Hyde - Shallow Sleep

This is my 4th and most recent (finished) DTX. I like this song. It's fun to play. It includes both the English and Japanese versions of the song, as Hyde released the album in both languages. This would be a good time to remind you to tap the hi-hat twice to change diffculties, and in this case, languages. I wonder if that's a first?

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=L3FXQVOK
http://rapidshare.com/files/180868974/shallowsleep.zip
http://www.billkwando.com/sim/shallowsleep.zip

I hope to work on some of Hyde's drummier stuff soon. Sweet Vanilla or Dolly would be great.

Note: Comments are now open to everyone, and do not require a Google account. Didn't notice till now.

R.E.M. - Imitation of Life

*UPDATE* Fixed the crashes (removed the hihats sharing the same line as a crash). Also removed the Adv version because it was stupid & harder than the real version. New links below.

This is a song from my favorite band, R.E.M. I rationalize that by saying Joe Satriani does not count as a band per se. Thus, he is my favorite solo performer. Welcome to my mind.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=K0L8LLSN
http://rapidshare.com/files/181436854/REM_-_Imitation_of_Life_corrected_.zip
http://www.billkwando.com/sim/REM_-_Imitation_of_Life_corrected_.zip

Anyway, this is a great song with a great video. It wouldn't have been my very first choice for an R.E.M. song (Life and How to Live It, anyone?), but since I'm still mostly working off of midis at this point, I takes what I can gets.

This one took about 5 minutes, not counting tweaking and perfecting. That almost makes up for all the unfinished ones I've spent hours on. Almost.

As I mentioned on the YouTube page, it has an Advanced & Extreme (Real) version. Somehow, the Advanced version is trickier. File under "hard".

On another note: I'm all for taking requests. There's no guarantee I will be able to do your song, but if I like it at least it little, and I can find a midi with drums, I can try. Bonus points for you if you provide the midi.

Joe Satriani - Memories

No, not the one from Cats.

This is my 3rd DTX. I've liked this song for about 20 years. No, really.

*UPDATED* I fixed the crashes. There were some missing, one that was mistakenly a ride, and some on the same line as the hihats, and one missing snare. There were some unnecessary hihats as well. All this has been corrected. New link below.


http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HXJX561F

http://rapidshare.com/files/181466232/Memories_corrected_.zip

This one came out really well. It was converted from a midi, but I carefully went through and tried to add all the original accents and fills (as close as I could, anyway). The midi actually cut off during the quiet "bloop bloop bloop bloooop" part, and I had to construct the rest of the song up to the fadeout. At least that kept me from being lazy & gave me the extra incentive to try to replicate the intricate hi-hat stuff at the end.

It's hard to play, but it's something to aspire to (for me anyway). I've included by high scores. Feel free to tell me in the comments how you smoked my score. I won't hold it against you.

It's a great song with an interesting beat. If you don't like it, you have a black, bitter heart made of chicken liver.

George Washington (my 1st simfile)

Suggestion: Don't watch this video if you don't already know the song. Download the simfile and be surprised instead. :p

This was my introduction to making DTXs. I placed the inital beat by hand, then copied and pasted as the loop got longer and longer. The sync kept getting messed up so I had to do a lot of adjusting.

I originally wanted to add a 2nd difficulty ("New & Improved, Now with hi hats!"), but the file is so messed up there's no way to work with it. I plan to revisit it some time, but for now, it will just serve as a future reminder of how bad I sucked when I first started.

That said, download the song, it's awesome (believe me yet?):
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8B3WUWGE

http://rapidshare.com/files/180868975/Washington.zip

I recommend sight reading it. See if you can pass it on your first try. Tell your friends.

It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time! (Ok, not really)

This is my first post. As a bit of introduction, I'm Billkwando. I recently started making DTX simfiles for DTXMania about 2 weeks ago (I think maybe 12/10/08), and wanted to post up some of my creations. This post is long, but hopefully it contains a lot of useful information.

A big "Thanks!" goes out to Warpig from the vdrums.com forums, as he taught me how to make DTXs through hieroglyphics and song (ok, actually with pictures and instructions).

As I'm still learning, suggestions and shortcuts are welcome. There are things I'm still getting the hang of, so my first few DTXs may not be perfect. I'm aware of this, so chances are minor mistakes or mistimings were simply beyond my control to fix. Hopefully there won't be many.

Anyways, enjoy, and let me know what you think.

Oh, and this is a shameless ripoff of Maoke Jackson's blog (and Haiyabusa). :p I figured my time was better spent making DTXs than trying to figure out a way to make a blog on a different site that looks different from his. At least we know blogspot already works. Expect Youtube videos soon. I'm mad original, yo.

Check him out, he makes a lot of nice DTXs. His blog is in Chinese, so you may want to use the translated version. He was also a huge help to me when I posted on the Bemanistyle forum, when I couldn't get my video to work. His video-making tutorial, translated from Chinese, was incredibly useful and got my videos up and running (cos virtualdub hates me).

Also, check out Haiyabusa. His stuff is awesome. His blog is in Chinese, so you may also want to use the translated version. I'm not gonna lie to you. This site is hard as hell to navigate, partly because it's so loaded down with graphics and autoplaying music that it take 5 or 10 seconds to load, giving the impression that there's no text on the page. There are 1 or 2 DTXs per blog page, and then you have to hit the next button. I've provided (what I believe to be) the full list of DTX links here, so you don't have to page through.

2 of my favorite DTXs are Haiyabusa's. L'arc~en~Ciel - Drink It Down (from the Devil May Cry 4 sountrack) and Real Voice by Ayaka. The 2nd, I stumbled upon, intrigued by the title. I'm not sure what it's supposed to mean, but it's surprisingly apt, considering that Ayaka doesn't sound like the typical J-pop we hear in the USA. Meaning, yes it's J-pop/rock, but she doesn't sound like an anime character or a little girl (see Whiteberry if you don't know what I mean). It's a catchy song, with good drums, and she is.....let's just say she has an encouraging demeanor.

My other favorite DTX is Zone - H・A・N・A・B・I ～君がいた夏～ by Meow. It's on GDAmania.net's (still functioning) files page. If it appears to be down, try it again in a couple minutes. It'll work. I also got GDA Creator Professional and smf2dtx there, both of which I use regularly.

I hope to make a tutorial (preferably a video tutorial) on how to get started making DTXs. I'm just trying to get a decent idea of what I'm doing first so that I can provide simple and concise instructions, plus any shortcuts or tips I can come up with to make the process easier.

Lastly, if you're interested in using Rock Band instruments for DTXMania, and/or want to reskin your lanes to match the Rock Band colors, please see my "Using Rock Band Instruments on DTXMania" page.