[bmah]

Originally Posted by AutotelicBrown

Not sure where you got the idea that what people refer to as "technical stepping" has anything to do with using or not additive layering.
In fact, the vast majority of FFR's catalogue (including recent charts) can be unambiguously considered "technical stepping" despite not that many using additive layering.

It's important to note that what I'm presenting here is only a descriptive framework to categorize a few aspects of charting. Same applies to what you presented in your post.
If you really want to talk about styles, the discussion should take into consideration a lot more things both in terms of charting decisions and the cultural context in which those decisions came to be.

Anyway, I personally have used both additive and non-additive approaches extensively (often both within the same chart) and could write lengths on the pros/cons of each and how to use either effectively.
Beyond the importance of judges being aware of those differences, I think any stepartist is missing out by neglecting either approach.

Thanks for your really detailed responses. I'm not sure if I fully understand every example you illustrated, but I think I need to clarify that "additive stepping" as I'm trying to describe is not an entirely objective endeavor. Clearly, the subjective aspect comes when in scenarios where sounds/elements overlap and then you need to decide what to acknowledge and how. I suppose this may be a part of what you were trying to demonstrate with your examples.

The dichotomy was created to more easily visualize the "stepping landscape". If we're to get granular with the details, there are so many considerations to be made, but that isn't the intent of my original post or else I'd write a novel.

The stigmatization of "technical" files is often seen in the form of complaints on player performance over such files (as opposed to, say, streamy ones that could be almost performed on autopilot) - additive layering of course if gone overboard can result in extremely uncomfortable to play charts. So a lot of what people complain as "technical" ends up being such charts - that's where the correlation comes from.

And finally, I absolutely agree with your last paragraph, which is why I wrote earlier that ideally, in my dichotomous theory, you'd want a balanced approach of taking both additive and aural (or non-additive as you'd say) aspects into consideration. I do that as well.

Originally Posted by Wind0ze

I think this results in your observation of most charters favoring the "aural" approach. Since you define additive charting as one specific case where including as many distinct sounds as possible is the goal, and aural charting as basically "everything else", naturally the more general and inclusive "style" is going to be observed more due to covering a wider range of intentions.

The goal of additive charting isn't to include as many distinct sounds as possible. It's simply an emphasis on considering unique combinations of sounds that would result in a more varied approach that otherwise may not have been considered. For instance, let's consider a scenario where there are multiple simultaneous elements going on in a song. One of the elements is a running series of 16ths and another element is a very loud cymbal crash on every 4th note. A third element could be vocals playing on occasional 4ths. If I was to be more "aurally-based", I could step every 4th as a hand, essentially resulting in a consistent handstream. However, if I was to have a more additive approach, I'd take the loud cymbal crashes as a single arrow and make room for the third element (vocals) whenever it occurs. This will result in some occasions where the 4ths are hands and other occasions where it may be just a jump. To me, that simply seems a lot more interesting. That's what I feel is a primary benefit of the additive approach. I think a benefit of the aural approach is that it adheres to consistency.

And yes, the other aspect of this thread is to find new terminology to destigmatize old terminology with negative associations, so if you feel that additive or aural are not the best terms to use, feel free to suggest your own - I'm all ears.

Originally Posted by M0nkeyz

I think there needs to be quite a bit of overlap between ''additive-oriented'' stepping and "aurally-oriented" stepping for an additive approach to work.

What I've called people out for when judging their files is them combining sounds that don't play a prominent role in the music and creating artificial hands and jumps that way. For example combining a closed hi-hat and a bass note to create a jump (two sounds that tend to fall into the background when there's alot of other stuff going on).

The way I view songs in relation to stepping is that they're a choreography of musical instruments that move in and out of prominence and make room for each other. Additive layering makes sense for a song in which the elements stay the same, but in a dynamic song where there is a constant ''ebb-and-flow'' in how the instruments interact with each other the chart becomes way too convoluted with a strict additive layering scheme.

Right, you're simply describing the benefits of the aural-based approach and the potential pitfalls of the additive approach. There's nothing to dispute there. As I said earlier, the ideal stepper would have a measured approach with both additive and aural elements.

Perhaps the issue is that the benefits of the additive approach isn't immediately obvious. I think I better outlined it in the earlier example I wrote (creating variability by freeing up "slots" to consider multiple elements).

Originally Posted by XelNya

Alright i've got about two issues with this thread.

1. Bmah's opening post, to me, reads like you're frustrated with the modern judges, because you're getting push back on your files more than you used to. But to your credit, you make a stronger effort to explain why you're frustrated and its an... Ok read at best, imho.

2. I think you're over simplifying charting styles. By a fair amount. (And I loathe your term choices.) But equally I disagree that FFR has a stigma against technical content. FFR judges have an issue stronger related to trying judge a file within the structure, rather than either of those styles. Which as the person subbing content is one of two issues, either I haven't executed to where it's very obvious, or I didn't add anything to lead them to my different charting style.

I don't even layer files. I pick a structure based on emphasizing sounds as I think they're important. In fact, my more basic files do worse than my more adventerous ones. In short, I prefer to chart based on emphasis and aiming for immersion rather than "technically accurate." My really simplified response is that maybe you should embrace the changes a little. Before I dipped out for a while I was really not willing to do that, but I luckily got some fortunate guidance.

But I dunno, maybe I rambled to much, or am being slightly more uncharitable than I mean to be.

Hey that's a fair thing to say.

Regarding oversimplifying things: it's what I wrote above - it's to more easily visualize the stepping landscape. We both know there's a lot more details to be had that I don't exactly have time to outline right now and would be far too long and specific. And perhaps the viewpoint of oversimplification is also that people may be interpreting what I wrote too simply. Even additive approaches have subjective considerations as I wrote earlier (as a result of being constrained with only four arrows).

Originally Posted by loftyb

You're missing a shit ton of context here, and I can't help but feel that you being criticized ALONG with the dump thread being a thing got you ticked off, and that this thread was born of that emotion. Dumping is the only thing that needs to be reframed NOT technical charting. All technical charters need to do is get a grip.

This has absolutely nothing to do with my opinions on dumps from that other thread. I've come to accept those. If you think this thread is riffing off of that, then no - it is not. This was intended to be educational to everyone to have a broad, baseline concept of the stepping landscape. It should be particularly helpful to future prospective judges who will be faced with a myriad of stepping styles. And as mentioned countless times earlier, this isn't the detailed manifesto on stepping, nor am I ignorant to the fine details. It's just a brief summary way of looking at it.

Originally Posted by Gradiant

My thoughts have pmuch already been stated by Xel and lofty.
Imo, there's no good to come from singling everything down to either side of the spectrum created by your two tags, especially when the assertion that ffr thinks 'technical is the only way to go instead of additive' is wrong simply based on the massive amount of chordjack files being released lately. Most stepartists also aren't going to fit to one of these and rather a mix of both. Because of that, this thread feels to me that it stems more of a concern of your own files not getting liked because you think certain judges hate your 'style' rather than a help for newer stepartists making content. With that, I think it does a disservice to the judges that look at files to have most of the notes given basically tossed aside because the stepartist thinks that particular judge just 'doesn't get it'. Those notes would still have a lot of merit to look at when it comes to fixes.

I think you meant to say "aural is the only way to go instead of additive" but I digress. Anyways, read what I wrote earlier. I resent that you're dismissing this thread as me just being salty. There's an educational aspect overall, of which I'm hoping that my short summary could be helpful, and if it's considered too inaccurate, then I'd like to have that refined, and Autotelic's post was very helpful in that regard. Your post is not helpful.