Advice on stepping piano files

[TheSilentLord]

So all the files I have stepped this far have been pretty stable BPM with a constant percussion going on in the background. This time i'm trying to step a piece of piano music. Which piece? You probably guessed it - Touhou! To be more specific, this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQaFz1wqVGM

As far as i know this version hasn't been stepped yet, though.

Anyways, as you can hear, the speed of the music changes constantly. And so began my adventure with DDreamStudio's sub-beats. After a while i think I've got it about right. But I need some opinions on what I have done so far. I've stepped 1:15 of the song and a few problems have come to mind:

- Some of the speedups/slowdowns are so short/quick that you can't fit a whole beat in between. This results in a very long beat or a very short one. At the same time it makes playing the file with an Xmod crap. (though who plays with Xmod anyways, I recommend playing this with Cmod)

- Because we only have 1 instrument, the file becomes very easy. There just aren't that many sounds to step to. This far the file is about 5,5 NPS and although I myself am fine with an easier chart, I was thinking about how it could be made a bit harder.

Please spare a few minutes and try out my file. I'd love to hear your opinion of the way I tried to handle the speedups/slowdowns and also how the chart could be made more difficult.

DL from mediafire

http://www.mediafire.com/?j5a1z9d93l8c49g

[Wayward Vagabond]

this is kind of a pretty bad sync job but thats ok this is your first real attempt at man syncing so no biggie there

[hi19hi19]

Don't have Stepmania at the moment so I can't try the file but I have general tips based on your two bullet points:

Originally Posted by TheSilentLord

- Some of the speedups/slowdowns are so short/quick that you can't fit a whole beat in between. This results in a very long beat or a very short one. At the same time it makes playing the file with an Xmod crap. (though who plays with Xmod anyways, I recommend playing this with Cmod)

Nobody plays dicksynced piano files on Xmod so don't worry about that. Worry about getting it to feel very natural on Cmods. If most of the song is say 140ish bpm then you have a slow section of like 30 bpm it's fine, as long as it's matching the music it will feel proper on Cmod.
About where to place beats, having a good understanding of compositional theory helps a lot. For example, figure out what time signature a song is in. Then you listen and find the downbeats. One thing I do is roughly tap out downbeats just by having the song playing and hitting B in sync mode, then later going in and fine tuning the downbeat placement.
If you don't have a good feel for where the song's downbeats are, get the sheet music (if you can)

Also note that if you ARE worried about big BPM swings for whatever reason such specifically stepping for Xmod/ThirdStyle engine/etc, you can use the "G" key in DDReam (grow beats) to smooth out wild BPM changes as long as there are no sub-beats between. Takes a little getting used to though, but it's the most powerful part of DDReam.

Originally Posted by TheSilentLord

- Because we only have 1 instrument, the file becomes very easy. There just aren't that many sounds to step to. This far the file is about 5,5 NPS and although I myself am fine with an easier chart, I was thinking about how it could be made a bit harder.

The obvious answer is to layer more heavily. Listen where big chords are (sheet music helps here) and make it a hand/quad, and layer in more arrows for big dynamic shifts as well. Nothing says "epic loud part" like hands.

But honestly some songs just absolutely do not work with hard steps. Try not to force it.


In case you were wondering, my first DDReam synced piano file ever was Rainbow Road (it's on FFR) and it took me a long time to learn how to do it well. But once you get a system I can sync entire concert etudes in a few hours (see my Kapustin files from my tournament pack -shameless plug-)
Keep trying, I really enjoy syncing piano songs in DDReam now. It's very zen when you get on a roll

[hi19hi19]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqTMbT81R3U

Sheet music, follow the timing this transcriber used and then match the notes to the song itself with sub-beats. With sheet music this accurate that's a flawless method for getting it right on Cmod, likely it will play like ass on Xmod but again, that's okay.
(lucky you, you picked a song that someone had transcribed awesomely! )


EDIT- I just listened to the song and I think there are other things we need to talk about if you are having trouble getting this file to be "hard enough" lol who are you stepping this for, Staiain?

Just stepping the melody and cadenza sections alone with no layering is already going to be FMO+ on FFR and hard enough to make it into any SM pack...

[TheSilentLord]

Thanks alot for your input. I actually found the song while specifically searching for piano sheet music. The uploader's YouTube channel has about 300 touhou piano arranges with music sheets included in most. My piano skills aren't high enough to play most of them, though.

The "it's gonna be too easy" problem was actually concerning the first part of the song. When it gets to the fast streams it's obviously going to be difficult but that will leave a big difficulty gap between the beginning and the end. Having a part with double NPS doesn't sound too good to me. Maybe if you check out what i stepped this far you'll get what i mean. This far i stepped the "easy" part. I think i'm probably one of the lowest skilled stepmania players around these forums (still play one-handed) so if it feels too easy for me it will probably be for others too.

Great tips anyways!

[hi19hi19]

Unless you find really consistently interesting and rhythmically varied piano music (*cough* Kapustin) they tend to have pretty pronounced easy and hard parts. Most people expect that from piano music files, even if it isn't optimal.

My advice is to heavily layer the early parts. The left hand has pretty interesting syncopated rhythms that you could contrast with the really simple right hand.