						.the trackering voting help.


HERE is a suggested rating system.  This may give some type of a guideline
by which you may judge tunes submitted for The Trackering contests...  

#       title           why

9       amazing         everything about it amazes you.  you don't feel
                        comfortable that you could do something like this.

8       excellent       gets a 'YEAH!' reaction.  both composition and
                        sound engineering are very good,  and all boosted
                        by 'style points' (see below).  a 'classic to be'.

7       very good       both composition and sound engineering are very good,
                        but it isn't quite a 'classic to be'.  less style
                        points.

6       good            catchy and good engineering - but nothing out-
                        standing.  neat but maybe no style points to push
                        it up.

5       above average   a little catchy or a little better composition
                        than average.  maybe slightly cleaner engineering.

4       average         nothing great.  clean,  tuned.  not very memorable,
                        and maybe very bland engineering (mono,  little
                        effects,  etc.).

3       below average   nothing great and lacking in either composition
                        or engineering (bad melody,  or out of tune,  etc.).

2       bad             somewhat bad idea, *and* bad engineering.

1       cruddy          all around bad,  maybe annoying or incoherant.

0       pure crap       hurts your ears to hear.  you think this person
                        either retarded or in need of a lot of help with
                        music.  no sense to it whatsoever.

Modifiers (slashes and style points):

Sometimes it can be hard to differentiate between a decent and good tune,
or a below average and generally bad one.  These tips may help you bump
tunes up or down based on some simple observations...

Slashes (-1 or -2 depending on how many of these it is in common with):

- samples are noticeably out of tune
- sounds are poorly edited or looped such that you hear clicking in the music
- song is brief,  maybe only a single groove,  or it is merely a cut and
  paste with small changes
- song is too similar to another song in a blatent manner
- composition is unduly dissonant (ie improper notes per chord) or melody
  and movement are a good bit incoherant

Style Points (+1 or +2 depending on how many of these it is in common with):

- difficult form of music to track or complicated musical form
- uncommon in tracking,  opens boundaries of what is normally done or ex-
  pected
- unique idea as a style or interpretation of a style of music,  or an inter-
  esting synthesis of forms
- innovative use of sounds (effects bytes used to make interesting sounds,
  etc.)
- little 'twists' like subtle nuances heavily present.  for example, very
  clever stereo imaging (slight chorus effect by using 2 channels) or
  slight detunes to modulate a patch for a more 'analog' feel.
- extra attention to style concerns of music or instrument.  for example,
  a sax that really sounds the way a sax is played,  or drums that accent
  the music instead of being a repetative groove.  or a brialliant energy
  building knob-tweaky effect in techno.

SO you would alter the score by 1 or 2 marks depending on HOW MANY of these
characteristics are in line.  If only one or two are similar,  or they are
apparent only minimally,  then only modify by 1.  Any more go to 2 and even
3 if it is blatently loaded with all of the characteristics.

The human factor:

Although the above system is fairly tight,  there is still a lot of room for
personal taste and interpretation.  If you don't like a tune,  you should
always feel free not to rate it highly,  even if it was done *well*.  And
vice-versa.  You will find that this system dictates someone with more
scrutiny will probably offer lower scores (what someone really experienced
will find very good is often much higher than what a learner will consider
good,  etc.).

Neil - /Sequencer 
ndv@h2oent.com
