Slashdot Mirror

Some of us already don't. I've never bought a CD. Not out of protest, but because there's more free music out there than I can ever listen to in my entire life, and much of it suits my tastes.

What's more, a lot of it is musically educational too! Take The Mod Archive, where you can download modules. You can open them up in a tracker and see the notes go by right before your eyes. That caught my interest a few years ago and I've been learning to make music myself since then.

A certified fan of Andrew "Necros" Sega (of Five Musicians) in the hizzouse. [...] The music industry benefitted greatly from his efforts in the group "The Alpha Conspiracy".

I read this and just had to listen to FM-RIFF.S3M again. Coincidentally, 'Aura' by The Alpha Conspiracy has been in the car CD player for the last week or so :-)

For anyone wondering what we're yabbering about:

Selection of modules by Necros (use MODPlug Player on Windows)
The Alpha Conspiracy

We're sooo going to get modded 'Offtopic' for this little aside. But it's all about the sceeene!

The second one is, artists do need to eat, but nowadays we have a glut of artists producing music solely for money, and the quality of that work is crap. Utter crap. See: Britney Spears.

Also, plenty of artists produce music for free - good quality music. Check the demo scene for a good example. Look up Skaven, Xerxes, Necros, Basehead, oh heck just go to http://www.modarchive.com/ - there is a whole universe of artists who make free music, and a ton of it is very good.

Also look up The Ur-Quan Masters for artists who make KILLER game music.

As far as I know, the latter wasn't paid. How does that figure into your equation?

Speaking of Amplitude, you might want to try Marfitude. Just download some MODs from the Mod Archive for endless fun :).

I think you're looking at the wrong technology. Some of those linked sites to the hacked up MIDIs are cool and everything, but MIDIs have their limitations and they seem like a particularly clumsy technology to me.

What MIDIs these days do is work with a set of digital samples then apply fancy transformations to the PCM data to give you instruments with different pitches, frequencies, etc. My first big problem with this is that MIDI is pretty much stuck with a single set of samples for the instruments unless you use something like Creative's SoundFont where you can change the sound of every instrument in the set. The problem being is that now you can't distribute the original MIDI and expect a consistent listening experience from all of your users. You're forced to record the audio to an MP3 or something on your machine before distributing it.

Which leads me to my next point. Incase you were not aware, a new type of music has existed since the days of the Amiga that fixes the problems of the gimped MIDI standard. I'm talking about digital modules (MOD, S3M, IT, XM, 669, etc.) These modules work on the same priniciples as MIDI but they have some distinct advantages:

• Runs on the cheap hardware and low end systems. Just needs a sound card capable of.. Outputting sound..
• The digital samples used for the music are saved within the file itself. Sounds the same on everyone's system.
• Better quality than MIDIs if they're done right. Some formats (XM and IT especially) have some pretty slick advnaced features for instruments.
• The audio processing for most of these is fast enough to be run in real time alongside some other processor consuming task. (Doesn't really matter these days, however.)

My second largest problem with MIDI back in the day was that by comparison, the software MIDI emulators drained the computer of most of its resources.

So there you have it. I recommend diving into this world instead and stay clear of those icky MIDIs. Here are some resources if you don't know where to get started:

• MODPlug Central popluar player and tracker. And yes, you can use your MIDI keyboard to compose music with a lot of these trackers.
• Nectarine Shoutcast streams of a lot of these modules
• The Mod Archive Could forget the good old MOD Archive! A modern repository for this type of music.
• chiptune.com A great resource for Chiptunes! (really, really small modules.) And music in other formats (including Adlib music.)
• Aminet Has a lot of the older ("classic") modules that first appeared on the Amiga with the popular ProTracker
• Fasttracker 2 Just for completeness. The trakcer that introduced the XM file format. The same functionality is in ModPlug tracker.
• Impulse Tracker Included for completeness. Another excellent tracker like Fasttracker. Introduced the IT file format. The same functionality exists in ModPlug tracker.
• ScreamTracker Only including a link to information about it because of the nostaliga involved with it. It's lacking in the features that Fasttracker and Impluse Tracker have but it's really easy to use.
• The Hornet Archive Another nostaliga site. Music and programs from the Demoscene.

Also, if you're interested, there has been some development relatively recently with "Buzz trakcers"(?) I don't have as much knowledge with these but from what I saw with Jeskola Buzz, it's really very

I'm sad more people don't know about truly free music - that is, you get the "source code" too.

http://www.modarchive.com/

I loved MOD music files. Thankfully, winamp can play them, too! :)

The amiga could do 4-channel music with sampled instruments, when PC's could just do bleeps and tweets. I still wonder why PC sound cards didn't emulate the amiga sound chip.

Unfortunately, the tracking community isn't what it used to be...

Oh, btw, a link for all your module download needs: Modarchive.

Ooh, found it!

best mod ever: 4JSNO.669

Eh, don't overgeneralize, please.

I couldn't care less if tomorrow the RIAA goes completely bankrupt, and Britney (or whoever is popular these days, I don't know) is found on the street gathering food from garbage cans. It's not like music will suddenly disappear in that case. There will still be modarchive.com and the Unreal Tournament soundtrack.

On the other hand, I'm very much interested in seeing nice companies like Moonpod prosper and make more nice stuff :-)

You know, the fact people decide to infringe some law doesn't mean they can't be selective. And no, it's not theft, dammit.

Yep, there were (and are) some great songs in that format.

See the Mod Archive for thousands of tracks. Their Top 10 lists have a good sampling.

Yep, there were (and are) some great songs in that format.

See the Mod Archive for thousands of tracks. Their Top 10 lists have a good sampling.

In a world dominated by open-source software, rather than closed-source as it is today, such a ripoff would probably be economically unviable. Its very nature of being closed would probably be a very large disincentive for potential buyers.

For those of you who like MOD music, here's an interesting link:

http://www.modarchive.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi/AP/ D/djr_bsgt.zip

It's a remix entitled "*BattleStar Galactica-(attention2)".

There are several sites that carry a wide variety of music from independant artists.

There's dmusic.com, Musician MP3, Sound Click, Vitaminic, CNet Music, and even modarchive.com, Just to name a few. There's a bunch of other sites to get music from independant artists so there is no need to even use P2P to share RIAA music let alone purchase it.

This would be the proper way to protest the RIAA. If everyone did this, they would see their profits fall and at the same time, see that file swapping is way down, then they would have no choice but to confirm that they're really the ones to blame for the decreased sales. The biggest challenge is trying to get people that love the "Cookie Cutter Boy/Girl Bands" to switch over.

Most of my music is from music that I own, like analogue sources "8-Track, Vinyl, cassette" and CDs that I bought between 1993 and 2000, MOD files, MIDI files, mp3.com, and dmusic.com. Some music I have is from napster & kazaa, most of which is no longer produced.

Of course, the RIAA believes that copying from analogue sources should be illegal. So if Steve Balmer goes by the RIAA's definition of theft, then I guess I'm a "thief" then.

Thanks for that link.

I've been disconnected from the demoscene for a few years now, but this is how I got introduced to music composition. I completed two albums with tracked music before switching to midi.

So I clicked the link, and what do you know? One of my old tunes is in the list, ripped off by "Dj Distance" ("the guiding light" ...I was 17, and quite the poet already). Not really worth ripping in my opinion... Some nice parts, but clumsy drum track and... well. Fond memories nonetheless.

Thanks! :)

More about it here: http://www.modarchive.com/rippers.shtml

http://www.modarchive.com/

A lot of pretty much IP-free music, some of which is very good. You'll have to go through it to pick a few workable selections. 30 minutes should be plenty; if people are on hold for that long, you guys aren't doing your job!

"Now featuring over 11.69GB in more than 29851 compressed music files. There's a lot of good stuff on there, too. Mods will always be around; they're more flexible and extensible than MIDI, and less CPU-intensive and time-consuming to edit than wavefiles or MP3s.

I haven't *downloaded* any of those files in ages though. Anyone know where one can find good ones?

The Mod Archive, Scene.org and Nectarine Radio are good places to start.

Though I recently converted much of my mod/XM/s3m/IT collection to mp3 format, since it will play in my car/portables that way.

I'm trying to do the same to transfer my entire module collection to my iPod. Question: What do you use to do it? I'm currently outputting the tunes to WAV with Modplug because it's a fairly accurate player (but not 100%) and the wav writer is of pretty good quality. This is a bit of a headfuck because there is no batch converter and I have to reselect the options every time. I then have to convert everything to MP3 with CdEX. There must be a more straightforward way to do this... any ideas?

The digital music archive is dwarfed by The Mod Archive

I used to listen to mods all the time. They were more dial-up friendly than raw music at the time.

Who uses MOD/XM files anymore anyways?

Well, I do, and so does anybody else who uses The Mod Archive, a great place for free music.

No, I don't have any relationship to the Mod Archive, I just use it.

Hey! Even though new songs don't pop up as often as they used to, there still are a lot of old ones that are worth listening to.

Who uses... pff :)

Knulla Kuk by Moby (the original Moby!)

Space Debris by Captain

Variations by Jogeir Liljedahl

Capslock by Mick Rippon

Jaunt by Wolfsong

These are just a few of many high-quality tracks that are out there. It's worth giving some a listen sometime!

check out the "modarchive". it's widely used, but mostly in game software or by Amiga fetishists.

OC Remix is all well and good, but, I think the Modarchive should be mentioned as well. OC Remix just has remixes of songs we've heard over and over. Mod Archive builds a community based on the type of music video games created, and with almost 30,000 songs, I'm thinking everyone can find something they like.

...or the Amiga scene musician Firefox/Phenomena: http://www.modarchive.com/artists/firefox/

Speaking of which, take a look at this Axel F midi archive! Someone's gone to a bit too much effort collecting them me thinks.

I'm not sure what got the whole MOD thing into my head, but now I can't shake it. I'm messing about with MadTracker and am reminiscing at ModArchive.com! :D

Step into the way-back machine. Hearken back to the 80's when people had their Amigas and they wrote songs for MOD trackers in their free time, and distributed them via dial-up bulletin board services that were ubiquitous through the 80's to early 90's before web browsers were developed and the net became commercialized.

These MODs, containing a number of samples and a playback script similar in concept, but different in structure to MIDI files, were to music what Linux is to operating systems- an open sourced, freely downloadable form of music, for which the artist earned no royalties. The MOD format was originally created to make game sountrack music on early computers with limited resources (such as the Amiga with it's 512 KB of memory) but has grown into a format of its own, with many offshoots such as Screamtracker (.s3m), Impulse Tracker (.it), and Fast Tracker (.xm), just to name a few. The vast majority of module music is of the techno genre, although some rock, pop, and even classical has been produced by music coders.

In the late eighties, there was a group called the KLF (Kopyright Liberation Front). They used to call themselves the JAMs (Justified Ancients of Mummu- go read the Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson to learn more about the JAMs), and for a while, they called themselves the Timelords. The KLF had a knack for getting in trouble for unauthorized use of samples from other people's music. They were forced to destroy all copies of an album they released (the 1987 album, IIRC) to avoid lawsuits. Because of this, they came to view the entire music industry as agents of the Illuminati, a supersecret organization hell bent on controlling what the world sees and hears.

Later, an unrelated KLF emerged, called the Kosmic Loader Foundation. They used to make the music for "loaders", or short demo programs that came up when you launched cracked games. (Remember the wonderful world of demos and the demo scene?) Anyway, they changed their name to KFMF, or Kosmic Free Music Foundation. Whatever music they produced, you could download for free, no questions asked. Or you could purchase CDs with their music (in both tracked and MP3 format) for a nominal fee. Of course, the idea for their tracked music was the same as for open-source software: If you modify a song or "rip" the samples, at least give credit where it's due.

Sadly, the KFMF no longer exists, and pretty much the entire demo scene has fallen by the wayside, but is still alive with tracked music at places like the aforementioned Mod Archive and Nectarine Radio. Nowadays, programs such as Cakewalk, Reason, and Cubase VST have replaced trackers (but are very expensive, unlike trackers, which have always been free.) Like trackers, they have their legions of adherents who create and swap music files, plugins, and effects, but the idea remains the same: If music was open-sourced, free as in speech and free as in beer, nobody could control it, no RIAA, Illuminati, or whatever.

Other sound-sample sites include: http://www.synthzone.com/sampling.htm
http://www.ilovewavs.com/
http://www.thewavplace.com
http://www.tintagel.net/resources/Multimedia/Audio /
http://www.a1freesoundeffects.com/

http://www.modarchive.com/ also has some assorted samples.

just to remind you of good old Modarchive as an alternative to commercial music. some of the artists there are really good, and the whole scene has a familiar community feel.

Mod Archive offers software to create MOD/S3M/etc type formats, and although I haven't explored the site very far, I would presume also provides large quantities of samples (at least they can be ripped from songs that are there) with which to make one's own music.

Yes, it's a weeee bit more complex than the old MCS was, but we're not in the world of the Commodore 64 anymore.

You can do some pretty darned cool stuff with good tracking software and samples.

Alot of the stuff people have mentioned here is great, but here's a few that need mentioning. Prolly some repeats here, but I'm not reading through 500+ comments to make sure I'm not duping... This probably won't get read either because there's already so many comments, but what the hell...

Hybrid - Wide(r) Angle - I never ever ever get tired of this CD. The only recent work that I've completely and utterly fell in love with. You may know their song Finished Symphony from the Untracked level of SSX. Please please please, check it out. Their album has seen a couple releases, first Wide Angle, then a 2CD set called Wider Angle. I dunno which is more available, but Wide Angle is just a subset of Wider Angle. Either is fine, as most of Wider Angle is just some live stuff, though there are a couple extra studio tracks.

Plaid - P-Brane EP, Double Figure, Rest Proof Clockwork - Awesome IDM that I've just recently come to love. It's not as hardcore and much more pallatable that most IDM, so it's a great starting point for the genre. Especially check out the P-Brane EP; it's small, cheap, and 4 of their best songs.

Necros, aka Andrew Sega, aka The Alpha Conspiracy - Started out ages ago in the tracker scene. Amazing stuff, most notable Point of Departure and Mechanism 8 (which is actually in Unreal Tournament, I've recently discovered). He now goes by The Alpha Conspiracy and has a proper CD and all which you can sample at mp3.com. Amazing artist who worked from the ground up, and definitely deserved to be checked out for that reason alone.

Air - Moon Safari - A fantastic mellow sound... this is by far their best album, but check out their other stuff for good measure. Tracks of note: Sexy Boy, All I Need, Talisman.

Chicane - Behind The Sun and Far From The Maddening Crowds - Behind The Sun is the newer and better of the two, but both are great. Looks like FFTMC might be going out of print? Doesn't show up on CDNow and has limited availability on Amazon. Get it while you can. Again, a more mellow, laid back sound, but even better than Air. Tracks of note: Saltwater, Leaving Town, Red Skies.

Ayumi Hamasaki - Ayu Trance - She's a well known pop artist in Japan, and some of her original tracks are good (Whatever, Evolution) but more appropriate to electronics are the plethora of remixes of her music, most notably the Ayu Trance collection. M (Above and Beyond Remix) is friggin awesome.

Dune - Expedicion - Again, by far their best album, but I don't see it on CDNow OR Amazon, but it's prolly the best happy hardcore I've heard, though Scooter's really good too, which leads me to... (Tracks of note: Million Miles From Home, Electric Heaven, Hardcore Vibes.)

Scooter - ...And The Beat Goes On - I really don't know how this album compares to their others, but it's pretty good. Tracks of note: Fire, Move Your Ass

Faithless - Reverence, Sunday 8pm, Outrospective - Mixed bag of stuff, but the good stuff is really good. Tracks of note: Insomnia, God Is A DJ, Evergreen.

Future Sound of London - anything... FSOL is somewhat of a classic... they've been around a while, so they have plenty to check out. Papua New Guinea, Landmass, Expander (remix).

Hooverphonic - Blue Wonder Power Milk - Not sure how to describe them, and I'm getting tired of describing groups :) but their somewhat classic too... Tracks: Battersea, Eden, 2Wicky.

Lamb - Lamb and Fear Of Fours - Kinda a mix of electronic and alternative, with a very unique sound. The vocalist has a very unusual sound which you will either like or hate, but give them a shot. Tracks: Softly, Lusty, Gorecki, B-Line.

Utah Saints - Utah Saints and Two - A rough, sample-based sound, but worth checking out. Most known for their remix of the Mortal Kombat Theme, but that is far from their best work. Tracks: Ohio, Something Good, Techknowledgy.

Sneaker Pimps, Gus Gus, Freefall, Beam and Yanou, Mr. Oizo, Technique, Etienne De Crecy.

Stuff that's been mentioned but is worth mentioning again:
DJ Shadow/UNKLE - I have a love/hate relationship with DJ Shadow... either his stuff is incredibly good or incredibly boring, but it's more than worth it for the good stuff. He actually uses drums for more than just background, constantly mixing the beats up, making any DJ Shadow piece noticable. Midnight In A Perfect World hooked me to him instantly and Fixed Income and You Can't Go Home Again from his new album The Private Press hooked my gf. Notable tracks from UNKLE (his other project with... someone whose name I can't remember right now) are Lonely Soul, Rabbit In Your Headlights.

Orbital - plenty of stuff to check out besides their well-known Halcyon + On + On. Midnight from Orbital, Lush3 and Monday from Orbital 2, The Box (check out part 2 of the 28 minute version from the single!), The Girl With The Sun In Hear Head, hell the whole album from In Sides, Know Where To Run and Style from The Middle Of Nowhere, and Funny Break and Doctor from their new The Altogether.

Aphex Twin - Windowlicker, Come To Daddy, all the ones people have mentioned.

Paul Van Dyk, BT, Crystal Method (Vegas is much better than their new album), Adam F, Carl Cox.

For mixes, go with DJ Tiesto, Paul Oakenfold, and Armin Van Buuren.

That was soooo much more than I intended to write, and doesn't even scratch the surface of what's out there, but this should be a great starting point.

Instead of sipping from the cup of lukewarm techno that is most modern electronica, I'd suggest diving into the 16-bit wonderland that was and is the MODscene.

Back before there were MP3s or computers fast enough to play them, there were MODs -- 4 channel music files that began on the Amiga, and contained their own samples. MODs encouraged experimentation in electronic music on a level never seen before -- you could download a MOD, load it up in your tracker, and start coding a new song using the samples already there.

MODs branched out from their 4 channel beginnings into multiple channels and a variety of new extensions like .S3M, .XM, *.ULT, *.IT., and the more powerful the tracking software became, the more people were drawn to the scene. It was the online equivalent of jazz clubs in the '30s. I think it's one of the great secret stories of the web.

Then RealAudio hit. And after that, MP3. Online music aficionados began to follow a different path, and MODs, like BBS culture, slowly died. The MOD culture is still around, eclipsed but not forgotten. I'd suggest starting with The Kosmic Free Music Foundation, arguably the most prolific and influencial modgroup of that era. You could also check out the Hornet archive or the Modarchive. Either Winamp or XMMS should play them.

_________________________
Check your karma. It's changed.

Here (44k). You should be able to play this with a fairly recent version of WinAMP.

it turns on my wife when I bang on the bongo's like a chimpanzee.

Here is some new music you might like: king of bongo

Demoscene - Music, Gfx, DEMOS!

The largest computer artforms is the demo. These demos are music and gfx wrapped into a small package.

There are contests around the world called "Demo Partys" which give awards on best gfx, best music, best demos in sizes (64K,etc), 1 hour to compose tunes with a set of samples, best mp3, best Gfx, most genuine.

Many of these artists and musicians are working in the game industry or entertainment industry. Many of the older 64/apple/amiga game musicians are working for the largest game companies, creating tunes for your games you play today.

Assembly - The largest Demo party in the world
OrangeJuice - Demoscene information center
Google demo directory.
Nectarine - 100% scene music radio!
Crystal Melon - Famous cracktros (minidemos) many converted to Shockwave so people can view them. (They were on a c64 and Amiga!)

If you interested in video game, demo music, mods (4 channel) music, is like a midi with the wave files included.
Check out
Nectarine - 100% scene music radio!
Mod Archive
Google Mod directory
Aminet AmiNet mod archive.
C64: Back in Time CD Rob Hubbard, Martin Galway, Ben Daglish, Chris Hülsbeck, Peter Clarke - Music Game Gods.

Oh yeah! I leeched a bunch of Purple Motion's songs -- get this -- available as MOD files! crazy old school trackers. check it out. man, it's been so long since I watched 2nd Reality.. *rock*

http://www.modarchive.com/artists/pm/
http://www.modarchive.com/artists/skaven/

Oh yeah! I leeched a bunch of Purple Motion's songs -- get this -- available as MOD files! crazy old school trackers. check it out. man, it's been so long since I watched 2nd Reality.. *rock*

http://www.modarchive.com/artists/pm/
http://www.modarchive.com/artists/skaven/

While you're off bellyaching about how grand the EU is and how the US is a complete greed-oriented-and-idealistically-bankrupt-society -of-unsophisticated-boors-who-leave-no-room-for-th e-demo-scene-to-thrive, I feel the need to point you to my favorite demo scene musician, Andrew Sega, formerly known as Necros of the Five Musicians, and now the Alpha Conspiracy. I've been in love with mods ever since they were just mods, and it was only recently that I discovered that my long-favorite it-tracker Necros was an American. What can I say? His stuff is nearly always amazing, both in terms of composition and innovation. And the important aspect about this is that he isn't slavishly devoted to just one type of sound or tinny dance format as many (ahem) European trackers are.

Peanut Gallery: whoa, tanuki- you're a little off track here, slamming on the EU and ranting about tracking instead of the full demo scene!

tanuki_x: Wow, what a politically aware, scene-literate peanut gallery! Well, as I am more inclined toward the music scene that's what I pay the most attention to. Sorry about the apparent EU bashing, I didn't want to come across like that. I actually really like the EU. Don't forget other tracking giants like Skaven, Joegir Liljedahl (an astounding guy), and Nightbeat are all from the EU (not sure on Nightbeat, think he was...) and are all very accomplished. I was just making a point on the differences between American and European creative leaders as I have observed them.

Peanut Gallery: Uh... right.

Incidentally, the movements of free software, open source, and a great host of others things aren't all dominated by the FSF ("strident political organizations?"), and can hardly be dismissed as idealistically devoid. Besides... what side of the ocean does the fabled linux come from (hey, no fair saying "the internet!" ...that's not my point!)?

Also, kudos to Slashdot for even mentioning the demo scene! I'm confident that geeks everywhere will enjoy this unrecognized genre of music (sorry demo-only guys, but as the animations die, the music stays...). To get a good start on all this brouhaha, jump on over to the Mod Archive, and start sampling away!

While you're off bellyaching about how grand the EU is and how the US is a complete greed-oriented-and-idealistically-bankrupt-society -of-unsophisticated-boors-who-leave-no-room-for-th e-demo-scene-to-thrive, I feel the need to point you to my favorite demo scene musician, Andrew Sega, formerly known as Necros of the Five Musicians, and now the Alpha Conspiracy. I've been in love with mods ever since they were just mods, and it was only recently that I discovered that my long-favorite it-tracker Necros was an American. What can I say? His stuff is nearly always amazing, both in terms of composition and innovation. And the important aspect about this is that he isn't slavishly devoted to just one type of sound or tinny dance format as many (ahem) European trackers are.

Peanut Gallery: whoa, tanuki- you're a little off track here, slamming on the EU and ranting about tracking instead of the full demo scene!

tanuki_x: Wow, what a politically aware, scene-literate peanut gallery! Well, as I am more inclined toward the music scene that's what I pay the most attention to. Sorry about the apparent EU bashing, I didn't want to come across like that. I actually really like the EU. Don't forget other tracking giants like Skaven, Joegir Liljedahl (an astounding guy), and Nightbeat are all from the EU (not sure on Nightbeat, think he was...) and are all very accomplished. I was just making a point on the differences between American and European creative leaders as I have observed them.

Peanut Gallery: Uh... right.

Incidentally, the movements of free software, open source, and a great host of others things aren't all dominated by the FSF ("strident political organizations?"), and can hardly be dismissed as idealistically devoid. Besides... what side of the ocean does the fabled linux come from (hey, no fair saying "the internet!" ...that's not my point!)?

Also, kudos to Slashdot for even mentioning the demo scene! I'm confident that geeks everywhere will enjoy this unrecognized genre of music (sorry demo-only guys, but as the animations die, the music stays...). To get a good start on all this brouhaha, jump on over to the Mod Archive, and start sampling away!

While you're off bellyaching about how grand the EU is and how the US is a complete greed-oriented-and-idealistically-bankrupt-society -of-unsophisticated-boors-who-leave-no-room-for-th e-demo-scene-to-thrive, I feel the need to point you to my favorite demo scene musician, Andrew Sega, formerly known as Necros of the Five Musicians, and now the Alpha Conspiracy. I've been in love with mods ever since they were just mods, and it was only recently that I discovered that my long-favorite it-tracker Necros was an American. What can I say? His stuff is nearly always amazing, both in terms of composition and innovation. And the important aspect about this is that he isn't slavishly devoted to just one type of sound or tinny dance format as many (ahem) European trackers are.

Peanut Gallery: whoa, tanuki- you're a little off track here, slamming on the EU and ranting about tracking instead of the full demo scene!

tanuki_x: Wow, what a politically aware, scene-literate peanut gallery! Well, as I am more inclined toward the music scene that's what I pay the most attention to. Sorry about the apparent EU bashing, I didn't want to come across like that. I actually really like the EU. Don't forget other tracking giants like Skaven, Joegir Liljedahl (an astounding guy), and Nightbeat are all from the EU (not sure on Nightbeat, think he was...) and are all very accomplished. I was just making a point on the differences between American and European creative leaders as I have observed them.

Peanut Gallery: Uh... right.

Incidentally, the movements of free software, open source, and a great host of others things aren't all dominated by the FSF ("strident political organizations?"), and can hardly be dismissed as idealistically devoid. Besides... what side of the ocean does the fabled linux come from (hey, no fair saying "the internet!" ...that's not my point!)?

Also, kudos to Slashdot for even mentioning the demo scene! I'm confident that geeks everywhere will enjoy this unrecognized genre of music (sorry demo-only guys, but as the animations die, the music stays...). To get a good start on all this brouhaha, jump on over to the Mod Archive, and start sampling away!

He's still around a bit. I make it a habit of looking up old Renaissance folkses from time to time since I'm writing a Z66 clone that'll probably never get finished.

Anyway, Tran aka Thomas Pytel's been kind of staying away from the public eye as code goes. I suppose the slow death of the demo scene got to him... Heh. Last thing I managed to dig up was that he did art for a 1998 game that looks an awful lot like souped up Z66: (Still need to try it myself) Axia

Finding any more information is pretty difficult. Web searches tend to come up with bajillions of links to their pmode/w dos extender, along with "We use this!" from other demo groups or whatnot. Most likely thing was him listed as a runner in the cherry festival in '98. (Number 669, of course. I think that's just coincidence and probably isn't him.)

As far as the rest of Renaissance goes CC Catch is the only other one I managed to dig up something on. (Some of his old mods can be found on Mod Archive. One even has his email address in the comments!) There's been a track of his called 'Ephemeral Wanderer'(I think?) that's been floating around.

There are a few that haven't been converted, though. I spent most of today in front of this computer, reading /. and playing some cool old games from when graphics sucked so much that games couldn't get by on looks alone. Background music was provided by several artists, mostly Arlo Guthrie, MC Hawking, and Purple Motion. My roommate was down the hall, watching the game with somebody who actually has a TV in their room. In short, all those companies paying millions for commercial time can have their TV-addicted zombies. I'm going back to my game of Master of Orion.