I think that this is a little too restrictive as part of the perfectly timed rule. There are reasons to unsnap your notes, beyond having an improperly timed map. So really I think it would be highly advised that you avoid unsnapping notes at all costs, but mappers who need to unsnap their notes for advanced situations, like off vocals or measures mapped to 16th measures it should be allowed.

This would be a good example of a guideline for that reason. There are maps that can be perfectly timed on down measures and the music plays on beats like they should, but the vocals, or certain beats may be off by so many 16ths. If the beat plays better than the nearest tick available I don't see why it wouldn't be proper to unsnap the note to make it play the best.


[Guideline] Only experienced beatmappers should unsnap notes. Most cases of unsnapped notes are the result of mapper error, and every measure should be taken to ensure that the timing is correct and the only proper course of action is to unsnap a note. Keep in mind that notes on odd measures can be awkward to play and read and should only be used if absolutely necessary.

If we have it like this, we can take unsnapped notes on a case by case basis. I'm pointing this out because some sounds just cannot be mapped with the current ruleset, and I feel that unsnapping the note is the lesser of two evils. The other rule is "Uninherited Sections must be on the downbeat". So if you have an off note, I think it would be better to unsnap the note, than to add a red line just for that part, and then fix the metronome after and that's assuming that all of the maps would use that sound. We can't omit that red line from other diffs to maintain the metronome, so unsnapping the note is the lesser of that evil as well.

if the vocals are off, then you shouldn't be mapping them

This ties in with the bare basics of mapping - if there is anything unsnapped for the music, then the timing is wrong. If the vocals are off, that's just tough luck for the mapper. They can't unsnap any notes to follow the vocals. That's simply how it is and always will be.


A map must be accurately timed, by definition this means "all notes must follow the timing that comes from the music", not vocals. Situations such as strange metronomes (1/5 and 1/7 spring to mind) are ABSURDLY rare cases (to be blunt, they've never happened yet) and will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

oh really. So if I accurately follow the actual beat and the song sounds and plays unintuitive, because the proper beat is abstract, then that means that the way I mapped to the beat is more proper. The issue here is whether rhythms can exist outside of the musical beat that are playable. That is the issue here.

So really unless you can say that mapping to a vocal without a beat behind it in all cases is unplayable, this rule cannot apply to all cases. You're also assuming that all vocals follow the same rhythm as the beat. I'm also referring to personal cases where the beat and vocals are off by 10 ms. Would a more perfect transition be with the 10 ms change or the actual placement of the beat. This is just a minor case. a major case would put the note directly between a yellow tick and a white tick. There's enough space in between those notes in fairly low BPM maps to notice that a sound is off enough to mishit it, either early to the nearest tick, or later to the next tick. This seems to be especially true when there is also a gap in the beat before when this offbeat tone appears.

If this offtone note appears to be the start of a stanza and is early. Then the start of the next stanza after the gap would be awkward to find through the vocal, but not necessarily the same way if the vocal was mapped properly. Also there doesn't seem to be a completely perfect intuitive alternative to a case like this. There's still a gap in the beat and the player doesn't know when the beat starts back up.

If anything move the downbeat rule down to guidelines, because it disqualifies songs that can be perfectly mappable and rankable for purely cosmetic reasons. The timing should be where the sounds are, not where the stanza starts, especially when the vocalist is not looking at a stanza which can be the case for certain foreign languages. Not all songs come from Japan, China, America, and Spanish based dialects. There are harsher languages that are more or less harder to time/map, because their syllables appear in different parts than other languages.

An absolutely overwhelming percentage of maps that have been and likely ever will be mapped will follow at least somewhat modern factors in musical theory and timing.


Exceptions should NEVER make the rule. There's a reason they're called EXCEPTIONS. Nearly all of the rules can be hand-waved with enough of a reason to - these reasons are to be discussed on CASE BY CASE basis, not inanely thought up and over-considered as if they were a daily fact of life.

You're making mountains over molehills and using downright silly amounts of hyperbole to prove what is, at its core, a simple question that can be answered when it needs to be asked, not ranted about for hours.

Bah, I had this argument with Jarby about Obsession :<

From a gameplay point of view unsnapping notes is a terrible, terrible idea. The player doesn't know that the a vocal is just about to be sung incorrectly in order to cater to it, and when you hum a song in your head, those inaccuracies aren't there.

If a vocal is a fraction of a beat off, place the object where that vocal should be - Don't turn an awkward error on the vocalist's part into an awkward error in your map.

TheVileOne, you try too hard, it's probably a good idea if you stop posting in this subforum completely

If the vocals are off, and the instruments are random, and the beat changes all the time, then the song's pretty much unmappable.

The problem about manual snapping notes is that you can't be totally sure that the unsnapped note is really there : it usually can means you should use a 1/3 or 1/6 beat division (or a 1/2 or 1/4 or 1/8 if you're arleady using it) or that the song was badly adapted or even that the song does follow a more complex composite division to be mapped...

If the drums aren't following a good timing... well.... say the drummer to change work, as he usually should keep the tempo much better than a normal Guitarist, Bassist or so.

Manual snapping is never a good idea. What is a good idea is approximating the rhythm of the vocals, if there's an implied rhythm that would be readable. Otherwise, just don't map the vocals and concentrate on what's behind them. That, or don't map unsuitable songs.

RandomJibberish wrote:

If a vocal is a fraction of a beat off, place the object where that vocal should be - Don't turn an awkward error on the vocalist's part into an awkward error in your map.

This is all that needs to be said.