Vegas (T.J. Lerner)

Musician of the group Mystique in 1996, an impulse-tracker user who saved as S3M, and one of the scene's pro-theory voices. The main source for this page is his TraxWeekly interview of June 1996 (source: s-tw062-interview-vegas); catspaw names a "Vegas" among the newer trackers he respects (source: s-tw057-interview-catspaw).

Facts#

• 18 in June 1996, at Agoura High School. ModEdit, then Scream Tracker (a cover of "Stones" from Ultima), then, from about October 1995, on the Internet with theory basics from leviathan and Inner Vision — "Thats when I REALLY started".
• Influences: leviathan, necros, lord-pegasus and stalker ("da' shit... I just wish he'd write more"); outside the scene Enya, Front 242, film and classical music, Genesis.
• Mystique: founded at the start of 1996, a musicdisk a month, leader Ragnarok, about 14 musicians (FutureAssassin, Loki, Phaze, Chakra, Taurus, Ded Silence…).
• Songs: "Inner Turmoil" (first release), "The New World Medley" and "Don't Stop Now" (myst0496.zip), "The River Eternal" (v-river.zip), "Mario Goes to the Jungle" (CrapCompo winner), the NAID '96 entry — "Feel the Night" in the interview, "The Path Taken", 15th, in the editor's preface — and the co-op "Rugiada di Montagna" with Fred of Terraformer. Files v-*.zip under /demos/music/songs/1995/s3m/ and /1996/s3m/ on ftp.cdrom.com.
• Tools: impulse-tracker, saved as .s3m until players supported .it (s3m-format, it-format); a Pro Audio Spectrum 16; no NNAs himself (new-note-actions).
• Four years of clarinet; theory learned on IRC "improved [his music] tenfold"; taught over a dozen newcomers (chord-progressions).
• Three tips — a volume tail instead of ^^^ on leads, bass and drums centred, even retrig speeds — are on lead-articulation, stereo-panning and retrigger.
• Rates necros's "Metroplex" his favourite tracked song; finds basehead and Mellow-D overrated; wants to score a demo and keep music a hobby; reviews should have two reviewers (hornet).

Related#

impulse-tracker · leviathan · lead-articulation · stereo-panning · retrigger · compos · traxweekly

Sources#

s-tw062-interview-vegas · s-tw057-interview-catspaw