Stepping help / First Stepfile

[RaptorHaysewus]

Hey guys, I'm starting out stepping Again, many years ago I used to do it, but I never released them. Don't worry, they weren't that good .

But now I'm actually thinking about doing it seriously. I started on a song last night and...Well...It ended up in me throwing a tantrum and closing the window, losing all my work...-ahem-

Basically, is there an easy way I don't know about, but do you really have to go in stepmania's song editor and go

play from current beat to end

memorize beats

place note

play from current beat to end

memorize beats again

place higher "th" note to sync

play from current beat to end

SUCCESS, YOU HAVE FINISHED 2 SECONDS OF YOUR SONG! ONLY 6 MINUTES LEFT!

I'm doing ~IDOLA~ The Strange Fruits from Phantasy Star Online Episode 3, btw. And it is a good 6m long.

Anyway, if this is the easiest way, then I guess I could just work with it.

[Patashu]

make sure that you set the bpm and the beat 0 offset (ie how many seconds into the song the very first beat is) before doing anything else. refer to F1 for the key presses to do this, if you can't figure it out use a program to find the bpm (like mixmeister bpm analyser) and if you still can't figure it out it's probably non-constant bpm

anyway after that, yeah you have to listen to the music then place notes down then verify that they're placed correctly. if you know the song really well tho then you'll have a good mental construct of it and you can place patterns ahead of yourself then verify they're right all at once

no there's no faster way to do it other than making up steps, why would there be

[-KIDTHONG-]

Could you send me the song?

[RaptorHaysewus]

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=LT1UU70S

Thanks for the help Patashu..

You're a great stepper, I remember playing your SM songs years ago.

How long would you say this song would take to step, for a beginner?

[trumaestro]

holy jesus start with something shorter. you'll be more willing to finish the file if it isn't 6 minutes long. maybe step like 1/3 of that song or something. you won't get as bored, and you'll be more willing to make more files if it doesn't take you as long to make one file.

[RaptorHaysewus]

hahaha, 2000BPM YARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

I'll try a shorter song, maybe a beatles song.

Yeah I'll do Maxwell's Silver Hammer

brb batmobile

[Patashu]

a constant bpm song that doesn't have weird-ass note intervals out the ass should be like an hour per 1-2 minutes

[RaptorHaysewus]

Originally Posted by Patashu

a constant bpm song that doesn't have weird-ass note intervals out the ass should be like an hour per 1-2 minutes.

Lmao sounds pretty solid.

I'll enjoy this.

-Updates soon

-- UPDATE ---


This is possibly the most annoying thing I have ever done in my entire life.

Seriously...

Okay so I'm trying to do a song, I change the BPM to 142.04, done, so I'm sitting there trying to sync the first 5 seconds of the song, blah. I completely lose my mind.

More updates soon ...

[dore]

Start out by editing... that way you can skip the syncing part and just worry about experimenting with charting.

Stepping takes a while to get used to and even longer to get good at so don't expect great results right away.

[RaptorHaysewus]

Originally Posted by dore

Start out by editing... that way you can skip the syncing part and just worry about experimenting with charting.

Stepping takes a while to get used to and even longer to get good at so don't expect great results right away.

What do you mean by "Editing" ?

Do you mean, getting existing stepfiles and experimenting with them?

[operationstrawbarry]

Originally Posted by RaptorHaysewus

What do you mean by "Editing" ?

Do you mean, getting existing stepfiles and experimenting with them?

Good place to start. My first stepfile was Special Energy and 22Dunk

[RaptorHaysewus]

Originally Posted by operationstrawbarry

Good place to start. My first stepfile was Special Energy and 22Dunk

Well firstly I have to actually try and find A lot of stepmania songs, so I can just flick through them and see.

Can't find any good sites despite me looking through loads of stickies and bemanistyle and FFR forums, I just need the packs of like 20 songs, bleh.

[Patashu]

bluexoon.com has packssss

[dore]

Take some DDR files or something and play around with them... they won't have potential for a great file but at least you can use something simple and synced until you get the hang of the basics.

[Patashu]

step the drumline in DEAD END

[RaptorHaysewus]

Thanks for the site Patashu and for the advice Dore, I started doing the beginning of Flobots - Handlebars since it starts really slow and gradually builds up I thought it'd be good, so far it's looking brilliant. Really nice, all the steps sync up, maybe one or two that may need tweaking but overall it's great.

I'll try Dead End, and Maybe some DDR Files. We'll see :P.

[dood gone krazee]

Whoah whoah whoah c'mon man. Patashu and Dore, love you guys, great advice, good job helping out, but at least tell the guy to start with an easy song in the first place. Trying to step a non-constant BPM song like anything from the Beatles or any other rock song is difficult. Try stepping a 1 to 2 minute long techno song. Try taking one of your favorite songs from DDR or ITG and step it. That way you get used to using PR, layering, etc. etc. on an easy generic song.

It would be a lot easier stepping Quasar as a beginner then stepping some Dream Theater.

[who_cares973]

pretty much what dood gone krazee said. head on over to newgrounds and sift through the techno section of heir audio portal. find something you like that's short and step it

[MooMoo_Cowfreak]

If you wanna step an offsync file use this. It's amazing:

http://www.ddreamstudio.com/

Some more advice, if you find things syncing to green/teal notes, you probably have the bpm wrong. Not saying you are but just in case.

[RaptorHaysewus]

Ah, that's a lot of help. Bookmarked ddreamstudio, bookmarked NG Audio portal, it's bed time for me now (4:16am) so I'll start it again tomorrow morning.

Thanks guys.