 envelope / onoken

from: the album "swell strings"

steps & editing: Xythar
graphics: Text by Xythar, source image from http://www.psdgraphics.com/backgrounds/soft-pink-background/ 

For: DDREvolved.com FunkyMix (Division B)


And here's the other song that I've been meaning to step for around the past 4 years or so. Although it turned out kinda difficult!

envelope is a R&B styled song from onoken's album "Swell Strings", with vocals by Meg. It's different to his usual style, but it's also really damn good and remains the standout track of the album for me. onoken rules.

This song has always felt "pink and white" to me in terms of "colour", hence the graphics. I'm glad I was able to find the source image I used fairly easily, because it's pretty much perfect.

Onto the steps. I'll go through all 5 charts in order because I have something (even if only a little bit) to say about each one.

BEGINNER - 1 foot, 44 combo
I'm pretty sure these are the easiest beginner steps I've ever done. I like making steps like these on occasion because a) it's really easy and b) DDR recently switched to a difficulty scale out of 20, and beginner steps that follow the old rules (one arrow every 2nd beat, etc) invariably end up at like 2-4 on it. Having that 1 rating there seems like a challenge to me! Konami occasionally does stuff like this too (though theirs tend to have more like ~60 steps in 1:30, not 44 in 2:10) so I guess there are people out there who appreciate them. Personally I'd just put a big sign on the machine that says "YOU DON'T HAVE TO MOVE YOUR FEET BACK INTO THE CENTRE AFTER EVERY ARROW"

LIGHT - 2 feet, 97 combo
Kind of a difficulty jump, sorry! It's a shame we don't have some kind of difficulty between beginner and light so we can ease them into having an arrow on every second beat before we launch straight into consecutive-beat arrows. Okay, so that was a little bit sarcastic. 2x the steps = 2x the rating, makes sense right? :P Nothing much else to say here, just quarter notes. Thanks to the syncopation of the song (more on that later) they don't really go to very much.

STANDARD - 4 feet, 209 combo
This is probably the chart to play if you have an aversion to yellow arrows, because it's all red and blue here. I tried to do what I could, but very few of these arrows actually go to anything in the song - it's pretty much 95% invented rhythms (you'll see why when we get to heavy). Funnily enough, I suspect a number of people might actually like that better. Well, those people, this chart is for you. The rhythms and placement are pretty good (I tried to avoid just going red, red, red-blue-red for the whole song) I think... just arbitrary.

HEAVY - 7 feet, 290 combo
So here's what happens when you try to actually follow the song. I wouldn't call this "yellow arrow syndrome" because that specifically refers to having all your downbeats fall on yellow arrows because you got the gap/offset wrong. That's not the case here, the song is just really really syncopated to the point where most of the melody manages to fall on a yellow arrow, hence the steps being like 90% yellow in some parts. If this bothers you, try turning off note :P But yeah, it was basically this or standard, and I think standard works better as standard. I considered putting in some more 16ths during the verse and such, but I decided I'd rather keep it (relatively) simple. Check out the freeze pattern at the end!

CHALLENGE - 11 feet, 810 combo
Low BPM 2... hard? This is not a joke chart okay :< Everything you see goes to something in the music (the background percussion, mostly). I don't expect this chart to be many people's cup of tea, but I hope those who can actually do this will appreciate it. I can clear it... on keyboard... using 6x... with a B. :P I've never tried writing a hard ITG style chart for a song this slow before, so I thought it would be an interesting challenge. It took ages, and I was a little hesitant about including it in the final release, but I trust that those who appreciate this kind of chart will also appreciate that it's there, and those who don't will understand that it's just an optional extra.

I think this file might just have the widest spread of difficulty ever. Something for everyone! :)

I guess I've said everything that I feel I need to. Enjoy the file, I hope!

--Xythar (gmmazz@hotmail.com)