Re: 2nd Official FFR StepCon!
Rather than review every file briefly, which seemed to get a bad reaction from people last round, I thought this time I'd play a few files but review them a lot closer.
This is just randomly selected (literally used random.org) file reviews:
Children's War 2- Interesting cut; flows very nicely but skips my two favorite parts of the song (babbling section and second chorus) so I'm torn. Felt the occasional area where I wasn't sure if a syllable was skipped in the vocal stepping, but largely felt very good. Basically, close enough that I can't say "that's clearly wrong" and more like "hmm I'd need to check that spot at slow rates." Not sure exactly what was going on with layering in the choruses. Some of the hands felt like they were not really loud/layer-y enough to be hands. Again with something I'd have to check, but my gut says there might be an error. Interestingly had minijacks throughout the file but elected not to step the minijacks in the final solo, which was curious to me. Also those 24ths in the chorus... I'm pretty sure those are faster than that. Like a 32nd triplet then a 32nd gap. Not sure if 24ths were used intentionally for difficulty reasons but I thought I should bring that up. Definitely not a bad file!
Palms Read 2- Grossly offsync when I played it. Seems like a conversion error rather than bad stepping; should probably get that looked at.
If this isn't an error, as Opkiller said below, then... well yeah. Has nothing to do with the music, and I played up until that first absolutely gross 32nd burst. Uhh... needs work.
Palms Read 1- Very simple layering. Sync was definitely good enough, can't say if it was perfect of course. Interesting focus on the guitar in places many would have stepped percussion. The most glaring error was just difficulty spacing: the 16th jump transitions and the one right arrow jack were astronomically more difficult than the rest of the file. If that level of difficulty was the goal, then there was a lot of layering in the other sections (such as crash cymbals) that could have brought those parts up to be less boring. Alternatively, get rid of the jack and jump transitions.
Definitely missing a snare or something in the drum fill before the end (about 75% of the way through) because that part felt very strange to me on my sightread. Overall a solid start, but needs more variation in patterns -lots of [12][34] 16th jumptrills- and better difficulty curve.
My Love Is A Bulldozer 3- Holy difficulty curve issues. Basically everywhere there was a 2-framer was an error just due to difficulty curve. The crazy 32nd trills (one had shit layered into it too, ouch) were obviously a problem, but also stuff like the 32nd burst 1234(23) transitions which led to jacks on 3. Interesting cut that managed to capture one entire repetition of the vocals and plenty of breakcore, but the intro dragged on a little too long for my tastes relative to the difficulty of the rest of the file, and it ended in a somewhat arbitrary place. Positives included that left hand color stuff at the end that went to the weird scratching sound; I'd have to check if it was on-sync of course but it was a very fun section of the file. I also liked, for the most part, the hand usage in the middle sections. Essentially though, this file has too many issues with insane 2-framer bursts to really get past them into other aspects.
Children's War 5- Started off strong, but I really wasn't a fan of the stepping in the choruses. The 3 note triplets got old, why ignore the vocals in those parts? Also I was not sure what was up with color theory in the choruses, seemed to be doubled bpm but sometimes blue and sometimes red on the 4th and I couldn't immediately tell what it was being used to. Some of the 32nd bursts (16ths at doubled bpm) also felt like they had one too many arrows in them. Good color theory to the "race start sound" before the babbling section and the grunting sounds (for lack of a better term) and the babbling section was handled as elegantly as possible without stepping the vocals. Overall not bad, but I feel somewhat let down by the chorus sections- so much potential, and the way they were stepped here seems to be the most bland way of doing it.
My Love Is A Bulldozer 5- Damn. What a file to end with. Incredible cut! Basically stitched together every part without vocals, and it worked really well. Difficulty curve never got overly boring or overly difficult, while still having climaxes and breaks in an appropriate rhythm. Sync seemed spot on and the rhythmic variety was great.
I especially liked the Nomina Nuda Tenemus feeling of the runningman climax, except unlike NNT this file had reasonable bursts and was fun all the way through. It's hard to say bad things about this file other than a few janky one-hand transitions, though each was sort of a more personal thing than an outright error.
Definitely wouldn't be surprised to see whoever stepped this placing very high. Also, I know I'm going to regret this as I definitely could be wrong but... I think I know who stepped this haha
Rather than review every file briefly, which seemed to get a bad reaction from people last round, I thought this time I'd play a few files but review them a lot closer.
This is just randomly selected (literally used random.org) file reviews:
Children's War 2- Interesting cut; flows very nicely but skips my two favorite parts of the song (babbling section and second chorus) so I'm torn. Felt the occasional area where I wasn't sure if a syllable was skipped in the vocal stepping, but largely felt very good. Basically, close enough that I can't say "that's clearly wrong" and more like "hmm I'd need to check that spot at slow rates." Not sure exactly what was going on with layering in the choruses. Some of the hands felt like they were not really loud/layer-y enough to be hands. Again with something I'd have to check, but my gut says there might be an error. Interestingly had minijacks throughout the file but elected not to step the minijacks in the final solo, which was curious to me. Also those 24ths in the chorus... I'm pretty sure those are faster than that. Like a 32nd triplet then a 32nd gap. Not sure if 24ths were used intentionally for difficulty reasons but I thought I should bring that up. Definitely not a bad file!
Palms Read 2- Grossly offsync when I played it. Seems like a conversion error rather than bad stepping; should probably get that looked at.
If this isn't an error, as Opkiller said below, then... well yeah. Has nothing to do with the music, and I played up until that first absolutely gross 32nd burst. Uhh... needs work.
Palms Read 1- Very simple layering. Sync was definitely good enough, can't say if it was perfect of course. Interesting focus on the guitar in places many would have stepped percussion. The most glaring error was just difficulty spacing: the 16th jump transitions and the one right arrow jack were astronomically more difficult than the rest of the file. If that level of difficulty was the goal, then there was a lot of layering in the other sections (such as crash cymbals) that could have brought those parts up to be less boring. Alternatively, get rid of the jack and jump transitions.
Definitely missing a snare or something in the drum fill before the end (about 75% of the way through) because that part felt very strange to me on my sightread. Overall a solid start, but needs more variation in patterns -lots of [12][34] 16th jumptrills- and better difficulty curve.
My Love Is A Bulldozer 3- Holy difficulty curve issues. Basically everywhere there was a 2-framer was an error just due to difficulty curve. The crazy 32nd trills (one had shit layered into it too, ouch) were obviously a problem, but also stuff like the 32nd burst 1234(23) transitions which led to jacks on 3. Interesting cut that managed to capture one entire repetition of the vocals and plenty of breakcore, but the intro dragged on a little too long for my tastes relative to the difficulty of the rest of the file, and it ended in a somewhat arbitrary place. Positives included that left hand color stuff at the end that went to the weird scratching sound; I'd have to check if it was on-sync of course but it was a very fun section of the file. I also liked, for the most part, the hand usage in the middle sections. Essentially though, this file has too many issues with insane 2-framer bursts to really get past them into other aspects.
Children's War 5- Started off strong, but I really wasn't a fan of the stepping in the choruses. The 3 note triplets got old, why ignore the vocals in those parts? Also I was not sure what was up with color theory in the choruses, seemed to be doubled bpm but sometimes blue and sometimes red on the 4th and I couldn't immediately tell what it was being used to. Some of the 32nd bursts (16ths at doubled bpm) also felt like they had one too many arrows in them. Good color theory to the "race start sound" before the babbling section and the grunting sounds (for lack of a better term) and the babbling section was handled as elegantly as possible without stepping the vocals. Overall not bad, but I feel somewhat let down by the chorus sections- so much potential, and the way they were stepped here seems to be the most bland way of doing it.
My Love Is A Bulldozer 5- Damn. What a file to end with. Incredible cut! Basically stitched together every part without vocals, and it worked really well. Difficulty curve never got overly boring or overly difficult, while still having climaxes and breaks in an appropriate rhythm. Sync seemed spot on and the rhythmic variety was great.
I especially liked the Nomina Nuda Tenemus feeling of the runningman climax, except unlike NNT this file had reasonable bursts and was fun all the way through. It's hard to say bad things about this file other than a few janky one-hand transitions, though each was sort of a more personal thing than an outright error.
Definitely wouldn't be surprised to see whoever stepped this placing very high. Also, I know I'm going to regret this as I definitely could be wrong but... I think I know who stepped this haha
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