Hello people, thank you so much for taking the time to read this. Not many still tune into this group so much as they used to because it has been real quiet for a long period of time. As school has been on my ass and my creative motivation is still pretty low for the past few years. I honestly don't have many people out there to support me in my life other than my online friends who do. My reputation in the chiptune and demoscene has once again pretty bad since I have been extremely inactive and that I have left a few big chiptune discord servers where I didn't really feel comfortable to stay in anymore, which I am not going to mention because I don't want to get in any beef, it was my choice to leave those servers for the better of my wellbeing. My web server had faced major down time for many months until now, which still has major things that are in need of fixing. I have made many changes to how XYZ Studio functions as a group over time, and many changes still need to be made.
So what is this group coming to? Well, XYZ Studio is still going to be known as a demogroup, but I don't really want us to be known as just a "demogroup" as it isn't really a typical "demogroup" would be like, while XYZ Studio releases some productions in the demoscene, not all productions are demoscene-related. The main purpose of XYZ Studio is to be a group of people who all have common interests which some don't always have the demoscene in mind, and create their own works with their best effort under this group name and the archive provided with it. The discord server is still going to be around as a community of people with similar interests that XYZ Studio has and of course supporting our small group. We had also gained a new member, GraveZYX (Graveburrito512), who has been the main developer of DASHY Studios, which has been a subgroup owned under by us for some time. He has been making ROBLOX games and is also willing to do some contributions to our group. He has also been a close online friend of mine for many years and is very good at what he does. A huge welcome to him to our group!
The future of XYZ Studio depends on how productive we'll be. While I don't know if we will be as productive as of the spring season but following the summer we may eventually start releasing new stuff so we have not totally given up. While last year's summer season was not very productive when I said that we we're going to release more things, I hate to say it, but I did let you guys down by not producing anything for the majority of the season last year, which I sincerely apologize for. Though I have higher hopes now that our server is back online and we have gained new people. I will not stop fighting to keep our group alive.
The Jumpstart NES Music Cart we had announced back in August 2022 is still going to be worked on though may not have new progress in a very long time since I have so many other new interests that are much less tedious and easier to do. Using Famitracker has been a huge pain because the tempo on the NES is not always at a fixed pace other than 150 BPM, which made me end up having to resort to using speeds and clocks. All of a sudden I found out about using HIGHLIGHTS and I was so dumbfounded about it so much I did not want to use it anymore since it just blew my mind how stupid I was and my motivation to use Famitracker was 0 at that point. It's also nearly impossible to make your 2A03 track sound good without the use of speed 1, mainly due to the arpeggio command being extremely limited having only 3 note ascending arpeggios. I've also encountered issues with the arpeggio macro in the program while making the Pools of Poison track having only 3F (63 instruments) available to use when they could've added a command to switch those macros similar to how GTUltra can switch tables. So I was pretty much forced to use speed 1, which was a total nightmare to use and took forever to make tracks. It took me a WEEK to produce the Puzzled IV Background Music cover. I wasn't even interrupted with anything in my life, my main focus was on that one track and it took a whole week to make. So it may take a long while for me to get the Jumpstart Music Cart production going again.
Now other than the Jumpstart Music Cart, we have released some different type of productions on different platforms like the Commodore 64. I've gotten extremely used to the environment in GTUltra (GoatTracker Ultra) and it's been great to use. The only con is that it's only available on Windows LOL. But I have had a dual-boot system with Zorin OS and Windows 11 both installed and connected to eachother for a few months which has been a good experience so far. Most of my Commodore 64 releases have been mostly released under the MoonShine scene group which is a unique demogroup that has a combination of new and experienced people of the demoscene. Though I am planning on also releasing them under both groups. I'd like to do contributions to SID music and maybe art, games, tools, and demos in the scene as well!
Outside of the C64, I'd also like to make some art and music on OpenMPT, though I'd like to learn old computer programming first before programming on modern computers though since it's more basic than the software we use to program for the computers we use today. But I will eventually start programming more for Linux and Windows OSes more often once I get used to the developing environments. I am still learning even though I have had an interest in programming for many many years though I haven't been taught that properly and I need to go back to the basics. we'll all learn more together as we go forward.
I would also like to do more art for XYZ Studio in the future by starting to redesign the whole logo and the website with better code because the openElement software is not supported on other OSes other than windows which makes it hard for Linux users to use. (it doesn't work on Wine) Most of our current website design isn't really that good and is kind of outdated compared to other websites nowadays. I want our new website to be more interactive and polished. I am currently working on rehauling our web server and allowing our XyZs members to upload stuff to our archive and website so please be patient as I do that. Now the new website may take some time though. I'd like to make some new productions on the C64 before I make the new website. Please give me some time for that.
I don't think I have said this much about our group before since it has been so quiet, but we have a lot to offer for the near future and our group will still be online and will stay alive no matter the circumstances our members may be in. We'll keep going for all of you who still have our backs!