mod time. (top difficulty)
my main point:
your layering crams up the room that you have to use pitch-related concepts. you express these in parts of the map, which leads me to believe that you want to apply the concepts to all of the map for consistency. but the only way to make it work is to reduce your layering. you may be reluctant to do it, but hear me out, you will see the difference almost immediately if you just try it out first.remove all SVs. they do not do your chart any good.
00:05:252 - should be distinguished from 00:06:141 - , 00:07:030 - , etc. because cymbal crash. you have a lot of options for this (which is nice) so im gonna lay out the pros and cons of each one.
1. make the cymbal 4 notes.
pros: it's really easy to add more notes!!! makes the cymbals more Exciting. also increases your object count, so somewhere along the line the SR will probably increase another 0.01* which might be important to you idk
cons: you have to make all the other cymbals 4 notes.
2. keep the layering, but make a stack between 00:05:252 - and 00:05:363 -
pros: easy emphasis on cymbal, keeps the same layering and as such the same object count. no need to add or subtract notes.
cons: you need to remove all other triple to single stacks that dont have cymbals. for example, 00:09:696 - and that will ruin your pitch relevance scheme.
3. keep the cymbal 3 notes, and change all the other triples in that section to doubles.
pros: this allows to player to understand the musical relevance of the map, as all of the doubles in the beginning section have similar volume. allows for more room for emphasis later on!
cons: i cant think of anything. this option is probably the best one.
00:15:919 - why is this reverse for half of a measure? it should be the same as 00:08:807 - because the pitches of the instrument you are mapping with the LNs have the same intervals, there is no reason for you to have a reverse for half of the measure and the same for the second half
00:20:474 - based on your triples layering concept, this should be a triple.
i think something really cool you could do in this section, for the lower pitched drum sound, you can keep it as either [12] or [34], and then for the higher pitch, you could do [14].
00:24:807 - dunno why quiet string sounds get as much emphasis as bassy drum sound. there are practically no notes in that quiet bit, making it singles will only benefit the structural integrity of the map.
00:26:585 - and 00:26:919 - are not the same pitch, why are they both [34]?
00:27:141 - 00:27:474 - and 00:27:807 - ^
00:30:141 - and 00:30:474 - ^
00:30:030 (30030|3,30141|3) - the jack here is definitely a problem. you dont do this for any consecutive piano note that you emphasize. now i understand why you had to resort to that, and im here to explain why you dont have to.
this section can easily be represented with a double on every 4/1. there is a logical emphasis there and you dont have to map a double for every piano melody line and be forced to skip some doubles because it doesnt fit.
if you choose not to follow that, here are some notes that should be doubles (following the way you layered things here)
00:29:363 -
00:29:474 -
00:29:807 -
00:32:696 -
00:32:807 - long echoey sound here. might want to do something about that.
00:33:696 - too many big chords in this section representing too little.
there is a consistent piano left-hand line every 1/4. keep your drum layering as 2 - 3 - 2 - 3 (INCLUDING LNs, those are notes that count into layering too)
00:39:030 - dont really like how all of these sounds are represented by doubles. surely you can mix things up a little bit by making some of them singles?
00:48:141 - 00:48:252 - god these sounds are really quiet to all of the other sounds you map as doubles
00:48:363 -
https://osu.ppy.sh/ss/12508018 I've highlighted the notes put on piano snaps here. these are what the piano notes feel like. notice how the piano sound goes up flowingly, but the notes go from 1234 to 1212 because of the double that you mapped to a decently quiet drum.
pretty much this whole section can benefit from removing a lot of doubles. it would create less clashing and more room for accurate expression of the sounds with pitch and representation.
00:51:474 - again, you try to follow the pitch for the piano, but you barely have any room because there are only three keys you are using. use the fourth column. i know you are reluctant to ignore a soft string, but try it out, and see how well you can express the pitches of the piano, and let players notice instead of having to look through the editor for PR.
00:56:685 - why are you mapping triples to bass drums? your map could benefit so much from making them all doubles - for example, this could definitely be represented like [34]-3-2-1-[34][34][34][34] for pitch.
01:03:305 - a double would also remove the triple 1/6 snap jack at 01:03:167 (63167|3,63236|3,63305|3) - which is a tad uncomfortable.
01:02:892 - in fact, i dont even think any of these 6 sounds (except maybe the first one) deserves a double. maybe each can have a 1/6 LN, and you can show the pitch direction like that.
01:04:236 - this is REALLY quiet... consider changing to a single
01:07:857 - the song has a *bit* more going on than just the slowdown drum. try adding some emphasis to the background strings by making those the only doubles.
01:10:857 - these four sounds sound completely different, but they are all in the same splittrill. consider moving them around, because they are not similar in sound.
01:14:271 - this is fine, but it plays awkwardly. might want to see if you can rearrange if possible (not as important a point as the rest of this mod)
01:35:734 - this pattern is pretty hard compared to the rest of the chart (aside from the section immediately previous to it), because it has a couple of 1/3 jacks in between splittrills.
earlier in the map, you had just a trill with this layering. why the difficulty increase?
I will post for the second half when I actually feel awake. This is all I can do for one night