_//\\________________________________________________________________________
_\\__T_A_T_I_C___L_I_N_E________________________________________ April, 2000
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\\//__ Monthly Music E-Zine ________________________________ 112 Subscribers
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--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Table Of Contents
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
     Opening:
           Message From the Editor
     Features:
           The Meaning of Life
           Ambience 2000 Pary Report
     Columns:
        Music:
           The Listener -- Music from Darkhalo and Aisth
           Retro Tunage -- "Skyscraper (remix)" by Necros / FM
           Zen of Tracking -- End of Zen
        Demo:
           Screen Lit Vertigo -- Short Review of Some Ambience Releases
                (Line 774)
           Intro Watch -- "Lost Vegas" by 3State
        General:
           Call to Keyboards -- The Fall of Another Great SceneMag
           Scene Dirt -- Rumors
           Link List -- Get Somewhere in the Scene
     Closing:
           Credits

--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Message From the Editor
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
     Big month for us all, but a very busy one for me.  It's that time of
  semester where everything is due.  You wouldn't know it from looking at
  this issue, however.  We got five new columns, two new staff writers,
  and 22 new subscribers.  However, because I'm behind in my schoolwork,
  In Tune will not run this month.  I will be back next month, hopefully.

     Boy, is this issue huge.

     First of all, the new stuff: We welcome aboard Tryhuk and Gecko.
  Both  come to us from previous work with Demojournal.  For those of you
  who  don't know, DJ has changed its format.  All it's regular columns
  have  been shifted to Static Line so that the legacy may continue.

     We also have new columns:  Scene Dirt (News and tidbits), Link List
  (Scene Related Links), Intro Watch (Intro Review by Gecko), Retro
  Tunage (Classic Tune Exposure/Review by Tryhuk), an The Listener (More
  Current Song Review by Tryhuk).

     This all has of course caused some minor issues with the format of
  our magazine.  For one, features are now printed before regular columns.
  I have also separated the columns into categories:  Music, Demo and
  General.  This just makes things easier to manage.  To make navigation
  easier, the Table of Contents above now has line numbers as well.

  As always, I enjoy feedback.  But with so many changes as of late, I
  want to hear from you.  Do you like that we've gotten larger?  Is there
  anything we could change, add, or remove?  Let me know, please.

                --Coplan


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  The Meaning of Life
  By:  Roz (guest writer)
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
     I sit here in my bedroom on a cold Thursday night, with 3 empty coke
  bottles sitting on my desk and a nice cigarette cough. My eyes are red
  from IRCing for hours straight without blinking. But I am happy. I have
  discovered the meaning of life within Orange's 1997 Assembly 2nd place
  demo winner "The Secret Life of Mr. Black". I discovered this fact quite
  by accident one evening. After watching this demo over 25 times, I was
  struck by an overwhelming sense that there was something deeply profound
  hidden within this work. I decided to investigate. I watched the demo
  another 3 times carefully noting everything that I could, the patterns
  of the particles and the details in the pixel graphics. I still got no
  closer to cracking the hidden message I knew was hidden in the demo. I
  decided to take a brief break from this most pressing work. I took a
  leak and headed to the kitchen to grab yet another coke.

     Feeling refreshed, I turned all the lights out in my room, and sat
  back down in my battered desk chair. Then it hit me. The demo was a
  metaphor for the cycle of life. It starts out telling of a somewhat
  dysfunctional family through images and sound, then goes on to display
  the cycle of life in the effects and images: first, you are born; then
  you grow to be 12 years old; then you go on to start your own family;
  eventually you become an old man sitting around drinking beer with your
  friends and dreaming of young women frolicking in the water; and finally
  you die, which is so beautifully symbolized by the fading smoke Orange
  logo.

     Hidden in all this metaphorical bollocks is the actual meaning of
  life: pi. Yes, pi.

     "What?", you say?

     "Pi" i respond!

     3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510...! Life is
  circular! PI! Now i challenge you to go forth and spread the word, but
  more importantly keep watching demos!

  NOTE: the author of this article was extremely stoned while writing this
  work. please do not take it seriously. do not hire monkeys to take your
  notes in class either. never trust a monkey. monkey == bad. banana ==
  good.

                --Roz


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Ambience 2000 Pary Report
  By:  Seven, with special guest star D-lee
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
  -=- Note -=-
     This time I've re-written this report at home, from the notes I
  made at the party. This explains the random changes from present to past
  perspective. I had hoped that it would be less chaotically this way :)
  As usual, times are in European notation (20:55 = 8 h 55 p.m.)

  Friday 10-3-00
  --------------
  Baxter/Green picked me up at home around 7 o'clock, with the small van
  from his parents instead of his usual red car. So there was more than
  enough room for hardware and I decided to take my 17" screen along
  instead of that crappy 14". We drove from Gent/Belgium to
  Antwerp/Belgium to pick up Corona/Green, and went on our way to
  Venlo/The Netherlands. Much to my surprise, we found the partyplace
  without getting lost a single time :)


  20:55 : Unlike previous year, there was no queue waiting at the
  entrance. We got a stamp on our hand, a paper with some info about the
  LAN and more importantly: our voting key. In less then 10 minutes, we
  had installed ourselves in hall A.

  Let me describe the partyplace: Ambience is held at the Hogescholen
  Fontys, a large school complex. Hall A and B are two rectangular
  cafeteria-rooms, forming an L-shape. Hall B (where smoking is allowed)
  lies higher then hall A, with a stairway between them. In the corner of
  the L-shape, between A and B, there was a bar where you could order
  fries, hamburgers and other junk food during most of the day. In
  addition to hall A and B, there were a number of smaller classrooms at
  the second floor (area C), and of course the gym-hall which served as
  competition room. The fact that this gym-room lies a few corridors away
  from the scener-halls turned out to be a big problem, but more about
  that later. Some other rooms in the building was reserved for gamers,
  because Ambience was a Demo/LAN/Gamers-party, as stated on the website
  :/

  Almost immediately we spotted Eggbird/Green, who was dressed very
  original in a real kilt! (you know, a Scottish skirt for men :)) He's a
  cool guy, but sometimes he speaks so fast I've problems understanding
  him. He's making the music for my 4K intro, plus some tunes for the
  music/MP3 compos. The tables were a bit small, especially for my
  mega-monitor, but the network worked flawlessly. After checking the
  deadlines for the compos, I continued working on my 4K.


  22:01 : Bwiiizzzzz.... Speakers shut down, fans halt and monitors fade
  to black: the first power failure is a fact. Actually it's just a part
  of the room, but our table is a victim too :(. Just when I was typing
  some notes for this report! But well, we'll forgive the organizers, it's
  just the start of the party, so it's probably a misconnection or
  something. And indeed, 10 minutes later everything went fine again.


  Saturday 11-3-00
  ----------------
  00:24 : During the second power failure :(, I stopped programming
  (obviously) and walked around at the partyplace a bit. In the relaxation
  area at the second floor, someone had put an old 386 for a public
  party-report: everyone was invited to write on it. I read the things
  typed so far, mostly stupid comments in Dutch, till I noticed a message
  from D-lee. He's a Hungarian scener but lives in Germany at the moment,
  and he has also written for DemoJournal (like me). At the end of the
  text, there was a large Hungarian message, and just then someone with
  short black hair and glasses said "That's me who has written that, I'm
  D-lee". Wow, coincidence!

  D-lee brought me to area C, to show some funny wild demos on
  Magicboy/Liquid Motion's PC (he had only some harddisks with him). The
  LTP 3 opening demo from Syndrome was really cool, you really should get
  that one when you have the chance! He also showed some unreleased stuff
  from Exceed, "just crap", but it was much better than anything I've ever
  done (although that is not so hard :)). I just hope it will be released
  someday. The Exceed joke-intro for Ambience didn't want to run on any
  PC, not even on KB's where it had run before. It looked like some part
  of the code had committed suicide :/ Now it was my turn to show D-lee
  what I was working on (my 4K), but yet another power failure made that
  impossible :(

  Fed up with power failures, I reinstalled my stuff at the opposite
  table, which had not had any problems so far. I was really anxious to
  finish my intro, because I had learned from previous party-coding
  sessions that no matter how much time you have, your production is NEVER
  finished in time, and it looks never as good as you want it to be. In
  the mean time I had a talk with Space/Inscene about Inscene 2000, intros
  and the power failures that he was angry about, as he had lost already 2
  writable CDs.


  3:03 : Just found an extremely nasty bug in my 4K (which I had decided
  to name Turn It Back II, = TIB2, for the reverse filter-effects in it).
  I don't understand how the hell it could have run with it! I'm so happy
  now that I've decided to ignore another, smaller bug :) Baxter and
  Corona have followed my example, and are also tapping power from this
  table, after YAPF: Yet Another Power Failure. People start to get really
  angry about it, which is perfectly understandable: how can you
  code/compose/pixel/leech/game/listen to music without electricity ?


  4:44 : Just walked around a bit through the halls, and I must say: there
  are quite some active sceners, not just gamers. For example, Eggbird
  tweaking his adlib-tune for TIB2 :). I missed some movies that I wanted
  to see (like American Beauty), but D-lee assured me that the quality
  wasn't very good (the screen was too small, and you could notice it was
  an mpeg).


  11:38 : Phew! The deadline for the 4Ks is over. I upped my entry, which
  was only 3780k. (Not enough time to add more effects, as usual :/).
  D-lee and Eggbird helped a bit with the colors. Anyway, a lot of people
  are sleeping now, probably in order to be fully awake when the compos
  start. As the 4K-compo is only in a few hours, I will just stay awake
  for it. In the meantime, I'm gonna browse the net for wild-demos. BTW,
  the power-failures are fixed. Good!


  15:47: I was interrupted in my leeching-activities by D-lee, who wanted
  to submit some 64K-intros and pictures. As he had only his harddisks
  with him, and the entries had to be submitted via the website, he needed
  a host-PC. After some try-outs, his HD finally worked more or less
  together with my HW. According to D-lee, "design is everything", so he
  spent a lot of time writing beautiful FILE_ID.DIZ's and such. I thought
  that was quite ironical, because the 64K's were joke-entries from a
  Hungarian joke-group White Rainbow, and they consisted almost entirely
  of bad porn :)

  After that it was time for the 4K-intro compo (I had already skipped the
  4-channel compo). We waited outside the compo-hall... 10 minutes ... 15
  minutes ... 20 minutes ... Then the orgos came saying that the compo was
  cancelled, cause they had not received any submission! Aargh! I had a
  deja vu of Bizarre'99, where my 4K was also lost on the network. D-lee &
  I went to the orgos, I brought my intro on disk, and they agreed to show
  it before the 64K. Well, last year there were 6 4K's, and as TIB2 is my
  best 4K to date, I was really looking forward to see if I could beat
  people like The Watcher/TUHB or Ritz/Revolution. But at least it will
  get shown, so my efforts are not in vain. Now all I've to do is stay
  awake till the 64K compo (at 23:30), cause if I go to the sleeping area
  now, I'll probably stay there for the rest of the party :)


  21:27 D-lee came to say that the animation-compo was over. So I missed
  it, damn :( It's not a problem that compos are delayed (happens
  everywhere, every time), but it IS when the orgos do not announce when
  they finally start! Either you wait for them in front of the compohall,
  in a cold corridor, or you wait in the main hall, and you risk to miss
  (part of) them! I'm eating French fries now, while Baxter & Corona are
  making a fun-demo with the theme "only for the money" :) They use only
  their new OpenGL sprite-engine, so all effects are 2D. Too bad there is
  no one to make graphics, so it doesn't look very spectacular.

  The house music compo was delayed so long that I heard a part when I
  went to watch the GFX-compo. In fact there were 4 GFX-compos after each
  other: ANSI, hand-pixel, photo-based and raytrace. I thought it was a
  good idea to split hand-pixeled and photo-based pics, but it wasn't what
  I expected. Most of the entries of the hand-pixeled compos were still
  based on photos (redrawn, and maybe even Photoshopped), and the entries
  in the photo-based compo looked more like website-GFX, with different
  photos merged into each other via filters. There were some good
  pictures, but most of them were only average.

  The quality of the projector is good, but the switching is very annoying,
  it went like this:
  - Screen 1 "Next entry: X by Y in compo Z"
  - Blue screen for some seconds
  - Brand of projector that I can't even remember, for several seconds
  - Screen 2 (with the entry) for a fraction of a second, spoiling the surprise
    in the GFX-compo
  - Blue screen again for some seconds
  - Screen 2, now for real


  Sunday 12-3-00
  ---------------
  00:11: The delayed music-compo (multichannel) is still going on. I
  really could use some sleep! Promise, after the 64 & 4K compo, which
  should have started at 23.30 :-( D-lee has found the TBL-people, which
  he was searching for yesterday, but they arrived only now. I remember he
  told something funny about them for this report, but I didn't wrote it
  down so I forgot. Sorry, D-lee.

  2:25: It was just announced that the 64K intro-compo, for which everyone
  was already waiting half an hour outside compo-room, suffered from some
  server- problems, which should be solved in about half an hour. Well,
  not everyone is happy with that, but at least we now know the reason for
  the delay. IMHO, they should have told this much sooner. Because, the
  only thing that people talk about when waiting for a delayed compo, is
  about the bad organizing :)

  And now a special guest appearance from D-lee! (applause)

  X:XX: D-lee missed the 64kb competition... He was idling somewhere with
  Jace. (Now D-Lee typing... 1. thanks to the Aspirin pal. 2. That
  "Freestyle" entitled trip-hop-d'n'b track by Bombfunk or who is played
  in every 2 minutes somewhere at the party... A little boring.)

  Seven again: 9:53: The 64Kb compo was very good, although I missed the
  first 2 entries (one of them was the only non-disqualified intro of
  White Rainbow :) I expected that most of them would not be shown...) The
  ones from Aardbei & 3State were very very good. People applauded two
  times DURING the 3State intro, once when hundred little robot-men jumped
  up and down, and again for a growing tree, made of TV-screens. Wow,
  respect! Turn It Back 2 was not shown, but it will be shown before the
  demos <sigh>.

  I asked if I could test my 4K on the compo machine, and that was OK:
  there were no compos till next morning. Alas, the compo-machine has a SB
  PCI 128 (not 100 % adlib-compatible, although it claims to be), and all
  the instruments in the tune sounded totally wrong :( Other 4K's with
  adlib that I tested on the machine had the same problem. So, the largest
  part of the time till now, I've been coding again, trying to correct the
  sound. Too bad this was impossible |-(. I proposed the orgos the swap
  the soundcards, but they thought it would be easier to bring my PC to
  the compo room. Which was OK for me :) I got also permission to add
  another effect to it (way after the 4K-deadline :)), because the
  demo-compo would only start in 10 hours, and I had about 300 bytes
  left...

  As a result, I'm now more than 2 days awake on a diet of French fries,
  sugar and orange juice :) Strange enough, I don't feel sleepy now. For
  the ones that have never tried anything like that (shame on you :)), the
  sleepiness comes in waves, up and down, and now I'm just "over a top".
  D-lee is sleeping next to me, just sitting on a chair with his head and
  arms on the table. Weird :) I told him there was a comfortable
  sleeping-area, but he didn't needed that (5 minutes later our neighbor
  started to play house-tracks very loud, I think D-lee regretted his
  decision. But he fell asleep anyway). Baxter asked if I could search
  Corona, which was also sleeping somewhere. Baxter hadn't found him, and
  neither could I, so he had to finish their demo without Coronas help.

  15:00 : Big jump: all remaining compo have passed: all surprise compos,
  the 4k "compo", other system demos, and of course normal demos. The
  surprise compos were cool: ANSIs for a BBS, tunes with AUTOEXEC.BAT and
  other textfiles for samples (some were pretty funky), pictures of "the
  ultimate gamer", effects with the names of all Ambience orgos etc...

  Turn It Back 2 played on my own system, with the correct music, and the
  audience liked it. One person (I didn't see his face, so I don't know
  him) started to applaud when the reversed water-effect showed up, and I
  really felt like "At least one coder that understands how hard it is to
  program that", with a big grin. (For the non-coders: if you make a wave
  on a water-surface, it moves along but dies out after a while. No matter
  which form it has or in what direction it moves, you end up with a flat
  surface after some time. So how can you show the reverse, starting with
  a flat surface ? You don't know which wave you need to end with ...
  think-think-think :))

  There were 3 "other system" demos: the first was Pavlov/Elitegroup, for
  the Playstation. The Ambience rules forbid to re-submit entries that
  were released before, but maybe the orgos didn't know it, or allowed it
  anyway :-/ The next was a video-tape from a black/white LCD screen, with
  waving clouds, I'm not sure which machine it was made on (ZX 80?). And
  the last one was a Basic entry on a 386, that really annoyed the
  audience. It showed lots of progress bars that increased and decreased,
  some very simple effects, boring text... It was supposed to be funny
  (and it kind of was, at the start), but it was so way over the top, that
  people would have attacked the control room, had it continued 30 seconds
  longer :) I found this hilarious, probably due to my lack of sleep :)

  Because I had no seat (The room was full, and I came from the control
  room to start TIB2), I was sitting at the ground, which is NOT a good
  idea if you want to pay attention to over half an hour of demos. I
  remember a blur of 3D rooms, spaceships flying over streets, blue
  mushrooms, robots... Sorry for not remembering any names :/ Now I have
  to vote, but I can't connect to the site. Maybe I'll have to kidnap
  Corona's PC (yes, Corona has returned from the unknown!)

  And here's D-lee again:

  Y:YY: (D-Lee last time scratching... So i gety some commercial videos i
  like, (A-Teens, Vengaboyz, BombFuck MC) and will travel back 2 Germany
  with the lovely Smash Designs people. Thanks for all people, especially
  for the beer support (much people), Aspirin (7) and G-Day (free call on
  his mobilephone). See ya soon dunno where.)

  Z:ZZ: Seven, back home because the power was cut after the prize
  ceremony:

  The prize ceremony followed less then an hour after the last compo, so
  it's a good thing I voted quickly. It started with that
  Freestyler/Bomfunk MC music, which was without doubt the most-heard tune
  at Ambi2000. Some people were so tired of it they started to boo.

  The first half of the ceremony was pretty boring:
  - "And the (3th/2nd/1st) place from compo X is Y! Give him an applause!
    And he gets (a linux release, some games, a Ambi2000 T-shirt and/or some
    hardware)! Do you want to say anything to the crowd?"
  - "No/Thanks for voting"
  - "OK, give him another applause!"

  After twenty or more times, this is not really exciting anymore :/ But
  during the music compo, the guy that gave the prizes suddenly said "Hmm,
  Houston, we have a problem!" It turned out they had by accident given
  the prize for the 3rd place to place 4, for the 2nd place to place 3 and
  for the 1st place to place 2.  So the winners had to come back on stage
  to switch prizes.

  I had to go on stage once to collect the prize from someone in White
  Rainbow for the 3rd place raytrace, because that entry was submitted by
  D-lee which had already left (after asking me to collect any prizes they
  happened to win), and a bit later for the first prize in the 4K intro
  compo (of course :))

  Elitegroup won the "other systems" compo with their already submitted
  "Pavlov". They threw the games they had won in the audience (which I
  found sympathetic), but destroyed their Linux release right on stage by
  jumping on it, which I found extremely rude. I'm not a Linux user, but
  I've sold my version to a friend at university, which is way better then
  pissing off the sponsors who are watching the prize ceremony too :(

  We had some more surprises: in the 64K compo, Lost Vegas/3State placed
  only 3rd! 2nd place was for the Mekka/Symposium invitation intro, and
  Please the cookie thin/Aardbei came first. I had voted 3State first and
  Aardbei second, but the audience didn't think like me. Maybe it's a
  result of that "eliteness-diagram" that 3State showed in their intro,
  with 3State being the most elite group and the other groups far below
  them :)

  But the strangest thing happened in the demo compo: the orgos announced
  that the first place was for "Farb-rausch 02" by Farb-rausch.
  Farb-rausch is one of the pseudonyms of Elitegroup, but before
  Elitegroup could go on stage, people started to yell that this demo
  wasn't even shown in the compos! The audience started to rumor, and the
  organizers asked for the people who had voted for Elitegroup to raise
  their hand. Only a few tens out of several hundred did so. The orgos
  felt very uneasy, but said that according to the voting system, this
  demo had 600 votes more then the 2nd (Buckle 3 Arena/Liquid Motion. So
  they gave the prizes to the Elitegroup guys, who weren't looking very
  happy either. No one did applaud when they came back, and after having
  talked to each other, they got back on stage and gave their prizes to
  the Liquid Motion guys, saying that "next time, the audience should vote
  for quality".

  I left the compo-room with a strange feeling, and I'm sure I was not the
  only one. What happened? Cheating? Cracking the vote-system? Or too much
  people voting tactically? (Tactical voting means to vote your production
  as nr 1, and to put very bad or disqualified entries on places 2 & 3.
  That way, you don't give points to your direct competitors. If enough
  people do this, results are totally worthless! ).

  Back in the main hall, we saw that the power was cut, so Ambience 2000
  was definitely over. We gathered our stuff, said goodbye to our friends,
  and drove back home. Needless to say, I was asleep in the car most of
  the time :)

  The week after the party
  ------------------------
  Of course the demo-results provoked some emotional reactions on
  comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos. People accused Elitegroup from stealing
  votesheets from the gamers (remember there were hundred of non-sceners
  in the other rooms of the building). Elitegroup said they had 15
  votesheets from them and their friends, and admitted that they had 9
  votesheets from gamers. However, if 24 votesheets were enough to change
  the results dramatically, then a) the Dutch people hadn't voted enough
  or b) the vote-system was fucked up. Also the Liquid Motion demo, Buckle
  3 Arena, started some controversy. The main part was a 3D fly-through of
  a Quake 3 Arena level, to show off the 3D engine. As the creators
  thought that everyone would recognize the Q3A level (also from the
  title), they did not mention this in the credits. Which caused other
  guys, that noticed the similarity only after some time, to accuse them
  from ripping.

  My final opinion about Ambience 2000
  ------------------------------------
  Well, I still enjoyed it, regardless the things that went wrong. It's
  been half a year since my last big party (Bizarre'99), and I had a great
  time meeting old friends and making new ones. The network worked
  immediately and was fast, the catering was open at reasonable hours,
  there was a *real* bigscreen this year, and in fact the orgos were quite
  helpful. Let me explain that last statement: I've been in the control
  room for testing TIB2, and I've seen them working very hard, testing
  productions, dealing with sceners whose entries did not work on the
  compo machine (I wasn't the only one who was allowed to use my own PC),
  etc. But while preparing the next compo, they didn't pay attention to
  the waiting sceners, which was a real problem.

  So things I hope to see improve for Ambience 2001:
  - no more power failures.
  - better announcements, 5 minutes before the compo really starts.
  - the soundsystem was low-quality, according to some musicians.
  - prevent cheating (maybe by giving votekeys only to sceners, the gamers
    don't even watch the compos)
  - and more competitors in the 4K intro compos :)



--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  The Listener
    Music from Darkhalo and Aisth
  By:  Tryhuk
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
  -=- "Desert shades" and "Underwater voyage part 1" -=-
  -=-                              Music by Darkhalo -=-
     Because traxinspace announced Darkhalo as artist of the month (feb),
  I've decided to get two songs of his: A huge mp3 release called "Desert
  shades" and a 2MB XM called "underwater voyage".

     Let's look at the first one. Genre of this track is Drum & Bass
  (DNB), but from the first moment you'll hear that it is more of an
  ambient track with DNB sequences than simple DNB. To understand, you
  have to skip to end of the first minute. 'Till this point it just floats
  on ambient sounds, a little bit in the style of Fsol. Because it would
  be too monotonous to keep only this kind of sound, Darkhalo puts in very
  carefully chosen percussion. First come wooden beats at low volume and
  set up the tempo. Only then comes the real DNB sequence, which gets full
  sound right after a very short break. Because this wouldn't work for 2nd
  time, he uses (in the rest of the track) almost direct breaks and,
  thanks to the good use of the bassline, he keeps the beats on reasonable
  level. Intensity of drumline is also reduced by higher volume and
  activity of other sounds and again right after the percussion he uses
  wooden instruments to make the break softer. He does it so good that I
  had to rewind the track to hear how it was done.

     "Desert shades" is almost 7 minutes -- a long track -- and it builds
  chiefly on the changes of the moods which are very soft, but impressive.
  If you like ambient music and DNB, you have no choice but to get it.

     Today's second track, "underwater voyage" is a soft song with harp,
  piano, nice bassline influenced by howie b, and a lot of underwater
  ambience. From tracker's point of view it's nothing superb, darkhalo
  uses a lot of sampled sequences here and that reflects in less variation
  in lead instruments, but come on, it's and ambient track. If you can
  listen to music without watching how it's done, you will enjoy it.

  Song Information:
     Title:  "Desert shades"
             "Underwater voyage part 1"
     Author:  Darkhalo
     Filename:  12144-desertshades.mp3
                4983-UnderwaterVoyage1.zip (xm)
     File Size:  6514 kb
                 (zip/xm)  650 kb / 1888 kb
     Source:  http://www.traxinspace.com


  -=- "Empty me" by Aisth -=-

     The intro of this tune kicks ass. Just imagine - organ-like sounds at
  low frequencies with low volume and a voice of Alison with it. This
  combination really provides a place for her voice to show what she's
  able to sing up. But this is also weak point, because you need really
  strong words that would get listeners attention especially when, for
  most of the listeners, english isn't the native tongue.  Also Alison
  should have more faith in her voice and give to it more variation in
  both frequency and volume. Because whole track as it is, it became more
  an ambient song than ballad, but anyway it is good enough.

  Song Information:
     Title:  Empty me
     Author:  Aisth
     Filename :  Aisth-Empty_me.mp3
     File Size :  3034 kb
     Source:  http://www.aisth.com


  -=- Other Tracks Worth checking -=-
     Willbe released new tlt mp3 track called "Livedown". Chosen genre is
  triphop and when somebody says this word, I think of portishead (btw
  "roseland nyc live" is in my opinion best live performance ever
  recorded). But this one is different, it is more optimistic and it has a
  lot of jazz and DNB. Nice song that won't excite you, but you'll be
  certainly pleased.

    Two new tracks by Distance are out. Trax'00 mp3 1st place "07/10/99"
  is a great Jarre-like pop song. The whole song sounds quite simple and
  childish. But this sounds like a lot of his tunes, and trust me, you
  will still hear it in your head while falling asleep. Other tune is
  "13/10/99" and it's a monotonik release. Can't describe it, check it
  out. Both tracks are mp3 releases.

    As you may have noticed, there's a lot of hq dnb/triphop/other style
  tunes at mp3.com/tokyodawn. Visit this tdr outpost if you haven't yet
  done so. I won't highlight any of the tracks because they're all good
  and there aren't any that would be more exceptional than the rest.

    "My Weakness (remix)" by Amino Acid is a remix of a tune by Moby. It
  falls somewhere between mellow ambient and intelligent dance.  It's
  "must have" release from KFMF. (8:59/mp3/8340kb)  Another good track by
  KFMF is Wayfinder's "trapped in a spider's web". (http://www.kosmic.org)

                --Tryhuk


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Retro Tunage
    "Skyscraper (remix)" by Necros / FM
  By:  Tryhuk
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
     Readers of Demojournal already know this column. Because there isn't
  any space for old tracks in the current diskmags, I've decided to give
  it some space in demojournal. Unfortunately after few issues PS ended
  his scene career (and returned pretty fast) and demojournal (in the
  original form) with him. However PS and Coplan liked this column so
  much, that they've forced me to move it to Static Line and continue.
  Every month you will find here a review of one of the old but good
  tracks and if you want, you can write a review of your favourite track
  yourself or just give me a link and I'll do it for you (if it is good
  enough of course).

     Before I proceed to review, I have to react on a pained :) letter by
  George Marinov aka Stereoman of noise. I wrote a review of his old
  musicdisks in demojournal#82. I wrote that he is releasing songs in mp3
  to protect his samples. George has been rightfully complaining. So I
  need to make things clear. I remember that he said this then he started
  releasing songs in mp3 format. (no I won't search where it was) However
  with time these possible reasons lost their importance. As you apply
  reverb and similar effects on your tunes, their size grows pretty fast,
  and also with windows based trackers high end cpus start to be slooow. I
  had a conversation with distance/lackluster about it and he was
  complaining that two of his songs suck just because he ran out of cpu
  power (and he uses PIII at 500MHz !).

     For those who still don't understand - this is my apology to esem,
  because if he ever meant it seriously,the reasons for mp3 are different
  today. If you (musicians) out there want to read reviews before being
  published and avoid this kind of misunderstanding, let me/us know
  please. I'm quite curious on your opinion.

     I would also like to ask authors of windows based tracking programs if
  they can optimize their code a bit - for example noisetrekker eats
  almost 100% of my P200 by interface only! For those who are interested
  on more tunes by esem: you can find the homepage at
  http://techno.orbitel.bg/esem or just by browsing
  noisemusic.org/stereoman.

     And now finally to the review (phew):

     "Skyscraper" belongs amongs the classics, which should never be
  forgot. Original song "mmm skyscraper i love you" has been done by
  Underworld and it is 2nd song on the "dub no bass with my head man"
  album. It is a very progressive track which mixes techniques of techno,
  modern electronica and classical rock, with many original parts. Necros
  takes the original 13 minutes long track and compresses it into 6 mins
  of pure energy. He takes the best parts and uses them as a base for
  his tune, which sets up a very high tempo from the beginning and keeps
  it through the end. It has a very solid structure, less ambient than the
  original and open-eared listener can hear that in some aspects, it is
  similar to the legendary "Mechanism eight", which came out in 1996.
  You'll immediately register high volume and stereo separation of the
  percussion, especially bass drum which will dance on your speakers
  almost the whole track. This is the main reason why this track looks so
  solid and it also creates an interesting effect, where other sounds
  sound like they try to get through a barrier made of the wide panned
  drumline and that makes a nice tension.

     I won't describe it more detailed, because there are only two
  possibilities - you know it or you haven't heard it and it would be
  stupid to destroy the feeling of the track by detailed description. So
  I'd rather let you go and play this awesome track.

  Song Information:
     Title: Skyscraper (remix)
     Author:  Necros / Five Musicians
     Release date: 09/15/1995
     Filename (zipped/unzipped):  fm-scrap.zip / fm-scrap.s3m
     File Size (zipped/unzipped):  390 kb / 712 kb
     Source:  ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/fm

                --Tryhuk


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  The Zen of Tracking
     The End of Zen
  By:  Dilvish
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
     Well folks, after a considerable break from the music scene (about
  two years), I'm tickling the ivories again, working on a new album, and
  preparing myself to study music in school.  The last couple of years
  have been a major change for me.  I've been married, moved all over the
  country, and finally come home.  The marriage is over, I'm done
  pretending that I'm anything but me.  I'm an artist; a musician to the
  core.  My work in computers has proven to be good to me financially - at
  a huge cost to my soul.  My marriage prompted me to concern myself with
  the practical issues of building a good income to support a family with,
  but I tried to take shortcuts.  I attempted to pass myself off as a
  software engineer rather than a composer - and while I'm quite good at
  it, I did not like the person that I pretended to be.

     Zen was my free space - a place that I could go mentally to remember
  who I really am, and what I'm really after.  The things I discussed in
  the column are the things that I explore in my music.  I think they work
  much better set to a wicked beat than being glared at on a computer
  screen, so the last article will remain the last.  I may hint at deeper
  meanings, and spirituality in future articles, but the focus will be on
  the tools and techniques for creating quality music.

     I think I should explain a little bit about my music philosophy
  before I go on.  To me, good music always improves life in one way or
  another - whether it's does it by pointing out serious political and
  social perils, or by making you laugh doesn't matter all that much in
  the long run.  If it has a lasting effect on improving life and society
  in general, or even your mood after a hard day at work, it's a good
  song.

     It's hard to write a song that does that without knowing yourself
  well - knowing the things you need (not necessarily the things you want)
  to hear and say.  Whatever the case, there are certain qualities that a
  really good musician must have.  The first is honesty.  You must be
  honest with yourself.  If things aren't going your way, it's easy to
  blame everything and everybody around you, and forget about yourself -
  and it might be a lot of fun to rant about them in your lyrics, but in
  the end, you're hiding behind scapegoats, rather than arriving at
  solutions.  Songs like that may entertain - but it gets really old
  listening to "heroes" whine about their rough lives on the radio day in
  and day out.  People need real heroes who aren't afraid to take some
  responsibility.

     The next is charity.  You will never understand the human condition
  well enough to actually touch a person's soul unless you get an intimate
  knowledge of the struggles other people face.  When I say charity, I
  don't mean that you should make a $2 per month contribution to the
  Christian Children's fund - I mean that you should be charitable with
  your time.  Go out and help somebody.  Whether it's the old lady across
  the hall who's too frail to pick up her mail downstairs, or a friend who
  needs a place to crash for the night, and somebody to lend an ear...
  you'll learn a lot about your own problems, and gain a fresh perspective
  that might really boost your own creativity.  And it just feels good to
  be needed.

     Here's one that I think just about every musician on the planet has
  had trouble with at one point or another:  humility.  Humility is
  understanding that you are human.  You are not a musical God to
  everybody around you - even if you are a legend.  The world does not
  revolve around you, I don't care how rich and famous you get.  You are
  still a human being and all that it entails.  You still have to urinate,
  just like the rest of us.  When you start to consider yourself superior
  - whether or not you're smarter, or tougher, or you can solo like Carlos
  Santana on steroids - you put yourself on a pedestal.  Great for the
  ego.  You just love that, I'm sure, but when you're up there, the air is
  thin.  It starts to effect your brain cells - and it takes you out of
  the loop.  You begin to forget what it's like to live the human
  condition.  You forget what touches a mortal soul (since you're
  obviously unaffected by those silly things)... and your power fades
  drastically.  You also loose a lot of your grasp on the second virtue -
  Charity.  What do other people matter to a musical God like you, anyway,
  right?  If only...

     In future articles, I might address anything from music theory to
  mixing technique, to great prices on some fabulous audio gear.  Whatever
  I discuss, keep in mind that technical issues are just that - technical
  issues.  Music without soul is nothing.  Cultivate your soul. That's
  where all the music starts.

     That's it for now,


                --Dilvish

--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Screen Lit Vertigo
    Short Review of Some Ambience Releases
  By:  Seven
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
     Look, I'm having a hard time with the Ambience releases. Several of
  them do not run, like Farb-rausch 02 (not enough memory, although I've
  589KB free) or the Mekka/Symposium intro (DirectDraw error, because my
  card prefers 24-bit colors over 32-bit). Buckle 3 Arena/Liquid Motion
  and Phlubby Gnome/Trepaan are both over 10 MB, so I haven't downloaded
  them yet because my account at University has a 20 MB limit, and it's
  almost full. The demos & intros that DO run require DirectX 7.0, and a
  3D card to run at full speed. Since I still haven't got one, I can't
  really judge the productions fairly (3 frames/second), hence the short
  review. BTW, you can find all the stuff at http://www.scene.org, as
  usual.


  -=- Please the cookie thing/Aardbei: 1st place 64K-intro -=-
     This one takes a LONG time to generate textures, music, models...
  Progress is indicated by a circle of 3D blocks instead of the usual
  progress-bar. We start with a landscape in red mist, double-textured
  with rock-textures and sliding lightbeam-textures. Particle-credits pop
  up, and we dive in a nice free-direction tunnel with another
  particle-cloud. Some abstract 3D objects are shown, like a virus with
  long hair :) and a complex blob-form. The best part is during the
  greetings, where we can see several tens of little machines marching
  over a landscape. They look like springs, always toppling over. We end
  with some more weird tunnels, some intertwined spirals and a morphing
  Escher-knot. The music starts very softly, very ambient, and goes into
  normal house/DNB mode after a while. There's a break during the
  greetings, with only bells playing, which sounds really great, but the
  main theme takes over (too) quickly.

  Overall:
     Technically very impressive, good design, nice music. Must-have for
  3D-card owners

  -=- Lost Vegas/3State: 3rd place 64K-intro -=-
     In software rendering, all textures have disappeared :( This is
  really bad, because Lost Vegas uses a lot of texts, which are shown as
  textures. So I'll have to use my memory. It starts almost immediately,
  no long precalcing delays. It features a lot of complex objects build
  from very simple ones: a string of transparent cubes inside spirals, a
  "tunnel" filled with of transparent polys, a growing tree that consists
  of TV-screens. It is very original, also because 3State has a very elite
  attitude, which they show in the texts. There is a part with hundreds of
  identical little robots jumping up and down, and one big robot: IIRC.
  The text with it was something like "we don't follow the mainstream, we
  are different" etc. Another funny part was a diagram with 3D columns,
  the height of which showed the eliteness of groups like Aardbei,
  Elitegroup, and (the largest column of course :)) 3State. The music is
  in the intelligent dance music genre, very repetitive, strange beats
  etc.

  Overall:
     Technically less good than the Aardbei intro, but very original,
  tons of attitude, and some Danish design with according music.

  -=- Editor's Note: -=-
     Also make sure to read Gecko's Column, because he reviews the same
  intro.
  -=---=----------------

  -=- Adelanto/Nostalgia: 4th place demo -=-
     I had to fiddle with the settings in energy3d.cfg file for some time
  to get this 6MB demo running. It's best to change only the bit depth and
  the frequency: when you lower the resolution, the 3D parts go faster,
  but the 2D pictures and logos are not scaled down, so you'll see them
  only partly. Adelanto features a mix of 3D scenes, with fuzzy grayscale
  images between them as transitions. The first scene is a futuristic
  elevator that goes up in a high-tech surrounding, with adverts for
  TakeOver2000 (a big party in the Netherlands). The credits are shown
  with a horizontal blur, in a nice font. The other scenes are a landscape
  with lensflares flying over it, a cafeteria and a cellar with some
  crates. As they are static scenes, with just the camera moving, they are
  rather boring. Also the lighting is not very good, but maybe that's due
  to the software rendering. I prefer the 2D transitions to the 3D parts:
  the images look like old photos, and are the perfect background for the
  poetic lyrics that are written on them. The music is in an oldskool
  style, which is no surprise as you know that The Rew made it. Ambient
  flutes and bells waving a dreamy melody, with a good drumline: this is
  music I like :)

  Overall:
     The music and the poems are the best parts IMHO, to appreciate the
  3D you really need an accelerator.

                --Seven


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Intro Watch
    "Lost Vegas" by 3State
  By:  Gecko
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
  With Psychic Symphony suddenly quitting the scene (sort of), Demojournal
  came to an end. I was asked to continue its intro review corner here. I
  would like to know if you the readers are interested in reading about
  intros at all. Besides, if you have found an intro which you think
  should be reviewed, just mail me.

  Lost Vegas by 3State
  64k intro
  3rd place at Ambience 2000

  Credits:
     Sagacity - programming
     Sarix - programming
     Stevie - graphics
     Distance - music

  Requirements:
     Windows 95, DirectX 7

  Download:
     http://connect.to/3state

     Lost Vegas is an intro made in the "minimalist" style, similar to
  that of Blasphemy demos; plus it has the special flavour of
  3State-egoism added.

     The music is a kind of mixture of noises, with a strong bass rhythm
  and a small melody. It fits into the intro quite well.

     High resolution is used, usually with a yellow-blue color scheme.
  There are no still pictures, only some logos, and a weird font. The
  intro consists of many parts, each has its title or a short comment
  displayed. There is no story whatsoever, the parts are only loosely
  connected by their style. Most of the effects are rather original and
  look fine. I'll describe a few of them to illustrate the mood of the intro.
  In the "mass media" part, small human figures are crowded up in infinite
  rows, and they are jumping up and down. There is the effect which is
  humbly announced as "the effect of the year". It is a distorted tunnel,
  with holes on its surface, and particles flying inside it. In the next
  part they prove with a 3d statistics chart that 3State is the best
  demogroup. As for me, the last part is the best: there is some foggy
  terrain, and a fractal-tree of monitors grows up on it.

     Lost Vegas is a fine intro with original effects; although probably
  some people will dislike it for its style.

  -=- Editor's Note: -=-
     Also make sure to read Seven's Column, because he reviews the same
  intro.
  -=---=----------------

                --Gecko


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Call to Keyboards
    Wrapup: CD's in the Underground
    New Topic:  The Fall of Another Great SceneMag
  By: Coplan
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
  -=- Wrap Up: CD's in the Underground -=-

  Keskitalo's Reply:

     Right, the tracking scene is underground music scene, and as we dig
  through to the surface we're probably first going to break into another
  underground scene, which is independent record companies. It would be
  nice to hear from the tracking labels, such as Mono, Tokyo Dawn Records
  and others about how they've done in selling, marketing, promoting
  "real" records. I don't wonder (although I worry) why Necros isn't
  available in stores in a greater scale, mainstream isn't really all
  about talent.

     And heck, I'd rather see a scene-born rising quality record company
  than Five Musicians signed to Sony.

                --Keskitalo / tempo.pkbrp
                   eino.keskitalo@purkki.mbnet.fi


  -=- New Topic:  The Fall of Another Great SceneMag -=-

  -=- Editor's Note -=-
     About a week after this article was written, Psychic Symphony
  announced that Demojournal will remain in existance, just a different
  format than the standard.  Well...so not to loose an article simply
  'cause it mentions DJ as being closed, I didn't pull the article.   But,
  Demojournel is still in existance, but more of a true news post.
  -=-=-----------------

     Many people may believe that the Diskmags (I prefer the term
  SceneMags) are all plotted in competition against each other.  Well, as
  I can very well speak for Static Line, and Demojournel, this isn't true.
  Many also believe that these SceneMags are useless and, to be blatent,
  'dated'.  I guess you can see where I'm going with this, eh?

     Granted, I may have a bit of a biased view, but I feel that the whole
  concept of SceneMags (okay, I'll let you call them Diskmags if you wish)
  is essential to the development of a tracker.  News, technique,
  examples, resources -- all parts of a typical SceneMag.  There is no one
  out there that can convince me that any one of these magazines doesn't
  have at least one of those elements.  They exist, so use them to grow.

     Now, a few weeks ago, Psychic Symphony (aka PS) announced that he was
  folding up shop for Demojournel (at least as we know it anyhow).
  Frankly, i'm sad to see it go.  Now I'm not going to say anything stupid
  like "this is the end of an era," because it isn't.  No one is going to
  die because DJ has changed so much, and there isn't going to be a
  decrease in Demo, GFX or Music creation.  It's not a hole in the scene,
  and this isn't the end of a world.  The average scener will move on and
  maybe occasionally make a comment along the lines of "I miss
  Demojournal."  But, it is a lost resource.  Lets face it, SceneMags
  bring all of us sceners quite a bit of information that we wouldn't be
  able to find any other way.

     It's like comparing the year 1000 to the year 2000.  News?  Well, its
  very easy to find out what's going on in our world these days.  Hell,
  all we have to do is jump on the 'net and we can figure it out.  If
  we're not that advanced, there's still the television (I don't know
  about other countries, but just about every single home in the US has a
  television).  If you want a break from the news, that's damn near
  impossible, because there's always someone out there that has it.  Now,
  in the year 1000, people didn't even know what time of day it was, let
  alone what is happening halfway across the globe.  But, if you put
  things in perspective:  WHO CARED about what was happening halfway
  across the globe.  But we live in the modern age, where it is very easy
  to get across the globe, so perhaps we might want to know what is out
  there.  So, how does this all apply to the demoscene?  Take away the
  SceneMags, and you take away quite a bit of communication.  Sure, we can
  jump on #trax, and figure it out, but wouldn't it take much longer to go
  by word-of-mouth (or text-of-hand as the case may be)?  Sure we can jump
  on a so-called-news base like United Trackers, but guess what folks?
  They don't know either, because no one sent them a SceneMag.

     Someone asked me the other day "when was the last time I released a
  tune."  So I jumped on my FTP server and checked:  October 1999.  In
  fact, I only released four songs in 1999.  That is way below average,
  i'm sure.  So, then the person in-turn asked why I don't make any effort
  to promote the scene.  So, I explained that I publish Static Line, and
  he responded:  "Since when was a magazine contribution?"

     Am I missing something here?  Because I feel insulted.

     You're opinions here, please.

                --Coplan


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Scene Dirt
    Rumors
  By:  Coplan
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
  Well, I guess I should explain this a bit.  It's not quite a gossip
  column, but it is a good resource for tiny bits of information on scene
  happenings.  Essentially, the stuff that isn't big enough to have its
  own article will show up here.  If you have any submissions, send them
  to coplan.ic@rcn.com (that's me).

  -=- Hornet Archive Domain Expiration -=-
     Many of you may have jumped on the legendary Demoscene Archive
  lately, or at least tried to, and found that you can't reach the site.
  It's official, the Hornet Archive Domain Name has expired.  This isn't
  to say that the website is completely offline, but unless you know the
  IP address, the site is unavailable.  For those of you who aren't aware
  of the details behind the Hornet Archive, the songs will still be
  available online through ftp://ftp.cdrom.com and various cdrom.com
  mirrors.  That does mean, however, that you most likely need to know
  the directory structure, and a the filenames of the songs your looking
  for.


  -=- Demojournal Changes Format -=-
     For those of you who aren't subscribed to Demojournal, Psychic
  Symphony had a brief (very breif) leave from the scene.  The original
  plans were to drop DJ all-together.  But, PS is back and kicking again.
  DJ still continues on, but in a different format.  It's pure news now,
  and one can find out all the latest from Demojournal.

     As for the regular columns, they have been shifted to Static Line so
  that they can continue in their legacy.

     To subscribe to Demojournal, you can visit their site:
  http://demojournal.planet-d.net


  -=- New Group: Azure -=-
     If you visit SceneNet IRC (irc.scene.org) often enough, and jump in
  #trax on occasion, you may have seen a topic one day advertising a new
  group to the scene:  Azure (http://azure.zerion.com).  Azure is focusing
  on the music style popularly known as trance.  They've already got a few
  new tunes out there, so jump on there and grab them.

     The group is organized by Wayfinder and Phace.


  -=- Immortal Coil Closing its Doors -=-
     Okay, this one is sentimental for me.  Immortal Coil (aka iC -- the
  group I have belonged to for almost 5 years now, and have organized for
  a little over 3 -- the group that brought you Static Line) has announced
  that it will close its doors after a  loyal 6 years in the demoscene.
  iC will now only exist in the memory of  the many tunes out there, and
  within the website that will soon become a  shrine to the group (we've
  got to keep our songs available somehow).

     Having iC tacked onto the end of my name has always been an honor to
  me, and a few others who ever passed through the group.  But now, we
  must all go our seperate ways.  Worry not, Static Line will exist for
  many more years to come.

                --Coplan


  Scene Dirt is a semi-regular column offering the latest tidbits of
  information to its readers.  If you have any bits of information that
  you think should be here, contact coplan (coplan.ic@rcn.com) and offer
  as much information as possible.


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

  -=- Editor's Note -=-
      For those of you who were readers of Demojournal, this will look very
  familiar to you.  It should be.  With the change of Demojournel, Static
  Line has made an effort to pick up Demojournal's invariable resources.
  This is among the first.  From now on, Static Line will mantain this
  vast link collection with one minor (and temporary) change:  Personal
  Links will not be shown within this magazine.  Fear not, they have not
  been lost, but they can encumber the magazine.  Presently, we are
  working on a web based database for these links, and at that point you
  may witness the return of personal links.

     If you think we're missing a link, please contact me and provide any
  information that I will need:  coplan.ic@rcn.com.

                --Coplan


  Groups:

      3g Design..............................http://3gdesign.cjb.net
      Aardbei.....................................http://aardbei.com
      Acid Rain..............................http://surf.to/acidrain
      Agravedict........................http://www.agravedict.art.pl
      Anakata..............................http://www.anakata.art.pl
      ANDESA Soft International..................http://andesa.da.ru
      Astral..............................http://astral.scene-hu.com
      Astroidea........................http://astroidea.scene-hu.com
      AtomiK....................................http://atomik.ini.hu
  <*> Azure..................................http://azure.zerion.com
      Bomb..................................http://bomb.planet-d.net
      BlaBla..............................http://blabla.planet-d.net
      Blasphemy..............................http://www.blasphemy.dk
      Byterapers.....................http://www.byterapers.scene.org
      Calodox.................................http://www.calodox.org
      Chrome..............................http://chrome.scene-hu.com
      CoPro.....................................http://www.copro.org
      Damage...................................http://come.to/damage
      Dance...................................http://dance.flipp.net
      Defacto 2..............................http://www.defacto2.net
      Dolops......................... ........http://dolOps.scene.hu
      Exceed...........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/~exceed
      Fobia Design...........................http://www.fd.scene.org
      GODS...................................http://www.idf.net/gods
      Green.....................................http://green.dyns.cx
      Grif........................http://arrabonet.gyor.hu/~rattgrif
      Haujobb......................................http://haujobb.de
      Hellcore............................http://www.hellcore.art.pl
      IJSKAST.............................http://www.ijskast.cjb.net
      Immortals..............................http://imrt.home.ml.org
  <*> Immortal Coil.............................http://www.ic.L7.net
      Infuse...................................http://www.infuse.org
      Just For Fun...........................http://jff.planet-d.net
      Kilobite...............................http://kilobite.cjb.net
      Kolor................................http://www.kaoz.org/kolor
  <*> Kosmic Free Music Foundation.............http://www.kosmic.org
      Kooma.....................................http://www.kooma.com
      Label zero.........................http://labelzero.pganet.com
      Mandula.........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/~mandula
      Monar................ftp://amber.bti.pl/pub/scene/distro/monar
      Nextempire..................http://members.xoom.com/NEXTEMPIRE
      Ninja Gefilus.........http://www.angelfire.com/or/ninjagefilus
      Noice.....................................http://www.noice.org
      Orion..............................http://orion.arfstudios.org
      Quad........................................http://www.quad.nl
      Rage........................................http://www.rage.nu
      Replay.......................http://www.shine.scene.org/replay
      Retro A.C...........................http://www.retroac.cjb.net
      Rhyme................................http://rhyme.scene-hu.com
      Skytech team............................http://www.skytech.org
      Sunflower.......................http://sunflower.opengl.org.pl
      Suspend......................http://www.optimus.wroc.pl/rappid
      Tehdas...................................http://come.to/tehdas
      Tesko..........................http://www.scentral.demon.co.uk
      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.ca.tc
      Universe..........................http://universe.planet-d.net
      Vantage..................................http://www.vantage.ch

  Music:

      Aisth.....................................http://www.aisth.com
      Aural planet........................http://www.auralplanet.com
      Blacktron Music Production...........http://www.d-zign.com/bmp
      Chill..........................http://www.bentdesign.com/chill
      Chippendales......................http://www.sunpoint.net/~cnd
      Chiptune...............................http://www.chiptune.com
      Da Jormas................................http://www.jormas.com
      Five Musicians.........................http://www.fm.scene.org
      Fridge...........................http://www.ssmedion.de/fridge
      Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff
      Ignorance.............................http://www.ignorance.org
      Intense...........................http://intense.ignorance.org
      Jecoute.................................http://jecoute.cjb.net
      Kosmic Free Music Foundation.............http://www.kosmic.org
      Level-d.................................http://www.level-d.com
      Miasmah.............................http://www.miasmah.cjb.net
      Milk.......................................http://milk.sgic.fi
      Mah Music.............................http://come.to/mah.music
      Maniacs of noise...............http://home.worldonline.nl/~mon
      MAZ's Sound homepage.............http://www.th-zwickau.de/~maz
      Mo'playaz..........................http://ssmedion.de/moplayaz
      Mono211.................................http://www.mono211.com
      Morbid Minds..............http://www.raveordie.com/morbidminds
      Noise................................http://www.noisemusic.org
      One Touch Records......................http://otr.planet-d.net
      Park..................................http://park.planet-d.net
      Radical Rhythms.....http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/merrelli/rr
      RBi Music.............................htpp://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
      Theralite...........................http://theralite.avalon.hr
      Tokyo Dawn Records........................http://tdr.scene.org
      UltraBeat.........................http://www.innerverse.com/ub
      Vibrants................................http://www.vibrants.dk
      Wiremaniacs.........................http://www.wiremaniacs.com

  Others:

      Arf!Studios..........................http://www.arfstudios.org
      Calodox demolinks exchange.....http://calodox.planet-d.net/cde
      #coders..................................http://coderz.cjb.net
      Comic Pirates.........................http://scene-central.com
      Demo fanclub........................http://jerware.org/fanclub
      Demoscene.org news forum..............http://www.demoscene.org
      Digital Undergrounds.....................http://dug.iscool.net
      Doose charts...............................http://www.doose.dk
      Dreams2 CD.........................http://nl.scene.org/dreams2
      Freax...................http://freax.scene-hu.com/mainmenu.htm
      GfxZone............................http://gfxzone.planet-d.net
      Hugi size-compo...............http://home.pages.de/~hugi-compo
      Orange Juice.........................http://ojuice.citeweb.net
      PC-demos explained.....http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained
      Pixel...................................http://pixel.scene.org
      Scenet....................................http://www.scenet.de
      Sunray..............................http://sunray.planet-d.net
      Swiss List.................http://www.profzone.ch/vantage/list
      Swiss Scene Server.......................http://www.chscene.ch
      TakeOver................................http://www.takeover.nl
      Textmode Demo Archive.................http://tmda.planet-d.net
      Hungarian scene page...................http://www.scene-hu.com
      Trebel...................................http://www.trebel.org
      Zen of Tracking.........................http://surf.to/the-imm

  DiskMags / SceneMags:

      Amber...............................http://amber.bti.pl/di_mag
      Amnesia...............http://amnesia-dist.future.easyspace.com
      Demojournal....................http://demojournal.planet-d.net
      Dragon......................http://www.wasp.w3.pl/pages/dragon
      Fleur................................http://fleur.scene-hu.com
      Heroin...................................http://www.heroin.net
      Hugi........................http://home.pages.de/~hugidownload
      Pain..................................http://pain.planet-d.net
      Scenial...........................http://www.scenial.scene.org
      Static Line......................http://www.ic.l7.net/statline
      Total Disaster...................http://www.totaldisaster.w.pl
      TUHB.......................................http://www.tuhb.org
      WildMag...........................http://www.wildmag.notrix.de

  FTPs:

      Amber.......................................ftp://amber.bti.pl
      Cyberbox.....................................ftp://cyberbox.de
      Flerp.....................................ftp://flerp.scene.hu
      Scene.org..................................ftp://ftp.scene.org
      Skynet archive.................ftp://acid2.stack.nl/pub/skynet
      ACiD2 Archive.............................ftp://acid2.stack.nl


--=--=--
----=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------
  Editor:            Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan.ic@rcn.com
  Columnists:        Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan.ic@rcn.com
                      Dilvish / Eric Hamilton / dilvie@yahoo.com
                      Gecko / Gergely Kutenich / gk@scene.hu
                      Louis Gorenfeld / gorenfeld@vrone.net
                      Setec / Jesper Pederson / jesped@post.tele.dk
                      Seven / Stefaan / Stefaan.VanNieuwenhuyze@rug.ac.be
                      SiN / Ian Haskin / sin@netcom.ca
                      Subliminal / Matt Friedly / sub@plazma.net
                      Tryhuk / Tryhuk Vojtech / xtryhu00@stud.fee.vutbr.cz
                      Virt / virt@bellsouth.net
  Technical Consult: Draggy / Nicolas St. Pierre / draggy@kosmic.org
                      Jim / Jim Nicholson / jim@kosmic.org

  Static Line on the Web:  http://www.ic.l7.net/statline
                           ftp://flerp.scene.hu/scene/DiskMag/StaticLine

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     See you next month!

-eof---=------=--=------=--=--
