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c1* Review: SuperDrug / Loonies *
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c3BY DREYER/SPOON
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c2This  is  no  less than the c5world's first 64k music disk!  c2That's what Loonies
says anyway, and as far as I know they are right.  And imagine that a so great
piece  of  work  has  to be done to make something that small.  And what c5great
work!   c2Besides  nine  techno  modules  -  mostly  goa,  trance  and acid or a
combination  -  there's  also  a  bunch  of  different rotation effects in the
background  of  the  screen,  which  all can make you go into trance (or cause
serious  eye  damage  if you look at them for too long).  Det choice of colors
are acid, but it fits the music.

When  you have to store so much sound as the disk contains (if you can call it
a   'music   disk'   at  64k)  you  must  use  some  tricks  to  achieve  best
space/performance  ratio.   Loonies has firstly stored the sounds as data that
must  be  calculated  every time a module is loaded.  This calculation time is
long  (a  couple  of minutes on my '040/40MHz), but the time is well spend:  A
module  is typically 100 times bigger after calculation than before, some even
more.   Thus  a  couple  of the modules take up almost a megabyte, but most of
them less (and that, of course, increases the waiting when calculating).

The  sound  quality  isn't  exactly  outstanding  either.   The  sounds  sound
'chippy',  but not bad (if you like that sound that is).  There are some great
resonance/cutoff-effects in some of the tunes, which is pretty hard to do when
you track a module in an ordinary tracker, but Loonies succeed.

To  really  enjoy  the  music  you  should  be  a  person that likes to attend
rave-parties  a  couple  of  times a week or just be hardcore fan of the genre
(not the hardcore-genre, the trance-genre!).  c5Loonies c2also recommend a serious
sound system.

More  positive  things  about  SuperDrug is that it multitasks (except when it
generates  the  sounds), and it seems to be quite system friendly.  It doesn't
take  up  much  HD-space (as it is a 64k...).  The system requirements are not
too demanding either:  1.5 MB chip-RAM, 2,5 MB fast-RAM and a FPU.

c5SuperDrug  c2is ideal for use in a discoteque or techno-party on a bigscreen due
to  the  acid-effects running in the background, but if you don't have that at
home  an  ordinary  monitor  will  do.  If you like techno SuperDrug is a fine
little  addition to the collection.  If you don't close your ears and eyes and
look for something else.


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