TRACKING TIPS

DOs & DON'Ts Samples Communication Publicity Vital Sites

Let's face it: it's tough to do anything alone, and tracking is no exception. But it may seem frustrating sometimes trying to get in contact with other people in the tracking scene, whether you're looking for help in learning how to track better, someone's opinion on a song you're working on, or friendly people to just clown around with online.

Fortunately, there are numerous tracking-related chat rooms, message boards, and newsgroups that will help you with anything you need. Here's how to use them effectively:
 

There are two types of tracking-related chat rooms nowadays: the traditional Internet Relay Chat #trax rooms, and the Web-based Java applet chat rooms. The Java-based rooms are pretty much scorned by the tracking scene, but not all of them are totally worthless. Some can be just as useful as the traditional IRC #trax rooms, believe it or not!

Here are some general rules of conduct if you're new to chatting:

1. Don't try to be the center of attention. Anyone who TRIES to get everyone's attention will generally fail, unless they do something really annoying. In that case, you'll become the center of NEGATIVE attention, which will likely result in you being kicked and banned from the room.

2. Don't use bots or colors. Both are totally useless, annoying, and wastes of bandwidth.

3. Swap songs! Don't go into any chat room expecting to benefit yourself without giving anything back in return. In this world, selfishness only works if you have a gun, and even then, it's generally a bad idea. ;) A great way to get your own music heard is to offer to check out other people's tunes as well. Remember, EVERYONE in a tracking chat room has songs that they want people to hear, and they're usually willing to do almost anything to get their songs heard... including listening to other people's songs. Song-swapping is well worth the time and effort, especially if a person hears your song and tells the entire chat room how good it is. :)

To get into any of the #trax channels, you'll need the mIRC chat program.

Once you have it, there are at least two different servers that each have their own #trax channel, and I'll list them below.

irc.scene.org
EFNet

You can also log on to any DALNet server and check out the #modarchive channel.
 

Newsgroups are probably much more useful than chat rooms in some ways because the various tracking-related newsgroups seldom stray off-topic. A lot of experienced people regularly post messages and replies there, making them ideal places to get advice and information, as well as posting up songs for others to hear or publicizing your Web page.

alt.music.mods
By far the most active and useful tracking newsgroup out there.

alt.binaries.sounds.mods
Not as active, but you can post files directly here.
 

Message boards are a lot like newsgroups, except that they're smaller, less active, and are usually run directly off of a Web page.

UT Message Boards - (Part of United Trackers)
This site includes several tracking-related discussion boards for UT members. If you're not a UT member yet, what cave have you been hiding in lately? ;)

MODPlug Forums - (Part of MODPlug Central)
Their boards aren't quite as active as the ones on UT, but you'll get answers to your questions. If need be, I'll see to it personally. ;)