2015 July/August Set 1 (Complete)

[psychoangel691]

Crystalline White - IX
my addiction - goreshit
Resistance 8 - Pyongyang Hardcore Resistance
Salieri's Laughter - Leaf XCeed
Seven - DJ Sharpnel

[HeZe]

4.5/10 - REJECT

File needs a lot of polishing:
- Fixed sync by reducing my global offset by 2
- M10-M30 - there seem to be many arrows quite off, especially 16ths
- M30-M39 this is ok.
- M39 burst with 64ths is a bit harsh.
- M40 dat jack is harsh, but ok.
- M56-M65 i sense some off arrows here.
- M67-M68 completely off.
- M72 unjustified rolls right in the end. NO!!


Diff 49

8.5/10 - PASS

Very good file. The difficulty peaks at various places only concern me. 95% of the song is 55-60 diff jumpstream and the peaks are 70-80 diff.
(For icyworld, x-rate up >)
(Halved bpm doesn't certainly make the stepfile image any clearer..)

Diff 72

5.5/10

O_______o
It is quite hard. I won't say will it pass or not because this difficulty level is far beyond my skills, but I don't believe it will pass.
- M6-M8 some arrows here off.
- M16 burst and the other bursts like this, well I played it many times with lower rates and it seems fine, so ok. Some of these bursts feel dumpy.
- M21-M36 this is good stuff!
- M37-M39 some arrows feel quite off here.
-M45-M51 some off arrows here too.
- M92 burst section seems very much overlayered.

Diff 95

[inDheart]

Crystalline White: 6.5/10

- sync seems noticeably off, arrows are late
- m10: starting here i get what instruments you're following, but that lower synth is either very quiet or comes in later than here, which is why the first bit here plays a bit weird. maybe it would be okay to follow the louder one and then bring this guy in at like m18 when it has come in a bit; that'll give you some variety too. as it is right now you switch instruments around m11-12 but then stick with the same until m26, which drags a bit
- m16: i think the 16th just before here is a ghost (and again before m24?)
- the jack is cool. like m39-40 is tougher than anything else but i'm okay with it? pretty sure it makes sense and this is the biggest section transition in the song, in terms of intensity
- there's probably something to be said about PR in m41 onward but being strict about that would also probably disturb the good flow of those sections in general

my addiction: 2/10

- lol what did i just play
- lot of silence at the start?
- layering issues abound: first you start out with the synth, then it disappears, then the bass drum switches from occasionally being taps or ignored to being on jumps even though nothing really changed in the song from m1-m9
- really abrasive, inconsistent jump patterning follows, then at m33 (and m160) you double the bpm and i'm officially lost on what's happening. so for instance, the [14] jumps might match an instrument - but what do the [23] jumps mean? and if you're trying to match the sampled synth then these are one giant misrhythm because it doesn't go a.ab.b every measure, but then i would expect the notes where the synth isn't playing to at least not be jumps, because nothing else plays when they don't.
- m65: very noticeable pitch relevancy problems given that this is so lightly stepped. generally notes of the same pitch get arrows in the same column where feasible, and notes of different pitches have arrows in different columns.
- there are also many things which are just the ultimate in meanness or confusion and i will point out some examples:
-- 197bpm 32nd trills starting at m97 which sound like they're meant to go to the cut-up vocals, but not quite
-- pretty fast and long jumpjacks starting at the end of m124
-- minijacks and minijumpjacks everywhere, some of which actually make sense because they go to a repeated kick but others which i can't find any significance for really
- if you're going to step a hard file i would suggest practicing first by stepping files on "easier" songs (ones which are a bit less muddled by the menagerie of instruments) and seeing how those turn out so you can work up to the challenge. you can get your friends to try them. it's not easy stepping a hard file unless you've got some practice in; i've tried it.

Resistance 8: skip/10

- NOTE: this was transferred to hard batch and judged there, so i believe it doesn't need a review here then

Salieri's Laughter: 7/10

- eurgh the BPMs D: this ought to be 125->250 rather than 62.5->125 because bass and kick in a typical beat are usually both 4ths
- i feel like i got where the vast majority of your layering decisions are coming from; some of the jump/hand distinctions might be iffy but most seem fine just based on sheer volume
- i think there are a few places where you switched guitars unexpectedly but it flowed pretty well
- m94 is where i get most annoyed by the BPM being like a quarter of what it 'ought' to be
- this song/file kinda drags on for what it is as well but from what i understand it's a stepman icon

Seven: 6.5/10

- well it's certainly very colorful
- totally subjectively i think this isn't the greatest song choice, but the color variety and stepping the voice seems to compensate for that a bit
- the fast trills and rolls here may be accurate (the rolls may even be slower than the song goes just for playability) but they feel like cheap difficulty for difficulty's sake
- i think those 32nd trills are faster than the long one in death piano but at least they're short?
- oh and the 3 note colorbursts from m21 on are pretty obnoxious
- oh and m104 is especially lol just look at this

particularly if i'm right about the speed of death piano then this is, uh, pretty tough
- this is hard to rate for me for a few reasons:
-- i'm not at the proper skill level to differentiate "hard" and "ridiculous"
-- while it largely seems properly stepped, the difficulty just seems cheap rather than an inspiring challenge because most of it comes from small bits of fast rolls and trills rather than throughout
-- there's a distinction between "well stepped" and "appropriate for FFR" that i shouldn't be touching
so unfortunately i have to leave this as an exercise to the primary judge. i'm giving it a rating in the CQ range because a tone down might be what is warranted after all.

[DossarLX ODI]

bmah finished the primary judge task for July/August 2015 Set 1. The notes can be seen below; this thread is being moved over to Completed Sets and the results/notes will be updated in the July/August 2015 thread.

[7.5*/10] Crystalline White {IX} (DarkZtar)
- 18.42s: misplaced 16th (should be prior to following 4th jump)
- 19.84s: extraneous 8th
- 20.16s: missing 16th as per your previous pattern
- 22.12s: a matter of preference, but to me this is a missing 16th. I usually go by completing patterns at the end of a measure/section when I do some sort of transitioning.
- 29.40s,43.31s: preference, but I think this is pretty clear to be an 8th jump with the melody and drum
- 30.05s: considering this is a trance song, might I suggest adding an arrow to all 4th drums for the second half of this repetitive section? Would be a good gradual increase in challenge for a novice player. This would pretty much mean only a few more jumps.
- 43.53s: excellent PR overall. If you want to improve it slightly, change the right arrow at 44.84s to an up.
- 84.18s: while I love this minitrill, it -might- be slightly out of place with the overall difficulty of the file. Maybe change the pattern. Either way, I leave this up to you.
- 84.84-85.16s: same as above, but I even more strongly recommend changing a four-arrow jack than a trill.
- 113.10s: some people might consider the colored arrows here to be overboard. I'm currently on the fence with this. It's quite a lot of arrows, but at the same time, the melody is pretty obvious and takes long breaks in between.
- 140.49s: not an eight-arrow 32nd roll...listen again at a slower rate.
- Summary: Great file with lovely structure, but with a few easily-fixable but glaring errors. I highly suggest fixing the stuff at the beginning with a few misinterpreted patterns, and the last 32nd pattern at the very end - those are erroneous. The trill and the jack I'll leave up to you, though I'd recommend changing the jacks for a file that is overall fairly tame in difficulty.

[0.5/10] my addiction {goreshit} (HeZe)
- props for proper syncing at least
- 5.63s,6.84s,etc.: with exception of the first occasion (where the sound clip sorta echoes), I'd consider these areas to be ghost arrows. Remove them.
- 16.13s: why a jump here? Why not just a single 8th?
- 17.62,22.49s,27.36-27.44s,etc.: ghost 32nds; don't make things harder than they need to be.
- 22.99-23.60s,etc.: at 197 BPM, jump jacks of three or more sets in a row is painful and you shouldn't do it, especially if it all ends in a quad.
- 37.91-38.21s,etc.: these patterns are even worse at this speed, nevermind same-jump jacking. In fact, most of these sounds only warrant a single arrow, not jumps. Stepping jumps to heavily emphasized sounds, regardless of how many sounds actually exist, can lead to a contrived, artificially-inclined difficulty.
- 43.09-52.83s,etc.: is this a joke? If not, then I apologize and should point out that most of these sounds should be single arrows as opposed to a mixture of jumptrilling and jumpjacking. If you did step this knowingly expecting what someone would probably think, then please...
- 52.83-62.58s,etc.: but even the non-jacky sections are still overstepped. Perhaps the mp3 is just overly loud and grating, but this is an example of where jumps should not necessarily be equated to density of stepping.
- 91.82s: more overstepping + unforgiving jumpjacks,etc. Again, be much lighter on the stepping.
- subsequent sections include 32nd trills at 197 BPM, hands layered in for simple bass drums, more jumpjacks, speedups, and more.
- 135.37-139.03s: no way...
- 140.25s: why is this entire section filled with 16ths? What do they follow?
- Summary: Don't get me wrong - this song is completely steppable. However, I can't help but question the intentions of submitting this file as it currently stands.

[8.5/10] Salieri's Laughter {Leaf XCeed} (DarkZtar)
- 15.54s: considering the song's energy, this file is definitely not 125 BPM. It is twice that fast, so I recommend doubling up the BPM.
- 38.70s,40.62s,42.54s,etc.: the beat is constant without a break. Maybe breaks in the stepping are structurally interesting, but it doesn't feel right, so fill in the holes. The guitar strumming seems to be the only aspect that is non-continuous, but the beat goes on. I won't demand you to change this however, because the continuous beats go on for a very long time and so I can see some merits in giving some breaks to the stepping.
edit: the more I play this file, the more I think you can just dismiss what I said. Perhaps fill in some holes, but leave some open.
- 93.62s: ignore this 12th, not really worth acknowledging this guitar twang
- 95.22s: missing jump to cymbal crash (it's possible I may have glossed over a few more of these, so please double check).
- 98.10s: omit this 4th jump; it serves no purpose.
- 110.58s: patterns are PR, but plays rather strange. I recommend changing the patterning a bit, especially the area where 321 repeats twice (111.06-111.30s).
- 112.14s,112.62s,113.34s: since this part of the song has a dominant solo, I'd avoid placing these 16ths for purposes of only being a filler. They distract from the main melody.
- 114.90s: the 3434 24ths are somewhat awkward to expect.
- 169.14s: triple to the cymbal.
- 184.50-185.94s: this section is not too heavily layered, so no need to skimp out on layering the drums just because a simple running melody is playing here.
- 186.30s: missed 32nd.
- 197.34s: missed 32nd jump.
- 229.74s: really smooth 32nds until you get to this triple up arrow anchor pattern here. Maybe change it? Up to you.
- 251.22s,278.58s: hand to cymbal (and again, I may have missed a few other occasions).
- It would be great if you can cut this song, because it's almost 5 minutes long with a lot of repetition (both musically and step-wise).
- Summary: In some ways, this file reminds me of Holy Orders (which annoyingly enough also had a halved BPM that did not represent the speed of this song). It is very well-polished and plays well but I'd be lying if I said I didn't yawn at its length. I'll leave that up to you but overall, great job.

[1/10] Seven {DJ Sharpnel} (DarkZtar)
- 9.98-14.02s: the colored arrows to the voice samples are really messy, even moreso when this occurs again later on in the song layered with other instruments (85.82s). If the song is repetitive and boring, I can see why it'd be more interesting to acknowledge the voice sampling, but careful consideration should be used in terms of the amount and placement of such arrows. In this case, I find them more confusing than interesting, so I'd ignore them altogether.
- 18.82-19.91s,48.67-49.75s,etc.: even when you interpret the 48th rolls as 24th jumptrilling, consider both the transitions and the BPM of the song. This song is 193 BPM and the entry point to the first set of 48th rolls is a 2323 32nd minitrill which is essentially [23][23] jacks, and that doesn't work at all. Same goes for the following 2323 32nds which then leads to [12][12] jacks (this pattern is mirrored or slightly varied in other cases). These very high difficulty spikes can be feasible if the patterns and transitioning were better.
- 25.18-44.78s: Clown vomit?? This sure is a colorful section, but it's also a very obvious example of an artificial difficulty spike. Each "roll" is pretty much worth one arrow. This reminds me somewhat of the 32nd gallops in DevouR, but much more forced.
- 63.59-64.68s: a five-arrow 32nd trill at this BPM is just awful. And the 64th rolls at this BPM? I wouldn't try that either, because jumptrilling would still be a quad jack of [1234][1234], which is also really unsavory.
- 113.64s: [14][23] 32nd jumptrilling at 193 BPM? No way...
- 128.41s: oh my lord...2413 pattern in 64ths. Definitely a no-no.
- Summary: Not feasible.