/\ /· \ _____ _____. _____ _____. // \ ______ .___\_ \_ | .___\_ \_ | // .\/ _ \_ | | | |____|_ _| | |____|_ | | | | |____| ______/ \_ | ______/ | | | ¯\____ \| |____| | | |____| | |____| | | | | | | | | | | |____. |· | |· | |· | |· | | |· | | |: | |: | |: | |: | | |: | | || | || | || | ||_ | | || | | | | | | | | | \ | | | | | ¯\_______/¯\_______/|____| | \_____/| |\_______/¯ cRu|________\ | | Issue #41 |· __|__ /\ ____ ____ |: \ / __/· \__\_ \___\_ \_ _. November, 2002 || / \ \__/ / / /___// | 295 Subscribers World Wide | /___/ \ / / __/_ / | | / / / / / / // | ¯\____ /___/___/ /¯\____ //____| \/ /___/ \/ --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Table Of Contents ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- Opening: Message From the Editor Letters From Our Readers Features: Your View and Response -- Your Favorite Tune SceneSpot Update -- V.3 details Reviews: Music: In Tune -- Setec's "White" The Lineup -- The Best of the Month Demo: Screen Lit Vertigo -- Variform by Kewlers and The S by Suspend Opinion / Commentary: Editorial -- Scene Vs. Scene: The OS Debate Inside My Mind -- My Addiction Early Dawn Reflections -- Jobs Link List: Get Somewhere in the Scene Closing: Staff and Contact Information --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Message From the Editor ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- Well, we're back with yet another adventure in e-zine publishing. A lot of you had good things to say about the last issue. I'm hoping that the quality of the magazine will continue to rise, as well as our readership. We picked up almost 15 subscribers within the span of a couple of days. Keep passing the word. Meanwhile, we got another full issue for you. As I suspected, The Watcher returned with a named column. The new official name for his column is called "Early Dawn Reflections", a name which supposidly comes from the fact that he writes his articles early in the morning. Vill, on the other hand, seems to like the name that I gave his column last month. Of course, Seven has his demo reviews ready for you and I have my music review as well. In addition, Novus returns with his first full installment of his column, The Lineup. If you don't remember, the focus of his column is to share with you the best of the tunes that he downloaded this month. Its a good list if you're looking for new tunes. The features this month both come from my hand at the keyboard. We decided to try another attempt at getting some feedback from our readers. Please offer your feedback, it'll be interesting to see what you have to write. Read up on that in "Your View and Response". The other feature article deals with the changes that will be made to our sister project, SceneSpot. The quick note about it is that we will be releasing the new version of the site sometime before the next issue. The article highlights some of the changes that will be made. Get more information from "SceneSpot Update". Well, that's all I have to say about this month's issue. Just a reminder, we're always looking for new articles and conributions. If you have anything to send, or if you have questions, you can contact me at coplan@scenespot.org. Until Next time. --Coplan --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Letters From Our Readers ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- -=- A Message from Ped -=- I have somewhat hard time in life too (not as much as you, but I had felt similar things)... and I want to both thank you for showing me, that you care and love the scene as I do. And I assure you, that I care about you and about any other creative being, who's willing to contribute with his ideas/work to the scene, or generally "public"... I actually somewhat dislike the growing size of static line. Reading trough the new issue took a serious amount of time, but the content was really excellent and worth while. May you try to keep SL issues under 200 - 250kB of text in the future? (i.e. not growing more, than twice from [issue 41's] size). I like the "news" format of SL, reading once in time few lines to keep me up with the scene thing. If I want to read MANY rich articles, I may turn to Hugi/other mag. I think this is what you intented to do, short news with insights, so I'm just giving you my opinion, that 200kB is limit for me... :) Once more: thank you for the last issue, really made me feel good. :) --Ped -=- Reply From Coplan -=- Ped, Your concerns are more common among our readers. But here is something you might not know: Your concerns are shared with the editor as well. The truth is that a 200k magazine would be very difficult to read in this format. It would be difficult for readers to find the articles they wanted. The magazine would be unwieldy and hard to navigate. That would not be something we'd want for our readers. The nature of running a magazine such as this one is that some months, we'll have more articles than we need, and other months, we don't have enough. Keeping that in mind, it's often that we hold articles for the following month. By doing that, we can keep the content in all our issues at relatively the same quality and quantity. The goal of Static Line is, and always will be, to bring inspiration and insight to the reader. Through this publication, we have always hoped to bring creative thoughts to your mind. A tool, such as Static Line, is only useful so long as it is easy to use. Worry not, we don't plan to allow Static Line to grow any larger than it needs to. --Coplan --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Your View and Response Your Favorite Tune By: Coplan ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- It wasn't long ago that I met an observer of the scene on #trax: a guy who goes by alias Invect. Apparently, he's been observing the scene for a relatively short while. I'm quite surprised about his knowledge of the scene. He's managed to download all the classic tunes by Jase, Necros, Skaven, Purple Motion and so on. I find, more often than not, that newbies to the scene often don't get exposed to such classics. So Invect had a great idea. Why not share our thoughts about our favorite tracked tunes of all times? The platform for such a project is our very own Static Line. So I have a request to all the readers: Write in and tell us about your favorite tracked tune of all time, and tell us why you like it so much. I'll start: My favorite scene tune of all time was "Kingdom Skies" by Jase. It was one of Hornet's Music Competition winners. But nevermind that. I come from a background of orchestral music, and take to this tune rather naturally. One of the first scene tunes that I downloaded happened to be this song. The samples aren't anything special. But the arrangement is amazing to me. It's a three part epic piece, and it's very inspirational. I don't really have that many words to describe what I feel whenever I hear the tune. In a scene filled with trance, dnb and breakbeat tunes (among other techno styles), orchestral tunes are few and far between. This tune has always been my inspiration for me to continue my song writing. So it has always been on my hard drive, or on a cd, or in my MP3 player so that I can play it whenever I feel the need. Inspirational tunes such as this need always be remembered. So now its your turn. Write to me and tell me what your favorite tune is. Tell me why you like it. You can send your thoughts to coplan@scenespot.org. You can also reply directly to this issue, and I will recieve your response -- it will not be posted to the mailing list, as I have it blocked. But I will still get a copy of the message you sent. I look forward to your recommendations. --Coplan --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- SceneSpot Update V.3 Details By: Coplan ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- SceneSpot, the sister project to Static Line, has been making some great strides. The last time I came to you, we had begun work on version 2. For better or for worse, we have completely abandoned that interface, and we are now almost ready to bring Version 3 to the public. Realizing how much work was involved in recreating the wheel, as it were, we changed our structure a bit. We are no longer coding SceneSpot from scratch. We have decided, instead, to put an existing content management syste (CMS) into place as a core for the site. By doing so, we have been able to focus more of our efforts on the more important things such as content, modules and support. So what can you expect of Version 3? Initially, there will be some trade-offs when it comes to features. The HTML version of Static Line will not be fully available at first. You can still read each issue from our ftp server (text only) and from our mail archives (HTML). But it won't be searchable. Tune Tracker will also temporarily be unavailable, as the new core doesn't natively support the modules we created for the original SceneSpot. Fear not, however, as we do plan to fully re-introduce these features in the futre as modules for the new core. Once we go live with the new version of the site, you will immediately notice a couple of differences. You will now be able to respond to news briefs that are posted on SceneSpot. We will also have a complete forum system in place where you can talk about the latest issues (or, perhaps, nothing in particular) in the forum topic of your choice. The interactivity of the forum system will help you to learn more about your hobby and about your fellow sceners. And we will continue to maintain bookmarks, though in a slightly different manner. We are pretty sure that you'll like the changes that we've made. The new site should debut before the next issue of Static Line. If you are already a member of SceneSpot, your account settings will follow you to the new site. You can use your old login id and password as if nothing ever happened. But when you do log in, you'll have the ability to change much more than you're used to. So keep an eye out for the new site. And, as always, feel free to send your feedback as you see necessary to: coplan@scenespot.org. --Coplan --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- In Tune Setec's "White" By: Coplan ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- -=- Introduction -=- Because of the very nature of my position, I make a strong effort to not review tunes from associates or close friends. One could say without an stating an untruth that I am quite strict on my friends' music when it comes to public reviews. But every once in a while, one of my buddies has to go and release a tune that I cannot resist writing about. This time, it was Setec. Damn him. -=- "White" by Setec -=- "White" is a pretty mellow electronic tune. Setec's own words would describe it best in one sentence: "[It's] a calm electronic piece to close your eyes to." If you aren't familiar with Setec's music, it should be known that he's often the experimental type. I can imagine this man sitting back and twiddling with knobs and pressing buttons for hours on end just to see what kind of cool riff he can whip out. And then he goes and writes a tune around it. But I digress. White is definately an experimental piece. I don't think he made any effort to hold to any form. The tune doesn't really hold to any particular definition of music styles. But it definately has some influences from the ambient styles. The chord progression is very subtle. Unless you're looking, it's probably not likely you'll notice the progression. Simple is the name of the game. The leads are simple, the chorus is simple and so on. The complexity of this tune actually lies within the background: A few quick piano riffs here and there, a whole bunch of glass/mallet instruments and so on. Some of that stuff is so subtle that it doesn't even distract you from the rest of the song. And the baseline riffs are so simple that you get the idea Setec put it there purely to give depth to the song. But isn't that what a baseline is for? I have to point out the percussion work that he has done. Regardless of whether he admits it or not, percussion is one of Setec's strengths, and this song is no exception. Let us break it apart. The base drum is simple in form, only a couple of well-placed hits here and there. The high-hats and cymbols, some of the first percussion you hear in the song, is also relatively simple. You will notice that he uses two sizes of ride cymbols in addition to the high-hat. I point this out not because he's unique. This should be expected in almost any song. It's very rare for a professional to use any less than two size rides...why should you? Anyhow, the snare riffs are something to listen for. Yet again, nothing truly complicated. But it's not the typical pattern you'd hear. His riffs, his percussion work in general, sounds as though it could've been recorded by a real drummer in a real studio. Real drummers don't do the predictable Snare-Base-Snare-Base loops with the lull of ride cymbols being overly repetative in the background. Real drummers get creative with their work. The song, in general, has a soothing effect on the spirit. I like to consider this style of music as a mental massage. It pulsates. Some parts are harder, other parts are much more subtle and subdued. The higher pitched instruments jump in and out, and not in any sort of pattern at all. The song isn't predictable; there is always something changing. You aren't dragged through the song, you get to explore the song. You feel as though you're discovering things when you listen to it. Having listened to the whole thing, I feel as though I've accomplished and learned so much. This is a must have for any Setec or Ambient fans. If you're looking for something to help you relax, this song is for you as well. Song Information: Title: White Author: Setec Release date: 27 October, 2002 Length: 4:50 File Size: 6.65 MB Source: http://www.scenespot.org/~jesper --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 useing the addresses found in the closing notes. Please do not send files attached to e-mail without first contacting us. Thank you! --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- The Lineup By: Novus ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- Welcome to the first edition of 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. For now, I'm keeping this as a one-man project just for simplicity, but in the future I may ask for volunteers to help me cover more websites and to offer more musical opinions than just my own. I'm also looking for feedback from you folks on how good a job I'm doing so far. Are the songs listed in The Lineup as good as you were hoping they'd be? Do I need stricter standards? Looser standards? More openness to other genres? E-mail me at vince_young@hotmail.com and sound off! In the meantime, you may consider the following 39 tunes to be the best tracks of October 2002: "A Moment In Tears" - Norma Segui & J Graham - fantasy http://www.watson.org/mods2/C/cc_amit.xm.zip "Airwalking" - Astar - trance http://www.watson.org/mods2/new/trx_airwalking.xm.zip http://www.watson.org/mods2/T/trx_airwalking.xm.zip "Altair" - Vibe - electronica http://www.watson.org/mods2/V/vibe-alt.it.zip "Ambidreams" - DJ Distance - fantasy http://www.watson.org/mods2/C/cc_ambi.xm.zip "Black Life" - Black F - ambient http://www.watson.org/mods2/B/bf_p6.it.zip "Breach In The Wall" - Tripper - electronica http://www.watson.org/mods2/B/breach.xm.zip "City Of The Damned" - Pro-Xex - gothic rock http://www.watson.org/mods2/C/c_o_d.it.zip "Counterpoint: Dance Mix" - Hyo Chan - dance http://www.watson.org/mods2/new/hyo-co.it.zip http://www.watson.org/mods2/H/hyo-co.it.zip "Crack" - Energy - electronica http://www.watson.org/mods2/new/a-------.it.zip http://www.watson.org/mods2/A/a-------.it.zip "Dansze Mucyka" - Reed - disco http://www.watson.org/mods2/new/dansze.xm.zip http://www.watson.org/mods2/D/dansze.xm.zip "Digital Shadows" - Vibe - electronica http://www.watson.org/mods2/V/vibe-ds.it.zip "For Honour And Glory" - Cooth - orchestral http://www.watson.org/mods2/new/honour.xm.zip http://www.watson.org/mods2/H/honour.xm.zip "Heavy Metal" - SaxxonPike - breakbeat http://www.watson.org/mods2/new/spk_hvmt.xm.zip http://www.watson.org/mods2/S/spk_hvmt.xm.zip "Insomnia" - Storm - trance http://www.homemusic.cc/Songs/songs.get.php?soId=1583 "Jacked Up" - Peter Kasting - pop http://www.watson.org/mods2/new/jacked.it.zip http://www.watson.org/mods2/J/jacked.it.zip "Joy" - Zanoma - dance http://www.watson.org/mods2/new/znm-joy.it.zip http://www.watson.org/mods2/Z/znm-joy.it.zip "Last Minute" - Maim - pop http://www.watson.org/mods2/new/maim_-_lami.it.zip http://www.watson.org/mods2/M/maim_-_lami.it.zip "Less Distraction" - Cybelius - pop/rock http://www.watson.org/mods2/new/distract.s3m.zip http://www.watson.org/mods2/D/distract.s3m.zip "Little Dancing Glove Puppet" - Core-Nick - pop/ballad http://www.watson.org/mods2/new/ttk-ldgp.xm.zip http://www.watson.org/mods2/T/ttk-ldgp.xm.zip "London Taxi" - Louigi Verona - progressive pop http://www.watson.org/mods2/L/londontaxi8bit.it.zip "Lonely Falcon" - Crusader - demostyle http://www.watson.org/mods2/new/lonefalc.it.zip http://www.watson.org/mods2/L/lonefalc.it.zip "Mooltrull" - DCE - electronica http://www.watson.org/mods2/new/mooltrull.xm.zip http://www.watson.org/mods2/M/mooltrull.xm.zip "Next In Line" - Cybelius - pop/rock http://www.watson.org/mods2/new/next.s3m.zip http://www.watson.org/mods2/N/next.s3m.zip "Nightvision" - Sandman - demostyle http://www.watson.org/mods2/new/k_vision.s3m.zip http://www.watson.org/mods2/K/k_vision.s3m.zip "No Fate" - Em - metal http://www.watson.org/mods2/N/no_fate.it.zip "Oceans Of Eternity" - Hyo Chan - dance http://www.watson.org/mods2/new/hyo-oce.it.zip http://www.watson.org/mods2/H/hyo-oce.it.zip "Over The Ruby Sky" - Vibe - demostyle http://www.watson.org/mods2/V/vibe-trs.it.zip "Restricted Area" - Ivory - electronica http://www.watson.org/mods2/R/rarea.it.zip "Scenery" - Cybelius - pop http://www.watson.org/mods2/new/scenery.s3m.zip http://www.watson.org/mods2/N/scenery.s3m.zip "Shilkyrie" - Tommi - fantasy http://www.homemusic.cc/Songs/songs.get.php?soId=1581 "So, My Heart" - Arenos - ballad http://www.watson.org/mods2/M/myheart.xm.zip "Space Phear" - SaxxonPike - techno http://www.watson.org/mods2/new/spk_spac.s3m.zip http://www.watson.org/mods2/S/spk_spac.s3m.zip "Spouser" - Tekido-81 - trance http://www.watson.org/mods2/new/tkd_spou.xm.zip http://www.watson.org/mods2/T/tkd_spou.xm.zip "The Black Hole" - Maim - dance http://www.watson.org/mods2/new/maim_-_black.it.zip http://www.watson.org/mods2/M/maim_-_black.it.zip "The Grip" - Zond 3 - electronica http://www.homemusic.cc/Songs/songs.get.php?soId=1562 "The Love Trap" - Anvil - demostyle http://www.watson.org/mods2/new/lovetrp.xm.zip http://www.watson.org/mods2/L/lovetrp.xm.zip "The Real Beginning" - Beyond - fantasy http://www.watson.org/mods2/B/beyond-t.xm.zip "Wish On A Star" - DJ Distance - dance http://www.watson.org/mods2/C/cc_woas.xm.zip "Zedanotrops" - Bradford - dance http://www.watson.org/mods2/new/zedanotrops.it.zip http://www.watson.org/mods2/Z/zedanotrops.it.zip Take care! --Novus --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Screen Lit Vertigo Variform by Kewlers and The S by Suspend By: Seven ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- -=- "Variform" by Kewlers -=- (party version) Found at www.scene.org 3th place at the Assembly 2002 democompo System Requirements: PII (yes, two) or better, OpenGL 3D card with 16 MB and large texture support (GeForce2 with 32 mb or better recommended), 32 MB RAM, 9MB HD Test Machine: PIII 900 640MB, SB1024, Radeon 8500 LE 64MB, Win98 The Credits: Code: Curly Brace Music: Mel Function, Little Bitchard 2D: Actor Dolban 3D: Curly Brace The Demo: Kewlers newest demo is one of the reasons I'm glad I went to Assembly: It's really great to watch it on the bigscreen. Variform is a pure effect demo: No story or 3D environments, but almost 20 different parts in 6 minutes. It has a very solid design with such main ingredients as grey moir‚ patterns, a color scheme going from green over electric blue to purple, and more cubes than you can shake a stick at. The style reminds me of MFX's "super luxus lemmen paketti", especially the mozaic appearing around and over the abstract objects. Most effects are quite original, such as the tunnel of pitch black cubes, mirroring lots of white lights, or the morphing object in front of a big lightsource. There are a few full-screen images used as a background, mostly at the start. Maybe they ran out of inspiration as there are too many black backgrounds towards the end, in my opinion. The pictures show people and a face, made more angular to fit with the cubist effects. A cute little flower with polygon-leaves makes a few appearances too. The techno-font used for the intro, the credits and the greetings is hardly readable, but that doesn't matter since they're also spoken aloud by a synthetic voice. It's intonation is very monotone, although that doesn't bother me much. The music reminds me of Kraftwerk. It's an electronic tune with a lot of variation. My favourite part is the break after the greetings; the part showing those purple half-transparent, half-reflective diamond clusters with bells playing a sweet melody; after which the drums come back in full force. The synchronizing with the effects is excellent, although less flashes wouldn't have hurt. Overall: Lots of people say Variform should have won the Assembly democompo. But I think that it's a matter of taste. The top 3 were all very good, but very different, demos. So, quarrelling about the ranking is useless. If you haven't watched Variform yet because it placed "only" 3rd, you should redeem your error ASAP. Even if electronica isn't your style. For such a demo, the hardware requirements are quite low, and I've heard it runs even on TNT-class cards. My only peeve is that there are two "features" (text in the background at the start looks messed up, and an object with half it's polys being solid grey) that I'm not sure if they are ATI-driver bugs or if it's supposed to look like that. But it doesn't really matter, they fit the experimental style anyway :) -=- "The S" by Suspend -=- (final version) Found at ftp://ftp.klosz.art.pl/pub/scene/incoming (still there at 31 Oct) 2nd place in the Symphony 2002 democompo, final released out of compo at Abstract 2002 System Requirements: 7MB HD, Windows, Geforce or better. Test Machine: PIII 900 640MB, SB1024, Radeon 8500 LE 64MB, Win98 The Credits: Code: Booncol Gfx: Insane, Mantra, Mime, Statique Music: Raiden The Demo: The S is a very energetic, brightly colored effect demo, with at least two effects going on at all times. There are radial-blurred metaballs on a background of waving cubes, and a sphere of transparant cubes folding back into itself while a booming speaker sprays square particles around. The best part is a rotating silver blob with *lots* of red-hot hairs attached to it while some transparant spheres pulsate in a matrix-configuration. Besides the "big" effects, there are also little design touches such as the spinning logo in the corner or the rotating circle segments. At some places removing effects would IMHO actually improve the demo: the hard flashes during the stumping cylinders hurt the eyes, and the horizontal/vertical noise lines don't add anything (besides having more moving stuff on the screen at the same time). Another thing that starts to annoy me (it applies to many modern demos, Variform f.e. too): could you please, pretty please, use something different than cubes for your mass-movement effects? It's really getting dull, I know they're easy to do but try some pyramids or octahedrons or whatever for a change. Something I haven't seen in demos for ages are full-screen stand-alone images, and this demo has plenty of them: Some splendid "Suspend" and "The S" logos, a green loading screen with a giant fly, and two girl faces which are a bit bland but with very detailed hair. Behind such, a particle effect emerges and a dark composition with knife-like fingers resting on a cheek. The music reminds me of the 604/AND demo soundtrack: a very fast-paced techno/goa piece packed with bass and percussion. There are some radio-like voice samples in there; but with so much echo, I can't understand them. The music fits the succession of flashy effects perfectly, but there are so many beats flowing through each other that the synchronizing sometimes feels wrong, especially if you're concentrating on a different beat. Overall: This little gem of a demo is easy to overlook as it hasn't competed in a big party. But it's worth giving a shot. It has good effects, excellent pictures and a nice soundtrack. There are some minor bad points (no clear design, a few parts repeat or are too long), but nothing that really stands in the way. Several people have complained on pouet.net that it is unstable, especially with ATI cards, but I haven't noticed any problems (using the latest drivers). There's already a patched exe available at the URL above, though you still need the data from the original file. --Seven --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Editorial Scene Vs. Scene: The OS Debate By: Coplan ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- It has always been an issue in the scene in some form or another: Which Operating System (OS) is better? In the beginning, it was Amiga vs. Commadore and Apple. Then it somehow turned into Amiga vs. PC (When I say PC, I mean MS based OS's). Now, it's a toss up between PC vs. MAC or PC vs. Linux. I'm not going to give you a concrete answer to that solution. In fact, I won't even give you an answer. I will simply state my views on the issue. Based on a very brief amount of research, and that only means that I've asked a couple of people, it would be safe to assume that Microsoft has the corner on the OS standard, even in the demoscene. Most people are working in windows with whatever aspect of the scene they specialize in. Scene coders almost never go to MAC, but it's not uncommon for them to gravitate towards Linux. Musicians in the scene are most likely to use MS, but are often tempted by the world of MAC. Notice I said "in the scene". Professionally, and outside the scene, most musicians are using MAC (supposing they use a computer in their productions). Anyhow, when it comes to the OS wars, my age-old addage still rings true: Tell me what you're doing, and then I'll recommend an OS. There's one simple fact about each OS relative to the others. Whether you want to admit it or not, no OS is the jack-of-all trades. Inevitably, a given OS does at least one thing better than the others. But this is the demoscene. We need only concern ourselves about a few things. Yes, contrary to popular belief within the scene, what the average scener does is only a fraction of what computers can do. We are purely a multimedia operation. The scene doesn't care about spreadsheets, we don't care about databases, we don't care about the internet support (at least not directly associated with our art). We care about audio, video and things that aren't pulled from a computer: creativity. Creativity comes from our minds. For that reason, it doesn't figure into the formula when considering an ideal OS. So, I will ignore this for now. So lets take the two important ingredients and look at them from different angles. The sad fact is that programming, graphicians and musicians have vastly different requirements when it comes to their contributions to the scene. Let us look at the angle in which each contributor will approach an Operating System. A programmer wants an interface and a basis for which he can communicate with the OS. The reality is that this is what he does. He interfaces with the OS. That's his job. To do so, he needs to be able to understand the way the OS works. He needs to be able to tell the OS what he wants to do. He needs a programming language. Fortunately, there are a couple of common programming languages that can be found in many places. C and C++ are among the most commonly used programming languages used in the scene. These can be found almost anywhere, but most commonly found on the Microsoft and Unix Based OS's. But there is also the whole issue about libraries. Most of the libraries available for programmers in the Microsoft world are closed, that is to say that the programmer does not have access to its code. This does cause problems, and many programmers get frustrated with this fact. That is the reason that many programmers are starting to stray towards open sourced OS's like BSD and Linux (both of which come in many flavors). Linux offers much flexibility when it comes to libraries. Most libraries available for linux are open sourced, which means that the source code is available to the public. Suddenly, the programmer has access to all the tidbits of data and information that he needs from a library. While he could get that info from a closed library, he now knows exactly what is happening to his data, because he can much more easily trace his programs. But nevermind that. The average programmer based on an open source OS such as Linux has embraced the open source philosophy, and has also offered their source to the public. It's much easier to learn from example than it is from theory. The programmer has a much easier time expanding his abilities in a given language. And that is something that is very appealing from the mind of a programmer. Now if you were a musician, you could care less about the source code behind your programmers. If you're fortunate enough to know a programming language, you might be able to develop your own tools. But that's not very common, so you learn to make your music with what you have. You want options though, and you don't want your music to be limited by what does or does not exist. While the open source ticket seems appealing, the reality is that there isn't much support for the music world, yet. Too many hardware vendors are keeping their drivers closed, so finding drivers for your $700 sound card in Linux is sometimes difficult. It is even less likely that the drivers you find will support every feature of your card. If that's not enough, try finding some software that will allow you to do everything you want to do. When it comes to music, you have to consider the market leaders in audio hardware, and what they support. MOTU, M-Audio, Echo, ST-Audio/Hoontech, Roland and other high-end audio hardware companies are supporting MacOS and Windows. Those are really your only options when it comes to music, especially when you get to the world of MIDI. And even still, you're more likely to find the support you want in MacOS than Windows. MAC, as it were, has only one standard for audio hardware. As limiting as this might sound, it actually prevents a lot of problems across the board. EMagic, for example, makes some of the most popular audio software around. But they've recently announced that they will no longer be writing software for Windows. If you absolutely don't need your computer for anything else, MacOS is often the first choice. Throw your stones, if you wish, but this is a world where MP3 is becoming the music medium, even in the scene. More and more demos are using MP3 as it's audio format. There is nothing that says that MP3 can't be created on a Mac. That being said, if you're a tracker, you still gotta work with Windows. Last I checked, there still aren't any good trackers for Mac. But when it comes to MIDI, there's no comparison between MacOS and Windows. The professionals will tell you the same. In the graphics world, however, it really comes down to what else you want to do with your computer. There doesn't really seem to be many limiting factors for graphic artists in the Linux world. The Mac world started the whole graphics evolution, and it's still pretty popular. And Windows can easily compete as well. It really comes down to what tools you want to use, and ultimately what else you want to do. If you just like to sketch, nothing is better than free software, and you can get that with The Gimp, which is available for Linux and other Unix based OS's. If you're an old veteran of the Adobe world, then you'll need either a Mac or a Windows machine. Corel users can use almost any OS. If you want to do oldskool ANSI art using oldskool ANSI Art Programs created by and for the scene, it's Windows (well, DOS) for you. But graphic artists have no room to complain about limitations on any OS. These days, it really doesn't matter. Lucky you. So once again, I have to lay doubt to your thoughts about the best OS for the scene. I'm sorry to say that you cannot win that battle yet, regardless of which OS you support. A scener should learn not to be so obtuse. So pick an OS that you like, and stop shoving it other people's faces. Just realize that your opinions might not work for someone else. This is a debate that won't be settled for many years, if at all. As a final note, I will tell you, out of fairness, what I use at home. I have three machines: An 850mhz Laptop running Redhat Linux 8.0, a 1ghz machine running Redhat Linux 7.3 and a 1.4ghz machine running Windows XP. I'm a musician, web developer and gamer. My laptop is purely a business and development tool. Having no need for music creation on it, I have no need to run windows. My 1ghz machine is the server, the work-horse for my network. I do most of my web development on it, so I need it for databases and web servers. I play games and write music on my Windows based machine. I'm a firm believer that one should use the best tool for the jobs you need done. --Coplan --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Inside My Mind My Addiction By: Vill ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- Oh those blissful days. High school... a time when I lived in complete ignorance. How wonderful! Day after day I would exist without money. Paying rent, buying food, worrying about bills etc -- all of these things were taken care of for me. The same paradise existed for my tracking. At most, I would be pulling in about 50 dollars a week from my job at Taco Bell, so my most audacious purchase would be a pokey soundcard or a wee little SIMM. Rock on, the true life of a tracker, downloading synths, banging on pipes and boxes with a cheap mic for drums, picking away at my $100 acoustic guitar... My, how tastes change. I should have never trusted that serpent with that apple. To use drugs as a comparison, not that I condone substance use (keep your face straight, Vill), I went from snorting pixie sticks in high school to pumping my veins full of designer heroine in college. That's right, the taste of gear, the taste of blood; I am addicted to gear. I am like the half-vampire Blade. I have the thirst. Only rather than sucking on necks, I would rather frolic around the music shop, twisting the knobs on a Nord Lead or rationalizing why I need a $1300 Taylor Acoustic with cutaway, electronics, and an ebony fretboard, *saliviate*. Acquiring a more "refined" musical creation preference is wonderful. But as I sit here looking at my MOTU 828, Roland XP-80, Taylor 310-CE, Oxygen 8, amps, strings, cutters, microphones, cables, cables, and monster cables, I fear I have crossed the line from hobbyist to... whatever. Yeah, the line. Armed with high school ideals, my free copy of IT, and a myriad of samples from across the 'net, I remained happily on the hobbyist side of the line. Now, as most of my disposable income (as well as some necessity income) feeds my gear addiction, I like to pretend that $150 is a big purchase for something like a soundcard, but alas, my headphone monitors cost that much. Mind you, I have the same amount of insane wealth, insurmountable fame, and armies of fans that I did when I was tracking for free: ZERO. Instead, since I poured all this money into my "hobby", I now feel pressured to create music. While I flip all the switches and load Reason and Logic, I sometimes feel like I'm at work. This horrible realization leads to white-noise frustration. I find myself mastering a song even before it's done by tweaking silly reverb settings and cleaning hi-hats to the point of audiophile status. The groove funky chile, concentrate of the groove my personal George Clinton voice bop-guns at me. Alas, all these voices, all these expenses, the fun has been sucked out of composing. Hell, I don't even have that bouncy high school girlfriend to write tribute songs to. You know you did it too, so stop laughing. So I turn to my Guide in horror as he shows me the 808th circle of hell, the gear circle. Here, walls of rack mounts and hyperactive mixer boards attack nerdy musicians just like myself. "Begone compressors! Unnngh!" I witness one poor soul being bound by MIDI cables and ravaged by angry inspiration stealing demons. How!? Why? What can I do to avoid this fate? I plead. My guide stares straight ahead at the river of bad VST instruments as he hands me a coffee can. I find myself in the middle of my apartment, sitting cross-legged with the can on my lap. I wrap the top with my thumbs, (bum bum bup) and then I flick the sides (ting ting). I smile, wail on the can for a good fifteen minutes, and regain the simplicity and fun that so often inspires and motivates me. Amidst the gear and complexities, it is lucrative to take a step back and realize the basic foot-tapping that goes into almost every song. Unless you're an experimental musician, in which case, light that crack rock and go nuts. I'm kidding! Really! As always, with all the screaming, vile thoughts and ear-covering, head-thrashing goodness; I hope you enjoyed being inside my mind. --Vill --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- Early Dawn Reflections Jobs By: The Watcher ----=--=------=--=------=--=-- Another early Saturday morning, and once again I find myself bathing in the soothingly bright light emitting from my monitor... nothing beats staring at notepad on an empty stomach (do note that anything positive I might ever say about notepad is me being sarcastic, I've just never gotten around to installing a decent text-editor here at home). Today I would like to discuss those most wretched real-life activities of all, culprit number one in distracting us from hour scene activities: jobs. While reading the following, please keep in mind that I am one of those sceners that, even though they consider themselves active, never seem to produce anything. At all. So if you are one of those hyperactive sceners that release 20 demos or 50+ tracks a year, submitting multiple productions for every contest at every demoparty (giving varying fake group names to avoid suspicion), none of the undermentioned may appeal to you. Not that I care, because I hate you anyway for making me feel incredibly inadequate *grin*. Basically, i think it is possible to divide most jobs out there into two simple categories: challenging ones and boring ones. Both can be equally hazardous for your scene-productivity. To illustrate this, I'll take myself as an example (ego and id always make for easy writing material). Once upon a time (I'm talking about a far away past here) I was working as a data processor, spending all day entering vacancies into an online job-database. Clearly, this would fit into the 'boring' category. Note that it was definitely not a _bad_ job. I had lots of fun socializing with my co-workers during the day, and loads of energy to spare during the evenings (in other works, I was a hyperactive ball of nerves by the time I got home, but that could just have been the huge intake of coffee during the day). But in spite of all this energy, I never got around to code much, mainly because I had no inspiration whatsoever. And ever so often it would hit me, especially after an evening spend gaming, feeling guilty for not spending any time coding... 'What have I achieved today?' And the answer was always the same: 'nothing worthwhile'. I think lots of sceners will recognize the above, being bored to death working day after day at some silly nine-to-five job like I did. Looking back, you realize that you had so much spare time in those days, wasted away watching TV, playing games, chatting on the internet... to cut it short, you might as well have been [funny stuff here], because you sure didn't get any scene-work done. Same goes for a lot of sceners still 'enjoying' our educational system by the way. And then I changed jobs. I became a programmer at a small firm working at a very, very high level. Suddenly I had to push myself to the edge day in day out, just to keep up with my colleagues. I now face new challenges every day, constantly feel inspired by the things I get to do, ideas for at least a thousand demos ready at hand... but now I don't have any time left, nor the energy, to do any scene-stuff. So this is what it all comes down to: no matter what job you take, you won't get any scene-work done. Period. --The Watcher P.S.: I had big plans to do a review of the 10 best christmas-themed demoscene intros ever, but after first spending over 2 hours searching for material (is it me or has the motivation to do holiday-fun-productions somehow diminished after say 1996?), then losing another hour rebooting my PC trying to get these obviously hastily hacked-together executables to run, only to be disappointed by the sheer lack of quality and originality, I gave up. Now I am trying to compile a list of the 10 most boring intros ever, any suggestions anyone? --=--=-- --=--=------=--=------=--=---- 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 Hungarian Scene........................http://www.scene-hu.com Italian Scene...........................http://run.to/la_scena ModPlug Central Resources..........http://www.castlex.com/mods Norwegian Scene........................http://www.demoscene.no Orange Juice.............................http://www.ojuice.net Planet Zeus..........................http://www.planetzeus.net Polish Scene...........................http://www.demoscena.pl Pouet.net.................................http://www.pouet.net Russian Scene..........................http://www.demoscene.ru Scene.org.................................http://www.scene.org Scenet....................................http://www.scenet.de Spanish Scene............................http://www.escena.org Swiss Scene..............................http://www.chscene.ch Archives: Acid2.....................................ftp://acid2.stack.nl Amber.......................................ftp://amber.bti.pl Cyberbox.....................................ftp://cyberbox.de Hornet (1992-1996)........................ftp://ftp.hornet.org Scene.org..................................ftp://ftp.scene.org Scene.org Austra........................ftp://ftp.au.scene.org Scene.org Netherlands...................ftp://ftp.nl.scene.org Swiss Scene FTP...........................ftp://ftp.chscene.ch 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 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 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 Spinning Kids......................http://www.spinningkids.org Sunflower.......................http://sunflower.opengl.org.pl Talent.............................http://talent.eurochart.org The Black Lotus.............................http://www.tbl.org The Digital Artists Wired Nation.http://digitalartists.cjb.net The Lost Souls...............................http://www.tls.no TPOLM.....................................http://www.tpolm.com Trauma.................................http://sauna.net/trauma T-Rex.....................................http://www.t-rex.org Unik........................................http://www.unik.de Universe..........................http://universe.planet-d.net Vantage..................................http://www.vantage.ch Wipe....................................http://www.wipe-fr.org Music Labels, Music Sites: Aisth.....................................http://www.aisth.com Aural Planet........................http://www.auralplanet.com Azure...................................http://azure-music.com Blacktron Music Production...........http://www.d-zign.com/bmp BrothomStates.............http://www.katastro.fi/brothomstates Chill..........................http://www.chillproductions.com Chippendales......................http://www.sunpoint.net/~cnd Chiptune...............................http://www.chiptune.com Da Jormas................................http://www.jormas.com Fabtrax......http://www.cyberverse.com/~boris/fabtrax/home.htm Fairlight Music.....................http://fairlight.scene.org Five Musicians.........................http://www.fm.scene.org Fusion Music Crew.................http://members.home.nl/cyrex Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff Hellven.................................http://www.hellven.org Ignorance.............................http://www.ignorance.org Immortal Coil.............................http://www.ic.l7.net Intense...........................http://intense.ignorance.org Jecoute.................................http://jecoute.cjb.net Kosmic Free Music Foundation.............http://www.kosmic.org Lackluster.....................http://www.m3rck.net/lackluster Level-D.................................http://www.level-d.com Mah Music.............................http://come.to/mah.music Maniacs of noise...............http://home.worldonline.nl/~mon MAZ's sound homepage..................http://www.maz-sound.com Med.......................................http://www.med.fr.fm Miasmah.............................http://www.miasmah.cjb.net Milk.......................................http://milk.sgic.fi Mo'playaz..........................http://ssmedion.de/moplayaz Mono211.................................http://www.mono211.com Morbid Minds..............http://www.raveordie.com/morbidminds Moods.............................http://www.moodymusic.de.vu/ Noise................................http://www.noisemusic.org Noerror.......................http://www.error-404.com/noerror One Touch Records......................http://otr.planet-d.net Park..................................http://park.planet-d.net pHluid..................................http://phluid.acid.org Radical Rhythms.....http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/merrelli/rr RBi Music.............................http://www.rbi-music.com Ruff Engine................http://members.xoom.com/ruff_engine SHR8M......................................http://1st.to/shr8m Sound Devotion................http://sugarbomb.x2o.net/soundev Soundstate.........................http://listen.to/soundstate Sunlikamelo-D...........http://www.error-404.com/sunlikamelo-d Suspect Records........................http://www.tande.com/sr Tequila........................http://www.defacto2.net/tequila Tempo................................http://tempomusic.cjb.net Tetris....................................http://msg.sk/tetris Theralite...........................http://theralite.avalon.hr Tokyo Dawn Records........................http://tokyodawn.org Triad's C64 music archive.............http://www.triad.c64.org UltraBeat.........................http://www.innerverse.com/ub Vibrants................................http://www.vibrants.dk Wiremaniacs.........................http://www.wiremaniacs.com Zen of Tracking.........................http://surf.to/the-imm Programming: Programming portal......................http://www.gamedev.net Programming portal.....................http://www.flipcode.com Game programming portal...............http://www.gamasutra.com 3D programming portal.................http://www.3dgamedev.com Programming portal......................http://www.exaflop.org Programming portal............http://www.programmersheaven.com Programming portal.....................http://www.freecode.com NASM (free Assembly compiler)......http://www.cryogen.com/nasm LCC (free C compiler).........http://www.remcomp.com/lcc-win32 PTC video engine.........................http://www.gaffer.org 3D engines..........http://cg.cs.tu-berlin.de/~ki/engines.html Documents...............http://www.neutralzone.org/home/faqsys File format collection...................http://www.wotsit.org Magazines: Amber...............................http://amber.bti.pl/di_mag Amnesia...............http://amnesia-dist.future.easyspace.com Demojournal....................http://demojournal.planet-d.net Eurochart.............................http://www.eurochart.org Heroin...................................http://www.heroin.net Hugi........................................http://www.hugi.de Music Massage......................http://www.scene.cz/massage Jurassic Pack...........................www.jurassicpack.de.vu Pain..................................http://pain.planet-d.net Scenial...........................http://www.scenial.scene.org Shine...............................http://www.shine.scene.org Static Line................http://www.scenespot.org/staticline Sunray..............................http://sunray.planet-d.net TUHB.......................................http://www.tuhb.org WildMag..................................http://www.wildmag.de Parties: Assembly (Finland).....................http://www.assembly.org Ambience (The Netherlands)..............http://www.ambience.nl Dreamhack (Sweden)....................http://www.dreamhack.org Buenzli (Switzerland)......................http://www.buenz.li Gravity (Poland)............http://www.demoscena.cp.pl/gravity Mekka-Symposium (Germany)...................http://ms.demo.org Takeover (The Netherlands).............,http://www.takeover.nl The Party (Denmark).....................http://www.theparty.dk Others: Demo secret parts....http://www.inf.bme.hu/~mandula/secret.txt Textmode Demo Archive.................http://tmda.planet-d.net Arf!Studios..........................http://www.arfstudios.org #coders..................................http://coderz.cjb.net Demonews Express.........http://www.teeselink.demon.nl/express Demo fanclub........................http://jerware.org/fanclub Digital Undergrounds.....................http://dug.iscool.net Doose charts...............................http://www.doose.dk Freax................................http://freax.scene-hu.com GfxZone............................http://gfxzone.planet-d.net PC-demos explained.....http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained Pixel...................................http://pixel.scene.org #trax e-mail list............................................. .............http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/trax Underground Mine.............http://www.spinningkids.org/umine IRC Channels: Scene.........................................ircnet #thescene Programming.....................................ircnet #coders Programming....................................efnet #flipcode Graphics.........................................ircnet #pixel Music.............................................ircnet #trax Scene (French)..................................ircnet #demofr Programming (French)............................ircnet #codefr Graphics (French)..............................ircnet #pixelfr Scene (Hungarian)............................ircnet #demoscene Programming (Hungarian)......................ircnet #coders.hu Programming (German)........................ircnet #coders.ger --=--=-- ----=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------ -=- Staff -=- Editor: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org Staff Writers: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org Dilvie / Eric Hamilton / dilvie@yahoo.com Novus / Vince Young / vince_young@hotmail.com Psitron / Tim Soderstrom / tigerhawk@stic.net Setec / Jesper Pederson / jesped@post.tele.dk Seven / Stefaan VanNieuwenhuyze/ seven7@writeme.com Tryhuk / Tryhuk Vojtech / vojtech.tryhuk@worldonline.cz Vill / Brian Frank / darkvill@yahoo.com The Watcher / Paul-Jan Pauptit / watcher@tuhb.org Tech Consultant: Ranger Rick / Ben Reed / ranger@scenespot.org Static Line on the Web: http://www.scenespot.org/staticline Static Line Subscription Management: http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/static_line If you would like to contribute an article to Static Line, be aware that we will format your article 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 Coplan (coplan@scenespot.org) by the last Friday of each month. New issues are released on the first Sunday of every month. See you next month! -eof---=------=--=------=--=--