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--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Table Of Contents
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
     Opening:
        Message From the Editor
        Letters From Our Readers
     Features:
        A Time for Change -- Farewell to the Editor Chair
        Party Report -- Breakpoint '03
        How to Kill Your Compo in 10 Weeks
     Reviews:
        Music:
           On The Sideline -- "My Sky" by Jimmy Redfern and Astradyne
           The Lineup -- Monthly Music Listings
        Demo:
           Screen Lit Vertigo -- "FR-025: The Popular Demo" and "Relais"
     Opinion / Commentary:
        Coplan's Eyes -- Inspiration From a Different View
     Link List: Get Somewhere in the Scene
     Closing: Staff and Contact Information


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Message From the Editor
--=--=------=--=------=--=----

  Welcome to issue #45 of Static Line!

  This issue marks the beginning of a new era for the magazine. Let me
  introduce myself - I'm Ciaran Hamilton, and I'll be editing this magazine
  along with Ben Collver, starting from this issue.

  Static Line has been running for almost five years now under Coplan's
  editorship, and that's a long time for a magazine such as this one to keep
  going. The magazine has always strived to carry interesting and meaningful
  articles, and that won't be changing. Coplan isn't gone entirely either -
  he'll still be writing some articles (including In Tune), as well as a
  regular article called "Coplan's Eyes", which you can read near the end of
  this issue. Be sure to check out his feature article this month, too.

  Also in this issue, we've got a Breakpoint '03 party report from Seven, a
  feature on how *not* to run a music compo from Novus, and a review of "My
  Sky" from Ben. The Lineup and two demo reviews from Seven also make their
  regular appearance this month.

  A few important things to note: for the moment, new submissions for the
  magazine should be emailed to static_line-owner@scenespot.org instead of
  the usual address. This should only be a temporary change, so don't delete
  the old address from your address books just yet. :)

  Also, please note the new URL for the magazine archives -
  ftp://staticline.scenespot.org/issues/ . If you prefer using HTTP to
  download your issues, you can now do so at
  http://staticline.scenespot.org/issues/ . The old location will still work
  as a mirror, but the above address is now the 'official' location.

  Enjoy the issue, and we'll see you next month!

     --Ciaran and Ben


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Letters From Our Readers
--=--=------=--=------=--=----

  -=- A Message from Eino Keskitalo -=-

  A fine issue (44), special thanks to PsiTron for his insight on ReNoise,
  as I am one of those people who still need to find a friendly tracking
  enviroment on a modern machine. Unfortunately, Sk@le crashed right after
  starting up on my machine. ReNoise I definitely have to give a try.

  Intresting proposals about centralizing the scene in Web. In my rather
  non-authoritave opinion, you'll need a few activists, a good working
  concept and everyone to participate - else you'll end up creating just
  another portal. But you've probably thought all this before, so I'll just
  say that personally, I right now don't have the time to follow the scene
  very thoroughly. With the Internet, the scene seems to be happening
  globally rather than locally, which would be easier to follow and
  participate (or be motivated to participate).

     --Eino


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  A Time for Change
    Farewell to the Editor Chair
  By:  Coplan
--=--=------=--=------=--=----

  It's a dark and dreary day when you come to the realization that you no
  longer have the time, or the patience to do something that always brought
  you joy.  Even more appropriate is the fact that it's been raining over my
  house for 22 of the 31 days this past month.  But the Sun came out
  sometime in the last week, and life didn't seem so dreary.

  It's a fact, I haven't had the time or the patience to continue my editing
  of Static Line.  But two guys came along that helped me realize that
  Static Line will carry on...and I feared that this would not be the case.
  Thanks to Ben and Ciaran, Static Line will carry out without my seat at
  the Editor's Desk.

  Many of you already know where Static Line came from.  It was formed out
  of the ashes of TraxWeekly, a magazine that I contributed to for a couple
  of months before it folded.  Static Line was my next project.  Ironically,
  it only started because I wanted some place to review music.  I never
  thought that Static Line would've been around for 45 issues.  I never
  thought it would've lived 5 years.  And now that it has, I almost felt
  like I couldn't give it up.

  But people's lives change.

  Back in 1998, when Static Line was born, I was doing no more than
  contributing a few hours of studying a  day for my college career.  I
  didn't have a serious girlfriend, and I  sure as hell didn't have any
  money to do much else.  Today, I'm 26, getting ready to sit for my
  licensure as a Registered Landscape Architect (belive me, this is a lot
  harder that it would seem), I have a fiancee, and I'm saving for a house.
  I work 50+ hours per week in my prestigiuos career as a designer for a
  Civil Engineering firm, and I still like to write music when I can.  I'm
  afraid there isn't much room for editing Static Line.

  So a few days ago, I thought the magazine was going to be doomed.
  Something I was not real happy about.  Then comes along Ben and Ciaran,
  each of their own accord, to offer their torch-carrying abilities.  Not
  only were each of them willing, but between them, they have done a lot to
  change the future of Static Line.  They both have a lot of energy and
  passion.  And a lot of great ideas.  Worry not, Static Line will still
  always be the same great magazine that I have been building for over five
  years now.  But two fresh new minds might wake it up a bit and make it
  that much better.  The magazine is in great hands.

  In addition, I will still be writing editiorials for the magazine, and
  when I can I'll be continuing my music reviews as well.  But writing an
  article is far less time consuming than pulling together a magazine of
  this caliber.  And that is why you might want to join me in welcoming (and
  thanking) your two new editors.

  To many more years:

     --Coplan


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Party Report
    Breakpoint '03
  By:  Seven
--=--=------=--=------=--=----

  I really liked Mekka/Symposium the previous two times I attended, so I was
  very happy to hear that it wouldn't really stop after all, but instead be
  replaced with Breakpoint. The location was moved to the south (Bingen
  instead of Fallingbostel, still in Germany), but they kept the date and
  duration(Easter weekend, friday till monday). The remaining M/S organisers
  were reinforced with orgos from Underground Conference and Evoke, and they
  had promised they would try hard to keep the scenish atmosphere.

  Another reason for me to look forward to Breakpoint was the Scene.org
  Awards ceremony. The idea to celebrate the best demos of the past year
  with a kind of demoscene Oscars has been floating around for quite some
  time (I remember Abyss/Future Crew talking about it in an old diskmag),
  but this year the Scene.org guys actually put their shoulders to the wheel
  to make it a reality. I felt very honored when Melwyn asked me to be part
  of the jury, so I gladly accepted. The actual voting had been done some
  time ago, but the results weren't told to anyone yet, not even to the jury
  members. So I was quite anxious to be there, to meet the nominees and the
  other sceners in the jury.

  I had already taken the Friday before and Tuesday after Breakpoint off
  from work, when a family member died. Some things are more important than
  the demoscene, so I didn't leave for Breakpoint until Saturday noon, after
  the funeral. Thanks to Hilde & Nico who drove me to the station, as I
  still don't have a car.


  -=- Saturday 19 April -=-
  The trip to Germany took several hours longer then expected, because I
  first got confused about what my endstation was, and then at Bingen I
  couldn't get the doors of the wagon to open, forcing me to go back from
  Mainz to Bingen via a slow local train. Luckily I could still catch the
  last shuttle bus to the party place, with only 7 minutes leeway on a
  7-hour journey. At the station, the organiser Gizmo had told me there were
  about 1000 visitors so far, there wasn't a single delay in the schedule,
  and Variform/Kewlers had won no less than 3 Scene.org Awards!

  It took the small bus 20 minutes to drive to the top of a nearby hill,
  where the abandoned army base was located in which Breakpoint took place.
  I talked a bit with Storm/ex-Kolor, and some guys from
  Surprise!Productions. XXX/Haujobb welcomed us at the entrance, and a
  moment later I ran into Melwyn who confirmed my suspicion that I had
  missed both the Awards ceremony and the afterparty for the winners,
  nominees and jury members :( Determined not to miss anything else, I
  dropped my luggage at one of the few remaining empty places and headed to
  the bigscreen.

  22:04:
  The C64 compo has just started. The first one was an invitation demo for
  Coop 2003, and was of lower quality then the remaining 3 entries. The
  cooperation between Metalvotze and another C64 group is nice, but the
  bluescreen-like effect that's repeated after every part gets boring fast
  (and the noise hurts my ears). I think Love or the Beertime 3 demo will
  get the first place.

  Looking around in search for familiar faces, I first noticed Avoozel &
  Warp, two nice Dutch sceners I've met at WOEST last year. A bit later and
  much to my surpise, I ran into Phoenix/Hornet, who once again had made the
  trip from the USA to Europe for the sake of demo-partying. I was even more
  amazed when he introduced his two friends as Dan Wright and Jeremy
  Williams! In case you don't remember, Dan aka Pallbearer/Toxic Zombies
  started the famous Hornet archive and the DemoNews newsletter, and now
  sells CDs from demoscene musicians via Fusecon. Jeremy was the founder of
  the Demoscene fanclub, and both guys are now part of the Mindcandy DVD
  crew. In fact, they had a survey about the second Mindcandy volume with
  them (If you want to have your voice heard, go to www.demodvd.org and tell
  them which Amiga demos you'd like to see!) The Hornet archive CD was in no
  small part responsible for getting me hooked on demos, and I've read all
  the old Demonews issues, so meeting Dan was a bit like meeting a celebrity
  (I'm afraid I was just rambling incoherently to him. Sorry Dan :)) It's
  always a bit weird to meet sceners you know but have never met before, you
  usually have some vague idea of how they should look, which usually turns
  out wrong, f.e.  I always imagined Dan had black hair.

  Unlock is the next scener I recognize, and he has the new Pain T-shirts
  with him! I also met Sir Garbagetruck, who was dressed a bit more
  demoscene-ish. I had previously only known him as a nick on the Nectarine
  radio. But since I skipped lunch today, I have to cut the conversation in
  search for food. Outside the partyplace one of the two food stalls is
  still open, and while I order some fries, I notice the guy standing next
  to me holding a Scene.org award statue! He's Nytrik/Cocoon, and the award
  is for the best graphics in 2002. Raw Confessions has actually been in the
  works for two years, which accounts for the differences in style and
  details of the scenes. It's too bad they're not releasing anything at
  Breakpoint, but Guile has become a father, and thus has less time now.
  Skyrunner is also ordering some food, and as usual he has submitted an
  entry in the tracked compo.  Confusion ensues when I ask whether it was
  preselected, he says it wasn't, but it *was* played. It turns out not all
  tunes that passed the preselection were played on the soundsystem, so you
  have three states: not preselected, preselected song(which you can still
  get from the main FTP and vote for), and played songs.

  23:27:
  The next compo is over: 28 great freestyle graphics were shown. After so
  many entries, it's hard to even remember the first picture (I think it was
  something with a killer easter rabbit). There was a lot of variation in
  styles, and also in the tools used to make them. This info was shown
  before each entry, and after a first look on the finished result, the
  orgos showed the different stages of the creation, that each graphician
  had to provide.  Finally the complete image was shown again, and the orgos
  zoomed in on details. This is IMHO a much better way to run a graphics
  compo, than simple showing each image for 30 seconds.


  -=- Sunday 20 April -=-
  The wild compo is next, and has all kind of entries: a stop-motion lego
  story about zombies, a modern rendered version of the famous C64 demo
  Desert Dreams/Kefrens, a real-life version of a C64 demo (think Real
  Reality/Never, but more oldskool), a videoclip about "sceners in the sun"
  (to the tune of "Seasons in the sun", but with their own lyrics), several
  normal rendered animations, of which the one from The Silents was probably
  the best, a PalmPilot entry without sound, and of course a bunch of
  joke/low quality entries, with several about the war in Iraq.

  2:11:
  I just went to the campfire, had some long conversations with Unlock, Newt
  and Kusma. One topic was how friendly everyone is at a demoparty, and how
  very little (if anything) gets stolen, give the amount of portable
  hardware there is. My cynical side thinks this is at least partly because
  the average visitor can afford both a computer and the trip + entrance fee
  etc, so he's not really poor.

  Unfortunately a campfire can only warm 50% of your body at the same time
  (if we exclude cremation), and it was getting rather cold, so I went back
  inside to defreeze my back.  Just as at Mekka/Symposium, the surprise
  coding compo is not about size-optimizing, but about making a demo with
  specific topics (This year: heating tubes, overcrowded shuttle busses, MS
  is dead and more). That's more then a solo-coder can do, so I decided not
  to spend my time on it. Instead I got the network running on my laptop,
  and checked the schedule. After trying to make some overview shots of the
  partyhall with my new camera, I decided to call it a day and unrolled my
  sleeping bag.

  7:30:
  Back awake, but it's now really cold. I know PS is somewhere at the
  partyplace, but I haven't seen him yet. An educated guess leads me to the
  campfire, and indeed: there he is. We talk a bit about the awards (he was
  a jury member too), while some really drunk guy who can hardly sit
  upright, amuses everyone by singing along with his cd-player (something
  like "tarara boem tara, my beautiful communist").

  No much is happening, so I'll use the occasion to describe the partyplace.
  The main hall is a big army hangar, it's more narrow then the
  Mekka/Symposium hall but a bit longer. There's a podium with a bigscreen
  on the far end, the screen is rather small compared to MS. The soundwalls
  on both sides of the screen are almost the same size. The 10 meters in
  front of the stage are filled with chairs, so you can watch the compos
  comfortably, but as there is only a single corridor between the tables,
  there's a jam after each compo when everyone wants to go outside or back
  to their place. Warm air is blown inside via large plastic tubes. The
  entrance of the hall is connected to a large green tent, which contains
  the info desk, the beamer team and the rest of the orgos-only space. The
  remaining 2/3 of the tent is filled with the (very small) second stage,
  and some tables and benches so people can eat there while enjoying the
  various DJ-acts. Outside the tent are two food wagons, selling pizzas,
  french fries, sandwiches etc, the usual party food. A second hall,
  parrallel to the main hall, is used as sleeping hall, it's also heated.
  The toilets are in two seperate toilet-wagons.  In front of the tent is a
  meadow, and at the far end of it is the fireplace, quite close to the
  bushes in fact. I hope we won't start too many forest fires :)

  9:19:
  Steeler and his co-presentator XXX, who has a big black moustache for the
  occasion, are giving away leftover prizes. Yeah, Breakpoint is so well
  organised they have too many prizes for the main compos, so they invent
  things like "best sleeping performance on stage", "best cyber security",
  and "first person who can bring 4 beers to the stage" :) The prizes
  weren't very seriously either, old C64 game roms and such. In the end they
  just threw what was left in the audience, I got hold of a genuine 650MB
  CD-R. Woohoo!

  9:35:
  Bad news: So far, the orgos have not received a single Amiga 64K intro.
  That's really a disappointment, especially after the amazing Planet Potion
  intro last year at MS'02. The deadline is extended an hour, but I doubt
  this is going to change a lot...

  10:29:
  And indeed, due to the lack of entries the Amiga 64K compo is cancelled :(

  11:35:
  Besides the usual announcements like "Name/Group, please come to the
  infodesk, your entry doesn't work!",  the orgos have also asked if anybody
  had insulin with them. Sounds like a diabetic got sick, I hope they find
  some. On a brighter note, the bigscreen is showing the weather forecast:
  22 degrees, sunny with few clouds.  People cheer and applaud, as the
  weather was rather gloomy yesterday.

  The PC 64K compo has been delayed until the shuttle bus arrives. The bus
  drives around during the whole duration of the party, between the
  partyplace, several hotels and the station, so those who prefer to sleep
  in a cozy bed can do so. During the compo it became obvious that the 12
  entries had been sorted by the orgos, from bad to good. The second-to-last
  entry was Candytron from Farbrausch, which aims squarely at the "my
  instinct votes for boobies"-crowd with one very well animated 3D model (a
  bit anorectic, though). It has only a few effects, but they look good and
  the soundtrack with synthetic vocals is incredible for a 64K. The last
  entry was Project Genesis from the new Hungarian group Conspiracy, which
  last almost 10 minutes, has several soundtracks, and a variety of effects
  and 3D scenes, but the design isn't very coherent.  They're pretty well
  matched, I'm curious which one will win!

  The console demo compo has been delayed for an unspecified time, and all
  the competitors have been called to the info desk. I heard there's some
  problem with the video system :/

  15:28:
  Sorry for the long gap, but the weather is splendid and most people are
  outside, sitting in the sun and having a good time. The green stickers
  from Madwizards can be seen everywhere, with the slogan "The real party is
  outside!", and I have to agree. My 5 liters of Jupiler (Belgian beer) are
  long gone, and I'm meeting new people left and right.  Since I don't
  remember faces easily, especially after several months (between
  demoparties), I'm taking pictures of everyone who dares to cross my path.
  The SID music compo is in progress, but I'm only back inside to flush my
  cameras flash card to the laptop.

  17:49:
  I had a discussion about code vs design with Bhead, a friendly guy from T-
  Rex, the Russian group who made "Broadband". He offered me some white wiry
  snack that tasted between fish and cheese. I couldn't read the Russian
  writing on the package, but he said it was dried squid. Yummie :) Some
  guys had caught a green lizard, and they were daring each other to lick
  it. In the end we put the frightened animal back in it's natural habitat,
  before someone/something got hurt.

  There's one very original fun-compo: build your own balloon. One team is
  testing their entry, taped together from large plastic sheets, above the
  barbeque.

  I partially missed the fast intro compo, but from the ones I caught, I
  liked the South Park-inspired one best. I'll need to check them all at
  home, together with the compos I've missed. Especially in the 4K compo
  there seems to be some very good productions...

  The C64 graphics compo is happening now, 16-color images at a very low
  resolution. There are several anti-war/anti-USA pictures but I'm not
  impressed with their quality. My favourite is a greyscale image of the
  Eifel tower, it looks almost photographic (insofar this is possible within
  the limit of the format).

  18:34:
  I'm eating a pizza while listening to the streaming music compo, but I'll
  probably go back outside when I've finished. Since the orgos put some
  powerful speakers outside, there's little reason to stay in the dark hall
  for the non-visual compos. There are no separate instrumental/vocal
  categories, unlike at Assembly or SOTA.

  20:59:
  The Amiga demo compo is over, with only 3 entries. Madwizards made a very
  impressive contribution with Fate Fits Karma, but I think the audience
  preferred TBLs MAGIA. It reminds me a lot of Little Nel, their winning
  demo of last year. Too bad Phoenix and the other Hornet guys missed it,
  they just came back when the endscreen was shown :( They've been taking
  notes during all compos, which is probably the most fair way to vote, due
  to the stringent limitations of the human brain during parties :) )

  21:39:
  The technical difficulties with the console compo have been solved, and 5
  entries are shown, 3 of which are for the GameBoy Advance3. It's very
  clear which one will win: Phloam/Unique, the only one featuring multiple
  parts and complex 3D scenes.

  Another good point that the orgos copied from Mekka/Symposium is that all
  entries are available for download directly after the compo. Dan Wright
  has missed some wild demos, and to be able to vote fairly he watches them
  on my laptop, before the demo compo starts.


  -=- Monday 21 April -=-
  0:04:
  There were 21 demos, again shown in increasing quality. One didn't work,
  and several low-quality techno demos took way too long IMHO, but a vocal
  part of the public still liked them.  There were quite some invitation
  demos of varying quality, and about 7 high-quality entries.  I really
  liked Relais/Kolor, a heavy 3D demo with cute robots in a airship station,
  and The Popular Demo/Farbrausch (announced on the bigscreen as "hund" =
  dog.) starring a mirror-ball man dancing in various splendid scenes.
  Federation Against Nature made two entries, I prefered the one in the
  tradition of Nature Sucks: pure software raytracing (nice for the people
  with more CPU than GPU power).

  [ Editor's note: "Relais" and "The Popular Demo" are reviewed later on by
  Seven in this very issue. ]

  Since this was the last compo, a lot of people are going to sleep in their
  hotel, the sleeping hall or simply on the floor. I hope they noticed the
  change in the voting deadline: instead of 5 o'clock, it is now 1 o'clock
  for paper voting and 2 o'clock for network voting. You have to exchange
  your wristband for a voting form or a voting key, and while this may be a
  good protection against fake voting etc, I really think the extra hassle
  at a moment when everyone is dead tired will result in far less votes.

  3:46:
  I've been talking with Raymon from Unique, he's running Phloam on his GBA,
  and the colors look much better than in the taped version on the
  bigscreen. It reminds me of the demos of 94/95, and the hardware is in
  fact not that different from an old 386: 16.75 Mhz processor, 240*160
  screen. The memory is very small, only 256 KB, but reading data from the
  cardridge is faster then from harddisk.

  I also had the chance to meet Gargaj and Boyc from Conspiracy, the new
  group formed by three old Hungarian groups. True to their name, they kept
  the existence of their group a secret till Breakpoint, which wasn't always
  easy: when you're in a group which has the potential to beat Farbrausch,
  you get exited about it. The reason they formed Conspiracy was to show
  that Hungary can still make great demo, and to pull more newbies into the
  scene. I hope they succeed! Enumerating the nationalities of the visitors
  we know, PS, Melwyn, Gargaj, Boisy and I concluded there were people from
  at least 19 different countries at Breakpoint. Not bad for a "new" party
  :)

  8:40:
  I'm woken up by some announcement, it's in German so I understand it only
  a little bit, it seems something got stolen and they ask to return it,
  please :( On a more positive note, almost all party T-shirts are sold out.
  (Later it turned out nothing was stolen, it was just a drunk guy who
  didn't remember where he had put his stuff)

  I've just bought a pack of Slengpung playing cards at the info desk. I
  guess everyone knows that Slengpung is the main demoparty-photo archive,
  and they've selected 54 well-known demosceners and put their pictures on
  playing cards. The result can easily be used to convince non-sceners that
  the scene is mainly about getting terribly drunk, given the state of some
  sceners on the cards :)

  10.28:
  I've been socializing with the dutch guys, Avoozle, Inopia & Cosmic
  Trance. Skrebbel draws my attention to the fact there are only two bus
  runs after the price ceremony, which could cause problems: I think at most
  30 people fit in the bus, and there are hundreds of sceners :/ The
  American guys are back from their hotel, but luckily they had voted before
  they left the previous night.

  The prize ceremony was scheduled at 11, but it's just been delayed one
  hour. I'm not sure how long it will take, but I'm starting to worry:
  there'll probably be only a single shuttle bus I can take after the prize
  ceremony, and I really have to catch my train to Belgium (the Thalys
  requires a reservation, so you can't just take the next if you miss it).

  11:55:
  Newt had an iBook running MacOS X with her, since I use a Mac at work we
  could debate its good and bad points. Later the topic turned to the (lack
  of) girls in the demoscene, and when she complained it was hard to get to
  know other girls, I introduced her to Clary/Drifters, who I had met
  earlier. Zito/MOOds, Clarys friend gave me a MOOds promoCD, containing all
  their releases of last year and a number of Amiga demos in movie format.
  By giving these away, he hopes that more people get to know the Amiga
  scene. I asked if he knew the DemoDVD team was planning an Amiga DemoDVD,
  and presented Phoenix to him. You can vote for your favourite Amiga demos
  on the survey, but it's probably way better if the Amiga scene
  participates directly :)

  12:10:
  Everybody is waiting for the prize ceremony.  I'm starting to wrap up, so
  I'm ready to catch the bus. The floor in front of the stage is not only
  covered with the usual flyers, plastic cups and beer cans, but also with a
  lot of broken bottles. While picking a fragment out the sole of my shoe, I
  think about the dangerous combination of drunk sceners with a floor that's
  a health hazard. If someone stumbles here, they'll have to carry him to
  the hospital :(

  Before the ceremony begins, Steeler auctions off the last remaining
  Breakpoint organiser T-shirt.  The money goes to Scene.org, to pay for
  bigger harddrives and maybe the next Scene.org awards.  In the end,
  Muhmac/Freestyle is willing to pay 80 euros for it.

  The way the winners are announced is also inherited from Mekka/Symposium:
  a graph is shown with rising vote bars, one for each entry, and one by one
  the bars stop growing. Then the 3 winners are called to the stage, given
  their prizes and their picture is taken. The winning demos were also shown
  again on the bigscreen.

  The most thrilling IMO were the PC 64K intro results, where the bars for
  Candytron and Project Genesis kept growing long after the others ended.
  Tomcat/Greenroom and Vicky went crazy when Conspiracy (their fellow
  Hungarians) won the compo. For the Amiga demos Magia/TBL snatched the
  first prize away from MadWizards, just like they (Madwizards) had
  predicted in their Fate Fits Karma.  I was a bit disappointed that
  Relais/Kolor didn't beat The Popular Demo/Farbrausch, but its mood was
  probably a bit too subtle to stand up against Farbrauschs sparkling
  eyecandy. Federation Against Nature got the third place for their
  raytracing demo. Skyrunner won the third place in the tracked music compo,
  and had to go back on stage because due to the excitement he had forgotten
  to thank the audience for making his old dream of winning a
  Mekka/Symposium compo come true. Unique won the console demo, as expected.
  All three places in the freestyle gfx compo were won by Haujobb members,
  and the wild compo was won by the Silents (although the next 6 wild
  entries were all rather close).

  After the last compo results, Steeler gave a little speech to thank the
  sponsors, and also the audience. Appearently we behaved much better then
  at MS: there were no damages, not a single theft , and very few deaths
  (and nobody important too) :) The bad news was that Bingen city and the
  German government, who both owned this old army depot, had decided to
  level the place next year, but the orgos would search for another
  location, because Breakpoint definately will happen again next year!

  I quickly say goodbye to the friends in my vicinity, and carry my bags
  outside. The overcrowded bus gets us to the Bingen station in time, and
  the rest of the trip goes without any problems (I'm asleep most of it
  anyway :))

  I'm really glad I visited Breakpoint, even if I missed the first day and
  the Scene.Org awards. I've never talked so much and met so many new people
  at a demoparty, there was an incredibly friendly and kind atmosphere
  during these 4 days. Even a couple of guys at the campfire who weren't
  sceners, but were visiting to see what it was about, said the feeling is
  much more open then at a music festival for example. If friendliness had
  mass, Breakpoint would have created a black hole :) I really hope to see
  everyone I met again at the next party, probably Assembly. Till then!

     --Seven


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  How to Kill Your Compo in 10 Weeks
  By:  Novus
--=--=------=--=------=--=----

  Ever wondered why monthly compos get no respect?

  Go ahead. Take 1st Place in March's round of the UbErNiFtY c0mp0, post it
  on your website, brag about it on #trax, and trumpet the news on message
  boards across the scene. Odds are you'll be met with one big yawn, with
  maybe a slight bump in your downloads. Why? Because UbErNiFtY c0mp0 will
  be closed and forgotten by next month.

  Sad, ain't it? Way too many monthly compos nowadays shut down after
  absurdly short times. That's not just a recent phenomenon either. That's a
  pattern that stretches all the way to my first exposure to the web-based
  tracking scene in 1996, perhaps even earlier. And when monthly compos come
  and go so quickly, it's no wonder that so few people take them seriously.

  The problem is that for so many monthly compos out there, this seems to be
  the entirety of the planning that goes into them:

  "Hmm... I need to draw more visitors to my website so more people will
  download my music... Hey, I know! I'll run a compo! I'll get a couple of
  my friends to be judges, slap together a website, set a deadline, and
  that's it! It can't be THAT hard, can it?"

  Yes. Yes it can be THAT hard.

  Compos are time-consuming, especially judged compos. Just do the math.
  Let's say you open a judged compo and get 10 entries. I'm guessing here,
  but the average length of most tracks seems to be about 5 minutes. So
  right away, you're talking 50 minutes to hear all the entries. But that's
  if you just play each song once. To be fair, you really need to listen to
  each entry 3 or 4 times. That 50 minutes just turned into 200. And then
  you have to write some comments about each entry, another 15 minutes per
  song, multiplied by 10 songs, and that's 150 more minutes for a total of
  350.

  That's 6 hours for just 10 entries. And anyone who's ever thrown open a
  compo and done a semi-decent job of promoting it knows that 10 entries is
  an aburdly low number. You're gonna get more.

  Assuming that you plan ahead and leave yourself plenty of time, it's still
  possible to pull it all off. But too many compo-organizers don't plan
  ahead.  Instead, they open their compo, give people a month to enter their
  tunes, and announce that the results will be up a week after the entry
  deadline.

  And then Real Life attacks. They can't spare 6 hours to judge the songs.
  They miss the results date, and then often make yet another critical
  mistake: they don't even bother to let their visitors know what's going
  on.

  So people stop by for a day or two, don't see the results, get bored, and
  quit visiting the compo website. And finally, weeks later, the organizer
  gets all the results up, announces he's now accepting entries for the next
  round, and gets 2 entries because nobody cares about his compo anymore.
  And he shuts it down.

  Multiply that scenario by several dozen since 1996, and it's no wonder
  monthly compos have such a crappy reputation.

  Folks, if you're gonna run a compo, a little planning goes a LONG way. I
  hate to use my Complete MOD Compo as an example since it smacks of self-
  promotion, but alas, it's the only compo I have any inside knowledge of.
  And hey, it's been open for 16 months now, so I must be doing something
  right...

  When I started CMC in 2002, I knew that my busy job schedule was going to
  wreak havoc on my free time, so I nixed the idea of making it a judged
  compo. So, I went with a public-voting compo, which requires less of my
  time. I also looked for ways to streamline things on the backend so that I
  could do minor tasks such as counting votes while I had free-time at my
  job, saving the harder work for when I was home.

  For quality purposes, I decided to pre-screen all the entries and only let
  the best ones compete. But I realized that if too many people entered
  songs, I'd never have enough time to screen them all. And similarly, if
  CMC didn't have enough voters, it would all be meaningless. So, I killed
  two birds with one stone by requiring all contestants to vote on the
  current month's crop of songs. That guarantees a consistent supply of
  voters and keeps me from getting overwhelmed with too many entries.

  Please keep in mind that I'm not saying that all compos should be carbon-
  copies of mine. What I'm trying to stress is the importance of planning
  ahead. If your compo is going to run smoothly, you need to spend hours
  ahead of time thinking about the details of how your compo will run, how
  you'll find the time to run it right, and how you'll head-off potential
  problems before they can even develop.

  Also keep in mind that the main focus of your attention should be your
  visitors, not the musicians who enter songs. If you run a compo, finding
  entries will probably not be a problem. Finding visitors WILL be,
  especially repeat-visitors. If nobody's around to download the winning
  song, then winning your compo won't mean much. If you focus on attracting
  more visitors, those increased hits will lead to everything else you're
  looking for, including more and better entries, high-profile competitors,
  and a good reputation.

  I like monthly compos. They provide a great outlet for trackers to promote
  their music and get feedback, and they can play a valuable role in the
  tracking scene. If you want to run a monthly compo, by all means, go for
  it!  But the scene needs one more failed monthly compo like I need an
  extra hole in my head. So please: plan ahead, and run it right.

     --Novus


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  On The Sideline
    "My Sky" by Jimmy Redfern and Astradyne
  By:  Ben
--=--=------=--=------=--=----

  -=- Introduction -=-
  Greetings and salutations.  This is my first column and music review.  I
  can't hope it will compare to Coplan's In Tune, and most of the time I
  will be reviewing songs by my musical superiors.  That stated, please do
  not cut me any slack!  Send any feedback, flames or otherwise.

  -=- "My Sky" by Jimmy Redfern and Astradyne -=-
  I have always liked this style.  It starts out with a slow, smooth melody,
  then introduces a crisp, frenetic breakbeat sequence.  What do you call
  this style?  I think it is more drum & bass than ambient, because I
  believe the melody is only there to hold the drumming together.  The
  samples are are not feats of audiophile engineering.  Some of the drum and
  synth samples are 8 bit, and some of the sustain loops were not clean.
  Unfortunately the drum sequences are pre-cut loops rather than tracked,
  but there is tracked percussion accompanying them.  No matter, I believe
  the point of this song is to perk you up with breakbeat goodness.

  If you look at the tracks, you'll see many channels with notes that are
  not even consciously heard while listening to the song.  There are subtle
  echoes and great variety in the drumming.  This keeps the song interesting
  and makes it worth listening to years after it was composed.  What were
  the composers thinking when they created this?  I vaguely remember reading
  somewhere that My Sky is a spoof of another song.  The ending is melodic
  like the beginning, only more smooth and the synth chords remind me a bit
  of Aphex Twin.

  This song is very cute, and for me it was a great introduction to
  N.O.I.S.E.  This group has been prolific over the years and has produced
  some high quality tunes.  If you haven't given them a listen, I highly
  recommend them, even their MP3s.

  Song Information:

  Title:       My Sky
  Author:      Jimmy Redfern and Astradyne
  Length:      6:18
  Filename:    no-mysky.zip
  File Size:   2 MB
  Source:      ftp://ftp.noisemusic.org/pub/users/wnoise/1998/

     --Ben


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  The Lineup
  By:  Novus
--=--=------=--=------=--=----

  Welcome to The Lineup! Every month, I scour through the hundreds of new
  releases on the scene's major archive sites to find the best new music,
  saving you the trouble of having to download 20 instant-delete songs to
  find 1 that's worth keeping.

  More feedback came in this month, this time from Kern802, who wrote
  thusly:

  "Keep up the good work! I really appreciate the service you are providing
  by selecting the best scene music each month. A couple of issues back, I
  downloaded the songs you listed and put them in my mp3 player and they
  kept me company on many long drives. Right now I'm downloading another
  batch and I'm looking forward to hearing them. I don't have any criticisms
  or recommendations, except to let you know that I personally like trance/
  dance/ electronica/ experimental, and would like more of that. Again, I
  just wanted to let you know that your hard work _is_ appreciated by the
  scene!"

  Thanks for the kind words. :) You can add YOUR feedback, positive or
  negative (and so far, it's all been positive...) by e-mailing me at
  vince_young@hotmail.com.

  In the meantime, you may consider the following 30 tunes to be the best
  tracks of March 2003:

  [ Editor's note: You'll find the songs for April and May in next month's
  issue. ]

  -=- THE BEST OF THE BEST -=-
  "Soundtrack To A Midnight Kiss" - HomesickAlien - fantasy
  http://lysis.audio-stream.net/hsa/hsa_soundtrack.zip

  -=- THE REST OF THE BEST -=-
  "Alice Cooper: Remix" - Slash - demostyle
  ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/slash/slash_atd_attentio.zip

  "Another Day" - Future Element - dance
  http://www.geocities.com/dinu.geo/another.zip

  "Broken Dimension" - Dipa - fantasy
  ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/dipa/brokendimension.zip

  "Criteria" - Narfy - fantasy
  ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/narfy/criteria.zip

  "Dataf*ck" - Djkor - drum'n'bass
  ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/cornercut/016crc.zip

  "Depression" - Future Element - dance
  http://www.geocities.com/dinu.geo/dprs.zip

  "Dream Wielder" - Narfy - light rock
  ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/narfy/dreamwielder.zip

  "Emerald" - Vibe - pop
  ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/cornercut/008crc.zip

  "Establishing Contact" - Wizard - electronica
  ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/wizard/wiz_cont.zip

  "Feel The Rythm" - Dipa - dance
  ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/dipa/feeltherythm.zip

  "Floating Liquid God" - Mellow-D - demostyle
  ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/fm/fm-blurr.zip

  "Heaven Number Eight" - Butch - fantasy
  http://data.modarchive.com/B/b_heaven.it.zip

  "Human Essence" - Vibe - pop
  ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/cornercut/025crc.zip

  "It's Night Forever" - Dipa - fantasy
  ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/dipa/itsnightforever.zip

  "Jade" - Narfy - pop
  ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/narfy/jade.zip

  "Midnight" - Narfy - electronica
  ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/narfy/midnite.zip

  "Negation" - Mellow-D - pop
  ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/fm/fm-negat.zip

  "Pleasure Of A Holiday" - Slash - dance
  ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/slash/slash_atd_pleasure_on_case_of_a_holiday.zip

  "Put The Wrong Things Right" - Phred - electronica
  http://cgi.ethz.ch/~phkeller/modules/right.zip

  "Rescue" - Monad - progressive rock
  http://koti.mbnet.fi/helunder/omamusa/MON_5B.IT

  "Revolting Minds" - Neuron - techno
  http://modplug.com/mods/nrdetail.php3?session=&detailno=10522

  "Shift" - Narfy - pop
  ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/narfy/shift.zip

  "Short Circuit" - Szartd - trance
  http://www.cutetrancegirls.com/music/artists/szartd/CMC-Szartd-ShortCircuit.xm
  (Sorry for the uber-long URL...)

  "Spit The Mike" - Wizard - dance
  ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/wizard/wiz_stm.zip

  "Sunlight" - Technoiz - dance
  ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/cornercut/015crc.zip

  "The Awakening Of The Evil" - Sphenx - orchestral
  http://data.modarchive.com/S/spx-theawekeningoftheevil.it.zip

  "The Vibes" - Vibe - pop
  ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/cornercut/023crc.zip

  "Two Screenshots Of Life" - Vibe - pop
  ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/cornercut/012crc.zip

  "Warcry" - Monad - progressive rock
  http://koti.mbnet.fi/helunder/omamusa/MON_12B.IT

  Latez!

     --Novus


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Screen Lit Vertigo
    "FR-025: The Popular Demo" and "Relais"
  By:  Seven
--=--=------=--=------=--=----

  -=- "FR-025: The Popular Demo" by Farbrausch -=-

  (party-version)

  Found at Breakpoint partynet, but also available via scene.org
  1st place at the Breakpoint 2003 PC democompo

  System requirements: 11 Mb HD, Windows, a Gefore 2 MX or higher

  Test Machines:
  P3 900Mh 640MB, Gamesurround III, Radeon 8500 LE 64MB, Win98 SE
  P4 2.6Gh 512MB DDR, Realtek AC97 audio, Geforce4 488 Go 64MB, WinXP
  The credits:
    code: Chaos
    music: Wayfinder, Ronny, Andreas Thiele
    3D & visuals: GiZmo, Fiver2, Phaser
    Animation: Sarah Hill

  The demo:
  Just like last year, Farbrausch did their best to release a kick-ass demo
  on their own party, but where FR-020 (In Control) stranded on third place,
  FR-025 managed to win the top position. The Popular Demo (a name that
  seems to be a self-fulfilling prophecy) is a pure 3D demo that goes
  squarily for the highest eyecandy factor, and has a matching soundtrack.
  It has no real story, but a simple theme: a dancing mirrorball-man walking
  through several scenes. This sounds simple and plain, but the scenes look
  incredibly: a disco hall whose walls, floor and ceiling are plastering
  with illuminated mirrors, a flying disc with hundreds of mirror-people
  dancing, and my favourite: a passageway outside at night, with the wind
  blowing brightly colored leafs under arcs of floating blue lights (reminds
  me a lot of VIP2/Popsy Team).

  Most of the sparkling, glittering feel of the demo is caused by a single
  effect: having the brightest lights "glow over" into their surroundings, a
  bit like a soft fuzzy flare. Radial blur is also used a lot. The only
  scene that I don't really like is the simple square room with the
  mirrorball, I guess the aim of it is to demonstrate the mathematically
  correct way the mirrorballs lightspots move over the wall, but its's too
  simplistic compared to the other scenes.

  The movements of the dancers are very realistic, at first I thought it was
  done with motion capturing but the credits mention bones, so I'm not sure.
  But in scenes with a lot of dancers becomes visible they all do one of the
  3 or 4 different movements. Something strange: on my laptop with its GF4
  Go (which is not really a GF4 but more a souped-up GF2), one room with
  hundreds of dancers is initially empty, and the dancers pop up after a few
  seconds, where on my ATI 9500LE they're there immediately. The word "Hund"
  (German for dog) on the screen in that scene is probably the working title
  of FR-025, during the competition at Breakpoint the demo was introduced on
  the bigscreen as "Hund/Hund".

  The music is quite good IMHO, it's a happy pop/disco track that fits the
  dazzling visuals. The vocals at the start aren't jarring with the music,
  as those in In Control where when I heard it the first time, but they
  sound a bit too distorted, too much filtered. Syncing is excellent, as
  usually, and I like the additional touches such as the vocals appearing
  around the head of the dancer, or the sweeping sounds the rotating rings
  make when they pass close to the camera.

  Overall:
  FR-025 is an instant classic, designed to win the BP compo: impressive
  visuals, great soundtrack, very colorful and spreading a sugar-sweet
  happiness. Like a Hollywood blockbuster, it migh feel a bit empty but
  you're too entertained to care. If you haven't watched it yet, you should
  do so ASAP!


  -=- "Relais" -=-

  (party-version)

  Demo: Found at Breakpoint partynet, but also available via scene.org

  Divx (640*480, 25 FPS, 68 MB):
  ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/demos/groups/kolor/relais_by_kolor.avi

  2nd place at the Breakpoint 2003 PC democompo.

  System requirements: Windows 2K or XP, P3, 256 MB RAM (512 recommended),
  and a real Geforce 3 64MB (so no ATI cards, no Geforce 4 MX/GO) (Geforce 4
  128 MB recommended), 12 MB HD.
  The credits:
    Code: Shiva, Siriuz
    Music: Pressure, Raytraza
    2D: Raytrayza
    3D: Noize, Pandur/bm

  The demo:
  Relais is one of the pickiest demos I've seen regarding the
  hardware/software it will run on, neither of my 2 machines were adequate
  :( So I had to wait for the DivX version to watch it again. (Off-topic: I
  hope ODD will release their World Domination, that won the Gathering, in
  the same way, cause that one won't run either.)

  Just like FR-025, Relais is a pure 3D demo, but that's the only
  similarity.  Instead of brightly-coloured disco environments, Relais
  creates a melancholic world of baroque airships, from very simple crafts
  that are barely more than a wing with one propeller, to giant floating
  gardens and greenhouses with sails.  There doesn't seems to be a single
  living being in this world, the ships are operated and maintained by a
  variety of robots. It reminds me of the deserted atmosphere of Myst, but
  on the airships of Final Fantasy (yes, I'm comparing a demo to games, stop
  throwing the tomatoes!) The mood grows gradually darker, with the robots
  sawing down trees, and one of them lonely in an asylum.

  As mentioned in the .txt file, they had to save on texture, sound and
  geometry quality to fit inside the 12 MB limit, so there is some
  variation. The models of the ships are very detailed, the robots a bit
  less so, and a few objects look plain ugly (the hexagonal windlass f.e.
  Surely they had polys to spare in that scene? Compare with the superb
  whale skeleton!) There are no standalone 2D images, except the building
  plans of the ships, overlayed at various points, together with fragments
  of German text. There are almost no effects, except the very realistic
  reflections in a mirror and an indoor fountain. The emphasis is on the
  models and the fairly good animation (it's hard to call it realistic for
  robots) that goes in slowmotion from time to time. Some textures look too
  fuzzy, but that may be partially caused by the DivX compression.

  The music builds up slowly at the start, very ambient with weird noises,
  which are later accompagnied by a complicated drumline. There isn't much
  variation in it, to my untrained ears, but it fits the mysterious mood of
  the visuals.

  Overall:
  Personally I liked Relais better than FR-025, because I enjoy stories that
  leave a lot to the imagination. It makes you wonder who the builders of
  the robots where, what happened to them, etc etc. But even if you don't
  like story demos, Relais is worth watching at least once, for it's
  impressive modelling and coherent design. If you've more bandwidth than
  CPU/GPU power, go for the .avi (URL above).

     --Seven


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Coplan's Eyes
    Inspiration From a Different View
  By:  Coplan
--=--=------=--=------=--=----

  So I write a lot about inspiration.  I must write a new inspiration
  article once every few months.  But this is different this time.  I'm
  engaged now, and it has changed my perspective about things.  I'm planning
  for a wedding, I'm saving to buy a house, and I'm trying to control my
  finances, among other things.

  But my inspiration right now isn't Love.

  Love is a great inspiration, mind you.  But it's overdone.  How many of
  you find inspiration from love, or lack thereof?  Have a bad fight with
  your significant other, and you have a great new song.  Meet someone new,
  and out pops a ballad.  That's all fine and dandy, but lets get to
  something you can control:  Time and Task.  Time and Task management is
  something that's very essential when you live with someone, or are
  planning to do so.  This can also be applied to your art form as well.

  In the engineering world, we refer to Time and Task as T=<Tk.  It's purely
  the basis of business.  If a task should take 1 hour, you better make sure
  it takes you 1 hour or less.  Otherwise, there is no profit.
  Alright...but that's business.  That surely can't be applied to
  inspiration, or can it?  Time and Task can be thought of in two ways.
  First is the simple fact that you need time to complete the task.  Second
  is the fact that you shouldn't waste time doing a task that can't be done
  in the allowed amount of time.  This comes down to organizing your time.

  Lets start with the first point.  Hypothetically speaking, you want to
  write a new song.  You got great ideas in your head, but you havn't had
  the time to work it out.  A good friend of mine has set a routine for
  himself so that he has the time to do his music.  Every Sunday morning, he
  wakes up at 9:00, sits down at his computer and begins tinkering with his
  ideas.  First of all, he makes sure he goes to bed at the same time every
  night.  It sounds like a sacrifice, but he never sleeps in.  When he's not
  working, he gets his other tasks out of the way.  He'll pay his bills on a
  tuesday, he does his wash on a wednesday, and he does his housework on
  saturday.  All this is done so he can be 100% sure that he'll have time on
  Sunday morning to work on a tune.  You have to have time to work out your
  ideas.  And if you schedule this as well as anything else, you'll train
  your mind and your body to prepare for that time.  You'll develop a bit of
  a mode where you'll be ready to write music every damn Sunday.

  So where's the second point come in?  Well, as I said, this friend of mine
  pays his bills.  He only has to do that once per month.  The other three
  weeks in that month is also spent working on some musical ideas.  But lets
  do the math here.  He gets home at 7:00 at night.  Dinner cooked, eaten
  and cleaned up no later than 8:30.  Check e-mail, catch up on some news,
  and it's already 9:30, and he goes to bed at 11:30.  That's only two hours
  to work on something.  Well, the task at hand, writing a song, will not
  happen.  He knows himself well enough to know that he cannot write a song
  in two hours.  And unless he gets a huge portion of it fleshed out, it
  will never be finished.  The train of thought will be lost.  So that two
  hour period is spent doing other music related things.  He might set up a
  whole bunch of songs to be downloaded (for ideas).  He'll pratice his
  piano playing so that he won't get rusty.  He'll maybe flesh out a few
  drum riffs, or a few basic chord progressions.  Maybe he'll prepare a few
  sample libraries for possible song ideas.  Anything that is created in
  this manner is just placed in his overall collection of libraries, riffs
  and so on for future reference.  After all, no song will be written that
  night.

  But what about Sunday?  Well, as I said, he starts at 9:00, and he'll
  start mapping out a song idea.  Maybe he maps out a couple of song ideas.
  And maybe he'll find one to run with.  He'll make a quick sandwich and
  take a very short break for lunch...but he can continue working on a song
  idea the whole rest of the afternoon.  But here's where that task
  management comes in again.  By the time lunch comes around, if he doesn't
  have any song ideas brewing, there's no point in wasting the afternoon.
  If after four hours he still has nothing, the music hardware is turned
  off, and he turns his mind to other tasks.  So today wasn't the day that a
  great new song was released.  Do some other things around the house and
  get some other tasks out of the way so you might have more time to tinker
  next week.

  So how is all this inspirational?  It's not the same kind of inspiration
  that you would otherwise think of when it cames to that topic.  You're
  mind isn't getting ideas from all this.  BUT, this is a preventative
  measure from burning out or from loosing stride in your creation process.
  You assure your mind that you have plenty of time to attempt a new song
  (or whatever art it is you practice), and your mind is more relaxed.
  There isn't a limitation of time so the thought doesn't get in your way.
  Suppose you get a great idea and you run with it.  If after two hours you
  look at the clock and realize you have to be somewhere...face it, that
  song will never be finished.  But if you have nowhere to go and no
  intrusions...you surely won't feel limited in any way.

  So I'll let you in on a little secret.  My friend is really me.  And this
  is a technique that was introduced to me by my fiancee.  After all, I
  spend a lot of time with her, and she was fully aware of my hobbies.  She
  was fully aware of my problem with time.  But she pointed out to me that
  my limitation is not total time...just time allocation.  Life is much
  simpler if you break everything into chunks and allocate a place for it.

     --Coplan


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Link List
--=--=------=--=------=--=----

    Portals:

        SceneSpot (Home of Static Line).......http://www.scenespot.org
        CFXweb.......................................http://cfxweb.net
        Czech Scene................................http://www.scene.cz
        Danish Scene..............................http://demo-scene.dk
        Demoscene.org.........................http://www.demoscene.org
        Demo.org...................................http://www.demo.org
        Diskmag.de...................................http://diskmag.de
        Greek Scene............................http://www.demoscene.gr
        Hungarian Scene........................http://www.demoscene.hu
        Italian Scene...........................http://run.to/la_scena
        ModPlug Central Resources..........http://www.castlex.com/mods
        Noerror.................................http://www.noerror.org
        Norwegian Scene........................http://www.demoscene.no
        Orange Juice.............................http://www.ojuice.net
        Planet Zeus..........................http://www.planetzeus.net
        Polish Scene...........................http://www.demoscena.pl
        Pouet.net.................................http://www.pouet.net
        Russian Scene..........................http://www.demoscene.ru
        Scene.org.................................http://www.scene.org
        Scenergy on-line (8bit)............http://www.scenergy.natm.ru
        Scenet....................................http://www.scenet.de
        Spanish Scene............................http://www.escena.org
        Swiss Scene..............................http://www.chscene.ch
    <*> United Trackers.................http://www.united-trackers.org

    Archives:

        Acid2.....................................ftp://acid2.stack.nl
        Amber.......................................ftp://amber.bti.pl
        Cyberbox.....................................ftp://cyberbox.de
        Hornet (1992-1996)........................ftp://ftp.hornet.org
        Scene.org..................................ftp://ftp.scene.org
        Scene.org Austra........................ftp://ftp.au.scene.org
        Scene.org Netherlands...................ftp://ftp.nl.scene.org
        Swiss Scene FTP...........................ftp://ftp.chscene.ch
    <*> MOD Archive..........................http://www.modarchive.com
    <*> aminet.....................http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/~aminet/

    Demo Groups:

        3g Design..............................http://3gdesign.cjb.net
        3State...................................http://threestate.com
        7 Gods.........................................http://7gods.sk
        Aardbei.....................................http://aardbei.com
        Acid Rain..............................http://surf.to/acidrain
        Addict..................................http://addict.scene.pl
        Agravedict........................http://www.agravedict.art.pl
        Alien Prophets.....................http://www.alienprophets.dk
        Anakata..............................http://www.anakata.art.pl
        ASD....................................http://asd.demoscene.gr
        Astral..............................http://astral.scene-hu.com
        Astroidea........................http://astroidea.scene-hu.com
        BlaBla..............................http://blabla.planet-d.net
        Blasphemy..............................http://www.blasphemy.dk
        Bomb..................................http://bomb.planet-d.net
        Broncs..................................http://broncs.scene.cz
        Byterapers.....................http://www.byterapers.scene.org
        Bypass.................................http://bypass.scene.org
        Calodox.................................http://www.calodox.org
        Cocoon..............................http://cocoon.planet-d.net
        Confine.................................http://www.confine.org
        Damage...................................http://come.to/damage
        Dc5.........................................http://www.dc5.org
        Delirium..............................http://delirium.scene.pl
        Eclipse............................http://www.eclipse-game.com
        Elitegroup..........................http://elitegroup.demo.org
        Exceed...........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/~exceed
        Fairlight.............................http://www.fairlight.com
        Fobia Design...........................http://www.fd.scene.org
        Freestyle............................http://www.freestylas.org
        Fresh! Mindworks...................http://kac.poliod.hu/~fresh
        Future Crew..........................http://www.futurecrew.org
        Fuzzion.................................http://www.fuzzion.org
        GODS...................................http://www.idf.net/gods
        Halcyon...........................http://www.halcyon.scene.org
        Haujobb..................................http://www.haujobb.de
        Hellcore............................http://www.hellcore.art.pl
        Infuse...................................http://www.infuse.org
        Inquisition....................http://inquisition.demoscene.hu
        Kilobite...............................http://kilobite.cjb.net
        Kolor................................http://www.kaoz.org/kolor
        Komplex.................................http://www.komplex.org
        Kooma.....................................http://www.kooma.com
        Mandula.........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/~mandula
        Maturefurk...........................http://www.maturefurk.com
        Monar................ftp://amber.bti.pl/pub/scene/distro/monar
        MOVSD....................................http://movsd.scene.cz
        Nextempire...........................http://www.nextempire.com
        Noice.....................................http://www.noice.org
        Orange.................................http://orange.scene.org
        Orion................................http://orion.planet-d.net
        Outbreak................................http://www.outbreak.nu
        Popsy Team............................http://popsyteam.rtel.fr
        Prone................................http://www.prone.ninja.dk
        Purple....................................http://www.purple.dk
        Rage........................................http://www.rage.nu
        Replay.......................http://www.shine.scene.org/replay
        Retro A.C...........................http://www.retroac.cjb.net
        Sista Vip..........................http://www.sistavip.exit.de
        Skytech team............................http://www.skytech.org
        Skrju.....................................http://www.skrju.org
        Spinning Kids......................http://www.spinningkids.org
        Sunflower.......................http://sunflower.opengl.org.pl
        Talent.............................http://talent.eurochart.org
        The Black Lotus.............................http://www.tbl.org
        The Digital Artists Wired Nation.http://digitalartists.cjb.net
        The Lost Souls...............................http://www.tls.no
        TPOLM.....................................http://www.tpolm.com
        Trauma.................................http://sauna.net/trauma
        T-Rex.....................................http://www.t-rex.org
        Unik........................................http://www.unik.de
        Universe..........................http://universe.planet-d.net
        Vantage..................................http://www.vantage.ch
        Wipe....................................http://www.wipe-fr.org

    Music Labels, Music Sites:

        Aisth.....................................http://www.aisth.com
        Aural Planet........................http://www.auralplanet.com
        Azure...................................http://azure-music.com
        Blacktron Music Production...........http://www.d-zign.com/bmp
        BrothomStates.............http://www.katastro.fi/brothomstates
        Chill..........................http://www.chillproductions.com
        Chippendales......................http://www.sunpoint.net/~cnd
        Chiptune...............................http://www.chiptune.com
        Da Jormas................................http://www.jormas.com
        Fabtrax......http://www.cyberverse.com/~boris/fabtrax/home.htm
        Fairlight Music.....................http://fairlight.scene.org
        Five Musicians.........................http://www.fm.scene.org
        Fusion Music Crew.................http://members.home.nl/cyrex
        Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff
        Hellven.................................http://www.hellven.org
        Ignorance.............................http://www.ignorance.org
        Immortal Coil.............................http://www.ic.l7.net
        Intense...........................http://intense.ignorance.org
        Jecoute.................................http://jecoute.cjb.net
        Kosmic Free Music Foundation.............http://www.kosmic.org
        Lackluster.....................http://www.m3rck.net/lackluster
        Level-D.................................http://www.level-d.com
        Mah Music.............................http://come.to/mah.music
        Maniacs of noise...............http://home.worldonline.nl/~mon
        MAZ's sound homepage..................http://www.maz-sound.com
        Med.......................................http://www.med.fr.fm
        Miasmah.............................http://www.miasmah.cjb.net
        Milk.......................................http://milk.sgic.fi
        Mo'playaz..........................http://ssmedion.de/moplayaz
        Mono211.................................http://www.mono211.com
        Morbid Minds..............http://www.raveordie.com/morbidminds
        Moods.............................http://www.moodymusic.de.vu/
        Noise................................http://www.noisemusic.org
        One Touch Records......................http://otr.planet-d.net
        Park..................................http://park.planet-d.net
        pHluid..................................http://phluid.acid.org
        Radical Rhythms.....http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/merrelli/rr
        RBi Music.............................http://www.rbi-music.com
        Ruff Engine................http://members.xoom.com/ruff_engine
        SHR8M......................................http://1st.to/shr8m
        Sound Devotion................http://sugarbomb.x2o.net/soundev
        Soundstate.........................http://listen.to/soundstate
        Sunlikamelo-D...........http://www.error-404.com/sunlikamelo-d
        Suspect Records........................http://www.tande.com/sr
        Tequila........................http://www.defacto2.net/tequila
        Tempo................................http://tempomusic.cjb.net
        Tetris....................................http://msg.sk/tetris
        Theralite...........................http://theralite.avalon.hr
        Tokyo Dawn Records........................http://tokyodawn.org
        Triad's C64 music archive.............http://www.triad.c64.org
        UltraBeat.........................http://www.innerverse.com/ub
        Vibrants................................http://www.vibrants.dk
        Wiremaniacs.........................http://www.wiremaniacs.com
        Zen of Tracking.........................http://surf.to/the-imm

    Programming:

        Programming portal......................http://www.gamedev.net
        Programming portal.....................http://www.flipcode.com
        Game programming portal...............http://www.gamasutra.com
        3D programming portal.................http://www.3dgamedev.com
        Programming portal......................http://www.exaflop.org
        Programming portal............http://www.programmersheaven.com
        Programming portal.....................http://www.freecode.com
        NASM (free Assembly compiler)......http://www.cryogen.com/nasm
        LCC (free C compiler).........http://www.remcomp.com/lcc-win32
        PTC video engine.........................http://www.gaffer.org
        3D engines..........http://cg.cs.tu-berlin.de/~ki/engines.html
        Documents...............http://www.neutralzone.org/home/faqsys
        File format collection...................http://www.wotsit.org

    Magazines:

        Amber...............................http://amber.bti.pl/di_mag
        Amnesia...............http://amnesia-dist.future.easyspace.com
        Demojournal....................http://demojournal.planet-d.net
        Eurochart.............................http://www.eurochart.org
        Heroin...................................http://www.heroin.net
        Hugi........................................http://www.hugi.de
        Music Massage......................http://www.scene.cz/massage
        Jurassic Pack...........................www.jurassicpack.de.vu
        Pain..................................http://pain.planet-d.net
        Scenial...........................http://www.scenial.scene.org
        Shine...............................http://www.shine.scene.org
        Static Line................http://www.scenespot.org/staticline
        Sunray..............................http://sunray.planet-d.net
        TUHB.......................................http://www.tuhb.org
        WildMag..................................http://www.wildmag.de

    Parties:

        Assembly (Finland).....................http://www.assembly.org
        Ambience (The Netherlands)..............http://www.ambience.nl
        Dreamhack (Sweden)....................http://www.dreamhack.org
        Buenzli (Switzerland)......................http://www.buenz.li
        Gravity (Poland)............http://www.demoscena.cp.pl/gravity
        Mekka-Symposium (Germany)...................http://ms.demo.org
        ReAct (Greece).............................http://www.react.gr
        Takeover (The Netherlands).............,http://www.takeover.nl
        The Party (Denmark).....................http://www.theparty.dk

    Others:

        Demo secret parts....http://www.inf.bme.hu/~mandula/secret.txt
        Textmode Demo Archive.................http://tmda.planet-d.net
        Arf!Studios..........................http://www.arfstudios.org
        #coders..................................http://coderz.cjb.net
        Demonews Express.........http://www.teeselink.demon.nl/express
        Demo fanclub........................http://jerware.org/fanclub
        Digital Undergrounds.....................http://dug.iscool.net
        Doose charts...............................http://www.doose.dk
        Freax................................http://freax.scene-hu.com
        GfxZone............................http://gfxzone.planet-d.net
        PC-demos explained.....http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained
        Pixel...................................http://pixel.scene.org
        #trax e-mail list.............................................
           .............http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/trax
        Underground Mine.............http://www.spinningkids.org/umine
    <*> csound-tekno e-mail list......................................
           ............http://plot.bek.no/mailman/listinfo/csoundtekno

    IRC Channels:

        Scene.........................................ircnet #thescene
        Programming.....................................ircnet #coders
        Programming....................................efnet #flipcode
        Graphics.........................................ircnet #pixel
        Music......................................irc.scene.org #trax
        Music.............................................ircnet #trax
        Scene (French)..................................ircnet #demofr
        Programming (French)............................ircnet #codefr
        Graphics (French)..............................ircnet #pixelfr
        Programming (German)........................ircnet #coders.ger
        Scene (Hungarian)............................ircnet #demoscene
        Programming (Hungarian)......................ircnet #coders.hu
        Zx-spectrum scene..................................ircnet #z80

--=--=--
----=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------


  -=- Staff -=-

    Editors:         Ciaran / Ciaran Hamilton / staticline@theblob.org
                     Ben / Ben Collver / collver1@attbi.com
    Staff Writers:   Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
                      Dilvie / Eric Hamilton / dilvie@yahoo.com
                      Novus / Vince Young / vince_young@hotmail.com
                      Psitron / Tim Soderstrom / tigerhawk@stic.net
                      Setec / Jesper Pederson / jesped@post.tele.dk
                      Seven / Stefaan VanNieuwenhuyze/ seven7@writeme.com
                      Tryhuk / Tryhuk Vojtech / vojtech.tryhuk@worldonline.cz
                      Vill / Brian Frank / darkvill@yahoo.com
                      The Watcher / Paul-Jan Pauptit / watcher@tuhb.org

  The current issue of Static Line can always be found on the Web at:
    http://staticline.scenespot.org/issues/current_issue

  Static Line Subscription Management:
    http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/static_line

  If you would like to contribute an article to Static Line, be aware that
  we will format your article to 76 columns with two columns at the
  beginning of each line.  Please avoid foul language and high ASCII
  characters.  Contributions (Plain Text) should be e-mailed to
  (static_line-owner@scenespot.org) by the last Friday of each month.  New
  issues are released on a monthly basis.

  See you next month!
-eof---=------=--=------=--=--
