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Who are the oldest active demo sceners?

category: general [glöplog]
@Gasman: I should be on the list, since I got my songs featured in 1993 musicdisk. So it's 23 years with a long hiatus in 2000s.

Quote:
You mean, in a decade or two we can expect a flood of releases again?


Yeah, and the demoparties are gonna be like. :-)

And all demo soundtracks will probably suffer from too much high freqs due to musicians’ hearing loss.

As for the oldest sceners… Don’t forget about Alien/Plutonium Crackers – he has started (according to his own words) around 1982 and he still hangs around every now and then.
added on the 2016-04-02 22:50:15 by jazzcat jazzcat
With breaks, Demoscene musician since 25 years, first releases on Amiga in 1991. Yay!
added on the 2016-04-02 23:03:46 by Dascon Dascon
I started around 93, first party release in 94, but a quick search only found 16 years with releases, which means I'm lazy as fuck... but also still quite young! so there is hope :)
added on the 2016-04-03 00:24:28 by blala blala
Fun reason to start looking back into the archives of old stuff!
I did my first "proper" release in 1990, earlier stuff (88 and 89) probably only got spread to my classmates and was lame as hell anyway and does not appear on Pouet/CSDb.

Since then I have been more or less active in the scene continuously I think.
However, looking at the release history here and on CSDb, it seems like I actually have gaps in some years, so I guess I can't claim 26 straight years.
added on the 2016-04-03 01:14:09 by Sdw Sdw
What Yzi said. The list I posted is a count of distinct years in which they released something - if your first release was in 2005, and then you disappeared for ten years before releasing something in 2015, that counts as two years, not ten.

Re longest hiatus - I haven't run a query to find out for sure, but Vilcans's 25 year gap is going to be hard to beat :-)
added on the 2016-04-03 07:04:55 by gasman gasman
Quote:
Gasman,

The other fun takeaway from that list is that quite a high proportion of these twenty year plus guys are either from the Atari scene or have strong connections to it. (He says, with a shock of recognition at finding himself on there.)


You can probably thank Lotek_Style for that :-) He's done a phenomenal job of filling in Atari scene data on Demozoo.

(The Spectrum is pretty well represented too, probably because of the data imported from zxdemo.org which in turn includes all the individual music releases from Sergey Bulba's AY_Emul archive - that would help to fill in some gaps in the 90s-2000s.)
added on the 2016-04-03 07:15:16 by gasman gasman
Mad Max at #2 is bullshit, Jochen was not an active scener at all in the majority of those 27 years, people just ripped and re-used his tunes from the 80s and early 90s
added on the 2016-04-03 09:40:48 by havoc havoc
It's a difficult concept. Let us take an example.

Dr. Cuolio of Mouhijärvi Cracking Crew (MCC)

1985 : graphics for crack intro Reversal of the Blatant Camels
1985 : graphics for crack intro Co Man Doh!
1985 : graphics for crack intro Bladder Goes to Restroom
2015 : music for Retro Nostalgia Overflow music disk

This gives Dr. Cuolio a total of two (2) years of activity. One for 1985, another for 2015.
added on the 2016-04-03 10:47:05 by yzi yzi
Methinks the question needs defining and scoping. Otherwise, this is all dick-wagging.

Speaking of which, I'm missing from Gasman's list too: http://demozoo.org/sceners/41280/
(although my earlier BBStros and demos from 1992-1994 are missing which might be the reason why)
added on the 2016-04-03 11:25:51 by trixter trixter
I guess people are STILL not getting it :-)

Quote:
(although my earlier BBStros and demos from 1992-1994 are missing which might be the reason why)


The reason you're not on the list is that you released prods in 1994, 1996, 2004, 2008, 2009, 2014, 2015 and 2016. Which is eight different years. If we added your stuff from 1992 and 1993, that would bring it up to ten different years, which would still not be enough to be on the list.

If you really want a list of "sceners who have been around the longest, regardless of whether they were active for all of that time", here it is:

Kemal Ezcan - 32 years (1984-2015)
Rob Hubbard - 32 years (1984-2015)
Cronos - 31 years (1986-2016)
Holger Gehrmann - 31 years (1986-2016)
Digital Insanity - 31 years (1986-2016)
Ben Daglish - 30 years (1985-2014)
Rock - 30 years (1987-2016)
David Whittaker - 30 years (1986-2015)
Ed Fries - 30 years (1983-2012)
Mad Max - 30 years (1987-2016)
ES - 30 years (1986-2015)
Irata - 29 years (1987-2015)
4-Mat - 29 years (1988-2016)
Matt Gray - 29 years (1987-2015)
Hein Design - 29 years (1988-2016)
Se7en - 29 years (1988-2016)
Busy - 29 years (1988-2016)
Laxity - 29 years (1987-2015)
Romeo Knight - 29 years (1988-2016)
Jan Harries - 29 years (1987-2015)
Vilcans - 28 years (1987-2014)
Facet - 28 years (1989-2016)
Photon - 28 years (1989-2016)
Yerzmyey - 28 years (1989-2016)
Reward - 28 years (1988-2015)
dm - 28 years (1989-2016)
Bjørn Røstøen - 28 years (1988-2015)
Jeroen Tel - 28 years (1988-2015)
Chucky - 28 years (1988-2015)
Redhead - 28 years (1988-2015)
Barry Leitch - 28 years (1988-2015)
Danko - 28 years (1988-2015)
Evil - 28 years (1988-2015)
Lotek Style - 28 years (1988-2015)
Miy - 28 years (1989-2016)
An Cool - 28 years (1988-2015)
Drax - 28 years (1989-2016)
E$G - 28 years (1988-2015)
Antichrist - 28 years (1988-2015)
Ziphoid - 28 years (1988-2015)
Tom Hudson - 28 years (1985-2012)
Zorro - 28 years (1988-2015)
Matt - 28 years (1988-2015)
Trap - 28 years (1989-2016)
Zardax - 28 years (1989-2016)
Blaizer - 28 years (1988-2015)
New Mode - 28 years (1987-2014)
Future Freak - 28 years (1987-2014)
Troed - 28 years (1988-2015)
hitchhikr - 28 years (1989-2016)

Clearly, the flaw in this methodology as pointed out by Havoc is even more obvious here...
added on the 2016-04-03 13:59:21 by gasman gasman
Gasman listed sceners according to "number of distinct calendar years with contributions to releases". Hiatus years don't count. No prod, no good. It's not like, "who has the longest time between the first and last contribution to a prod". You have to keep contributing.

"Asset reuse without any actual contribution to the specific prod, or even knowledge of the existence of the prod" is questionable, of course. But how can you distinguish those cases, if "Rob Hubbard made the music for our crack intro" and "we used Rob Hubbard's tune without asking him" are modeled with identical data.
added on the 2016-04-03 14:07:26 by yzi yzi
Quote:
Rob Hubbard - 32 years (1984-2015)
Ben Daglish - 30 years (1985-2014)
David Whittaker - 30 years (1986-2015)


That brings up another question... Do these people qualify as 'sceners'?
I mean, yes, their music was used in many cracktros/demos/etc by the scene (which is why they would turn up in a list like this). But I was under the impression that these tunes were ripped from games by crackers (before the days of actual 'demogroups' with dedicated artists and musicians) and their use in these prods was not officially authorized.
Aside from that, I wonder if these people consider themselves to be 'sceners'. As in, do they actually follow the scene? Do they visit scene parties, or keep in touch with other sceners on a regular basis? Do they participate on scene websites such as csdb, pouet etc?
added on the 2016-04-03 14:14:12 by Scali Scali
OK, so on the "longest hiatus" record:

If making music in 1983 for a commercial game counts as scene activity, it's Ed Fries (28 year gap).
If writing text and/or being interviewed for a diskmag counts as scene activity, it's Matt aka Mad Butcher / Haujobb and Miy / Finnish Gold (26 year gap).
Otherwise, it's Vilcans and Zorro (25 year gap).
added on the 2016-04-03 14:17:49 by gasman gasman
See also what havoc said.
(that was directed at Scali)
Demoparties have the ultimate authority to give the Official Stamp of Demoscene Status. IIRC, this was talked about in a thread about Demozoo, and whether e.g. a chip song should be counted as a "demoscene release" or maybe "chiptune scene release". It's blurry and debatable, BUT if it touched a DEMOPARTY then it definitely got demoscene status.

Rob Hubbard touched Assembly 2002 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qiv4o-fgJ4E

And even if he perhaps doesn't identify himself as being "a scener", he's at least some sort of honorary citizen, everyone should understand that. Nectarine has lots of Rob Hubbard's game tunes, so they are scene tunes.
https://www.scenemusic.net/demovibes/artist/1021/

The tunes are important for sceners, and they have become a scene thing.
added on the 2016-04-03 14:33:07 by yzi yzi
Quote:
If you really want a list of "sceners who have been around the longest, regardless of whether they were active for all of that time", here it is:


Gasman you omitted me from his list: Baudsurfer - 30 years (1985-2016).

Moralfagottry everywhere...
Hey, watch your language.
added on the 2016-04-03 14:43:03 by Gargaj Gargaj
Quote:
Gasman you omitted me from his list: Baudsurfer - 30 years (1985-2016).


Probably because he based his results on a database search, and your name didn't appear in the results.
See also Stingray's comment earlier.
Demozoo doesn't go back further than 2013 it seems, and there's no baudsurfer on csdb at all.
added on the 2016-04-03 14:46:34 by Scali Scali
No, he FORGOT, he's pulling all that stuff from the top of his head of course.
added on the 2016-04-03 14:48:37 by yzi yzi
List of 30s if you believe gasman :

Kemal Ezcan
Germany
Rob Hubbard
United Kingdom
Chronos
Netherlands
Holger Gehrmann
Germany
Digital Insanity
Netherlands
Rock
Finland
David Whittaker
United Kingdom
Ed Fries
unknown
ES
Germany
Mad Max
Germany


1. Germany=4/10=40%
2. Netherlands=2/10=20%
3. tie Finland=1/10=10% UK=1=10%

Conclusion : No France, no Spain, no Canada, no USA, no Italy and no Russia

Biased much ?
You *are* aware scene started first where the first personal computers were sold first, right ?
Not a single machine (Amiga, pc, zx, Atari) was sold first in the three countries you listed as containing the oldest sceners in your botched list FYI.
Quick, go and contribute your unbiased high-quality information to Demozoo, where Gasman's data comes from.
added on the 2016-04-03 15:23:50 by yzi yzi
Fascinating how people manage to milk drama out of a No!-I'm-the-oldest-fart-round-these-parts thread and get very angry if it's not them. Gasman will live to regret that he started the whole thing. :)
added on the 2016-04-03 15:39:22 by tomaes tomaes
Baudsurfer: please show us your productions from 1985. I'm eager to see.
added on the 2016-04-03 15:52:30 by Preacher Preacher

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