Foreword Introduction Rules Schedule Entering Judging Introduction The Process The Categories The Scale The Comments Conclusion Registration Prizes Updates Results FAQ Resources Statistics Contact Changes since MC5 About  The Scale Ratings are given on a 100-point scale, ranging from perfection (100) to sheer silence (0). Americans: clear your mind of school grades--this has nothing to do with school. A 70 is not a passing grade, and a 50 is not failing! 70 is actually quite good, and a 50 is average. Read this carefully. It is crucial that everyone adhere to this guideline. If we're to get any kind of accuracy out of Music Contest 6, this is the key:  Quick Reference Following is a quick-reference guide for reviewing songs. If possible, you should tape a copy of this to the side of your monitor, so you can look at it as you review. 100 I have become a monk in order to dedicate my life to this song. 95 Nearly flawless music. One of the best songs ever written. 90 Excellent material. Seamless. Gives me chills. 85 Great stuff. This is a song I'll listen to for a long time. 80 Very good quality. Some real talent was behind this. 75 Good music. Some minor tweaking would make this great. 70 Pretty good. A few noticeable flaws, otherwise very well done. 65 Well above average. With a little work, this could be much better. 60 Above average. Definitely needs some fixing up, but enjoyable. 55 Just above average. Some problems, but has many strengths. 50 Average. The good and bad are subtle and/or balance out. 45 Just below average. A few nagging problems weaken this song. 40 Below average. Glaring errors really hurt this piece. 35 Pretty bad. There might be a good idea in here, but it's well hidden. 30 Mostly bad. Little effort went into this. Limited potential. 25 Definitely BAD. Forget potential: this must be a joke. 20 Crap. No more than ten minutes went into this piece. 15 An insult. The composer must be deliberately wasting my time. 10 An injury! Pure cacophony. This hurts my ears. 5 Noise. There's no musical aspect to this, period. 0 I have become a monk in order to warn the world of this song.  Specific Examples You only need to read over the following examples once or twice. They should help you get an idea of what specific things raise and lower the score. 90 This is a world-class track. The top one or two veteran songs should reach this mark-songs with a rating this high are of a quality that transcends Music Contest, tracked material that ranks among the year's best. Be very, very conservative in giving out this rating. You can't properly rate this high if you haven't listened to a song more than half a dozen times or so, over the course of several days. (Another reason to start early!) Tracks this good don't get 'old'. For some examples, look for five-star ratings on The Hornet Archive. 80 There are no serious flaws to this music: it's a solid, well-written piece. The samples are clear, the flow is controlled, the progressions are fresh and voiced properly, you find yourself humming the leads on your way to work, and wishing you could track a song this good. This is almost equivalent to a four-plus rating on the archive. 70 This is good music. Music certainly worthy of respect. There may be a few points that need ironing out, but the overall effect is still something worth downloading a listening to, and the problems are few and far between, anyway. 60 There are some problems with this song, but it's not enough to get in the way of enjoying it, or at least parts of it. Music like this doesn't really stand out, but it's nothing that you would laugh at, either. It's above average. 50 This is the middle-of-the road. The average composer, with an average amount of experience, can track a song like this in an average amount of time. It's unpolished, if uninspiring, and leaves you feeling ho-hum. There may be good points and bad points, and some of them may be glaring, but it all balances out in the end. 40 There were some major points in this song that were overlooked, and it hurts the piece as a whole. While there may be a few redeeming qualities, the errors bring them all down. The musician really needed to spend more time on this song. 30 The lack of effort is quite noticeable in this song. Ocasionally you'll find a nice theme buried in this song, but it wasn't expanded on. The transitions are weak, the samples are thrown together, there's little if any mood, and it's obvious that the tracker is lacking real skill. 20 This music is really quite bad. Either the person put no effort into writing this song, or the composer's skills are so weak that they killed the song. There are multiple glaring mistakes, and little to speak of for positive aspects. 10 This is a pathetic excuse for a module. Either it was thrown together in a few minutes or the composer is deaf. Or the tracker was deliberately trying to write something this bad. There are no redeeming qualities to this song and little in the way of potential. It's a shame the tracker wasted your time.  An Explanation Okay, now why did we bother with a 100-point scale? This same level of detail could have been covered with 1-10, or a star-rating, couldn't it? The reason we use 100 points is twofold. First, a 100-point scale allows for accurate results, when you average everything out between multiple judges. That way, ties are kept to an absolute minimum, which makes dividing the songs into categories more effective. It's a math thing. There's also a right-brained answer. Allowing each judge to vote on a 100-point scale allows for grey areas. If a reviewer listens to a mediocre song that has one pattern he really likes, he (or she, sorry) might be torn between giving it a 55 or a 60. This way, he can say "that pattern is really cool, but it is just one pattern," and give the song a 58: a little over halfway to 60. There's more gradation this way; more of a 'human' touch. Move on to the next page. Round 2 online vote submission