DemoNews Issue #79
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DemoNews Issue #79
January 15, 1995 - January 21, 1995
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DemoNews is a weekly publication for the demo scene. It is produced at the
Internet FTP site ftp.eng.ufl.edu (HORNET). This newsletter focuses on
many aspects of demos and demo making. Everyone is welcomed to contribute
articles, rumors, and advertisements.
Information about HORNET and DemoNews can be found at /demos/news/README
Start.of.DemoNews.079,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.part.1.of.1
SIZE: 41,832 SUBSCRIBERS: Last week: 1125 This week: 1176 Change: +51
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SECTIONS ARTICLES
---------------- ----------------------------------
General Tidbits for DemoNews Readers
New Uploads Files recieved at HORNET
Editorial A Day in the Life of Snowman
Music Ambient 1
Where's the Sound Blaster?
Graphics TP94 Graphics Competition Review
Advertisements Antarctica BBS, Omni HTML,
Bass Productions, Contrast Diskmag,
Data Connection BBS
Back Issues How to Get 'em, Descriptions
Closing Comments
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<<General>>
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_____Contributions to DemoNews
DemoNews is an "open" publication and it is designed to provide a detailed
look at the demo, music, code, and art scenes on a weekly basis. We would
really like to see more people contributing articles to DemoNews with
reviews, interviews, commentaries, promotions, and advertisements. Anyone
can submit an article for DemoNews, and it will probably be printed.
DemoNews is a fantastic way to get yourself heard.
As you may have seen from the current list of the subscribers, DemoNews is
initially distributed to well over 1100 people on Internet. In addition,
DemoNews makes its rounds to hundreds of BBSs around the world. I would not
be surprised if DemoNews had a final distribution of 5000 to 10,000 readers
around the world.
Currently, most of the articles in DemoNews are from the HORNET team which
consists of Christopher Mann, Ryan Cramer, Stony, Denthor, etc. However, to
get a more broad look at the scene, we'd like YOU to write some stuff for
demonews too! :) If your interested, mail either me (Ryan Cramer) or
Christopher Mann at one of the following addresses:
Ryan Cramer - rcramer1@osf1.gmu.edu - BBS (703) 847-0861 or (703) 506-8598
Christopher Mann - r3cgm@dax.cc.uakron.edu
_____Small Issue
Finally we have a small issue. We decided it would be nice for a change to
have a compact issue rather than a super-huge special issue. Consider it a
resting period before DemoNews.080. :)
_____Please Upload
In reviewing files from /alpha/NEW, we found 3 that were broken. Would
someone please re-upload: bbsintro.zip, chslumi.zip, and happy95.zip
_____Suggestion from a DemoNews Reader
Samer Meshreki from the University of Delaware recently asked if we could
move the "New Uploads" section of this newsletter closer to the beginning.
We have done so. As just a general reminder to all readers of DemoNews, we
highly encourage suggestions and comments in order to make this a better
guide for the demo scene.
_____Eratta
1. In the new uploads section, the intro "Grey" was listed as being done by
"Grey/Abaddon". The author should have been listed just as "Abaddon".
2. In the interview with Maxwood, his name was incorrectly listed as "Anal
Tamas". It should have been "Antal Tamas".
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<<New Uploads>>
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NOTE: All locations start with /demos and then their respective sub-
directory. Please note however that the actual base directories
(like /pub/msdos/demos) may differ from mirror to mirror.
Filename Location Size Description
------------ ---------------- ---- -----------------------------------------
/demos
blackice.arj /alpha/NEW/tp94d 881 Black Ice by SuccesS (11th place demo)
intox .zip /alpha/NEW/tp94i 335 Intoxicated Intro by Post Mortem
happy95 .zip /alpha/NEW 38 Happy 1995 demo by Mile
nytextro.zip /alpha/NEW 115 Steel Rat's New Year greetz! (GUS/SB)
truth! .arj /alpha/NEW 165 The whole truth - TM joining N-Factor
vc_intro.zip /alpha/NEW 12 Violent Crimes intro by King Tech
vperiod .zip /alpha/NEW 398 Void - Red Period dentro
bistro .zip /parties 500 Bistro - Invitation to Abduction '95
juhla_95.zip /parties 126 Crypton and Orange invite to Juhla '95
***Non-demo uploads***
uc2r2 .exe /arcers 268 UltraCompressor ][ revision 2
flesh15 .zip /diskmags 531 AID #15 - 24 Hour Bullshit
/music
cybern .zip /disks 1259 Cybernoise music disk by Crazy Teo
maz-dsk1.zip /disks 870 Mazurka Music Disk (part 1)
maz-dsk2.zip /disks 870 Mazurka Music Disk (part 2)
maz-dsk3.zip /disks 1164 Mazurka Music Disk (part 3)
rave0195.zip /disks 950 Rave Music Disk 01/95
amp .zip /programs/players 19 Armageddon Module Player (MOD & S3M)
cmod210 .zip /programs/players 67 CapaMod 2.10 GUS module player
kardp13 .zip /programs/players 343 Some kinda Karoke Player for DOS
mikm200 .arj /programs/players 276 Ver 2.0 of MikMod (Excellent Player!)
exm03ppp.zip /programs/rippers 11 ExMod - The Ultimate Sound Extractor
m3rip212.zip /programs/rippers 34 M3RIP 2.12 Rips music from demos
react01 .zip /samples 1434 16bit 44khz samples from Maly/React
react02 .zip /samples 1346 ... for house/acid/groove/funk/rave/etc
myc .zip /songs/mod 194 Hong Kong Pop Song by Mong Yau Cho
remix .arj /songs/mod 167 The Original NewReMix by Raul Remujo
tp94mods.zip /songs/mod 2968 4 Channel MODs from TP'94
***Special thanks to Moebius for Uploading the TP'94 MODs***
insieme .zip /songs/s3m 104 Insieme by Crazy Teo / Rising Sun Team
amb2 .zip /songs/s3m 55 Night Voices remix by Peter
bcunk1 .zip /songs/s3m 150 Unk1 by Baron (8 chn)
dance .zip /songs/s3m 191 Dance by Crazy Teo / Rising Sun Team
dmkopen .zip /songs/s3m 190 Song by AcidRain/DMK
dmkscre .zip /songs/s3m 71 Song by AcidRain/DMK
dreary .arj /songs/s3m 34 Dreary as all Hell by Hector
esdance1.arj /songs/s3m 556 Spanish Dance music (2 songs)
everl .zip /songs/s3m 197 Through the Everlasting by MusicMan
fire-srn.zip /songs/s3m 211 FireSiren by Hector
flywitme.zip /songs/s3m 291 Fly With Me (Trance)
gd-dorm .zip /songs/s3m 161 Dormant Fears by GD of Core
gd-snow .zip /songs/s3m 51 We Shovel Snow by GD of Core
heavehgl.zip /songs/s3m 410 Heavangelis by TLS&WW for TP'94
lavilla .zip /songs/s3m 267 La Villa Strangiato by Ler
m-world .zip /songs/s3m 142 In World of Crystals by Mystical/Purple
maz-con1.zip /songs/s3m 80 S3M by Mazurka
maz-may1.zip /songs/s3m 242 S3M by Mazurka
maz-rep1.zip /songs/s3m 287 S3M by Mazurka
maz-rep2.zip /songs/s3m 101 S3M by Mazurka
mystwatr.zip /songs/s3m 64 Mystical Waters by Hector
san_open.zip /songs/s3m 40 Another Sango Fighter by Damond Choi
sango .zip /songs/s3m 54 Sango Fighter Theme by Damond Choi
vibes .zip /songs/s3m 195 Vibes by Viper/Quasar (10 chn)
12thsect.zip /songs/xm 699 12th Sect by TheKraken
lunadub .zip /songs/xm 374 Lunar Dub by TheKraken
/code
vtglobe .lzh /graph/globe 21 VLA presents the globe effect w/source
bin2asm .zip /graph/images 63 Put variable pictures in VGA programs
pcx2csrc.zip /graph/images 21 PCX to C++ Source Code
pcxutils.lzh /graph/images 70 PCXUTILS by Patch/Avalanche
rst2-src.zip /graph/library 25 RST2 Intro C Source Code from RST
tf_sourc.lzh /graph/library 74 PAS, mcga, mouse256, supervga, vesa
tge129d .lzh /graph/library 196 The Graphics Engine VGA/SVGA C/C++
shadebob.zip /graph/shadebob 6 ASM Shadebobs source
stars .lzh /graph/stars 10 ASM , VLA presents starfields
stars2 .lzh /graph/stars 10 Stars by Mark Mackey with PAS/ASM source
tut8new .zip /graph/tutor 42 VGA Demo Tutorial in Pas/C++ (part 8)
realmem .zip /memory 10 Memory addressing info. for real mode
386p_101.zip /pmode 117 386Power (based on PMODE) + Game Engine
pmw113 .zip /pmode 57 PMODE/W for Watcom C/C++ v1.13
gusdk222.zip /sound 945 GUS SDK v2.22 Programming Toolkit
mdss032a.zip /sound 315 MIDAS Sound System v0.32
modplay .lzh /sound 41 ASM source to MODPLAY
sbdsp102.zip /sound 13 SBDSP Sound Blaster stuff in PAS
sbprog10.zip /sound 37 C++ How to access the SB card
386intel.zip /text 209 Intel's 386 Programmers Ref. Manual 1986
intel .doc /text 114 Specifications on 8086 processors
loadall .zip /text 3 Text on the LOADALL instruction
vcpi .doc /text 60 Info on different modes (real,flat,etc.)
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<<Editorial>>
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_____A Day in the Life of Snowman
Christopher G. Mann - Demo Maintainer
Did you ever wonder what goes into producing DemoNews and maintaining
HORNET? This little editorial will take you through a typical day of mine.
This article doesn't really have much to do with the demo scene in general,
so feel free to skip it if this does not interest you. This issue is
fairly small so I figured I had nothing to loose by putting in a shameless
bio of myself in here. :)
Background:
My name is Christopher G. Mann. I was born on April 4, 1975 and I am 19
years old. I reside in Akron, Ohio in the mid-western United States. This
is my second year at the University of Akron and I am currently enrolled in
the Computer Science program. My weight is about 145lbs (65.7kg) and my
height is 6'0" (1.83 meters). Overall, I look like a very serious skinny
guy. A recent change in my appearance has been to let my hair grow in the
back.
I live an apartment about half a kilometer off campus. It is split into
top and bottom floors, each of which can accommodate two people. Down-
stairs live Duncan and Alistair (did I spell that right?), a couple British
students who are also attending the University of Akron. I rarely see them
as our apartments are not connected (there is a door from each to the out-
side). On my floor are two bedrooms and a shared kitchen, bathroom, and
small entryway.
However, the last roommate I had recently moved away and half of my apart-
ment has been completely vacant for about a month. The spring semester
here at the University has already begun and I do not know how likely it is
that I will get a new roommate will be here anytime soon (most students
already have a place to live by this point). Leaving the bathroom door
open all the time is just one of the many perks I currently have.
My mother lives in New Philadelphia (about 60 kilometers south) and my
father lives in Magnolia (about 60 kilometers south-east). I usually call
them once or twice a week to keep them happy, but only see them infre-
quently. I have no brothers or sisters and have a very small family in
general. For the most part I am perfectly content to be alone for long
periods of time.
I have two big addictions: Swisher Sweets little cigars, and black coffee.
In a typical day I will smoke between 1/2 to 3/4 a pack of cigars, and
drink about 4 cups of coffee. However, I also drink about a gallon of
water a day to flush my system. Needless to say, my toilet gets a workout.
My financial situation is very bad. Most of the time I have to cook pasta
or something just to conserve money. Believe it or not, the cigars and
coffee also make me less hungry. Food costs money so this is a plus.
Unfortunately, this has also been a contributing factor to the loss of 15
pounds (7kg) in the past few months.
Overall, I am an efficient and organized person who likes to get things
done. I do not have much of a social life and I am very happy to leave it
that way. Dating and getting together with friends is something I enjoy,
just not too often. Friends, girlfriends and family may come and go, but
knowledge and experience stay with you forever.
My Day:
Almost without exception, I do three things every day when I wake up: light
up a cigar, check my e-mail, and go to the bathroom. Depending on how much
water and coffee I had to drink the night before, the order may be slightly
different from day to day. In general I have between 5 and 15 new mails
waiting for me that were received during the night. I could actually break
down the mail into several defined categories.
First there is listserver mail. This consists of subscription and unsub-
scription notifications, bounced DemoNews copies (which I forward to
someone else to be processed), and mail from people requesting personal
help with the listserver.
Second is the "please help me" type of mail. A few typical topics are: "I
uploaded something on HORNET that was corrupt...", "We are from the new
group X and were wondering if we could have our own directory on HORNET",
and "How can I use a SB with demo X...". Usually this mail doesn't eat up
too much of my time. I either fix the file, deny a group directory, or
forward music-related mail to Ryan Cramer to be answered.
Third and most time consuming is the personal mail. Dee-Cug and Jester
(two of my friends) are probably responsible 15% of the total time I spend
on mail alone. Every once in a while I get a letter from Dan Potter,
Krystall, Vic, or some other friend which I reply to. This type of mail is
also my main way of keeping up with gossip.
The forth type of mail is Dan Wright's. Even though the dmw@eng.ufl.edu is
not the way to reach him anymore, I still get about 2-3 letters per week
that I forward to him.
Last is DemoNews-related mail. This includes articles, advertisements,
suggestions, interviews, comments, and feedback on the newsletter. When I
don't get much of this type of mail (such as this week) DemoNews ends up
being rather small.
Anyway, back to my day. Usually I can answer and take care of about 60% of
the mail I got overnight in about 10-15 minutes. The rest I keep in my
mailbox to be answered in more depth later. As it happens, my cigar just
about finishes up after this 10-15 minutes, so I go and hop in the shower.
The late-morning / early-afternoon period is my recreational time. I might
call up a friend to come over and watch demos, go to the mall, or catch a
movie (this is during winter break). If I do not get together with anyone
then I start on my night-time schedule (next paragraph). During normal
school, my day time is spent in class.
At about 17:00 I sit down at my computer and remain there until I go to bed
(02:00-05:00 during winter break). By this time another 5-10 new mails are
waiting for me. The first thing I do is take care of HORNET business. I
will hop online and see if anything interesting has been posted. At this
point I also try to fix corrupted uploads, delete old files, and move files
from /programming to /code. I also check and see how big the
/incoming/music directory is so I know how much work Ryan has to do the
coming weekend.
About an two hours each night is spent trying to fix up the formatting of
DemoNews, improve the efficiency of HORNET, and work on other HORNET-
related projects. It is my goal to make HORNET the best demo site on the
Internet and I place high priority on this task.
After all important HORNET stuff is taken care of, I get offline and
program. Denthor's "Demo Programmer's Trainer" is a series I have been
working on for a while. This job is simple enough (convert Pascal source
code to C++) but it is time consuming. It is my goal to have enough
experience to do something decent for NAID and I have increased the time I
spend coding accordingly.
When it gets really late and my mind goes fuzzy, I hop on IRC for about 15
minutes to a half hour. This is a great way to promote HORNET, get sub-
scriptions for DemoNews, hear new gossip, and exchange ideas about code and
music.
When I finally go to bed, I fall asleep immediately. I may not get enough
sleep, but I do not waste time lying awake in bed.
In Summary:
This type of article is not one I encourage for DemoNews. Biographies and
personal information should be left with IRC and e-mail, not put into a
public newsletter. However, this editorial may have shed some light for
you on what the Demo Maintainer is like. Above all else, I believe in
efficiency and organization. It has been my goal to have HORNET and
DemoNews reflect those beliefs.
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<<Music>>
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_____Ambient 1
d8888 888 d8b 888 d888
d88888 888 Y8P 888 d8888
d88P888 888 888 888
d88P 888 88888b.d88b. 88888b. 888 .d88b. 88888b. 888888 888
d88P 888 888 "888 "88b 888 "88b 888 d8P Y8b 888 "88b 888 888
d88P 888 888 888 888 888 888 888 88888888 888 888 888 888
d8888888888 888 888 888 888 d88P 888 Y8b. 888 888 Y88b. 888
d88P 888 888 888 888 88888P" 888 "Y8888 888 888 "Y888 8888888
===========================================================================
This week's music section consists of a review on Zero-G's Ambient Volume
One Sample CD. Sorry that we don't have a very large issue this week, but
we're sort of taking a breather from last weeks 110k issue (pant pant).
Well, now that The Party '94 is over, the demoscene will probably be kind
of quiet for awhile. It seems these days that the only major productions
are released at demoparties (particularly ASM'94 and TP'94). I kind of wish
that the PC scene had more major parties. Hopfully this will happen in the
future. I'm anxious to see how everything goes with this party thats taking
place in Canada called NAID.
Anyways, on with the review of Zero-G's Ambient sample CD. For those of you
that are not familiar with Sample CD's, here's a little background
information. Sample CDs are simply Compact Disks filled with samples of
various sounds, instruments, backgrounds, and such. These samples are
useful to musicians because these samples are generally sounds that we
would not otherwise be able to obtain. Often, sample CDs contain sounds
from rare synthesizers or perhaps original drumloops and percussion sounds.
The possabilities for sample CDs are limitless. Because sample CDs are not
widely produced, nor are they in especially large demand, they are quite
expensive. As an example, my Ambient CD set me back $100. Despite this
fact, its a LOT cheaper then buying a synth that might only have half of
the amount of samples a sample CD would have. Sample CDs are a good deal
for many of us - they especially make a lot of sense for musicians using a
tracker; you can simply sample the sound directly from the CD and use it in
your music. Sample CDs typically contain around 100 tracks with 3 to 15
samples per track. There are of course many exceptions to this, but as you
can see, there are a LOT of samples on these CDs.
The best place to get sample CDs from is a company called EastWest. They
carry the world's largest selection of sampled sounds on CD. To get a copy
of their catalog, or to order CDs from them, call their 800 number, or mail
them at the following address:
In USA : 1-800-833-8339
Outside USA : 1-310-858-8797
EastWest/SoundWarehouse
Suite 277, Maple Plaza
345 North Maple Drive
Beverly Hills, CA 90210, USA
If you'd like to see an advertisement from EastWest that would have more
information than is included here, pick up a copy of Keyboard magazine at
your nearest bookstore. Keyboard magazine also includes other resources of
sample CDs and tapes.
The Ambient/1 CD comes with a large booklet describing each of its 99
tracks and the individual samples that make up each track. The outside of
the CD jewelbox says:
--begin--
The Ambient/Atmospheric/Soundtrack Sample CD.
Fantastic array of dreamy atmospherics and effects for use in ambient
dance, film soundtrack work, or futuristic & spacey music of all kinds. A
goldmine of analogue sounds and techniques from the early days of the
synthesizer. Includes: Synth waveforms, FX and textures from early synths
e.g. Roland Modular System 100M, VCS3, rare ethnic percussion, natural
environmental atmospheres, superb audio quality, fully indexed, etc, etc.
--end--
That description pretty well summarizes the CD. It really is a great
collection. However, its pretty hard to describe sounds without hearing
them, so I've included some FastTracker 2 .XI instruments that I sampled
from the CD, they can be found on:
ftp.eng.ufl.edu - /pub/msdos/demos/incoming/rc_samps.zip
If you do not have internet or ftp access, you can also get a copy of this
file RC_SAMPS.ZIP on Data Connection BBS at (703) 506-8598 or (703)
847-0861. The file is 818k.
The archive includes the following samples:
ambient1.xi - Inharmonic Loop 3
ambient2.xi - Banshee
ambient3.xi - Alien Wind
ambient4.xi - Click Bubbles
ambient5.xi - Jet Flange 2
ambient6.xi - Sequence Atmosphere 2
ambient7.xi - 7 Various Waveforms, using FT2 split keyboard
ambient8.xi - 8 Ethnic Percussion sounds, using FT2 split keyboard
ambient9.xi - Atmosphere Wailings
ambientA.xi - Atmosphere Train 1
ambientB.xi - Synth FX Wobble
ambientC.xi - Ambient FX Aquaphone
ambientD.xi - Ambient FX Marine
ambientE.xi - Mmmm Drone
ambientF.xi - Growl Vox
ambientG.xi - Hot Mud
All of the sounds are sampled at 22050 khz (8 bit) in FastTracker 2 using a
Gravis Ultrasound. Feel free to use any of them in your music if you'd
like. Since some of the samples are very large, they might require editing
before use though. Keep in mind that this is a VERY small selection of the
samples on the Ambient CD as it contains well over 400 sounds compared to
the 17 included here. In addition, I *didn't* attempt to record all of the
"best" sounds from the CD, I just tried to get a good selection. As a
result, hopfully this will give you a good general idea of just whats on
the Ambient CD as opposed to my favorite sounds on the CD. :)
Note that these instrument files can only be loaded into FastTracker 2.
They can easily be converted to other formats by loading them into FT2 and
saving them again.
The Ambient CD really has a lot of fantastic and dreamy sounds in it. It
also has a lot of strange analog sounds too - some of the sounds, I don't
think that I would ever use. Overall, the sounds are quite good and VERY
high quality. In the booklet that was included with the CD, here is what it
said in regards to the sound quality: "Every effort has been made to obtain
the highest sound quality by compiling and mastering the sounds digitally.
However, some of the old analogue sounds may have some inherent noise, as
well as some tape hiss being evident on some of the old tape delay/loop
atmospheres. Equalisation has been applied to minimise extraneous noise
wherever possible and it is felt that the best possible sound quality has
been obtained with what, after all, are some fairly unique sounds which are
by and large unreproducable on modern day equipment."
The Ambient/1 CD could also be very useful for someone that wants to record
sounds for use in a video game. Many of the analog sounds sound like they
are straight out of PacMan or something. :) In addition, while I was in
CompUSA today, on one of the demo computers, they were playing some game. I
was just standing there looking around, but then I heard something
familiar. It turned out that many of the sounds from this game were
actually samples from the Ambient/1 CD. :)
The Ambient/1 CD also includes a number of cool percussion sounds. Most of
them are quite rare and a creative musician could do some very cool stuff
with them. There are no heavy or industrial percussion sounds, most sound
very ethnic and mellow. In regards to the included percussion sounds, here
is what the Ambient/1 booklet said: "The selection given here is not
intended to be a totally comprehensive range of sounds but rather a more
select choice of unusual and interesting drums/percussion as well as some
different ways of playing more familiar instruments. Have fun. The majority
of the sounds were specifically programmed for this disc. Think of the 700+
sounds as a giant jig-saw puzzle that can be combined in as many different
ways as your imagination allows and above all have fun in creating your own
personal sound pictures."
While the Ambient/1 CD includes many rare sounds, because this CD is so
popular in the trance/ambient/techno industry, these sounds aren't so rare
anymore. I was in Tower Records yesterday, and I listened to a Future Sound
of London CD that they had headphones hooked up to. I found the some of the
sounds were very familiar and were in fact directly from Ambient/1. In
addition, I've noticed a couple of Amiga MOD musicians using samples from
the Ambient/1 CD.
In summary, I'd have to conclude that the Ambient/1 CD is well worth the
$100 that it costs if your interested in doing ambient, trance, ethnic,
newage, or just plain "different" music. For me, this CD was just about
perfect, and I plan to make use of these sounds in the future. Zero-G also
makes Ambient/2 which I hope to purchase in the future.
For all tracker musicians out there, take advantage of sample CDs and start
using some samples that haven't been used in other songs before. There is a
great sense of satisfaction and accomplishment when you create a song that
uses sounds that you have sampled. In addition, your music will obviously
sound much more original. Order the catalog from EastWest and take a look
at all of the great sample CDs which are available. These sample CDs are so
easy to sample from and it seems like they're practically designed to go
hand in hand with tracked music. However, be careful when purchasing sample
CDs, they are expensive and you should be sure that what you are getting
will provide a practically inexhaustable resource of samples for your
music. If any of you reading this article also have sample CDs, I'd
encourage you to write up a small review of the CD to let other people know
how it is.
Hope you enjoyed the review, and have a good week!
Ryan Cramer
rcramer1@osf1.gmu.edu
_____Where's the Sound Blaster?
Hello all! I'm the SysOp of a demo oriented BBS in Brazil and I try to do
some coding in my free time (not too much lately though). Always when you
ask a demo group that started with the amiga demo scene why they went to
the pc scene you get the same answer : coding demos for amiga is too
easy...
Looking at the results of The Party 94 I saw that too many demos have GUS-
only support. This is very bad! Ok, I know that the GUS has very good
sound quality and coders prefer to do their player routines for GUS. The
question is : WHY do they do it? Maybe it's because it's easier to do a
player for GUS than for SB (but isn't difficulty a motivation for a real
coder?), but SB is a world standard. I know GUS is spreading out but it's
very difficult to find people with a GUS outside Europe, and I think here
in Brazil and in most parts of the world, SB (and its clones) are the
"default" sound board for all people.
All of you know that a demo without music is like orange juice without an
orange :-) So I ask all the coders around the world to at least keep SB
compatibility in their demos.. don't forget us poor SysOps and users that
only have a SB (or one of the many many SB compatible cards)...
Yes, I know that Creative Labs is making the life of all coders more
difficult by limiting the programming information about SB. I still have
no idea why they do this and I feel there is no good reason. This is a
point on which Gravis/Forte is very good. They at least give a lot of
programming information about their sound cards.
Hope I will can hear music in the next demos through my Sound Blaster!
Ok, it's my opinion...
GREETS to ALL !!!!
- WarmBooter cahcantu@pintado.ciagri.usp.br
.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,
<<Graphics>>
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
_____TP94 Graphics Competition Review
[This is a copy of an article Stony sent me last week which I forgot to
include in The Party 1994 special issue.]
(From the Party Place)
The Graphics Competition should have started at 02:00 on the 29th of
December but according to a message it was delayed until 02:30. This seems
ok to me, but... at 03:30 still nothing was shown on the screen so everyone
started to yell, clap their hands, and scream. Then at 03:40 it finally
was ready. A total of 150 pictures were submitted to the competition but
only 62 were selected to be shown. I think that its bit weird that not all
the delivered stuff can be shown because that is what a "competition" is
all about.
What I heard from most of the graphicians is that the more time you put in
a picture the nicer it will be. I have been working on mine for some hours
but I didn't have the time to make something spectacular out of it, I
didn't even have a nice background.
The organization has just now decided to show all delivered pictures.
Everybody should be satisfied now. Well, again it didn't work out because
the system has failed again. :(
A lot of pictures have been redrawn from existing artwork. Some of the
graphics are raytraced, others re-done from existing art, and still others
were re-released from Assembly '94 in this competition! This is a weird
assortment. Apparently, only 99 pics can be voted on because no allowance
was made for a higher number of pictures.
--- The Party '94 Graphics Competition Results ---
Nr. Name Group Points
1. Helgi Schneider................Peachy / Masque 239
2. AH. Self D.....................Ra / Sanity 202
3. Vampire........................Mirage / Bonzai 187
4. Self Portrait..................Dize / Silents DK 161
5. Digital Modelling..............Luma / P5 Crew 144
(In Retrospect)
It must have been really hard to come up with the final results because
most of the graphics were very good. As a result, the decision as to which
is best is really a matter of personal taste.
A lot of great pictures were shown, the best I have ever seen. I couldn't
manage to do a review on them, only having seen them once on the big
picture screen. However, as soon as I get all these pictures then I'll do a
review on them.
...Stony and Meriadoc
.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,
<<Advertisements>>
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alone ;). We simply are looking to improve our output and perhaps gain some
contacts along the way. We believe that we have some talent, and if you
would like to become part of this well-meaning organization, you can reach
me, or any member at the following :
Internet: mm@clark.net
BBS: Synthetic Amusement (WHQ) 410.795.8526
Snail Mail: (Kevin Schreiner)
Bass Productions
5209 Linton Road
Sykesville, Md
21784 USA
If you would like a sample of our work, you can always check HORNET,
SAM!, catch me on IRC (mm_bass), or email me and i can send you some.
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- I - S - S - U - E - # - 1 -
Contrast issue #01 has been released! Check out ftp.eng.ufl.edu
(/demos/diskmags/p-ctrst1.zip & p-ctrst2.zip) for YOUR copy.
Comments, bug reports, improvements and suggestions should be mailed to:
mystical@inet.uni-c.dk
Some facts about Contrast:
* Nice design:)
* Runs in 640x480 16c
* Pictures included in the articles.
* Special "Gallery" section
* Supports GUS, SBP, PAS16.
* Demo/intro/game/utility chart
* Four tunes and silent mode - can be changed at ANY time.
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Located in McLean, Virginia, USA
Online since 1990
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.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,
<<Back Issues>>
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
_____How to Get 'em
After reading this issue of DemoNews, you may be wondering how you can get
previous ones. Well fear not! There are two different ways to do so:
1: FTP to hornet.eng.ufl.edu and go to /pub/msdos/demos/news/OLD_NEWS and
start downloading anything you see.
2: Now you can request back issues of DemoNews via e-mail. Start a letter
to listserver@oliver.sun.ac.za (any subject line) and in the body of the
letter include "GET DEMUAN-LIST <INDEX>" where INDEX refers to the
index number of the issue.
For example: GET DEMUAN-LIST 43
This would retrieve DemoNews #76 (part 1 of 2).
For more recent issues that are split into multiple parts, you must send
an individual request for each index number.
_____Descriptions
Issue Index Date Size Description
----- ----- -------- ------ ----------------------------------------------
74 37,38 12/11/94 77833 Interview with Vic/AcmE, Editorial: A Defense
of Demoscene, The Making of NAID / Apraxia,
Interview with C.C.Catch, Review of Scream
Tracker 3.2, Review of Autodesk Animator Pro.
75 41,42 12/18/94 68009 A DemoNews Reader, The Birth of Commercial
Life, Editorial: Calm Before the Storm,
Interview with Mello-D, US Demo Scene
(Renaissance meeting), Jelly Tots and Pizza
Shops, Review of Wired '94 Graphics.
76 43,44 12/25/94 92589 Interview with EMF, DemoNews Readers Write,
Kimba's Life Story, X-Mas in the Demo Scene,
CORE, Demo & Music Database, Interview with
Purple Motion/Future Crew, Interview with
Krystall/Astek, Common Sense ][ by Perisoft,
Its X-Mas in Africa, Interview with Maxwood
of Majic 12, Assembly Part ][, Common Sense
Response by Stony.
77 45,46 01/01/95 101100 Chart History, Snowman Near-Disaster, Son of
Snowman, The Party 1994, Making Waves, Using
Assembly Part 2.
78 47-49 01/08/95 111185 The Party 1994: Results and Reviews, Report
by Stony and Friends, What happened to PC-
Demo competition. Editorial: TP94 = ASM94
part 2. Egg2: Trancescrambled Review, More
on Fast Tracker 2.03. General Rambling by
Denthor.
.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,
<<Closing Comments>>
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
I have not been doing much independent reading so I have no quotes for this
week. However, I wanted to remind everyone to send me information on
demo-related BBS's and Nets for an upcoming issue of DemoNews.
Hope you enjoyed this small issue! :)
-Christopher G. Mann (Snowman)-
r3cgm@dax.cc.uakron.edu
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,End.of.DemoNews.079.
.... brought to you by Designer / FORCE-II ....
\____ \ ________ _ _ ______ \ / \| \ ________ | \/ ______/
/ | \ _) \ \_/ \ | \ / \ \ _) \ | \______ \
/ | \ \ | \ | \/ \ \ /~\ \ / \
\_____ /_______/___| /________/\____\_____/_______/_________/________/
===\_____/============|____/========================================[+tZ^]==
DemoNews Issue #79
January 15, 1995 - January 21, 1995
------------
DemoNews is a weekly publication for the demo scene. It is produced at the
Internet FTP site ftp.eng.ufl.edu (HORNET). This newsletter focuses on
many aspects of demos and demo making. Everyone is welcomed to contribute
articles, rumors, and advertisements.
Information about HORNET and DemoNews can be found at /demos/news/README
Start.of.DemoNews.079,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.part.1.of.1
SIZE: 41,832 SUBSCRIBERS: Last week: 1125 This week: 1176 Change: +51
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
SECTIONS ARTICLES
---------------- ----------------------------------
General Tidbits for DemoNews Readers
New Uploads Files recieved at HORNET
Editorial A Day in the Life of Snowman
Music Ambient 1
Where's the Sound Blaster?
Graphics TP94 Graphics Competition Review
Advertisements Antarctica BBS, Omni HTML,
Bass Productions, Contrast Diskmag,
Data Connection BBS
Back Issues How to Get 'em, Descriptions
Closing Comments
.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,
<<General>>
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
_____Contributions to DemoNews
DemoNews is an "open" publication and it is designed to provide a detailed
look at the demo, music, code, and art scenes on a weekly basis. We would
really like to see more people contributing articles to DemoNews with
reviews, interviews, commentaries, promotions, and advertisements. Anyone
can submit an article for DemoNews, and it will probably be printed.
DemoNews is a fantastic way to get yourself heard.
As you may have seen from the current list of the subscribers, DemoNews is
initially distributed to well over 1100 people on Internet. In addition,
DemoNews makes its rounds to hundreds of BBSs around the world. I would not
be surprised if DemoNews had a final distribution of 5000 to 10,000 readers
around the world.
Currently, most of the articles in DemoNews are from the HORNET team which
consists of Christopher Mann, Ryan Cramer, Stony, Denthor, etc. However, to
get a more broad look at the scene, we'd like YOU to write some stuff for
demonews too! :) If your interested, mail either me (Ryan Cramer) or
Christopher Mann at one of the following addresses:
Ryan Cramer - rcramer1@osf1.gmu.edu - BBS (703) 847-0861 or (703) 506-8598
Christopher Mann - r3cgm@dax.cc.uakron.edu
_____Small Issue
Finally we have a small issue. We decided it would be nice for a change to
have a compact issue rather than a super-huge special issue. Consider it a
resting period before DemoNews.080. :)
_____Please Upload
In reviewing files from /alpha/NEW, we found 3 that were broken. Would
someone please re-upload: bbsintro.zip, chslumi.zip, and happy95.zip
_____Suggestion from a DemoNews Reader
Samer Meshreki from the University of Delaware recently asked if we could
move the "New Uploads" section of this newsletter closer to the beginning.
We have done so. As just a general reminder to all readers of DemoNews, we
highly encourage suggestions and comments in order to make this a better
guide for the demo scene.
_____Eratta
1. In the new uploads section, the intro "Grey" was listed as being done by
"Grey/Abaddon". The author should have been listed just as "Abaddon".
2. In the interview with Maxwood, his name was incorrectly listed as "Anal
Tamas". It should have been "Antal Tamas".
.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,
<<New Uploads>>
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
NOTE: All locations start with /demos and then their respective sub-
directory. Please note however that the actual base directories
(like /pub/msdos/demos) may differ from mirror to mirror.
Filename Location Size Description
------------ ---------------- ---- -----------------------------------------
/demos
blackice.arj /alpha/NEW/tp94d 881 Black Ice by SuccesS (11th place demo)
intox .zip /alpha/NEW/tp94i 335 Intoxicated Intro by Post Mortem
happy95 .zip /alpha/NEW 38 Happy 1995 demo by Mile
nytextro.zip /alpha/NEW 115 Steel Rat's New Year greetz! (GUS/SB)
truth! .arj /alpha/NEW 165 The whole truth - TM joining N-Factor
vc_intro.zip /alpha/NEW 12 Violent Crimes intro by King Tech
vperiod .zip /alpha/NEW 398 Void - Red Period dentro
bistro .zip /parties 500 Bistro - Invitation to Abduction '95
juhla_95.zip /parties 126 Crypton and Orange invite to Juhla '95
***Non-demo uploads***
uc2r2 .exe /arcers 268 UltraCompressor ][ revision 2
flesh15 .zip /diskmags 531 AID #15 - 24 Hour Bullshit
/music
cybern .zip /disks 1259 Cybernoise music disk by Crazy Teo
maz-dsk1.zip /disks 870 Mazurka Music Disk (part 1)
maz-dsk2.zip /disks 870 Mazurka Music Disk (part 2)
maz-dsk3.zip /disks 1164 Mazurka Music Disk (part 3)
rave0195.zip /disks 950 Rave Music Disk 01/95
amp .zip /programs/players 19 Armageddon Module Player (MOD & S3M)
cmod210 .zip /programs/players 67 CapaMod 2.10 GUS module player
kardp13 .zip /programs/players 343 Some kinda Karoke Player for DOS
mikm200 .arj /programs/players 276 Ver 2.0 of MikMod (Excellent Player!)
exm03ppp.zip /programs/rippers 11 ExMod - The Ultimate Sound Extractor
m3rip212.zip /programs/rippers 34 M3RIP 2.12 Rips music from demos
react01 .zip /samples 1434 16bit 44khz samples from Maly/React
react02 .zip /samples 1346 ... for house/acid/groove/funk/rave/etc
myc .zip /songs/mod 194 Hong Kong Pop Song by Mong Yau Cho
remix .arj /songs/mod 167 The Original NewReMix by Raul Remujo
tp94mods.zip /songs/mod 2968 4 Channel MODs from TP'94
***Special thanks to Moebius for Uploading the TP'94 MODs***
insieme .zip /songs/s3m 104 Insieme by Crazy Teo / Rising Sun Team
amb2 .zip /songs/s3m 55 Night Voices remix by Peter
bcunk1 .zip /songs/s3m 150 Unk1 by Baron (8 chn)
dance .zip /songs/s3m 191 Dance by Crazy Teo / Rising Sun Team
dmkopen .zip /songs/s3m 190 Song by AcidRain/DMK
dmkscre .zip /songs/s3m 71 Song by AcidRain/DMK
dreary .arj /songs/s3m 34 Dreary as all Hell by Hector
esdance1.arj /songs/s3m 556 Spanish Dance music (2 songs)
everl .zip /songs/s3m 197 Through the Everlasting by MusicMan
fire-srn.zip /songs/s3m 211 FireSiren by Hector
flywitme.zip /songs/s3m 291 Fly With Me (Trance)
gd-dorm .zip /songs/s3m 161 Dormant Fears by GD of Core
gd-snow .zip /songs/s3m 51 We Shovel Snow by GD of Core
heavehgl.zip /songs/s3m 410 Heavangelis by TLS&WW for TP'94
lavilla .zip /songs/s3m 267 La Villa Strangiato by Ler
m-world .zip /songs/s3m 142 In World of Crystals by Mystical/Purple
maz-con1.zip /songs/s3m 80 S3M by Mazurka
maz-may1.zip /songs/s3m 242 S3M by Mazurka
maz-rep1.zip /songs/s3m 287 S3M by Mazurka
maz-rep2.zip /songs/s3m 101 S3M by Mazurka
mystwatr.zip /songs/s3m 64 Mystical Waters by Hector
san_open.zip /songs/s3m 40 Another Sango Fighter by Damond Choi
sango .zip /songs/s3m 54 Sango Fighter Theme by Damond Choi
vibes .zip /songs/s3m 195 Vibes by Viper/Quasar (10 chn)
12thsect.zip /songs/xm 699 12th Sect by TheKraken
lunadub .zip /songs/xm 374 Lunar Dub by TheKraken
/code
vtglobe .lzh /graph/globe 21 VLA presents the globe effect w/source
bin2asm .zip /graph/images 63 Put variable pictures in VGA programs
pcx2csrc.zip /graph/images 21 PCX to C++ Source Code
pcxutils.lzh /graph/images 70 PCXUTILS by Patch/Avalanche
rst2-src.zip /graph/library 25 RST2 Intro C Source Code from RST
tf_sourc.lzh /graph/library 74 PAS, mcga, mouse256, supervga, vesa
tge129d .lzh /graph/library 196 The Graphics Engine VGA/SVGA C/C++
shadebob.zip /graph/shadebob 6 ASM Shadebobs source
stars .lzh /graph/stars 10 ASM , VLA presents starfields
stars2 .lzh /graph/stars 10 Stars by Mark Mackey with PAS/ASM source
tut8new .zip /graph/tutor 42 VGA Demo Tutorial in Pas/C++ (part 8)
realmem .zip /memory 10 Memory addressing info. for real mode
386p_101.zip /pmode 117 386Power (based on PMODE) + Game Engine
pmw113 .zip /pmode 57 PMODE/W for Watcom C/C++ v1.13
gusdk222.zip /sound 945 GUS SDK v2.22 Programming Toolkit
mdss032a.zip /sound 315 MIDAS Sound System v0.32
modplay .lzh /sound 41 ASM source to MODPLAY
sbdsp102.zip /sound 13 SBDSP Sound Blaster stuff in PAS
sbprog10.zip /sound 37 C++ How to access the SB card
386intel.zip /text 209 Intel's 386 Programmers Ref. Manual 1986
intel .doc /text 114 Specifications on 8086 processors
loadall .zip /text 3 Text on the LOADALL instruction
vcpi .doc /text 60 Info on different modes (real,flat,etc.)
.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,
<<Editorial>>
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
_____A Day in the Life of Snowman
Christopher G. Mann - Demo Maintainer
Did you ever wonder what goes into producing DemoNews and maintaining
HORNET? This little editorial will take you through a typical day of mine.
This article doesn't really have much to do with the demo scene in general,
so feel free to skip it if this does not interest you. This issue is
fairly small so I figured I had nothing to loose by putting in a shameless
bio of myself in here. :)
Background:
My name is Christopher G. Mann. I was born on April 4, 1975 and I am 19
years old. I reside in Akron, Ohio in the mid-western United States. This
is my second year at the University of Akron and I am currently enrolled in
the Computer Science program. My weight is about 145lbs (65.7kg) and my
height is 6'0" (1.83 meters). Overall, I look like a very serious skinny
guy. A recent change in my appearance has been to let my hair grow in the
back.
I live an apartment about half a kilometer off campus. It is split into
top and bottom floors, each of which can accommodate two people. Down-
stairs live Duncan and Alistair (did I spell that right?), a couple British
students who are also attending the University of Akron. I rarely see them
as our apartments are not connected (there is a door from each to the out-
side). On my floor are two bedrooms and a shared kitchen, bathroom, and
small entryway.
However, the last roommate I had recently moved away and half of my apart-
ment has been completely vacant for about a month. The spring semester
here at the University has already begun and I do not know how likely it is
that I will get a new roommate will be here anytime soon (most students
already have a place to live by this point). Leaving the bathroom door
open all the time is just one of the many perks I currently have.
My mother lives in New Philadelphia (about 60 kilometers south) and my
father lives in Magnolia (about 60 kilometers south-east). I usually call
them once or twice a week to keep them happy, but only see them infre-
quently. I have no brothers or sisters and have a very small family in
general. For the most part I am perfectly content to be alone for long
periods of time.
I have two big addictions: Swisher Sweets little cigars, and black coffee.
In a typical day I will smoke between 1/2 to 3/4 a pack of cigars, and
drink about 4 cups of coffee. However, I also drink about a gallon of
water a day to flush my system. Needless to say, my toilet gets a workout.
My financial situation is very bad. Most of the time I have to cook pasta
or something just to conserve money. Believe it or not, the cigars and
coffee also make me less hungry. Food costs money so this is a plus.
Unfortunately, this has also been a contributing factor to the loss of 15
pounds (7kg) in the past few months.
Overall, I am an efficient and organized person who likes to get things
done. I do not have much of a social life and I am very happy to leave it
that way. Dating and getting together with friends is something I enjoy,
just not too often. Friends, girlfriends and family may come and go, but
knowledge and experience stay with you forever.
My Day:
Almost without exception, I do three things every day when I wake up: light
up a cigar, check my e-mail, and go to the bathroom. Depending on how much
water and coffee I had to drink the night before, the order may be slightly
different from day to day. In general I have between 5 and 15 new mails
waiting for me that were received during the night. I could actually break
down the mail into several defined categories.
First there is listserver mail. This consists of subscription and unsub-
scription notifications, bounced DemoNews copies (which I forward to
someone else to be processed), and mail from people requesting personal
help with the listserver.
Second is the "please help me" type of mail. A few typical topics are: "I
uploaded something on HORNET that was corrupt...", "We are from the new
group X and were wondering if we could have our own directory on HORNET",
and "How can I use a SB with demo X...". Usually this mail doesn't eat up
too much of my time. I either fix the file, deny a group directory, or
forward music-related mail to Ryan Cramer to be answered.
Third and most time consuming is the personal mail. Dee-Cug and Jester
(two of my friends) are probably responsible 15% of the total time I spend
on mail alone. Every once in a while I get a letter from Dan Potter,
Krystall, Vic, or some other friend which I reply to. This type of mail is
also my main way of keeping up with gossip.
The forth type of mail is Dan Wright's. Even though the dmw@eng.ufl.edu is
not the way to reach him anymore, I still get about 2-3 letters per week
that I forward to him.
Last is DemoNews-related mail. This includes articles, advertisements,
suggestions, interviews, comments, and feedback on the newsletter. When I
don't get much of this type of mail (such as this week) DemoNews ends up
being rather small.
Anyway, back to my day. Usually I can answer and take care of about 60% of
the mail I got overnight in about 10-15 minutes. The rest I keep in my
mailbox to be answered in more depth later. As it happens, my cigar just
about finishes up after this 10-15 minutes, so I go and hop in the shower.
The late-morning / early-afternoon period is my recreational time. I might
call up a friend to come over and watch demos, go to the mall, or catch a
movie (this is during winter break). If I do not get together with anyone
then I start on my night-time schedule (next paragraph). During normal
school, my day time is spent in class.
At about 17:00 I sit down at my computer and remain there until I go to bed
(02:00-05:00 during winter break). By this time another 5-10 new mails are
waiting for me. The first thing I do is take care of HORNET business. I
will hop online and see if anything interesting has been posted. At this
point I also try to fix corrupted uploads, delete old files, and move files
from /programming to /code. I also check and see how big the
/incoming/music directory is so I know how much work Ryan has to do the
coming weekend.
About an two hours each night is spent trying to fix up the formatting of
DemoNews, improve the efficiency of HORNET, and work on other HORNET-
related projects. It is my goal to make HORNET the best demo site on the
Internet and I place high priority on this task.
After all important HORNET stuff is taken care of, I get offline and
program. Denthor's "Demo Programmer's Trainer" is a series I have been
working on for a while. This job is simple enough (convert Pascal source
code to C++) but it is time consuming. It is my goal to have enough
experience to do something decent for NAID and I have increased the time I
spend coding accordingly.
When it gets really late and my mind goes fuzzy, I hop on IRC for about 15
minutes to a half hour. This is a great way to promote HORNET, get sub-
scriptions for DemoNews, hear new gossip, and exchange ideas about code and
music.
When I finally go to bed, I fall asleep immediately. I may not get enough
sleep, but I do not waste time lying awake in bed.
In Summary:
This type of article is not one I encourage for DemoNews. Biographies and
personal information should be left with IRC and e-mail, not put into a
public newsletter. However, this editorial may have shed some light for
you on what the Demo Maintainer is like. Above all else, I believe in
efficiency and organization. It has been my goal to have HORNET and
DemoNews reflect those beliefs.
.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,
<<Music>>
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
_____Ambient 1
d8888 888 d8b 888 d888
d88888 888 Y8P 888 d8888
d88P888 888 888 888
d88P 888 88888b.d88b. 88888b. 888 .d88b. 88888b. 888888 888
d88P 888 888 "888 "88b 888 "88b 888 d8P Y8b 888 "88b 888 888
d88P 888 888 888 888 888 888 888 88888888 888 888 888 888
d8888888888 888 888 888 888 d88P 888 Y8b. 888 888 Y88b. 888
d88P 888 888 888 888 88888P" 888 "Y8888 888 888 "Y888 8888888
===========================================================================
This week's music section consists of a review on Zero-G's Ambient Volume
One Sample CD. Sorry that we don't have a very large issue this week, but
we're sort of taking a breather from last weeks 110k issue (pant pant).
Well, now that The Party '94 is over, the demoscene will probably be kind
of quiet for awhile. It seems these days that the only major productions
are released at demoparties (particularly ASM'94 and TP'94). I kind of wish
that the PC scene had more major parties. Hopfully this will happen in the
future. I'm anxious to see how everything goes with this party thats taking
place in Canada called NAID.
Anyways, on with the review of Zero-G's Ambient sample CD. For those of you
that are not familiar with Sample CD's, here's a little background
information. Sample CDs are simply Compact Disks filled with samples of
various sounds, instruments, backgrounds, and such. These samples are
useful to musicians because these samples are generally sounds that we
would not otherwise be able to obtain. Often, sample CDs contain sounds
from rare synthesizers or perhaps original drumloops and percussion sounds.
The possabilities for sample CDs are limitless. Because sample CDs are not
widely produced, nor are they in especially large demand, they are quite
expensive. As an example, my Ambient CD set me back $100. Despite this
fact, its a LOT cheaper then buying a synth that might only have half of
the amount of samples a sample CD would have. Sample CDs are a good deal
for many of us - they especially make a lot of sense for musicians using a
tracker; you can simply sample the sound directly from the CD and use it in
your music. Sample CDs typically contain around 100 tracks with 3 to 15
samples per track. There are of course many exceptions to this, but as you
can see, there are a LOT of samples on these CDs.
The best place to get sample CDs from is a company called EastWest. They
carry the world's largest selection of sampled sounds on CD. To get a copy
of their catalog, or to order CDs from them, call their 800 number, or mail
them at the following address:
In USA : 1-800-833-8339
Outside USA : 1-310-858-8797
EastWest/SoundWarehouse
Suite 277, Maple Plaza
345 North Maple Drive
Beverly Hills, CA 90210, USA
If you'd like to see an advertisement from EastWest that would have more
information than is included here, pick up a copy of Keyboard magazine at
your nearest bookstore. Keyboard magazine also includes other resources of
sample CDs and tapes.
The Ambient/1 CD comes with a large booklet describing each of its 99
tracks and the individual samples that make up each track. The outside of
the CD jewelbox says:
--begin--
The Ambient/Atmospheric/Soundtrack Sample CD.
Fantastic array of dreamy atmospherics and effects for use in ambient
dance, film soundtrack work, or futuristic & spacey music of all kinds. A
goldmine of analogue sounds and techniques from the early days of the
synthesizer. Includes: Synth waveforms, FX and textures from early synths
e.g. Roland Modular System 100M, VCS3, rare ethnic percussion, natural
environmental atmospheres, superb audio quality, fully indexed, etc, etc.
--end--
That description pretty well summarizes the CD. It really is a great
collection. However, its pretty hard to describe sounds without hearing
them, so I've included some FastTracker 2 .XI instruments that I sampled
from the CD, they can be found on:
ftp.eng.ufl.edu - /pub/msdos/demos/incoming/rc_samps.zip
If you do not have internet or ftp access, you can also get a copy of this
file RC_SAMPS.ZIP on Data Connection BBS at (703) 506-8598 or (703)
847-0861. The file is 818k.
The archive includes the following samples:
ambient1.xi - Inharmonic Loop 3
ambient2.xi - Banshee
ambient3.xi - Alien Wind
ambient4.xi - Click Bubbles
ambient5.xi - Jet Flange 2
ambient6.xi - Sequence Atmosphere 2
ambient7.xi - 7 Various Waveforms, using FT2 split keyboard
ambient8.xi - 8 Ethnic Percussion sounds, using FT2 split keyboard
ambient9.xi - Atmosphere Wailings
ambientA.xi - Atmosphere Train 1
ambientB.xi - Synth FX Wobble
ambientC.xi - Ambient FX Aquaphone
ambientD.xi - Ambient FX Marine
ambientE.xi - Mmmm Drone
ambientF.xi - Growl Vox
ambientG.xi - Hot Mud
All of the sounds are sampled at 22050 khz (8 bit) in FastTracker 2 using a
Gravis Ultrasound. Feel free to use any of them in your music if you'd
like. Since some of the samples are very large, they might require editing
before use though. Keep in mind that this is a VERY small selection of the
samples on the Ambient CD as it contains well over 400 sounds compared to
the 17 included here. In addition, I *didn't* attempt to record all of the
"best" sounds from the CD, I just tried to get a good selection. As a
result, hopfully this will give you a good general idea of just whats on
the Ambient CD as opposed to my favorite sounds on the CD. :)
Note that these instrument files can only be loaded into FastTracker 2.
They can easily be converted to other formats by loading them into FT2 and
saving them again.
The Ambient CD really has a lot of fantastic and dreamy sounds in it. It
also has a lot of strange analog sounds too - some of the sounds, I don't
think that I would ever use. Overall, the sounds are quite good and VERY
high quality. In the booklet that was included with the CD, here is what it
said in regards to the sound quality: "Every effort has been made to obtain
the highest sound quality by compiling and mastering the sounds digitally.
However, some of the old analogue sounds may have some inherent noise, as
well as some tape hiss being evident on some of the old tape delay/loop
atmospheres. Equalisation has been applied to minimise extraneous noise
wherever possible and it is felt that the best possible sound quality has
been obtained with what, after all, are some fairly unique sounds which are
by and large unreproducable on modern day equipment."
The Ambient/1 CD could also be very useful for someone that wants to record
sounds for use in a video game. Many of the analog sounds sound like they
are straight out of PacMan or something. :) In addition, while I was in
CompUSA today, on one of the demo computers, they were playing some game. I
was just standing there looking around, but then I heard something
familiar. It turned out that many of the sounds from this game were
actually samples from the Ambient/1 CD. :)
The Ambient/1 CD also includes a number of cool percussion sounds. Most of
them are quite rare and a creative musician could do some very cool stuff
with them. There are no heavy or industrial percussion sounds, most sound
very ethnic and mellow. In regards to the included percussion sounds, here
is what the Ambient/1 booklet said: "The selection given here is not
intended to be a totally comprehensive range of sounds but rather a more
select choice of unusual and interesting drums/percussion as well as some
different ways of playing more familiar instruments. Have fun. The majority
of the sounds were specifically programmed for this disc. Think of the 700+
sounds as a giant jig-saw puzzle that can be combined in as many different
ways as your imagination allows and above all have fun in creating your own
personal sound pictures."
While the Ambient/1 CD includes many rare sounds, because this CD is so
popular in the trance/ambient/techno industry, these sounds aren't so rare
anymore. I was in Tower Records yesterday, and I listened to a Future Sound
of London CD that they had headphones hooked up to. I found the some of the
sounds were very familiar and were in fact directly from Ambient/1. In
addition, I've noticed a couple of Amiga MOD musicians using samples from
the Ambient/1 CD.
In summary, I'd have to conclude that the Ambient/1 CD is well worth the
$100 that it costs if your interested in doing ambient, trance, ethnic,
newage, or just plain "different" music. For me, this CD was just about
perfect, and I plan to make use of these sounds in the future. Zero-G also
makes Ambient/2 which I hope to purchase in the future.
For all tracker musicians out there, take advantage of sample CDs and start
using some samples that haven't been used in other songs before. There is a
great sense of satisfaction and accomplishment when you create a song that
uses sounds that you have sampled. In addition, your music will obviously
sound much more original. Order the catalog from EastWest and take a look
at all of the great sample CDs which are available. These sample CDs are so
easy to sample from and it seems like they're practically designed to go
hand in hand with tracked music. However, be careful when purchasing sample
CDs, they are expensive and you should be sure that what you are getting
will provide a practically inexhaustable resource of samples for your
music. If any of you reading this article also have sample CDs, I'd
encourage you to write up a small review of the CD to let other people know
how it is.
Hope you enjoyed the review, and have a good week!
Ryan Cramer
rcramer1@osf1.gmu.edu
_____Where's the Sound Blaster?
Hello all! I'm the SysOp of a demo oriented BBS in Brazil and I try to do
some coding in my free time (not too much lately though). Always when you
ask a demo group that started with the amiga demo scene why they went to
the pc scene you get the same answer : coding demos for amiga is too
easy...
Looking at the results of The Party 94 I saw that too many demos have GUS-
only support. This is very bad! Ok, I know that the GUS has very good
sound quality and coders prefer to do their player routines for GUS. The
question is : WHY do they do it? Maybe it's because it's easier to do a
player for GUS than for SB (but isn't difficulty a motivation for a real
coder?), but SB is a world standard. I know GUS is spreading out but it's
very difficult to find people with a GUS outside Europe, and I think here
in Brazil and in most parts of the world, SB (and its clones) are the
"default" sound board for all people.
All of you know that a demo without music is like orange juice without an
orange :-) So I ask all the coders around the world to at least keep SB
compatibility in their demos.. don't forget us poor SysOps and users that
only have a SB (or one of the many many SB compatible cards)...
Yes, I know that Creative Labs is making the life of all coders more
difficult by limiting the programming information about SB. I still have
no idea why they do this and I feel there is no good reason. This is a
point on which Gravis/Forte is very good. They at least give a lot of
programming information about their sound cards.
Hope I will can hear music in the next demos through my Sound Blaster!
Ok, it's my opinion...
GREETS to ALL !!!!
- WarmBooter cahcantu@pintado.ciagri.usp.br
.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,
<<Graphics>>
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
_____TP94 Graphics Competition Review
[This is a copy of an article Stony sent me last week which I forgot to
include in The Party 1994 special issue.]
(From the Party Place)
The Graphics Competition should have started at 02:00 on the 29th of
December but according to a message it was delayed until 02:30. This seems
ok to me, but... at 03:30 still nothing was shown on the screen so everyone
started to yell, clap their hands, and scream. Then at 03:40 it finally
was ready. A total of 150 pictures were submitted to the competition but
only 62 were selected to be shown. I think that its bit weird that not all
the delivered stuff can be shown because that is what a "competition" is
all about.
What I heard from most of the graphicians is that the more time you put in
a picture the nicer it will be. I have been working on mine for some hours
but I didn't have the time to make something spectacular out of it, I
didn't even have a nice background.
The organization has just now decided to show all delivered pictures.
Everybody should be satisfied now. Well, again it didn't work out because
the system has failed again. :(
A lot of pictures have been redrawn from existing artwork. Some of the
graphics are raytraced, others re-done from existing art, and still others
were re-released from Assembly '94 in this competition! This is a weird
assortment. Apparently, only 99 pics can be voted on because no allowance
was made for a higher number of pictures.
--- The Party '94 Graphics Competition Results ---
Nr. Name Group Points
1. Helgi Schneider................Peachy / Masque 239
2. AH. Self D.....................Ra / Sanity 202
3. Vampire........................Mirage / Bonzai 187
4. Self Portrait..................Dize / Silents DK 161
5. Digital Modelling..............Luma / P5 Crew 144
(In Retrospect)
It must have been really hard to come up with the final results because
most of the graphics were very good. As a result, the decision as to which
is best is really a matter of personal taste.
A lot of great pictures were shown, the best I have ever seen. I couldn't
manage to do a review on them, only having seen them once on the big
picture screen. However, as soon as I get all these pictures then I'll do a
review on them.
...Stony and Meriadoc
.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,
<<Advertisements>>
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
_____Advertisement 1 of 5
_____ _____ _____. ____________________ ______.__. ____ ____
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_____Advertisement 2 of 5
-- If anyone need in addresses of www sites or home pages, check out
my OMNi WWDC WWW Site http://www.cs.msu.su/~gong/ (topic 'Demoscene) or
http://www.cs.msu.su/~gong/demoscene/demolinks.html . Please, send
add/removal to gong@cs.msu.su .
--
Sire Gongofer.
_____Advertisement 3 of 5
ATTENTION .| ____/| /|______ /|______ ATTENTION
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p r o d u c t i o n s
Bass Productions, an American-based quality music group has been in
existence for a little less than a year. In that time, unfortunately, not
much has happened for or with the music group. Due to terrible local
standards, and only recent internet access, member growth and music
releasing has been low. We are looking for quality musicians with somewhere
to go. Unlike our "partner" group Epinicion Music, we are not seeking
inexperienced musicians nor do we want to gain 10 zillion members this month
alone ;). We simply are looking to improve our output and perhaps gain some
contacts along the way. We believe that we have some talent, and if you
would like to become part of this well-meaning organization, you can reach
me, or any member at the following :
Internet: mm@clark.net
BBS: Synthetic Amusement (WHQ) 410.795.8526
Snail Mail: (Kevin Schreiner)
Bass Productions
5209 Linton Road
Sykesville, Md
21784 USA
If you would like a sample of our work, you can always check HORNET,
SAM!, catch me on IRC (mm_bass), or email me and i can send you some.
-musicman . bass productions
_____Advertisement 4 of 5
_____ _ _
|' ___) |'|_ |'|_
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(___| |___|' _ |' . | |_|' _)___ |' __) |_____)
|_____)____|__|_|___)__| (__-_(--__)___)
- I - S - S - U - E - # - 1 -
Contrast issue #01 has been released! Check out ftp.eng.ufl.edu
(/demos/diskmags/p-ctrst1.zip & p-ctrst2.zip) for YOUR copy.
Comments, bug reports, improvements and suggestions should be mailed to:
mystical@inet.uni-c.dk
Some facts about Contrast:
* Nice design:)
* Runs in 640x480 16c
* Pictures included in the articles.
* Special "Gallery" section
* Supports GUS, SBP, PAS16.
* Demo/intro/game/utility chart
* Four tunes and silent mode - can be changed at ANY time.
_____Advertisement 5 of 5
__ \ | __| | _)
| | _` | _| _` | ( _ \ \ \ -_) _| _| | _ \ \
____/\__,_|\__\__,_| \___\___/_| _|_| _\___\__|\__|_\___/_| _|
RENAISSANCE WHQ, FUTURE CREW, LEGEND DESIGN, IGUANA, EMF, PRIME
-
Node 1: (703) 506-8598 - 16.8k HST DS v.32bis
Node 2: (703) 847-0861 - 28.8k HST DS v.34
-
Sysop: Ryan Cramer [Iguana/Renaissance]
Located in McLean, Virginia, USA
Online since 1990
-
.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,
<<Back Issues>>
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
_____How to Get 'em
After reading this issue of DemoNews, you may be wondering how you can get
previous ones. Well fear not! There are two different ways to do so:
1: FTP to hornet.eng.ufl.edu and go to /pub/msdos/demos/news/OLD_NEWS and
start downloading anything you see.
2: Now you can request back issues of DemoNews via e-mail. Start a letter
to listserver@oliver.sun.ac.za (any subject line) and in the body of the
letter include "GET DEMUAN-LIST <INDEX>" where INDEX refers to the
index number of the issue.
For example: GET DEMUAN-LIST 43
This would retrieve DemoNews #76 (part 1 of 2).
For more recent issues that are split into multiple parts, you must send
an individual request for each index number.
_____Descriptions
Issue Index Date Size Description
----- ----- -------- ------ ----------------------------------------------
74 37,38 12/11/94 77833 Interview with Vic/AcmE, Editorial: A Defense
of Demoscene, The Making of NAID / Apraxia,
Interview with C.C.Catch, Review of Scream
Tracker 3.2, Review of Autodesk Animator Pro.
75 41,42 12/18/94 68009 A DemoNews Reader, The Birth of Commercial
Life, Editorial: Calm Before the Storm,
Interview with Mello-D, US Demo Scene
(Renaissance meeting), Jelly Tots and Pizza
Shops, Review of Wired '94 Graphics.
76 43,44 12/25/94 92589 Interview with EMF, DemoNews Readers Write,
Kimba's Life Story, X-Mas in the Demo Scene,
CORE, Demo & Music Database, Interview with
Purple Motion/Future Crew, Interview with
Krystall/Astek, Common Sense ][ by Perisoft,
Its X-Mas in Africa, Interview with Maxwood
of Majic 12, Assembly Part ][, Common Sense
Response by Stony.
77 45,46 01/01/95 101100 Chart History, Snowman Near-Disaster, Son of
Snowman, The Party 1994, Making Waves, Using
Assembly Part 2.
78 47-49 01/08/95 111185 The Party 1994: Results and Reviews, Report
by Stony and Friends, What happened to PC-
Demo competition. Editorial: TP94 = ASM94
part 2. Egg2: Trancescrambled Review, More
on Fast Tracker 2.03. General Rambling by
Denthor.
.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,
<<Closing Comments>>
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
I have not been doing much independent reading so I have no quotes for this
week. However, I wanted to remind everyone to send me information on
demo-related BBS's and Nets for an upcoming issue of DemoNews.
Hope you enjoyed this small issue! :)
-Christopher G. Mann (Snowman)-
r3cgm@dax.cc.uakron.edu
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,End.of.DemoNews.079.
.... brought to you by Designer / FORCE-II ....
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