Behemoth (David Menkes)
traxweekly staff writer of 1996–97 (David Menkes in the 1997 staff sheet) whose articles started two of the newsletter's debates — "Realism in MODs" and "The Scene and the Commercial Market" — and who interviewed mikmak and two newcomers. The sources are those pieces and the replies they drew (sources: s-tw106-a-little-panning, s-tw070-realism-debate, s-tw076-realism-in-mods, s-tw103-interview-mikmak, s-tw105-newbie-interviews, s-tw114-commercial-tracking-debate).
Facts#
- Listed as writer "Behemoth (David Menkes)" in the #106 staff sheet (source: s-tw106-a-little-panning); one of the respondents of zinc's #trax mass interview of December 1996 (source: s-tw080-trax-mass-interview).
- Realism, #71 (September 1996): tracked music has moved "from completely computer-sounding to almost realistic"; exact reproduction would take gigabytes and his sound card had 8 MB; his aim is not a Chopin CD but to sound "as little 'digital' as possible"; his "continuous wave" argument (a sampled instrument chopped into 22,000 pieces a second) was corrected by brn's Nyquist argument in #72, which the wiki follows (source: s-tw070-realism-debate). "Realism in MODs" (#76, 7 November 1996): samples his own instruments from a Korg X5 rather than reusing "three or four Purple Motion samples"; "if it SOUNDS good, why moan and groan over the samples?"; his modules were already about 2.5 MB and he predicted larger ones as bandwidth grew (source: s-tw076-realism-in-mods; see realism-in-tracked-music, recording-samples).
- Interviews: his "first contribution to Trax-Weekly as a staffer" was the mikmak interview (#103, 27 June 1997), chosen because "the alternative that Psibelius gave me wasn't too exciting", with the promise of something "scene-related and interesting" every week (source: s-tw103-interview-mikmak); then "Interview With A Couple Of Newbies" (#105, 18 July 1997) with Exokai (Dan Aley, 13, San Diego) and Sonalore (Kevin Malin, 15, Marietta GA), "to give you a glimpse of the scene through the eyes of a newbie" (source: s-tw105-newbie-interviews).
- "The Scene and the Commercial Market" (#113, 26 October 1997): after lecturing on demos and tracking to 40–50 people at his college's electronics department — one asked "how a computer was able to sound 'not like a computer'" — he gave five reasons tracking "is not and will not be a commercially-viable tool": it was "born and meant to be underground"; the software is DOS-based and the market "doesn't know what panning is"; the public does not believe a computer can make music; "you cannot perform tracking live"; the industry takes no risks, leaving small labels such as maelcum's Area 51 Records. The replies ran for three issues, among them Exxon's "Tracking Semantics" and xiagox's answer on live tracking (sources: s-tw114-commercial-tracking-debate, s-tw115-tracking-semantics, s-tw114-live-tracking; see commercial-tracking, live-tracking).
Related#
traxweekly · realism-in-tracked-music · commercial-tracking · live-tracking · mikmak · necros · maelcum · psibelius
Sources#
s-tw106-a-little-panning · s-tw070-realism-debate · s-tw076-realism-in-mods · s-tw103-interview-mikmak · s-tw105-newbie-interviews · s-tw114-commercial-tracking-debate · s-tw115-tracking-semantics · s-tw114-live-tracking · s-tw080-trax-mass-interview