In Survival Mode, every song is played on the Master difficulty. There are no health pickups, no stops (you can't quit out and come back later, must be done in one run), and 18 songs to play. IIRC, there's 24 songs so that means you'll get away with only having to play 3/4 of the setlist. And did I mention that the longer you play, the more damage the enemies do? Near song 15, they start doing 10% damage per hit.
This is the hardest achievement in the game. The only way to really make it any easier, is to keep restarting if you get an easy song at the beginning (any of the enV songs, Scum of the Earth, and a few others) until you get a harder song (like the 2 Voician songs) at the beginning. Each song will only show up in the setlist once, unless you get to the end in which case it will then loop.
Most songs, especially towards the end, you'll have to play perfectly and not get hit at all.
*On a side note, every 5th song gives you unlimited Chi. Doesn't do much at all to help, but it's there so you can score huge amounts of points.
Some general tips:
On Master difficulty, enemies lose the white glow that signifies when they're next. In order to combat this, keep track of the button icons on the floor and which order they appear, as that will give you the order in which you're supposed to press the buttons.
If you don't care about score, don't worry about getting the powerups. They can lead you to mess up, and the only thing you lose for not getting them is your combo being set back to zero. You will want to go for the shield and destroy powerups though, as those can help a ton during the fast parts of the harder songs. Also don't worry about holding the buttons in for the yellow guys with the trail.
Save your powerups for when you need them.
If you spot a red guy, there will always be at least one more of them. Make sure you spot all of them so you know which buttons to press. The red guys never have an open spot between them, as they are always right next to another red guy.
Use the D-Pad when hitting the red guys. Sometimes you'll press the wrong buttons along with the right buttons when only using the buttons, so using the D-Pad will help with that. I use
along with
and
.
If you do want to go for score, use the D-Pad to hit the powerups. That way, you can use the buttons for the first hit, D-Pad for the second, and have extra time to get your fingers ready again for the next guy.