ooooo a a o48888P"""78 8b. ,p q8 88a 48K 8 ,poo888ooP' ,oo88o o' q. d8b d888b 78888oooo. dP' `888' d8"' `88 `8888888q 48b 48P' `88 `""""8888 Y88 ,8' 88 d88 7 d88P d8P 8oo oo88 V88. `88o. ,o888 88 Y88b Y88. ,8D / / `5488888"' `78b. `"88888'`8o q888 `88m `Y88888P / / 8888 / / \------------------------- 88 8D --------------------------------/ / \ \---------------- o ,d888888 ----------------------------------/ \ \ July `888 888 888 \ \ 1999 888 `"' d8888oo, \ \ 888 `888' Y88P,d888b. dP' `88 63 \ \ 888 q8b 88P 8888'`888 88b,,,,, 88 Subscribers \ \ 888888 7b 88' 888' `88 88'`"""78P ---------------\ \ 88 88888b dP ,88. 88; 88, 78b, .,p --------------------\ 7888P 88888P ,8888b. a888. a888 `888888P' ascii by: ZXPKNOBB --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Table Of Contents ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- Opening: Message From the Editor Columns: Monthly Software Review -- MP3Spy v1.0 Screen Lit Vertigo -- "GoatAge" by Noice Features: NAIDorabilia Interview With Andrew Sega ("Necros") Closing: Credits --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Message From the Editor ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- LOTS OF NEWS THIS MONTH. There's been a lot of little odd and end things that I need to get tied up...so they get included in this long message from the editor. =) First of all, many of you wrote in that our web address was incorrect. There were 4 messages in all, and I thank you for paying attention. I wish I could say that I was just testing you, but this was a slip-up on my part, and I appologize. Next line of business, dead e-mail addresses. I had a lot of them on the mailing list this past month. Jim and I managed to clean it up a bit though, and we deleted several addresses that responded with fatal errors. If you're wondering, that's why our subscriber count is down from last month -- not that we've lost any, just because some of those counted last month didn't exist. Meanwhile, if you're going to loose your e-mail address, please unsubscribe. If you've already lost it, the least you could do is let me know. Thanks. Wow...this could turn out to be a long message from the editor. =) Next in line is my new e-mail address. If you aren't the type who reads the closing very much, please realize that I have a new e-mail address. My school account still exists, and will continue to do so until I officially graduate next year. However, it automatically forwards all my mail to the new address anyhow. On top of that, I'll have a better file-size cap on my new address. The new address is "coplan.ic@rcn.com" Last thing before I introduce the articles for the month, I'm looking to get a hold of Ranger Rick. If anyone has _ANY_ information on where I can reach him (or if Ranger is out there somewhere), please contact me. His e-mail address as listed on the closing is inaccurate, as it will return an unknown user. The closing will change when we contact him. Now, the articles for this month (finally). I have good news and bad news. First the bad news: I've been very busy the last few weeks searching for jobs, so I wasn't able to do a song review this month. I appologize, but life should get simpler soon, and I may have a partner as well. So my column is out. However, Glen Warner (who wrote us some feedback a few months ago) sent us his interview with Necros. He did a phenominal job, and we thank him profusely for it. It's in our feature articles section this month. Also among our features is a "NAIDorabilia" sale maintained by Andy Voss. Among our regular columns, we have a review of MP3spy and a review of Noise's "GoatAge." Dilvish is moveing again (poor guy, hope its his last for a while), so Zen of Tracking will return at a later date. We thank you for your patience. --Coplan --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Montly Software Review MP3Spy v1.0 By: Louis Gorenfeld ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- Nearly everybody on the Internet has heard of the MP3 format, and most definetly all computer music freaks have. However, fewer people realize that it can be streamed over connections as slow as 28.8 modems and even fewer know about MP3Spy. MP3spy is a program that basically catagorizes and lists Shoutcast streaming mp3 servers. The program, after you click on the catagory of music you would like to listen to, presents you with information about each mp3 server listed including ping time (speed), number of listeners, bitrate (quality, red means your connection can't handle it) and the average time that the server is up. The beta versions were more presice in the information and gave exact ping times and playback rates, though I assume this was too confusing for the majority of Internet users. There is also a description of each server. Each station also comes with an IRC-style chat room that you automatically join when clicking on the server. I don't know if this is really needed since people do not usually say anything. After you start listening, you are also presented with serveral options including buying the cd which is currently playing or going to the station's web page. The sound quality is very good for the rate (which varies from 8 or so all the way to 128kbps), and I personally prefer it to RealAudio as it seems to be much clearer even at very low rates, and is also faster loading. Also, you can run your own Shoutcast MP3 server as long as you have a fast enough connection and computer (complete instructions on mp3spy site). System Requirements: * Pentium processor or fast 486, ~16MB RAM * Windows 95 * WinAmp preferred ( http://www.winamp.com ) What you get: * Hours of free music provided you can find a station you like * Slick and quick interface * Annoying advertisements (registered users can toggle them) * Neat MP3spy WinAmp skin * Rating: 3+/4 ( along with external players this puts other streaming audio programs to shame ) Where to get it: http://www.mp3spy.com --Louis Gorenfeld --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Screen Lit Vertigo "GoatAge" by Noice (party version) By: Seven ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- Found at www.scene.org 1st place at Remedy'99 System requirements: PII 233 or better, 5.5 MB HD, 64 MB RAM but 128 recommended, because otherwise swapping will cause slowdowns. Windows9x, there are two exe-files: one for DirectX (Fullscreen) and one windowed version (using GDI, don't know what that means). Test Machine: PII 350 64MB SB16, Win98 The demo: This is definitely one of the best demos I've seen recently, despite the fact that it is a (slow) partyversion, and win-only. It has a strange kind of feeling, as there are impressive and well-done effects, but often with funny details or crazy "poems", like: I walk my path to the virtual goatland facing my destiny at the edge of destruction reaching out for my life On the 3D-side, there is a scary ride in some metro-tunnels, a strange phong-shaded globe-like thingy with three mirrors, particle-trails and lots of flares (visual overkill, but I like it a lot), and lots of smaller objects, like a recursive cube, usually with a nice background and/or an additional 2D-effect. The radial blur is a bit over-used sometimes, for example during the credits. Maybe that's why they show them again at the end, in a (very slow) upscroll. There are some nice transitions between parts, like the strange 2D-plasma that wraps around an object, revealing the next part. There is one funny hand-drawn picture, of an angry goat, the others are photoshopped backgrounds of an astronaut in space, a human skull with green brains and Leonardo Da Vinci's human body (you know, with the arms & legs spread and a circle around it). There's no real theme in it, but somehow, they seem to fit the demo. The big white font at the beginning and the end is a bit ugly due to anti-aliasing (no, sometimes it's just not necessary). The music: There are two tunes, the main theme and the outtro. The main theme starts slowly with a soft melody and slow drums, then it gets more rhythmical, a bit theatrical at the title sequence. Then we hear a voice sample (something about nuclear weapons, while the goat-picture is shown :)), and after that it burst into a typical demo-soundtrack: lots of fast percussion together with a catchy tune, with an occasional break or a slower part, for example in the metro-tunnels. The endtune is really well done, a nostalgic melody alternated by military-style drum rolls, with the typical "It's all over, folks"-feeling. The main parts of the demo are synchronized to the music, so due to the swapping-slowdowns, some parts might end too fast (some messages are shown only half etc). Overall: Well, the first time I watched it, I was really curious what would follow next, all through the demo. No "oh no, not again a !" feeling, it really grabs your attention (although in my case, my attention was easy to get as I should have been studying "object-oriented languages and software development II"). It's varied, never boring, the music is great and there is some humor in it, albeit rather strange humor :). The most bad points are on the technical side, the swapping-slowdowns are really irritating, and sometimes a few meshes disappear (DirectX error?). I hope they'll fix that in the final version. Also, there is no greeting-part, of course this is not an "error", but when I first noticed it, it felt so strange that I watched it again just to check if I overlooked it. So maybe it's better to wait for the final, but if you're curious: go ahead, you'll enjoy it anyway. Secret part: To see the "secret part" mentioned in the info-file, add the word "goatpower" on the first line of the README.TXT. It wasn't really hard to find, as the .exe is not zipped, and you can find "goatpower" next to "readme.txt" in it. --Seven --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- NAIDorabilia By: Andy Voss ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- I would like to proudly announce that my NAID CD-ROM project is complete. It is officially titled "NAIDorabilia". With the help of many people over a six-month period, I have collected the following material for the CD: ALL the '96 compo entries 95% of the '95 compo entries (missing a few gfx, 3 songs, and 1 intro) 1.5 hours of audio footage from '96 1.5 hours of video footage from '95 and '96 400+ photos from '95 and '96 invtros, reports, results, and related text files bonus North American demoscene memorabilia tons of hidden files and other surprises The price of the CD, including shipping and handling, is: $12.00 (US and Canada) $13.00 (international) Both prices are in US funds. This is a very limited production. As of 6/18/99 only 74 CDs remain. To reserve your copy, fill out the order form, available at http://www.erols.com/vossa/naid/naidcd_order.txt. --Andy Voss (Phoenix / DC5 / Hornet alum) --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Interview With Andrew Sega ("Necros") By: G.D. Warner ("Mage") ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- This interview was conducted via e-mail over the period from September 1998 to November 1998. Andrew Sega, known throughout the world of computer music as "Necros," has been an active force on the scene for about 6 years now, though only recently being noticed world wide. If you haven't heard of him, you are missing some really good music -- and you should take steps to remedy that situation quickly! For those of you who have heard of him, this interview provides some insight into the workings of a very talented musician. Mage: We'll start off with a few easy questions: real name, handle(s), groups (old and new) occupation .... Necros: My name is Andrew Sega, in the scene known as Necros (currently in the group Five Musicians... and at times: Kosmic, Psychic Monks, DC5, many others). Currently I work at a computer game company called Digital Anvil, in Austin, Texas. Mage: What do you do for Digital Anvil? Necros: Believe it or not, I'm a 3D graphics programmer. :) I've always been interested in the coding side of things, algorithms and such. I've actually been programming almost as long as I've been composing. It's a nice break from music (which can be quite stifling). Currently I'm working on scene optimization, rendering algorithms, object physics, etc. Music is nothing but ratios and harmonic math, anyways *grin*. Mage: Will they let you do any music for their games? Do they even know of your extracurricular (musical) activities? Necros: They do know of my music, in fact Martin Galway (of old-school C64 fame) is our audio director. However, it seems that most of our producers are into either orchestral or 80's pop-rock styles, which can be suitably composed by many people other than myself. Mage: Where did your nickname come from? Necros: I honestly have no idea. I picked it when I was seventeen. Later I found out there was a punk band in NYC called the 'Necros'. The concept of handles (nicknames) came from the old hacker scene... everyone wants to have alter egos.... Mage: How did you get started writing mods? Necros: Pretty much the same way everyone else did - finding a demo or tune by accident, and being amazed at the quality. For me that moment was in early 1993, when a friend was watching Future Crew's "Unreal" demo, and marveling at the musical quality (9 channels on a SoundBlaster!). After a bit of digging, I discovered the 'demo scene' as it were, and the underground movement which was well underway. I managed to grab a copy of the original FastTracker 1.0, and immediately started spending many late nights hacking away at the thing. It was amazing, to me, to see that such a powerful tool was available to the 'scene'. From there I started working backwards a bit, discovering the older Amiga scene, and realizing how the evolution of the MOD had come about. Mage: Who were you listening to during this period? What interested you in that particular song/composer? Necros: I liked the early Purple Motion stuff. I learned a lot from analyzing tunes like "Starshine" and the 2nd Reality stuff, both for technique and for tonal qualities. There was a lot of decent Amiga stuff to listen to as well, if you could get past the quirkiness (or uniqueness, it could be argued) of 4 channels. Back then there wasn't very much PC composition at all, in fact it was rare to even see anything more than bad 8 channel .MOD's until FC ['Future Crew' --gdw] released ScreamTracker 3 in 1994. Mage: How long have you been composing? Necros: It will be almost six years now. Mage: How many songs have you tracked? Necros: Finished songs? Probably around four hundred or so. Mage: What equipment do you use? Necros: You really don't need any equipment to track. I still sometimes work off of my old 486 DX4/100, with a Gravis Ultrasound (hardware channel mixing). I have a fairly large sample collection from various synths and sample CD's. I also like to take little snippets from commercial (i.e. real music) CD's when I hear something special. Mage: No synths/keyboards? Necros: Well actually I do have a Roland XP-50 which I make strange patches with, in the past I've taken sounds from various synths that I've borrowed: Korg X3, Roland SH-101, even a Juno 106 once. Mage: Do you have any formal musical training? What instrument(s)? Necros: I've always been a keyboard player. When I was 14 or so, I was subbing as a church organist on weekends (seriously!). Probably been playing keyboards in one form or the other for at least 10 years now. I've also picked up a fair bit of guitar and bass, and some wind instruments. Once you have a basic grasp of the theories underlying music, you can pretty much pick up any instrument you want. Mage: Do you play any ragtime or stride piano? I'm asking because most keyboard players seem to neglect their left hands, according to an Australian music salesman I spoke with a few years ago (he was watching me play Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" with some envy at the time...). Necros: I agree. I do play a bit of ragtime, some Joplin and such. Although in my opinion Gershwin is the master of 'progressive ragtime', some of his left hand passages are frustratingly intricate. Not only do most musicians neglect their left hands on a piano, they neglect the bottom end of their mixes when tracking. I've always tried to put interesting bass lines and drums to contrast a bit with the melodies, and add a bit of colour. Mage: (*heh*!) Two words: 'Art Tatum'! :o) Love those walking tenths. What is your reach, by the way? Necros: Heh. My left hand tends to rebel once I go past octaves. However, you can always sequence what you can't play. :) Mage: How important do you feel is a knowledge of music theory to a tracker? Has it helped you compose? Necros: I think it's fairly important to do anything meaningful. If you don't know _anything_ about music theory, you'll be handicapped a bit. I don't have very good technical knowledge (i.e. high-end jazz/modal theory) but I do know the basics and every little bit helps. I wouldn't make the mistake of saying music theory is the sole key to successful tracking, however. A good rhythmic and sonic sense is also extremely important. Mage: All musicians seem to write their tunes differently; how did "Realization" come together? Necros: Well, the intro progression (D, D/C G9/B G2/Bb) is very Beatles-esque and probably came from such. Once you have a good chord motif, it's pretty easy to hear in your head what sort of a groove you want to put behind it. The tracker forces you to be a bit austere in your orchestration...2 channels for drums (bass drum/snare, hihat, lots of volume twiddling and offset), 1 for the guitar + 2 echo tracks, chord track for warmth (the samples are backward Enya pads if I remember correctly), one for the bass, and 2 more for clean guitar arpeggios. During the B3 solo near the end I had to double the speed of the piece to fit the 16th notes in the patterns - tracker limitations strike again. Mage: Does this technique hold true for all of your tunes? That is, do you find a good chord progression and go from there? Necros: Yes, almost to a fault. I've been fascinated with arcane chord progressions since I was young. The trick is to keep them interesting, while still in the realm of 'normality' (otherwise the listener has no context to appreciate the progressions in). It's tough to do really unique orchestrations in a tracker simply because there's not that much sample space to go around. You are much more dependent on your melodies and progressions to carry the songs for you. I'm not even going to mention the pain that is caused by having to make most songs without vocals.... Mage: What is the weirdest chord progression you've run across? Necros: Well anyone can make a 'weird' progression by randomly picking triads. I love Gershwin-style chords (the second part of Rhapsody, perhaps). Also I'm a big fan of Sundays / Cocteau Twins - style layered chords (Cmaj7 - Bbmaj7/F -F9 - G9). When I first got into tracking I loved the chords from Purple Motion's "Starshine" (Am - G9 - Bb - C9... Cm7 - Bb - Db - Eb... simple but effective). Mage: Believe it or not, there are a few people reading that have never even *seen* a tracker before, let alone tried writing a tune in one. Could you describe how you go about actually creating a tune, from start to finish (you know ... idea, sample selection, etc., etc.)? Necros: Using a tracker is like writing a tune on a Scrabble board. You're putting samples in discrete slots, and applying different effects (denoted by letters ... yes it's archaic). The first thing you do is get the basic idea. Then you attempt to find a basic sample set. I prefer to do the rhythmic stuff first ... basses, drums, loops, etc. After you have that, you go through the normal stages of composition, ripping stuff out, putting new samples in, rearranging sections. Once you get used to the tracker interface, it's not that much different from MIDI sequencing. The one really neat thing about trackers is that you get very low-level control over your samples -- volume, panning, effects and such. It's very easy, for example, to create intricate slice-and-dice rhythms using bits of samples (Skinny Puppy-style). Conversely it's much harder to do long drawn out pads and sustained chords well, due to limited sample sizes and the inherent quantization of the tracker. It's a hard beast to master, but when you've got it, you can do things you could never do in DLS or MIDI specs, and end up with file sizes so ludicrously small (way under 1 MB) that you can realistically distribute tunes over the internet. Mage: Now that you have a Real Job(tm), do you find it interferes with your tracking? Necros: Absolutely. But I don't mind much; I've spent so much of my life full-time tracking that I'm almost happy to relegate it to part-time status. Mage: 'Five Musicians'. Who else is in this group? Necros: Me, Basehead (Dan Grandpre, US), Mellow-D (Jaakko Manninen, Finland), WAVE (Jeroen Tel, Netherlands), and Hunz (Hans van Vliet, Australia). Mage: Do you work on tunes as a group, or just individually? Necros: Originally we had hoped to do all tunes as cooperative efforts between one or more of us. Unfortunately it's a logistical nightmare over the internet. Passing songs back and forth gets tedious quickly. There have been a few successful efforts so far, but not many. Nowadays we are mostly doing individual releases and hoping that as a group we have (or appear to have) some sort of unified vision. :) Mage: You've alluded to difficulties with 5-way collaborations amongst the Five Musicians. How bad was it? Was the song ever completed? What was it? Necros: Well, a five-way collaboration (in the true sense) is almost impossible. I remember some attempts (on IRC) by people trying to get 9, 10 people to all work on bits of a large song. The result usually was an incoherent stylistic mishmash. There have been a lot of 2-way collaborations, though, me and Basehead on "Riff", Basehead and Mellow-D in "Digital Ritual", etc. Mage: Impulse Tracker 3.0 apparently will include networking capabilities. Had you heard anything about this? Necros: Nope... how exactly would that work? Two people entering tracker data at the same time? Sounds a bit confusing (unless you threw in some sort of I-Phone or equivalent to facilitate realtime voice communication). Mage: Alas, all the web page (http://mp3.musichall.cz/IT3/) says, under the list of new features, "Network multi-user tracking (Jeffrey Lim's idea)". I would suspect some sort of TCP/IP interface... you know, like playing "Myth: The Fallen Lords" or "Quake" over the net, possibly with something like "Publish and Subscribe" thrown in. Since you are dealing with TCP/IP anyway, I don't see any reason one couldn't set up a conference call while they're tracking. Necros: Certainly it's an option. As with any collaboration, you have to find someone that's in your 'mode' of making music. When physical distance isn't a barrier, it may help people find collaborative companions anywhere on the planet. Mage: You've done a few collaborations with other musicians ("Dance of the Dead" with Chromatic Dragon, "Search for the Lost Riff", with Basehead, etc.). How does one write a tune in this fashion -- especially when the participants are in two different countries? Necros: Usually you try to pass the tune back and forth in some fashion. Sometimes it's via e-mail, or sometimes it's even as simple as taking turns on the keyboard {"Riff" was done that way, at a party :)}. Unfortunately it doesn't usually work too well because the people are constantly trying to push the piece in different directions. The success is totally dependent on the the mixture of the composers' styles... if the ingredients clash, so will the song.... Mage: Where can one download the Five Musicians' tunes? Necros: ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/fm Mage: FM has undergone a few changes over the years. Wasn't Big Jim a member at one time? Also, Zodiak and Vic have departed. What caused the personnel changes? Necros: Big Jim was one of our first members. Unfortunately he sort of faded out of the scene. Zodiak filled in at one point, he's a great guy. Vic was also in for a while (and is a very talented tracker), but we had a few interpersonal conflicts in the group. It's hard finding a good mix of people that won't sit and scream at each other. Usually musicians have egos and personality quirks which makes it difficult to form collaborative efforts (for long periods of time, anyways). Mage: What do you feel are your strengths as a tracker ... and your weaknesses? Necros: I like to tell myself that I have a good harmonic sense. I also think I'm fairly good at diverse orchestrations. I've been trying to improve my rhythm tracking skills lately (creating my own loops and such). Also I'm exploring more offbeat styles. Mage: So you feel your weakness is rhythm? Necros: Until recently, I was afraid to explore non 4/4 styles ... probably because of all that pop in me. Lately I've been trying to mix things up more, experiment with offset (Photek-style) breakbeats, even 3/4 electronica. However, I'm not a big fan of asynchronicity just for its own sake - a lot of people push rhythmic variation so far that the basic pulse of the music gets lost (and the listener is confused). Mage: You wrote a short-lived newsletter on writing mods (SIGNALS, 1 - 5). How did that come about? Necros: Arrogance, most likely (*grin*). I was amazed at the lack of information available about tracking, and decided to try to write a series of newsletters which would concentrate on intermediate-level tracking tips. It was pretty successful, but I didn't have much time to continue it during semesters. We tried a few years later to do the same thing, again, with a mag called Dissonance, but it suffered the same fate. There were also articles here and there in TraxWeekly, back when it was on a consistent "1 issue per week" schedule. All in the name of helping one's fellow man. :) Mage: Could you describe Dissonance? Is it still available somewhere? Necros: I'm sure it's out there somewhere. I don't think I even have a copy of it anymore. It was a DOS-based .exe, that was an interface to read articles with. We had quite a few articles, maybe twenty or thirty pages worth. I doubt it'd run under Win98 though :) Mage: By now, you have probably played with most of the trackers out there. Which ones have you used? Necros: I'm an Impulse Tracker junkie, command line-style interfaces give a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. It's just as good as the newer versions of FastTracker, and I find it slightly faster to work with. At this stage of the game it's basically a choice of which UI you prefer. There are some new trackers on the horizon, with more realtime DSP and distinctively non-tracker style (MIDI) song construction capabilities. I don't know at what point a tracker becomes functionally equivalent to some of the regular MIDI-based sample sequencing tools; but I suspect that day is rapidly approaching. Trackers were much more interesting when they were the only cheap 'underground' tools which allowed you to put together professional-sounding multitrack recordings on cheap vanilla soundcards. Unfortunately, as technology has improved, that which was 'underground' now heads towards obsolecence. Mage: A lot of mod musicians are requesting a Windows-based tracker (according to Antoine Rosset, author of the Macintosh tracker, PlayerPRO). Wouldn't you be able to work just as fast (or faster) in a GUI? For instance, a repetitive bass line or drum sequence can be created once, and copied and pasted with a couple mouse clicks. Necros: Yes. I'm not saying that it's impossible to make a fast and easy-to-use GUI tracker, just that it hasn't been done yet :) At what point, though, do you end up writing a cheap version of Pro Tools? Once you start using huge 16bit samples, 32+ tracks, realtime DSP, et cetera, the 'tracker' is essentially turned into a high-end sequencer with primarily a keyboard (as opposed to MIDI) interface. Mage: Samples are the 'Heart and Soul' of tracked music. Your samples are of a very high quality (amplitude, etc.). Do you make your own? What do you use? Necros: I rip a bit, make a bit ... I think you have to do both to get a good sample set. I've made quite a few on my XP-50 by taking patches and twiddling synth parameters until the sound goes haywire, and then sampling the resultant waveforms. I haven't extensively used sample CD's too much, but I'm getting into that more and more. Since most people who track have limited income/resources {otherwise they would be using real samplers, not trackers:)}, you have to be creative in your sampling. Mage: Many mod musicians dislike it when other musicians use their samples without crediting the source (a.k.a. 'ripping'). What are your thoughts about this issue? Necros: Many samples are so ubiquitous these days that it's difficult to determine the original source. Also, it's very easy to disguise a sample by processing it a bit in SoundForge or something similar. I think that the public judges a song on the overall feel, not individual samples. If a sample contributes too heavily to the song, and the sample is recognized, the opinion of the piece goes down. So you sort of dig your own hole if you use too many 909's and distorted 303's and old Amiga samples. Mage: Do you see the arrival of the ".MP3-wave" as a threat to tracking? Necros: With the increased transmission bandwidth available nowadays via the internet, and cheap fast modems, I think the tracked format is losing some of its advantages. An MP3 is only 4-5 times bigger than the typical XM or IT, and you get 'unlimited' sample usage. I also think that MP3 is an excellent medium for mass distribution of music, at least for the next year of two. The sonic artifacts are very minimal. Plus you don't have the ability to 'rip' the author's samples. Mage: There has been some discussion about a given mod musicians' music being included in games, movies, etc. without the musicians permission... and, of course, no payment. Has anything like this ever happened with one of your tunes (that you know of)? Necros: I've been asked many times to allow my tunes to be used in various mediums: games, short films, college radio, etc. Usually I've been pretty obliging. It's unfortunately difficult to actually enforce/sue people if they did use songs without permission. I've never really had anyone 'steal' one of my songs and use it in any mass market medium, though. {well, at least I haven't heard of any yet :) }. Another way to look at it: if I was obsessed with making money off of my music, I wouldn't have released it for free on the internet for the last 5 years. Mage: College radio, eh? I've thought about sending a tape full of mods to a college radio station to gauge the audience reaction. Have any of these DJs given you any feedback? Necros: Nothing that I've heard anyways :) I know a bunch of people that have done 'mod-heavy' shows on their college radio stations. It's hard to find a mass audience for some of this stuff because it's definitely a unique sound. Only recently has the style and technology taken tracking to a level where it can be indistinguishable from normal CD tracks. Mage: You have an uncredited song in the newly released game "Unreal" ("Isotoxin", on the 'Outpost 3J' level). How did that come about? Necros: I've known Alex Brandon for a while (from the demo-scene), and he asked if he could use it in an Unreal level. For some reason, the proper credits didn't get put in the US version, but I've forgiven him. :o) That game is a nice example of modern "mod" technology .... Mage: Another objection I've heard is the inclusion of a musician's song on a mod compilation CD -- also with no permission. What are your feelings on this? Necros: Some of those mod compilation CD's have so many songs on them, it'd be impossible to track all of yours down. And usually the creators are fairly poor sceners in Europe who are trying to hype up their group/bbs/site; it would be highly unlikely that you could get damages from them. All of the compilations I've been involved with (the Hornet ones, ACE, Mods Anthology) have been very professional in asking for proper rights, and I respect that. Mage: I'm familiar with Mods Anthology (I have a copy and recommend it highly), but I am not familiar with the Hornet CDs or the ACE ones (what's ACE? :o) See what I mean?). Necros: Hornet released a bunch of CD's ... "Hornet Underground", "Hornet Mods", which are basically big dumps of their archive. Unfortunately the archive is being shut down, so they may not be available indefinitely. http://www.hornet.org/ha/pages/cdroms.html Necros (continuing): ACE is a French BBS which was WHQ for quite a lot of groups, they burned a bunch of archive dumps as well ... I can't find any contact info on them at the moment, though. Mage: What do you consider your personal 'Top Ten' tunes? ... and why? Necros: It's hard to quantify a 'top ten' list of songs for many reasons. I like many styles of music, and it's difficult to compare radically divergent types of music with each other. There are many amazing tracked tunes that have been written over the years. Some of my favorites would be: -- Hunz, "Volume" - This is still one of the best 'vocal-using' songs that I've heard. Fantastic singing (the rapping isn't so hot, though), great mixture of styles. -- Dune, "X14" - Perfect techno technique. Strange ethereal blips and pads, great loops, fits the demo perfectly. -- Skaven, "Ice Frontier" - This was the ultimate 'demo-style' tune back in '94. Excellent progression, great feel, epic sound. -- Zauron, "Lovelight' - This year's MC6 winner. A very catchy GLU/Underworld "electronica-rock" piece with great vocals. Mage: Same question -- but about your own compositions. Necros: It's hard to pick favorites, but I'll try: "Hypercontrol" - This was written for the Epidemic disk, many years ago. It's my take on the archetypical 'demo' song. The samples are a bit dated, but I think the basic ideas shine through pretty well. "Realization" - This was probably my best take on the tracker-rock genre. It's difficult to get that alt-rock feel when your notes are continually quantized and you can't get good tonal variations (simulating real acoustic instruments is a bitch). Some of my later songs in this style ("Revelation") have better technique and sound, but I think this one has the best basic songwriting behind it. "Orchard Street" - The best of the jazz-style tunes ... I really like how the changes worked out. This was also probably the last of that style I'll ever write, I'm much more into 'electronica' (yeah, I know it's cliche these days). "Martian Lovesong" - This is probably my favorite. It's unfortunate that it's still unfinished, but it was done in a hurry as the MC5 deadline approached. I have a couple of attempts at a longer remix started - I hope to finish at least one of them. "River Boat" - My "System" disk was sort of a departure in that I didn't follow many of the song forms I chose to in the past. This song is a good example - much more moodyand atmospheric than some of my past stuff, without being too sleep-inducing. :) Mage: Often, musicians (trackers included) wish to remix one (or more) of their compositions. Aside from "Martian Lovesong", are there any of your tunes that you would like to go through and ... fix? Necros: A lot of songs have various strange oddities in them - usually this is the result of late-night dementia. Many times, however, these little quirks contribute to the songs' charm, and you lose something intangible by getting rid of them. Sometimes if you polish too much, you rub off the shine. Mage: How about anyone else's tunes (both tracked and commercial)? Necros: Oh, all the time I'll hear songs on the radio that I want to remix. Usually it involves putting stranger and/or more fleshed out harmonies in them. Every musician, I guess, wants to alter the world to his or her taste in some fashion ... that's part of why I write music. Mage: Your music disk "System" includes a version of "Silent Night". How did you arrive at this particular arrangement? Necros: It's pretty much along the same lines -- I wanted to try putting a bit more harmony in the mix, maybe use some 9ths and some layered pads, see what I could come up with. Mage: Your musical style varies quite a bit. Which styles have you covered? ... and any plans to cover styles (reggae, etc.) you haven't covered? Necros: I've pretty much covered all the styles that I like. ;) Alt-rock, folk, techno, ambient, jazz, synth-pop. I try to avoid categorizing music as much as I can, though. Everyone steals so much from everyone else these days, the lines between genres are very washed-out. Mage: With reference to jazz tunes, I liked your piece "The Grey Note". Nice Branford Marsalis samples, good 'live' feel ... more of a 'straight-ahead' jazz feel. How did this tune come about (source of inspiration/idea, etc.)? Necros: I was talking to Basehead on IRC one day about chord progressions and he mentioned a neat 4-chord intro sequence (the first four chords of the song)... The samples are taken from the end of Sting's "Englishman in New York" (chopped, sliced and diced). The resulting sax sequenced sounds absolutely nothing like the part that was played in the original riff that the samples were taken from (it was about 8 hours of work to get the reassembled solo to sound half-decent). Mage: From "Englishman in New York"? The 8 hours of work paid off -- I had no idea the samples were from that particular tune (and I used to listen to that CD a *lot*). The only reason I knew it was Branford Marsalis is because of his characteristic style of playing, which you captured quite well. Necros: I wasn't really trying to 'emulate' his style per se, it was more figuring out what I could do with the samples. It's actually refreshing at times to work backwards in that way ... taking a fixed set of samples and trying to create something of quality out of them. Mage: Musician's styles ... I can name a few musicians I can identify just by their style of playing (Paul Desmond (alto sax), Dave McKenna and Oscar Peterson (piano), Herb Albert (trumpet), Ella Fitzgerald and Astrud Gilberto (singers), etc.). Are there any other musicians you sample (or plan to in the future) of this caliber? Necros: Stylistic evolution comes from listening to what other people have done and making a Darwinistic modification. You can do this in tracked music, sequenced music, acoustic music .... certainly in the digital age it's more an issue of sampling. I'd like to see people try to sample the sound less and try to sample the style a bit more. Some people see this sort of 'copying' as offensive ... I'm inclined to think the opposite - all music is built on imitation and expansion. Mage: Sting said at one time or another that "jazz is where bored rock musicians go". Which style do you move towards when you are bored? Necros: Unfortunately Sting's jazz work isn't nearly as inventive as his rock songs (*grin*). For me it's loud, angry, distorted, asynchronous techno. I think we'll soon see a new breed of musicians who have both a modern chordal sense (jazz) and a high comfort level with synthesizers and new breeds of sounds (from the electronica/techno/dj scene). Mage: In my opinion, Sting's "Dream of the Blue Turtles", "Nothing Like the Sun" and "Bring on the Night" were his best (notwithstanding his work with The Police, of course) ... after that, it went downhill. Necros: Agreed. His songwriting style was quite influential (such classics as "Synchronicity II", ""Fortress Around Your Heart", and even more obscure songs such as "Secret Journey"). Mage: Why do you track? Necros: To keep myself sane. Perhaps to get the noises in my head into a tangible medium. Mage: What is your ultimate musical goal? Necros: One day I'd like to direct and score something interactive (this is why I'm in the computer games industry). Something with style, not one of the mundane shoot-em-ups that pervade the marketplace today. Mage: Is there anything you'd like to say before we close? Necros: A quick hello to all the people who've helped the tracking 'scene' to thrive over the years. There's a lot of good music out there, all of it for free, that deserves to be more widely heard. Our website is currently at http://www.fm.org, and there is an FTP server as well that you can grab older releases from ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/fm. Mage: Thank you, Andy "Necros" Sega. Mods Anthology can be ordered here: http://www.schatztruhe.de/softe/modsant.html Mirrors for the FM.ORG site: Holland: ftp://ftp.nl.scene.org/pub/scene.org. Japan: ftp://ftp.jp.scene.org/pub/scene --Glen "Mage" Warner gdwarner@ricochet.net --=--=-- ----=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------ Editor: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan.ic@rcn.com Assistant Editors: Ranger Rick / Ben Reed / ranger@where.are.u.com Subliminal / Matt Friedly / sub@plazma.net Web Manager: Dilvish / Eric Hamilton / dilvie@yahoo.com Columnists: Coplan / D. 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