Model Notes // Edition 001

Scoring Model

DropDex converts audio evidence into fixed card scores, relative rankings, drop classes, rarity tiers, and achievement badges. The model does not decide whether a song is good. It records how a drop behaves.

Model Structure

From waveform to archive rank.

Each drop moves through three layers: raw audio analysis, 0–100 fixed card scores, and edition-specific rankings. Scores are stable against fixed caps; ranks are relative to the current card pool.

1. Measure

Analyze build, predrop, and postdrop windows for energy, frequency balance, brightness, transients, texture, width, sustain, and musicality.

2. Score

Convert raw features into fixed 0–100 scores such as Weight, Shock, Build, Production, Style, Musicality, Battle, and DropDex.

3. Classify

Rank drops inside the edition, assign drop classes, calculate rarity, and award badges for top-percentile traits.

Scoring Philosophy

Fixed scores. Relative ranks.

DropDex uses fixed scoring caps instead of dataset-relative min/max scaling. A score of 100 means the drop reaches or exceeds the fixed cap for that metric. Adding new songs can change ranks, but it does not automatically change the underlying score.

Fixed Score

Scores are scaled to a 0–100 range using predefined caps.

Global Rank

Ranks are recalculated within the current Edition 001 card pool.

Card Pool

The first edition keeps up to three drops per song to increase variety.

Archive Logic

Rarity and badges belong to the frozen edition, not the entire future archive.

Composite Scores

The main model layers.

Power

Average of Weight, Shock, Brightness, and Aggression. Measures raw drop force.

Build

Combines Tension and Charge-Up. Measures anticipation, setup, and pre-impact movement.

Production

Combines width, attack, density, texture, sustain, and flow. Measures sound design execution.

Style

Rewards a strong identity while accounting for overall style breadth across groove, nasty, melt, technical, cinematic, wonk, mass, and musicality traits.

Battle Score

Weighted toward Power, with Build, Production, and Style included. This is the combat-style card score.

DropDex Score

Equal-weight archive score across Power, Build, Production, Style, and Musicality.

Edition System

Ranks freeze inside an edition.

Edition 001 is treated as a scored card pool. The model can evolve later, but cards from a frozen edition keep their edition rank, rarity, and badge assignments.

Archive principle: the archive expands, editions are preserved. View Archive

Boundaries

What the model does not claim.

DropDex does not measure taste, nostalgia, cultural importance, live crowd reaction, or whether a song is personally meaningful. It measures audio behavior inside a selected drop window. The archive is evidence, not final authority.