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[fingersoup]

A glimpse at controversial departures from Tracking

On the 3rd of January 2005, One of the scene's most outspoken members decided to denounce the scene, and everyone in it.  After a 6 month hiatus, Novus returned to his website to tell the general public to "Run. Run like the wind, as far and as fast as you can" from the Tracking scene, because they will flame you for new ideas.  They will hate you for helping.  And they won't stop until you leave them for good.

This editorial is not meant to put forward my personal opinion of Novus, or his actions.  Novus' relevance to this editorial, is as a starting point for discussion on a much bigger topic...  Are the members of the scene responsible for the downfall of the active members of the scene?  Or do the Once-active members of the scene use the scene as an excuse to leave, venting their frustrations on everyone else?


Lets go back a few years, to about 1997.  On May 16th, Published in Trax Weekly, was an open letter from Jeffrey Lim, stating that he was no longer going to develop new features for Impulse tracker.  In this letter, he states that a combination of software piracy, and insulting coments regarding the price of the stereo ITWAV.drv, is what drove him away from making this software.  Responses to the $30 registration fee, such as "FUCK U MOTHA FUCKA.. GO GET A JOB!!! UR SO POOR, U CAN"T EVEN FEED YOUR FAMILY!!!!!! PIS OFF, BACK OFF... I GOT OTHER THINGS TO DO THAN BABYSITTING!!!  U DON"T GET IT MOTHA FUCKA!!!" obviously came from someone who used the unregistered IT, and got greedy.  Whether they were a scene member, or a person who used the pirated driver to sell music remains to be seen.

Then there's the infamous Traxinspace ordeal... 45 000 artists signed up to release their 200 000 songs on TiS' server space.  Everyone began to expect reviews on their songs, if they posted to TiS.  People used TiS as a means of self promotion.  Unfortunately, very few people decided to give back to the community.  The massive number of tracks filtering in, and only a handful of reviewers on staff, meant large backlogs.  Every move by TiS to make a recovery failed miserably, and was greeted by scorn from their members.  Shorter reviews by reviewers to process more entries, ended up "tainting" the quality of reviews for many.  This was flamed.  Selling CD's, and offering services which required artists to pay for, caused a great deal of anger from the scene.  This was flamed too, with people calling TiS greedy, even though the money raised through selling shirts, CD's and memberships never recouped the costs.  Furthermore, there was a genuine lack of community.  Almost everyone on TiS wanted something for nothing.  The TiS story to this day, remains a perfect example of what horrible things trackers can do to a site.


Of course, TiS wasn't all blameless.  Mysterium admitted to growth mismanagement on TiS, as well as a sketchy business partner, and money mismanagement, in an interview for Static Line.  Real life popped its ugly head and took down the servers.  The money issue was never really brought to light until the static line interview.  Instead, many reviewers blamed the scene for being "unsupportive", albeit in general terms.  Many people blamed TiS' failing review system, and moves towards commercialism, when discussing the decline of the site.  The fact remains, that up until the Static Line interview, Many sceners were led to believe that the staff blamed them.  It took over a year for the truth to come out in it's entirety.

Likewise, with Impulse Tracker, Jeffery Lim made a final comment which alludes to the fact that he was trying to get away from IT.  He stated "I used to envy how Psi so neatly avoided any sort of responsibility for ST3.  Now, I will be able to join him."  This statement suggests that he thought about getting away from IT for a long time.  For it to happen in a very accusing letter, suggests some very implicating things on his behalf. 

I should probably mention that Jeffrey Lim still does maintain a webpage for Impulse Tracker.  He still seems to care about his software, and, as he demonstrated in an unrelated e-mail to me, he is a very pleasant person who upon re-reading his statement, comes off as a person who was genuinely hurt by people stealing his software for commercial use.  To anyone reading without having met or spoken to Jeffrey, the letter can come off as an author who is very bitter at the majority of people.

Which brings us back to Novus.  Here is a Self-proclaimed antagonist.  He admittedly made controversial statements in controversial ways.  For instance, he posted the following in a news article on his page:

"if you don't vote in CMC, you hate America."

I'd say that's a pretty controversial statement used for shock value.  Even I hailed him as the scene's valued shit-disturber. His controversy was one of the things which made him a value to the scene.  He could bring new ideas to the forefront, and always incite discussion, or argument. Unfortunately, when you make radical statements, and show no remorse for pissing people off (even legitimately), you will get flamed, regardless of whatever good came of the original discussion.  I thought from his previous statements that he understood and accepted this...  Obviously not.

Novus' Manifesto states "I work two full-time jobs, 75 hours a week, and often work both jobs back-to-back on four hours of sleep.  Yet I still host a monthly tracking competition, The Complete MOD Compo."  This comment leads me to believe there's more to the story than just flame wars with Vizion on Scene rep, and Criticism on the belief that every tracker CAN and must donate money.  Perhaps there's "Real Life(TM)" stress poking through.  Maybe it isn't all just "us sceners" that caused him to explode.  Perhaps being overworked has something to do with it.  Perhaps it is just his attitude and controversial nature.  Regardless, the Scene has received Novus' blast with both barrels.  Perhaps we have just become yet another person's outlet.

So I give this article back to you, the reader.  If you were honestly expecting a conclusive opinion here, I apologize.  The fact is, that I don't know.  As a scene member, I can't tell you that It's all our fault, or that it's all theirs.  I know the answer is somewhere in-between, but to me, I can't find one critical factor on which all this stands.


Cited Sources:
http://www.vinceyoung.com/novusmusic/
http://www.vinceyoung.com/novusmusic/index2.html
http://mail.befunk.com/pipermail/static_line/2003/000047.html
http://web.textfiles.com/ezines/TRAXWEEKLY/traxweek.098

[Viz]

Nice article. There is much to be discussed on this, but finally, i think that the trackers suck their own holes. Of course me and novus tried to jumpstart the fire, but it never worked.
We just need a new community that is able to present tracking as nostlagia and not be so relunctant to move on.

[Viz]

dang it, more than a year old hehe, didnt see that.

[fingersoup]

Reluctance to change is certainly a common theme amongst these three different situations.   However, reluctance to change is also a common theme on the side of both the general tracking public, and those scene leaders whom went through a certain self destruct.  Even now, after Novus' apologies, and brief return to the tracking scene, Novus still didn't want to progress with the newer tracking technology....  Only now, after he has left the scene again, has he started investigating the reasons why others use newer trackers....  Likewise, you see several people at CTG on Novus' recent posts saying "OOOH, HE'S BACK!" and the controversy begins to stir....  People still misinterpret, comment and criticize Novus for his history...  Should we let Novus be?  Is it our fault he only shows up for 2 days, gets grilled or overrun, then disappears for months at a time?  People seem very reluctant to change their attitudes towards Novus, and tend to make Novus sightings an event.  Once again, we have the dichotomy....

Likewise, nostalgia on whose part?  The users of all Trackers?  The "Oldskool" crowd?  All scene leaders?  Please be more in depth regarding how you feel nostalgia is Affecting the tracking scene.... 

[Viz]

I don't know of any scene leaders who went self-destruct. Most i know have moved on; h0l, 4thieves, xerxes, xhale, lackluster, hunz, etc etc etc. The UT, #modarchive, scenerep people seem to forget about these people. They are the reason that tracking existed and that we all started tracking, yet you never ever talk about them. If our ' heroes and legends ' have moved on, its a good indication that it is time for us also.
As for Novus, like me, he's really still interested with tracking and its culture. I mean it practically bread entire subcultures ( IDM, demo/gaming/graphic and motion design, with TPOLM, Tokyo Dawn, Monotonik, Merck ), but again, people don't look at that. What makes Novus different, is that he's interested in tracking as a closed down community of a few hundred people that mostly just visit esper.net. That is not the tracking scene. And that's what people have to get. I mean, is he stirring controversy right now ? no, i don't think so, he asked a few pretty straight forward questions that left no room for controversy. He's trying to catch up, that's cool.
When i said nostalgia, i meant that the tracking scene should, in stead of promoting tracking and promoting its music, be looking back in the history of tracking, take an bird's eye look at it and comment and have fun about it. It's over thus, those who still adhere or like or use it, do those things by nostalgia rather than anything else, i think. And that's how it should be. I mean people can still have fun tracking, i'll never say the contrary, i still do from time to time. The scene has evolved and it would be time for people to understand how it did.

[fingersoup]

I agree that the scene may be evolving outside the bounds of it's original "Scope" of computer hackers, demo creators and the monetarily lacking, but as illustrated by Novus' recent posts, there are several people who use trackers as part of their creative process....  Thus, I still see the need for people to be able to discuss tracking in a friendly environment, where we can get some discussion from people who use substantially similar pieces of software....  MadTracker isn't all that different from Skale or Psycle, and when you look deep enough, it's not all that different from Impulse Tracker, or even SoundTracker for that matter.... 

I for one think that while there is a certain historical element to the tracking scene, which would benefit from more exposure, I hardly think the art of tracking is dead.  Maybe you're right that promoting yourself as a "tracking artist" isn't that prevalent or required anymore....  but promoting the tools you use, and helping a commulity get better at using these tools is not a fruitless effort.

and as for the Novus "Controversy", even after he said "I'm not back, I just have a couple questions", people were saying "Oh yeah, you're not back at All.... ".  People try to read too much into Novus, I think....  Part of what his earlier controversies brought about.  Yes what Novus is doing is straightforward, but it's the trackers at large who may think Novus is planning something.  That's not fair to Novus...  That could be a reason why he's going to "back out" of the scene again (not that he is actually trying to represent himself coming back to the scene - I for one think it was a couple of questions, nothing more)....   Perhaps there is another side - do sceners make issues appear larger than what they are?  Quite possibly.... 

Besides, I don't see Novus' recent questions as looking on a scene stuck in the past or as an attempt to put tracking in the past.  It's more of someone who had very close ties and fond memories in the past, and is now looking towards the future....  His take may be nostalgic, but it's the same as someone who has left programming for a number of years, and decided to see how people do it now...  They are used to C, and now, for their own enjoyment, want to see what C has evolved into, so they look at C++, Java, and .Net.....  They try to understand the basics and see the benefits, without wanting to start programming again....  To them, it's nostalgia... to Java Programmers, it's just a way of life....

Heroes move on....  As neil Young put it, "It's better to burn out, then to fade away"....  The original article was not about these people who had an amicable departure and moved on to other things/other software ofer a period of time, but about the many people who had such passion for the scene, made huge waves, and then exploded...  Often explosions can be good (ie: Azo, and his final epic tracks), or they can be detrimental - such as the ones mentioned in the above article.  The article comments on these destructive departures, the finger-pointing, and who is really to blame for the departures.  I think I have accurately pointed out, that BOTH sides have some part in it, and Novus confirmed it in his apologies.  Basically, my angle on this article now, is that it's either EVERYONE's fault, and thus nobody can be blamed,  or it's Nobody's fault, but everyone gets blamed anyways....  take it how you'd like....

I prefer to see the future of Tracking...  Psycle, Skale, Madtracker, Renoise...  All viable pieces of software that share a newer version of that old familiar grid...  and All this new software is similiar enough to learn off one another....  In fact, you can still learn tricks off the old stuff like IT, FT2, Soundtracker, etc...  It's all relevant.  Why not try and keep the resources alive?

[Viz]

Maybe something should be done
Not call it the tracker scene anymore, rebaptise it, or something.
We need also a new place to gather. All the scenesites are dead.
I'd be in
by the way, i'm starting a tracker group