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% 505 Part 1                                                                  %
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Hello and welcome to Songs in the Key of YM! This is 505 on the keys. What
you're getting here is the result of long lasting efforts by the trio of
mOdmate, Evil and Jade. This music demo was baking since 2023. Back then the
key player of this prod, mOdmate, was working on many, many tunes and the music
disk was highly anticipated. But as some of you may know, last year mOdmate got
his shocking diagnosis of being seriously ill all of a sudden. This also meant,
the character of this demo changed from a music disk towards a final project,
showcasing mOdmate's legacy. It was hard to digest, when he told us, that he
decided that the demo should be released post-humously. When mOdmate said this,
it was a very moving moment for him and everyone else.

We all knew he was looking forward a lot to this release as it is finally
revealing and summarizing his efforts in music making during the past years.
He invested so much time in this hobby and developed incomparable skills in
several regards. So, during the past months development on the demo went on,
with Evil and Jade putting hours and hours into details, polishing things to
the degree of perfection you are witnessing and still exchanging with by then
very ill mOdmate. Let me give you an example: the bottle of coke zero you saw
in the intro picture was a replacement for an early version. Before there was a
just as beautifully pixelled glass of wine, but the guys decided that coke zero
would be the more realistic fit for Torsten (which is mOdmate's nickname in the
real world :)     For sure, being involved in this prod at this stage was a big
joy for him, when he was struggling hard otherwise...

It was few weeks before his demise in March 2025, that mOdmate asked me to
gather scroll text contributions from the scene musicians he was very recently
exchanging with. He really adored their work and enjoyed the communication
about all kinds of YM related topics. All of them agreed immediately and
provided scroll text contributions. So we got a long scroller here in front to
support the hours of awesome music - just as mOdmate wished.

I want to thank Evil and Jade for keeping this project going and finalising it
after all. It is a very special production and for sure very demanding to
create.

Before we get deeper in the process of making this demo, let me describe you a
bit what mOdmate's intentions were with this production. The original idea
behind the demo was, that the YM chip has always been regarded as a very
limited soundchip, sounding rather simple and dull. And in fact, the majority
of the existing music supports this thought. Compared to the SID chip, to the
Amiga and even to the Pokey, there is mostly very little variation in sounds.
Some musicians managed to improve this situation, like Mad Max or Scavenger
back in oldschool times. But more importantly it was Tao who created stunning
new sounds since the mid 90s, again and again. Those sounds always left a
strong impression on mOdmate and me as well. While there were a few others
challenging the chip, the real turning point was, when new tracker programms
appeared. With MusicMon and especially maxYMiser and ttrak it was finally
possible to model new and more complex sounds than ever. In fact, this
possibility exists since quite some years now, but only a few musicians really
inspected the new opportunities deeply.

Now, we had mOdmate, an experienced pixel artist and coder as well.
He started approaching sound design with the same meticulous care and stoicism
as he did with exploring dithering patterns in oldschool graphics created by
his idols back in the days. He was studying details regarding composition and
sound design really extensively in order to find out how things are done.    
On the chipmusic front this meant looking into the songdata and instruments of
course. But he went much further and started sampling the separate channels of
his favourite chiptunes, on SID, Pokey or YM, in order to reconstruct the sounds
and tracks in maxYMiser and ttrak, step by step. Therefore he zoomed into the
waveforms and analysed the milli second steps in order to recreate the visible
amplitude in the instrument editors. With this absolutely nerdy approach, which
I witnessed a couple of times, he came as close as possible to the sounds he
wanted to recreate. In our talks he named this method playfully 'Dissection',
straight out of the vocabulary of the well-respected state attorney that he was
in his professional life.

Appyling this method allowed him to emulate the typical but also really
untypical sounds from his favourite tracks and get as closely to the original
as possible. In my opinion he managed to proof that the YM is capable of
reaching new levels of sound aesthetics.

The result of this intense and unique labour is expressed in the menu structure
of this demo. The different sections represent his work of anatomizing and
rebuilding sounds from different soundchips on the YM2149.
mOdmate grew up with the Pokey on Atari 8-Bit and was a big fan of the songs
you can see there. Adam Gilmore always was an idol for him, so you will find
a number of his tunes there. I think mOdmate's representation of the Pokey on
the YM is very impressive. Have a listen to the Draconus, Drunken Chessboard
or International Karate tracks to to get an idea and optionally melt in joy.

The SID section is certainly the most stunning regarding sound design. We were
both fans of the same kind of SID tracks by authors like Jeff, Stinsen, Mitch
and Dane and others. I honestly think he did wonders here! And the Amiga
section is his YM-take of classics that he adored in the Protracker pseudo-chip
department of the Amiga community.

Probably the most spectacular stunt mOdmate did with his sound design research
was the conversion of the track 'Chopper Commander'. This song was original
created for the C64 SID by Adam Gilmore. It was never converted to the Atari
8-Bit Pokey, which was a pity. mOdmate took it to the next nerd level and
created the Pokey version, but on the ST's YM-chip appyling his timer effect
creation skillset. So now we have an impression what the C64 track could have
sounded like on the Pokey, just on the ST :-)

As you surely know mOdmate got more and more into composing his own songs.
Those are included here as well and are probably the most touching part, as
they are his very personal expression. But just have a listen yourself...

Let me add one personal note: mOdmate's passion and work on sound design was a
major inspiration for me. Few years ago, I totally lost my interest in making
Atari soundchip music. It felt like doing the same thing over and over again
and I was worn out. When mOdmate exchanged his new sounds with me, it was like
an instant motivational kick. One right instrument and I was immediately
triggered and ready to create new tracks. We both jokingly said he is my 'muse'
but it was true, he helped me to find back into the joy of composing music and
'pulled me back in' as our dear friend XiA would put it. Beside, we were
regularly talking about arrangement and composing methods. It was a wonderful
synergy going on between us and we both hoped that this would last for long...

Last autumn, we had the chance to work on the Forever demo together with Tom,
for a final run. It was a very emotional, intimate and fluent demo making
experience, keeping on doing what we always liked to do, despite the
circumstances. In fact I am still thankful towards Tom for giving us this
opportunity for common expression.

During his last days mOdmate even joined the Atariscne.org project and was
crafting contributions for it, highly motivated as ever.

This was just great, as all our common times and full-hearted Atari friendship!
(it's so sad...)

Also, our cooperative music making efforts meant a lot to me, they were about
the best things I experienced during my demoscene activities...    see you in
chip heaven, my 'Brother in Arps'!



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% Evil                                                                        %
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Hi ho everybody, Evil/DHS on the keys.

I'd like to begin with telling a few words about the development of the demo
from start to the finish. As you can imagine it's been a somewhat unusual
journey.

Way back in December 2021, I did a Demozoo comment to mOdmates 'Dancetrack'
page where I wrote 'Great work mOdmate, each track getting better and better.
Dare I ask for a music demo soon?'
Then, a little bit over a year later in February 2023, mOdmate sent a reply:
'Dare I ask to work together with you on this one, Anders?'

Me and my big mouth.  Well, I had brought it up so I better own up to it so
yes of course I was on board, and here the journey started.

mOdmate said 'Nothing big - More or less we should display a Degas PI1 image
and select music with F1-F10'. After that, mOdmate started sending me tunes
and it didn't take very long until we ran out of the function keys to select
music.  We added the numeric keys as well, but as it turns out, we ran out of
them quite soon too!

Like so many times before, a small manageble project grew into a little
monster, almost as if it's a gremlin and we accidently fed it after midnight.
At this point, we're about a year into making the demo and mOdmate is really
pushing things, sometimes sending several tunes in a week.  By now I've made
a rudimentary scrolling menu as I'm sure we're going to run out of keyboard
keys alltogether sooner rather than later.

mOdmate continued to compose songs. One of the special tracks he started was
a cover of Romeo Knights 'Enigma Gun', a classic Amiga track made in Sidmon.
For the Atari cover mOdmate selected to use the niche but oh so interesting
tracker called Turbochip by Junosix. The sound of the preview was great, but
he started more YM-tracks (in particular the Zero Bitplane music for the DHS
demo) before he planned to continue with Turbochip again.  In the next couple
of weeks he took what I assumed was a well needed break.

However, I got a message that he would send the Zero Bitplane track after he
was released from hospital, it was 21st of April 2024. I had no idea he had
been hospitalized and asked what had happened.  He said that he had
experienced shortness of breath and that there were fluids building up.
No explanation had yet been found, but just a day or two later he got the
diagnosis of cancer.  Still, while hospitalized he had finished another C64
cover, the Liptonman track. I don't know what dazzled my mind most, the
diagnosis or the fact he kept doing YM-tracks from the hostpital. It was
dedication on another level. 

Around this time, mOdmate had also decided to hand the graphics work to
somebody else, he contacted Jade which accepted to help out.  mOdmate
explained his ideas how the demo should look with a classic radio and the
intro with three music excerpts from XL, C64 and ST. In the coming months the
demo filled up with more music and we had a functional menu with some simple
visualization. Jade started to send in awesome graphics and ideas - of course
I needed to remodel the code to fit it, but in the end we compromised a bit
on both ends to something that worked out. 

mOdmate expressed he was very pleased how the demo progressed and asked 505
to invite some fellow YM-guys to write scrolltexts - after all, we have a
three hour demo and it would be nice if the scrolltext filled some of that
time at least. 

Around this time, while testing the demo on different Atari computers, we
noticed that the newer maxYMiser tracks crashed on 68030 machines (TT, Falcon)
and some songs had strange sounding instruments on 68030 as well. TTRAK, still
the new kid on the block, had some problems with 68030 too, the digidrum
routine didn't work very well at all. We reported the bugs to gwEm and Damo
and not too long after that, the players were fixed and worked fine! Many many
thanks to gwEm, Damo and Tat for finding the issues and fixing them quickly.    

It's now late February 2025, we're planning and preparing the Atariscne.org
website for it's launch at Buxton Bytes in mid-March, which fitted nicely
while awaiting the scrolltexts. mOdmate is helping building up the
Atariscne.org site with one article after the other.  When suddenly, on the
evening of Saturday March 1, 505 received the devastating news that mOdmate
had passed away earlier that day.   Of course I've been prepared, mOdmate had
kept me updated on his condition, but it was still a big shock.
Emptyness.

Several days later, the reality is slowly setting in.
Back to work.
Routines.   

Finally talking to Jade and 505, we agree it's time to do the finishing bits.
Jade create and syncs the final intro animations, some other updates to the
menu and ending, finally adding the scrollers and all the 'to do' bits are
finished.   

Some might wonder why we dragged the release past mOdmates passing. It was his
wishes that the demo to be finished and released after his demise. We've done
our best to honour mOdmates wishes and we hope it's not too far from his
vision. mOdmate didn't want the demo to be a mourning or tombstone, but rather
something to load on the ST to enjoy nice chiptunes.       

Now, with that bit of backstory of the demo over with, let's talk a bit about
the demo itself, the music, menu and so forth. First and foremost, all the
conversions from different platforms are hand made. No automatic conversions,
emulation or otherwise scripted work. mOdmate analyzed the original music and
tracked them note-by-note into the native Atari trackers. Lots of dedicated
work, but also lots of outstanding results. I don't think it would be possible
to come this close to SID or Pokey sounds with a generic solution.  I very
much respect other work that have a more automatic approach, all from mad Max
in 1987 to Cream in 2024 - they are awesome.  I just think that mOdmates work
is, in my opinion, a different beast.  

Speaking of SID and Pokey sounds, you might have noticed that the menu is
divided into four chapters or bookmarks. You can quick-jump between them with
F1 to F4. The F4 bookmark is a joint chapter for Amiga/Console and PC
conversions, most of them are from the Amiga.  As mentioned earlier, mOdmate
was working on the 'Enigma Gun' cover from Sidmon on the Amiga, unfortunately,
in the end it was never finished. It's a bit of a pity becuase it would have
been the one truly exotic tracker for the demo.  Not that MusicMon, TTRAK or
maxYMiser are bland or anything, but Turbochip is quite different in how it
sounds and functions.   

A couple of the maxYMiser tracks are using STe PCM-samples and are disabled on
plain ST machines, we talked about if we should let the tracks run without the
PCM sound on the ST, but ultimately mOdmate decided to keep them disabled. We
also noticed too late that the PCM tracks are using the so called native STe
mode.  That means that there is no realtime frequency or volume adjustments of
the samples.  Instead the samples are pre-calculated into multiple copies for
each volume level.  On 1 MB STe-machines these tracks will run out of memory
and there was no time for mOdmate to edit the tracks into realtime volume
mode.  So, therefore there's a need for 2 MB (M)STe, TT or Falcon to play
these tracks.  You could argue that the demo should load the songs to save
(a lot of) memory and hence let the PCM tracks work on a 1 MB machine.  From
the start mOdmate made clear he wants a single file demo without loading in
the middle of the demo.  We respect that.   

A little enhancement on (M)STe and TT: If the demo is in autoplay mode the
tracks fade out after having looped, thanks to the LMC1992 circuitry. While on
ST and Falcon the songs simply stop.  That also make the demo slightly longer
on the LMC1992 machines. Technically we hope that the demo will run on your
setup.  ST, STe and Falcon are tested on real hardware, while TT and Mega STe
only in the emulator.  During the development we've run it for hours and hours
(over 24h non-stop och each config) without crash.  But certainly it will
crash somewhere. Sorry in advance! 

While on the topic of autoplay, you can toggle it on/off with the 'A' key and
while in autoplay switch between linear order or random order with the 'R'
key.  Additionally you can queue one song to be next in line with the 'Q' key.
After the qued track have been played the demo returns to the autoplay list. 

Before signing off and handing over the keyboard to the next writer, I'd like
to thank Jade and 505 for their help with the demo - you've both been amazing.
And speaking amazing, that's absolutely the signum of mOdmates graphics, music
and persona.  That he excelled at his profession as well, I have no doubt
about.  A true perfectionist while being the kindest person you'll ever meet.

I first got to see him in person at the Siliconvention party in 1997. There
were a lot of people there, and most of them seemed to be a little nervous to
visit the Swedish room, I can't undertstand why :)   But mOdmate didn't mind
the strange baffoons doing juggling outside the entrance and drinking Absolut
in unhealthy amounts.  No, he embraced it and we had a long talk about
everything Atari and demoscene.  He was genuinely interested in what we've
been doing since our previous demo.  So he was the first to get to see the
'Dream Dimension' demo outside of Gizmo, myself and Toodeloo, although it was
yet in early stages.  He was very curious and asked about more or less every
detail of the demo. Ever since then, we've stayed in contact and met up a few
times in Dresden at the Error In Line parties.

The years passed by and I think in 2017 we met up again at the Sommarhack
party.  The same guy, just a dozen years older with the passion and curiousity
about everything demoscene still there.  It was a delight to talk about things
from overscan to Crackarts obvious superiority to Neochrome and Deluxe Paint.
The final time I got to meet mOdmate was at Sommarhack 2024. At this time a
few of us knew he was ill and he had asked me in advance of 24/7 hospitals
close by, just in case something with his treatment needed attention.
In the end everything went perfect.  He said to me after Sommarhack that he
had a great time - with his friends - entering competitions and winning the
music as well as Zero Bitplane categories.  What a swansong of an amazing
demoscene ride.

It was an absolute pleasure and honour to know and call you a friend Torsten.
I will miss you.  Forever.     

Now, Evil signing off, I'll leave the keyboard over to Jade next!



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% Jade                                                                        %
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Hey everyone. Jade on the keys. First of all, thanks for making it this far.
I think mOdmate would be happy to share the joy he had with you if he could
himself.

It's very difficult to find a proper beginning now. mOdmate's wish was to
write a scroll text that wasn't a kind of mourning for him, but to be honest
it's not that easy. And there are certainly better friends who can tell you
more about mOdmate and his past and career than I can. I have to admit that I
never got to meet mOdmate in person because I didn't go to many demo parties
back in my Scener days. But it's also quite possible that we've clashed in
life, because he became active in the demo scene at the same time as I did,
and he also made a few logos for Animal Mine, the group I was active. mOdmate
has done a lot in his time in the demoscene. He has always done something for
the Atari Scene from the early 90s until now, which is phenomenal in my eyes,
because I myself had a break from 1995-2019. Since I myself did not pursue any
demoscene activity for 24 years, which I really regret, I also missed 24 years
of mOdmate's activity. Which is a great pity considering the situation.
I would have liked to have got to know mOdmate better over the last 24 years.
Fortunately, I was able to experience the last 6 years of his phenomenal
activity because I came back to the demoscene. My scroll text is basically
meant to represent the graphic process mOdmate, Evil and I went through while
working on this music demo. Let's get started...

How it all began.

mOdmate contacted me on Sunday 17 March 2024 via Facebook and asked me if I
would be interested in a project. And yes, what can I say, anyone who knows me
knows that I can hardly say 'no' when someone asks me if I can help with a
demoscene project. So I announced my interest and quickly asked for the
details. mOdmate said that he already had an idea in mind and wanted to send
it to me. I gave him my email address and he sent me a first preview of the
music demo, which consisted of nothing but his music, a sparse selector and an
info section that wasn't really visible yet. He told me that Evil could still
change everything and that this would pave the way for the new design of the
music demo.

It was important to mOdmate that people know that all the music was realised
manually by him, note for note, and that nothing was converted from a machine
or algorithm.

The music demo was to be called 'Songs in the Key of YM' in reference to the
great album by Stevie Wonder. He described the look of the intro to me. It
should contain an old tube radio with a magical green eye, which is depicted
in an evening atmosphere with warm light. I would have free choice in the
design, just as I could freely design the UI.

I quickly enquired about the technical limitations. Overscan? ST or STE? Can
raster splits be used, etc. The answers were quickly clarified; based on his
music, all the necessary timers were already in use.

A few weeks passed without any activity, personal and family reasons kept me
away. I made sure that there was still interest in my help or that someone
else had already stepped in. Both mOdmate and Evil were still very busy
themselves and so the music demo didn't really go ahead for the time being and
I needed some time to find a suitable idea for the intro image.

On 27 June 2024, I sent mOdmate the first mockup of the intro, which I had
created in Photoshop. mOdmate replied: 'Wow, wow, wow, that turned out super
nice!' And as life would have it, there was another very long break. Until
things really got going.

On 26 October 2024, mOdmate wrote to Evil and me to announce his current state
of health and that he had been diagnosed with cancer in April 2024 and had
been undergoing treatment ever since. This hit me very hard, and I looked back
to when mOdmate had first written to me about the music demo. I just thought
shit, why, why didn't you tell me before. Even now, I still cry every time I
have to write about it. From that point on, it was clear to me that this music
demo was now my absolute priority as far as the graphics were concerned,
because I wanted mOdmate to experience the development of the music demo for
as long as he could.

On 29 October 2024, I sent mOdmate and Evil the first layout of the music demo
interface to get the project up and running again. mOdmate loved the first
layout and the ideas. And from that point on, the legendary email conversation
about what you can see and enjoy here began.

I first created the main interface of the music demo. Since I really liked the
ideas that were to be shown in the intro, I knew that the interface of the
music demo should be a close-up of the intro radio. There were many discussions
about technical realisation and workflows. Evil asked me how I liked to work
and asked me if I knew how to use Github to upload/download graphics or if we
should rather work via a Dropbox folder. I was free to do anything, but since
Evil asked if I would like to do builds myself, it was already clear that of
course I would like to do this. I love being able to test things quickly
without annoying coders with graphics updates. Evil quickly explained to me
how I could install VASM and create builds. And I was up and running and could
update without having to ask Evil to send me a new build every time. I think
Evil agrees that this was the best decision because we had a lot of changes
until everything was where we are now.

On 1 November 2024, mOdmate sent the first additional requests, although he
had previously said in his email of 26 October 2024 that he was currently not
in a position to contribute to the music demo in any way. On that day, he
wanted additional functions for Random Play, Shuffle Play and Playing Queue.
This meant that this also had to be represented somehow. Which turned out not
to be so easy in the end.

On 03 November 2024 I sent mOdmate and Evil an update with the wishes and
adjustments. mOdmate loved the update and said: 'That he loves to see a lot of
info about the music in a music demo'. mOdmate asked if I was on holiday in
the USA or Australia or if it was pure Demoscene dedication. Because the
European time on the email referred to 3:35 in the morning. :) I reassured
him that I wasn't on holiday and that it was a matter of dedication to the
Demoscene. After all, when you have a family and children, free time is not
easy to find and you have to cut back on your sleeping hours to get something
done. At the time, I didn't realise how many days, weeks and months were still
to come.

I sent the next update on 5 November 2024 and a lot has happened again and you
already had the feeling that you were quite far along. Haha... far from it.
Some new things were still layout to symbolise the ideas, so you could talk
about and change everything until it went to the final graphics.
Unfortunately, Evil had already started a lot of coding and my graphics update
was surprising and somewhat destructive to the work he had already done. In
the end it was all good, Evil gave me plenty of input and we continued the
development quickly. But how did this misunderstanding come about? Well, it
was the love spam folder in which 1-2 mails from Evil had disappeared, which
meant that I hadn't realised that he had already started coding. I suggested
that he wait for a while because I was still in the layout process and things
can change at any time, because I like it when buttons and information are
compact in one place and not scattered all over the screen. And this took time
until everything was almost perfect.

On 7 November 2024, we had to swallow the bitter pill and learned that mOdmate
was really making the little ST sweat with maxYMiser. There were some songs
that had a CPU utilisation of 90%. Even if you think this is just a music demo
and you have all the options in the world, we had to be as CPU-friendly as
possible.

Meanwhile, I continued to refine the main element, the spectrum analyser,
between the two radio buttons and make it as compact as possible for all the
information that needed to be placed there. Also, so that Evil didn't have to
recode too much, I took his spectrum analyser layout and placed all the
necessary information around it.

A few days passed and Evil and I exchanged many updates, information, small
talk, confusions and adjustments.

On 12 November 2024 mOdmate wrote: 'Awesome progress guys, I am following
everything closely, but silently. I love the graphics, all turns out nicely!'
He gave us another update on his health, saying that he was currently in
hospital and was doing well.

On 16 November 2024 I had uploaded a lot of updates to Github and sent a new
preview for mOdmate and Evil. The main menu was 98% complete at this point,
with all the extras you can see next to the green song area.

This part was always difficult because we have this big area where the songs
were listed, but in the early layout the idea was already born that our green
eye in the intro would be this song area and that I had to make a radio where
the cloth was missing in the front and you could guess the inner parts of a
radio.

The mOdmate logo was already in place, as was the first prototype of the music
demo logo. The clock showed 4:38 in the morning. I didn't think I'd get a
reply now. But... at 4:50 in the morning mOdmate wrote: 'Wow, this is simply
amazing! Fantastic artwork, Jade! The new bitmaps for the upper part and the
mOdmate logo look fantastic - this whole gfx makes me happy!!!! :)' and I
replied to mOdmate: 'Great to hear that you're happy. Biggest present for me.'
Love!

6 hours later Evil wrote, 'Are you guys sure you aren't vampires?  I was
zzzzz since hours when you're still pushing stuff to github.'

As I said before, this project was the highest priority of all ongoing
Demoscene projects, and it was a passion that came from the heart. I made sure
o tell Evil that I'm not a vampire, but when I'm working on something, I'm
often highly focussed and I have an addiction to working on a task until it's
done. And I was also in the flow and during the nights it was the only time I
could consistently work on bigger tasks without being interrupted by family
commitments.

But enough about me now. Evil definitely had a lot of work again.

That day was also the first day I thought about animations. An animated glow
running over the mOdmate logo and some Spark FX for the cables at the top of
the radio. mOdmate loved these ideas. I liaised with Evil about what to look
out for so that I could get started when the time came.

I also sent mOdmate the logo I had in mind and he was delighted.

On 17 November 2024 I sent a new update, of course it was already late again
or let's put it this way, 'The first hours of this day'. The menu or player
was 99% finished at this point in terms of graphics.

mOdmate also asked for a binary update that day, because he hadn't seen
anything in motion for quite a while, since the very first prototype, which
didn't have my graphics yet, and only knew the screenshots I had always
attached of the progress.

On 18 November 2024 mOdmate wrote: 'Guys, for the first time I watched the
music demo with the new GUI - what a monster it already is! Fantastic work by
both of you, it's the music production I dreamt of (well, not regarding the
circumstances...). Big Love!'

The enthusiasm was great and my thanks were just as great and I wrote to
mOdmate: 'I'm very happy about these words. And mate, I'm even more happy
that you could see the progress and enjoy it! That was my personal wish and
hope. Love!

Can this be improved on? At least I hoped so, because the intro was far from
finished. But we'll get to that later.

On 21 November 2024, mOdmate wrote us some great feedback because he had now
seen his music demo in action for the first time and was able to test it. It
was now small things like font adjustments, a few extra key shortcuts and song
name adjustments. You could tell that mOdmate wanted to get more involved,
even though we had told him in advance that he should rest and spend the days
with his family. But it was also nice to see that mOdmate was still on fire
for his Demoscene mates and the project. You wouldn't have believed that he
was suffering from an illness that was unstoppable.

On 24 Novemer 2024 Evil sent a new update of the music demo with code updates
and he had added a temporary help screen that appears when you press the H
key.

So it was time to create the help screen, and the idea I had seen in a
restoration video on YouTube that mOdmate had sent me came to me. The radio
was taken apart there and the bottom of the radio contained the electronic
blueprint of the radio. The circuit diagram of the radio, so to speak.
I thought it was such a cool idea that I thought something similar could be
done for the help screen.

So I sat down and created an old-looking piece of paper on which the help
function was illustrated. I took up the idea that each letter abbreviation was
connected to a drawn circuit path, just like in a real circuit diagram. As
there are always manufacturer logos on these circuit diagrams, I took up this
idea and created a small MODMATE logo with the additional name 'Werke
Leipzig', which is mOdmate's home town. Of course, a wet coffee cup imprint
should not be missing on such old paper. And before you knew it, the help
screen was finished. Basically, it was the completion of the whole main
interface with help screen. Of course, there were always small changes,
because we had changed a lot.

So it was time to concentrate on the animations.

On 03 December 2024, I sent the first animation of the animated gloss on the
MODMATE logo. The glamour consisted of 22 animation frames. mOdmate was
immediately in love and sent 3 heart emojis. Next up were those little sparkle
animations that you can see in the contacts at the top of the radio. There
were 4 different sparks with 5 animation frames each. Everything was finalised
and uploaded to Github so that Evil can add them in the next few days as soon
as he has time.

Silly Venture WE 2024 approached and things quietened down a little for the
time being.

When you know something that many people don't know, different emotions
develop than when you don't know anything. Accordingly, the farewell demo
'Forever' by Tom, 505 and mOdmate was really emotional for me. I think a lot
of people didn't see it for what it ended up being. In any case, I had a lump
in my throat and tears in my eyes.

So I would like to share another quote from mOdmate when he wrote to us on
1 December 2024 that he was back in hospital for therapy. mOdmate wrote:
'Great steps forward, I really enjoy seeing the prod getting done more and
more. And I love to read that you, Jade, listen to the songs while pixeling!
:-D'.

And yes, that's right, every minute, every hour that I worked on the graphics,
I had mOdmate's music disc running in the background in an endless loop. It
really helped me to motivate myself and push my limits.

After Silly Venture, things got a lot quieter, everyone was already in the
Christmas spirit and needed a little break. It wasn't finished yet, because
the intro was still completely open. While we were working on the main
interface, over 120 emails were written documenting the entire process.

Nevertheless, it didn't take long for me to get started on the intro graphics,
which initially only existed as a quick mock-up.

On 10 December 2024, I sent the first WIP of the intro image. This consisted
only of the round wooden table, the radio, a neutral background and a glass of
red wine. In principle, I wanted to capture the cosy atmosphere that mOdmate
had wanted. At this point, the frequency band was still missing. But the green
eye was already there and it stared at me every day. :D

Evil and mOdmate were thrilled and loved it. And mOdmate gave direct feedback
on how the intro could be designed. How and what text could be displayed. In
principle, the sequence was taken as mOdmate had wished, except for the
design. A few things changed in the process.

There was always this crazy idea of animating the green eye, it was never
supposed to be just a fixed element, but a kind of spirit of the radio. Of
course, HAL 9000 from Space Odyssey always popped into my head when I thought
of this green eye.

So I put forward the idea that we could start the intro by only seeing the
eye, which is animated, and then the image is built up with an effect.

During the day, shortly before 11pm, I sent a new update of the background,
in which a reduced version of the frequency band was already built in, and I
had freshened up the background a bit with silhouettes of plants and a light
coming from above, which you could easily feel in the background. Since the
frequency band is animated, I also directly placed the different states as
animations. In the end, the indicator of the frequency band was coded by Evil
so that it moved freely without an animation frame.

Shortly afterwards, about half an hour later, I sent the first animation of
the eye, which consisted of a loopable pulsation. The next day I received
positive feedback from Evil and his first sketch for the build-up effect of
the image in beautiful Ascii graphics. :) I thought it was cool and wouldn't
mind if mOdmate agreed with it. mOdmate's answer was short and sweet, 'I
agree with everything and am happy like a child to see this great progress,
also in directions I did not dare to dream of! Love '.

Since I didn't like the idea that the animation of the eye only ever had a
loopable ping-pong animation. I suggested whether we could implement some
kind of animation scripting in the code to script the animation in the intro
with as few animation images as possible. In short, Evil had already
implemented it and we agreed on the implementation and possibilities.

In the meantime, I asked mOdmate if he had any ideas about what I could include
because I had the feeling that the picture still looked a bit empty.

mOdmate suggested putting in a book, and these were his lutes, 'A book! One
from the late 19th century, thick brown cover. I collect books (about Criminal
Law), and esp. I like those old ones. A book would bring a nice personal note
right from the start.

The next question on my mind was how do we want to display the intro text in
the intro image? I created a few quick pixel mockups to show what we could do.
However, the first 3 mockups weren't pretty and didn't integrate very well with
the image. So I made another mockup that I thought would be cool and ended up
with what you see in the intro.

mOdmate was enthusiastic, but there was a problem with the realisation because
the effect would simply not have been feasible.

On 14 December 2024, Evil sent us a major update with the last things I had
done in the last day. The text effect was also included, but without the laser
beam. But that was okay. I just thought to myself that I could somehow manage
it differently.

On this day, mOdmate contacted me again from the hospital and asked for an
update as a video file, because it was difficult for him to watch the latest
preview in the emulator while in hospital. Evil prepared a video recording and
sent it to mOdmate.

In the meantime, Evil and I talked about how to better build up the text on
the table. The idea was to use a mask that allows the text to fade in. That's
how we ended up incorporating a dither mask.

Evil had included a test text and I asked if the text was meant seriously ;)
I shouldn't have asked, because it turned into an oldskool quiz. And yes, I'm
that bad at it, and I'm sure everyone knows what I'm talking about when it
comes to demoscene quizzes and who's damn good at them. mOdmate for sure. :D

Well, let's have a quiz then. The original from Evil: In which game do you
type 'st forver' in the menu screen to get cheatmode? a) Chambers of Shaolin
b) Leavin' Teramis c) Wings of Death

And if you want to be extra good, what game have the cheat code 'tcb rules
forever' if you type it in the title screen? I do these demoscene quizes at
Sommarhack each year and have much fun to hear complaints that the questions
are too hard :)

If you know the answers, please let us know ;) But it didn't stop there, more
picture quiz series followed. It was very embarrassing, but hey, at least I
now know what some people look like. :D Not so easy when you haven't met the
people in person yet. :) On the web, you're just a nickname and there's
usually no picture. At least that was often the case back then. :D

Anyway, back to the essentials.

The 15th of December 2024 followed and the intro picture now had a book, just
as mOdmate wanted and loved it, but it was still far from enough. I continued
to ask mOdmate about personal things that could perhaps be included. I learnt
a few things, including that mOdmate wore glasses until 2022.

Here is his original text, 'Btw, I wore glasses until 2022... Oval glasses
without a rim, maybe you could add them next to the book? The message would be
damn strong, 'he has put off his glasses...forever' :-/ but that's good. And
there is the Forever motive again...'

But that wasn't the only thing. mOdmate was a guitar and piano player for
decades. And so more and more personal things came into the intro picture to
remind us of him, insofar as we knew these details about him.

In the meantime, Evil explained to me a few important assembler commands on
how to repeat the procedures. Which was good, because it later played a
decisive role for the intro sequence scripting.

On 16 December 2024, I sent mOdmate and Evil an update of the intro image.
I had integrated the 'Songs in the Key of YM' into it, and the question
naturally arose as to how to make it appear. I suggested that we could have
it fade in with a kind of pixel dissolve, because classic fade-in doesn't work
here, even though Evil wanted a Falcon at this point to make it fade in even
more versatile with more effects. There was also the idea of storing the
crossfade as animation frames, which meant a lot of work to pixelate them in
this case. Fortunately, Evil had tried the semi-random pixel dissolve, which
worked very well in the end.

24 December 2024 was a nice day, because mOdmate was allowed to go home and
enjoy Christmas at home with his family. And he also asked for a binary update
to get a new impression of his music demo.

Here's his reaction to the update: 'This is absolutely beautiful, guys! Great
work from both of you! The 'Modmate Werke Leipzig' sign brought me to tears,
Jade. So good! Love it!'

After the Christmas days had passed, I continued with full motivation and sent
an update of the intro picture with the glasses on 28 December 2024. It's not
easy to create glasses without framing when the colors are very limited. But
it worked out quite well in the end.

Getting back to the guitar/piano theme, I had suggested that you could
incorporate a metronome that sits on the table.

During the Christmas season, mOdmate took the time to take a closer look at
his music disc on real Atari hardware. Real Atari and Atari Screen to clarify
it! mOdmate asked if you could animate the big button on the right in the main
interface when you move the cursor up or down. I said clearly, why not.

I also sent a new update of the intro image. It now showed a metronome, with
which I had of course pushed myself into my own trap. Of course, a metronome
doesn't stand still, it had to be animated.

In the meantime, mOdmate kept telling us how he was doing and what challenges
he was facing. But he also asked us what this meant, whether the cancer had
spread, and so on. It was a real rollercoaster of emotions. But it should be
mentioned that mOdmate was doing well, he had almost no pain, breathing and
movement were much more difficult than normal. But yes, the damn cancer was
still there.

Late in the evening of 28 December 2024, I sent mOdmate a binary update with
the current graphics. Overall, we were on target to finish this baby. There
were still some small things to do. The New Year was approaching and we were
all in a New Year's mood.

In the new year, it was quiet, damn quiet. No e-mail communication. Somehow a
little unsettling. I wondered if I had missed something. Two weeks passed in
silence.

On 14 January 2025, I sent a signal to the radio station in the hope of
receiving a return signal. mOdmate got in touch 1 day later and he was very
happy that I had got the project rolling again after such a long time. mOdmate
himself had not dared to do this because he thought he had not contributed so
much to the running project that he would be in a position to kick our arse :)
Not exactly his words, but I think it's spot on. mOdmate, if you can hear me
up there. You've contributed a hell of a lot to this project, even when you
initially thought you couldn't contribute much given your health, you've done
a hell of a lot.

mOdmate said he hadn't been able to do much except sit in bed a lot and
consume various media. Watching YT videos, such as Dungeon Master playthrough,
reading etc. No Atari activity, just consuming.

mOdmate wrote: 'Glad to have you guys around! Love'

Evil also sent signs of life and I was very happy to hear from them again.

Nevertheless, the next days and weeks were slower than before the new year.
There were several reasons for this, such as Evil working on various crash
tests and fixes that were caused on different systems such as Atari Falcon,
Atari TT030 etc. in connection with maxYMizer.

On 9 February 2025, mOdmate wrote to tell me that Evil had sent him a new
update. mOdmate's wife had noticed an important detail in the update that I
needed to change. It was about the red wine glass that was initially included
in the picture, but this should be removed and replaced with a Coke Zero
bottle because the red wine glass didn't really fit and didn't reflect his
personality. There are so many personal memories of mOdmate in the picture
that a glass of red wine doesn't fit. Anyone who knew mOdmate better, because
they had met him at demo parties, knows that mOdmate always drank from Coke
Zero bottles. So it was a case of replacing the glass with a Coke Zero bottle
to complete the picture. I assure him that I will fulfil his wish.

Days of radio silence passed again, but on 11 February 2025 mOdmate contacted
us and gave us an update from his side. He reassured us that he was doing
well, even though he was now back in hospital. He watched YT videos about
demos, games on all systems and lots of documentaries.

On 18 February 2025, I sent mOdmate the update with the intro image, which
now had the Coke bottle. Again, not easy with the few colors, but luckily I
had 1 red color in my palette.

One day later mOdmate thanked me very much for the final touches and so the
intro image was finished and some animation frames still had to be adjusted
due to the changes.

The days passed like the sand in an hourglass, slowly and silently...
Nevertheless, some things were still unfinished. Personally, I didn't have
time to continue, because family is also important in the end.

On 01 March 2025, 505 gave us the sad news that mOdmate had passed away. A
very sad day for the whole demoscene, especially the Atari demoscene. I did
my best to accompany mOdmate on his last journey, to let him experience his
last project up to a point where it was 99% finished.

Looking back to 19 February, this was also the last day on which we received
an email from mOdmate. At least the last one to me!

I would like to share his last words, but I don't know if that would be the
right thing to do. Whether he would have wanted that, but I can assure you
that he was fine, he was back home and enjoyed his last days very much. And
the more I write about it again, the more I get tears in my eyes..............

The days went by and I used the time to finalise the last things. The complete
intro scripting for the eye was still missing and had to be done. I had asked
Evil to install this system so that I could do the animation scripting for the
eye and intro myself. So it was time to do this. It took me a few hours to
script a nice flow, but also quickly realised that I needed to create
additional animations. I remembered Evil saying it was no problem to create
more animation frames, which I did in order to have the right animations for
the different sequences in the intro.

This means, for example, the effect in the eye of the picture buildup, the
effect in the eye for the writing on the table and the ending.

On 09 March 2025, I sent a new binary with the new eye animation to Evil and
added 505 as a new recipient in our email history. Evil was thrilled that I
was able to finalise the intro because he felt a bit lost doing it. Which is
totally fine, because it should never be Evil's job to script an intro
sequence. Well, well, well. So it was done...

This left only the metronome to animate and the button for the song selector.
I first create the animation for the selector and then a quick animation
layout for the metronome so that Evil has something to do.

Evil added it quickly and then fixed a few graphics himself, which still had
to be updated due to all the updates. Thanks again for mastering it on your
own Evil.

So this project was finished and all that was missing were the scroll texts,
a few optimisations and the release.

The last words finally. I hope it wasn't too boring for you to read, because
it's a lot of stuff, but I've realised over the last few years that there are
people out there who are simply interested in how some things come about. I
also wanted you to be able to experience mOdmate's last moments and this
project was simply created to write something about the creation.

Thank you mOdmate for choosing me to fill your masterpiece with a wonderful
look, lots of memories and personality.

I miss you my friend and I hope you can enjoy the final release in Atari
heaven wherever you are. Love you mate! My condolences to your wife, children
and the rest of the family.

Thank you Evil for your time and patience on this project, it's been many
months. But I think it was worth it. Love you mate!

Thank you 505 for everything you did to bring mOdmate's last wish to an end.
Love you mate!

My greetings and thanks go to all Atari Sceners who have kept the Atari scene
alive until now and hopefully for some more years to come.

Love to my wife for her patience in letting me dedicate my free time to this
project. I love you, darling! Love to my two sons, who always asked me if this
was all pixeled. And how I did it all. Patience, a lot of patience and
practice over years.

It's a wrap and Jade is out.        Gwem are you there?!



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% gwEm                                                                        %
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Greetings to everyone reading this text, its gwEm of the Psycho Hacking Force
on the keys. It's an honour to be invited by mOdmate to chat a little to you on
his production 'Songs In The Key of YM'. The first I heard of mOdmate was back
when he was a member of the Checkpoint democrew, and at the time he was
considered one of the top graphicians on the ST. It took a few years before I
actually met mOdmate for the first time, but I remember it clearly. I was
playing a show in Leipzig, mOdmate had reached out and I was able to make time
after soundcheck to have dinner with him and my bandmates. After dinner mOd
graciously took us all on a tour of his city.

The next time our paths crossed is not quite clear to me, though I think it
was most likely at the Sommarhack demoparty. But in the meantime a surprising
transformation had occurred! mOdmate, now in the SMFX democrew, had grown a
little bored of pixelling and had instead switched to making music. However he
was still happy to give my PHF crewmate, Grazey, and I some dithering tips :)
I was impressed by mOd's first tracks which were already polished. The state
of maxYMiser at this time was probably around v1.33 which had only the more
classic YM effects like SID, syncbuzzer and digidrums. At this time I more or
less knew the sonic capabilities of maxYMiser.

Unexpectedly, around 2020, I found myself unemployed and I used the time to
code four extra timer effects into maxYMiser. But I no longer had time to
experiment with maxYMiser myself due to a stressful new job, I was no longer
sure of all the sounds my tracker could make. But mOdmate had been inspired by
all the new effects. He sent me some of his new sounds, and they were very
strong and beyond my expectations. He also sent me some very good ideas for
usability improvements and detailed bug reports. Through my Twitch streams, I
was able to answer a few of his YM questions live. With every new tune mOd's
sounds were now pushing new boundaries. My story ends at Sommarhack 2024, with
the song C= Wannabees, a collaboration with our friend 505. Absolute
perfection! So this is my friend mOdmate, top tier graphician, musician,
experimenter and gentleman.



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% Tao                                                                         %
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Tao/Cream says...
Hey mOdmate          Hey mOdmate, look at us. Here we are. All your friends
gathered together, celebrating your legacy. More than three decades of high
quality contributions to our demoscene. Three decades of love, passion, respect
and friendship. A young talented graphic artist evolving into a skilled,
versatile and influential YM chipsound musician. Looking back about 25 years,
like it was yesterday, i remember our enthusiastic chats about progressive
rock music when we exchanged views on our favorite artists and songs.

You presented bands and albums which I still enjoy listening to today and they
will always be associated with your name. Your passion and love for details
were already apparent back then. Years passed by, we chatted from time to time,
while you were composing your first tunes.

When I returned to the scene I was really amazed by your output. You were
pushing maxYMiser and TTRAK to their limits and created songs which became
my personal highlights. Again we were discussing latest chipsound developments
and it was also fascinating to see your enthusiasm exploring and experimenting
classic techniques. You knew every single arpeggio line from Mad Max, Scavenger
or Jess with all their unique styles. And you noticed effects in my own songs
that I hardly remembered. You soaked it all in and it was such a pleasure to
watch. It was inspiring.

You gave me the opportunity to listen to your unreleased songs when you told
me, that you were planning a big demo containing all of them. I was looking
forward to seeing it and now here it is. I really would have loved to see
this as the first of many to come, but it was not meant to be.

And now here we are. With the help of your friends we pay tribute to your
amazing works. And more important, to you as a decent and kind person, who
was a pleasure having around.

We will miss you. Thank you for everything, Torsten.



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% Dma-Sc                                                                      %
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Hello all, Dma-Sc on the keys, I hope you enjoy modmate legacy of music, work
of a really nice person gone way, way too soon. I guess he would have loved to
hear more from all of us, as he always did, with the nice comments he provided
us. So they best we can do is to continue composing, as musicians, and create,
as sceners.

Take care, live long, and have fun.



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% YQN                                                                         %
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Hello y'all YM enthusiasts, YQN here...      Nils honoured me by asking me a
few words for this tremendous music disk. Playing some 505 & mOdmate tunes as
I'm writing this, enjoying delightful grooves and sound design...

I must be the newest scener in this scrolltext and I've only been messaging
with Torsten for a few years, what can I say that you guys don't already know?
Torsten gave me the warmest welcome to the scene, it has been such an honour to
receive compliments from this legendary scener and YM connoisseur! It was
lovely exchanging files and getting inspiration from one another. When I told
him I was struggling with snare drums, he sent me a collection of maxYMiser
snares: own designs, conversions from other chips like the SID, ripped
instruments, digidrums... Snares I will try my best to adequately honour in
future works. Thank you Torsten you lovely fellow! Now back to this prod... I'm
always excited about a YM music disk but a mOdmate one, wow! It's gonna be
something to witness for sure! Let's enjoy this gift together!

Regards to all sceners and YM musicians... Peace!



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% Damo                                                                        %
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Some thoughts and ramblings about Torsten aka Modmate - Damo/RG 31/03/25  
Since Torsten's passing I've been thinking and waiting for inspiration to
strike, not really knowing where to begin putting down words. Suffice to say
that inspiration hasn't really struck.
So we're going to go anyway in the spirit of the rambling old scrolltext!  I'm
going to drop a few words on what I think about when I think of Torsten, my
memories, and our shared history within this beautiful Atari demo scene.

So if I may, let's wind us back to early 1994, at which point, after a few
years of intense interest and activity, I'd stopped paying too much attention
to the Atari scene as I was getting more and more into the Rave scene, into
music...  All those obsessions and energies that I'd had in the years
previously around demos and and cracks and and all that stuff I kind of
transferred over into making music... in particular Jungle music, which over
the course of 1993 into 1994 I'd become completely obsessed with.

It was a sort of natural conclusion to that to that era, I was a young
teenager when I was into the Demoscene and there was something of a
coming-of-age at 16 where I was getting more interested in going out, and
listening to and making music, and the culture and lifestyle that surrounded
it.  There was always a musical aspect of the Demoscene that I was really into,
and undoubtedly it played a critical part in my getting deeper into it, and
during 93-94 I just really leant into it.

As you know, it was a funny time for the Atari ST demo scene and loads of crews
were bailing, going off to do different things. So this culminated in me
selling my ST and disks and funnily enough, I actually bought a Falcon and a
copy of Cubase Audio (made possible by my inheriting a couple of grand from my
grandad bless him!)  This was quite a short-lived wave as it was really buggy
and crashy. There was something going on with the hard disk driver and it just
wasn't working as a means of making music - Cubase Audio on the Falcon was
quite an early implementation of Cubase audio, and it was a struggle!  So yeah,
a bit crusty.  Anyway, I'd had enough, so my dad had managed to kick the arse
of the music shop where we'd bought it from and eventually they swapped it out.
They agreed to swap it out for an Akai Sampler and a mixer, which was actually
in hindsight much more appropriate for making hardcore Jungle music than Cubase
Audio on the Falcon :)

So at this point, I had to go out and buy another ST - probably only about 18
months after selling my original ST :D  But it may as well have been a
lifetime..  In that time, you know, the market for second hand STs was flooded,
there was so many cheap STs out there.  I can't actually remember where I got
it but I picked a cheap 1040STFM up to to run Cubase (MCA crack, of course!!!),
Cubase 2.01 to drive my Akai Sampler and I started making shitloads of music.

A year or two later I went up North to University and surprise surprise I had a
couple of really heavy years of going out, raving, buying music, making music,
not much studying, to be fair.

By the final year at Uni, I was pretty worn out and skint and actually when I
look back on it, I was massively burnt out after a couple of really heavy years
of enjoying myself. So I was pretty low-key by that final year (we're into 97,
98 now)  Throughout that time I'd kept loosely in touch with Tat, and so we
found an opportunity to meet up in Bradford.  I remember meeting him at the
train station and he had his Falcon under his arm(!)  We retired to my student
House and there he showed me some demos and of course he showed me
Sonolumineszenz.   Holy shit, I couldn't believe it. could. not. believe. it :)
And because I hadn't paid much attention over the previous few years, I had no
idea this was all going on.  I was pretty stunned, and he proceeded to show me
a few other bits and pieces, he told me about Dead Hackers Society, Little
Green Desktop - this was around the time that emulation was really popping off.

I started to spend hours in the Uni library on their snazzy new 'Internet'
system surfing the internet, checking DHS hourly, fascinated by what was going
on in this, you know, apparently undead Atari scene that I'd given up on a few
years earlier.  At the same time, my housemate had a a desktop PC which I
commandeered, downloaded Pacifist onto it, and just started to consume demos.

Bear in mind, this is only two or three years after I'd sort of walked away
from it all, but even so it was really apparent that there had been quite a
shift in those few years.

The demos looked different. The attitude was different. You know, it felt a lot
more underground again, a bit more *punk*..  I think we can all agree we owe a
massive debt to those that kept the fire alive during that time during the big
exodus of people leaving for Amiga, going to PC, Super Nintendo etc etc...     

And actually, in reflection, these are some of the most vibrant times for the
Atari demoscene.  One of the biggest waves at that time was coming from
Germany, specifically from TSCC, Cream, Checkpoint, Escape...  They were backed
by Undercover magascene, which came to my attention as it threw shit back and
forth with the UK disk mag 'Maggie' - both were equally irreverent and
entertaining.  In reflection it was an amazing time for our beloved scene, and
one thing that struck me about these new-school demos was that there was
abundance of high quality artwork.  There was a guy doing mad wildstyle
outlines, logos for TSCC, for Undercover Magascene..  a guy called Mod.  Three
letters in the corner of the screen.   Alongside these mad graffiti-style
throwdowns, he started to do these hyper-real, crazily dithered portrait pieces
that really caught my eye..  I was super-impressed by that..

His work was popping up in more and more places, and yeah, pretty quickly I
realised that this guy was representing the very pinnacle of our scene with his
with his artwork.  Shouts out to other amazing artists doing great work at the
time too - Havoc I'm looking at you :)

I was still in touch with Tat and we continued to kick around a few ideas and
as I was still making music, Tat asked if I wanted to work on a the new demo
that he was working on, called Binliner, and that Modmate was going to do the
graphics for it.  Jesus Christ, I couldn't believe it!  All of a sudden I had
an opportunity to work on a demo with two of the very finest talents in the
scene..  I was so psyched!!!!

As you know, it wasn't to be, and in fact our paths didn't cross again until
one fateful day in 2014 where we bumped into each other on IRC :). We had a
quick chat about Binliner, but interestingly Modmate was more interested in
talking about YM stuff.  He was particularly interested in the work I'd done
on Triplex, the Big Alec YM Tracker, and specifically the bootleg Protracker
interface I'd built and sneakily packaged with the release!

There began a decade of emails which I have spent time reflecting on and
revisiting over the last few weeks.  At first I was surprised how into the chip
music he was, knowing him primarily as a master pixel artist.  But it soon
became clear that Torsten was one of few true scholars of the demoscene,
working on all aspects of the craft in the same way that a b-boy would work on
the graffiti, the DJing, and the rap.  He wanted to understand and to master
all the disciplines!

You only have to check his catalog of works in Demozoo to see how successful he
was in that regard.  The level of development in his pixel-work is incredible,
pushing his recognisable style to unbelievable levels in the likes of Motus.
I think he knew he'd mastered the pixels and wanted to push himself again, and
that he did with his incredible ascent through chip-music :)

I'm really excited for this music demo as I only have an idea of the true
timeline and size of Torsten's chip adventure, but it's my recollection that
around 2013 he had started to mess around with Musicmon, and no doubt buoyed on
by his teammate Nils he started to fall deeper in love with the craft :)

We started to talk quite a lot about chip music, and about trackers, and before
I knew it, I was coding features into my as-yet-unreleased tracker based on our
discussions, and more critically, I was fine-tuning and bug-fixing based on his
observations.  I'd ping him a build, he'd drop me a line saying he was just
putting the kids to bed and that he'd take a look in an hour.  Three hours
later he'd have a page of notes and reflections.  It was amazing!  We worked
like this in bursts for about 3 years without even releasing the bloody
tracker :D

So we continued to talk back and forth, over a decade.  I could see that it
really captured his imagination, which was just awesome, and the feedback I was
getting was was incredible.  You could just sense that he had such a an eye (or
an ear rather) for the technical intricacies of the YM, and the artistic output
of what we are working with.  It's such an obscure thing, chip music on a on a
crusty-ass old chip,  and the Trackers themselves are even more obscure.  But
Torsten just saw everything as it was and was so in tune, no pun intended, with
with the whole thing, the whole package.  So we had some amazing conversations
in that time.  

And all along, he would work on more and more music.  Musicmon, Maxymizer,
eventually TTRAK.  He'd try them all, and he'd convert tunes by the bucketload
as a means of understanding better the artform.  He figured out Magicsynth and
proceeded to glean all the magic within Tao's powerful yet impenetrable tool,
making first conversions, and secondly, tributes to the great man himself.
This was his shortcut into learning the ins and outs of the arrangement and
the sound design of the masters that went before us.  All the time he was
building his skills.

Once he had understood Tao's methods he started to dissect the Mad Max TFMX
editor, an equally unorthodox tool not for the weak-hearted!  By the end of
2020, he was breaking down Adam Gilmore A8 tunes and examining the Pokey sound
chip specification!

As an aside, all of these obscure trackers, mine included....   It's always
been in the back of my mind that somebody needs to write a really niche coffee
table book on Atari ST YM chip trackers. I just think it'd be an amazing thing.
If you've ever been on the Dead Hackers Society website (of course you have)
there's a great archive of loads of these YM trackers and I can just see in my
minds eye a really niche but really amazing book!  But to be honest, I don't
know if that book really deserves seeing the light of day without Torsten's
input. In fact, maybe Torsten should have written it himself, but the guy was
just so busy in life and in creating stuff for that, he wouldn't have the time
to write the book :). Maybe one day Torsten, I'll do it for both of us!

So yeah, we continued to discuss this stuff as I worked towards releasing a
version of TTRAK.  It was an interesting time.  COVID hit and I really got to
know a bit more about him as a person, and it was just just fun getting little
reports here and there, how Leipzig was doing during COVID,  putting his kids
to bed, their holidays on the Balearic Ocean..  always finding time to Chip and
to cultivate his friendships.  I never pressed but I'm quite sure he had a
really difficult and challenging job also, so he really did impress me with how
amazingly he was bossing life!  As a parent who constantly feels that they're
failing in some way, he was a great source of inspiration.

With COVID on the decline, Tat and I finally kicked TTRAK out and whilst
Modmate was most comfortable working in his beloved Maxymiser, he continued to
bless us with such strong support, feedback, tracking time and encouragement.
Any time he picked up TTRAK to write was genuine honour for me, and I always
looked forward to the inevitable feedback that would proceed and succeed the
tracking effort! 

Catching up in person was just awesome and it was so funny to talk to him about
TTRAK because he understood it on such a low level.  He would just lean in
towards me and just almost whisper a little funny quip about something really
niche about TTRAK and we'd both laugh.  It's the most obscure conversational
topic, but it was amazing how how deeply he understood it.  He'd set himself
little challenges like once he made an instrument that just played pachabel on
it's own :D.

Occasionally he'd find something weird in TTRAK and it would be an undocumented
feature that I hadn't shared to see if someone would stumble upon it, and he
did.  And I'd tell him and he'd just crack up :D

What an honour to spend quality time with him, and for him to waste quality
time on my little project!

A great memory I think a lot of us share is Sommerhack 2024, where he and Nils
dropped the absolute bomb 'C64 Wannabees' for the ym music compo.  As the tune
hit it's crescendo, the crowd spontaneously erupted into something just short
of a mosh pit!  The Malmgarden soundsystem never sounded so good, and I looked
round at Torsten and he was fucking delighted!   That is a going to be a memory
I take with me forever.

With that tune in mind, only a couple of months ago he told me how he'd
recreated all the amazing FM instruments from that tune in TTRAK, to see if it
was possible (of course it was ;) !!).  Such a  motivational guy. This is a guy
that was predominantly using Maxymizer to do the lions' share of his art, and
yet he still found time to really dig in and and evangelise about TTRAK. What
an amazing guy.

And now, unfortunately, this has come to an unexpected and utterly tragic end,
which is so very sad to think of.  My heart goes out to his family, and to his
great friends in Nils and Norm, Stefan, and all those guys that have been
together through thick and thin through this mad scene of ours for over 30
years - over half a lifetime so burnt into our souls.

I'll never forget one Sommarhack, I don't know, 22 maybe, just peering over
Modmate's shoulder on onto his GEM Desktop and looking in his folder of
unfinished tunes. And it felt like it was hundreds of tunes in there, hundreds!
Whether that's accurate I don't know, but I cannot wait to explore more deeply
the body of work he's left us with.

I told him some weeks ago, things won't be the same without him.

But things are better because of him.

Love you mate. Maybe see you again one day.
Damo/RG



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% 505 Part 2                                                                  %
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Ok, this is 505 back on the keys...

Personally, I love to hear the stories of people, how they got into Atari, into
the demoscene and how all that evolved through the decades. For me these are
great fairy tales, taking me back in time and allow me to learn about details
from the past. I can listen to those stories over and over again.

mOdmate and me have come a long way. And at one of my last visits at mOdmate's
place, it suddenly came to mind, that we talked about our Atari past a lot
generally, but also realized we will not be able to do it anymore in the
future. So, to conserve this kind of background information, I asked Torsten to
retell me his personal Atari story a last time, particularly the parts which
only he knows, like the days before we met, in particular the time before our
common days with Checkpoint and SMFX.

So let me share this with you, it may be interesting for some. For me it's also
a way to not forget him and his past. And ultimately this helps to fill some of
the long hours this music demo is playing - just as he wished!

Torsten was born on 23.02.1977. This means he was about 8 years old when the
Atari ST was released. Growing up in the rather grey and dull Eastern Part of
Germany, it was mostly impossible to get hold of a computer like the Atari or
Commodore. There were a few shops called Intershop where you could buy western
items for West German Currency (DM), but the amount you would have to pay for
a computer was not affordable to the normal-situated people back then. So,
computers were mostly out of reach and Torsten had no contact to computers at
all. This changed unexpectedly in April 1987, which Torsten described like
that: 'After this date my life was different than before. I didn't have
anything to do with computers until that point. And suddenly this thing in my
dads workroom. My childhood had changed. I knew - that's it!'

His father bought an Atari 8-Bit computer out of nothing, brought it home with
a Ballblazer original - which was also the first chiptune Torsten ever heard.
He was blown away from the metallic sound. As much that even in 2024 he
remembered the situation as 'Incredible, this experience, a revelation,
honestly.', in his typical passionate style. This probably also explains the
extensive Atari Pokey section you are finding in this music disc. He truely
loved those classic tracks and similar to me always wondered, why this cool
sound is not possible on the ST. Luckily, we had mOdmate to prove us wrong, as
he eagerly dissected the sounds of his childhood manually and reproduced them
on his favourite computer's soundchip, the YM2149 inside the Atari ST.

But back to the 8-Bit days, when Torsten was busy typing listings from the
BASIC manual, recreating simple rasterbars and color effects. These days with
the Atari 8-Bit had a big place in his heart. Demos like 'Das Omen' by the
German Chaotics, 'Time to Enjoy' by TFC or 'Graphic Master III' by Homesoft
were milestones that impressed Torsten deeply and started his interest in the
demoscene, years before he got an actual Atari ST. He even remembered spooky
details like 'The Music Hall demo 89' did not run from tape in my place. Only
the 88 edition ran, but only when being lucky.' This describes the degree of
attention and fascination about the early Atari computing days so well! These
memories were something that Torsten, my brother NO, and me had in common and
could endlessly talk about.

Let me just share some other random memories of Torsten around the 8-Bit Atari,
while listening to his tracks: 'In 1988 I (Torsten) was in vacation in Poland
and there we bought pirated cassette tapes with games, 10 games on each tape,
on Turbotape. Turbotape was a tape recorder modification module that was
regionally developed. It allowed to load from tape much faster. I bought it in
Dresden and suddenly computer stuff was much more enjoyable with this. It meant
to play 20 instead of 2 games an afternoon!!!'.

Torsten's way of talking on Atari matters was always a joy to listen to.
Comments on a demo like 'Legend. Didn't run from tape. That's why it was so
legendary. Saw it only once at an Atari fair!' are still making me chuckle and
missing him at the same time.

Around 1990 Torsten got to knew a few people from the 'TOP-Crew' via his
cousin, which impressed him a lot as they were 'real grown up men' already.
I can fully replicate this feeling as I had a similar perspective back then on
the established Atari guys :)

And even a higher dose of an 'meeting the gods' event happened when Torsten,
being 13 years old, met Ingo Tamme, the maker of 'Das Omen' demo at some
regional Atari fair in Boehlen. He was totally stunned and excited.
Then, a coincidence was a game changer. In 1989 he found an issue of the German
Atari Magazin (a paper mag) which showed Atari stuff beyond his own Atari
8-bit machine and software on the market. Not only that he discovered that
actual floppy drives exist for the Atari 8-bit, no, also the ST was reviewed in
that magazine and this raised his interest...     The world moved on, the wall
came down and Eastern Germany became a part of the Western consumer market.

Around that time, Torsten had his youth ceremony, an East German tradition
which is performed at an age of 14 years, in the sense of celebrating the start
of being a grown up. These family celebrations often go in hand with relatives
giving you money, and that's why the young adults accept to go through that
ceremony, one may believe. However, the day after the ceremony, Torsten went
straight into the local Atari center and bought an Atari ST for 999 DM
including an SM124 monitor. That's the way to go!

It was a bit of a pity that he didn't know about the STE which was released
soon after. But anyway, the ST journey for him just started. He got a few BSW
compact disks and few demos from his uncle and his cousin, with whom he also
went to the famous Atarimesse during the hot summer days of 1991 in
Duesseldorf. As one of the 50.000 visitors he would spot demogroups wearing
T-shirts with their respective crew names and also come across services selling
Demo disks vor 5 DM each. This is also how he got hold of ULM's 'Dark Side Of
The Spoon' demo and just as impressive 'Oh Crickey What a Scorcher' by The Lost
Boys. No need to explain what an influence those demos had on him. The
wonderful visuals were the starting point for Torsten's wish to become an
graphician himself. Isn't that a beautiful moment in time - having in mind all
the wonderful output Torsten created during the following years?    So, beside
gaming, collecting more demos and programming in Omikron Basic he also started
creating graphics. First only in high resolution on his SM124 monitor. Soon
after, around 1992 he got hold of an Ultimate Ripping cartridge in the local
Atari shop which allowed him to inspect graphics more deeply.

Scene contacts were established by buying the paper magazine
'Computerflohmarkt'. This journal was basically full of small ads by people
buying and selling computer soft- and hardware but also frequently used for
swapping and getting in contact with others. As a result, from November 1991
on, he swapped about two years with Flix of Delta Force. His most important
contact to get into the scene however was JMS from Animal Mine. JMS was a well
known and great demoscene graphician. Whenever Torsten started talking about
him, you could feel his respect and thankfulness regarding him. The two met
each other personally at the Atarimesse, but more importantly, JMS took him a
bit under his wings and invited him to his aunt's place for some Atari geekery
and also to other meetings later on. Obviously, it was an amazing experience
to travel alone to Western Germany as a 15 year old boy and visit some scene
star in his 'considerable saturated west german household', as Torsten would
describe it. However, JMS and Torsten just got along very well and this
contact was probably the beginning of Torsten's Atari ST and Falcon scene
entrance resulting in further contacts and connections.

His own coding attemps of this period ended with a Xmas dentro in 1992 of his
early group 'Track 41'. This group was founded in by various local Atarians,
right in a blue Ford Fiesta on the way back from the 'FEZ a Bit' Atari fair
1993 in Berlin.

Demowise, Torsten's focus went into creating graphics with deluxe paint ST. In
April 1993 he got hold of the pixelling software package 'Crackart'. This was a
game changer! When I got to know Torsten years later he was still using
Crackart like a virtuose and even today I think it's a brilliant tool. Torsten
first used the software mostly to alter Calamus fonts. You know, there were
fancy features like smoothing edges or rerendering the shapes in 3d that had to
be explored after all!

The next step: In late summer 1993 Torsten received an Atari ST invitro for the
Dresden Coding Convention (DCC) party from his cousin. The intro was coded by
no one else than Melcus/ECG, a skilled coder with whom Torsten would cross path 
later on again, with the arising activity of the group Checkpoint.

However, this DCC event was his first demo party. And this was also  where a
real new chapter started for him. He met well-known sceners, Newtrend was
there, Inter, BSW, TNB, TFC and somehow it happened that many guys joined
The Naughty Bytes (TNB) at this place. The Naughty Bytes were the starting
point for Torsten's real scene activites and also quite a vibrant community
back in the day. They created the famous Undercover Magascene (UCM). And also
Torsten's first remarkable scene contributions were graphics for the intro of
UCM issue 2 in 1993. As he had bought a Commodore 1084-I monitor, pixelling was
a much better experience now, compared to the former TV set. Many many graphics
were created, TNB meetings hold and also releases brought on its way.

The relationship to those other TNB members actually lasted all the years, at
least in spirit. You could hear it, when Torsten spoke about them, they were
really close in mind due to the common past and passion of the youth.

The Falcon! It was late summer 1994, when Torsten worked in a DIY warehouse to
complete the 1.100 DM that were necessary to buy the bird. It was a second hand
machine coming with a skunk accerlator. This was his main computer on which he
also started true colour pixelling later on, becoming an Escape Paint power
user for some of his most impressive TC pictures like 'Six Sievert', 'Jasmin'
or the Binliner 'Bjoerk' graphics.

With some interruption by army duties from 1995 till early 1996, the scene
activities around the Falcon continued.

TNB went to the Intercon party, organized by Inter and .tSCc. in 1996.

This party was a special moment of the German Atari scene, realizing that 
unlike the previous successful big easter parties, there were only about 40
Atarians present. PCs were taking over and the end of the Atariscene was feeling
close. It was during this ambivalent period of the scene, when my brother NO
and I got to know Torsten more deeply. At the party we found out that we lived
quite close, about 100 km from each other. Same passion - check. Same region
 - check. Same motivation to meet up - check. So during the following years the
contact remained via Email, 'Snail' and also by meeting in person every now
and then. This usually was connected with bringing Atari computers, of course.
We would spend weekends together in a student house in Dresden with our bunch of
Atari friends, always setting up the full gear, copying software and lot of
talking and demo appreciation. Torsten was very much into pixelling back then
and always showed us his new discoveries. We also often sat together and
listened to computer music on our Ataris. And, as there were not many Atari
demos to swap, we swapped music files that we got from various hot sources like
FTP servers or personal contacts instead. I remember how much we appreciated
the same kind of musics and this actually never changed. We both always had a
weak spot for classic Amiga music, e.g. Mantronix and Tip, Doskpop by
Lizardking with its amazing chord arrangements or the faboulous 3D demo II tune
by Mad freak. When Playsid (and later also Flaysid) became available on our
Ataris we were absolutely stunned! From that time on, we fell in love with the
sound and also with some composers like AMJ, Jeff or Mitch and Dane - and this
also never changed! You might even be hearing some inspiration of those
musicians in our tracks and of course also in this demo.

In later times, Torsten got a PC and was more into these kind of demos (we were
not amused!). He was pulled into some PC demo activities around the crews
'Numb' and 'Obnoxious' as one of his best friends named 'Coctail' was involved
there. During this period, mOdmate even dared to carry his tower PC in the train
when he visited us to show us the latest PC releases, but he could not convince
the rest of us :-)

However, those little conventions of 5-10 people were great fun and are great
to remember. While Checkpoint and Escape members were regular residents, we
sometimes had participants from other crews, such as Cruor (RA and ZWF),
Therapy (Coke, Goldy and others) or TCE (Bitmaster). Good times!

It was around 1997 when mOdmate's group TNB had stopped almost all scene
activities, except releasing the Undercover Diskmag. Torsten felt he would need
a more promising surrounding and asked Lotek style (back then MC Laser) of
.tSCc. if he may join that group. In this era .tSCc. was equipped with the
fantastic coders Dynacore, Scy and Llama which raised a lot of hopes. As a
result the lovely 'Six Sievert' 96kb Falcon intro was released at
Siliconvention 1997. A wonderful intro presented at a wonderful party. Purely
subjectively, I think this intro transports the special atmosphere of the time
and I still like watching it a lot today. In this intro you would find great
graphics by mOdmate. For some reason he didn't really like these graphics
anymore a few years later. I never really understood :)

Later on, mOdmate joined Checkpoint and did many graphics for the Posh demo. We
were in constant exchange and travelled together in order to visit demoparties.
The trip to Quast party 1998, where he also won the True color pixel compo with
his Jasmin picture, will never be forgotten for reasons not to be told. But
these memories kept us laughing for more than 25 years! We swapped disks and
emails and generally connected a lot. He was very involved in some major
projects both on Atari ST and Falcon. And his pixel graphics from this period
belong to my favourites. He was getting better and better and I was very
impressed.

Around 2000 however, real life kicked in, with exams, getting a job and
foremost, founding a family. His focus naturally shifted away from the
Atariscene. While still following the things happening, Torsten was not
pixelling anymore and was bascially out of the scene completely for over a
decade. It's an interesting gap also visible in his Demozoo history.         
But as it happens, suddenly during his summer vaccation in 2012, after
finishing his PHD, he came across the 'JAPAN Beauties And Troubles' demo by
BlaBla, Cocoon and Sector One. This demo regignited his interest in Atari 
demos again. He started to look into the Steem debugger to find out more
about the spectacular effects in this demo. This is also how he got practically
involved in assembly coding. He exchanged a bit with Defjam about programming
and did more research on his own, which resulted in his remarkable rastersplit
intro for Checkpoint's Chasey demo.

After this trip into the land of assembly coding, he went back into pixelling,
mostly for Checkpoint demos. Soon after mOdmate got in touch with Dutch Atarian
spkr via IRC who was happily accepting graphical support. Those two worked
together on some demos for Outline and later on joined forces with XiA and 505
to create SMFX. From then on the rest is history. As it can be easily
reproduced by having a look at mOdmate's Demozoo pages, he basically never
stopped Atariscening from this point on and continued, as you now know, even
towards the very end...

I think for many, meeting him at parties like Sommarhack or Sillyventure, with
his positive attitude and personality and his authentic and deep interest in
the scene, he became a key figure in the Atariscene, especially during the
last decade.  He was a huge gift.

What is left to say? Well, it is about time to thank the Atariscene community
for being such a great and supportive place, too, even if life hits hard. The
support for mOdmate has been massive and proofed yet again, that we are a great
family.

At best, let us remember mOdmate as the wonderful and passionate person that he
was.

May he become an inspiration to keep this thing going! As mOdmate would put it:
'Demoscene for Life!'


Let's wraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap!
