Introduction
Hey there, in my time playing taiko I've come across many promising mappers. They often make very interesting or unique maps, sometimes to music that is rarely represented in the ranked section of this game, but they never try to go for ranked. One of the reasons for this that I've come across is the fact that they don't know how to map lower difficulties properly and are afraid it might take a lot of time and effort to learn. This is putting them off from even trying, or in some cases simply resorting to only mapping 5 minute or longer songs for approval, which greatly restricts their freedom in mapping.That's why i decided to make this guide to show you guys that mapping lower difficulties can be very simple if you just follow a few guidelines and have some base knolwedge about mapping in general. This guide will be focusing on Kantan, Futsuu and Muzukashii only. When i'm done with this, I'm planning to write another guide about various concepts that can be utilized when mapping higher diffs (some of this may transfer to lower diffs too) to make them more interesting, playable and polished in general.
General
This affects all difficulties from Kantan to Muzukashii
You may think it will take a lot of time to learn how to map 3 different difficulties individually, but they have a lot more in common than you may think. Lower difficulties usually utilize the same base structure, just that the spacing and density of notes gets more challenging with each difficulty. The base structure is however usually the same to ensure good spread.
Now let's take a look at the base structure that all lower difficulties utilize:
To put it simply, lower difficulties are usually clearly divided into patterns, interjections and breaks. Let's briefly define what i mean by these terms, so that you understand what i'll be talking about in the rest of this guide since this is what it will all revolve around.
Patterns: longer strings of notes (up to around 12 notes long usually) which utilize the base spacing for the difficulty. (spacing = time between each note)
Interjections: shorter patterns (2 to 5 notes) which utilize half the base spacing for the difficulty and are often used inside patterns where the music is more intense and to spice things up.
Breaks: rest moments of double the base spacing of the difficulty, which divide the individual patterns and give the player a chance to recover and prepare for the next notes.
A good lower difficulty will usually look like this: Clearly distinguishable patterns divided by breaks and using interjections during the more intense sections of the music. If the map is just one long string of notes of the base spacing without utilizing breaks it will not only become strenuous to the player, but also very monotonous since there is no variation to the rythm. If there are no interjections used at all, the rythm will also become relatively monotonous and there will also be nothing to prepare the player for the base spacing of the next difficulty to ensure good spread.
Another brief thing that goes in general for all difficulties but is also very important when mapping lower difficulties is as follows: Calmer parts of the music shouldn't be mapped with density as the more intense parts. This ensures that there is contrast between the different sections of the music. Exceptionally calm parts can even increase the base spacing between the notes for extra contrast (i.e. 1/1 becomes 2/1).
Now let's take a look at the base structure that all lower difficulties utilize:
To put it simply, lower difficulties are usually clearly divided into patterns, interjections and breaks. Let's briefly define what i mean by these terms, so that you understand what i'll be talking about in the rest of this guide since this is what it will all revolve around.
Patterns: longer strings of notes (up to around 12 notes long usually) which utilize the base spacing for the difficulty. (spacing = time between each note)
Interjections: shorter patterns (2 to 5 notes) which utilize half the base spacing for the difficulty and are often used inside patterns where the music is more intense and to spice things up.
Breaks: rest moments of double the base spacing of the difficulty, which divide the individual patterns and give the player a chance to recover and prepare for the next notes.
A good lower difficulty will usually look like this: Clearly distinguishable patterns divided by breaks and using interjections during the more intense sections of the music. If the map is just one long string of notes of the base spacing without utilizing breaks it will not only become strenuous to the player, but also very monotonous since there is no variation to the rythm. If there are no interjections used at all, the rythm will also become relatively monotonous and there will also be nothing to prepare the player for the base spacing of the next difficulty to ensure good spread.
Another brief thing that goes in general for all difficulties but is also very important when mapping lower difficulties is as follows: Calmer parts of the music shouldn't be mapped with density as the more intense parts. This ensures that there is contrast between the different sections of the music. Exceptionally calm parts can even increase the base spacing between the notes for extra contrast (i.e. 1/1 becomes 2/1).
Difficulty Specific
In this section I will be outlining the specifics for each difficulty concerning the things I just described in the general section.I will start by giving the spacings for patterns, breaks and interjections and then go a bit into specifics when comparing to one of my own mapset (map link).
Kantan
The base spacing for the Kantan difficulty will usually be 2/1, which results in the following:
Patterns: string of 2/1 notes (usually not longer than 12 notes)
Interjections: 2-5 1/1 notes that fit into the patterns (using a 5plet here isn't really reccomended unless it is a very intense part of the song)
Breaks: 4/1 spacing between 2 patterns to ensure rest time and non-monotonous rythm
Note that sliders can also be used to emphasize longer strong 1/4 sounds or drumrolls. Spinners can be used for whooshing sounds or parts where there aren't any clear beats to map to. Both of these shouldn't be treated as breaks though
Things you should not do: - use more than 5 1/1 notes in a row
- use 1/2 or lower spacing between notes
Things you should avoid doing: - making patterns longer than 12 notes
- continuously utilizing the same rythm
- using notes on red ticks
I will briefly explain how I myself utilized these spacings in the mapset i linked above:
00:19:440 - from the start here you'll see how i use a spinner to ease into the map and afterwards start off very slowly, only placing a few notes. This is because this section isn't nearly as intense as the later part of the song and it's purpose focuses more around buildup.
00:44:267 - here you'll notice how i use no notes at all for a while, since this part gets even less intense and mapping even more sparsely wouldn't make any sense, so i give the players some time to rest and prepare for the rest of the map.
00:55:302 - after using a spinner to ease in to the map again i'm using a relatively consistent 4/1 rythm for buildup here, since this still isn't one of the intense parts of the song. You'll notice me use a triplet at 01:00:819 - where the drums get more intense and some even more dense spacing at 01:03:578 - . Then there's the slider at 01:04:957 (11) - to emphasize the more intense 1/4 drums.
01:10:474 - from here on you'll see me use a lot of o ooo patterns, to emphasize the piano sounds in the music, but i'm sticking to the white ticks to avoid uncomfortable rythm for beginners. When this part of the section reaches it's climax at 01:14:612 - i make the pattern slightly longer.
01:18:405 - starting from here i add one note before each pattern, making the breaks slightly smaller, which is acceptable because of the short length of the patterns here. This serves to further build up as the song progresses and not follow the same rythm for too long.
01:25:647 - here i make a longer pattern again as this part of the section reaches it's climax again and transitions into the next section.
01:29:785 - in the kiai you'll notice me using longer patterns with more interjections used inbetween since the music is a lot more intense here. As the music gets more intense at 01:39:440 - i use a very long pattern to build up toward the end of the kiai and even use a 1/1 5plet at 01:49:095 - to transition into the next kiai.
The next kiai is pretty similar to the last one, so there's not much to say except how i use a 5plet again at 02:11:164 - to end the kiai and the map.
One other thing to note throughout the map is how i don't use the same pattern twice in a row for variation purpose, you'll notice this when you look at the individual sections again. If you look at the patterns on a bigger scale though you'll realize how i would often repeat the same sequence of patterns.
For example when looking at the 1/1 triplets i used in the section at 01:06:336 - , they would be the same sequence as i used from 01:17:371 - (kdd > kkd > ddd)
This should give you a round overview of what concepts are important for a Kantan and an example of how to implement them in a map.
Patterns: string of 2/1 notes (usually not longer than 12 notes)
Interjections: 2-5 1/1 notes that fit into the patterns (using a 5plet here isn't really reccomended unless it is a very intense part of the song)
Breaks: 4/1 spacing between 2 patterns to ensure rest time and non-monotonous rythm
Note that sliders can also be used to emphasize longer strong 1/4 sounds or drumrolls. Spinners can be used for whooshing sounds or parts where there aren't any clear beats to map to. Both of these shouldn't be treated as breaks though
Things you should not do: - use more than 5 1/1 notes in a row
- use 1/2 or lower spacing between notes
Things you should avoid doing: - making patterns longer than 12 notes
- continuously utilizing the same rythm
- using notes on red ticks
I will briefly explain how I myself utilized these spacings in the mapset i linked above:
00:19:440 - from the start here you'll see how i use a spinner to ease into the map and afterwards start off very slowly, only placing a few notes. This is because this section isn't nearly as intense as the later part of the song and it's purpose focuses more around buildup.
00:44:267 - here you'll notice how i use no notes at all for a while, since this part gets even less intense and mapping even more sparsely wouldn't make any sense, so i give the players some time to rest and prepare for the rest of the map.
00:55:302 - after using a spinner to ease in to the map again i'm using a relatively consistent 4/1 rythm for buildup here, since this still isn't one of the intense parts of the song. You'll notice me use a triplet at 01:00:819 - where the drums get more intense and some even more dense spacing at 01:03:578 - . Then there's the slider at 01:04:957 (11) - to emphasize the more intense 1/4 drums.
01:10:474 - from here on you'll see me use a lot of o ooo patterns, to emphasize the piano sounds in the music, but i'm sticking to the white ticks to avoid uncomfortable rythm for beginners. When this part of the section reaches it's climax at 01:14:612 - i make the pattern slightly longer.
01:18:405 - starting from here i add one note before each pattern, making the breaks slightly smaller, which is acceptable because of the short length of the patterns here. This serves to further build up as the song progresses and not follow the same rythm for too long.
01:25:647 - here i make a longer pattern again as this part of the section reaches it's climax again and transitions into the next section.
01:29:785 - in the kiai you'll notice me using longer patterns with more interjections used inbetween since the music is a lot more intense here. As the music gets more intense at 01:39:440 - i use a very long pattern to build up toward the end of the kiai and even use a 1/1 5plet at 01:49:095 - to transition into the next kiai.
The next kiai is pretty similar to the last one, so there's not much to say except how i use a 5plet again at 02:11:164 - to end the kiai and the map.
One other thing to note throughout the map is how i don't use the same pattern twice in a row for variation purpose, you'll notice this when you look at the individual sections again. If you look at the patterns on a bigger scale though you'll realize how i would often repeat the same sequence of patterns.
For example when looking at the 1/1 triplets i used in the section at 01:06:336 - , they would be the same sequence as i used from 01:17:371 - (kdd > kkd > ddd)
This should give you a round overview of what concepts are important for a Kantan and an example of how to implement them in a map.