FunkyEntropy

Well, a couple hours later and I've added about 20 seconds to the arrangement. Thanks for the interest so far - I'd just like to note that you guys have motivated me to update my signature so I hopefully won't have to explain things every time. Duly noted about the frequencies too close together; the tuba part will probably go down the octave at some point.

So I've got a new arrangement in the works. This has been bounding around in my head for a couple weeks now and it finally reached the point where I just absolutely HAD to sit down and get to it (my work ethic seems to revolve around manic frustration, such that I mull over something for long periods of time until I can't stand it anymore and then crank out the arrangement in under a day). Latest version: Notes: Now finished with transition to the 2nd half of the piece. Block chords are fun, although I want to do something to something in the horn part 2:22 to 2:26, I'm just not sure what. Up next: instead of flute, I'll use flugel! Or rather, when the group plays it, it'll be flugel horn. Until then, you'll just have to imagine it. -------------------------------------- Earlier versions: Notes: Nearly finished with the first half of the piece. Opening, A theme, B theme, A' are pretty much done (note to self - go back and add slurs + more dynamics). Transition to the 2nd half is next. Hopefully I'll have more later today.

I've actually got a two-fold request. Since this is the thread wherein we request others to do remixes of tunes, I would love someone to do a hardcore metal remix of Level 4 from R-Type 3. I love the percussion and synth guitar sound that the source achieves, and I would love to see someone solo the absolute $#!^ out of this thing. So what's the second part? Well, I figured this was as good a place as any to ask if someone would be interested in collaborating on this specific source material. I did a straight transcription of the piece for my brass quintet and it kicks butt. The only problem is that, well, the source material is only 1 minute in length and while I can do a pretty solid job at orchestrating, writing new material is just not my thing. The fact that this is in a genre outside my normal area of expertize only exacerbates the problem. So, if you're interested in a collab, let me know. Peace out.

Our setup: Standard "U" shape brass quintet setup with, starting from the left (audience's perspective), horn, tbone, tuba, trumpet, trumpet. We had mics for each individual player plus twin condensers up in front of the group at an elevated (~7-8ft) position. The mics were new - our other trumpet, Mike, had picked up the full set on sale ($175 for $500 mics!) and we were giving the new toys a test run. I don't remember what kind they were, but I can ask if you want.

Actually, not done with this one yet. At some point we're going to re-record this in a better room so we can have proper atmosphere, stuff like that. But in the meantime, I really, really wanted to share this since Joe did such a great job.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Highwind Theme from Final Fantasy VII, arranged for brass quintet by one of our fantastic trumpet players, Joe Ferruzzo. l have nothing more to say than this: Enjoy.

New version in the OP. Scroll to the bottom of my post for the latest version. Sight-reading is fun!

New version is up in the OP. We're essentially sight-reading at this point, so expect some missed notes. But damn that first minute sounds gorgeous. Hooray for good voice leading!

If I did that then maybe the tuba part would keep better time. Kontact Player FTL.

Well, there's a fine line between direct transcription and adaption of parts, so I think that that's a legitimate concern. Now, in my defense, I did make alterations to the parts. Not in terms of going anywhere new - so no new chord progression or harmonies - but the individual parts required severe editing to fit the limitations of the genre. By "limitations of genre" I mean live brass quintet. One of the major limitations of live brass is chop fatigue, and at 5+ minutes of intensive playing I don't think my trumpets would survive any expanded themes. Anyway, I feel like I did enough editing to qualify as being an adaptation rather than a transcription. Once I put this in front of the group on Sunday I'll have a better estimate of how effective I was in simultaneously diverting from and adhering to the source material. [edit: @Rukunetsu - the reason it sounds so static is because the version you're listening to is just the basic sucky Kontact Player samples that come with Sibelius 3. Essentially, I just wanted to see if there were any compositional issues that need fixing before I printed out the parts and put them in front of the group.]

So in a moment of inspiration, I decided to finally take a look at the Staff Credits for Final Fantasy Tactics to see if it was doable for brass quintet. After the opening chorale went along brilliantly, I pretty much flew through the rest of it. And I have to say, wow. Can't wait to put this in front of the group. Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnzbXnLLfE8&fmt=18 Error-free midi mp3 link: http://www.mediafire.com/?qb9dfmtdlwgy5w1 Sight-reading session v0.9 Affectionately called "Hot Clam Sandwich" by one of our trumpets. ------------------ Latest version: Notes: Most of the changes are in the second and third sections, where I fiddled with the registers a bit. For example, 1:54 I have the trumpets down an octave from previous versions. This accomplishes two things - 1) when they jump the octave it creates some additional color and brightness, and 2) it's less taxing on their chops, which is always welcome. Earlier on I also changed the division of the parts so that trumpet 1 can switch to piccolo trumpet which makes the part at 1:30 (and, later, at 1:54) significantly easier. I think the parts are pretty much finalized at this point. We also had a sub for Lee, who's out of town. In addition to sightreading, he's also a lot less aggressive of a player so the part at 5:00 (POWERCHORDS!!! RAAAAAAH!) is a lot less badass then I'd hoped.

Something that I've been working on and off again since October and, in a fit of inspiration, made significant headway this past week. This is a medley of a large number of tunes from the Castlevania franchise, although it didn't start out that way. Originally this was just the Vampire Killer track from Harmony of Dissonance (which actually includes the clocktower tune as well) but it has expanded as I started tacking on other tracks because - let's face it - the Castlevania series has such great music that it's hard to stop once you get started. So here's what I've got so far. Some things have had more attention paid to them than others (it should be obvious to tell which ones). I haven't done all the transitions yet, so I'll just put them in the order they're supposed to go along with some comments. First is the HoD Vampire Killer arrangement (with Heart of Fire tacked on as well). This has been tested by live brass and it is very much playable (the hardest part is actually the introduction). I don't have a recording of the group playing it, so you'll have to suffer through the midi for now. This will transition to the Castlevania II Town theme, which is the one that needs the most work. The majority of the parts are too busy, or just plain unrealistic in expectations for the musicians. I really, really just want to cave in and ask Virt if I can adapt the parts from his string quartet arrangement of this. Following that will be Castlevania II - Monster Dance. I may have to do some work on the trumpet/tuba parts to tone down the difficulty level, but overall I am really happy with the rhythmic/percussive nature of the parts. This is definitely going to be put in front of the group at the next available opportunity to see how it pans out. Now, assuming I don't get inspired to tack on anything else (or someone makes a great suggestion), this medley will finish with Bloody Tears. I haven't started work on this yet, so no crappy midi for you to listen to. Thoughts/comments/concerns? --------------- New version of the HoD. I decided to cut of the first 5 bars of the piece, it probably won't be the only thing I'll cut (the bridge to the keychange in Vampire Killer's gonna get trimmed down to I think. The repetition is superfluous and inelegant.) Anyway, sight-reading FTW.

Well, I'm glad you guys took it the way I intended. Like I said, I don't think there's a need to rerecord at this point. Assuming you've got the time and the software, you should be able to go in and adjust the pitch of the offending notes. Just so we're clear - I wouldn't even bother mentioning this unless I felt like it was worth the time and effort necessary for you to do this. What you have is very, very good. The only think keeping this from being fantastic is the occasional intonation issue. Fix that, and then submit it. (You could probably get away with submitting it now - I do not have a high opinion of the level of live string playing found on some of the published remixes on this site - but hopefully pride in craft will compel you to tinker with it first.) @ Chris. My criticism of the intonation aside, I think you did a great job performance-wise. You really captured the light, playful style of the source material while giving it that personal flair that propels the piece to the next level. Any hey, what's a couple of missed notes here and there - that's what sound engineers are for!

Proto, Theo, you're both wrong. This is only classical in the sense that it is using classical instruments, and Romantic only in the way that the piece moves. Clearly, the correct label to apply to this piece is that it is "a piece of modern sensibilities and composition conceived in the Romantic style." This is good stuff. In particular I'm enjoying the Debussy-esque elements at 2:19+. I think you deserve substantial praise for how you develop the source material while insuring that it remains completely recognizable throughout. If I had to make one criticism of the piece, the violinist is missing too many notes. Not that he/she is playing wrong notes, but that they're the string equivalent to brass flubs. It's the right note, they just, well...they missed it. Case in point, 1:05-1:07. This probably sounds more harsh then I intend it to be, so just consider it as part of the ravings of a brass musician that's bitter that when a string player misses a note it's just out of tune instead of a splea, tarzan, or any of the other memorable ways brass players miss notes. The good news is that since you recorded this as separate tracks this is fixable assuming you're willing to put the time in to adjust pitch. No real need to go back and record things, I think. And as a completely unrelated aside - have you considered doing something for brass quintet?

I like what you've got going so far - it'll be very interesting to see where you take this. Your instrumentation is appropriate and effective (the percussion in particular is praiseworthy) but I do have a minor nitpick. In my opinion the cello/bass articulation is too strong. I think a softer, more rounded attack for the low strings would be a better match for the gentle nature of the piece; your excellent percussion work is more than capable of keeping the groove going by itself.

Progress report: met with a retired sound engineer to go over some of the finer points of the audio software we've been using (there have been...issues) and so now I'm actually able to figure out what takes I want to use. And now that that's done, I need to find another time when he's available so we can splice stuff together and do all the post-product (or whatever the technical jargon is) fancy-schmancy stuff. Stuff like what we've done here with the fanfare. Ahh, reverb. 'Tis a glorious thing. Add a touch of equalizing to both brighten and add depth to the sound, and voila. You'll have to crank up your speakers, because after having it explained to me compression is a bridge I refuse to cross because of how ruins dynamic contrast. The fanfare might not be the best example, but I work hard to get a good sound while playing pp. Compression ruins that, so I'm afraid you'll just have to crank up the speakers. Unless somebody here is willing to take a crack at it such that they can increase the dBs without affecting dynamics, this is the final version of the Hylian Fanfare. Anyway, I've got it in three versions, wav, aiff, and mp3. The mp3 The wav The aiff While I'm at it, I'm going to update the first post with these links as well.

Thanks for the help. Just so that we're all on the same page as to what I'm working with, here's a link to a zip with the individual mic tracks: http://www.mediafire.com/?qk9b7feie1a6w5c If memory serves, here's a list of what I did: - Trim some of the empty space at the start and end - Normalized mics 1, 3, and 4. This put the output just barely in the red, but I noticed only a negligible amount of clipping so I felt the volume increase was an acceptable trade off. - Export as .wav, which compressed the four tracks into a single monoaudio track. I'll have to try your suggestions when I get the chance, but I just wanted to say again: thanks for the assistance.

Thanks for the link. Speaking of production, how is the volume level? I'm worried that it's too soft, as I'm noticing I have to really crank up my speakers to get it where I want it. I'm not quite sure how to get it any higher productions-wise since when I pull the .wavs up in Audacity the output meters are already juuuuust outside the red. Normalizing it puts it past that so that there's some noticeable distortion. Suggestions?

So in answer to the question, "Is there more of this" - why yes. Yes there is. Currently the only version I have of us playing the whole suite is from an old recording we did about four months ago. It was taken using a single Zoom recorder/mic, in a room with less than stellar acoustics, and at the end of our rehearsal so chops were kinda meh at that point. Anyway, this is how the whole thing is supposed to go: Everyone still with me? Good. Thankfully, that is not the version that will be submitted to OCR. On Tuesday, the same night we recorded the fanfare, we also recorded a couple other pieces. Among them were - Gerudo Valley from OoT, Another Voyage from Chrono Cross, Hunters Chance from FF IX, and the Hylian Suite No.1. So right now we're in the production phase - I need to start going through all the takes and finding what I like, edit it all together, balance, etc. This is complicated by the fact that this was the first time we'd tried using the new recording setup (audio deck + 4 mics) and because we had to eliminate the audio feed for one of the mics at one point (some hiss/crackles) the track names are slightly out of sequence for each mic. Anyway, I felt like posting the fanfare as a stand-alone thing. Sure, it's short, but so what? I think it's worth submitting

NEW: Rather than update my original thread for the whole suite like I'd originally planned, I figured I'd just consolidate it into a single thread like I should have done in the first place. So, yeah. This is the whole thing. The first of three suites of music from a whole bunch of Zelda games. Still not completely happy with this version (some flubs here and there), but much better than previous versions. ------------------------- You can download the mp3 for the first Hylian Suite HERE [edit: just noticed that the reverb is causing the pitch to curl whenever there's break in the playing. I have no idea what's causing it, but hopefully I'll be able to get it fixed. In the meantime I'm leaving this up for anyone that wants to list to it anyway since the rest of it sounds fine.] ------------------------- Older stuff: The opening fanfare to the SNES classic, The Legend of Zelda - A Link to the Past, arranged for brass quintet. Probably the most epic 18 seconds I've ever had the pleasure of playing Low Db's for the frikkin' WIN. New version (now with REVERB) available in three formats: mp3 wav aiff See post #13 for more info. Enjoy. [edit] Many thanks to 0x000000FF for providing a link to the source. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn2W7ylZ8hY [/edit]

If I had to make one comment about this remix, it would be that the balance is a little top-heavy. There is too much emphasis on the upper register instruments - ie. flute, oboe, violin, trumpet, 1st/3rd horn. Throw in some bass clarinet or block chords in the trombones to keep things interesting. What you've got so far is great, but I think some additional depth would help.

What you're doing is very, very cool. However, taking it at this tempo is I think making your job unnecessarily difficult. Take it down a couple clicks and I think it'll sound less rushed and frantic. Kvetching aside, this is pretty boss.

Low strings at the start need some direction to the line to keep it interesting. Some small hairpins on a few of the sustained notes, and a tiny crescendo to build intensity towards the next note in the line. Don't overdo it. The f jabs in the strings (example - 1:08, 1:16) are not as good as they could be. Some things to try: making it slightly shorter, make it a fp, or instead put a bit of a crescendo near the end. 1:25 - Having the trumpet drop a bar sounds puts them at odds with the bass pattern. It's not bad, it just sounds...off. 2:05 - This is a great section. Minor request: make the low horns slightly more prominent. 2:37 - This would be a great place to add a heavy handed version of the quarter note line, played by trombones in the lower portion of their register. 3:25 - Bass drum is still too loud. Drum-set in general is a bit much from here to the end. Keep up the good work!

New version. I think I managed to salvage the 16th section into something that is not only playable, but also thematically effective. Woot. Since this is not the first time I've had difficulty using pdffactory, I decided to just make a TIFF graphic instead. This is what I've got right now for the 16th section: http://www.mediafire.com/?qj8rrdijrg8dtq5 So, now that the B section sounds significantly better than the A section, I think it's about time to start developing and expanding the first theme.

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, the samples suck. I still haven't figured out how to swap soundfonts for Sibelius 3 so I'm stuck using Kontact Player which, among its other numerous failings, uses the same sample for both tuba and trombone. Instrumentation for this is standard brass quintet (2 trumpets, horn, trombone, tuba). Hopefully I'll be finished adapting this piece in time for my groups next rehearsal so I can put up a better representation of the A section. The B section is going to require a lot of wood-shedding so in the interests of not embarrassing ourselves it probably won't be included. Your comments about the 16th section are particularly helpful. I can't see the trigger being of much use since most of the intervals are non-P4s/P5s, but if you see any let me know. Here's a PDF (http://www.mediafire.com/?z40vjqq2cdntlk8) of what that section looks like so hopefully that'll give you a better understanding of what's going on. I'm pretty sure the last two bars are unplayable for trombone, I'm just not sure how to break up that line without eliminating most of the downward momentum. In terms of interpretation, most of my effort is going into reaching for Webern levels of detail; everything is being broken up into fragments. Now that you've suggested it I might eventually try to throw in some inversion/retrograde shenanigans, but for better or worse my creative skills run towards orchestration rather than arrangement/composition.