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     Music Contest #1  (The TRUE Story)
     
     The idea...
     
          It all started in the shower.  One morning in mid-September,
     Snowman was getting ready to go to school.  He had just recently
     downloaded the spoils of Assembly 93' and was envying those indivi-
     duals who had competed in the music competition.  'To bad,' he thought
     'that we don't have a music contest you don't have to fly thousands of
     miles away to attend.'  The Music Contest was born.
          For the next two weeks, Snowman would work on the rules to the
     Music Contest during his Chemistry lecture class.  After the basic
     framework was down, Snowman contacted his buddy Ryan Cramer from
     Renaissance and asked him what he thought.  There were a few of things
     that Ryan and Snowman differed on.  One problem with the original
     version of the rules was that they were about 3k quality and 8k bad
     humor.  Stripping extraneous jokes and unimportant things helped to
     make the rules much more efficient.
          It had been Snowman's original intention to include a packet of
     samples with the rules that all entries to the contest were to be made
     up of.  This, Snowman thought, would make things more equal for
     everyone.  In addition, all entries were to be under 50,000 bytes
     long, and the only format allowed would be the MOD standard.  This
     again was to make things more even for everyone.  Also, having just
     the MOD format meant that the Amiga people who entered could hear all
     the entries to the competition.
          Well, THE PEOPLE bitched about a maximum length of 50,000 bytes:
     the maximum length became 300,000 bytes.  THE PEOPLE bitched about
     only being able to use the MOD format: MODs, FARs, ULTs, S3Ms, MTMs,
     and 669s were allowed.  THE PEOPLE bitched about having to use a
     pre-selected sample packet: any samples were allowed.
     
     Getting the word out...
     
          Once the rules to the contest were completed, Snowman needed some
     way to get the word out.
          Having recently moved to Akron OHIO to attend Akron University,
     Snowman was given an Internet account.  This was wonderful because it
     meant that Snowman would be able to contact Amiga users and
     international people much easier.
          Snowman obtained Internet addresses of demo groups and amiga
     musicians by two different methods.  One was by calling Programmer's
     Oasis and downloading a file which contained the addresses of most
     major demo groups.  The other was a little more difficult.  On
     Internet, files that are uploaded are supposed to have an accompanying
     text file telling what the file is so that people can decide whether
     or not they want to download it.  In the Amiga MOD files sections,
     many of these files contained addresses of the authors of these songs.
     Snowman did a mass download of all these little text files, copied
     them all to one big text file, and scanned for the "@" sign.  [all
     internet addresses have an "@" in them]  Snowman wrote these down and
     developed a computer musician data base.  He wrote a mass mail letter
     telling about the music contest and distributed it to all musicians
     and demo groups on his list.
          There were many responses, a few of which follow...
     
     -----
     
     > Hello Amiga musician!
     
     Me - musician? <Manical laughter>
     Why did you send this stupid thing after all? And where did you grab my
     e-mail address??? :)
     
     I wonder how many other non-musicians you've teased with this mail...
     
     -----
     
      I have a couple things I'd like to talk about - regarding the Music
      Contest.
     
      Firstly, I had already started a MOD that was under 50K zipped, and
     then I find out that it has changed to 300,000 bytes!  Well.. you KNOW
     people are going to make mods that are 299,999 bytes long.  I would
     have liked 150,000 that's the perfect size for a good quality MOD...
     but you ARE running this so do whatever!
     
     [Snowman 1/5/94 - Having completed the contest, I feel that 300k is
     a perfect maximum length for a song]
     
      Secondly, The only way I can see fair judging is if you separate MODs
     into certain categories - (ie: Rock, Metal, Techno, Pop, Undefinable -
     or whatever 5 categories would be good) this would help your
     judgments, because either way you do it (have a panel of judges or you
     let people vote) it will give every artist a chance.  (ie: If I was
     judging, I would have a slight bias toward Rock)
     
     [Snowman 1/5/94 - Thought about this, but decided against it.  Having
     a diverse panel of judges means that we will equal out biases.  Also,
     since the voting was broken down by different aspects of the song
     (form, samples, originality, and overall effect), it really was not
     possible to have bias voting]

      But if your judging is based purley on quality, originality and other
     factors, then I can see it being ok to just pick the top 5.
     
     [Snowman 1/5/94 - and thats what we did :)  ]
     
      Umm.. How about you also make sure all the winning mods are
     distributed to all BBSs in the contest, that would be a nice prize
     addition.  Because people with internet access will be able to get all
     the song entries for free.
     
     [Snowman 1/5/94 - good idea and I will do that]
     
     -----
     
     [Snowman 1/5/94 - in the process of writing the rules and upload form,
     I made a few errors.  This is partially due to the fact that I'm a
     horrible speller, and also because much of the data I obtained was
     over the phone voice, so I had to guess at the spelling]
     
     From Daniel Potter Thu Nov  4 17:51:53 1993
     
     On Thu, 4 Nov 1993, Christopher G Mann wrote:
     
     >                     Digital Infinity (sysop: Mike Phillips)
     
     Heheh our GROUP is Digital Infinity, his board is Digital Oxygene :)
     
     [Snowman 1/5/94 - what a goof I am!!  Big error.  Not due to spelling,
     this was purely a careless error]
     
     >                         Based in Darlin, Texas, U.S.A.
     
     That's Garland, TX :)
     (Sorry for pointing out all your mistakes, it's just that they're kinda
     funny :)
     
     >                         Based in McClain, Virginia, U.S.A.
     
     McClain? Only if you're a Texan.. it's McLean hehe :)
     
     -----
     
          One thing in this competition that makes me to wonder is it worth
     taking part in is that there is practically no prizes at all... It is
     not too difficult to get some companies to sponsor it. We, for
     instance, got so many companies to sponsor our latest demo-party that
     all we had to pay was the rent of the amusement-park in which the
     party was held...
     
          Some companies that are big enough would surely be interested in
     this kind of free world-wide advertising, since it would cost
     practically nothing for them to give some midi-equipment or
     sound-boards as prizes in a competition.
     
     [Snowman 1/5/94 - (see mc2soon for more info on this)]
     
     -----
     
          I don't know where you found my name, but I am sorely flattered!
     I guess I need to check out one of the above sites (now that wuarchive
     is back up ;^), although it will be a new and frightful thing for me
     to work within the restrictions of the .mod format.  I seem to recall
     that it is limited to 64 lines per block and a mere 16 samples and no
     synths or hybrids (gee, I wonder if this boy's been using med, while
     waiting for forte to sprout ;^).  well, again thanks, and i will have
     to experiment to see what i can do with it - btw, i hope it was <=64
     lines per block rather than exactly 64 per block....  hmmm...  thanks!
     
     [Snowman 1/5/94 - this is one of the problems with having a music
     contest that spans Amiga and PC platforms.  Getting a music format
     that is a standard is very difficult to do]
     
     -----
     
          I'll be doing my military service on June,10th 1993 to May, 5th
     1994. During that time I'll able to read my mail only on weekends (if
     I get vacation from army, which is very probable) so don't be
     surprised if I don't answer your mail very quickly.
     
          If you have bug reports about DMP, you can send them to news
     group comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard where other DMP users can help you.
     
          While I'm in the army, I will continue developing DSMI and DMP,
     so keep the feedback coming.
     
     This message is generated automatically by VACATION program.
     
     Otto Chrons (SA-int, Suomen Armeijassa - ilman naisia toistaiseksi)
     
     -----
     
          What is this "No BPM" stuff?  If your replayer doesn't support
     BPM specifications, then it is incomplete.  I believe even Josh has an
     updated GUSMOD that supports BPMs...
     
     [Snowman 1/5/94 - This is an ongoing problem.  Currently, GUSMOD does
     the best job of playing MODs on the GUS, but unfortunately it does not
     support BPM.  I am not aware of a new version that does.  :(  I will
     have to do some work at fixing this problem]
     
     -----
     
          Umm i would be very interested in attending if it is that type of
     event, go ahead and send me some info on local etc..
     
     [Snowman 1/5/94 - What makes this letter funny is that I sent back a
     letter saying that you didn't "attend" this competition, you just
     wrote a song and uploaded it.  About a month later, I got another
     letter from the same group saying that they were sorry but they were
     too busy to attend the contest.  Too bad, I was hoping to get a chance
     to meet them.  :)  ]
     
     -----
     
     Back to the story...
     
          Snowman found 5 different FTP sites on the internet for his Music
     Contest. (FTP is like a BBS on the Internet)  He made a directory for
     his music contest rules on the FTPs and uploaded the rules.
          Unfortunately, Snowman did not do his homework, and found a very
     bad error he had made.  Apparently, files starting with "$$" are not
     allowed on Internet.  Snowman had to quickly update the rules to say
     that if you were uploading to Internet, just strip the "$$" off the
     file name.
     
          With Internet covered, Snowman turned his attention to BBS's.
          He had been calling the Sound Barrier (New York) and the Music
     Connection (Texas) for a long time, so he thought that those were good
     places to start.  Snowman wrote letters to Daredevil (sysop of Sound
     Barrier) and Rob Butler (sysop of Music Connection) asking if they
     would want to be a distrobution site for the contest.  Rob Butler
     thought it was a good idea and agreed to be a distro site for the
     contest.  No response from Daredevil.  (the Sound Barrier is the
     Renaissance world headquarters BBS) Really wanting to nail the Sound
     Barrier as a distribution site, Snowman wrote another letter to
     Daredevil.  Once again, no response.
          Officially, the rules to the contest were released on the 2nd of
     November.  It was on the 3rd of November that Snowman came home from
     school to find a little message on his answering machine.  In a very
     obvious Texan drawl, the message said that 'This is Mike Phillips of
     the Digital Oxygene BBS, and I'd be very interested in supporting your
     Music Contest.  Please call me back.'  That is exactly what Snowman
     did, and soon afterward, Mike's efforts in promoting the competition
     made him the official World Headquarters.  Within a couple of weeks
     after releasing the rules, Snowman had signed up other BBS's such as
     Ryan Cramer's Data Connection and Daniel Potter's Programmer's Oasis.
     Having signed on six U.S. BBS's officially and many more in the
     pipeline, Snowman wrote yet another letter to Daredevil.  Once again,
     no response.  Getting frustrated, Snowman posted a public letter to
     Daredevil so that everyone on the Sound Barrier could read it...
     
           "This is Snowman.  I've written you several messages about being
     a distro site for my Music Contest.  I already have major backing from
     more than a dozen U.S. BBS's, and several international ones.
     [Snowman 1/2/94: Don't count your chickens before they have hatched.
     Snowman only officially signed on 6 BBS's in the United States]
     If you do not contact me, via internet: r3cgm@dax.cc.uakron.edu, or
     voice, I will list you specifically as NOT being a distro site for
     this contest.  It would be a pity to see this wonderful bbs, which
     does so well in computer music circles, be left out of this event.
          To everyone else reading this, call Digital Oxygene or the Music
     Connection to get information on the Music Contest.  Unless your sysop
     takes the effort, you will be left out of this international effort."
     
     Date: 11-11-93 (15:33)   Main Board Number:     -- 1,630  1,667
     --
       To: CHRISTOPHER MANN
     From: SYSOP                           Read: NO
     Subj: Music Contest                 Status: RECEIVER ONLY
     
     Is this supposed to be some kind of threat??? I never said I wanted any
     part of this music contest, and I am a bit pissed off that you put me
     in there WITHOUT asking me! So... Take me out...
     
     [Snowman 1/5/93 - I had put the Sound Barrier in the upload.txt file
     as being an upload site.  I mistakenly thought that they would jump at
     the chance to be a distro site for a computer music contest]
     
     I don't appreciate your actions on this BBS... Do you take pride in
     trying to publicly embarass me or trying to get everyone angry with
     me? You go posting messages saying something like "your sysop is an
     asshole because he doesn't want to join my contest" and that is
     pissing me off. If you don't like the way this board is run, I'll
     gladly delete you and you can call someplace else!!

     [Snowman 1/5/93 - November the 14th is the last time I called the
     Sound Barrier]
     
          Well, with a good base of BBS's and FTP's, Snowman took a little
     breather.  Several minor corrections to the rules were necessary, but
     that was about it.
     
     Start of Trouble...
     
          Here is what happened the past month and a half (today is
     1/5/94).  First, Snowman discovers that 2 of the FTP's are deleting
     his files.  Snowman drops them.  Then, Snowman finds out that another
     FTP refuses to put his Music Contest rules/entries into a seperate
     directory (this is the Gravis FTP), so Snowman drops a third FTP.
     Down to 2 FTP's, Snowman is starting to get a little edgy.  Then, he
     finds out that one of his remaining 2 FTP's is going down due to a
     temporary system crash.  Finally, the FTP comes back up, and Snowman
     remains with 2 FTP's for the duration of the contest.
     
          It is now clear that more BBS distribution sites is worse than a
     few.  Naturally, one would think "the more the better".  But consider,
     for every BBS distro site, Snowman has to keep track of it and keep
     checking it for entries.  Since Snowman was on very good terms with
     Data Connection, Programmer's Oasis, Music Connection, and Digital
     Oxygene BBS's, the sysops pretty much made sure that all the entries
     were distributed.  However, there were 2 other BBS's that Snowman had
     virtually no contact with at all, and it is those 2 that became a
     problem.  By the end of the contest, the words "Music Contest" did not
     appear anywhere on either of them to Snowman's knowledge.
          If you can see this trouble with United States BBS's, then just
     imagine what hell it was to get the entries off of four international
     BBS's.  Needless to say, next contest will be much more selective in
     distro sites.
     
          Minor note of little importance to Music Contest: Snowman
     developed a milk intolerance during the competition.  In addition, he
     was sick for an entire two week period at the end of the contest.
     
          Snowman couldn't figure out a good voting system until Mike
     Phillips said the word "commitee".  On the spot, Snowman decided that
     he would have a panel of 5 judges voting for the songs.  He selected
     Daniel Potter (author of Farandole), Daniel Goldstein (author of
     MMedit), Mike Phillips (sysop of Digital Oxygene), Rob Butler (sysop
     of Music Connection), and himself as judges.  The actual specifics
     would be worked out later.

          Two people uploaded different versions of their entries.  Very
     frustrated at having to download two different entries for the same
     person, Snowman made the new rule "No multiple uploads or addendums."
     
          Snowman was working on an upgrade for his computer and it crashed
     on the 3rd of January.  It stayed down for a day until a jerry-rigged
     system could be made.  This came at a very bad time.  Fortunately,
     Snowman was able to get the system workable enough to finish the
     contest up.
     
          Then at the beginning of January, Mike Phillips suddenly became
     uncontactable.  I don't know what happened to him, but he was in
     charge of collecting the European entries (today is 1/6/93).
          Apparently, Mike had a family emergency (today is 1/9/93).  I was
     only able to contact one of the four european BBS's (see mc1notes.txt).
     I had to substitute Ryan Cramer for Mike Phillips.  Also, Dan Potter
     was not able to vote on the contest due to time constraints.
     
          Well, that's the long and short of it...
     
          This contest was a LOT of work.  It was lucky that Snowman did
     not have school over X-Mas break.  He was able to devote most of his
     time to getting this contest finished.  Anyway, you are probably tired
     of reading this, so go ahead and look at the other stuff included in
     this archive.
     
  Snowman 1/9/93
