News Archive

Broken link fixed for “Firefly” by Ballistique.

Since 2003 I’ve received many requests asking if the GroovyCompo web site is still available. I’m pleased to announce I have discovered an old backup tape with the site on and the original pages and results archive can be found here. Please note that music entries are not available.

“Space Flex” released and available from the music page..

Impulse Tracker & Windows XP Guide updated and available from the Resources page.

Well it’s been a busy few months. Lots of travelling around, the music and the website have both been neglected for a while.

I’ve received a number of queries regarding Impulse Tracker over the last 2 months, in response to the article posted last June. I am slowly getting through them so if I haven’t answered your query, don’t worry – I will reply soon. Hopefully we can resolve the problems you’ve been experiencing and I can update the article accordingly. Interestingly, the majority of problems seem to be with people using AMD processors. I’m not sure whether the problem is related to these, or perhaps the SIS or VIA on-board audio chipsets. I am building an Athlon 1400+ PC with onboard SIS audio at the moment in order to troubleshoot some of the problems. An update will be posted soon.

Argh! entered the 6th OutPost 1 Hour Compo with “Do You Want Me“, a track created in one hour using a set sample pack. The track finished 9th out of 17 entries.

A number of links got lost during the website transfer back in November last year. The following tracks are now available again: “all night alone” – one of Argh!’s best known tracks, “electric beans” – erm, not one of the best known tracks, “the outlaw” – a popular B&A trance track, and the absolute classic “at the end of pier” which remains a popular favourite – this was the seaside tune made with a techno sample pack. Thanks to Joshi for letting us know the links were down.

“Impulse Tracker and Windows XP” article added to resources page.

Demoparty News: “Pilgrimage 2004” will take place in Utah at the Holiday Inn, Salt Lake City Downtown, on the 17th and 18th September, 2004. Click here for the homepage. Members of fq-music are unable to confirm attendance at this time due to financial issues (ie, we’re all broke).

Argh! has released – “stones“. This unfinished track has been taking up space on his hard disk for too long. He got a bit lost and fed up with it so we’ve stuck a fade ending on and put it online as is.

Argh! has released a 4-track blues track – “half way there“. It’s a bit of an experiment and therefore rough around the edges.

“True Calling” by JV finished a respectable 4th in the April MIC. Congratulations to Vibe for doing the double while claiming the first win in the compo for a chiptune with “Digital Shadows“. “100k Trance Tune” finished 9th. The full results of the competition can be found here.

Is fq-music dead? Of course not! We’re just busy that’s all. The new website is being worked on but it’s no longer in ASP so it will be a while longer yet. Keep an eye on the site – at least one new release will be uploaded this month.

“100k Trance Tune” & “True Calling” enter the April MIC. Voting deadline has been extended to May 9th. You can vote for the compo here.

“Eye of the Storm” finished a poor 9th out of 10 entries in the April MIC. Still, at least it wasn’t last. Congratulations to Vibe for his winning entry “Trip to Home“.

“100k Trance Tune” and “Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence” released. Two new tracks by JV.  Zip and Rar files available from music page. I have to add that the trance tune is incredible for 100k. Good work mate.

“Hypnotic Signs” released. An experimental Trance track made with a single sample. Ok, I admit to borrowing instruments from my previous track “All Night Alone” but hey if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

“Hey Stranger” finished a disappointing 6th place in the February MIC. A strange finishing position considering the number of positive emails received about it. However, we’d like to congratulate Fleshdance for 1st place with “Empty Again“, a nice little trance number.

Novus selected “Eye Of The Storm” for entry into the March MIC. This is an old track that had actually been missing from the download area on the website for over 3 years before we realised! Upon it’s re-release it has been quite popular and it’ll be interesting to see how a low quality 7 year old track will fair against bang up-to-date competition.

Ballistique has announced the closure of the ukscene.org webpages. It is with great reluctance that he has done this but the lack of financial support and general interest from the uk demoscene has taken it’s toll. At the same time, the Ballistique name will disappear from the demoscene as Jon Vinsome turns his attentions to a new album with his family. Jon (JV) will continue to release some tracked tunes as well as working with Argh! on his new songs. JV’s email address has now changed to jv@fq-music.net but he will continue to receive emails to bal@fq-music.net and also bal@ukscene.org until the ukscene.org domain registration expires. fq-music would like to extend it’s gratitude to Jonathan Vinsome for his investment of both time and money into the UK demoscene over the past 5 years and wishes him all the best of luck for the future. The name Ballistique will be sadly missed by the scene.

The more astute of you will notice there was no news or releases in February. This has been a busy month and little time was available for working on scene projects. Hopefully we will be a bit more pro-active in March.

“Hey Stranger” was accepted for entry in February MIC but alas, it’s too late to vote. Result will be posted tomorrow. January’s entry “Flashback” finished 6th, followed by “Dots” in 7th.

File types in music listing updated. Some XM’s were incorrectly listed as IT’s. Thanks to Woz for pointing that out.

Thanks to everyone who pointed out our resources page is a bit out of date. The latest trackers, including the popular Mad Tracker, are currently not listed. The resources page is actually being re-written to include more advanced information and programming resources. We will include information for the new Trackers as part of the update. If you require information now, please visit http://www.modarchive.com/software/.

New track released. “hey stranger” written by argh and arranged by ballistique. Low quality version. The first Ballistique & Argh collaboration since “The Outlaw” in 1999.

This track is compressed using RAR format. If you do not have a program which can decompress RAR files, please visit http://www.rarlab.com

A CD quality MP3 will be released in due course.

New chiptune released. “white side of dark” by argh.

Due to popular demand, a high quality 16-bit version of “flashback” is now available from the music page.

“flashback” by argh is ‘best of the best’ in the Static Line November Line-Up and is also accepted as entry to MIC.

“dots” by ballistique selected as entry to MIC.

“Deep Joy” and “Pearl Oblivion” by Lemm – broken links fixed.

Fixed broken link for “eye of the storm“.

Fixed broken links on links page.

New tracks by Ballistique added to music page. fq-music welcomes Ballistique.

“Twisted Vortex” accepted as entry for the Complete Mod Compo, December 2003. You can vote for the compo here.

I have also given my webpage a new look. This is still very much under construction – you will see there are a few broken links (and some non-existant ones). I will hopefully find enough time to sort this out by the end of the year.

Also, I hope to bring Groovy Compo back on-line for a new season in 2004. Watch this space!