2016 January/February Set 3 (Complete)

[psychoangel691]

City Style
Drive of Unliving Things
Heaven's Gate (Remake Ver.)
Space Threat (Work It)

[DossarLX ODI]

gameboy42690 finished the primary judge task for January/February 2016 Set 3. The notes can be seen below; this thread is being moved over to Completed Sets and the results/notes will be updated in the January/February 2016 thread.

[4/10] City Style {Arrowhead} (Luvox)
* In future submissions, please do not use Beginner for your steps, and please cut any unused parts of the mp3 in order to cut down on file size. These are both clearly outlined in the Rules/Submission Guidelines thread.
0.855-19.455: Everything during the intro (with the exception of a few 32nds you can hear in the background during the second half) should actually be 3/64ths swing. Most of what you’ve stepped is correctly quantized but there’s a ton of rogue 16ths & 32nds in here that need to be fixed.
2.055: Missing note for the piano.
2.805: Flip this 16th and the following 8th around; this note should be in column 3, 2.955 should be in column 2.
3.555: There’s no real reason for any of the hands during the intro to actually be hands. Change them to jumps.
4.755: 8th note should be a jump for the piano chord.
6.143: 64th is a higher note than 5.955, change to column 2. Also helps to get rid of the unnecessary mini-jack.
7.005, 7.230: In addition to the fact that the intro is all 3/64th swing, these are ghost notes.
7.343: 64th should be a jump (piano chord again).
8.993: Ghost 64th.
9.555: Get rid of the mini-jack here.
9.630, 9.930: Ghost 32nds.
10.455: Ghost 4th.
10.605-19.455: Largely a repeat of the previous 10 seconds, ideally most of this section should look identical. Pattern variation is fine as long as everything is still pitch relevant and keeps the same structure. (And as a matter of fact I would encourage pattern variation for this file as there tends to be a lot of repetition.) As I mentioned before there’s a few 32nds that can be heard in the background that you can step as well. You kinda do this at 15.255 but if you’re going to step some of those 32nds, you need to step them all.
19.343: Unnecessary mini-jack, please change.
20.355: Missing 8th (there should actually be a mini-jack here). Same for 20.805.
21.255: Most of your hand usage is pretty random. The hand at 20.055 is fine since it’s going to a cymbal crash, but this one is a bit questionable. Technically as long as you’re stepping jumps for the bass, stepping hands for the snare could work but you do it rather inconsistently. Personally I would leave hands for the cymbal crashes only and just step the bass and snare with jumps.
21.705: The synth isn’t playing the same note twice in a row here, change the mini-jack.
23.205: Change this to a mini-jack to match the one at 22.605.
23.730: Ghost 32nd. Change the 16th jack too.
24.608: Ghost 64th.
24.855: I think you meant for these 32nds to start at 25.155, not here.
27.405: 16th should be in column 3, not column 4. (There’s a mini-jack here, but the mini-jack actually starts on the 16th, not on the 4th.)
28.305: Missing 16th.
29.055: Notice the 16th trill on columns 2 and 3. It doesn’t actually make any musical sense, so you should change the patterns a bit here. For instance, instead of what you have now you could try 4-3-[12]-4-[23]-1-[234]. (That last jump should have been a hand to go with the cymbal crash.)
29.655: The song repeats itself again here, so once again everything should generally be structured the same as it was in the last 10 seconds.
39.255: Same idea again, but now there’s a few pitch changes for the synth and there’s also a few 32nds thrown into the mix that you should be stepping, such as at 40.755 and 45.855.
58.305: 16th jack needs to be changed. There’s also some more 32nds around here that you should step in order to add some variety to this file.
* There’s a ton of 32nds coming up that you also opted not to step. I would highly recommend you step those 32nds in order to continue adding some more variety to this file.
58.455: The same melody that’s been playing since the beginning of the song is still going strong here, but your pitch relevancy doesn’t reflect that at all. There’s nothing in the music that suggests a long 8th anchor here.
59.655: Change this 4th jump to a single note. The 16th note just before should be a jump.
61.755: Change this single note to a jump. Mini-jack isn’t necessary.
64.755, 64.905: Both of these single notes should be jumps.
65.355: Same here as well. If you’re going to start layering the piano with jumps, you need to be consistent in doing it.
* Similar issues with layering and ghost notes and a couple of unnecessary mini-jacks continue throughout this file, please look over this file again and be on the lookout for more of these kinds of mistakes.
104.655: These 32nds actually continue playing all the way to 106.155, there should be a lot more than just a short 32nd burst.
118.568: Technically ghost notes, but I get what you’re trying to do here. That being said though, there’s a couple of effects just before this point and later on as well that could use 24ths.
* Lots of technical errors and inconsistencies, file needs work.

[7.5*/10] Drive of Unliving Things {Orange Dust} (MarioNintendo)
* Cool song choice! I don’t even usually like Orange Dust but I really like this song!
9.171-10.101: Seeing as you stepped white notes at 18.054 for a similar sounding effect, I’m honestly surprised you didn’t step white notes here as well.
19.658: Stepping all of these 12ths and 24ths as jumps doesn’t really make any sense to me. Just a jump to coincide with the hi-hat and synth playing at the same time would be fine. (This is usually how you layered the intro anyway.)
21.782: It’s possible that you could cheat these one-handed gallops as jumps in FFR, but I think it would be preferred to make the gallops two-handed instead.
28.154: This is likely a trivial note due to the way files are converted for FFR, but these 20ths could be stepped just a little bit more accurately. Each note should really be between nine and ten 192nds apart, the gap between the two 32nds is equal to twelve 192nds.
30.543: Missing 8th for the hi-hat.
36.118: What is this hand for?
39.747: Change this single into a jump.
53.109 ,61.605: Change this jump into a hand (same combination of bass kick + cymbal as many of the other hands in this file).
63.729: Not sure what this hand is for.
74.083: There should be three consecutive hands here, same as 82.578.
103.552: I didn’t really like this pattern. The combination of the 12th jack on the down arrow and the 8th notes on the left arrow make this kind of awkward to hit. I would change the 12th at 103.729 to a right arrow.
106.030: Ghost 24ths. The 8th note is correct but it should be stepped with a jump (consistent with 110.189).
110.454, 116.561: These jumps should be hands (bass kick + high frequency sound effect). There’s a couple of other missing hands just like these two.
* Some of the hands need to be addressed, otherwise most of what I had to say was fairly minor.

[6/10] Heaven's Gate (Remake Ver.) {kv} (MarioNintendo)
12.134: The 12ths are technically correct, but there’s also that loud percussion playing here too, and it’s a little odd that you’d step jumps for the first percussion hits but here you ignore it completely. I guess you could step a polyrhythm here but you’d have to step the 16th and 8th as single notes. which is a little odd since the previous notes were stepped as jumps.
* This issue with stepping a polyrhythm actually came up at 21.416, where a jump is stepped for a note that was previously being stepped as a hand. It makes sense in that you’re trying to make the pattern flow better, but it screws up your layering.
16.031: As long as all of the jumps from 12.339 to here all coincide with a bass drum and synth playing at the same time, I think placing jumps on every 4th note during this stream would be fine. I know this kind of goes against how you mostly tried to avoid jumpstream in this file, but it just makes a little more sense to me.
* In general I actually would have preferred a harder file that utilizes heavier layering during the 16th streams. While I’m not holding that against you, I do have other concerns about this file, such as...
18.493: ...these mini-jacks. They’re technically correct but they’re probably a bit much compared to everything else. (Except for maybe the ending, but we’ll get to that.)
19.724: This long anchored set of alternating jumps doesn’t make sense. Previously your jumps weren’t intended to go with the bass kick, so why now? Much like 12.339 to 16.031, there should only be jumps to coincide with the synth. Keeping the jumps anchored is fine, just don’t make every bass kick a jump.
21.159: This should be a 16th, not a 12th.
22.185: With all of the piano that’s being played during these 16th streams, the streams could have easily become jumpstreams. Fair enough that you didn’t want the file to be an FMO, but later in the file at 68.954 you start to step jumps for the piano. At the very least I would step jumps for the lower piano chords in the harmony, which is what all of the jumps in 68.954’s stream are going to. Right now it just comes off as “inconsistent for the sake of difficulty”.
31.647, 31.877: Given that the bass kick is usually not what you’re trying to layer, these two jumps don’t make much sense. It’s also a little weird to me that 31.416 and 31.724 aren’t jumps too.
44.339: This should be a jump, not a hand.
46.185: The piano is actually playing 12ths here, not 8ths.
48.031: Should be a jump, not a hand.
49.224: Ghost 32nd.
56.647: These 24ths bursts were very odd. The synth is playing a constant stream of 24ths, and I totally understand not wanting a long 195 BPM 24th stream. On the other hand, breaking up the 24ths arbitrarily doesn’t reflect what the song is actually doing and it doesn’t feel right.
* The drum just plays 12th notes until 58.493; You could have just followed that instead and then have a 24th roll at 58.493. (Although you’d have to change the hand at the end of that roll to a jump.)
66.493: Anchoring these 16th triplets is fine, but then why aren’t the previous eight 16th triplets anchored too?
98.493: Lots of missing 16ths for the piano. Why are you suddenly deciding to ditch the 16th streams and instead concentrating on the melody? Granted I personally would have preferred more focus on the melody to begin with, but this doesn’t even match up with how you’ve been stepping the song prior to this point.
100.647: The forced mini-jack here is really annoying and needs to be taken out. I’d recommend you just turn this jump into a white note and make the whole set of five jumps a jumptrill.
103.877: This jump and the next few jumps should actually be hands.
112.031: This 12th jumpglut caught me by surprise! It’s also way too hard compared to the rest of the file. Either this part needs to be toned down or the rest of the file needs to be beefed up.
* The streams flow really nicely, unfortunately the file also gets bogged down by some very questionable stepping choices.

[6.5/10] Space Threat (Work It) {Pyramyth} (MarioNintendo & Xiz)
4.718: Pretty nitpicky, but you could change the pattern a bit here just to differentiate this sound from 5.521
18.244: 16th note could be a jump. Occasionally when the synth is more heavily stressed in this song you’ve been stepping jumps to the synth, which I like, and the synth is heavily stressed here too.
20.521, 22.530, etc.: I’m finding some pretty long anchors in this file that don’t really need to be there. Look into revising these patterns.
25.610: Same as 18.244, but this is a bit more excusable since there’s only the synth playing here and nothing else.
26.682: I like this mini-jack, but how come you didn’t do it at 18.244, 22.530, etc.?
34.182: Change to a [12] jump.
37.128: I think I would like this jumpglut better if the jumps for the synth weren’t anchored to the jumps for the drum. Something like [24][13][14][12][34] for example. (This is almost the exact same pattern you used at 49.985.)
37.932, 46.503, 50.789: Missed opportunities to have a mini-jack for the synth.
38.735: Same idea here as with 37.128. There isn’t much of a reason for some of these mini-jacks to be here.
41.481: Missing 32nd.
75.566: This transition into the 32nds is kinda rude. Maybe just stick to a basic 4-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4 pattern? It’s actually a bit more pitch relevant that way anyway.
77.843: I don’t really think this change in layering is necessary. Stepping hands only for the cymbals I think worked a bit better. That aside, this hand would need to be changed to differentiate it from 77.307.
80.655, 80.923: I do like how the synth is accented here, but this is also done very inconsistently. The synth repeats itself multiple times but the layering keeps changing at random.
* On a similar note, from 77.307 to 116.985 you tend to be inconsistent with whether or not you step 16ths for the hi-hat. Sometimes it’s stepped, sometimes it’s not; Once again it keeps changing at random.
84.807, 85.209: Should be turned into hands to go with the cymbals.
91.235: Cymbals, should be a hand.
92.307: Cymbals here too.
* There’s some more inconsistency between here and the ending as well, be on the lookout.
137.342: Holy crap this ending is repetitive! This is a solid 17 seconds of repeating the exact same six notes over and over again. Please, either add some variation or cut the ending.
* The first half of the file is generally solid work, but once you hit the second half things start to fall apart. There’s potential here but the inconsistent stepping and the extremely repetitive ending need to be addressed before this can be queued.

[Luvox]

Thank you for the constructive notes.

[MarioNintendo]

HOLY.... Songs from 2016 reviewed? Nice! (no sarcasm)

Just wondering: What is the minimum note for a file to be accepted?
edit: nevermind http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/...d.php?t=145649