West Shinjuku Cleaning Tune
By DJ Simon (all hail :p)
From Pop'n Music 5 (also on PnM Best Hits for PS2)

Stepfile by cmcm
Background and banner by MAXXasphyxiation

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Hey all. I know, it's been awhile since I've released anything. Don't worry though, I've been working on a few things that I just haven't uploaded, including this one here. First things first, I found the song on my copy of Pop'n Music Best Hits for PS2. I played it and just about failed laughing my ass off. I knew this song was too good not to DWI. Now, I know some of you are thinking that this song doesn't belong in DDR, that it couldn't make a good DWI. You're probably right. Try it anyways :) It's a blast.

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SONG
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This song is, in English, called "West Shinjuku Cleaning Tune." I have no idea how it is pronounced in Japanese (someone fill me in, I'm interested.) I had so much trouble finding the name of this song, considering that the only thing in English on Pop'n Music is the name of the genre (which in this case is "Percussive"). I was ignorant when I first played Pop'n Music and was kind of shocked to find out the name of this song was -not- Percussive :p

Finding the song itself was a bit of a toughie. WinMX, KaZaA, and other numerous file sharing programs brought up nothing. And this is -after- I found out the real name of the song. I broke down and connected my PS2's audio-out to my sound card's line-in. It recorded okay but the quality wasn't quite what I was looking for. Convinced I would not find any better quality, I marched onward with the production of this piece.

Later on I found out through a little Googling that BemaniStyle had this mp3 available for download (along with the bms for Feeling Pomu), so I quickly grabbed it. I tooled around with it in Acid Pro 4 for a little bit to accentuate which parts of the song I wanted to come through the most.

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STEPS
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A few things about the song: true to it's Pop'n Music counterpart, this has a bpm change. Obviously Pop'n does not support tempo freezes, but I added one because it provided a timing challenge for the player, not to mention it went quite well with the music. The thing I keep in mind when I make DWI's is that the steps should always go to the music. Mostly, at least.

Normally I don't make steps that are pad-friendly. Doing so proved quite a challenge, but I think it turned out very well. Extensive testing by myself on my home pad proved this. Yes, I have full-comboed it, so it -is- possible.

I always always -always- make heavy/challenge steps first when I step a song. As some of you know, most of the DWI's I make do not have standard or light steps. The reason for that is this: I make DWI's because I enjoy playing DWI as a challenge, and would like to play it to certain musics. I make DWI's for myself to play. Other people seem to like them, so I make them available for the public to download. Everyone's happy :p

Anyways, I started with heavy for this song. I wanted it to be relatively accurate to the song as well as match up with some of the notes in the Pop'n version, but at the same time be fun and playable on both pad and the keyboard. As hard as this is to do, I think I accomplished this goal quite well. A little from Column A, a little from B, and everyone is happy. For the heavy steps, it matches up to the song at about a 90% rating of "to-the-music" (where a step would correspond to a piece of the music). The part most people will complain about is the tempo change. If you aren't familiar with the Pop'n version of this song, or you haven't listened to it first, it will catch you off guard. Especially on a pad, the patterns during the tempo change are both easy and difficult at the same time. They follow a simple pattern, yet are just that tad faster than Paranoia Survivor. At least you get to face forward :) There is also a short combination of steps that, in a 16th-note run, are down-right then up ((3)8 in DWI language). Just remember Dynamite Rave heavy...I'm not a pioneer in the jump-16th area. For what it is, it's a simple jump-step, just to keep you on your toes (it went well with the song too). One of the parts I'm quite proud of is the ending, where you have to do an 8th-note run of jump-step's repeatedly. I arranged this so it's kind of like a jump-step gallop, in which you can keep your balance. To my knowledge the closest pattern I've seen to this is on Be Lovin, and in my opinion that pattern isn't as fun as this one.

Also, you don't know how difficult it is to program a DWI to slow down a freeze arrow, stop, and start again ON BEAT, ON A QUARTER NOTE. But I got it. Took forever though...

As for my standard and basic steps, which to me are secondary to a DWI (hell, IMO the background and banner are more important), I did take the time to make them a fun combination of steps that were slightly less challenging. I didn't just randomly mash the keypad. Throughout my stepping of this song I made sure to test the steps now and again to make sure they were pad-friendly as well as fun to dance/keymash to. Having not done many basic/trick difficulties for my DWI's, I was pleased with the outcome.

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GRAPHICS
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I suck at Photoshop. Period. Everyone knows this, and if you don't, you know now. Just look at the BG to my Spente le Stelle. It's a damn Winamp visualization, and a crappy one at that. So, as is the case for most of my stepfiles, I employed the help of one of my friends who are on better terms with Photoshop than I. I helped search the interweb for some graphics, and found the official Pop'n Music site (http://www.konami.co.jp/am/popn/) had some good images to use. My friend who made the BG/banner found some Pop'n Music fanart sites (don't know the URL's though) and incorporated some of those into the background. The quote on the background is by DJ Simon commenting on his own song. This can be found in Japanese on the official Pop'n Music site. Obviously, the quote on the BG has been Babelfished. The word "Percussive" on the banner is the genre of this song in Pop'n Music.

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SHOUT-OUTS
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BemaniStyle for providing the mp3
My close friend MAXXasphyxiation for so willingly making the background and banner
SonicFoundry for Acid Pro 4
Konami for making DDR and Pop'n Music
Whoever the fuck created Delight Delight Reduplication, and of course, Simwolf

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ABOUT ME (if you care)
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Name: Christopher Ratliff
Age: 19
Resident of: Mechanicsville, VA
Arcades: Fun 'n' Games @ Virginia Center Commons mall, Glen Allen, VA
Grew up: Putt-Putt on a 3rd Mix Korea2
Playing since: THE September 11th. Best day of my life.
Skill level: My most recent accomplishment was passing LoM Extra Stage. I have passed PSM oni on Final Stage.
DDR-simming since: DDRMAX was released
First DWI: Drop Out ~Death Mix~
Favorite game: IIDX. I guess it goes with the whole "love-to-keymash" nature.
For those of you who wonder how good I am, I can easily AA my own Manhattan Sports Club DWI (for those of you lucky enough to have it). I normally play it on 3x. Traditional arrows rock you.

My AIM: cmcm711
My e-mail: cmcm AT planetfortress DOT com
My Cell HAHA YEA RIGHT

Hope you enjoy this DWI. Lates, all. Hope to see ya at AMA.

P.S.
I don't use SM. It's not my cup of tea. Good program though. Also, I make all my steps in Notepad only.