So relatively speaking I'm a greenhorn to the game and I have this love/hate relationship with streams. Sometimes I can't do them at all. Sometimes I can hit every single note cleanly like some kind of osu god descended from the heavens. Sometimes I can hit most of the notes but they'll all be 100s/50s. I just can't seem to get the knack for streaming consistently and accurately. One moment I can do them, but the next moment I can't.

I especially tend to fail at the lower bpm streams, as they require me to tap at a speed which isn't fast but isn't slow either, sort of a twilight zone where your fingers want to do one or the other but not do anything in between so they end up speeding up or slowing down and it's an awfully awkward feeling. As for higher bpm streams, well if i can't tap that fast I just can't tap that fast.

So I have some questions for you all, my fellow aspiring osu rhythm champions:

1) How long did it take you to 'into' streams? (i.e. how long did it take you to achieve accuracy, speed and/or both?)
2) What kind of things while practicing helped you in improving at streams - both fast and slow variations.
3) What kind of technique, if any, do you use while streaming? Just out of pure curiosity.

As an aside, I would like to inquire if there are any sort of stream 'tuning' programs out there that osu players use. What I have in mind is some kind of program where you can tap to a beat and it tells you whether or not the taps are being accurately streamed or not (at the 1/2 or 1/4 beat speeds)
For example, If I were playing a 150 bpm song, I would enter the bpm into the program, and select either 1/2 or 1/4 stream and tap to a beat set to 150 bpm and tap until I'm pleased with the accuracy I achieve with the taps. Then, when I am happy with the accuracy of the streams I could then flip over to osu and play the desired beatmap with the bpm. This is what I meant by 'tuning' - you are essentially accustoming yourself to the speed very intimately before heading into the song. Does any such thing such as this exist?

On that note,
4) How good are you guys at adjusting between bpms for streaming?

i.e. can you play a 100 bpm stream map and then hop over to a 170 bpm stream map and then, say, a 140 bpm stream map, so on so forth, and do them all fairly well in succession? Do you guys ever do anything to help 'tune' yourselves to a bpm before attempting it?

You guys may think, and with good reason, that I am over thinking things. Honestly, I probably am. But it doesn't hurt to ask, right ? Tell me what you all think on the matter. Sorry for the wall of text.

------------------

TLDR - just look at the questions numbered 1-4.

.............................practice

there is no special technique other than just playing a lot of streams

1) i started being 'into' streams when i was about rank 120k [ppv1] which was increased to 60k once ppv2 came out. I can't really recall how much PP it was back then but I want to say around ~700-600.

2) Practicing streams, trying my best to match my hitsounds to the music while tapping, improving my stamina

3) curved tense fingers and relaxed hand for fast notes, more overall relaxed+straighter fingers for slow [200 and below for me] streams, although i do press down harder the slower the streams get below 160 to maintain accuracy.

dont need a tuning program, just play streams dude, theres more to getting good at streams than tapping them, aiming, especially at high spacing and when they start curving around all over the place, takes tons of practice that you miss out on by not streaming. Not even to mention how important hand synchronization is for this. The only thing you'll get out of say, autopilot, is stamina.

i have no issues going between bpms, there should never be an issue as long as you arent mashing and are properly reading them..

Yeah it's just plain simple practise and also 'listening' and really focusing when you are getting to a stream. Also, make sure that you hit lightly. This really, really, hontoni, really helps a lot when streaming anything.

buny wrote:

.............................practice

there is no special technique other than just playing a lot of streams

Trust. I've been doing that for over half of my osu career. I haven't been playing that long but I have been playing a lot. Id say I spend at least one hour a day practicing solely on streams. I will pick out a few stream songs that I have from my collection and play them at least 3 times in a row, every day without fail.

http://puu.sh/fR4KT/2678f57c9a.jpg
http://puu.sh/fR4BT/97181e3ed1.jpg
http://puu.sh/fR4Cd/980e818c9e.jpg
http://puu.sh/fR4CJ/68de5dc3c1.jpg
http://puu.sh/fR4KT/2678f57c9a.jpg
Just to show you a few pieces of evidence. A few.

Funny thing is everything else has improved drastically but streaming is improving at a snails pace despite me putting in the most effort into improving it.

DahplA wrote:

Yeah it's just plain simple practise and also 'listening' and really focusing when you are getting to a stream. Also, make sure that you hit lightly. This really, really, hontoni, really helps a lot when streaming anything.

I was actually told to press my keys all the way down with each stroke (I have mx cherry reds). Should I not be pushing them all the way down each stroke? I've been messing around with a lot of different ways of hitting the keys and none of them really -click- with me (pun intended). Here's a few:
I've tried depressing the key all the way down on each stroke, only until activation point, I've tried Lifting up my entire hand between each strike with my two fingers with both the styles mentioned before, i've tried lifting my entire arm up off the table and spread eagling/tensing my hands, tried putting a pillow underneath my arm, etc. etc.

pandaBee wrote:

DahplA wrote:

Yeah it's just plain simple practise and also 'listening' and really focusing when you are getting to a stream. Also, make sure that you hit lightly. This really, really, hontoni, really helps a lot when streaming anything.

I was actually told to press my keys all the way down with each stroke (I have mx cherry reds). Should I not be pushing them all the way down each stroke? I've been messing around with a lot of different ways of hitting the keys and none of them really -click- with me (pun intended). Here's a few:
I've tried depressing the key all the way down on each stroke, only until activation point, I've tried Lifting up my entire hand between each strike with my two fingers with both the styles mentioned before, i've tried lifting my entire arm up off the table and spread eagling/tensing my hands, tried putting a pillow underneath my arm, etc. etc.

What I meant was, yes you can still press the keys all the way down, but just don't use so much force that you make your hand hurty. Using less force DOES increase speed.

Personally I sucked at streams and hated them from the start, but after taking in all the advice I could find (forum posts, stickies, youtube videos, asking friends), I actually managed to get the hang of it. I can't quite remember all of the tips but here are something that made the biggest difference:
1) Can you do a triplet? Great, do a triplet then keep going to the beat of the song
2) Treat it like a slider, hit the first note dead on and then go from there
3) Listen to the music

Also, I first started streams by simply moving my fingers as fast as I could and apparently, that was 180 bpm. From there I sort of just slowed or tried to speed up depending on how fast the song was in comparison to 180 bpm. I don't really recommend this because you aren't as capable of accurate for all streams unless you learn streams properly. And that I did in ppv1 when I was farming Easy, Normal and Hard maps. Accuracy was a big factor so I would do and redo songs a lot and sometimes there were some slow and short streams and I think that's what helped me the most because when I went back to insane maps (ppv2 just rolled out, great timing!) I was able to stream very easily. You might want to try this yourself, just go around SS'ing (maybe with DT and/or HR) some songs way below your level to get a better sense of rhythm.

Oh yeah, and I'm bad at really slow streams (like 130 bpm or below) but I get away with that since I'm an alternator and I can just "single tap" them instead with relatively little fatigue following

That's actually exactly how I'm approaching them at the moment. I just remember how triplets feel in the song and i try to replicate that for every stream. Basically I see streams as triplet + string of doubles and just go from there. I pretty much just tap while thinking about triplets and trying to follow the music as close as possible while moving my cursor along the stream.

I went back and fixed my accuracy (it was ~89-90% before, it's at 96% now) and almost everything is looking pretty good outside of my streams.

Play off the music... it IS a rhythm game.

Play this: https://osu.ppy.sh/s/165018 It has everything you need.

Banksia wrote:

Play off the music... it IS a rhythm game.

Just look at the bpm and then slam your fingers at what you think that speed should be.

I recently improved my speed a decent bit for streaming and I did it by not fully mashing down on the x and z keys, instead doing light taps, just enough to register the hit, but not pushing the key all the way down.

Of course, this has it's own set of problems. It's a little harder to be consistent with, to start. Again, I have the same problem as you: Inconsistency, so I'm not sure if I can even help you. ):

Because im beginning to love streams there are 2-3 things you have to pay attention:

1. Bpm knowledge:

Learn what Bpm the Song have and adjust your tapping speed to it or you will miserably fail at the stream because of over/under streaming.

2. Aiming

Well streams isn´t always about speed, your effing cursor has to move with the stream or you won´t hit the circles.

3. Special tip:

Osu is...Oh my firetrucking God...a Rhythm game. Most Notes are 1/4 and fast notes are 1/8 and streams are likely many 1/8 in a long long pattern. Train your tapping fingers (not only 1) to hold 1/8 notes and you´ll be fine

You mean 1/2 and 1/4.

I love those 1/16 streams.

Well it´s funny because i didn´t know how to stream until i was rank 1.4k (yes lower than now), since i only did dt and could only do bursts or 170 bpm streams.
My advice would be, start learning how to stream at low bpm ar 8 maps ( 120 bpm ) use this document and start with the lower BPM ones, till you are accurate enough ( it´ll be a pain in the ass ), and then you go to higher bpm. IF you skip the lower bpm training then the higher bpm streams will only be mashing and you will not fully control the accuraccy of the stream nor the changes in BPM. GL

doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtMS8U9u-0dKdHBoTEdJc28yWkEzV3NxczlYRjlKWmc&usp=sharing#gid=0

Sichurin wrote:

Because im beginning to love streams there are 2-3 things you have to pay attention:

1. Bpm knowledge:

Learn what Bpm the Song have and adjust your tapping speed to it or you will miserably fail at the stream because of over/under streaming.

Anything you do in particular for this other than simply playing the map? Personally i find it difficult to switch between bpms but that's probably because i suck, at the moment at least.

RaneFire's profile page has a whole list of stream maps.

Anything you do in particular for this other than simply playing the map? Personally i find it difficult to switch between bpms but that's probably because i suck, at the moment at least.

Ok here what i´m doing: Look at the Bpm of the map, is it lower than your maximum ( mine is 170-180 because as a reference i can stream endtime) then dont full power at streams (Example This or you´ll overstream) just be a littlee relax and do your stream but with relax . If its higher...well try to get out of your comfort zone

Of course like Zenith says: there are some exceptions like Big Black which is 360 bpm or true truly love with 102 bpm but those streams are much slower/faster notes so its more like 180-200 bpm.

Sichurin wrote:

Of course like Zenith says: there are some exceptions like Big Black which is 360 bpm or true truly love with 102 bpm but those streams are much slower/faster notes so its more like 180-200 bpm.

big black is essentially 180 bpm. just like image material isn't 260 but 130, timing in this game doesn't need to be 1/2 or 1/4 and can be changed accordingly if it's matching.

to OP:
streaming and speed takes longer to learn since it's a physical ability, not a mental ability. hang on, try to move out of your comfort zone. keep playing streamy maps, find your limit and move above slightly above it. not so much that you need to straight up mash to get anything done but just so you know you can almost do it, then repeat. anything you need NF for is probably too hard for you and using it will also slow down your progress. good luck grinding

Started wanting to get good at streams a while back cause it looked really cool with background dim 100% and color effects on.

I was in the same boat you were, sometimes constantly getting 300s and other times i'd miss every note, really it just happens over time. I've almost full combo'd Chinese snowy dance so i'm pretty happy.

EDIT: Also, i've found that stream practice maps have been unbelivably useless for me up to this point, and that the more I focused on streams, the slower I progressed. Play maps at your / slightly above your skill level, and if they have streams then that's great. If not, oh well, you'll run into them eventually.

pandaBee wrote:

buny wrote:

.............................practice

there is no special technique other than just playing a lot of streams

Trust. I've been doing that for over half of my osu career. I haven't been playing that long but I have been playing a lot. Id say I spend at least one hour a day practicing solely on streams. I will pick out a few stream songs that I have from my collection and play them at least 3 times in a row, every day without fail.

http://puu.sh/fR4KT/2678f57c9a.jpg
http://puu.sh/fR4BT/97181e3ed1.jpg
http://puu.sh/fR4Cd/980e818c9e.jpg
http://puu.sh/fR4CJ/68de5dc3c1.jpg
http://puu.sh/fR4KT/2678f57c9a.jpg
Just to show you a few pieces of evidence. A few.

Funny thing is everything else has improved drastically but streaming is improving at a snails pace despite me putting in the most effort into improving it.

???? not even a single map here is stream intense
To get get better at streams you will have to play maps like that.

LoGo wrote:

To get get better at streams you will have to play maps like that.

this, it is not enough to play maps that contain streams at all - it takes more to improve.
for example, aim is everywhere.

but you need aim for spaced streams

CptBlackBird wrote:

but you need aim for spaced streams

then play spaced streams

LoGo wrote:

???? not even a single map here is stream intense

Well of course, but you don't expect me to jump into super stream intense maps when i can't even do simple basic ones, do you?

But in any case here's a progress report for you guys: I can stream now. I played stream maps for an entire day until my fingers were sore and I couldn't click with them any longer, then I had to take a break for 2 days and came back and tried out some stream maps and all of a sudden, like magic, i can do streams now. I'm not sure how that happened but now I just need to work on making sure my fingers don't lock/get fatigued. How long did it take you guys to reach the point where you could stream all day every day without taking short/long breaks in between?

I loved streams regardless how hard they were with a few exceptions, because "streams" are the best part in osumania! but I am referring to older games like o2jam and DJMAX where it feels like you are swimming in the music

The way I do stream is intuitive, I follow the circles with my tablet and try to sync the beats with my keyboard; ......Not sure if that helps

The way to get better is probably to practice more streams, start with low bpm and follow the rhythm

and try to use the keyboard if you are not a dead-on mouse player

Like others have said, it's practice. Honestly, I am still not that great at streams, but I have gotten out of the bad territory. It didn't start getting better at streams until I started to play mostly Insane/high difficulty hard songs. I started off mashing, but eventually you start getting a feel for it. My own way of practicing is to play a song with a stream, and start the song over if I miss the stream. If I keep missing, I go into edit mode to play the part I miss and just practice the stream over and over.

If someone already wrote that - my bad, but I'm nott bored enough to read through the whole topic ;x
Top players often say that to improve at streaming you have to:

1 - push yourself up on fast songs till it hurts, then push some more, then rest, and push yourself again. This way you train your finger muscles which you need for streaming
2 - play a bit slower streams and try to get as high acc as you possibly can ( 98 - 99% lvl )

This way you train both your fingers speed, which is essential to play faster and faster maps, and consistency which is needed to get good acc and pass deathstreams ( those long ass thingies at which most people usually fail )

One important thing I noticed while I stream is sometimes I start streaming at the right time, and get a bunch of 300's but then I either slow down or speed up which leads to some 100's at the end and even 50's, in other words, try to watch your replays and see if you control your speed right and maintain the same speed through the entire stream

pandaBee wrote:

But in any case here's a progress report for you guys: I can stream now. I played stream maps for an entire day until my fingers were sore and I couldn't click with them any longer, then I had to take a break for 2 days and came back

If your tapping fingers get sore on playing stream maps "AFTER PLAYING" that you need to take a break, you're doing something wrong. Even if you play Mad Machine or Freedom Dive a gazillion of times, your tapping fingers should never get beat up like an old rag "AFTER PLAYING".

My entire arm gets sore after those and I can't hardly move either of my fingers.