Psibelius (Gene Wie)

Editor and publisher of traxweekly (the 1997 staff sheet lists "Editor: Psibelius (Gene Wie)"; issue #50's introduction is signed Gene Wie, TraxWeekly Publishing — sources: s-tw106-a-little-panning, s-traxweekly-archive). Started tracking in March 1994 with Renaissance's MultiTracker, founded epinicion Productions as a group that would not haze newcomers, and wrote the early beginner article "Beginning the Tracking Experience" (source: s-tw003-beginning-the-tracking-experience). Also coordinated the group Bass (TOC, #5; but see To verify) and wrote many early columns.

Jeffrey Lim's IT manual thanks "Psibelius: For being the nice friendly Epinicion founder that he is" (source: s-it-manual). As a TraxWeekly columnist he interviewed basehead in #18 (July 1995), where Basehead — addressing him as Gene — called Epinicion's help-the-newcomer model unrealistic and its founder "the mother theresa of the demoscene" (source: s-tw018-interview-basehead).

Columns and surveys#

• "Ripping: Who Cares?" (#25, September 1995): the "Second Reality" marcato strings are the GUS patch marcato.pat; good samples are hard to make; credit when you can; never rip a song-specific sound or a whole sample set (source: s-tw024-sample-ripping-debate; see sample-ripping).
• The "Tracker Survey" (October–November 1995) collected feature wishes for Jason Diamond's planned freeware tracker — "many times, a tracker is built from the standpoint of a coder only" (source: s-tw032-tracker-survey).
• As editor he turned the #trax saxophone argument into TraxWeekly's second survey — "is 'realism' something viable for tracked music?" (#70–#73) — and described Necros's Grey Note lead as "almost a huge wav file chopped up into ten pieces" (source: s-tw070-realism-debate; see realism-in-tracked-music).
• He succeeded popcorn (Chris Campbell), TraxWeekly's editor in 1995, whom the founder populus had put in charge (sources: s-tw011-how-to-enhance-your-music-collection, s-tw032-20-minute-chip-compo, s-tw016-interview-populus).

As interviewer and editor (1995–97)#

• Signed "TraxWeekly Columnist" (gwie@coyote.csusm.edu) for the NAID 1995 opinion interviews with island-of-reil and mosaic in #6 (April 1995) (source: s-tw006-naid-opinion-interviews).
• Interviewed populus (#16, June 1995) and lord-pegasus (#18, July 1995), signing "ACiD.Epinicion.TraxWeekly" (gwie@owl.csusm.edu); in the Lord Pegasus log he printed blackwolf's private-message interruptions — "Georgia? Oh you must live with blackwolf" (sources: s-tw016-interview-populus, s-tw018-interview-lord-pegasus).
• Wrote "Khyron Unleashed" (#30, 12 October 1995), the first khyron interview (listed in the TOC, not yet ingested; source: s-tw111-interview-khyron).
• Advised, with the interviewees, that the one-week "Faces in the Crowd" publication be folded back into TraxWeekly as a section (October 1995) (source: s-tw029-faces-in-the-crowd-esper-division).
• Resumed interviewing in #40 (28 December 1995) after "a very long time since we've had some interviews in TraxWeekly": blackwolf ("the last TW interview for 1995") and zalt; he recalled Blackwolf's earlier #6 interview as "back when Populus was still running the show" (sources: s-tw040-interview-blackwolf, s-tw040-interview-zalt).
• As editor he printed Pizza Head's #87 perisoft log (January 1997) "completely unformatted" with an editor's note (source: s-tw087-interview-perisoft); behemoth chose the Mikmak interview (#103, June 1997) over "the alternative that Psibelius gave me" (source: s-tw103-interview-mikmak).

Own music and views#

• Tried marching-band-style tracking in early 1994; entered the ASM'94 music compo jointly with ior ("music together") without attending; his "15 minutes of fame" came in March 1995, when Epinicion's Timeline disk got ** from DemoNews (sources: s-tw040-interview-blackwolf, s-tw040-interview-zalt).
• Was to appear on ACiD's 1995 musicdisk with pinion, Rimbo, Pianoman, basehead and beaner (source: s-tw011-interview-beaner); encouraged clef in Epinicion, with Ior (source: s-tw055-interview-clef).
• On formats: XM's capability for samples above 64k "has added to the noise" (June 1995) (source: s-tw016-interview-populus); he could save 32-channel .MOD files from fasttracker-2 and, with Zalt, wished for a real Amiga ProTracker on the PC (source: s-tw040-interview-zalt; see mod-format).
• Quoted by quarex on beginners: if someone never sucked, "then they're a prodigy, and what are they doing making .mods in the first place?" (source: s-tw019-interview-quarex).

To verify#

• Bass Productions: this page says he "coordinated the group Bass" (TOC, #5); amusic (July 1995) calls Sirrus "the guy who has the final word in Bass" (source: s-tw017-interview-amusic). Not necessarily a conflict (coordinator vs decider, or different dates); unresolved until #5 and #14's Bass member list are read.

Related#

traxweekly · epinicion · hornet · sample-ripping · realism-in-tracked-music · populus · popcorn · blackwolf · zalt · lord-pegasus · clef

Sources#

s-tw003-beginning-the-tracking-experience · s-tw106-a-little-panning · s-traxweekly-archive · s-it-manual · s-tw018-interview-basehead · s-tw024-sample-ripping-debate · s-tw032-tracker-survey · s-tw070-realism-debate · s-tw011-how-to-enhance-your-music-collection · s-tw032-20-minute-chip-compo · s-tw006-naid-opinion-interviews · s-tw011-interview-beaner · s-tw016-interview-populus · s-tw018-interview-lord-pegasus · s-tw019-interview-quarex · s-tw029-faces-in-the-crowd-esper-division · s-tw040-interview-blackwolf · s-tw040-interview-zalt · s-tw055-interview-clef · s-tw087-interview-perisoft · s-tw103-interview-mikmak · s-tw111-interview-khyron · s-tw017-interview-amusic