Score fixing (点数調整 tensuu chousei or スコア調整 score chousei) is when you play a song in Taiko no Tatsujin and make the ending score something nice-looking, be it a round number (most often 1,000,000), repeated digits (say 777,770), or something with a goroawase connection (765,000 and 876,000 are in theme with the series, for example). While it is not necessary, some score fixing feats also assumes the requirement of a Donderful Combo (getting all 良s) and clearing all notes as normally as possible except yellow drumrolls.
In another note, because in jubeat the full score is a flat million and calls that feat EXCELLENT (EXC for short), so when one plays a certain song that is tied to that series and fix the score to 1,000,000, some people call it the same name as a reference. There are also some who would just call it EXCELLENT regardless of the song source. If you would like to see some score fixing in action, that's another keyword to search for.
To successfully achieve a fixed score, you would have to be very lucky in your hit and misses... or you could just know the scoring scheme for the song, plan ahead and hit exactly to the plan. Let's take the Yuugao no Kimi footage above for a full case study:
Case Study: Fixing to 1,000,000 on Yuugao no Kimi Oni in AC0
A prerequisite for a score fixing analysis would be to calculate the ceiling score (天井スコア tenjou score) and then work out a scheme from it. The ceiling score is the maximum score you can get from this notechart, including all notes (except impossible balloon/kusudama notes) but excluding the optional yellow drumrolls that is not ceilinged. The ceiling score also counts combo increments, large note bonuses (2×), Go-go Time bonus (1.2×), clear bonus from balloon/kusudama notes and the 100-combo bonus (10,000) in the newest generation.
Instead of calculating the ceiling score for the Yuugao no Kimi notechart in AC0 KATSU-DON and up out here (we do not discourage anyone else to do so, though. In fact, if you really did it, send us the thing and we will feature your working here!), we will just link you to a DFC video where the yellow drumrolls are not hit and give you the ceiling score being 998,000 before drumrolls.
With that done, you can see that the ceiling score is only 2000 points away from the round million. Considering drumrolls are 100 points/hit and 120 during Go-go Time, you would need 20 hits in the bar outside Go-go Time to make the fixed score (20×100 = 2000). Other combination also works if you mix in Go-go Time hits: in fact in the above video, the Donder hit 15 times during Go-go Time and 2 times outside, also coming to the same total (15×120 + 2×100 = 2000).
Note that all of this does not make the feat too much easier, because you still have to actually control the hit numbers on point. Having to accurately control getting 良s (and especially not getting 良s) wherever you need is not easy, I'll just say.
