Cita:Keysounds and Notecharts
Guide version 0.5 by ChronoSentinel on May 15th 2010

Table of Contents
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Prologue
[_INT] Introduction
[_TRM] Notecharter's Terminologies

Part 1 - Notecharts
[_NCM] Music and Notecharts
[_NPS] Starting a Project
[_NCP] Note Patterns
[_NCS] Notecharting Skills
[_NKC] Non-keysounded Notecharts
[_NCT] Notechart Testing

Part 2 - Keysounded charts
[_KCW] What is it, and why?
[_KRT] Keysound Types
[_KCH] How to get Keysounds
[_KCN] Notecharting Keysounded Charts

Epilogue
[_PKG] Pakaging
[_BYE] Sayonara.


Prologue
:: Introduction [_INT]
ChronoSentinel's Mind wrote:
You suck in notecharting and go back playing your Guitar Hero.

I've been wanting to say this to almost every single notecharter I've met throughout the years. Pointless keyboard crashers, unthinkably off-sync notes and note vacuums by these very terrible wannabes who are not serious, ruining the perspective of other people on the game. Their failures should not exist in the songlists of any server(yet one of them got to O2Jam V3 for quite some time).

Notecharting is a profession. You don't just simply fill out empty columns full with long square notes and make it run on four times the normal speed. You fill in notes with utmost care, and test them out vigorously for quality. Only when you think it's the best, after days of trial and error, choosing the best positions for patterns of notes, you release it to the public.

If you think you're up to being a real professional, and you're really into this, you're legible to read my guide. If you're just a passer-by who haven't any experience on using NoteTool/BMSE, hit Alt+F4 or start with this guide first.

This guide assumes that you have experience on making a notechart by yourself. The guide covers advanced notecharting subjects, including complex note patterns, noting tricks and keysounds.


:: Notecharter's Terminologies [_NTM]
Fist up for the guide, a little language lesson. Often I find people mixed up on the terminologies used in notecharting. Here's your friendly manual on those confusing terms.

note
means to the blocks of stuff that falls down then chart. Usually refers to the ones on the playable area.

background note
means the notes that are not seen when playing.

notechart
refers to the whole notechart file, excluding the sounds associated with it.

keysound
refers to the sounds that are played when the notes are hit by it's designated key.

keysounded chart
means a chart with keysounds, or a chart that plays additional sounds when notes are hit.

non-keysounded chart
means a chart without keysounds, or a chart does not play additional sounds when notes are hit.

sound
means the energy wave that vibrates particles which are heard by humans through their sense of sound.

song or music
means the unique arrangement of sounds composed by artists.

measure
refers to the measure, also known as the bar, in music theory. A measure is made up of different numbers of beats (usually 4).

BPM
means beats per minute. I don't want to see people asking the term of this one.

long notes/freeze notes/hold notes
means notes that have to be held from it's starting point to it's ending point. Only exists in playable area.

pattern/note stucture
means a basic structure or pattern of notes on the chart.


End of Prologue

Part 1 - Notecharts [WIP]

Music and Notecharts [_NCM]
All music can be notecharted, but not all of them will be exciting for the game.

The charts of these musics don't feel right when play-tested. They may also have too many notes to fit into a chart. Some songs from other music games have this property because they're made to be played with the extra stuff.

Choosing the right music
- Good chartable themes
Every song has themes right? The chorus theme, verse theme, the break, etc. The leading themes are very important, so make sure those songs' leading themes are not annoying, confusing or unsuitable when on a chart. For example: Cheeseburger, from Sanxion7. It's long stuttering leads would confuse players, newbies and amateurs alike, to the point it's very annoying.

- Repetitive rhythms and rhythm variety
Myopic wrote:
... sure its catchy and such to many but its too goddamn repetitive to make a good chart.
It's best to avoid music that has the same theme/rhythm repeating again and again. Those songs will bore the player very easily. If the song had just a few too much, you can cut off the repeating parts to make it better. Most official songs are probably shortened this way for the same reason. For example, Gargoyle was a 6 minute song. However, it was cut down to half of it's length to prevent such a problem.

Choose a song with lots of different rhythms. The more rhythms, the better. It gives the chart more variety in structures and more possible mash-ups. Instruments are not a concern as long as it plays different rhythms.


Starting a Project [_NPS]
Now that you already found the right music, it's time to start charting!

First, you have make an accurate note layout of the instruments in the game. Make sure you listen out the notes and put them into the chart accurately, even the different pitches. In most cases, the rhythms would repeat(sometimes with a slightly different note) so you can just copy-paste and edit them to save time.

Here's some extra stuff for notecharters that use BMSE: you can change the play mode(#PLAYER) to 2P or Double for an extra playing area which can be used to stuff different charts for different instruments temporarily before choosing the best combo for the chart.


[_NCP] Note Patterns [WIP]
Spam
Spamming is basically over-noting a short part of the chart to challenge the players speed and accuracy.

In the player's perspective, there are two types of spam. One type spam a lot of notes at a short period(like in Identity series). In this scenario, the player is forced to lose a lot of health at a short period. If he cannot handle enough hits of a spam, he will fail. This is best used to keep players that cannot

The other type is a long spam that over-capacitate what an under-skilled player can play(like in %10, %E-XT). The player keeps missing certain notes in the chart and cannot combo much out of the long spam, and eventually loses in the long run.


[_NCS] Notecharting Skills[WIP]


[_NKC] Non-keysounded Notecharts
Most of you who make charts with just a single music file, you need to get the BPM and the music starting point correct at the same time.

To the many notecharters out there that use BPM analysers: it's time to throw those away. BPM analysers are imperfect, and all of them completely fail when there are BPM changes in the song. Instead, use a tap based counter like this one. Play the music with your favourite media player and then start tapping the beats on the keyboard for a while. You would get an approximate BPM value. Round off the value to the nearest 5, and test the sync on the notecharting programs. If you got it wrong, test other similar BPM values. You may have to do the test several times to get the BPM value correct because not all songs follow the same beat rule. Usually the values used are a factor of 4, 5 or 10.

Commonly used BPM values: 80, 90, 96, 100, 120, 128, 130, 140, 150, 160, 180, 192, 200.

Sometimes, it hard to calculate the music starting point of a file. In those cases, you can just get Audacity and cut off the whole silent part on the intro. Play the to-be-deleted selection to make sure there is not a single vibration on the area. You can tell there is one if the meter moves.



Notechart Testing [_NCT]
- Constantly test out the notechart as it is being made
Always test the chart everytime you put in a new measure of notes. You'll never know when a crammed chart can turn on you. Long notes can cause some serious trouble if the whole section is already done.

- Change it the moment you feel it should be
Always trust your instincts. Whenever you feel that you don't like a part you just made or you feel that there is a gap for improvement, change the notes immediately. Don't just keep thinking of appealing the other players. Doing this also makes your charts much more unique.


What makes a good notechart?
Of course, everyone wants to make the best notechart out of a song.

- Balanced difficulty
The chart should have a balanced difficulty so that a player with sufficient skill can play the chart without feeling that some of the parts is too hard or too easy. If your chart has a certain part that overpushes players with skills to pass the other parts of the song, you should put a resting part so that players can recharge part their HP.

- Absolutely no sync errors and clear notes
A good chart is always synchronized with it's music. It must match the speed of the song as it progresses and the notes inserted can be clearly designated as a sound heard on the song by the player.

- Good chart structure
A successful chart has a good mix of different organized note structures and is not too repetitive. Example of these charts are Phase 1 and Fly Magpie. Many songs are shortened from the original mix to help cope with this problem.

- Good music
Well, duh???

- Unique
Apart from filling out those compulsory steps, good charts has unique properties which makes it stand out from the others. It can be the way the chart works with the song, or the overall gameplay of the chart.

- Keysounds
Like I said many times before, having keysounds greatly improves the gameplay of the chart. It's the point of music games. Given that there are so many charts out there with only a single background music playing, keysounds are vital to proove whether the chart is worth a player's attention. Having the notechart keysounded prooves that you're willing to spend time to create a special chart for the song and perfect it.

- Player-compatible
A successful chart has a balanced difficulty, and supports a large number of players.

The best example for a song that fits all these categories would be Sanxion7's Gargoyle, charted by _Spam.


Last edited by ChronoSentinel on Sat May 15, 2010 10:42 am, edited 3 times in total.

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