Ok, so what does all of this have to do with mapping? Since you're mapping in a technical way you're going to want to repeat the exact same pattern of notes every time you hear the same pattern of sounds in the song. Unfortunately, you can get away with more repetition in music than you can with beatmap patterns.
So now we know 2 things:
- We have a problem: we need to find a way to keep the technical nature of our map, but we can't repeat the same note pattern every single time we hear he same pattern in the music.
- In order to keep the technical approach to the map, we need to be consistent within the map, so if a chunk shows up again.
First I want to say that a little bit of repetition isn't always bad. You
can repeat the same pattern a few times in a row if you need to. But some songs repeat the same
chunk far more than that, so you need to find ways to modify your pattern.
Here's how I approach dealing with repeating
chunks:
- The simplest possible change you can make is to mirror your pattern (select the notes and press ctrl+h you can also flip things vertically with ctrl+v, but I believe this breaks holds). I tend to use mirroring if the chunk is long.
- The next thing you can do to your pattern is shuffle the columns around. Move every note on one column to a different column. I tend to prefer to use this if we have
- Now, let's say that we have an 8 measure long chunk that repeats twice in a row, and happens twice in the same song. That would mean that if the first 7 measures of the chunk are identical and the final one is a variation, we have (7 + 7) * 2 = 28 measures with identical patterns, and 4 other measures (one at the end of each chunk) with a similar but different pattern. What I do when I have something like this is maybe repeat the basic pattern 7 times for the first chunk, rearrange it for the 7 identical measures in the second block, then mirror the entire 2 chunk section next time it comes around. And for the 4 measures left over at the end of each chunk, I might use the same pattern (exact same).
A quick note about when (and when not) to use this approach:
You don't always need to use this approach for everything. I try to only do this stuff on longer songs (3mins+) and take a less technical approach for shorter stuff. I don't usually bother reusing a pattern this way in a TV size because it's short, and repetition would make it feel even shorter and less interesting. I also suggest only reusing one pattern like this, even if there is more than 1
chunk that repeat. The player can recognize when a pattern has been reused like this, and that lends more emphasis on the patterns you are reusing. If a song has a verse/chorus structure, and both the verse and chorus end up with repeating
chunks (repeating the chorus means the chorus
chunk repeats, and verses often have repeating
chunks if music with the difference being only in the vocals) its often best to use this approach for the chorus, and map the verses in very different styles. This will make the chorus stand out more because the player will recognize the reused patterns from last time. If both the verse and chorus had reused patterns, it the fact that a pattern is reused in a modified way loses it's emphasis, and makes a map feel more dull and less creative.