. _| : _____ ______________ |___| _ _______/ 11 /\___________________________ / ____________/ /\__\ _ _______/____/_____________________________ / / _________ \/__/ ______\ 11 \_____________________________ / / / `_ . .~ \____\/ _ __ ___ / / / _____ . _ \ __ ___ _/__/\ / / / / /\ _ __ __\__\/ _/__/ / ____/ /__\_________________________________ _____ ___ _ / 11 /\/ /___ __________ _ ______ _ ___ \/ /\ / 11 / /____/11\ \ / /\ / __/\ / /\ \ \ / \ /____/ / / \ / \/ /_ \___/___/ \ \_/___/ / \_/ / / \ ___\ / /_/ /______/\/ \ /______/\/ \ /_____/ // \ \ / / / \ / / \ \ \ \_\ \ \ \_\ \ //____/\____\/ / / / / / \______\/ \______\/ \_____\/ \ \ \ \ / / / / \____\/\____\ / / / / _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ / / / /__/ w /\___/ /\___/ e /\___/ /\__ / l /\___/ /\____/ / / __/____/____/____/____/____/____/____/____/____/____/____/________/ / __\ \____\ e \____\ \____\ k \ ___\ \____\ y \__________/ \____\/ \____\/ \____\/ \____\/ \____\/ \____\/WW ps: woa, a rendered askee! - TraxWeekly Issue #11 - 05/25/95 Release --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[ Introduction ]---------------------------------------------------------- _ _________________ /_\ \__ / (stoney askee) ____ ______ \____ ____/____________ ______ _/ \ _/ \ \ww_/ \ _/ ________/_/ _ \ __/ \/ \ \/ \/ \ / | \__ ___ ___ _______ _/ \\ \ \\ \\ | \\/ | \_ ___ __ __ ____ /___________\__\_______\________\____|______\____________\ \__\ Welcome to TraxWeekly #11! This week we have a very exciting issue for you. We have more exciting news about MC3 from Floss, an article about the IRC addiction we all suffer from by GraveDigger, an article by myself about collecting Tracker Music, a much welcome article by Big Jim who blew me away with his latest release "Foreign Skys", a very interesting survey done live on #trax by Charlatan, two interviews, both done by myself, with Perisoft, and followed by Beaner. The Trax Culture section makes another appearence, and we have a column from Perisoft about Defiance, and *two* Kosmic columns, one done by Maelcum himself, and other by Phoenix. All in all a excellent issue. Keep the Articles / Columns coming :) Before I let you go read the mag, please give a warm welcome to GraveDigger, who has come over from Hornet to write for us as a columnist. Anyone who has seen his work for Hornet will know why I am proud to have him on the team. TraxWeekly is on the World Wide Web! Officially, the official sites are: http://www.partek.fi/traxweek AND http://kosmic.wit.com/~kosmic/traxweek Partek is in Finland and Kosmic is in the US. So choose the URL nearest you. This page is maintained by Dragunov. TraxWeekly has an internet address to contact Populus or myself. It is: t-weekly@direktor.voima.jkl.fi .. Subscriptions are available now, and can be done in this matter: If you want to subscribe to TraxWeekly mail to: listserver@oliver.sun.ac.za And put in the message body: subscribe trax-weekly [your real name] If you want to unsubscribe to the list mail to the same address and write: unsubscribe trax-weekly TraxWeekly is also available on ftp.cdrom.com/demos/incoming/news/ or /demos/news/traxw/ - Popcorn campbell@fox.nstn.ca --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[ Contents ]-------------------------------------------------------------- ________ _________________________________________________________________ / ____/_/ __/ \ __/ / _____/ \ __/ __/ ___/_ \____\ \ \\ \ \\____ __/ __/_\ \ \\____ \_____ \__ \ \ \ \\ \ \ww\ \\ \\ \ \ \ \ \_ _\________\________\\___\____\ \_____\\_______\\___\____\ \_____\_______\ 1. Music Contest 3 update - Floss 2. IRC is a Drug - GraveDigger 3. How to enhance your music collection - Popcorn 4. The Importance of Samples - Big Jim 5. TraxSurvey - Charlatan 6. Interviews (Perisoft) (Beaner) 7. Trax Culture 8. Epinicion Column 9. Defiance Column 10. Kosmic Column #1 11. Kosmic Column #2 12. Distribution Sites --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[ 1. Music Contest 3 update ]--------------------------------------------- by Mental Floss (floss of KFMF) norg@cyberspace.com Greetings and salutations and stuff once again. This is the weekley update for MC3 that you're gonna have to live with. *grin* CHECK YOUR MAILBOXES! Chances are you've got an ID number in it. Unless you're a judge. I'll be sending out the judge numbers closer to the end of the contest when I have things grouped up. If you don't have a number, then chances are you have a message from me asking for that vital piece of information known as 'Song Format'. Keep it all coming in everyone, this is getting exciting. (: Up to the minute, this is the kind of turn out we have: Core Judges - 11 Entrant Judges - 10 Observer Judges - 4 (all from canada, what gives? (: ) Entries - 45 Thats almost double from last week. Keep them coming. Ok, time to address another issue that keeps getting thrown my way. The GUS only judging. There are a few reasons for it. Mainly, because the player that the judges will be using supports only GUS. Most people will agree that, more or less, the GUS is one of the more main standards of the music/demo scene. I've talked to a lot of people about this, and that is the general concensus I've been able to come up with. In any case, the policies have no plans on being changed. This has nothing to do with ENTERING the contest. You can enter the contest using a PC Squeaker if you so desire. But the judges need to have Gravis Ultrasound Cards with at least 512K DRam available. Oh, one more thing. Please don't shout at me in email. If I want to get shouted at, I'll go downstairs and say 'Hello' to my mother. (: This is kinda late, I just got done with all my finals and barely passed my classes by the skin of my teeth. As karl-*.* said on irc, "skoolio first, music later dood." ... And with those words of wisdom, I'm here to answer all questions, only this time I'm REALLY here. (: Good luck everyone, and don't hesitate to ask me any questions. I can be reached at norg@cyberspace.com . Caps! Argh! No! Evil! -= Floss =- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[2. IRC is a Drug ]-------------------------------------------------------- [IRC is a Drug] by GraveDigger gd@ftp.cdrom.com Hello. This week, I am going to write about something which all of us share. It is a very dangerous thing to take part in, and all of the affected persons should seek to find a way to rid their lives of this tragic condition. I'm talking about addiction to IRC. This is TraxWeekly, a weekly magazine for musicians and others who hang out on #trax, an IRC channel. In effect, this magazine could be a vehicle to lead others into this horrible addiction. Ok, enough of the boring-stuff-that-we- know-already introduction. In several ways, using IRC is just like using an illegal drug. How so? 1 - It is very addictive. 2 - It's effects are unknown and uncontrollable, once the user is exposed. 3 - The user's experiences with it will change with every usage. 4 - The duration of its effects is unknown. 5 - It has been known to cause many people to do poorly in school. 6 - It's always there waiting for you, and you can't avoid it. 7 - Rich assholes try to sell it to you. Now, read the above list, thinking about something like cocaine or heroin. See the connections? Phear! Now that we have established the fact that IRC is addictive, we should try to figure out WHY it is addictive. Please read the below quotes taken from #trax: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA what's a trax? MY MOM HITZ THE HARD LIQERZ Then what's #trax like? you bitch! come back! I AM CORNHOLIO lesbian b00m b00m good, endless lesbian b00m b00m, VERY good I think you can see why we all come back for more. Now, just because you can tell why it is addictive, you can't be sure that you are in fact addicted. Please refer to this list to see if you suffer from misuse or overuse of IRC: 1 - You have nightmares of some guy named Hadji who laughs like a hyena. 2 - You explain that the correct spelling of the word is actually "baygle." 3 - You have recurring voices in your head that say things like "I like to move it move it" and "I am not an atomic playboy." 4 - You refuse any of the following in exchange for IRC: food, drink, use of bathroom, use of shower, change of clothes, and/or steady relationships. 5 - You have nightmares in which people bonk you with plastic hammers, fish, and toothbrushes. Here are some possible cures for this addiction: 1 - Get ops, then deop everyone. When someone else gets ops back, they will surely bankick you. 2 - Stop paying for your Internet access, if you are a paying user. 3 - Write nasty email to your system administrator, and they will most likely delete your account. 4 - Develop Arthritis or carpal Tunnel Syndrome so that it hurts to type. As you know, typing is essential to communication on IRC. 5 - While on #trax, also join channels #ansi, #goatrape (hello sirrus =), #animalsex, and #incest. You'll surely grow sick of it sooner or later. I'm sure that you will try some, if not all of these methods if in fact you are addicted to IRC. IRC is our world and #trax is our city. We have created a community which we can maintain if we choose, or wipe out in a matter of seconds. Such a fragile community is one to be proud of because of the fact that it has existed for quite a long time. A few years, at least, and much before my time on IRC. Beware of the IRC addiction... [Thanks to all who contributed to this article in one way or another.] (= ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[3. How to enhance your music collection ]--------------------------------- -How to enhance your music collection- by: Popcorn [TraxWeekly Editor / Hornet / Epi] (campbell@fox.nstn.ca) The first time I heard the term "Tracker Music" was about 3 years ago. At that time, I had nothing more than the PC Speaker on my 286. I was one of the first people to get a CD-ROM drive, and with it I also recieved Night Owl 4. After I had played everything in the Games directory, I stumbled across about 20MB of these .MOD files in the music directory. I copied a few of them onto my 40MB Hard Drive, and configured a .MOD player whose name I can't remember for PC-Speaker. I thought they were quite cool, but after I had played all 20MB and kept a few on my Hard Disk I didn't think much else of it. 2 years later, on my 15th birthday, I bought a modem and a Gravis Ultrasound. A few months later, someone uploaded Chaotic Mind and Nothing On to a local BBS, that is when I got really interested in the PC Music Scene. For the next months, I was quite happy downloading anything I could find off the Night Owl CD's the sysop of my local BBS brought in, but I found most of it wasn't up to the quality of the music disks I had downloaded earlier. December 15th, 1994 I got on the internet, now as of May 22nd, 1995 I have over 200MB of tracker music, most of it downloaded from the Internet, so I believe I can help out any newcomers wondering how to start a collection, as well as people who already have a collection of Tracker music and want to add to it - Here is what I suggest: ftp.mpoli.fi ------------ /starport/music/audiomon - MODs by Audio Monster /starport/music/heatbeat - MODs by Heatbeat /starport/music/noise - MODs by Jogeir Liljedahl kosmic.wit.com -------------- /kosmic/songs/ - All the music ever released from Kosmic Free Music Foundation. Releases from Kosmic are typically of very high quality, download everything if you can. netnet2.netnet.net ------------------ /pub/aminet/mods - this is the aminet Tracker Archive, all files are compresses with LHA, and there are a lot of them. The file index alone is over 200k! The modules are orginized into specific directories such as /jazz, /rock, /pop, /chip, etc. The quality of many of the files are amazing, so download whatever style of music interests you. I especially reccomend anything from Chorus & Sid in the /rock directory. ftp.cdrom.com ------------- /pub/demos/music/disks/classic - Everything in this directory is a must- get, including Chaotic Mind and Nothing On mentioned above. /pub/demos/music/songs/ - Large archive of Tracker Music, indexed by format. Most of the files have been rated by Hornet in the late issues of demonews and 01Files. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[4. The Importance of Samples ]-------------------------------------------- The Importance of Samples - Big Jim / Valhalla / FM ------------------------- ----------------------- I've been wanting to get round to writing an article for TraxWeekly for quite a while, but I couldn't think of anything that I felt strongly enough on to write about. Well, I finally thought of something, so when Populus announced on IRC just now, that TraxWeekly was short of articles I decided to just sit down and write it. Apparently I've only got about an hour to do this so here goes... Samples, are in my opinion, the most important part of any module. You can have the greatest progressions and melodies ever written, but if your samples sound bad, then it makes the whole module sound like shit (am I allowed to say that, if not edit it). It is very important, when writing a mod to choose samples which work well together. You could have 2 samples which sound great individually, but when you put them together they grind against each other and just create a noisy mess. It is for this reason, that it sets alarm bells off in my head when I see a mod, where a composer has taken a whole instrument set from another mod and simply re-written the patterns. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against sample ripping - indeed, I do it myself fequently. I, like many other mod composers have very little resources to make my own samples. Personally, I just have a guitar and a tape player, not even a CD player! However, I have never and would never use a whole instrument set from another composer and use it in my own composition. Choosing, the samples to use is a part of mod composition. Like it or not, you can't just allocate instruments like you would in 'real music' and then just give them the notes to play, you actually have to find the instruments yourself. Ripping a whole instrument list is not just like ripping individual samples. it is not only the sounds which you are copying, but is the orchestration of the original composer too. Also, by doing this it becomes a lot harder to actually write an original work, as it is impossible not to be influenced by the memory of the original piece if you are using the same instrument list. So, to anyone who is now thinking 'Where the hell do the samples for my next song come from?' I have the following tips: * If you are going to rip samples, save them out individually and build up an instrument library. Never EVER simply load a module, delete all the pattern data and then start to compose. * Try and get hold of samples from ftp sites. Hornet now has a directory just for samples and there are many sites with a good range of samples on. * Do try and sample as much as you can yourself. Samples can come from all over, you don't need expensive synths or cd's to make great samples. You may not be able to create all the samples you use in a mod yourself, but if you have some of your own then it makes the tune a lot more personal. Having stated that last point I can now hear crys of 'Hypocrite!' coming from several readers out there :) I admit, that making my own samples is a practice that I have only recently adopted. I used to find it a hinderence to make my own samples, and I just wanted to get into the tracker and get a tune down. I recall a brief conversation on IRC a couple of months ago. There were 3 people involved, I was one but I cant remeber who the other 2 were so I'll call them X and Y :) it went something like this : X > BigJim: Your tunes are OK, but you should get creative. Y > X: What??? Big Jim is one of the most creative muciians on the scene. BigJim> Y: hehe - Thanks :) BigJim> X: How do you mean get creative? X > Get creative, like make your own samples. BigJim> X: And what am I supposed to make them with? I dont have a Cd player or a synth. X > So sample what you can. ... and so it digressed from there. At the time I agreed with Y (well, who wouldn't :) But now I realise that X was right : Last week I released a mod called fm-skys.zip. For me it was two firsts, my first release for FM, but also the first tune I ever wrote where all of the samples I used were my own. After I finished the mod I experienced a feeling of achievement that I had not experienced after completeing any of my other mods. I thought to myself 'I did ALL of that. From scratch.' Ok, so not everyone is lucky enough to have a guitar to sample from, but even doing one sample, from tape and using it makes a mod feel more like 'your own work'. Keep tracking. Big Jim [Valhalla / FM] j.e.storer@bradford.ac.uk ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[5. TraxSurvey ]----------------------------------------------------------- TraxSurvey! (Wednesday, May 24, 1995) ------------------------------------- Here's a little survey I did on the IRC channel #trax on Wednesday at around 7:30pm. It's not an accurate poll, but it gives you an idea of what people think about different things. If you liked this survey, let me know and I'll try to do more things like this. Also, if you see your name up here, don't be offended, it's just for fun. :) (You expect a _#trax_ survey to be _serious_?!) Charlatan / Epinicion (deslip3@server.uwindsor.ca) Question #1: Which tracker do you use? Scream Tracker 3........5 FastTracker 2...........5 MultiTracker............1 KingMOD.................1 MODEdit.................1 Question #2: Which player is the best? Cubic Player............5 Capamod.................2 DMP 3...................1 DMP 4...................1 MikMOD..................1 MOD4Windows.............1 Question #3: Who is the best composer? Necros..................4 (#trax users love Necros!) Barney The Bear.........1 Big Jim.................1 C.C. Catch..............1 Heatbeat................1 Lizardking..............1 Maelcum.................1 Maral...................1 Skaven..................1 Question #4: Who is your favourite music group? Aphex Twin..............2 Beastie Boys............1 Dead Can Dance..........1 The Doors...............1 Erasure.................1 Front 242...............1 Led Zeppelin............1 Morphine................1 Partridge Family........1 Pink Floyd..............1 The Prodigy.............1 Run DMC.................1 Van Halen...............1 Question #5: Who is the best girl in the scene? Miss Saigon.............6 Jak.....................2 Balrog..................1 Gore's Sister...........1 ior.....................1 Laserlore...............1 Miss Saigon's Mom.......1 WintaRose...............1 Question #6: What's the most annoying sample you've ever heard or used? "Rave sirens" "'Bugs in my Head' samples from Necros" "Indian samples from Necros" "'turlululuuuutrluuluuu' sample in Charlatan's PABLO.S3M" "'I am not an atomic playboy'" "The voice samples from 'I will love you'" (?) "'I am not Gore'" (?!) "Anything in any one of Hadji's tunes" "An EXE file" "Ahhhhhh Spoton! from COOKIT.MOD" (??!!) "Nasty distorted guitar in some forgotten MOD" "That one pan.jungle.everyone.has.used.flute!" Question #7: What is the one song you never want to hear again? Any NiteWynd Song.......2 AXELF.MOD...............2 POPCORN.MOD.............2 EXPER8.MOD..............1 MOVE_IT.MOD.............1 MODEM.MOD...............1 THESIGN.MOD.............1 2 Unlimited songs.......1 "Any Basehead song that's 200 orders, yet only about 10 patterns!" - FA Question #8: Who is the most annoying #trax user? Hadji...................6 (Khyron says, "that's what makes him cool!") Krystall................1 (Nah, I don't think so.) NiteWynd................1 (Well... maybe!) Question #9: Who is the coolest person to talk to on #trax? Maelcum.................2 Big Jim.................1 ior.....................1 lb's mom................1 (What's her nick?) Miss Saigon.............1 Mute....................1 Naali...................1 Necros..................1 Psi.....................1 Snowman.................1 U4ia....................1 Zodiak..................1 Question #10: Who is the best looking person on #trax? Miss Saigon.............3 Basehead................1 Charlatan...............1 (Someone actually likes me :)) Psi.....................1 A lot of people were afraid to answer the last question. I wonder why? :) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[ 6. Interviews ]--------------------------------------------------------- . . . .. ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ___ ___.___________ ________ . _______ / \ _______ :___| ___\__.___ _ /________\_____ | _. _\______/_ \ /______ __\ . / \ / ____/ __ ____/ |__:___. _ _ _____/ \ /_______ . | . / \/ _/ \ | /. |/ __/ (- -) /__ \WW : | ./ \ \ . \ : / . | \ oO / \ | | \ ._________\ \ : \ . / . | O \ / |___|____\ /. /__________\ |______\ /___._|_______/_/\__/________\/ \/ . /______| \ / . . \/ . =============.=================================.======================== . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... .. . . . . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -[ Interview with Perisoft ]- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Here's an interview with the new Defiance president, Perisoft, no time to write a long intro, must release TraxWeekly :) Interviewer . Popcorn [TraxWeekly] . campbell@fox.nstn.ca Interviewee . Perisoft [Defiance] . ew23@cornell.edu - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - popcorn - What is your real name, age, group affils, occupation, and *obsession*? :) Perisoft - Bond.. james bond.. just kidding :) David Wiernicki, 16.417, I'm in epinicion for some reason, Interamnia and of course DEFIANCE... which I run.. I do some ASM embedded systems coding for my dad, who pays 1/10th the going rate :) and my obsession is SV!! who rules. :) popcorn - How did you get interested in the PC Music scene? Perisoft - Actually, it's rather amazing.. I got my net connection and spend a good 4 days hanging out in #3dland where some mac guys were trying to make a 3d engine.. :) then I found #gfx on the 1 time it happened to have somebody in it-- oman, as I remember -- and he directed me to #coders.. from there I did the standard bumbling about "Who's FC?" right during ASM94 :) and found #trax somehow.. I wrote my 1st track in september of 94, and have been hooked since.. :) popcorn - What kind of computer do you have? Perisoft - I got me a ruling 486/DX40 VLB with 2 14" monitors (1 to run the 6" projection lens for my 6 foot big screen :D) a 262 meg hard drive, 4 megs of ram (email me for my address to send more to :)) and a GUS with 1024k that thinks it has 512. popcorn - How do you go about composing a tune? Perisoft - Well, there are a couple of possibilities depending on what style I'm doing.. usually for my more conventional songs I download some poor bastard's song, listen to it, play around with the samps a bit in the sample screen of ST3.21, get a neato melody, clear the song, and start writing.. I'm not very structured.. I just write away until I hit a mental block or 30 patterns, whichever comes 1st.. :) This used to cause a lot or repetiton in my songs (IE pre 'flight') but that's not so bad now, I think. The other possibility is that I just got freaked about something, usually SV these days :) and I get out my three of four standby samps (1) FC SINER FROM PANIC (2) FILTER SYNTH (3) LEAD FROM "Insideout" and write until my brain fries.. if it hasn't already. I've written about 10 songs the past 2 weeks like this.. This for me is the purest expression of music.. but ppl don't like it so much.. :) popcorn - How did your joining of Defiance come about and how did you become group persident? Perisoft - Well, I was hanging out on IRC one night in early december when this "Zer0" snot messaged me about joining defiance ;) My 1st reaction was "WHY ME?!" but he seemed to want me, so I joined and became an exalted cofounder.. :) I went along writing songs, and then Zer0 got tired and left defi.. lowrider took over, but then got some personal problems.. so he left, and as he did I was on IRC.. he said "hey.. u wanna be president?" "Yeah.." and that was it. :) Worse than latin america. ;) The trouble was, half of defi left after zer0 did, so I'm right now building it up from 4 or so members. popcorn - How did you ever manage to stir up so much contraversy over Basehead's tune? Perisoft - Well.. for one I like to express my opinion in no uncertain terms.. :) So when I heard his song (or mostly his song anyway :)) I felt I wanted to air it out.. and besides, I love a good fight! I based my article on what I saw in the crediting in the song-- I didn't realize he reworked the sax samps at the time. If he'd actually talked to me instead of kickbanning me and calling me things like "anal retentive" for half an hour, I might have been able to get this info sooner.. :) Perhaps when I do this it's more of a way to shock people into thinking-- to make sure we don't get complacent about the way we think of famous people or the way we deal with dissenters. I think it needs to happen once in a while... popcorn - Do you have any experience with music outside of the computer music scene? Perisoft - Yeah, some.. I've played the violin for 8 or so years (yeah, my arms are getting really tired by now! ;D) and I've occasionally beaten on pianos-- but never got a chance to do any composition till ST3.. I have no music theory, I don't really know any notes, I don't know anything about key signatures.. but that's what's nice about computers. You don't need that stuff-- in my opinion it's an archaic remenant of past inadequacies of composition.. popcorn - What are your musical influences? Whose music do you admire/emulate? Perisoft - HMm.. That's a tough one. I admire the music of Beetoven, Hayden, Mozart.. but I don't think I emulate anybody. At least not when I'm really writing music for myself-- with my three standard samples. :) Paranoia was a deliberate attempt to be "Purple Motioney" -- Arbitrary, which I uploaded to hornet a couple of days ago, is a realistic song somewhat in a standard basehead style, but still not much. I don't really think I emulate anybody all the time, and not at all when I'm at my best. popcorn - What are your favorite composers(tracker), why? Perisoft - Hmm.. I'd say that Ryan Cramer, Necros, Ranger Rick, Phoenix and Liam the Lemming are my favorite trackers.. I like RC's music because it's professional, smooth, and ambient.. Necros is nice because you get both "December" and "Bugs in my head" from him :) Ranger Rick has awesome sample offsets and whacked out rhythmic melodies, phoenix (synaesthasia.. :>) makes my head spin :) and Liam the Lemming is a Purple Motion that actually writes music! :) popcorn - What are your favorite non-computer bands? Perisoft - What? They exist? :) Umm.. I haven't heard many.. but of what I have heard, non-classical, I like the guitar music of Leo Kottke, Beau Soleil.. not many others. I've heard some Counting Crows stuff on the radio in schoo, and it's not too bad.. :) popcorn - What's your best song ever? Perisoft - Phh.. that's tough to answer. Technically and balance-wise, I'd say Continuity-- my NAID entry-- but as far as expressing myself and "telling" the listener how I feel, any of my recent "stream of conciousness" songs will do-- Filtration, Red, Newer, Strife, Brain Dead, Deterioration-- those I've written the past couple of weeks-- not released yet-- and there are probably 5 more like that. As far as nice melodies go, I really like Brain Density, Guilty, and Swig.. and I like Sideswipes for being a cool song with a rhythm.. It depends on what mood I'm in. :) popcorn - What are your plans for the future? Perisoft - I've thought about revolting and making a better government for the US, but the counselors don't like that idea. So probably I'm just gonna go to college, study Computer Science, and be a professor. Or maybe I won't.. maybe I'll move to the bahamas and write lewd novels. Who knows.. :) popcorn - Thanks for the interview Perisoft! Any last words? Perisoft - I'm innocent! You hang an honest, hard working man-- and may this false execution cover your minds for ever!!! ;) Sorry, I had to do it. :> Guess I'd like to send greets to *SV*, lb, miss saigon, defiance, bigjim, and everybody else who hates my guts.. ;) Adioz! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -[ Interview with Beaner ]- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Next up is an interview with Beaner, a really cool dude, and a friend :) Interviewer . Popcorn [TraxWeekly] . campbell@fox.nstn.ca Interviewee . Beaner [ACiD/Epi] . beaner@netaxs.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - popcorn - What is your real name, age, group affils, and occupation? beaner - my name's sean cummins, and i'm 16 years old. i'm in acid, infiniti 2001, cia, and epinicion. i have 2 jobs - i'm a computer engineer at PDC Services, INC, the 2nd largest VAR (value added reseller) of Sun Microsystems. I'm also the tech guy for my township - i spend most of my time at PDC though. popcorn - How long have you been on #trax? beaner - well, i first was on about a month after i started tracking, so i've been on #trax for a little less than a year. popcorn - How did you get interested in the PC Music scene? beaner - I was always a fan of those old 4-channel pc mods (why, i don't really know), and I always wanted to make some of my own, but I hadn't the slightest idea how to do it. one day i was looking around on some local bbs, and i saw something called "kingmod", and the description said something about "write your own mods" or something like that, so i picked it up and tracked one of the songs of the band i was in at the time. i tracked a few songs in kingmod, and then i found out about these 16-channel s3m things, and i couldn't imagine having 16 entire channels to write music.. but i couldn't find st3.. :P.. i found modedit though, and used that for a while.. after about a month i saw some post on another bbs i was on about st3, and i asked the guy where to get it.. he referred me to a board in virginia, and i found it.. uh.. and i've just been composing ever since.. oh yeah - and i was in an ansi group called REM, which had a great music division organised by Nemesis, and that really influenced me a lot to continue tracking. popcorn - How did you get involved with ACiD? beaner - Well, i've known pinion for quite some time now (acid music coord), and every once in a while he'd come on irc.. he'd usually ask me if i had any new music, and i'd send him some.. last time he came on i sent him mirage, one of my best s3ms, and he emailed me, asking me if i wanted to join acid.. i accepted, obviously =) popcorn - How's the ACiD music disk coming along? Which musicians will be participating? beaner - Pretty well - its almost finished. FU is coding a great musicdisk player (gfx by cat), which is still in the beta stages. its really nice right now though. from what i hear, the disk should be out pretty soon. the musicians who are going to be in it (as far as i know) are pinion, rimbo, psibelius, pianoman, basehead, and me. popcorn - What kind of computer do you have? beaner - right now i'm on an NEC Ready 486DX/33 with 4 megs of RAM and about 170megs of HD Space (dblspaced :P). I'm getting a P-75 w/ 8 megs RAM and 800megs HD Space pretty soon. I also work on Sun Sparcs at work, and a compaq 486dx2/66 pc. popcorn - How do you go about composing a tune? beaner - Well, it would take me quite a while to explain this one.. basically, i >NEED< new samples to do anything, because without new samples, i have absolutely NO creativity. Its just a mind block thing =). I usually lay out the drums first, then the chord progression, then any little thingies i want in there (uh.. i guess =]), then the lead.. there's a lot more to it, but i don't have the time to explain =) popcorn - Do you have any experience with music outside of the computer music scene? beaner - yeah, i played piano for 6 years, and played clarinet :P for 1 year, and bass for 1 1/2 years. I also have a background in musical theory, most of it coming from my bass lessons. popcorn - What are your musical influences? Whose music do you admire/emulate? beaner - well, i'm influenced by a lot of tracker-people. I try to have a mixed style, and most of my stuff is pretty original.. at least i try to make it original. but I guess my main influences are Nemesis, Khyron, Parity Error, Necros, Dizzy, Basehead, and a lot of other people =) popcorn - What are your favorite composers(tracker), why? beaner - I use Scream Tracker 3.21b, just because I'm so used to it. I've tried Fast Tracker 2, but i just can't seem to get comfortable with the interface. popcorn - What are your favorite non-computer bands? beaner - well, i like all sorts of stuff. Right now i'm listening to rage against the machine. I like Curve, the tragically hip, white zombie, danzig, my bloody valentine, dinosaur junior, and a lot more.. =) popcorn - What's your best song ever? beaner - well, i tend to like the song that i'm currently working on the best, but i've gotten the most email from "battle of the fireflies" and from "mirage". popcorn - What are your plans for the future? beaner - I'd like to continue working at PDC, and see where I go from there. I'm not too sure about college yet. I'll still be tracking in the music scene as a hobby, most likely. popcorn - Any last words? beaner - Hmmm.. nope, not really =) thanks for the interview though.. latahs! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[ 7. TraxCulture ]---------------------------------------------------------- With not much going on in #trax last Sunday, a newcomer wandered in and we decided to play a small joke on him. The result was quite hilarious :) *** olympia has joined #trax hey dudes.. hmm where is everyone? *** HeatWave has joined #trax whaadup hey heat whats up? n'much, jis chillin and settin up some ppp servers cool I'm new to the net so I really dont know much.. :) kinda confusing...:) hehe, know whatcha mean hey do you know any telnet sites? olympia: 127.0.0.1 uh... :) just the kinda question you DONT ask olympia: That one has tons of warez =) oh yeah thats a GREAT site! try it sereously or someone dickin me around? huh? <_Axl> pop: you wasn't supposed to spread that site...!! seriously what? olympia: erm, no dude, we are just trying to help ya out yeah pop! geez! axl: I know but olympia looks kind of cool... Is that a real site? yeah try it *** olympia has left #trax ehahahahahah! hahahahahahhaa sheeesh cant take a joke can he - O ] \___/ U <_Axl> h0h0h0h... :) werd we're so mean ;) * _Axl notice that the whole #trax is laughing :) *** olympia has joined #trax not funny...:) how was it? cool site eh? :) didnt work...:) oh! you need linux you're missin out whats that? uh... :) uh... hhmm.. mmmm <_Axl> HW: nope-- olympia here is running WSIRC... hehheeh WSIRC! OH NO! NOT *WSIRC*! ya I got it from someone, anything better to offer... splatterkick ne1? olympia: MIRC * HeatWave looks in the dictionary and thinks of what to do to ... Hmm... flock.. flow.. flog.. ahh here it is, flood. where do I get that? * HeatWave looks again... Hmm... kiblah.. kibosh.. ahh here it is, kick. oops :) eheh pphheww dumb script heat wave what are you trying to do? dont mind my script its going nuts a bit ... :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[8. Epinicion Column]------------------------------------------------------ ___ _______ _____________ ______ ______ _______ ______ _______ ___________ | // \\ \\_____) \\_____) \\_____) \\ \\ | : / o \ o \ \ \ \ \ \ o \ \: // _____// / \ : / \ _____/ \ / : \. \\_______/ _//______\\_|__//______\\_____//______\\_____//____| /: : \\____\\ ______________________________ oT /___//| |________________________// e p i n i c i o n \\________________| New songs this week include "Generic Ravey Muzak" and "Grim is Dead" by Mute, and "Pioneers of the Sky" by Roland. New members flooded my mailbox last week, and these are the last few from all the messages I cleared out: We have Airon, b0bby (of Mazurka), and Mr.Fix-It joining the Epinicion family! Be sure to watch for the 'Otherness' Musicdisk being released on June 1st! Most songs currently submitted are being placed into the disk. Also, guests wanting to release their work in 'Otherness' are welcome. Please send all songs via filemail/uuencode to gwie@coyote.csusm.edu or find me in IRC and DCC your song to me. Also, we need art for the musicdisk. If you can draw a few ansi interface screens or a vga logo for us, please mail me at the address below. All help is appreciated. Epinicion releases as well as new work from numerous other groups can be found at ftp.cdrom.com /pub/demos/incoming/music. Our musicdisk(s) can be found at kosmic.wit.com /kosmic/epinicion. But as always, it is easiest to DCC this week's new files from us on IRC. Be sure to check out our new (and very underdeveloped =) world wide web homepage! Using Netscape or some other equivalent, http://www.csusm.edu/public/gwie/epi.html. To those thinking of joining Epinicion, or wanting to know more about our philosophy: You need not be great to join Epinicion. You need only to aspire to be great. I quote from "Synners," a novel by P. Cadigan: "We do what we do and we do it because we can." Damn straight. If you are a dedicated person striving to become better, then email us. And join us. We're here for YOU, the musician. So if you think you have what it takes, don't bother waiting. Join Epinicion NOW. Psibelius (Gene Wie) Epinicion Founder gwie@coyote.csusm.edu ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[ 9. Defiance Colomn ]------------------------------------------------------ .----..-----.-----.--.-----.-----.-----.-----. ..defiance music.. | . | . | . | | . | . | . | . | ...productions 95... | | | | | |__|--: | | | | |__| | | | | | | | |__| __| | . | | | | | |__|_ _ : : |_____:_____:__| |__|__|__:__| |_____:______ _ . . _______________________________ : : ________________________________________ Spiffy Ascii Artwork provided by Cerulean/Defiance HEre it is!! A DEFIANCE COLUMN!! WE EXIST! IT'S RUEIO@#kl;ASd Sorry. :> Well, sup with defi? Aside from releasing tons of songs, we hopefully will be gaining some new members soon-- and ANyONE can apply! We're open.. :> Aside from that, just the normal crap of making music. :) Not that the music is crap of course. :) And also in a month we should be releasing a musicdisk-- so watch out EGG ]I[! ;) Any1 wanting to contact defi for any reason, to join, to complain or to compliment, or maybe to give us credit card numbers :) email ew23@cornell.edu.. -Adioz! And remember, SV RULES! <-- populus, delete & die ;) -=-=-=-=-=-=:|O PERISOFT OF DEFIANCE O|:=-=-=-=-=-=- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[ 10. Kosmic Column #1 ]-------------------------------------------------- . . .:.........:.. ... . + _:_______ : . + . . \ /__:__ . . . + . .:::. . \ / / . ... ... ````` ...... / _/ ___/_____________.__...:::::::.:::::::. ::::: .:::::'''' + / \ \ _ \ ___.::::::: :::: :::::: .::::: :::::: / /\ \__\_\ \____ \ `::::: :::; :::::'.::::::.::::::. ..:. . /_____/ \_____________________\..::::; ``` :::::::::::::;:::::::::::::; : : \ \___.._ ......:;:::: __ _ ``:::::::``` ```:::::::`` : : \___..__.. .::::::::::: __._ . . . (WW) . . .:............ .. . ``````` .+ . . : : + ... .... ...... a constellation of stars! Kosmic news for this week, or something like that. Holy Batman movies coming soon to a theatre near you, the Kosmic column is actually being written by me for the first time since the only other time I can recall doing it. I'll try to capitalize things that should be capitalized and what not and make this entertaining. I'm supposed to have written an article on writing music for games and all that kind of crud this week for Trax Weekly but instead I'm going to keep my secrets to myself and hog all the riches, profits and fame for myself. It's more fun that way. Besides, the only thing that needs to be said about writing music for games is, don't do it if you enjoy writing music, because doing something you like to do and getting paid for it is the easiest way to make it something you don't like to do. And now, some kind of large, apparently vicious and stinging bug is flying about my room. It's 5:19am in the morning, so you'll just have to say "tough noogies" and bear with my stream of (un)consciousness style of writing here. Well, let's see. What has happened in Kosmic this past week? Not a whole lot. No new members, and if you think you want to be in Kosmic, tough noogies. On to the releases: I believe these were the releases since last issue of Trax Weekly: 61 Worldwide Slack .......... ChuckB ........ 16 .S3M - 6m:29s -6/132- 5/18/95 (K-SLACK.ZIP) - Progressive acid-house by Chuck Biscuits. 62 strange turn ............. theHacker ...... 8 .MTM - 5m:21s -6/096- 5/19/95 (K_TURN.ZIP) - its bizarre quality has rendered me unable to describe it 63 Death From Above ......... Maelcum ....... 12 .MTM - 3m:30s -6/137- 5/21/95 (K_DEATH.ZIP) - techno/house quickie tune by Maelcum 64 Supertron (flight mix) ... Maelcum ....... 16 .MTM - 4m:15s -6/132- 5/24/95 (K_STRON.ZIP) - original MTM version of the first song from "Flight". the numbers of course mean things like "61st release of the year", "title", "author of this song", "X channel BLAH format, X minutes XX seconds long, tempo/bpm speed, date of release or thereabouts" "filename of the archive of this song", "description written by an overly enthused fearless leader of said group" and other assorted hogwash. You can of course get all these releases from our FTP site, kosmic.wit.com, where they are all found in kosmic/songs/95/ - also of course you can use the Whirled and Wide Web to get to us at: http://kosmic.wit.com/~kosmic/ Speaking of that ridiculous thing called a World-Wide Web site which I spend entirely way too much of my time working on, I'm currently working on a new upgrade to the whole thing, which will soon feature three separate versions: 1) a boring, but extremely fast to access, text-only version of all pages 2) a graphical version exactly like that which is currently there 3) a totally ridiculous image-mapped to hell new look designed to crash the whole site by hogging up all the bandwith in the state of Wisconsin. Also, there's sure to be a simple-graphics version before too long which will accomodate non-NetScape browsers and people using things like monochrome VGA adapters, which tend to make colors hard to discern on something like our current WWW home page with it's 38k psychedelic blotter paper background. And we're going to try adding some wunderbar programming which will automatically create up-to-date HTML-ized databases of all Kosmic releases, sort of like what you can see now under the WWW access to 1994 files html-ized by Mental Floss on a day when he must have been particularly bored. And, hopefully coming soon, is KOSMOS. Kosmos will be the k-rad answer to Yahoo. Kosmos will be a realtime-updatable database of WWW, Gopher and FTP sites, E-mail addresses and everything else on the Net. My conceptual goal for this thingie is to make it sort of like a phone book of the internet, in the sense of having a White Pages of email addresses, and a Yellow Pages of sites, but of course not using those geeky metaphors. This is an overly-cliched and done thing, yes, but I think we can put an interesting twist on it by making it possible for anyone to add info to it at any time, instead of waiting nine days for someone to get around to adding it! Stay tuned about this. And now it's time for the Maelcum is quite poor and starving and feeling rather depressed because he and IQ spent alot of time, effort and money creating their first CD, and it came out really really nice, and yet to date it has sold a whopping 13 copies in the US and Canada. In order to break even, and pay back a rather big $2200+ USD loan Riku had to take out to finance this thing, we've got to sell at least *152* more CDs. If you'd like more info on the CD, you can email me and I'll send the Area 51 Records CD and tape catalog to you, or you can get it via ftp: ftp://kosmic.wit.com/kosmic/area51/area51.txt or on the WWW look around on the still under construction Area 51 WWW site: http://kosmic.wit.com/~kosmic/areawww/area51.html EGG 3, "Feeling Groovy" is still in the works and still needs more music! Email me if you have some! And I can't think of anything more to talk about, although ten minutes ago I was sure I had lots more to say, so I think that's the end of this week's extremely poorly formatted Kosmic column. - Maelcum [Kosmic and also Epinicion, Underground Gabber Squad] +1-908-687-3479 to wake me up in the middle of the day dan@bepcp.reedref.com -and/or- moddan@ritz.mordor.com for email. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[ 11. Kosmic Column #2 ]-------------------------------------------------- Yawn, another week gone by, and Kosmic continues to exist. No exciting member changes, although K8to is considering a name change. Piromaniak came back from nowhere, we may even see a new release from him in the future. And Lord Pegasus will be taking a break, how long, I don't know. Releases this week: 61 Worldwide Slack .......... ChuckB ........ 16 .S3M - 6m:29s -6/132- 5/18/95 (K-SLACK.ZIP) - Progressive acid-house by Chuck Biscuits. 62 strange turn ............. theHacker ...... 8 .MTM - 5m:21s -6/096- 5/19/95 (K_TURN.ZIP) - its bizarre quality has rendered me unable to describe it 63 Death From Above ......... Maelcum ....... 12 .MTM - 3m:30s -6/137- 5/21/95 (K_DEATH.ZIP) - techno/house quickie tune by Maelcum 64 Supertron (flight mix) ... Maelcum ....... 16 .MTM - 4m:15s -6/132- 5/24/95 (K_STRON.ZIP) - original MTM version of the first song from "Flight". Coming attractions: A joint tune from me (Phoenix) and theHacker. Once again, anyone who wants to make a high-caliber four-channel song (MOD/S3M) or has one unreleased, why not contribute it to 4-Play, a new musicdisk coming soon! Email me at vossa@rpi.edu. This musicdisk depends on YOUR contributions! Top ten reasons to buy Maelcum/IQ's new CD! 10. Give your sound card a rest. 9. You have enough Pearl Jam CDs, time for a change already. 8. See Maelcum and the crew, in green! 7. Makes an excellent frisbee! 6 Your Purple Motion CD still hasn't arrived. 5. Use shiny bottom side to blind foes. 4. God is going to squash him if he doesn't sell 200. 3. Bonus track: dramatic poetry reading by Maelcum. 2. You make your own CD cover! (Phoenix and K8to only) 1. Chicks dig That Noise! To order the FTZ CD, "Nothing Is True", check out AREA51.TXT in any Kosmic release. - Andy Voss - Phoenix/Kosmic - 5/24/95 - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[ 12. Distribution Sites ]------------------------------------------------ -BBS System- -Country- -Number- -Sysop- ____________________________________________________________________________ | Beats per Minute | Canada | (418)660-8137 | Populus | | MultiMedia GS | Singapore | (65)252-1220 | Lee Teck Chee | | Velvet Demosite | Belgium | +32-3-3851594 | Sleeping Dog | | CybeR WeB | Italy | +39-0331-310641 | Mattia Scotti | | The Portal | Sweden | +46-26-196363 | Coyote & Cyanid | | TH Rijswijk BBS | Netherlands | +31-70-3401534 | Raymond Dijkxhoorn| | Mindflux | Australia | +61-2-416-2513 | Force Format | \++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++/ If you wish to become a distro site for TraxWeekly, please mail your information to Popcorn at campbell@fox.nstn.ca Your board must be demoscene related and have a special dir for TraxWeekly. Our distro sites are important to us, but please be patient if you have asked and haven't been added to the list yet, I will try to accomidate you all next week. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[ End ]------------------------------------------------------------------- . :: ::: : . ..... ..............................:::.................:.... ::: : :::: : .::::. .:::::.:::. ..:::: :::: : :: :: ::: .:: :: :: WW:::: : ::. :: ::: .:: :: .:: :::: : :::.::. ::: .:: .:: .:::::... :: :::.. ... ..: ... ..:::::::::::::::: .:: .::::::: :::::::: ::::::.. ::: ::: ::: : until next week! =) .. ... .. ....... ............... .................:..... .. . :