I have a friend who has convinced me to get into Osu, and the first thing I noticed when I got here is that most of the beatmaps have music that I simply don't enjoy. My first idea was to start on my own tracks, but I ran into the problem of me not knowing anything at all about the game. I decided that playing some beatmaps would be helpful in teaching me more about the game. Didn't really help.
Here's the songs that I'm working on:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lc6QXY_E8XE
London Calling by The Clash (I'm seriously surprised nobody's done this yet)

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5Zqaf52kcA
U.R.A. Fever by The Kills

Tips would be appreciated.

Haven't done any work on the beatmaps themselves, I'm not sure whether or not to post them here. Would it help?

Hards are typically the easiest to map, so we'll start with those. I recommend the following settings to start off with:

HP Drain: 6 or so
Circle Size: 4
Approach Rate: 7 or 8
OD: Same as AR

Slider Velocity: 1.6 or higher
Distance Snap multiplier: 1.0x+

Then, PM me the mp3 you're using and I'll make sure you have the correct timing. Actually, you're going to want to map the latter song first because it'll be much, much easier to time than London Calling. London Calling is a really old song and, as such, probably doesn't have a constant BPM and will be a pain to time correctly. And, well, if your timing isn't correct then your map is going to suck by default - that's also probably one of the big reasons nobody has mapped London Calling yet.

You see, setting up correctly is half the battle. Oh, and make sure Distance Snap is on for now. You'll want to go back and add jumps later, but for now you just want to make sure you won't have to spend half a year just on "OMG UR SPACING SUX" mods.

As for the actual mapping... By god you chose some ridiculously hard songs to map (relatively speaking, of course) for your first map. Hmm... Easiest way to do this will first be to listen to the song in the Editor and click to the rhythm - doing so will place hit circles according to the rhythm; while their spacing will be unplayable, you just want to get the rhythm down for now. Then, once you have that rhythm established, go back and remap, section by section, to the rhythm you have created. The end result will be a map with good rhythm that isn't boring and that has good spacing and flow.

This is basically what ztrot does IIRC, and is really the best way to go about mapping these songs.

Ekaru wrote:

Hards are typically the easiest to map, so we'll start with those. I recommend the following settings to start off with:

HP Drain: 6 or so
Circle Size: 4
Approach Rate: 7 or 8
OD: Same as AR

Slider Velocity: 1.6 or higher
Distance Snap multiplier: 1.0x+

Then, PM me the mp3 you're using and I'll make sure you have the correct timing. Actually, you're going to want to map the latter song first because it'll be much, much easier to time than London Calling. London Calling is a really old song and, as such, probably doesn't have a constant BPM and will be a pain to time correctly. And, well, if your timing isn't correct then your map is going to suck by default - that's also probably one of the big reasons nobody has mapped London Calling yet.

You see, setting up correctly is half the battle. Oh, and make sure Distance Snap is on for now. You'll want to go back and add jumps later, but for now you just want to make sure you won't have to spend half a year just on "OMG UR SPACING SUX" mods.

As for the actual mapping... By god you chose some ridiculously hard songs to map (relatively speaking, of course) for your first map. Hmm... Easiest way to do this will first be to listen to the song in the Editor and click to the rhythm - doing so will place hit circles according to the rhythm; while their spacing will be unplayable, you just want to get the rhythm down for now. Then, once you have that rhythm established, go back and remap, section by section, to the rhythm you have created. The end result will be a map with good rhythm that isn't boring and that has good spacing and flow.

This is basically what ztrot does IIRC, and is really the best way to go about mapping these songs.

Been working on U.R.A. Fever, just doing easy to start me off, I don't know if I've got the gist of it thus far, what do you think?
http://osu.ppy.sh/forum/t/89223

I have also scrapped London Calling for a later occasion in favor of these two songs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpSHC1dqX1o
The Protomen - Light up the Night


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awrkDRh25Bs
Reverend and the Makers - Depth Charge

For the record, I need both of these songs's BPMs checked, I'm having a much harder time finding the beat to these.

I think I have found the beat to the two aforementioned songs, but that's all I've really figured out past making easy songs. How would I go about effectively making a song that manages to be both challenging, and in tune with the song?

Honestly when I first started playing, I felt exactly the same way. I still feel like the song selection is meager unless you speak Japanese or really really like their music. When I get a new computer, I plan to do a lot of mapping.
Either way, you should still just play maps even if you don't favor the music. Find maps that have high user rating.

Sooner or later I'll get around to it, but my first priority is bringing some excellent songs to the world of Osu. Mind you, I actually can't stand J-pop or K-pop, and Anime music I have negative tendencies towards because it's anime-related. Not that I dislike anime, I just find the music thereof either annoying or generic.

I intend on doing tons of songs once I get better at this.

/days late

BPM is 80. Offset is around 12130. Not the exact offset, but close enough.