Renaissance

An early PC demo group, reached through The Sound Barrier BBS in New York, whose demos — above all Amnesia (seen by khyron "sometime in 93", before future-crew's Second Reality) — and whose tracker, MultiTracker, brought several of the scene's 1995 musicians in; by March 1995 it was "not dead … definitely serious coma" (sources: s-tw111-interview-khyron, s-tw004-interview-nemesis). This page is built from what the group's members and neighbours said in traxweekly; nobody from the group's core was interviewed.

Facts#

• Place in the scene's own history. ganja-man's 1996 history names Future Crew and Renaissance as the groups that wrote demos on the PC once its sound "got its act together", after which "the tracking scene moved primarily to the PC" (source: s-tw064-potted-tracking-history). master-of-darkness (January 1996): Future Crew and Renaissance "made demo music the thing to do", leaving dance music without a precedent (source: s-tw043-interview-pariah). ryan-cramer and Khyron both name Amnesia (with FC's Unreal and Second Reality) as the demos that got them started (sources: s-tw007-interview-ryan-cramer, s-tw111-interview-khyron).
• The tracker. MultiTracker (MTM) was Renaissance's: psibelius began tracking in March 1994 with "Renaissance's MultiTracker 1.01b" (source: s-tw003-beginning-the-tracking-experience) and reviewed "Renaissance Multitracker v1.01b" in TraxWeekly #2 (TOC; not ingested); maelcum composed in MMEDIT, "the infamous tracker from Renaissance", because "the most important function of the software is to stay out of my way" (source: s-tw009-interview-maelcum).
• Musicians. leviathan signed traxweekly's first article "Renaissance / Kosmic" (March 1995) (source: s-tw001-modal-and-chord-theory); nemesis (Andrew Wise, 16) was "one of the newest members" in March 1995, also of kosmic and iCE (source: s-tw004-interview-nemesis); mosaic placed 4th in the NAID 1995 music competition with Tears (source: s-tw006-naid-opinion-interviews); stalker (April 1995) listed the Renaissance "musicmen" lv, cc, rc and Mosaic among his favourites — the abbreviations probably stand for Leviathan, C.C.Catch and Ryan Cramer (unverified; source: s-tw004-interview-stalker); C.C.Catch, who was "mudding about 75 % of the time" and writing for Epic MegaGames (One Must Fall) in March 1995 (source: s-tw004-interview-nemesis). Coders named: Daredevil and Starscream (same source).
• Home and recruiting. Ryan Cramer joined by calling The Sound Barrier BBS in New York long-distance and leaving C.C.Catch messages; C.C.Catch listened to his experiments and "was giving me pointers"; Raising the Sail impressed Daredevil, The Beginning of the End and Thunder Dream got him in; Beginning of the End was on the NothingOn musicdisk, though it "didn't sound like it was originally created" (source: s-tw007-interview-ryan-cramer).
• Status in 1995. Nemesis, March 1995: "not dead … definitely serious coma" — the coders Daredevil and Starscream had little inspiration or time, C.C.Catch was mostly mudding, and the rest "released songs, organised scene activities or released through Kosmic" (source: s-tw004-interview-nemesis). Ryan Cramer moved to Iguana "once Renaissance sort of got out of the demoscene", by April 1995 (source: s-tw007-interview-ryan-cramer).

Releases named in the sources#

Amnesia (demo; sources: s-tw007-interview-ryan-cramer, s-tw111-interview-khyron) · NothingOn (musicdisk; source: s-tw007-interview-ryan-cramer) · MultiTracker 1.01b / MMEDIT (tracker; sources: s-tw003-beginning-the-tracking-experience, s-tw009-interview-maelcum).

Related#

future-crew · kosmic · leviathan · nemesis · mosaic · ryan-cramer · stalker · maelcum · psibelius · tracker-scene-history

Sources#

s-tw004-interview-nemesis · s-tw004-interview-stalker · s-tw006-naid-opinion-interviews · s-tw007-interview-ryan-cramer · s-tw001-modal-and-chord-theory · s-tw003-beginning-the-tracking-experience · s-tw009-interview-maelcum · s-tw043-interview-pariah · s-tw064-potted-tracking-history · s-tw111-interview-khyron