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DemoNews Issue #100 - August 31, 1995 | Subscribers : 1525
------------- | Last Week : 1480
DemoNews is a newsletter for the demo scene. | Change : +45
It is produced by Hornet at the site ftp.cdrom.com. | Archive Size : 1032M
Our demo archive is located under /pub/demos. | Last Week : 1002M
|
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
<CONTENTS>
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Uploads
Articles
Introduction................................Snowman
Assembly '95 Report (Part 1 of 2)...........Ior
Pornography at Assembly '95?................Multiple Authors
"Growing Up in the Scene" Reply.............Nick Majeran
Bug In Fast Tracker v2.04...................Duggy
What's Hot, What's Not......................Anonymous
Upload Reviews..............................GraveDigger
What is REAL Music?.........................Tomi
Subscribing
Closing
=-[Uploads]-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
=----------------------------------------------------------[File Information]-=
All files listed below are on ftp.cdrom.com or one of its mirrors.
Ratings are completely subjective and do not necessarily reflect opinions
of the demo scene in general.
ftp.cdrom.com too slow? Try our mirror at ftp.luth.se. You may even
upload to this site under /pub/msdos/demos_upload.
All files moved to /dev/null imply that the file was deleted.
Demos marked [n/a] generally mean that we couldn't get them to run at all.
=-------------------------------------------------------------[Demos:General]-=
Location /demos/alpha/1995 Size Rated Description
=-------------------------------- ---- ----- ---------------------------------=
/b/bland.zip 59 *** Bland by AE (textmode intro)
/c/cma_gion.zip 62 **** Gustation by Camorra (get this)
/e/e_lisa.zip 976 [n/a] Lisa by Eclipse
/f/fruityfn.zip 69 [n/a] Fruit Cake
/p/p-skufin.zip 630 [n/a] Skumle Planer by Purple (bugfix)
/r/rpdentro.zip 300 ** The Real Dentro by Red Power
Assembly '95 Demos
/j/jfight.zip 1917 ***+ 10th Fghting 4 Somethng by Japotek
/m/msqmyst1.arj 1212 **+ 11th [1/2] Mystery by Masque
/m/msqmyst2.arj 591 **+ 11th [2/2] Mystery by Masque
/d/demfever.zip 500 *** 14th Fever by Deus ex Machina
/f/ftj_love.zip 3080 ***+ DSQ. Divine Booty by Plant
=--------------------------------------------------------[Demos:Non-Reviewed]-=
Location /demos/alpha Size Description
=-------------------------------- ---- ---------------------------------------=
/bbs/t/tfc.zip 10 Intro for The Forbidden City BBS
/bbs/t/tfc2.zip 13 Intro for The Forbidden City BBS
/bbs/t/tfcintro.zip 180 Intro for The Forbidden City BBS
=-------------------------------------------------------------[Music:General]-=
Location /demos/music Size Rated Description
=-------------------------------- ---- ----- ---------------------------------=
/disks/1995/h/ha-light.zip 840 **+ Zauber Light by Hades/PR
/disks/1995/h/hellb2.arj 1456 ***+ Hellbound v2 by Primal
/disks/1995/h/hellb2.a01 1428 ***+ Hellbound v2 by Primal
/songs/1995/mod/o/overkill.arj 185 ** Over Kill by Cj Dib
/songs/1995/mtm/k/k_progr.zip 27 **+ Progress by The Hacker/KFMF
/songs/1995/s3m/a/adchains.zip 134 *** Broken Chains by Artful Dodger
/songs/1995/s3m/a/add-of-v.zip 297 ** Dreams of Vasec. by Artful Dodger
/songs/1995/s3m/d/dman-kka.zip 205 * ? by Alex
/songs/1995/s3m/e/es-scase.zip 221 ** Steve Case has. by Evil Seed
/songs/1995/s3m/f/funk.zip 73 * Funkadelic by The Magician
/songs/1995/s3m/h/hazard.zip 129 *** Hazard by Beaner/acid
/songs/1995/s3m/k/k_babylo.zip 165 ***+ Babylon by Phoenix/KFMF
/songs/1995/s3m/k/k_mtime.zip 373 **+ Missing Time by Basehead/KFMF
/songs/1995/s3m/k/k_plast.zip 188 *** Plastik Ganja by Zake/KFMF
/songs/1995/s3m/k/k_slack2.zip 219 **+ World Wide Slack (remix) by Floss
/songs/1995/s3m/k/k_wander.zip 257 **** Wanderlust by Leviathan/KFMF
/songs/1995/s3m/m/mirage2.zip 179 *** Mirage 2 by Beaner
/songs/1995/s3m/m/mo-nobig.zip 85 ** No Big Deal by Mondo
/songs/1995/s3m/o/outofsha.zip 149 *+ Out..Shadows by Master of Darkness
/songs/1995/s3m/r/raveon.zip 71 *+ Rave..School's Out by Phil Richard
/songs/1995/s3m/s/ss-thme2.zip 62 * Theme II by Drive
/songs/1995/s3m/s/surfer.zip 159 ** Catch tha Wave by Lord Jon Ray
/songs/1995/s3m/s/syn_sun.zip 175 *** Sun (dawn remix) by Synergist
/songs/1995/s3m/t/taz-sbr.zip 298 * Southbound Rotterdam by Taz
/songs/1995/s3m/t/tazvshad.zip 315 + Taz vs. Hadji by Taz
/songs/1995/s3m/t/teo-lfrn.zip 113 ***+ Life's Run by Teo/Fatal Rage
/songs/1995/s3m/t/therise1.zip 325 ** The Rise by Trainspotta
/songs/1995/s3m/t/tm-anymo.zip 165 ***+ Anymotion by AsYntote
/songs/1995/s3m/t/tm-estat.zip 383 *** Estate by AsYntote
/songs/1995/s3m/t/tm-voxln.zip 221 ***+ VoxLand by AsYntote
/songs/1995/s3m/t/tribes.zip 160 *+ Tribes of Africa by Wild Side
/songs/1995/xm/a/aplayboy.zip 88 * Atomic Playboy by Tackle
/songs/1995/xm/a/apocalyp.zip 211 **** Apocalypse by Meat
/songs/1995/xm/b/brie.zip 110 ** Beware of the B. by Tackle
/songs/1995/xm/c/cyclfire.zip 518 ***+ Cycles of Fire by Scirocco
/songs/1995/xm/e/easyattk.zip 47 ** Easy Cheese Att. by Tackle
/songs/1995/xm/g/goudavil.zip 36 ** Escape from Goudavile by ???
/songs/1995/xm/l/leppaker.zip 126 **** Leppakerttu by Tuksu
/songs/1995/xm/p/pretzel.zip 40 *+ Microwave Pretzel by Tackle
/songs/1995/xm/s/si_burn.zip 449 **** Burn My Guitar by Sikamikanico
/songs/1995/xm/s/steak.zip 99 *+ Steak Knife by Spitz
/songs/1995/xm/v/violence.zip 941 **+ Violence by Noiseman
/songs/1995/xm/v/viv-stmb.zip 299 **+ Sturmbraut by Vivid
/songs/1995/xm/v/vo-sput.zip 214 *** Sputnik by Voyeur
/songs/1995/xm/w/wdogrvng.zip 29 * Weiner Dog's Revenge by Tackle
/songs/1995/xm/w/westerng.zip 258 ** Western Grill by Magic Fred...
/songs/1995/xm/w/worst.zip 11 + Worst by Anonymous
/songs/1995/xm/z/zgp-gkom.zip 432 + Gotta Keep On Moving by Nuke
/songs/1995/xm/z/zgp-pp95.zip 128 + Pure Passion 95 by Nuke
=--------------------------------------------------------[Music:Non-Reviewed]-=
Location /demos/music Size Description
=-------------------------------- ---- ---------------------------------------=
/programs/converters/cmc101.zip 40 Chronos Module Converter 1.01 by Chronos
/programs/players/m4w220sx.zip 1904 Mod4Win 2.20 Full Ver. by Jens Puchert
/programs/players/m4w220sl.zip 674 Mod4Win 2.20 Lite Ver. by Jens Puchert
/programs/rippers/s3srip.zip 8 S3SRip S3M Samp Ripper by Tomas Lehuta
=----------------------------------------------------------------------[Code]-=
Location /demos/code Size Rated Lang Description
=-------------------------------- ---- ----- ---- ----------------------------=
/graph/water/hq_water.zip 370 **** A P Water source of Heartquake
/graph/voxel/ign_land.zip 23 **** A C Voxel source of Heartquake
/sound/omega060.zip 60 ***+ C SB AWE32 MOD Player w/src
/demosrc/phro.zip 294 ****+ A P Source to phro, 2 min. intro
=------------------------------------------------------------------[Graphics]-=
Location /demos/graphics Size Description
=-------------------------------- ---- ---------------------------------------=
/ASM94/smeagol.zip 65 Smeagol (final version) by Paranoids
=-------------------------------------------------------------[Miscellaneous]-=
Location /demos Size Description
=-------------------------------- ---- ---------------------------------------=
/hornet/demonews/dn_1of1.099 47 DemoNews #99
/hornet/traxw/traxweek.023 57 TraxWeekly #23
/news/nadd_u03 1432 New Age Demo Database - Upgrade 3
=-[Articles]=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
=---------------------------------------------------[Introduction]--[Snowman]-=
This is the 100th issue of DemoNews! Since September 24th 1992, we have
tried to provide the demo scene with a centralized area for files and
information. I won't start going into what changes we've seen over the
past 3 years (save that for the September 24th 1995 issue). This also
happens to be the first week that we exceed 1500 subscribers.
I spent much time thinking what we should do for the 100th issue. Should
we get a couple big interviews? Should we put a fancy ASCII banner at the
top? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I didn't want to
do any of these things. And so we present to you a perfectly normal issue
of this newsletter. :)
Here are some general infobits to chew on:
1. We are moving from a .txt based file-description system to a 00index.txt
file in each subdirectory. I have been writing utility programs to
automatically convert DemoNews file listings to the 00index.txt format.
2. The TraxWeekly subscriber list was accidentally lost and restored from
backup. It was kind of odd watching the number of subscribers to this
newsletter drop from 280 to 3 in one day. :)
3. We are currently designing a "DemoNews Assembler". This program will
create issues of DemoNews with standard text input files (header blocks,
articles, file listings). This should reduce the workload of putting an
issue together, which also means that DemoNews might actually start
coming out every week (instead of the 10-14 days we're averaging now).
4. Starport, probably the _most_ famous demo BBS of all time, has shut
down. This also means that the nice music archive at
ftp.mpoli.fi:/starport is gone. Shed a tear for this loss.
5. People are very unhappy with the MC3Final.exe being so late. I
understand this. I have sent out 5 alpha versions within Hornet, and
the project is moving along steadily (although slowly). I am very
inexperienced as a coder and this project is almost out of my ability.
The project will be completed (ain't gonna pull a Composer's
Competition) but it might be another week. :(
6. Stairway to Heaven BBS has been including many annoying BBS advertise-
ments in .zip files. One in particular is called " .sth". If
you are a sysop at STH, please try to use a more standard method of
saying that the file came from your board (like a .zip file header or
something).
Well, have fun and read on.
Snowman / Hornet - r3cgm@ftp.cdrom.com
=----------------------------------[Assembly '95 Report (Part 1 of 2)]--[Ior]-=
_____Introduction
Hi ... Well ... this was supposed to be the onsite Party article, but the
computer I was typing it on disappeared half-way through, and I couldn't
find it again... So you are all stuck with this recollection of the party 2
weeks later :) And sorry, there are no times on this, but oh well! :)
_____Wednesday, 9 August 1995
On Wednesday, around midday, I went to the party place with Mellow-D. We
walked around the building for a while, trying to figure out where the
entrance was (the tram stop we got off on was on the other corner of the
complex). We finally saw a sign "Assembly '95 ->" and there was much
rejoicing.
After following the arrow down a hill into what looked like a
garage/loading zone/construction zone, and walking to the farthest door, we
went in, and were amazed. Right in front of us were rows after rows after
rows of empty white tables, with white walls surrounding them. Right above
the farthest tables were the "bleachers."
This site was much more impressive than it was for most of the people at
the party, because at this time, there was no dividing wall between us and
the RopeCon area, so the space was about 150% as large as what we finally
ended up with.
After this shock, we were approached by a few security people because we
didn't have the wristbands to show that we really belonged in there. So, we
ended up walking around, and waiting outside for most of the time, until
Pehu finally showed up (he was out for lunch) and gave us our wristbands.
Finally, we were able to go over to the organizers area, and look at the
setup. The sound board was gigantic, with about 24 independent input
channels. Also there was the video mixer, a synth (I have no idea why :),
and one computer.
We (Mellow-D and I) had to drive Pehu's car back to Mellow-D's apartment so
that we could pick up his computer. We got back, and as we were setting it
up, they lowered the big screen (even larger than all 3 of last years
combined, or so it seemed) and switched the Video Projector Source to a TV,
unfortunately, the sound system wasn't hooked up at this time, so we could
watch, but there was no sound :)
The only people that I saw that arrived there a day early were the guys
from @. Eventually, we went home to sleep.
_____Thursday, 10 August 1995
Finally, the big day arrived. Mellow-D and I woke up early, and took a tram
over to the site so we could get there about 2 hours before it started. We
wanted to test the sound system out, but it was still unconnected. So,
instead, we walked around, and watched the fair people put up the dividing
wall between us and the RopeCon area.
We also explored the Play 1995 area, which was nothing but a few video game
machines, a Nintendo booth, and a few pinball machines. We went back, and
watched the fair staff set up the dividing wall between the organizer's
booth and the rest of the party (otherwise we would have been inundated,
and overwhelmed :).
There was still no sign of the sound guy, and the doors were going to open
in 30 minutes. So I stepped outside, and looked around so I could see the
lines. Both of them (the one for people with pre-bought tickets, and the
one for people who needed to buy their tickets) were immense. The camera
crew was walking around and interviewing people in the Pre-Bought Ticket
line.
I squeezed back inside about 10 minutes before the doors opened, to see
that the sound guy had just arrived, and was finally hooking up the
speakers and sound boards (although he was scarce at the beginning of the
first day, he was always there when we needed him throughout the rest of
the party). He finished just as the doors opened, and Mellow-D and I tested
the speakers with the theme song to Little Green Men (Phoenix/Kosmic, 9th
Place Demo).
Everything was fine. Within 30 minutes, the volume wars had started. People
from opposite ends of the hall were booming at each other at the loudest,
most obnoxious music they could find :) Of course, by increasing the master
volume on the sound board, the organizer's booth could drown them all out
(and those peripheral satellite speakers were a blessing :)
As the day wore on, the hall slowly filled up, but it was clear that just
as many people would show up on Friday. Later that day, I was asked to show
something on the big screen, and I played a lot of well known (And not so
well-known) productions. However, after 4 or 5 hours of this, I was more
than a little ... bored ... Of course, there were people to talk to, but I
wanted to get out. I finally managed to.
A bit later, the remaining ASM '94 CD's went on sale (about 150 of them)
and promptly sold out. Some people started going to sleep.
_____Friday, 11 August 1995
Friday came, and even more people showed up. Sometime this day, a big
projection of white letters showed up on one wall ... "EMF" ... hmmm ... I
wonder if they could have been there ;) On this day, I finally managed to
meet some of my old friends: Jake, Henchman, Gore, Lord Cyrix, etc; some of
my IRC friends: Simm, MoominG, Sandman, OC, Prism, Skaven, etc; and some of
my new friends: Zodiak, Arjan Brusee, Xtoto, etc. And this is a VERY SMALL
listing of the people I talked to :)
Later this day, deadlines came, and the back info booth became crowded,
like a herd of frantic animals seeing the first watering hole in 15
kilometers. Even in the inside, people were running around, making sure the
disks were labeled properly, put on the right computer, in the right
directory, and finally, in the right box. Around this time, I was asked if
I would like to be on the 64k Intro Jury. Naturally, I accepted :)
When I went back to the main hall, people were already showing off their
productions, Nooon attracted a fairly large sized crowd every time they
showed their demo, Stars: Wonders of the World. As you all SHOULD know,
this demo went on to win 1st Place.
A bit later, I went back to the back info booth, and helped run the various
computers up the stairs to the necessary jury rooms. I pity the 32 Channel
Jury, because they had to listen to 225 songs, which took more than 5
hours. However, the jury was quite large, and it must have been
entertaining, if nothing else :)
In an hour or so, I went to the right room for the intro jury, and met the
rest of the jury. There were about 9 of us total. The jury was interesting,
although those seats got hard after a while. Some of the intros were sure
to not make the final cut: There was a 7k intro there, and also any intros
with no music.
Of course, when we saw Stickman's World, ALL of us cracked up, and that
intro was sure to make it to the final cut (it ended up 2nd Place). We were
all pretty impressed with Drift, and were certain it would end up high (1st
Place). Eventually, the jury ended, and we all went our separate ways.
_____Conclusion
Well ... that's the end of Friday, and I'm sure all of you people are
getting pretty bored reading this, since I can't think of anything that is
really really really funny to say, so ... I Think I'll end this here, and
finish it next week. So, until then, Don't Panic :)
Island of Reil <ior> / Hornet - jroth@owl.csusm.edu
=--------------------------[Pornography at Assembly '95?]--[Multiple Authors]-=
[taken from comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos newsgroup]
> > Well, at least one friend of mine got infected by this _15xx virus, and
> > though we didn't exactly try to hunt it down, it seemed to come from a
> > c64s package somebody put on the partynet. That's our guess anyway, since
> > quite a few of the .exe's in that dir were infected, and he had only run
> > one of them...
>
> I see that nobody took that no-pirating warning too seriously then. :)
Well, I wouldn't say that :) Hellfire was shut down for an hour or two,
because the organizers were informed that there was pirated software and
child-pornography on the server. We removed the offensive material, 20
games, 5 programs and 5mb of child-porno, and we were running again ;-)
Anyway, they then wanted all pornography removed, but we refused to remove
anything which was not illegal. The net-info at Assembly was leeching tons
of stuff from Hellfire, and the net-organizers has all the porno and most
of the NPD when the party ended ;-))
Kvantti Piikkisika and Vinding Christensen
=---------------------------["Growing Up in the Scene" Reply]--[Nick Majeran]-=
Hello Snowman,
Your editorial in Demo News #99 started out with a number of good
intentions, but ended up alienating me in some sort of strange way.
According to "Growing Up in the Demo Scene," it would appear that I am
entering my early `adulthood' stage in my demo scene existence. However, I
have not found a clear-cut purpose for my being in the scene.
Is it enough just to enjoy the scene, to be a fan? I asked myself this
question, and let it swim through my mind for a bit. Does this mean that
since I have no purpose, that my demo life has been wasted? This question
also popped up. I soon realized that this ratiocination that I was putting
myself through was become much too philosophical, and quickly purged it
from my mind.
Sometimes thoughts like this come out, and are quite disturbing for a few
minutes. Then I remember how much entertainment the demo scene has
provided me. I will still continue to enjoy demos, tracked music (although
Necros response was right on the money), graphics, and any other products
the scene produces.
I've been in the scene for 2 years myself, the first demo that I saw was
CD2, and soon after that I saw Second Reality, and became absolutely amazed
with what I saw. These were the BNA (before net access) days; and I
frantically tried to get my hands on anything that I could.
When I moved away from my friends who started their scene growth, I gained
net access. I believe that the first issue of DN that I picked up was 33,
or somewhere around there, (I've had a hard drive crash since then) and
soon I realized that I had only scratched the surface. I grew as DN did; I
saw the newsletter increase in size, as I saw the free space on my hard
drive dwindle as I picked up more demos...and a GUS somewhere along the
way.
I suppose what I am trying to say is this: keep up the good work on DN but
be careful when writing articles that speak to the whole "family." Even if
we are all "related" then some of the more distant cousins might feel
slighted if they feel like they don't belong in the family as well...
Nick Majeran - stilgar@megumi.unm.edu
=----------------------------------------[Bug In Fast Tracker v2.04]--[Duggy]-=
[taken from comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos newsgroup]
Ok this problem is with FT release 2.01 and latest 2.04.
Problem:
This bug will crash the system and drop u out to dos, dump looks like this:
FATAL ERROR: (0D) General protection fault at 3089:27F5
SS:[SP+2C] = 2B539698
EAX = 00000000 ESI = FFFF064F SS:[SP+28] = 00000210
EBX = 00000000 EDI = 001460B8 SS:[SP+24] = 1C1B9302
ECX = 00000003 EBP = 0001FFD4 Flags = --1------11- SS:[SP+20] = 0000000A
EDX = D39903CE ESP = 000092D6 (ODITSZ-A-P-C) SS:[SP+1C] = 01600038
SS:[SP+18] = 92FA0000
CS = 01B0: Base = 00044D40, Limit = 0000FFFF,Type = 009B SS:[SP+14] = 042000E5
DS = 00E8: Base = 00064A60, Limit = 0000D86F,Type = 0093 SS:[SP+10] = 00E800AE
ES = 0030: Base = 000A0000, Limit = 0000FFFF,Type = 0093 SS:[SP+0C] = 00F01107
FS = 07C0: Base = 00165710, Limit = 0000064F,Type = 0093 SS:[SP+08] = 01B01066
GS = 0030: Base = 000A0000, Limit = 0000FFFF,Type = 0093 SS:[SP+04] = 92F06090
SS = 0018: Base = 000722D0, Limit = 00009FFF,Type = 0093 SS:[SP+00] = 06400010
^ ^
|___________|
|
|
Should be space here before this letter here
I've had to edit the page above a little to avoid word wrap, but it's still
the same (I removed a few spaces shown above).
How to crash Ft2:
Ok load a mod you have done before, nice to load Amiga .MOD file cos they
have patterns but they are all the same length.
Once loaded make a new pattern, e.g. if last pattern was 15 make a new one
called "16". Ok now as this pattern is new use the shrink button and the
down arrow to make its length to 8 on the scale, go half way down the
pattern and just put any note there.
Now here's the fun bit. Decrease the value in the top left box (the order
window) so that pattern 16 becomes 15 (remembering you made a 16 and it's
still in ram). Go to the end of the order of patterns and click INS again
and use the arrows to go up or down till you get to the pattern you made
(16 in this example) when it does, FT will crash to dos like above.
If you really can't do this I can send you a mod with 15 patterns. You
will never be able to make 16 because as soon as you go through the
patterns pressing the up arrow key you'll get to 16 (which I made) and FT2
will crash.
Now the fix 8)
Load the effected mod you have made that can't be edited (you can't add any
more patterns). When I say load, I mean load it into a hex editor. Near the
front of the .XM file is a list of patterns in the order they are played.
Change one the patterns into the problem one i.e. if you had problems with
making a pattern 16 find another pattern number like for instance 12 and
edit it so it becomes 16.
Loading this mod back into FT2 will be ok, and you can now edit the mod
without a crash.
That's it (PHEW).
Duggy - x10864@bradford.ac.uk
=---------------------------------------[What's Hot, What's Not]--[Anonymous]-=
I report the pulse, not agree with it...
What's Hot What's Not
____________________________ _____________________________
Orange, Halcyon, Xtacy, Future Crew, Triton, Cascada
Jamm, Nooon, Complex
Necros, Basehead, Mellow-D Purple Motion, Skaven
Force Ten, Epinicion KFMF
Phong shading Gouraud shading
Environment mapping Texture mapping
.XM .S3M
262,144 colors 256 colors
Watcom C Pure ASM
=---------------------------------------------[Upload Reviews]--[GraveDigger]-=
_____Introduction
Several months ago, when the decision was made to add reviews of new uploads
to the DemoNews weekly upload listings, I was selected to take care of the
music reviews because at the time I had been (and still am) maintaining the
music archive.
_____The Reviewers
Finding it impossible to review all the new uploads myself, I decided that
a team of four people would review the new music, while I would dedicate my
time to the archive maintenance. Finding interest was easy; a message was
sent on the DemoNews mailing list asking for people to review uploads. I
had a lot more responses than I had positions, and regrettably, I was not
able to respond to every request.
Having made an initial selection, I met four new people. Eventually, as time
went on, several reviewers came and went, at times feeling overwhelmed at the
amount of time and effort required of such an assignment. Mixed in with my
attempts to assure that the ratings were accurate with the general opinion of
the demoscene, it has been a difficult task.
This article serves several purposes. First, I want to thank all of the
people who at one time or another did music reviews. It provides the readers
of Demonews with a quick guide to what's hot and what's not. Currently, our
four reviewers are TSR, Bluenova, Daedalus, and Krystall.
Also, I have to thank Diablo, who has been a tremendous help in keeping this
operation organized as it continues to expand beyond its originally perceived
limits.
_____Deleting Music
And now, a plan that will go in action very shortly. As the months ramble on,
we are constantly running out of space on the FTP site. To combat this
problem, we have decided to enforce a new policy.
Any song upload that does not receive a rating of *** or higher will be
deleted after one month.
As I can see it, the policy can work two ways, such as the flip of a coin.
You call it.
Heads: People will get pissed off that their songs are being deleted from the
FTP site. You lose.
Tails: People will try to improve their music skills so that their songs can
be among the few that will be allowed to stay on the site. You win.
_____Conclusion
Our goal is to provide everyone with the best collection of demo-related
files that we can with our current quota. We hope that you will see this
change as a benefit to the entire site, because it will allow the site to
continue to serve its users for several more months.
Your questions or comments to this new policy are welcomed. I'm sure that
some people won't like it, but we simply can't afford the disk space very
much longer. We have enjoyed approximately six months of luxury when disk
space on the site was no problem.
And keep in mind: if you think this is bad, just think back to when the old
ftp.eng.ufl.edu demos archive had only 400mb!
GD / Hornet - gd@ftp.cdrom.com
=-----------------------------------------------[What is REAL Music?]--[Tomi]-=
[taken from comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos newsgroup]
_____Introduction
OK, I'm writing to this thread because it's the stupidest on this group for
a long, long time. I won't be quoting anybody in particular, but just
commenting on the stuff and ideas popping up in this thread.
Trolling aside, it seems that one of the arguments is that there is such a
thing as "real" music as opposed to "not real", for instance computer or
electronically music. I think this is a) totally ridiculous and b) drivel.
Like many arguments, this one seems to boil down to some definitions: What
is music, what are instruments?
_____What are Instruments?
Some of you claim that tracker instruments (samples) aren't real
instruments. This is obviously true if we expect them to perfectly
reproduce the sound of some acoustical instrument. No synthesizer is going
to do a perfect job of that. But then we should also remember that nobody
has, for instance, a perfect grand piano which other grand pianos could be
compared to.
And so we have to use a certain set of particulars (such as the case, the
frame, the strings, hammers etc.) to define what a piano is like and how it
should sound. After this, we might be prepared to call a synthesizer
simulation of a piano a piano, because it fulfills the same practical
purpose as a "real" acoustical one.
So it's really up to the composer to decide whether a synthesizer patch or a
tracker sample can be called "a piano" or some other instrument.
Now even if you won't call any simulations by the same names as the
original acoustical tone-generators (instruments :) ), there is no reason
why any sound-generating element shouldn't be called an instrument. Heck,
beer bottles become instruments when played rhythmically with a stick (yet
I don't believe the random clinking of the bottles in a bag could
reasonably be called music)!
My definition of an instrument is that it is a tool or method for creating
a sound to be part of a piece of music.
_____What is Music?
Now we obviously bump into the definition of music, which was in fact the
other problem in this thread. All the same, I think we all have a fairly
good idea of what music is, and I at least am willing to include quite a
wide variety of different sonic experimentation as music, depending on what
its creator wants to call it. If he calls it music, then maybe it is music,
even if not in the traditional, clear-cut (rhythm/tempo/
tones/timbres/melody/harmony) sense.
I used to be annoyed by modern artists for pushing out all kinds of stuff
"any kid could make" as "art". Well, perhaps I am still, but now I'm
willing to let them call it art if they like, and the only thing I decide
for myself is whether I like it or not and whether it has anything to say
to me. Which of course doesn't mean it might not seem quite different to
somebody else.
All the same, our understanding and language does have the terms "art" and
"music", so I'm certainly not saying that these terms are empty and
meaningless. Also I will not agree that just *anything* can be music.
For one thing, my definition of music does include sensing it with your
ears :) So please let's use the word music in its general meaning (like the
signals on records and audible in concert halls) and not nitpick about it.
_____A Musician and his/her Instruments
So my point is that if a musician decides to express his musical motions
with a tracker, then his instruments are samples. If he decides to do it
with MIDI, his instruments are patches or whatever, often made from
samples. If he does it with a violin, then the violin is his instrument,
and I don't think many would disagree with me on this one. Whatever the
generators sound like, if the composer decides to use them, they are his
instruments.
_____Categorizing Music
I would certainly say that any piece composed on a tracker is as real as it
can be. A different issue is whether a tracked *version* of some original
piece is the *same* as the original. It probably isn't; rather, it's a
*different version*.
But it still resembles the original in some ways, and by some standard can
be classified with the original. But I don't think it's a issue of being
"real" or not. Original works don't have this problem in the first place.
Another problem seems to be categorizing computer music.
The first point to understand is that a category of things that are
different from each other yet resemble each other in some way must have
limits, but the limits must be far enough apart to allow more than one
specimen in the category. We would get nowhere fast if all our categories
only had one particular in them...
I'm sure you'll find lots of music (whether it's computer music or not),
which will either not fit in any existing category or else will fit in
several, the latter being more likely (everybody is influenced to a degree
by somebody else).
To decide whether a module is techno or not, you'll have to get a
reasonable definition of what techno is, and not from your own head.
Categorizing also depends on the viewpoint. I'm pretty sure few people
would put Mozart and PM in the same category, but from the point of view of
beating two stones together for a groovy comp, I suppose Mozart and PM
would fall neatly into the same category (with their melody+harmony+
12-note octave etc.).
Some would say "any loser can learn to play/track" with an instrument or a
piece of software. Well, I guess so, if you don't care about what you get.
I've played the piano for almost 10 years and tracked + sequenced for a few
years, and even so I don't think other people think much of my music. And
some people really are almost completely unmusical in the creative sense,
although they enjoy listening to music (this is probably more complicated
than what I say), so that they couldn't really learn to play any instrument
or sing.
_____What is REAL Music?
As for the quality of modules, I think some of the modules I've heard blast
many professional songs away completely *musically*. Now read carefully...
I mean that to my mind, and in my opinion, the music itself is much better
made and meaningful than the song on the CD ("real").
Sound quality in terms of noise, frequency response or distortion caused by
simplified interpolation, for instance, are a completely different issue.
Then there are some in-between points, such as using one piano sample
instead of a multi- sampled and velocity-to-filter-routed synth grand
piano.
If a musician wants an instrument to sound more or less like an acoustic
piano, I'd prefer that he'd use such a sound, and as good a version of it
as possible.
At the same time, the timbres in a piece of music make it that piece, and
large alterations in the timbres will make it sound wrong when you're used
to some other version.
This happened to me with Star Wars. I'd listened to a Timewarp track
(Cincinnati Pops Orchestra w/ Eric Kunzel) of the end credits score for
dozens of times, and when I heard the original London Symphony Orchestra
version, I though it was wrong somehow, or at least different. It was
definitely the same score and even the same version, but not quite the same
after all.
Perhaps I'd better not start talking about interpretations...
_____Conclusion
This post was rather a ramble, but please folks, don't bicker over this
subject like kids. Yes, MIDs, MODs, recordings and live performances are
all *real* music. I'll be pleased to read all challenges and flames!
Tomi Joy - tjoy@uiah.fi
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Next week we should have some good Assembly '95 coverage. Watch out!
For questions and comments, you can contact Hornet at:
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