Perisoft (David Wiernicki)

President of defiance from spring 1995, epinicion member, scream-tracker-3 user, and the author of the traxweekly #8 article "Samples And Rippers, Rippers And Samples" that accused basehead's NAID entry of being "35 % ripped from CD samples" and drew necros's reply in #9 (sources: s-tw011-interview-perisoft, s-tw009-samples-lameness-preconceptions). The main source is Popcorn's interview of May 1995; Pizza Head interviewed him again in January 1997 (source: s-tw087-interview-perisoft).

Facts#

• David Wiernicki, about 16 in May 1995; embedded-systems assembler for his father. Found the scene through IRC (#3dland → #gfx → #coders → #trax) during Assembly '94; first track September 1994. Machine: 486DX/40, 4 MB, a 1 MB gravis-ultrasound.
• Defiance: recruited by Zer0 in early December 1994 as co-founder; became president after Zer0 and then lowrider left; rebuilding from about four members in May 1995 — Claim counted on "cerulean and peri" to "bring it back to leetness" in June (sources: s-tw011-interview-perisoft, s-tw015-interview-claim).
• Two workflows: audition the samples of a downloaded module in ST3.21's sample screen, find a melody, clear the song and write until "a mental block or 30 patterns"; or "stream of consciousness" on three standby samples (the FC siner from Panic, a filter synth, the Insideout lead) — ten songs in two weeks that way (tracking-workflow, chip-samples).
• On the ripping row: he judged by the song's sample credits and "didn't realize he reworked the sax samps"; wanted to "shock people into thinking" about how the scene treats its stars and its dissenters (sample-ripping). Lord Pegasus flamed him in the Trax Culture column of #14 (sources: s-tw014-interview-pinion, s-tw018-interview-lord-pegasus); maelcum took his side in July 1995 — "perisoft is really cool and people should leave him alone. anyone that [messes] with perisoft [messes] with me" (source: s-tw019-interview-quarex).
• Eight years of violin, no theory — "an archaic remnant of past inadequacies of composition". Admires Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart; favourite trackers ryan-cramer, Necros, Ranger Rick (sample offsets), phoenix, Liam the Lemming.
• Songs: Continuity (NAID 1995 entry), Flight, Paranoia (deliberately "Purple Motioney"), Arbitrary (Basehead-style, on hornet), Brain Density, Guilty, Swig, Sideswipes; unreleased Filtration, Red, Newer, Strife, Brain Dead, Deterioration.
• "SV" — Scarlet Vinson, his "obsession" and the subject of GraveDigger's joke interview in #15 (source: s-tw015-interview-sv).
• Courted liam-the-lemming for Defiance in 1995 — "Perisoft got hold of loads of my stuff from May 95 and kept begging me to join"; Liam nearly joined before the group split (source: s-tw066-interview-liam-the-lemming).

In 1997 (source: s-tw087-interview-perisoft)#

• 18 in January 1997, from Ithaca, NY; started after downloading scream-tracker-3 from cdrom.com and hearing Insideout and the Panic soundtrack on a Sound Blaster Pro (his first modules, with armani.s3m); first tune "a really bad ... 8 channel song with 1 sample". Group history in his own words: the graphics group VeXT (1994) merged into epinicion; founded defiance with zer0 and Ranger Rick — it "died soon after naid '95"; then Capacala as a graphician (prefix cc_, last release Attraction, about March 1996); in January 1997 a trance/techno band with a friend (Supamart), not releasing to the scene — its 75 MB wave files were not for scene release — plus graphics for Opiate's game.
• About 150–160 songs written, "25 or 30" on cdrom.com, "about 5 of them are good"; tells readers to delete his D-*.S3M files and keep the ITs. Best tracker: impulse-tracker — 120 channels, "the only tracker that can make a truly CD quality song (by diskwriting and support of huge samples)". Inspiration "the sound of a sample or a rezo flange" — a pattern built around a sound, then the mood (tracking-workflow).
• New songs run "upward of 8meg"; a jab at "ft2 gimps". Favourite tracker musician in 1997: basehead — necros "too damned idle to be on the list anymore". Plays violin and dreams of a "techno-lin" with pickups and effect pads.
• Advice: "you CAN make good quality with a tracker, and you shouldn't think that because it's a tracker it's limited."

Related#

defiance · epinicion · sample-ripping · basehead · necros · scream-tracker-3 · impulse-tracker · tracking-workflow · maelcum · lord-pegasus · liam-the-lemming · popcorn

Sources#

s-tw011-interview-perisoft · s-tw087-interview-perisoft · s-tw009-samples-lameness-preconceptions · s-tw015-interview-claim · s-tw015-interview-sv · s-tw014-interview-pinion · s-tw018-interview-lord-pegasus · s-tw019-interview-quarex · s-tw066-interview-liam-the-lemming