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Old 01-1-2011, 04:57 PM   #1
Patashu
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Default Patashu's Stepping Guide for 2011

Also see the terminology guide: http://www.keybeatonline.com/forums/...ead.php?t=2435 I recommend it - it'll give you LOTS of ideas for patterns and stepchart creation!

[Old stickies]
Solo guide for awesome 6-panel sexiness!!
A real guide on how to make a good simfile
Xiao's Miniguide to Pad File Making


Table of contents:

A. Why step?
B. Setting up / getting your tools
C. Getting your chart started / getting familiar with the editor
Ci. How to get your song perfectly on sync
D. Picking a good song
E. Making a good chart
F. BPM gimmicks - slowdowns, speedups, stops, stutters, etc
Fi. Keeping your file onsync after using too many BPM gimmicks
G. Sound and hardware (by Rog)

A. Why step?
Stepping is partially a creative process, partially a scientific process. It's part laying down patterns that bring out the most interesting parts of the song and allow others to follow along with it by tapping to them, part figuring out what patterns are the most fun to keysmash too. It is something you can do for others, as anyone with the appropriate skill level for your chart can play and enjoy it if it's well made.

After you've played Stepmania or another rhythm game long enough, you'll start to see songs as their corresponding layers, breaking their instruments down into rhythms that combine and layer, rising and falling pitch relevantly, becoming more and less difficult as the song deserves - or layering and unlayering so it remains consistent, alternatively. Stepping is a way you can get this out into something concrete that others can enjoy, and learn like you.

B. Setting up / getting your tools

When it comes to picking your editor, you have three main choices: Stepmania 3.9, sm-ssc and DDReam Studio.
Follow this topic http://www.bemanistyle.com/forum/f93...speedmods-230/ to add higher C-mods or X-mods to Stepmania.
Note that because thirdstyle is much taller than Stepmania is, your C-mod will be about 2/3rds as large as your corresponding A-mod if you use a theme with a bar along the bottom of the screen (like sm3.9 default), and about 3/4ths as large if it doesn't (like sm-ssc default). (This is because the important factor is how many milliseconds notes spend on screen, as opposed to how fast they are moving.)
If you are used to ffr's speedmods, multiply your ffr speedmod by x500-550 to get a thirdstyle A-mod, by x350 to get a sm3.9 default theme c-mod and x425 to get a sm-ssc default theme c-mod.

Stepmania 3.9 is old but stable, and its editor is strong enough to handle everything important. It's what I personally use, and I will write the guide from the point of view of it. Download here: http://www.mediafire.com/?ph3p4g87tw8y6nu

sm-ssc is a spinoff of Stepmania 4 with LUA scripting and hugely indepth themeing capabilities. It has a fair amount of polish but is a work in progress. You are welcome to use its editor instead, but some aspects of the guide may not directly apply. Download here: http://code.google.com/p/sm-ssc/

DDReam Studio is a dedicated editor for Stepmania charts. Its main advantage is that it shows the waveform under the chart and allows you to sync by placing beats on the waveform instead of calibrating bpm changes, making it more intuitive for syncing 'drifty' songs when the band did not play using a metronome. Even if you want to use sm3.9 or sm-ssc, download ddream studio anyway: it is incredibly useful for quickly checking the beat-0 offset (how far into the song the first beat is placed, because songs normally have a bit of silence first) or for playtesting a file without having to load stepmania. Download here: http://www.mediafire.com/?82al94e5ot6sfy2
Site, that as of March 2011 is down
If you want a guide to stepping using DDReam Studio, check this thread: http://www.keybeatonline.com/forums/...ead.php?t=1572

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SPECIAL PROVISION FOR VISTA/WINDOWS 7 USERS: These OSes do not like it when you try to save into program files. Instead, it will save it to a folder like the following:
C:\Users\(your username)\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\Stepmania
To solve this problem, do not install Stepmania into Program Files, but instead into a directory the OS doesn't care about. You can also try giving Stepmania.exe admin permissions under compatibility mode or using DDReam instead if any problems persist.

After you have Stepmania 3.9 or sm-ssc installed, go into the options and through each menu. Turn event mode on and menu timers off. Turn backgrounds off if they distract you. Fiddle with the graphics/sound quality if it lags. Change the key config to your preferred setup (mine's qwop for singles and q = left, w = upleft, e = down, i = up, o = upright, p = right for solo). Etc etc. Also, learn to hold tab whenever possible: It speeds up any waiting period and make things go as fast as they can.

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In addition to an editor, you'll want some tools to help you out: Audacity, SpeedCrunch, Game Booster 2.1 and Mixmeister BPM Analyzer or the website http://www.all8.com/tools/bpm.htm .

Audacity is a free waveform editor. You can use it to make cuts of songs and, with LAME installed, re-export them as an mp3 in either the same or a lower bitrate (it's hidden under preferences, so make sure you can find it), as well as various other tweaking. You can also use it as an alternative to DDReam Studio for finding the beat 0 offset, by zooming way in on a song and finding the exact timestamp of the first waveform's start. Download here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

SpeedCrunch is a free calculator you can use instead of the windows one. It has a history of calculations and results you can scroll through, a bar you can type an expression into and a long list of useful functions. Best of all, every time you open it it remembers what you were doing last time and shows it again. Download here: http://www.speedcrunch.org/en_US/index.html

Game Booster 2.1 makes flash based games much less likely to lag, which means less BS goods and misses when playing FFR, Thirdstyle, Keybeat Online, etc. It's unlikely that your computer is so bad that Stepmania runs poorly on it, but if it does it'll help with that too. What it does is reach into windows and turn off services, allow you to turn off processes, defragment and various other tweaks. It doesn't sound like much but it really helps given how tempermental flash is. Download here: http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html

Mixmeister BPM Analyzer is a free bpm finding program. While Mixmeister BPM Analyzer provides a useful number to go off most of the time, PLEASE DO NOT EVER BLINDLY FOLLOW THE BPM IT GIVES YOU. It is almost always 0.01 or 0.02 off the true value, so round it to the nearest obvious seeming value. On top of that, If the song has a non-constant bpm or an odd time signature part, the BPM will be completely nonsense. In this case, you must either use http://www.all8.com/tools/bpm.htm to tap to the beat of each constant bpm part, if it's constant but just changes at discrete intervals, or sync the entire song by hand. It is recommended that you use DDReam Studio if you have to do this, and follow who_cares973 aka DrTran's guide.

http://www.all8.com/tools/bpm.htm is a simple tool: Simply tap to the beat of the song. You can be a bit out as long as you tap the correct number of beats and the first and last taps are roughly accurate, and the longer you go the more accurate the bpm gets. If you have a wristwatch with a stopwatch functionality, you can count beats yourself (I prefer to count them in groups of four, or however long the measure of your song is) and then do the division yourself: duration/number of beats = length of one beat, 60/(length of one beat) = beats in a minute.


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Finally, you'll want some packs to go into Stepmania. This isn't a 'how to play stepmania' nor is it a 'how to play/step for pad' guide, so I'll only list packs that have full KB charts, since these are the kinds of charts that you'll be making for Thirdstyle (or for the kinds of people who play Thirdstyle).

4key/Singles:
Cave Story Pack WIP (download the skeleton, then download the link that says 'download all filled in .sms' and extract it to the same folder)
Nick's Mix (anime charts)
Otaku's Dream 6th Anime Mix
when Rebound's beginner pack is released, remind me and I'll link it here

6key/Solo:
Patashu Solo Beginner Pack
Xiaounlimited Solo Beginner Pack
Xiaounlimited Solo Beginner Pack II
Xiaounlimited Solo Beginner Pack III
when cave story pack has 6key charts I'll link it here
when PSBP2 is done (hey it could happen) I'll link it here

You can play, study and consider these in the editor, figure out why charts are made those ways at each difficulty level, look at how the author of the chart maximized the information-noise ratio and playability/fun of the chart going to the music. The more you understand why people step charts the way they do, the more equipped you'll be to step your own.

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C. Getting your chart started / getting familiar with the editor

I will assume you are using Stepmania 3.9 and have DDream Studio installed from now on.

To start editing in Stepmania 3.9, follow the following steps:

1. Navigate to Stepmania/Programs/
2. Run smpackage.exe
3. Select 'Create Song' and navigate to the mp3.
4. Run stepmania.exe. Go to Edit Songs/Courses, navigate to My Creations, navigate to the song, create a chart on the difficulty you want (TS uses beginner/light/standard/heavy for beginner/easy/medium/hard and begin editing.

If smpackage.exe doesn't work, then you have to copy and paste the mp3 to a song folder under a group folder under songs, e.g. Stepmania/Songs/My Creations/[Patashu] Fall Memories/fallmemories.mp3
Then you need to make an .sm in the same folder. You can either make a blank text document and rename it to foo.sm making sure the extension is changed (Stepmania will fill it in for you when you next run it), or use this template .sm: http://www.sendspace.com/file/0cq1f2

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Familiarize yourself with what the editor can do, but don't try and step yet - you need to set the song's bpm and beat 0 offset first, because Stepmania doesn't know what they are! If you want to get familiar with the editor before learning how to sync, find a file someone else has stepped and practice making a new chart to it instead.

Most of the options are either under the escape menu, listed under F1 or under the enter menu (the 'act on an area created using shift and moving' menu). I will list the important parts of each menu.

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Basic (and unlisted) controls:
Up, down: Scroll the receptors up and down.
Left, right: Change what note type you're quantizing to. 4ths (red) are the beats, 8ths (blue) are the off beats, 12ths (purple) are a third and two thirds between beats, 16ths (yellow) are half way between red and blue and so on.
1, 2, 3, 4, (5, 6, 7, 8): Lay a note in that column.
Number + drag up and down: Create a hold in that column.
Tab: Makes whatever you're doing happen faster.
F7: Only works when you're playtesting the chart. Turns autoplay on. Have it on at all times.

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Under escape:
Save: Do this often!
Reload from disk: This is very, very useful! You can edit an .sm directly (e.g. to change a bpm or a stop quicker/more accurately than in the editor) and then use this to inform Stepmania that it has changed. (It won't check!)
Player options: Here you can change the speed and noteskin with which the chart is viewed.
Song options: Here you can turn assist tick on and off and change the music rate. The music rate is not the speed mod - it is how fast the song is proceeding. This is very, very useful! 0.3x rate is a godsend for making your sync as perfect as possible, and lower rates are great for when a rhythm is too complicated for you at rate 1.0x. Assist tick should be on whenever using low rates.
Edit Song Info: Use this to set the title, subtitle and artist of the song.

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Under F1:
Pgup/Pgdown, home/end: Rapidly navigate through a chart.
Ctrl+up/down: Change how far you're zoomed in. Vital.
Shift+up/down: Select an area so you can use the menu under enter on it.
Shift + P: Playtest the part of the chart you're hovering in. Quicker than opening the escape menu and navigating down to the option.
F4: Toggle assist tick, but only when the chart is scrolling, similar to F7 and autoplay.
F5/F6: This is a bit clumsily worded, but what it does is this: If you have multiple charts, you swap between them. VERY useful for rapidly comparing two charts or even copying/pasting between them, using the menu under enter!
F7/F8, alt + F7/F8: Alter the BPM at the point your receptors are. Unless your song changes bpm, you should only need to alter the initial BPM, and only to the BPM you have determined is correct using a program or a stopwatch/metronome program. Holding alt moves it by 0.01, but you can alter it by 0.001 in the .sm then reload from disk if needed.
F9/F10, alt + F9/F10: Creates a stop at the receptors. This will be useful when you want to make BPM gimmicks.
F11/F12, alt + F11/F12: Alter the beat 0 offset, which is how far into the song the first beat plays. However, this is backwards, and negative means the first beat is later, not earlier. Watch the timestamp in the upper right corner as you alter this to make sure you have it the right way around. Holding alt moves it by 0.001, which is the highest amount of precision you can get already.
Insert, Delete: Insert/delete a beat and shift everything. If you use this by mistake, don't forget that you can select a part of chart and cut/paste it back to where it was before, and then all you have to do is fill back in the beat you lost.

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Under the enter menu for operating on an area after selecting it with shift + up/down:
Save before using any of these! Stepmania has no undo button!!
Cut, copy, paste: The use of these should be obvious.
Quantize: Moves everything more colourful than the note interval you select to the nearest note interval.
Turn: Left, right and mirror re-arrange the columns. Shuffle re-arranges them randomly. Supershuffle re-arranges every note randomly. Don't use these just to be lazy, now!
Transform: Remove all holds, all mines, etc
Tempo / Convert beats to pause / Convert pause to beats: Useful tools for when you want to make BPM gimmicks quickly.

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Ci. How to get your song perfectly on sync

This is the most important part. If your file is not perfectly on sync you'll find it more difficult to step and the resultant chart will be messy and nowhere near its true potential. Pay attention.
If your song can't get on sync no matter what bpm you use, is your song a live song played without a metronome? You may need to use DrTran's ddream studio stepping guide, or just find an easier song.

To find a song's BPM, use Mixmeister BPM Analyzer on it and round to the nearest 0.05!! For songs that are weird or have bpm changes, this number might be inaccurate; in that case, use a stopwatch and count out X beats of the song (16, 32 and 64 are good numbers, the higher the better), divide the time by X and then 60 by that number to get the song's rough BPM.
Alternatively, to find a song's BPM, go to this site: http://www.all8.com/tools/bpm.htm and tap the spacebar to the song's beat (the natural speed at which you nod your head to the song.) Do this for as much of the song as possible and the bpm will get closer and closer to the correct value. This site essentially does the 'stopwatch' method for you.

If you are in DDream Studio, do the following to sync your file:
1) Click on the first waveform peak.
2) Press B. This creates a beat.
3) Press A, fill in the BPM you figured out for the song.
4) To verify that your beats are right, hit F3 and hit spacebar to play clicks to the song in time with your beats.
5) Save as, and select single bpm sm from the dropdown menu.
That's it! If you later need to adjust your beats, press L and enter sync mode. You can adjust individual beats, or use options under tool to nudge beats forward/back, grow only specified regions to certain bpms or you can just move the first beat and hit A to autofill it again. When you're done your notecharts will now conform to the new set of beats.

If you are in Stepmania 3.9 or sm-ssc, do the following to sync your file:
1) Press home, then use F7 and F8 until the BPM is what you found out. If it's too slow, hold down tab. If it's still too slow, open up the .sm, edit the bpm in yourself and then use 'reload from song/disc' under the esc menu.
2) Lay down a column of 4th notes. Hit esc, go to song options. Slow the song down to rate 0.3x. Hit esc, go to play whole song, and while it's playing hit F4 (for assist tick) and F7 (for autoplay). If the song is earlier than the arrows+claps, F11 will move them earlier. If the song is later, F12 will move them later. Alt will move by one millisecond increments. If it's easier, instead of adjusting 4ths until they're right, place finer and finer colours (press right for more) until those colours are as close as possible, then look at the timestamp in the top right, memorize it and move the beat of the song until it matches that timestamp.
3) esc -> save, and then open it in ddream to confirm that it's as close to the waveform as possible. If it isn't, find out by how much and adjust it by that much.

Is your chart as close to the waveform as the one in this picture?

(Note: The arrows in this chart are actually 3 ms early, because you should sync to the first peak of the waveform. While you should try and sync as accurately as possible, anything under 10ms will probably not ever be noticed)

But what if it does have BPM changes? If so, locate the exact point where the BPM change appears - verify that everything before that, from start to end, is exactly on sync! Now, if the notes drift early, the song is slowing down, so lower the BPM until it syncs again. If the notes drag late, the song is speeding up, so raise the BPM until it syncs again.
-If the BPM changes at exactly one point, you can use http://www.all8.com/tools/bpm.htm to find what the BPM roughly is by not tapping until that BPM change happens, and then tweak it until it syncs on rate 0.3x. Then, just go to the point where it changes and use F7/F8 to change it to the new bpm, or in ddream you can use the 'grow' options.
-If the BPM changes over a span of time, make one BPM change every beat or half beat until everything, on rate 0.3x, is as close as you can make it. If you can't notice on rate 0.3x, we won't notice on rate 1.0x playing it!
-If the song is non-constant BPM and changing constantly, your only hope is to do the whole thing on rate 0.3x and make a BPM change every time you see it drift. Alternatively, you can use (link removed) s designed to place beat positions in time instead of making bpm changes, making it ideal for syncing songs that lack a constant BPM. Nevertheless the process will be hard, but as you do it more you'll get faster at it and learn time saving tricks.

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Now check. Use pgdown + tab, scroll to where the song ends and place another 4th. If the first and last 4ths of the song are exactly on sync on rate 0.3x, you're ready to start stepping. Sorry if it took you a while, but after doing this over and over it'll start to get mechanical and common sense.

D. Picking a good song

The ideal song for stepping is between 1 to 3 minutes, and never quite repeats - every time it comes back in, there's something put in, taken out or altered. In addition, even during its phrases it's changing, not repeating a short loop to fill for time during the chorus.
Now, a song won't always fulfil all these criteria, but you should seek out songs that will naturally make a chart as interesting as possible, by satisfying things like:
-Short and sweet. Only let it drag on if it's a medley, and changes what kind of song it is over time, keeping you entertained.
-Is complex - lively, with a whole ecosystem of different instruments and one-off sounds that you can use and ignore at your leisure, allowing you to choose between many different interpretations and pick the best one.
-Has inter-phrase variation - when a song repeats itself, you can step something new. Alternatively, a complicated enough song will allow you to simply step it differently - this is good too!
-Has intra-phrase variation - as in, when it's on a certain verse or a certain chorus or so on, it is constantly moving from melody to melody and offering new things, or new drum fills, or new one-off sounds - anything at all to give you an excuse to do something new is great.
-Offers some structure that no other song does - a kind of melody that's new, a kind of rhythm that's new, a way of arranging drum fills that's new, a way it'll layer together that's new. The more originality the better.
-Is easy for you to sync - if you can't step a drifting song, then don't! Leave it for someone else.

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E. Making a good chart

Your primary goals are these two:
-Maximize information-noise ratio. Make every pattern count. Think about how you can arrange the notes, given what's playing, what they're going to hear, and what they're going to expect to be followed. Use pitch relevance and instrument relevance when you pick columns - don't just pick blindly. If, given any part of your file, you can explain the reasoning behind why it's like that and not something else, you have passed with flying colours.
-Fun factor - making it fun to play. Sometimes a pattern will be really stupid or really tedious, and that's when you should find an excuse to change it into something new!

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I'm going to copy+paste from my previous guide now:

1: The difficulty of a chart should be roughly consistent. Quieter parts can be easier and louder parts harder, or it can get harder over the course of the song, but it should not start with 8ths and end with 16th jumpstreams. You want to have it such that a player who is just right for the bulk of the song does not wish easy parts were more layered and find hard parts too difficult to be enjoyable.
At all times, you should be following an instrument or combination of instruments that brings your chart up to about the average difficulty you envision for it. If you come up with a way of layering a chart that is too easy/hard for the current chart, save it for one of the other charts. (Layering, by the way, is where you step instruments one at a time, putting one arrow down whenever anything plays. Column relevant techniques are used to keep the feeling of playing one instrument as opposed to another; see 3.)

2: Follow the most prominent sounds, but also try to vary things around to maximize expression and reduce tedium. A song is typically divided up into chunks that are a power of 2 measures in length; 1, 2, 4, 8 or 16 for instance. On these division lines is when new instruments come and go, bursts show up or instruments change their pattern. Every time one of these division lines come up, ask yourself, has anything new and interesting shown up? If so, change your layering scheme to include it. If not, and you think that you've followed your current instruments long enough (how often this will happen depends on how repetitive the song is), look for an instrument or set of instruments that is difficulty-appropriate to follow instead. Alternatively, layer just slightly more.
Whenever something occurs in the song that is one time or otherwise relatively isolated, consider switching your layering to capture it. Whenever there's a melodic or percussive burst, something that plays a high powered rhythm then goes away again, you want to swap your layering to capture that too. Don't leave things unstepped just because they conflict with your layering; expressiveness is more important than technical accuracy.

3: Use column-relevant techniques for your stepping, but if it gets repetitive switch it around. When stepping something like a bass and snare combo, keep one on one hand and one on the other; say column 1 and 4. (For harder charts you can place them on the same hand.) If you have to repeat it more than 2-4 times, depending on the length of the pattern and the song, then change what columns it's on or, if you like, make the bass go on any left hand columns and the snare on any right hand columns.
When stepping a melody, pitch relevance should be used; going left when a note is lower, right when a note is higher, repeating columns when the same pitch is repeated within a given melody. However, if this creates overly one-handed patterns that are too hard for the current difficulty, shift it a bit to spread it out over both hands. If a melody repeats too often, especially a short one, vary it up as well; you can shift parts of it to the left or to the right, flip two columns, or even run it in mirror.

4: If a prominent instrument is too hard for the current difficulty, step a simplified version. Don't force yourself to look for things that can be stepped perfectly to fit the difficulty, otherwise you'll find yourself ending up with bass and hi hat combos for easy charts over and over again. Instead, melodies can typically be simplified as follows; for anything that is straight 16ths, step it as 8ths whenever it starts, continues through or ends on an 8th. If it starts or ends on a 16th, place a note on the 16th instead of (or in addition to) the surrounding 8ths, assuming it is emphasized enough within the song; you can use such isolated 16ths in easy charts so long as they are very clear in the song. If this is still not easy enough, break the melody down into different 'parts', decide which sounds more important to you and step only that with 8ths.
Pitch relevance should still be applied, but in an exaggerated fashion (for instance a 16th trill would not become an 8th jack, but an 8th trill; you might decide to step 4 note 16th rolls as 4 note 8th rolls, and so on). Minijacks should be avoided if they are particularly fast. Faster bursts can either be made 16ths or given a note only when they begin ala IIDX. You can do similar simplifications with percussive elements and so on.

5: Make sure your patterns are not awkward unless warranted. In singles as opposed to solo, most patterns are equally easy, but there are still things to look out for:
1. One handed trills. 8th ones are hard for beginners, 16th ones are hard for experts. When they get too fast, no one will do them for real - they'll just hit them as jumps!
2. Rapid gallops/flams/bursts that run into each other - confusing to look at, especially if some of them are one handed.
3. 'hidden' 8th jacks created during stream or jumpstream - these make the pattern more intense to hit by ensuring it's less than evenly distributed. These are very often warranted in order to increase difficulty or because the melody IS alternating between one fixed pitch and one non-fixed pitch, but just pay attention to this fact - use it to your advantage! Make more intense parts of the song harder!
4. The same column over and over - IF it's fast. If it's slow 8ths, then it is the EASIEST pattern to hit, as long as it's not alternating chaotically between repeating columns and not repeating columns - that makes it hard to follow! 16th 'minijacks' or 'jacks', as they're called, are difficult to do.
5. Holding a freeze, then hitting notes on the same side of the field as that freeze - e.g. if I hold column 2 and hit notes on column 1. Not impossible, but it's visually harder to follow. Keep in mind.

6: Easy doesn't mean boring. Even if you're stepping a beginner chart, don't just put on a blindfold and place 4ths until the end of the song has been reached. You can put gaps in the 4ths, or use isolate 8ths, to follow what parts of the melody or drum fills or whatever are most emphasized, put jumps to crashes and other ultra-intensified elements, etc. Then you can pick specific patterns of your simple 4ths such that they are relevant to the section of the music they're in - compare and contrast minijacks and trills and randomized patterns for different purposes, pick out a pattern of 4ths that follows how a melody rises and falls over time, remove/add more 4ths as the song gets more/less intense. Introduce the player to the occasional short 8th trill/minijack during the climax! It'll take some practice, but remember - your goal as a stepper is part to maximize the information-noise ratio by making every pattern count, part to make patterns fun and entertaining.

7: Reflect and study. Look at how rhythm games like IIDX, Pop'n and DDR take multiple takes on a song for different difficulty levels - don't step exactly like they do, and definitely don't assume all those charts are good, but take ideas home from it.
Look at other people's charts, and your own old charts - think about what you like and dislike about them. Think about what you'd have done differently if you did it yourself! Would it be a better or worse way? Don't forget and don't get discouraged at your lack of experience, for every chart you make improves your abilities a bit more.

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F. BPM gimmicks - slowdowns, speedups, stops, stutters, etc

Save before doing any of these, as you might stuff up your simfile.

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Slowdowns and speedups can be made by selecting the area with shift and then using expand 2x or compress 2x.
But these are very simple slowdowns/speedups. What if I want something that requires other speeds? If I just select the area and use a different level of expansion/compressing, it'll push everything else onto a different colour and look really funky. What if I want, e.g. a bounce or jerk?
First, save. Then, mentally divide the space between the two notes into units. You want to select some of these units, expand them, select others of these units, compress them such that you either end up with the same number of units as before or another number of units that leaves your colours normal.
Example: I have two 4ths, A and B. I want to make A rush towards B then slow down, such that it appears a 4th away still.
I mentally subdivide A and B into four 16th wide spaces.
A- 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 -B = 4

I take the first two units (one 8th), and expand them into three units with expand 2 - 3. Now B is yellow because 4 became 5. I take the last two units and compress them into one unit with compress 2x. Now B is red again, because 5 became 4. Congratulations! That's how I made one of the gimmicks in Gateway.

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What about stops? Select an area using shift, and turn it into a pause using convert beats to pause. Easy, as long as you have a good idea of how much needs to be made a pause - if not, you'll make your steps very colourful!

What if I want a stutter, though? What you do is double the bpm of a section using expand 2x, then lay a stop that lasts HALF of the length between each note, thus bringing it back to its prior appearance. To do this, select from note A to half way to note B, then use convert beats to pause.
If this is too cumbersome, what you can do instead is edit a slightly wrong bpm then add in wrong stops for every note - all without using the expand/convert tools. Then edit the sm, edit the bpm to what it should be, edit each stop to what it should be and reload from disk.

But how long is a stop meant to be? Working it out, if the bpm is X, then each beat must be 60/X seconds long - else bpm*beat length wouldn't equal a minute!
That means a stop half a beat long is equal to (60/X)/2, a quarter of a beat is (60/X)/4 and so on.

---

There are an infinite number of ways you can manipulate bpm changes and stops to bend the chart to your will - some of them will make fun charts, some of them will make for intense memorization challenges. It all depends on what you want to do. Here's an example of a gimmick I haven't used yet: Multiply the bpm by a very very large number at the very start of a freeze, making it end automatically and revealing the next part of the chart.

This kind of thing isn't my forte, someone else is welcome to write more about it.

---

Fi. Keeping your file onsync after using too many BPM gimmicks

If you are going to have as many stops as are in Gateway, follow this or your simfile will slowly drift offsync!

---

Selecting an area with shift, hitting enter and selecting 'convert beats to pause' is very accurate, but not perfectly. Why? Stepmania only stores three digits of decimal precision. Let's say that your bpm is such that a pause of one beat should be 0.3333... seconds long. If you make three beat long pauses using this option, they will be each saved as 0.333, meaning that you are now one millisecond early. If you have thirty such pauses, you will be ten milliseconds off and MAing will become noticeably difficult.

To fix this problem, you must open up your .sm and do the following:

1. Calculate how long the stop should be in arbitrary precision. The appropriate calculation is: (60/bpm) for a full beat stop, and simply multiply it by the fraction of a beat you stop for for any other value. For example, if your stop is half a beat, multiply by 1/2.
2. If the stop has more than three decimal places of precision, take the value in the fourth decimal place, and for every ten stops round (that value) up and the rest down. If you have many, many stops, take the values in the fourth AND fifth decimal place and for every one hundred stops round (that value) up and the rest down.

Example. Say that your stops are 0.66666... long and you have ten of them. Open stepmania. You'll have something like:
0.667
0.667
0.667
0.667
0.667
0.667
0.667
0.667
0.667
0.667
Drift caused: 3.333... milliseconds

Because the fourth decimal place is 6, you want to round six up and four down. So make it something like this:
0.666
0.667
0.667
0.666
0.667
0.667
0.666
0.667
0.667
0.666
Drift caused: 0.666... milliseconds

The fifth decimal place is 6 as well, meaning that you want six out of ten groups of 10 stops to be rounded up again. In this case, you'll want every third group or so to have an extra .667.

Alternatively, you could observe that the remainder, being 0.0006666... will be satisfied by rounding one down and two up out of every set of three, and simply do this. Only useful when the remainder is simple to identify.

---

Worked example:

Gateway's bpm is 195.3125. This means that each beat has to last 60/195.3125 seconds for them all to make up exactly one minute, right? That = 0.3072.
Let's say I have lots of stops between two 8ths. If I use the half-length-pause-then-double-bpm method, they'll be stops a 16th long, so divide by 4. 0.0768.
Stepmania, generating a stop this long, will store it as 0.077. This means that every stop will be 0.0002s long.
Doesn't sound like much, right? But say I have 225 stops like this. Suddenly, my chart is 45 milliseconds off - completely out of the perfect window! People will complain, and they have a right to!
So, what do you do? Every set of five stops needs to have one that is a millisecond short - 0.077, 0.077, 0.077, 0.077, 0.076. The 0.0002s add up, only to get shot down by 0.076 being one millisecond short, and the sync is restored once again.

There's only one last thing to take note of - if you make stops on purple or pink notes, then edit the .sm and make their position 1 ms late, e.g. 0.334 instead of 0.333. Why? Some versions of stepmania interpret 0.333 as being before the note that's at 0.333333...through the beat. If the stop is before the beat, then stepmania stops a fraction before the note comes and makes you hit early and do poorly on it. If you played it with a c-mod, you'd see the note be late, coming when the stop ends not when it starts.

---

G. Sound and hardware (by Rog)

It's pretty much common knowledge that if your sound sucks, then your files might suffer. As a general rule, the hierarchy of importance here is Sound Card > Headphone/Speaker Quality > Stepping Tool > DST Plugin (optional, and can sometimes cause a/v lag with the stepmania editor)

==SOUND CARD==

Quick note; if you have a laptop, your sound card is probably ****. Unless you payed out of the ass for one of those "super hi-tech laptops that piss magic", That headphone jack on the front of your laptop doesn't put out all that great sound. Stepping while using it is discouraged. To fix this, you can either get one of creative's portable sound cards (~$150) or buy either the Plantronics Gamecom 777 (~$50) or the Gamecom 770 (~$35) and use their "dolby 5.1 usb audio adaptor" (it isn't actually 5.1, but it certainly increases the sound quality). I personally prefer the 770's sound quality, but the 777's build quality is a hell of a lot better. There are other products on the market that do similar things, however; I recall a usb audio enhancer from dolby themselves with a built in headphone jack, but it was around $200 and had to be imported from Japan.

Now, assuming you're working on a desktop computer that actually lets you change the sound card, it all depends on how much money you want to spend.
If you have an insane amount of money and want to make sure that your sound card makes up for your penis size, drop the ~$700 on the Lynx AES16e. It's "audiophile" aproved, and sounds damn good.
If you have a fair amount of money and want to make sure you get good sound quality, any of the ~$200 ASUS Xonar Essence ST/STX sound cards will probably suit your fancy
If you want to spent the bare minimum, the ~$100 sound cards at M-AUDIO will get you more than your money's worth. Just be sure to find one that suits you, and research it first. Once again, you can also just spend the money on the portable Creative sound card. Creative is well known for their sound quality, affordability, and ****, the sound card is portable. If you want to step on multiple computers, this is pretty much your only option.

==HEADPHONES AND EARBUDS==

Apple Earbuds are very tinny and tend to break. Also, they retail for $30. Do yourself a favor and don't buy them
Skullcandy Earbuds can be good, but tend to be poorly made and rather expensive for the sound quality
Skullcandy Headphones are even more overpriced and can break if you buy a bad model (Hesh, Lowriders, etc)
Beats headphones are okay, but really overpriced. If you have the money, skip the beats studio and get the Pro's. They're built a lot better, and don't have sound canceling technology.

Once again we get into the area of "it all depends on what you want". Before continuing, I suggest you look over this infographic.
It's helped me time and time again with personal decisions and helping others. This guide is going to be a tad longer than the last, because we have more ground to cover.

===HEADPHONES VS EARBUDS===

Oh boy, here we go. EARBUDS SUCK EAT A DICK HEADPHONES HAVE NO BASS etc. Put all that aside for a second. Typically, most earbuds will be lacking in highs and mids unless you get up into the $75-$100 range. I'm not sure about you, but I'm not comfortable spending over $50 on anything that could be broken by me accidentally stepping on them. A good rule of thumb is to never buy earbuds that just rest in your ear. They lack sound quality, bass, and...pretty much everything. I find the best way to get sound quality out of earbuds without having to buy the $1000+ custom fit buds is to follow this guide. They don't look pretty, but damn do they sound nice. Other than that, earbuds allow for rich and heavy-hitting bass, but with some sacrifice of sound quality unless you're rich.

Headphones, on the other hand, are a lot more complex. There are so many makes and models out on the market that you have to choose from. The main loss headphones have over earbuds is isolation. Most good headphones are open-ear (they have holes in the earcups to better improve the soundstage), and any closed-ear headphones tend to have a "boxy" sound to them. With headphones, you'll get less of that ear-damaging, face melting bass isolation, but with more overall sound quality and longevity.

===Headphones===

It depends on what you step.
Classical- Sennheiser HD 555. If you've got $100, you CANNOT go wrong with these.
Anything Bass Heavy- Sony MDR-XB700. $80, and enough bass to make your eardrums explode
IDM/Glitch/Breaks- Audio-Technica ATH-A700 (NOT AH700). $100 For some reason, closed ear makes stepping glitch easier as a whole
Classic Rock, Acoustic Guitars, etc- HD 555
Pretty much anything non-electronic and non-modern rock will sound amazing on the 555s.
Overall Best- Denon AHD2000. $200, and works well with ANY genre. These headphones require an extensive burn in period, however.

===Earbuds===

Seriously, skullcandy isn't worth it. They break so easily it's hilarious. If you're really hellbent on buying from them though, just do yourself a favor and avoid the Full Metal Jacket and Houla lines.

Earbuds have less when it comes to options based on genre. Your best bets with earbuds are
Cheap-
MEELECTRONICS Ai-M6
Anything Klipsch
Cyclone PR1 Pro

Not so cheap-
Head-Direct RE0
Monster Turbine (headphone amp required)

I hope your paycheck is as large as your ego-
Etymotic ER-4P
Higher-end Klipsch
Shure SE535
Fidelity Quads
if all else fails, go ask http://www.head-fi.net for advice on what you're looking for.

==Stepping Tool==

DDReam APPEARS to output sound at a higher quality. Further testing is needed.

==DST Plugin==

For those of you who don't know, DST Plugins are those programs that you can run in the background to increase the overall sound quality of your media players. Although most of them only work on media players, I've found that the SRS HD Audio Lab, while annoying at times with the way it handles sound drivers, is the best of them all because it actually installs a sound driver that it forces to be the default and enhances EVERY sound that comes out of your computer. (Though according to lurker, when using it with speakers it tends to cut off a lot of the high notes after a certain frequency) It's actually made my built-in laptop speakers semi bearable to listen to. However, there are some downsides. It causes a slight lag in the default stepmania editor and game (how much lag seems to differ based on power of sound card. (i.e. Laptop speakers lag a LOT, headphones with the previously mentioned USB Dolby 5.1 dongle lag only slightly). However, it does not appear to lag in DDReam; more than likely because it does not have to process the sound as much. Once again, this is all optional, I just find that it helps hear quiet sounds where buying better headphones would not (like the 16ths in my Forgive Me file).

==Headphone Amp==
If you really, really, REALLY want to squeeze as much life as possible out of those terrible headphones you found at the garage sale at radioshack, get a headphone amp. People will tell you that the $100+ headphone amps are worth it, but to be honest, this guide doesn't really recommend any headphones that would actually require an amp of that caliber for stepping. Just throw down $20 on a pocket amp (FiiO E5 Headphone Amplifier) and be happy with it. Hell, buy a better pair of headphones AND an amp. You'll be glad you did.

So that's really all you can do in terms of sound quality. Remember: if in doubt, buy a pair of quality headphones from http://www.headphone.com/ and if they aren't what you expected, return them for a full refund.
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http://soundcloud.com/patashu/8bit-progressive-metal-fading-world
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/Mechadragon/smallpackbanner.png
Best non-AAAs: ERx8 v2 (14-1-0-4), Hajnal (3-0-0-0), RunnyMorning (8-0-0-4), Xeno-Flow (1-0-0-3), Blue Rose (35-2-0-20), Ketsarku (14-0-0-0), Silence (1-0-0-0), Lolo (14-1-0-1)
http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee301/xiaoven/solorulzsig.png

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Old 01-1-2011, 05:03 PM   #2
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Default Re: Patashu's Stepping Guide for 2011

Edit certain areas so that it doesn't entirely look like this was written only for Thirdstyle.

After that - requesting sticky, because as usual for Patashu guides, this guide is great.
EDIT: nice overview of the hardware aspect of it, rog, can't leave you out

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Old 01-1-2011, 05:30 PM   #3
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Default Re: Patashu's Stepping Guide for 2011

what's the FFR speedmod - stepmania 3.9 default C-mod and FFR speedmod - sm-ssc default C-mod conversion rate?
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http://soundcloud.com/patashu/8bit-progressive-metal-fading-world
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/Mechadragon/smallpackbanner.png
Best non-AAAs: ERx8 v2 (14-1-0-4), Hajnal (3-0-0-0), RunnyMorning (8-0-0-4), Xeno-Flow (1-0-0-3), Blue Rose (35-2-0-20), Ketsarku (14-0-0-0), Silence (1-0-0-0), Lolo (14-1-0-1)
http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee301/xiaoven/solorulzsig.png
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Old 01-1-2011, 05:46 PM   #4
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Default Re: Patashu's Stepping Guide for 2011

Wow, i wonder how long it took you to type all this haha

Anyway, sick guide. Definitely will become a sticky no doubt.
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Old 01-1-2011, 05:50 PM   #5
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Default Re: Patashu's Stepping Guide for 2011

Quote:
Originally Posted by Patashu View Post
what's the FFR speedmod - stepmania 3.9 default C-mod and FFR speedmod - sm-ssc default C-mod conversion rate?
According to the engine, it's 310 - 1x; however, I don't believe this because of the aspect ratio.
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Old 01-1-2011, 06:04 PM   #6
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Default Re: Patashu's Stepping Guide for 2011

Quote:
Originally Posted by TC_Halogen View Post
According to the engine, it's 310 - 1x; however, I don't believe this because of the aspect ratio.
you also have to account for the tinier vertical space. it's not how fast the arrows move that's important, it's how long after they appear you have to hit them that is, hence why you use a 'faster' scroll rate for TS relative to stepmania.

if someone can work out ideal conversion rates based on milliseconds-spent-on-screen-before-center-of-perfect-window, I'll be able to make the guide more multicultural ;D

btw I made some pixel measurements of TS's playfield:
552 from the top of the screen to the bottom (of the screen)
535 from the top of the receptor to the bottom
504 from the middle of the receptor to the bottom
473 from the bottom of the receptor to the bottom
a receptor is 62x62, as is a note (62x62) (probably round up to 64x64)

assuming 64x64, we divide each number by 64 to get it in note-lengths:
8.625 from the top of the screen to the bottom
8.359375 from the top of the receptor to the bottom
7.875 from the middle of the receptor to the bottom
7.390625 from the bottom of the receptor to the bottom

someone could make similar pixel measurements vs size of arrows on screen for stepmania 3.9 default, sm-ssc default and ffr

stepmania 3.9 default + distant and sm-ssc default + distant would also be useful comparison points to have, but will be more difficult to get exactly.

then maybe make a quickie javascript calculator?
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Patashu makes Chiptunes in Famitracker:
http://soundcloud.com/patashu/8bit-progressive-metal-fading-world
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/Mechadragon/smallpackbanner.png
Best non-AAAs: ERx8 v2 (14-1-0-4), Hajnal (3-0-0-0), RunnyMorning (8-0-0-4), Xeno-Flow (1-0-0-3), Blue Rose (35-2-0-20), Ketsarku (14-0-0-0), Silence (1-0-0-0), Lolo (14-1-0-1)
http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee301/xiaoven/solorulzsig.png

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Old 01-1-2011, 06:19 PM   #7
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Default Re: Patashu's Stepping Guide for 2011

all of this is stupid and irrelevant, especially A, D and F, most likely G, and possibly B, C, and E
i could write a better guide with my dick
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Old 01-1-2011, 06:26 PM   #8
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Default Re: Patashu's Stepping Guide for 2011

I know this guide could be tons better so give me constructive criticism or do better
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http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/Mechadragon/smallpackbanner.png
Best non-AAAs: ERx8 v2 (14-1-0-4), Hajnal (3-0-0-0), RunnyMorning (8-0-0-4), Xeno-Flow (1-0-0-3), Blue Rose (35-2-0-20), Ketsarku (14-0-0-0), Silence (1-0-0-0), Lolo (14-1-0-1)
http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee301/xiaoven/solorulzsig.png
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Old 01-1-2011, 08:09 PM   #9
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Default Re: Patashu's Stepping Guide for 2011

thirdstyle propaganda


get outta here
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Old 01-2-2011, 06:35 PM   #10
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Default Re: Patashu's Stepping Guide for 2011

SSC editor goes nuts after a random amount of time and refuses to play the song and scroll the chart.
If you try to stop and play it again, it'll play the song twice on top of itself and still not scroll... and then won't stop until you close the whole thing down.

So 4.0 is actually the better option.
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Old 01-2-2011, 07:21 PM   #11
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Default Re: Patashu's Stepping Guide for 2011

About syncing songs....

Another alternative for songs that have BPM changes (that are obvious by ear, i.e. the song sounds faster/slower), you can use Audacity to...

1. cut the song into portions
2. export the portions of the song in .MP3 format
3. then have mixmeisters BPM analyzer analyze the portions of the song

This is very accurate, and Audacity is very easy to use.

P.s. Didn't read through entire guide, just this section at the moment.
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Old 01-2-2011, 09:51 PM   #12
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Default Re: Patashu's Stepping Guide for 2011

Could you post links to examples that were used plz
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Old 01-2-2011, 09:54 PM   #13
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Default Re: Patashu's Stepping Guide for 2011

i like this
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Old 01-2-2011, 09:56 PM   #14
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Holy Cannoli!
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Old 01-2-2011, 11:02 PM   #15
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Default Re: Patashu's Stepping Guide for 2011

Quote:
Originally Posted by Patashu View Post
This kind of thing isn't my forte, someone else is welcome to write more about it.
I'll be welcome to write more similiar to this such as finding the EXACT boost/brake (or even both) bpms when doing a BPM boost effect (Refer to Ophi's files), finding the EXACT seconds of when cutting songs super-precisely so it does not affect the BPM at all (Refer to BeatofIke's files), finding the EXACT average BPM of a specific area of a song, and even finding the EXACT BPM in case you want to do a certain note-syndome effect (Refer to Gundam-Dude's Enter the Aquelarre), and vise versa.
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Old 01-3-2011, 02:04 PM   #16
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Default Re: Patashu's Stepping Guide for 2011

Quote:
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I know this guide could be tons better so give me constructive criticism or do better
3 or 4 paragraph summary.
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Old 01-3-2011, 09:24 PM   #17
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Default Re: Patashu's Stepping Guide for 2011

Quote:
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Could you post links to examples that were used plz
I don't think I can post the .sm for Gateway because it's in Thirdstyle, but you can play it over there/I could take some screenshots of it maybe
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http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/Mechadragon/smallpackbanner.png
Best non-AAAs: ERx8 v2 (14-1-0-4), Hajnal (3-0-0-0), RunnyMorning (8-0-0-4), Xeno-Flow (1-0-0-3), Blue Rose (35-2-0-20), Ketsarku (14-0-0-0), Silence (1-0-0-0), Lolo (14-1-0-1)
http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee301/xiaoven/solorulzsig.png
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Old 01-3-2011, 09:41 PM   #18
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Default Re: Patashu's Stepping Guide for 2011

Quote:
Originally Posted by TC_Halogen View Post
Edit certain areas so that it doesn't entirely look like this was written only for Thirdstyle.
This.

Other than that, fantastic guide.
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Old 01-10-2011, 06:43 PM   #19
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Wow, that's one hell of a guide.
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Old 01-10-2011, 07:36 PM   #20
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Default Re: Patashu's Stepping Guide for 2011

Quote:
Originally Posted by Oni-Paranoia View Post
About syncing songs....

Another alternative for songs that have BPM changes (that are obvious by ear, i.e. the song sounds faster/slower), you can use Audacity to...

1. cut the song into portions
2. export the portions of the song in .MP3 format
3. then have mixmeisters BPM analyzer analyze the portions of the song

This is very accurate, and Audacity is very easy to use.

P.s. Didn't read through entire guide, just this section at the moment.
thing is, mixmeister is almost always .02 off. Unless people know this, the world's files will always be offsync............
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