»CL6:---------------------------------------------------------------------------- »CL0: The Past And Present Scene And Some Ranting »CL6:---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Written by »CL5:Amorel »CL1:Though I did like being asked to write one or more articles for this mag, I am not much of a writer. It is also hard to really think of a subject. There are quite a few things I could write and/or bitch about. »CL8:As this is my first article, I figure that the focus should lie on an overview of the scene»CL1:, what I think of it, and take a sentimental journey. ;-) First, I would like to introduce myself and do some self-promotion. ;-) »CL6:I owned my first computer in early 1989»CL1:, a Commodore 64. Before I got it, I often used to play at a friend. Of course, I loved it a lot, but was not able to afford one until in the late 80`s. I wanted to buy an Amiga 500 but it was twice as expensive, so not till later. By the time I was living on my own as a student, for a couple of months, I was able to afford an Amiga, so in early 1993 I bought an Amiga 600 and mid 1994 exchanged it for an Amiga 1200. At the computer fare where I bought the 600, I also got my first glance into "the scene", quite late actually. Though I did pirate C=64 games and the likes, I did not connect it to any scene really. »CL7:I bought the demo "Odyssey" from some Pd seller»CL1: and checked it out as soon as possible. It was great, even on a 600. Before I got Internet in 1995, the only way I got demos was from cover disks, if at all. Both inspired by the great music in demos, like "Odyssey" and the great music in "UltimaVI", I started trying to make music myself, using a free cover disk version of "Octamed" and I have not really stopped since then. Even though I have never really been "into the scene", I always liked it. The general attitude, as I saw it, the friendships involved, as well as the coding/creativity were very appealing, but I was and still am quite a loner, so I did not make any attempts to join a group. (was not even thinking about if I was good enough). Nowadays, since I got ADSL I just act l33t, (read: idling ;) in #amigascne and lurk my way "into the scene" like some wannabe ;-) Seriously, »CL6:I was actually in a short-lived module group called Instinct in 1997, not the known one though»CL1:. As I said before, I make music and do so with a great deal of variety in quality meaning that I make some good music every now and then and some crap most of the time and even though I have released quite a few modules, I only truly like a few of them. People have received them surprisingly well. Since I have the ability to make MP3s, »CL7:I release music made with midi equipment»CL1:, including the usage of the Amiga. Moreover, those do sound better at least according to me. You must judge for yourself: »CL5:http://www.xs4all.nl/~amorel/amusic.html »CL1:and »CL5:http://www.mp3.com/vopak »CL1:I also do programming, but not in the demo-coding kind of way. I have made a module player, the Amoralplayer, (can be found on Aminet) that is still updated and I am currently making an x0x style midi/audio sequencer, so stay tuned for that. I plan to port it to QNX and (dr)dos. I will only port it to platforms that offer a great deal of realtime capabilities. »PIC:4.iff» »PIC:4.iff» »PIC:4.iff» Through the Internet and CDs with demo collections, I was and am able to see and hear quite a lot of demos and music. As it has been said before, the artistic quality was very high back then (1992-1995), but of course; there were also more people in the Amiga scene. »CL6:Demos like "DesertDreams", "Origin", "State of the Art", and "Nexus 7" really made an impression on me»CL1:. I especially liked the music. The mod-exes called "Bios-Substance", "Loneliness", and "Longing", I truly liked big time (The Party 1992) and I recall that I often played the demo called "Retina-aga" which had a great rave tune, also from around 1992. Actually, most of the demo music I hear is quite pleasing to the ear, solely because of the quality. However, »CL6:though the amount of releases has decreased, hereby affecting the amount of quality releases»CL1:, the actual quality, professionalism, and creativity, shown through the best of the present releases has risen. Of course, most of those who make releases these days were also releasing back then and their experience shows off. I also like the general feeling, a sort of happiness, that most of the scene music seems to spread, (this may sound corny ;), often quite uplifting but with a nice atmosphere, even when it is a bit moody and without being overly happy and joyful. However, my all time favourite module, not necessarily scene related, is "Step_into_darkness" by Randall. Check it out; it is on Aminet under the name stepdarkness.lha »CL7:Before I started hanging out in »CL5:#amigascne»CL7:, I rarely got any direct information from the scene»CL1:. Of course, I read party reports and checked out pictures but I did not often talk directly to the people involved. Therefore, my idea of how it actually was in the past compared with now is probably not very good or even true. Nevertheless, I do think that quite a lot has changed compared to the past concerning parties. Parties (big ones) mainly seem to be a gaming event, with a, partially, lame audience as a result. I am not sure that a demo party and a LAN party go well together. »CL7:Hopefully, you have some people (who are quite serious about what they do, like coding and composing etc.) making demos and music and fx»CL1: and you have a bunch of playful kids (often lacking creative and mental qualities which are seemingly default for sceners) playing games forever. »CLA:Look at the last Gathering»CL1: pictures to get an idea of what I am talking about. However, this is not even the worst thing that has come to my attention! I have heard and seen evidence of some »CL8:very pathetic and sad, no, plain sick, happenings taking place»CL1: at parties. One of them being giving each other blowjobs and other unquestionable sexual activities that does not belong on a demo party! I cannot even begin to imagine the shear level of stupidity such individuals must posses. They do certainly not deserve any respect whatsoever. If I should ever witness such crap, I would surely try to kick them out. I can only hope that most people agree with this and that those people have gotten their fair share of humiliation and bitching. »CL6:After all, there are quite a few pictures going around of at least some of them. I would suggest a publicly humiliation if they were ever spotted at a future party»CL1:. (Note: After doing some research, I found out that this sexual crap happens/happened around PC-sceners, which explains a lot, though it does not change anything about the stupidity of it). »CL7:Another thing that disturbed me, however to a lesser extent, is the excessive drinking at the parties»CL1:. I do not care about the occasional drinking of alcohol, but it seems that things do tend to get (dangerously?) out of hand at times. I have always found the prohibiting of alcohol at parties to be a good thing and recent happenings seem to confirm this. I for one would like a total ban on alcohol consumption at any scene party. I am sure that many will find me lame because of this, and I am not even a "true scener", but I do not give a rats' arse! »CL8:You do want to give a good impression and image of scene parties»CL1:, I hope. The image I had as an "outsider" was quite positive in the past, but taking the aforementioned things into consideration the image shown about scene parties does not seem all too bright. Although I have a feeling that the quality and enjoyment of parties can differ greatly and the "game kiddies: demo sceners" ratio might also have a great influence on that. Ok, enough for now. There is more to come in the future. Maybe I should write a tutorial about OS-friendly coding and GUI coding ;-) »PIC:5.iff»