Gradiant finished the primary judge task for January 2015 Set 2. 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 2015 thread.
[8.5/10] Caffeine {PSYCHOSTICK} (hi19hi19)
- Not sure why there isn’t any notes in the first second. It’s kind of necessary for some songs with ambient-sort of intros where they can’t be stepped well at all, but this song’s intro is a prominent drum part.
- MarioNintendo mentioned the offset felt off in some parts and I noticed at as well in sections like 0-17.682s, the notes going to vocals drag behind the song.
- The jumptrills to the yelling seemed a bit odd since the first thing I noticed in the song was the drum beat behind it, but I do see what you were doing with them as it provides variation to the jacks throughout the rest of the file. Think it’s fine.
- Section at 44.970s is pretty funny. Charu suggested not coloring it, but I think the colors are fine. My only gripe with it is 3-4-2-3-1-2 section that happens twice. At this speed that patterning is pretty nasty too hit. If you changed that to something similar to what’s right after it, it still fits the rhythm of the sound it’s going to without it being so jarring.
- 129.219-129.769s: This section’s extremely fast so the jumpgluts here is kind of spikey even with how jacky the rest of the file is. Having it be a jumptrill or having a single note for the 2nd, 4th, and 6th sound would play a lot nicer
[5/10] Entrance {ICE} (SonicX)
- Please change the SM Offset to -0.349 seconds, it’s currently offsync, I’ll continue the notes with the current offset though
- Notes to the synth in the intro could be included instead of just 4ths, since you already have a note to the synth sound at 9.879s
- If you’re going to have jumps to that sound that happens at 26.875 and 27.209, please do so for the rest of the file
Sections like 39.651-42.984s and 43.317-63.980s where a melody can be heard, there should be a greater attention for pitch relevancy.
- 69.978-72.645s: This is such a huge difficulty spike compared to the rest of the file. Using more (12) and (34) in this section would play a bit nicer than having the majority of the jumps split between both hands. The hands mixed with the jumps using both the left and right side make it strongly resemble the split jump section in AIM Anthem (not good). Best way to go about this section I think would be to either alternate between (12) and (34) jumps (could keep the hands this way as well), or have jumps every other note so it’s not a really fast wall o f split jumps/hands.
- 72.645-74.644: Roll should ascend to the right to match the ascending piano
- 91.308-93.974s: This plays a lot nicer than the jumpglut section in the middle of the song, but I agree with Goldstinger that (13)(24) would work better right before the left to right roll since before that you have short jumptrills as well.
- 99.306s: Think this note at the end so that the song ends after the pitch is released should be moved up to when the pitch is actually released. Having the note a bit after the pitch is released feels wonky to me.
[0/10] Handsonic (Feat. Jordan Virelli) {Vena Cava} (VisD)
- Auto-rejection due to the file being sent in incomplete
[8.5/10] The Impresario {virt Tommy Pedrini} (hi19hi19)
- 2.108-9.329: Personal preference but it bugs me that the song is in triple meter in this section but it’s synced to be stepped as 16ths
- 29.272: I get that you’re trying to simplify this drum fill here but I still think it needs to have more notes given they’d be 24ths which you already have for the rest of the drum fills in this intro section
- 98.192: Think the drums are way to faint to have 32nds here
- 151.781: Missing jump?
- 299.795-303.178: Could use more of a build-up with jumps I think. The snares are getting louder here leading up to the hand on 303.178
- 303.178: Bohemian Rhapsody lmao
- 389.377: Not sure about these being hands, they’re quieter than what the hands were going to right before it
- 411.194: Please do this for the intro syncing
- Just a couple of very small things that could be changed overall. Besides that, the only major gripe I have is that it’s long. Usually I’d like files with this length to be a bit harder in difficulty to maintain interest, but I think the song does that instead. There was a lot of attention to layering between vocals and piano, like that you used sub-beats, and the colored notes mixed in kept it interesting as well.
[3.5/10] TRIGGER HAPPY (Hommarju Remix) {P*Light} (SonicX)
- Intro could also be stepped, players right now have to wait 10 seconds before the notes start
- I suggest going through the file again checking for pitch relevancy in sections where there isn’t much going on and the melody is prominent. For example:
1.) 11.706s: You can follow either the 3 descending pitch beeps or the 4 note vocal sample (vocal sample would be something like 4-2-4-2), but the 4-1-2 pattern you have currently doesn’t fit to either of those
2.) 21.456s: Would fit the pitches better if the patterning of these 5 notes went from left to right and then back to the left.
3.) 19.506s: blue note at 19.656 would go to the left of the jump, red and yellow note after that should go from left to right because the pitches ascend, and then the last yellow note at 20.031 shouldn’t be in the same column as the yellow before it because the pitches are different. This example happens more than just this one time, so go back and check those again. The rhythms are right but it doesn’t feel like I’m playing with the song if I’m not also playing with the pitch when it’s prominent.
- 14.706s: Missing notes for the melody you were following before in times 15.006s, 15.456s, 16.731s, 16.956s
- 17.706s: left to right would work better here because the vocal sample is ascending
- 23.856: Missing jump
- 24.006: Shouldn’t be a jump
- 28.806: Shouldn’t be a jump
- 33.006: While this runningman pattern is neat by itself, it doesn’t match with what’s going on in the song so it’s odd
- 38.706: Starting here you have jumps to that driving bass kick, so missing jumps also to that sound are noticeable like 39.006, 40.206,41.406, etc.
- 48.306: Going from a 32nd roll directly into a hand is really nasty since it forces a minitrill at the end
- 57.906: ending this split roll with a (13) jump rather than changing how the roll starts so it can end with a (12) or (34) is awkward to hit
- 67.431: Even when the roll doesn’t end with a hand, it’s still bad to end it on this jump because it also forces a minitrill at the end
- 77.106s: While the percussion sounds the same for these 5 hits, there’s a descending melody, so you can also have the jumps sort of move from right to left to match it rather than having all of them be (14) jumps
- 91.206: This burst patterning is not friendly at all especially when the part happening right before is really simple 8th beats with some jumps
- 96.006: These are 400 bpm trills, super spikey. Similar sounds happened in the first half of the file but they were just rolls, so I’m not sure why they changed in this section
- Notes up to this point also concern the 2nd half of the file (missing notes, missing jumps, pitch relevancy, points about your 32nd rolls)
- 204.306: You have all these jumps here with an anchor on the 3rd column which plays awkwardly, would work better if the jumps were just shuffled around
206.706: Climax theory is a thing, but this is just no. 200bpm is very fast for this section to be patterned like this, especially when you have that anchor on the 2nd column in the second half of it. This a really bad difficulty spike.
- Please go through the whole file again checking for pitch relevancy, missing jumps when you were layering jumps to the bass kicks, the patterning of your 32nd rolls and not ending them in hands or jumps that force one-hand minitrills, changing the middle 32nd trills, and removing that jumpglut spike in the ending