home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Amiga Plus Leser 15
/
Amiga Plus Leser CD 15.iso
/
Scene
/
Eurochart44
/
Articles
/
ThePastAndPresentScene.txt
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
2002-03-12
|
9KB
|
250 lines
»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»