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             "Why, no, I'm not an ascii artist, why do you ask? =)"

                           Impromptu Compo Rules!
                              Organized by Zinc

*** History ***

  On November 1st, 1995, I was in #trax and decided to put together a little
compo right then and there, fittingly called "ImpromptuCompo". Each composer
would get a number of samples provided by me (picked at random), and 40
minutes to write the song, including time to get back into IRC and send me
the song.  Voting would be very similar to 20mc, but the limits wouldn't be
so harsh. (no file size limits not have any limit to number of channels).

  I found 3 more people who were interested, and so I sent them the sample
packet, and we all went off to make a new song...


*** Current Rules - Music Compo ***

  1. Only samples provided in the sample pack may be used. You
     may use the text files in the sample pack if you wish! heh.

  2. The is no file size limit, but there is a 16 channel limit.
     Only XM, S3M, MTM, or MOD formats allowed.

  3. You have only 45 minutes once zinc gives the signal to go. This
     includes time to go into your tracker, track your song, and return
     to irc.

*** Current Rules - Graphics Compo ***

  1. Graphic entries must be in 640x480x256 resolution.

  2. Allowed file formats are PCX, GIF, and JPG.

  3. Graphics must only be in grayscale colors, and must be related to
     the "theme" given for the graphics compo, i.e. if the theme is 
     boats, you could enter a picture of a canoe.
 
*** FAQ ***

  Q: How do you pick the samples?
  A: I used to pick them randomly, but now I choose a selection of medium
      quality samples, which usually end up being a total of about 64k. I
      try to have a theme or style in mind when choosing samples as well.

  Q: Are the samples tuned?
  A: Most are, but some may not be. I don't have the time to tune them be4
      hand, and untuned samples help to eliminate cheating.

  Q: When does the compo take place?
  A: Ahh! This is the very essence of 'ImpromtuCompo'! For you never know
      when it will happen. I'll just come out once in a while and announce
      that it will happen in 1 hour, or whatever.  Then everybody wishing
      to enter will have to join #ImpCompo and get the pack.

  Q: Who judges?
  A: Anybody can! Voting is similiar to 20mc, and everybody entering must
      get the voting pack and rate each song, then email or dcc me their
      vote. 

  Q: Why a graphics compo too?
  A: In IC4 some people wanted to enter graphics, so in IC5 we added the
     graphics compo. Graphics are now voted on like the songs are.

  Q: Okay! Sounds like fun. So where do I get the voting pack?
  A: They should be somewhere on cdrom.com, or you can DCC from someone.
     On cdrom.com it should be in demos/incoming/music/songs/special or
     something like that, named IC-n.ZIP where n is the number of the compo.

          ** any more questions? Send them to rays@direct.ca ***

                    -> this file updated December 16 <-
