
                           +-----Process  Five-----+
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                           P       THE ATTIC       P
                           5  by Liam the lemming  5
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                           +-----Process  Five-----+

Preamble...
~~~~~~~~~~~
It's been ages since I released anything, really. Which is quite disgusting.
I'm a talented tracker (or so people keep telling me - I don't *have* to agree
:> ) so I should put out stuff on a regular basis.

Easier said than done. This is the placement year of my degree (June 97 thru
May 98), so between my working day from 08:15-17:45 including travel to/from
work, my driving lessons (ack) and the odd job here and there to make a little
money, I don't have a great deal of time. 5 hours a weekday if I'm lucky. Life
sucks, there's NEVER enough time to do all the nothing you want to do. :P

So here it is. Finally. A release. j0y.

No, it isn't all new. There's quite a large bunch of old stuff in here:

 - unreleased stuff from The Trackering (Deep Joy)
 - unreleased stuff from Cruelization (Spacetime Surfer, Crash Barrier, Pearl
     Oblivion)
 - remixes of old tunes (The Vibe, (I Wanna) Dance Forever)
 - stuff I've had lying around for FAR TOO LONG ((It's Only) A Game, Perpetua)
 - a cover of something I heard ages ago and have been working on for over a
     year (Tarka's Anthem)

Okay then, it's ALL old stuff. But three of 'em are new. Well, two. One's only
new-*ish*. So shoot me.

And to put the tin lid on it, it's 3.13Mb. Compressed. That's obscene. Shoot me
again.

   * DON'T use Cubic Player to play these tunes. They're compressed anyway. *

The Guide...
~~~~~~~~~~~~
So what are they all about, anyway?

DEEP JOY:
A cute but unimpressive "rock"(?) ballad, first released in a mad rush for The
Trackering 28. Since then, it's been tampered with, abused, messed around,
horribly disfigured and, finally, finished off. Then tampered with some more.
But I think it's ready for release now. I think.
Listen to it anyway, it's got a nice chord structure and stuff.

SPACETIME SURFER:
Techno. Fast techno. Yes, from me, if you can actually believe it. This song
was thrown at Cruelization 7 with "The Rampant Rodent" listed as the author
since the Cruelization voting prog couldn't handle two songs by the same
author, or some such nonsense. It was more experimental than anything. The
envelopes are completely insane. THERE, YOU'LL HAVE TO GO INTO IMPULSE TRACKER
TO LOOK AT THEM SO PLAY EVERYTHING ELSE IN IT WHILE YOU'RE THERE. *cough* ;)

CRASH BARRIER:
My other Cruelization 7 tune. Again, some strange envelopes. Again, very
synthy. However, this time it's more pop/dance than techno. It's pretty catchy
and very game-musicy from what people tell me. Well, they never said it sucks,
so I guess that's good. =)

PEARL OBLIVION:
Brace yourself. Liam the lemming has written a JAZZ TUNE.
Picture yourself in a smoky jazz club, the band playing a mellow drifting jazz
number and you just sitting there, chilling. The sax meanders through the smoky
haze lazily, the piano flits across the room effortlessly, the hammond organ
weaves its way through the room. Groovy.
Have a good listen to this one, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

THE VIBE (GET REAL REMIX):
If you've downloaded Siren and Sirrus' "Oracle" musicdisk, you'll have probably
heard the track that inspired me to rewrite this one - "Beyond Simplicity".
Sirrus managed to breathe new life into "Simplicity", and it made me determined
to resurrect one of my all-time favourites - "The Vibe".
It sure kicks the ass outta the original.

(I WANNA) DANCE FOREVER - PHYSICAL BREAKDOWN REMIX:
I was playing around with the original of IWDF one day and decided to change
the chord progression. Then the lead. Then the samples. Before long, I had
pretty much remixed it. The fundamentals were the same, but the differences
were easily enough to call it more than just the same tune with a few changes.
It's more minor-based than major-based, but that just emphasises the difference
between the two. =)

(IT'S ONLY) A GAME:
EagleFalcon will tell you all day and all night how much this song rules, and
I'll spend the exact same amount of time shrugging it all off and muttering
something about it being "just about tolerable". It's a rock ballad. Again.
Man, I need to diversify. Anyway, this one definitely has the EagleFalcon stamp
of approval. Thing is, I've been working on it since, like, just after MC4.
Zodiak gave me some complimentary commentary on a *much* earlier version of
this tune at TP6, so I guess it has to have some merit. =)

PERPETUA - THE CONTINUUM:
This tune has a long history, outlined in the song message. Suffice to say,
this one's been around for a while too. If you've played ACiD Tetris, you'll
recognise this tune. ;) It's gone through a *helluva* lot of improvements, tho.

Why the name, tho? Cos it's loopable. In pattern 25, go to the bottom of row 1
and add a B command where you see the 01 in the effect column. Hey presto, a
clean loop. =)

TARKA'S ANTHEM:
This is a cover of a tune by Harry Williamson and Anthony Phillips (credit
where it's due ;) ). It's *extremely* mellow, and I feel I've done a very good
job on it. The history of the tune is in the song message, as is the story
behind my attempt to cover it.

The Stats...
~~~~~~~~~~~~
                                           Maximum   How does it sound in:
Title                           Duration   Channels   IT214    MikIt 1.00b
_____________________________________________________________________________
Deep Joy                        5:23 mins     34     Perfect|  Good enough
Spacetime Surfer                2:45 mins     32     Perfect| Just as good!
Crash Barrier                   2:39 mins     27     Perfect| Bad flaws. =(
Pearl Oblivion                  3:41 mins     30     Perfect| Just as good!
The Vibe (Get Real Remix)       4:39 mins 47(barely) Perfect| Just as good!
(I Wanna) Dance Forever         4:03 mins    14?!    Perfect|  Good enough
  [Physical Breakdown remix]                                |
(It's Only) A Game              6:31 mins     40     Perfect| Just as good!
Perpetua - The Continuum        5:52 mins     33     Perfect| Screws the fx.
Tarka's Anthem                  7:59 mins     26     Perfect| Bad flaws. =(
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Total:                         43:32 mins. Brace yourself. :)

Yes, I know. 4 out of 9 songs that cross the 32-channel line. Only one, in
fact, that stays within 14. Kinda gives out the message "screw you" to GUS
users, doesn't it? :>

Actually, the reverse is true. I've trimmed, snipped, pruned, shaved, tucked,
suppressed, all as much as I could without hurting each song. I could have left
them all up in the 40s and said "I don't care", but that wouldn't be true. I
don't like wasting channels unnecessarily, but there's only so far I can trim
before the song starts to smell ugly as well as look it. ;>

So don't yell at me cos my songs have too many channels. The channels were
there. I used them. I tried not to use too many. If that's not good enough, I
apologise.

But if you use the fact to beat up on Impulse Tracker, let me know so I can
flame the hell outta you. >:)

Thanks, y'all...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oh man, so many people, such a hopelessly bad memory... I'm sure I've forgotten
tons of people who helped me with these, but I'll try to recall them all...

Certainly EagleFalcon. He helped me with (It's Only) A Game for over a year. =)
Without him, it would probably never have been released. Ever. Zodiak, too, cos
he praised it at TP6, and every little helps. =)
Harry Williamson and Anthony Phillips, for writing Tarka's Anthem. It was a joy
to track.
Argh of Active Sound, too, naturally. He offered opinions on several of these,
if I recall. I wish I could remember what they were. :>
I know Mind Bender offered some comments on at least one of these, but I forget
which. All I know is, they were helpful. Thanks, Tom. =)
To anyone else who gave me pointers or offered opinions... I'm sorry I can't
recall, but thanks all the same.

The Greets...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Shouts go out to my numerous Kosmic affiliates, the ragtag band of renegades
that is Process Five =) and Wilfred Welti, my Twain co-member and creator of
the most insane chip samples I've ever heard in my life. :) Werd to you all.

Wrap it up...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Well, it's been fun. Actually, no - it's just been LONG. :) So what do I
expect here? ...Okay, I'll be blunt.

* I don't expect anyone to like all of these songs. There's too much diversity
  for anyone to like any of them. Hell, even I don't like them *all*.
  Uh, I didn't just say that out loud, did I?
* I don't expect anyone to love any of them. They're not that good. People as
  little as me don't get to brag, and then we get as good as FM and we don't
  have to brag. Uhm. So who's bragging? Um...
* I don't expect everyone to like any of them. There are people out there who
  hate "cheesy" stuff, or stuff which isn't D&B, or stuff which isn't done in
  8 channels, or whatever. I can live with that.
* I'd like to think someone out there likes one of these songs enough to keep.
  I'd also like to think Star Trek: Voyager will get good eventually, but we
  don't always get what we want. Ho hum.

If you like one of 'em, mail me (lemm@kosmic.org). If you like more, PLEASE
mail me. =) If you love any of 'em, I *have* to know where I'm going right. =)
If there are any glaring errors, again, mail me. I'm just as worried about
what I'm doing wrong, so let me know!

See you in the next release... =)
                                                                          Lemm
