus. This isn't some wierd techno song or anything of the sort. It's an alternative type song you might expect to come from the minds of Radiohead or Wilco. So while the percussion is important, it isn't there to intrude into the real music at hand. The basis for the chord progression is a fairly standard guitar riff. The lead instrument is obviously synthesized. It sounds almost as if someone is playing a guitar with mallets; a stringed chime-like feel. And it isn't a simple lead either. You will notice first the primary note which is being played by this instrument. But there is a lot more of this instrument going on in the background with a lesser volume. And at two occasions, there is a break to a down-tempo, more dramatic string and brass dominated part with some very serious snare percussions. But it almost sounds as if its being played backwards. A very interesting addition to the song. But the best part about these two parts are the transitions in and out of these segments. It's a very solid cut on the way in. And on the way out is a different story. The first time, the guitar picks up right away as if nothing was happening...but it's such a clean break that it's almost as if the song has started over. And the second time, you hear a sample of a man speaking on a radio (I assume), and then the trance-pads pull you gradually back to the main aspect of the song. Brilliant. But the true brilliance behind the song is all the other sample work that has been carefully placed into this song and all the other subtle little details. Some parts are very obvious, like the Steven Hawkings' voice at the beginning saying "This is Bliss' computer, counting down from 3, 2, 1 and....". Other things aren't very apparent at all. You won't notice the very subtle muted triangle at all unless you listen very closely for it. And in those two breaks, I can't help but to think there is a very distorted sample of someone shouting. And you constantly hear someone talking throughout the song. Most notably is the part at the end with a man coming home from work: "Honey, I'm Home..." And then he notices something is wrong...lights are out, and so on. And then the percussion stops just before you hear the man say "She's Gone" in disbelief. And you can feel the emptiness the moment he says it. That's the stuff I'm talking about! So many people add samples and clips of people speaking to a song, and they say it adds to the song. That's true. But does it help shape the song? Sometimes it does. But at the hand of a master such as Bliss...you notice that the song shapes the sample. It's a game of give-and-take. The spoken word gives a little bit, and the song gives a little bit. What is being said? How do you form your song around that? This is the type of thing that makes artists such as Alan Wilder (Recoil, formerly of Depeche Mode) famous. You have to notice these things and how they impact the song. And if you end up with a song half as well mixed as Bliss' song, people will start to realize that you payed attention to every little detail. Very subtle work, indeed, and the majority of people won't notice. But someone will. And that's who Bliss was working for. So grab this tune, and study it well. It's definitely a keeper for your collection and a reference for your own work. I'm sorry it took me so long to bring it to you. Enjoy. Song Information: Title: Music by Telephone Voices Author: Bliss Release date: Sept. 19, 2002 File Size: 6.4 MB Source: http://www.fairlight.scene.org --Coplan "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 using the addresses found in the closing notes. Please do not send files attached to e-mail without first contacting us. Thank you! --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- On The Sideline "00" by Richie Warburton By: Ben --=--=------=--=------=--=---- This month I am going to do something a little different: I am going to review a track from a commercial release. The track is off a recent Em:t records release "0003". The whole album is pleasant to listen to and very definitely ambient music. It can be ordered from http://www.ambientmusic.co.uk. I chose to review the song "00" by Richie Warburton because its warmth and variety appealed to me. I couldn't find an official web site for Riche Warburton, but there is some information at http://www.seethru.co.uk/music/richie/index.htm. The track list for "0003" follows: 1) "paralysis" by gregor samsa 2) "the loneliness of the long distance space traveller" by radium88 3) "red green blue" by high skies 4) "alabama" by beatsystem 5) "desert sunrise" by brannan lane 6) "fireworks" by international peoples gang 7) "the sutra" by chushen and cugin 8) "i can't hear you" by ande hughes 9) "00" by richie warburton 10) "savannah" by mia The song "00" starts off with applause, then you hear the layered sounds of a tennis match, the roll of echoing synths, a little girl talking, and a jet passing overhead. There are a good deal of ambient noises, and the effect is a relaxing summer-time mood. All-in-all it is a captivating introduction, leaving me expecting that the rest of the song will be good. Richie introduces a warm, moog-eque heartbeat of a bassline, and then a light choir and hand-drums (djembe?) are added. If I hadn't thought so already, now I find the resemblence to "The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld" too strong to ignore. All the while the tennis players keep hammering that ball. About 2.5 minutes into the song, there's a flanged snare and mid-pitched pulsing whoop, and the girl says "You know what I think?" Here the song makes a major transition. The drums get a little harder and acid style synths are bandied about, as if this song might turn into some slow house. But strong synths take the lead and dominate the song with a warm, metallic melody. The loud beat, the synth's echo, and the leads synchronize to strict 4/4 time, and the song is very upbeat and energetic. I imagine that you might be able to dance to it. After sustaining the intensity for a while, the synth leads fade out leaving only the strong beat. There is some talking in the background, and the echoed staccato synths roll around a bit more. We're brought back to the tennis match, and the song ends with a downsampled gong cut off at mid-gong. This anthem is not so ground breaking as some other songs put out under the Em:t label, but "00" is a well done piece following form like a pro. This song and the whole album, as someone else put it, rewards the careful listener and a quality home stereo. Life is good. --Ben Collver --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- The Lineup By: Novus --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Welcome to The Lineup! Every month, I scour through the hundreds of new releases on the scene's major archive sites to find the best new music, saving you the trouble of having to download 20 instant-delete songs to find 1 that's worth keeping. Since Static Line took a month off, this edition of The Lineup will actually cover two months: January and February. I'll select a Best of the Best for each of those months, and then combine the lists from each month. This month marks a milestone in The Lineup, with the first-ever inclusion of MT2 files. I've taken this step because playing MT2 files is now easier than ever! I've put together a custom-pack ZIP file which includes XMPlay as well as plug-ins for playing MT2, SKM, MO3, and compressed tracks archived as ZIP, RAR and LHA files. You can download it right here: http://www.novusmusic.org/mic/xmplay.zip Argh checked in this month after his tune "Flashback" was picked as my Best Of The Best for November, writing, "Also, after a significant number of emails since the release of Static Line this month, I have released a 16-bit hiss-free version of "Flashback." Thanks for making the tune so popular! :)" Actually, Argh, thank you for writing such a great tune, and keep up the great work! I've added Modulez (http://www.modulez.org) to my list of archives to screen every month, and of course I'm continuing to add personal and group websites to my monthly screening list. If you want to make sure that I check YOUR website for new releases every month, don't wait for me to find you: e-mail the URL to me at vince_young@hotmail.com and I'll start watching your site for new releases. It's that easy. In the meantime, you may consider the following 70 tunes to be the best tracks of January and February 2004: -=- THE BEST OF THE BEST: January -=- "Empty Again" - FleshDance - trance http://www.modarchive.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi/F/fd_ea.it -=- THE BEST OF THE BEST: February -=- "The Next" - SmarTech - dance http://pages.poly.edu/~smihay01/music/thenext.zip -=- THE REST OF THE BEST -=- "13th World" - Ceekayed - fantasy http://lysis.audio-stream.net/funkybrains/modules/ck13th.zip "2 Forget" - Project E - dance (MT2 file!) http://espens.madtracker.net/2%20forget.MT2 "A Heartbroken Soul" - DreamSection - fantasy http://www.modarchive.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi/D/ds_ahbs.xm "Ambivalens" - Dr. Emok - pop http://www.modarchive.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi/A/amb.xm "Amiga Boy" - Funky Fish - demostyle ftp://ftp.scenesp.org/pub/modulez/Crizz/Ff_amboy.zip "Aquarius" - Funky Fish - fantasy ftp://ftp.scenesp.org/pub/modulez/Crizz/Ff_aqua.zip "Beastmaster's Tale: Better Quality Version" - Badliz - orchestral http://www.novusmusic.org/songs/beasthiq.rar "Blank" - Candybag - trance ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/candybag/xm/cb_blank.zip "Bow & Arrow" - Shinobi - pop ftp://ftp.scenesp.org/pub/modulez/Shinobi/Bow&arrow.it "Brand New White Coat" - Cadra - techno ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/sublogic/sc-bnwc.zip "Cognitive Dissonance" - Cadra - drum'n'bass http://www.modarchive.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi/S/sc-kiss3.it "Cosmic Evolution" - Ben-Jam - dance ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/benjam/benjam_cosmicevolution.s3m.zip "Cosmic Feelings" - Butch - light rock ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/butch/b_cosmic.zip "Cutey" - Cadra - techno http://www.modarchive.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi/S/sc-kiss2.it "Cynetic Pulse" - Neozound - dance http://es.geocities.com/nexogames/files/Cyneticpulse.zip "Deep Within" - Dr. Emok - dance http://w1.461.telia.com/~u46123576/deepwith.zip "Die To Know" - Cadra - trance ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/sublogic/sc-die.zip "Dodi" - Kim Grönholm - rock http://www.lut.fi/~kgronhol/dodi.xm "Dreameast" - Butch - trance http://www.modarchive.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi/B/b_egipt2.it "Drowning In Acid" - Hypnotic Melody - club http://s87139486.onlinehome.us/mods/ACID-HM3.S3M "Email 2 Elise" - Cyborg Jeff - pop ftp://ftp.scenesp.org/pub/modulez/cyborgjeff/sku248b.it "Enter Mandala" - Ivory - trance http://www.modarchive.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi/M/mandala.it "Eternal Desire" - Dr3amz - dance http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dr3amz/dz-desire.zip "Efter Regn" - Dr. Emok - pop http://www.modarchive.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi/S/solsken.xm "Escaping" - Candybag - dance ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/candybag/xm/cb_e.zip "Figure Out" - NullDogy - industrial http://www.nulldogy.narod.ru/it_zip/figure_out.zip "For A New Day" - DJ Kneh - trance http://www.modarchive.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi/D/dk-fand.it "Frozen Dreams" - Pro-Xex - fantasy http://pro-xex.kenamick.com/tracks/frozen_dreams.zip "Future Military Concuests" - Blue Ion - orchestral http://www.modarchive.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi/I/ion_fmc.it "Gitanjali" - Cadra - trance ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/te/te-gitan.zip "Halo" - Butch - fantasy http://www.modarchive.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi/B/b_halo.it "Hard Drive Battle" - Disturbed - pop http://www.modshrine.com/compo/compo112/hd.xm "Hey Stranger" - Argh & Ballistique - light rock http://www.fq-music.net/music/fq-str-lofi.rar "In Space No One Can Hear You Boogie" - Reed - funk ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/reed/inspace.zip "Irrespective of Age" - Dr. Emok - pop http://www.modarchive.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi/I/irespect.xm "Isn't It..." - SmarTech - pop http://pages.poly.edu/~smihay01/music/isnt.zip "Kissing The Devil 2" - Gravityfruit - pop http://www.gavle.to/~aum.shanti/Kissing_The_Devil_2.zip "Konfituere Extra" - Ben-Jam - dance ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/benjam/benjam_konfituere.xm.zip "Kundalini Dreams" - Wiseman - jungle ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/djsean/sw-kund.zip "Louder Than Signs" - Ben-Jam - light rock ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/benjam/benjam_louderthansigns.s3m.zip "Mars Canyon" - Candybag - trance ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/candybag/xm/cb_mc.zip "Moon: Apocalypse Machine" - Ben-Jam - fantasy ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/benjam/benjam_moon.it.zip "Neon Metropol" - Ilmarque - trance http://koti.mbnet.fi/~tympanic/mods/2_ppessi/il_neonm.zip "No Beast" - Marcuz - demostyle http://www.gavle.to/~aum.shanti/Marcuz_no_beast.zip "Once Upon A Time" - Nobody Here - fantasy http://www.geocities.com/nobodyhere_music/once.zip "Optical Gateway" - Ilmarque & Error 303 - electronica http://koti.mbnet.fi/~tympanic/mods/7_error303/optic.zip "Passengers Of Time" - Nobody Here - fantasy http://users.rol.ro/rveina/Mars3.zip "Return Of The King" - Stone - orchestral http://www.geocities.com/hompefrompe/STONE_return_of_the_real_king.ZIP "Seeking Meaning" - Cadra - trance ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/sublogic/sc-mean.zip "Shores Of The Infinity" - Ivory - trance http://www.modarchive.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi/S/shores.it "Sliders" - Jade - electronica http://www.celebrityskins.eu.org/misc/sliders-it.rar "Some Place Else" - Shytan - ambient http://shytan.alchemicgroup.com/it/shy_spel.zip "Spread The Virus" - The Deviant - techno http://www.novusmusic.org/songs/dev_spread.zip "Starkissed" - Aitrus - ambient http://www.modplug.com/mods/nr_download.php3?session=&downnum=11342 "Stay" - Marcuz - pop http://www.gavle.to/~aum.shanti/Marcuz_Stay.rar "Strawberry Icecream: Musicpack" - Vibe & Technoiz ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/cornercut/crc_si.zip Includes 7 individual song files, all qualified for The Lineup: - "Another Autumn Day" - Vibe - pop - "Divine" - Technoiz - trance - "Human Essence: Galactique Trance Remix" - Technoiz & Vibe - dance - "Just Believe" - Vibe - pop - "Positive Energy" - Vibe & Technoiz - dance - "Sensual Bytes" - Technoiz - dance - "Strawberry Icecream" - Vibe - pop "Synchronised Movement" - Factor - trance (MT2 file!) http://www.freewebs.com/factor013/synchronised%20movement.rar "Take It On" - Cadra - dance http://www.modarchive.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi/S/sc-take.it "The Future Of God" - Grey Face - jungle http://nick.dsaj.com/futureofgod.mod "The Sky Trap" - Reduz - pop http://www.modshrine.com/compo/compo114/skytrap.it "The Ultimate Meeting" - Ben-Jam - techno ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/benjam/benjam_tum99.xm.zip "Trip To Home" - Vibe - pop ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/cornercut/058crc.zip Latez! --Novus --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Screen Lit Vertigo "FR-36", "Coma" and "Interceptor" By: Seven --=--=------=--=------=--=---- -=- "Fr-36:Zeitmaschine" by Farbrausch -=- (party-version) Found at www.scene.org 1st place at the TUM 2003 demo compo System requirements: 11 MB HD, Windows. No reqs listed :( Test Machine: P4 3GHz 512MB DDR, C-Media AC97, Ati 9800 128MB, WinXP The credits: Code (for the tools): Chaos, Fiver2 Graphics: Cp, Paniq Music: Paniq The demo: Farbrausch once again managed to grab a first place, this time with the abstract 3D demo Zeitmaschine. It features a red/black spiderlike spaceship (or maybe a time machine?) flying through a multitude of strange environments. Most rooms have a cubical pattern on the floors and walls, but some contain mathematical objects that remind me of Tron, while others are more organical with pulsing trees or deformed human statues. Almost all 3D objects are pitch black with bright colored lines gliding over them, giving them an appearance between oil, glass and metal. Some trees have a kind of inverse cartoon rendering, with thin white edges, but the high contrast results in ugly aliasing. Luckily Farbrausch's trademark, the glow-effect that lays over all scenes, mitigates this a bit. The demo and it's music are very tightly coupled, which is no surprize as they were developed in a kind of feedback loop (read the .txt file for details). The music starts slow, crackling like an old LP, and after some echoing beats and a German voice urging something, it grows in a nice IDM/techno track with several layers of normal and irregular percussion, and weird croacking leads. It keeps evolving during the whole demo, changing the leads and the tempo, with perfectly synced visuals: objects move faster when the music speeds up, the camera "nods" a bit on the beats, etc etc. It's not my favourite style, I prefer more melody, but there's enough variation to avoid any boredom. Overall: Fr-36 was made without coders, only a musician and graphician using the Werkzeug (the latest incarnation of FR's demotool), and the good and weak points follow from that: it looks great, has a pleasing colorscheme, coherent design and a matching soundtrack. On the other hand I miss new effects, besides a lone particle fire all effects are moving 3D objects, sliding textures and 2D filters. But maybe I'm just worrying coders are becoming obsolete :) So if you like flashy 3D demos with a techno track, FR-36 is what you want! -=- "Coma" by Cocoon -=- (party-version) Found at the st(ART) FTP server, but www.scene.org has it too. 1st place at the st(ART) 2004 demo compo System requirements: 16.6 MB HD, Windows, DX9, ATI 9500 or higher, (NVidia not supported! I heard it runs, but more like a slideshow) Test Machine: P4 3GHz 512MB DDR, C-Media AC97, Ati 9800 128MB, WinXP The credits: Code: Guille Graphics: Nytric, Tenshu, Sheena Music: Willbe The demo: Cocoon did it again: Coma won the democompo just as convincingly as Raw Confessions did at SOTA 2002. It's another 3D demo, but with a different mood: it's not nearly as dark, showing mostly mechanical or computer- inspired scenes: a spherical robot shining a light in a machine room, a ball of light constrained by five metal pilars, or tunnels filled with cables and lights. The only violent scene is a high-tech crucification on a mountain of machines, at the very end. The quality of the 3D models is very high, the chamber with the organical pods f.e. look really amazing, but most are completely static. Objects cast shadows, albeit rather coarse, and the glow-effect is used abundantly. One really good-looking effect is the surface build from hexagonal pillars that jump up and down, creating a ripple-effect, with light glowing from underneath. There's no 2D to speak of, only Danish-design overlays, lines, numbers, and text in mixed font sizes, often too small to read. Also, some orange space invaders march over the screen, fitting perfectly with the vocoder voice. The music is a rocking dance track, it's really infectious and will get your feet tapping in no time. The vocals are error messages like "Failure to set up device" or "Program is not responding", in a similar synthesized voice as Variform/Kewlers or World Domination/ODD. It's simple, but quite effective as they fit the visuals very well. Overall: Coma has a few bugs, there are visible banding issues with the glow, and the shadows look blocky (coincidently, both errors were masked by the bright beamer at st(ART). But otherwise it's a demo I could keep looping for a few hours :) Especially the music is great, but the pretty scenes aren't to sneeze about either! Unfortunately, according to the latest scene.org poll, only 31% of the sceners own an Radeon 9500 or higher, which means the other 69% will have to wait for either a final version with Geforce support (which is very unlikely, from what Cocoon said on the prize ceremony), a driver update that adds whatever DX9 function it is that's not accelerated currently, or until they can afford a new 3D card :/ ... -=- "Interceptor" by Black Maiden -=- (party-version) Found at the st(ART) FTP server, but www.scene.org has it too. 2nd place at the st(ART) 2004 demo compo System requirements: 7.4 MB HD, Windows, Geforce 3 or higher (GF4 Go doesn't count :(, and ATI not supported. But there are 2 Mpegs on scene.org (30 & 60 MB)) Test Machine: P4 3GHz 512MB DDR, C-Media AC97, Ati 9800 128MB, WinXP The credits: Code: Shiva Graphics: Pandur Music: A-Move The demo: Interceptor is a bit of a one-trick pony: it has one 3D model that steals the show, everything else is circumstancial. The interceptor is a 4-legged bug-shaped robot, it's very smooth and detailed with spikes on the legs, a complex air intake at the snout, and a secret weapon hidden beneath the wings. It's already impressive to see it standing still, moving slowly when breathing, with the camera zooming in on the details. But it is when it's on the go that the arachnophobic sceners will look for the reset button on their machine :) Besides the robot, there's a similar but simpler model of an 6-legged bug at the start, with red design lines appearing around the legs. The other design elements are lots of rotating circles, like cogs, some of which form a fractal with more appearing when you zoom in. There's a few more things, like the diagonal stripes that clear the screen, but everything is low-key to not divert your precious attention from the interceptor. The music is a cool electronic track that starts very slowly, almost ambient, with a relaxed sweeping lead and little croacking sounds like insect feets in the background. Later beats complement the sweeps, but the tempo stays down. Little sound accents accompagny the design touches on the screen, but the demo itself doesn't have much effects to sync to the music. Overall: A must-see if you like complex 3D, but you'll find it boring if you expect anything more. Plus, since Black Maiden used Kolor's 3D engine from Relais, this one is for Geforces with shaders only. (I hate this 1-brand- supported-only stuff, but at least it was evenly divided at st(ART). Something to (dis)please everyone, I guess :) ) --Seven --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Coplan's Eyes Tradition By: Coplan --=--=------=--=------=--=---- As I take a sip of my beverage of choice, I can't help but to think of one particular thing: tradition. Tradition is something that is not easily lost. It is a belief, for lack of a better term, in something that exists because it works. Tradition is something that drives many people, if not most people. Tradition, if you really want to be analytic, is necessary. So what of my beverage of choice? Why did that churn my thoughts into this matter of...tradition? Since as long as I can remember, my family has been set in their drink of choice: The Manhatten. A Manhatten is basically two shots Whiskey, one shot Vermouth and a drop of bitters. It's often stirred with ice and served in a martini glass. It's considered and old drink...one that doesn't frequent the bars very often. But every bartender knows how to mix it. It's relatively simple, and every Manhatten drinker has his twist. I drink my with Canadian Club, light on the vermouth and add the bitters. Some drink without the bitters, some drink "Perfect Manhattens" in which the vermouth is split evenly between dry and sweet. My point is that while tradition holds true...there are always variations, and exceptions. Tradition is what holds us to many different aspects of life. I use the example of a beverage because that is something people don't really think about. So what if he drinks a Manhatten, and she drinks a Bay Breeze. In reality, people generally accept what people drink. But when it comes to art...there is always a debate. I find that very interesting because art is purely aesthetic. One would argue that a drink is aesthetic as well...but that only supports my point. My point is that art is a means to get people to debate. I don't care if you're a graphic artist. I don't care if you specialize in water colors or clay. I don't care if you communicate through canvas or audio. You are creating your craft. You are sharing your craft with the world. You put your work, whatever it is, out there so that someone will comment. Your friends will offer you advice so that you can improve. Your aquaintences will tell you that your work is wonderful. Those who know you not will tell you your work is terrible. So what do you get out of every situation here? Discussion. You do your "work" because you want to instigate discussion. Deny it, if you wish, but the truth is: You wouldn't share your work if it were just for you. So I started out with tradition. That is a fact. Another fact is that you started with your hobby because of tradition. There are very few people that create a hobby. Hobbies existed before you even thought it was interesting. But nevermind the fact that said hobby's pre-existence interested you. Something in that hobby pulled you in. Somethign made you want to be a part of this hobby. If you're reading this, my guess is that someone clued you into the demoscene. Someone taught you what benefits you can get from this demoscene. You were excited to participate. You wanted to learn this art. You wanted to be noticed, and you wanted to be recognized. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you...but this "art" that you participate in? It's been done before. It is a tradition of the demoscene. How many times have you heard someone talk about music being so "demoscene-esque" or oat least being "typical of the demoscene". The demoscene has been aroung for a long while. You're really just following in someone's footsteps. Right. So I'm supposed to be inspirational. This is the moment where I'm going to tell you the one truth that you may or may not have discovered: Tradition is only an example, meant to be broken. I'm going to turn back to that Manhatten issue as I discussed earlier. Truth be told, my family doesn't use bitters. My father, my grandfather, my aunt and my uncle all use whiskey and vermouth. Nothing else. I am the first person in my family to use bitters in decades. Am I following tradition? Absolutely. Am I breaking traditions? Absolutely? Tradition requires a certain amount of variation. If it is regae before...it's regae now. But if you bend enough rules, it's both regea AND rock. My point is that you can never bend the rules too much. Tradition is a template. But any template can be modified to fit your needs. It only has to be considered. I'm not going to tell you that you need to follow tradition. I'm not going to tell you that everything you want to do has already been done. That is the words of a person who has no future. That is the words of a person who cannot grasp the future. You have a vision...you have a dream. Grab it, hold it, and push it. If you don't, no one will. Rules are meant to be broken and bent. Break and bend them enough...and you'll find something new. And I hope to be alive to see that happen. --Coplan --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Link List --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Portals: SceneSpot (Home of Static Line).......http://www.scenespot.org CFXweb.......................................http://cfxweb.net Czech Scene................................http://www.scene.cz Danish Scene..............................http://demo-scene.dk Demoscene.org.........................http://www.demoscene.org Demo.org...................................http://www.demo.org Diskmag.de...................................http://diskmag.de Greek Scene............................http://www.demoscene.gr Hungarian Scene........................http://www.demoscene.hu Italian Scene...........................http://run.to/la_scena Kahvi.....................................http://www.kahvi.org ModPlug Central Resources..........http://www.castlex.com/mods Noerror.................................http://www.noerror.org Norwegian Scene........................http://www.demoscene.no Orange Juice.............................http://www.ojuice.net Planet Zeus..........................http://www.planetzeus.net Polish Scene...............................http://www.scene.pl Pouet.net.................................http://www.pouet.net Russian Scene..........................http://www.demoscene.ru Scene.org.................................http://www.scene.org Scenergy on-line (8bit)............http://www.scenergy.natm.ru Scenet....................................http://www.scenet.de Spanish Scene............................http://www.escena.org Swiss Scene..............................http://www.chscene.ch United Trackers.................http://www.united-trackers.org Archives: Acid2.....................................ftp://acid2.stack.nl Amber.......................................ftp://amber.bti.pl Aminet.....................http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/~aminet/ Cyberbox.....................................ftp://cyberbox.de Hornet (1992-1996)........................ftp://ftp.hornet.org MOD Archive..........................http://www.modarchive.com Music Massage......................http://www.scene.cz/massage Scene.org..................................ftp://ftp.scene.org Scene.org Austra........................ftp://ftp.au.scene.org Scene.org Netherlands...................ftp://ftp.nl.scene.org Swiss Scene FTP...........................ftp://ftp.chscene.ch Demo Groups: 3g Design..............................http://3gdesign.cjb.net 3State...................................http://threestate.com 7 Gods.........................................http://7gods.sk Aardbei.....................................http://aardbei.com Acid Rain..............................http://surf.to/acidrain Addict..................................http://addict.scene.pl Agravedict........................http://www.agravedict.art.pl Alien Prophets.....................http://www.alienprophets.dk Anakata..............................http://www.anakata.art.pl ASD....................................http://asd.demoscene.gr Astral..............................http://astral.scene-hu.com Astroidea........................http://astroidea.scene-hu.com BlaBla..............................http://blabla.planet-d.net Blasphemy..............................http://www.blasphemy.dk Bomb..................................http://bomb.planet-d.net Broncs..................................http://broncs.scene.cz Byterapers.....................http://www.byterapers.scene.org Bypass.................................http://bypass.scene.org Calodox.................................http://www.calodox.org Cocoon..............................http://cocoon.planet-d.net Confine.................................http://www.confine.org Damage...................................http://come.to/damage Dc5.........................................http://www.dc5.org Delirium..............................http://delirium.scene.pl Eclipse............................http://www.eclipse-game.com Elitegroup..........................http://elitegroup.demo.org Exceed...........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/~exceed Fairlight.............................http://www.fairlight.com Fobia Design...........................http://www.fd.scene.org Freestyle............................http://www.freestylas.org Fresh! Mindworks...................http://kac.poliod.hu/~fresh Future Crew..........................http://www.futurecrew.org Fuzzion.................................http://www.fuzzion.org GODS...................................http://www.idf.net/gods Halcyon...........................http://www.halcyon.scene.org Haujobb..................................http://www.haujobb.de Hellcore............................http://www.hellcore.art.pl Infuse...................................http://www.infuse.org Inquisition....................http://inquisition.demoscene.hu Kilobite...............................http://kilobite.cjb.net Kolor................................http://www.kaoz.org/kolor Komplex.................................http://www.komplex.org Kooma.....................................http://www.kooma.com Mandula.........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/~mandula Maturefurk...........................http://www.maturefurk.com Monar................ftp://amber.bti.pl/pub/scene/distro/monar MOVSD....................................http://movsd.scene.cz Nextempire...........................http://www.nextempire.com Noice.....................................http://www.noice.org Orange.................................http://orange.scene.org Orion................................http://orion.planet-d.net Outbreak................................http://www.outbreak.nu Popsy Team............................http://popsyteam.rtel.fr Prone................................http://www.prone.ninja.dk Purple....................................http://www.purple.dk Rage........................................http://www.rage.nu Replay.......................http://www.shine.scene.org/replay Retro A.C...........................http://www.retroac.cjb.net Sista Vip..........................http://www.sistavip.exit.de Skytech team............................http://www.skytech.org Skrju.....................................http://www.skrju.org Spinning Kids......................http://www.spinningkids.org Sunflower.......................http://sunflower.opengl.org.pl Talent.............................http://talent.eurochart.org The Black Lotus.............................http://www.tbl.org The Digital Artists Wired Nation.http://digitalartists.cjb.net The Lost Souls...............................http://www.tls.no TPOLM.....................................http://www.tpolm.com Trauma.................................http://sauna.net/trauma T-Rex.....................................http://www.t-rex.org Unik........................................http://www.unik.de Universe..........................http://universe.planet-d.net Vantage..................................http://www.vantage.ch Wipe....................................http://www.wipe-fr.org Music Labels, Music Sites: Aisth.....................................http://www.aisth.com Aural Planet........................http://www.auralplanet.com Azure...................................http://azure-music.com Blacktron Music Production...........http://www.d-zign.com/bmp BrothomStates.............http://www.katastro.fi/brothomstates Chill..........................http://www.chillproductions.com Chippendales......................http://www.sunpoint.net/~cnd Chiptune...............................http://www.chiptune.com Da Jormas................................http://www.jormas.com Fabtrax......http://www.cyberverse.com/~boris/fabtrax/home.htm Fairlight Music.....................http://fairlight.scene.org Five Musicians.........................http://www.fm.scene.org Fusion Music Crew.................http://members.home.nl/cyrex Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff Hellven.................................http://www.hellven.org Ignorance.............................http://www.ignorance.org Immortal Coil.............................http://www.ic.l7.net Intense...........................http://intense.ignorance.org Jecoute.................................http://jecoute.cjb.net Kosmic Free Music Foundation.............http://www.kosmic.org Lackluster.....................http://www.m3rck.net/lackluster Level-D.................................http://www.level-d.com Mah Music.............................http://come.to/mah.music Maniacs of noise...............http://home.worldonline.nl/~mon MAZ's sound homepage..................http://www.maz-sound.com Med.......................................http://www.med.fr.fm Miasmah.............................http://www.miasmah.cjb.net Milk.......................................http://milk.sgic.fi Mo'playaz..........................http://ssmedion.de/moplayaz Mono211.................................http://www.mono211.com Morbid Minds..............http://www.raveordie.com/morbidminds Moods..............................http://www.moodymusic.de.vu Mstation.....................http://mstation.org/software.html Nectarine Demoscene Radio................http://scenemusic.net Noise................................http://www.noisemusic.org One Touch Records......................http://otr.planet-d.net Park..................................http://park.planet-d.net pHluid..................................http://phluid.acid.org Radical Rhythms.....http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/merrelli/rr RBi Music.............................http://www.rbi-music.com Ruff Engine................http://members.xoom.com/ruff_engine SHR8M......................................http://1st.to/shr8m Sound Devotion................http://sugarbomb.x2o.net/soundev Soundstate.........................http://listen.to/soundstate Sunlikamelo-D.....................http://www.sunlikamelo-d.com Suspect Records........................http://www.tande.com/sr Tequila........................http://www.defacto2.net/tequila Tempo................................http://tempomusic.cjb.net Tetris....................................http://msg.sk/tetris Theralite...........................http://theralite.avalon.hr Tokyo Dawn Records........................http://tokyodawn.org Triad's C64 music archive.............http://www.triad.c64.org UltraBeat.........................http://www.innerverse.com/ub Vibrants................................http://www.vibrants.dk Zen of Tracking.........................http://surf.to/the-imm Programming: 3D engines..........http://cg.cs.tu-berlin.de/~ki/engines.html 3D programming portal.................http://www.3dgamedev.com Documents...............http://www.neutralzone.org/home/faqsys File format collection...................http://www.wotsit.org Game programming portal...............http://www.gamasutra.com LCC (free C compiler).........http://www.remcomp.com/lcc-win32 NASM (free Assembly compiler)......http://nasm.sourceforge.net Programming portal......................http://www.gamedev.net Programming portal.....................http://www.flipcode.com Programming portal......................http://www.exaflop.org Programming portal............http://www.programmersheaven.com Programming portal.....................http://www.freecode.com PTC video engine.........................http://www.gaffer.org Magazines: Amber (in pop-up window).............http://amber.planet-d.net Amnesia...............http://amnesia-dist.future.easyspace.com Demojournal....................http://demojournal.planet-d.net Eurochart.............................http://www.eurochart.org Hugi........................................http://www.hugi.de Jurassic Pack.......................http://www.jurassicpack.de PAiN.....................................http://pain.scene.org Shine (in pop-up window)................http://shine.scene.org Static Line....................http://staticline.scenespot.org Sunray..............................http://sunray.planet-d.net TUHB.......................................http://www.tuhb.org WildMag..................................http://www.wildmag.de Parties: Assembly (Finland).....................http://www.assembly.org Ambience (The Netherlands)..............http://www.ambience.nl Breakpoint (Germany)..........http://breakpoint.untergrund.net Buenzli (Switzerland)......................http://www.buenz.li Dreamhack (Sweden)....................http://www.dreamhack.org Gravity (Poland)............http://www.demoscena.cp.pl/gravity Mekka-Symposium (Germany)...................http://ms.demo.org Pilgrimage (Utah, US)..............http://pilgrimage.scene.org ReAct (Greece).............................http://www.react.gr Takeover (The Netherlands).............,http://www.takeover.nl The Party (Denmark).....................http://www.theparty.dk Others: CoolBPM.....................................http://coolbpm.com Demo secret parts....http://www.inf.bme.hu/~mandula/secret.txt Textmode Demo Archive.................http://tmda.planet-d.net Arf!Studios..........................http://www.arfstudios.org #coders..................................http://coderz.cjb.net Csound-tekno e-mail list...................................... ............http://plot.bek.no/mailman/listinfo/csoundtekno Demonews Express.........http://www.teeselink.demon.nl/express Demo fanclub........................http://jerware.org/fanclub Digital Undergrounds.....................http://dug.iscool.net Everything tracking..http://zolaweb.com/Zola/trax/tracking.htm Freax.....................................http://www.freax.hu/ GFXZone.................................http://www.gfxzone.org Mod-Radio.....................http://www.back2roots.org/Radio/ PC-demos explained.....http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained Pixel...................................http://pixel.scene.org #trax e-mail list............................................. .............http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/trax Underground Mine.............http://www.spinningkids.org/umine IRC Channels: Graphics.........................................ircnet #pixel Graphics (French)..............................ircnet #pixelfr Music......................................irc.scene.org #trax Music.............................................ircnet #trax Programming.....................................ircnet #coders Programming....................................efnet #flipcode Programming (French)............................ircnet #codefr Programming (German)........................ircnet #coders.ger Programming (Hungarian)......................ircnet #coders.hu Scene.........................................ircnet #thescene Scene (French)..................................ircnet #demofr Scene (Hungarian)............................ircnet #demoscene Zx-spectrum scene..................................ircnet #z80 --=--=-- ----=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------ -=- Staff -=- Editor: Ciaran / Ciaran Hamilton / staticline@theblob.org Staff Writers: Ben / Ben Collver / collver1@comcast.net Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org Dilvie / Eric Hamilton / dilvie@dilvie.com Novus / Vince Young / vince_young@hotmail.com Psitron / Tim Soderstrom / tigerhawk@stic.net Setec / Jesper Pederson / jesped@post.tele.dk Seven / Stefaan VanNieuwenhuyze / seven7@pandora.be Tryhuk / Tryhuk Vojtech / vojtech.tryhuk@worldonline.cz Vill / Brian Frank / darkvill@yahoo.com The Watcher / Paul-Jan Pauptit / sprout@zonnet.nl The current issue of Static Line can always be found on the Web at: http://staticline.scenespot.org/issues/current_issue Static Line Subscription Management: http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/static_line If you would like to contribute an article to Static Line, be aware that we will format your article to 76 columns with two columns at the beginning of each line. Please avoid foul language and high ASCII characters. Contributions (Plain Text) should be e-mailed to (static_line-owner@scenespot.org) by the last Friday of each month. New issues are released on a monthly basis. See you next month! -eof---=------=--=------=--=--