THREAD MOTHAFUCKAS MINTY 2 BITCHES NEW PACK YEAH

[Shadow_God_10]

Originally Posted by MinaciousGrace

Rocket Racer Run (ShadowGod) - The chart itself isn't too bad, it's just not exceptional. It might have been a standout in 2009, it might have been an era defining revelation in 2006, but so would a huge number of modern files. You have the right idea but the wrong approach, kind of like an air freshener made with sulfur.

The first major mistake is the first half. No file should (or at least, no file that I'll ever accept) be 60% intro at less than half the difficulty of the core of the file. The fact that you second guessed yourself on the latter half is kind of telling- the days of this approach have been played out. The era of harlem shake, son son sunday (even the intro in this is somewhat engaging and fun), corporal jigsaw quandary (the more offensive variation of too long too easy intro, the too long too easy outro), we've been there and done that then moved on. Nobody wants to sit through an agonizing bore of 35 seconds to play 25 seconds of 30 seconds (c what i did there), they can just pick another file that's more or less the same thing but without a boring intro and play that instead. I am also, perhaps, infamous for hating the use of slow freeze stream, particularly to (as I see it) lazily fill slow sections of songs, but I suppose you can be forgiven for not knowing that. It's the same issue I have with quadjacks- almost without exception anything that these patterns are viable for can be represented by something else more interesting, fun, and just as appropriate.

These are common criticisms I have of charters who come from a strong technical background and presumably don't spend all that much time playing dump files. Indeed the technical underpinnings of the chart are good, but there needs to be more than that. That's expected. Unfortunately you didn't give yourself any room to do more, which leads me to the second major issue. Song choice. I suppose in the most recent pages I wasn't as explicitly clear about what I do and do not want as I should have been. Anime ops and video game music fall into the broader pseudo-genre of stepmanias musics. So too do remixes. I do not want stepmanias musics. As noted in the op you can send me stepmanias musics but it's basically an auto reject unless your file is truly exceptional.

Fortunately for you, your mistake provides a good opportunity to learn a more nuanced lesson concerning song choice. Midare put it nicely when he said something along the lines of "sometimes I just want to put on some usher and bro out while smashing arrows". Ostensibly my rationale for not wanting stepmanias musics is because stepmania is already saturated with that shit and anyone can go and download 20000 files for them in half a day. I don't have anything to bro out to. While that is a large part of it, that rationale serves as an easily digestible and simple rule that (hopefully) precludes most submissions that fall prey to a larger issue without having to go into the explanation that I'm going to now.

It essentially boils down to what makes for interesting dump files on a conceptual level. Bmscore, o2jamjams, iidxmixes, lr2raves, sdvxvorbises, all that shit is literally made to be played in a music game. They're usually devoid of vocals. They're formulaic, designed sometimes even with a specific kind of file in mind. They lend themselves to simple technical charting with static bpms, distinct sounds and layering schemes, and clear rhythms. They do not lend themselves to creative interpretations of the music. They usually aren't thematic. There's not even really anything to interpret. They are excerpts from an electronic sound library and they say "here are sounds, arranged so you can hit them". There's no performance, no feeling, no story, no message, no idea, concept, intimacy, intensity, history, creativity, experimentation. It is a farce of music, and sure, every generation says that about the next generation of music- doesn't mean they're wrong. A catchy farce at best and an indistinguishable melange of pre-recorded sounds drowned out by the sheer triviality of its existence at anything less than that. A sequence of electronic signals simply meant to stimulate the cerebrum while you play the game.

It is an existence antithetical to dumping.

Now granted, this is less true for video game music external to rhythm gaming scene. It also doesn't really apply to anime music, and neither does the sterilizing lack of vocals. The problem with anime music is you just get 50 submissions for the same file to the same song with different lyrics sung by a different vocaloid or even more probably by the same nanahira at different bpms by a different weaboo.

Still, you didn't do yourself any favors with your selection. You handed yourself a 192 count box of crayons, all brown. At the start, there are sounds. At the end, there are the sounds, but with a new sound. Enter 32nds stage left, creative opportunity? Not even in the audience. 41.6s was your only real cue to do something different, to say "hey, pay attention to this sound!!". There's no rise or fall in intensity or prominence. Nothing really shifts to the foreground or background. There's nothing to play with, nothing to reveal. Nothing to hide.

It is a poem
With words and
A stanza and-
one layer, yet,
no meaning.
not one.

It is a play with one act. Curtains lift. Cameras and lights center on a man. His face is nondescript. He sits on a prop toilet, and he takes a dump. Curtains fall. Perhaps his choice to not flush is some sort of mes- ah, the sound of a flush. The sound engineer wasn't paying attention. The audience neither applauds, nor boos. There was none.

This is a vanilla scoring file, and an anachronistic one at that. It's paired with a forgettable background theme. A stale cracker and cheese stick, from a decades old lunchables. It echoes a sentiment described earlier "here are notes, arranged so you can hit them". The relative technicality of layering and pr'd 32nds means there's no real coherent pattern structure or theme. The file has no identity. The song has no identity.

And that's ok. But it's not right for this pack.

I appreciate that you want to contribute, I think you could get there, but you need to fundamentally change your perspective on how to approach dumping first. People often advise easing into a new concept or approach, using existing experience as a fallback. I think you need to do the opposite. You need to take something you have no idea how to approach and run at it full force. I'm not saying you need to finish it, I'm not saying it has to be good. Shit I can't tell you what to do with your time. But I am suggesting you need to bang your head against something you don't fundamentally understand for a little bit before you can get it.

I'll leave you with these.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuDhiHSksaA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9-yfeA2JZs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SFNW5F8K9Y

Gotcha! I have something else in mind. Might need a cut but not sure. I enjoyed how you poetically shredded my submission . Is there a date for submissions to be finished?