Pl511

Thanks for telling me about that pop. I didn't hear that in the few times I listened to it, so it's great to know that. Thanks for all the advice! I really appreciate it. I'll see what I can do about the last section. On the subject of trills and grace notes, would that be in the main melody line? The introduction of an improvised line could be a nice touch, actually, although improvisation isn't exactly my strong point.

Have any of you guys started making any of these tracks, or are you going to wait until more people decide to chip in?

Final version before submitting - ever! Unless a judge or mod points out anything too obvious. Version 4.0! Updates are basically HUGE amounts of humanisation, I fixed every single audio, distortion, bad mixing, and cracking issue I could hear, the amazing soundfont Pianissimo (in the trial version) is being used, and I redid several sections' parts as well. I also moved it down a single semitone to avoid issues with Pianissimo (let's just say it has problems with high 'B' notes...). If this isn't enough, at this point I really don't care. XD This - in my opinion - is the best quality I'm ever going to get. Thoughts before I submit?

At the moment I'm using no compressors and no equalisers. I am using Acoustica Reverb on the 'Room (Medium)' setting, although that doesn't seem to make a difference whether I turn that on or off. I'm actually using the VST 'Piano One'. It's in the default Mixcraft VSTi loader (not sure if that's how I would say that, but essentially I'm accessing it through Mixcraft's VSTi Instruments folder after I placed the .vst file into the 3rd party VST folder in the Mixcraft application file). As for the RMS and peak volume, to be honest I have no idea how to check those in Mixcraft. The track is currently set at 1.7db under the default, 34% right. EDIT: I've actually chosen a different soundfont for this now - the trial version of Pianissimo. If this sounds pretty good, I could be preparing for a final version with this now.

Seriously, does anyone have any idea why the soundfont sounds so distorted? I'm thinking about submitting version 3.0 because 3.1 and 3.2 so so stupidly off-key.

Version 3.2. I'm starting to get bored of the soundfont as the initial awesomeness wears off. Does this actually sound any good? I fixed some of the crappy distortion in the melody, some of the distortion and crackling, and more humanisation on a few of the tracks. Seriously, is this soundfont any good? I consider this finished. I really can't tell if it sounds any good any more because of how many times I've heard it over and over.

Version 3.1! For some reason there's a lot of bad compression in the file and the soundfont possibly doesn't sound as good as it did in Mixcraft itself. I fixed up a load of stuff, added a new soundfont (Piano One - I think it's pretty good, although it probably sounds terrible to everybody else) and did yet more volume controlling and humanisation. EDIT: Wrong file uploaded! XD Sorry. I fixed that. Also, does anyone have any idea why the high notes at the beginning sound horrible without headphones?

Do you know where I can find any decent free piano samples? I've looked around the internet and most of the ones I'm finding sound pretty bad, to be honest.

Now THIS is a proper update. Version 3.0. Stuff added: +Humanisation and velocity changes for the melody and other pianos throughout the piece +Newly programmed reverb (there's a first time for everything, right? XD) +A couple of fixes for note patterns that didn't work so well +Volume change for base-chord piano If there's any distortion or crackling, if anybody could point out an area that would be great. EDIT: Distortion fixed, but the volume's slightly lowered so you might want to turn up the volume a little. Thoughts?

Holy shit. XD I just downloaded the demo and this thing is frikking awesome. Mixcraft 5 is just blown away by this. Humanisation, duration, offset, SO MANY OPTIONS THAT MIXCRAFT 5 NEEDED. This is an instant buy for me. Because I have AM5, I can get it for like a third of the price. I am happy today.

Thanks for the links! Out of all things, I actually use Mixcraft 5. I know I'm probably not the only one, but it's not the most popular of all the software I've seen used. I'm actually getting Mixcraft 6 tomorrow hopefully (I checked today and I apply for an upgrade coupon) and that has humanisation as one of the MIDI editor features. I should also be getting some lovely new soundfonts and perhaps a little more crisp sound quality. I watched the Logic video, and I can definitely say that that has helped a lot in the understanding of the concept of humanisation, so I'll try my best and report back with a version 2.2 in a couple of days. @chimpzilla: I do play in the parts using a pretty nice MIDI keyboard, but - mainly due to OCD issues - quantising is sort of necessary and I edit a lot of the final takes to equalise some of the notes which probably isn't the best idea considering what I've just learnt. XD Still, with the huge amount of recordings involved in the makings of this remix, I think you can sort of tell why the velocities haven't been too great throughout the whole piece. Thankfully the solo part was something I could actually play and put some actual feeling into. TL;DR: Getting new version of Mixcraft soon; should be onto the humanisation and velocities issue soon; expect version 2.2 in a few days at most.

Well this was brilliant. At first, I was sort of hesitant because I don't normally like this kind of music, but after listening I can definitely say I really enjoyed this. Great job.

Thanks for the review! Sorry for the uploading a second version. The changes I made felt sort of needed to me so I'm sorry if that caused any problems when you were writing this. I'm glad you enjoyed it. When it comes to the velocities thing, do you - or anybody else - know any kind of tutorial for doing note velocities? I've tried and I really feel I can never get it right even when I record it with the playing style I want in mind. I really need to learn how to do that sort of thing to be honest. Thanks! I'm probably going to give this a bit more time before I submit it, actually. With the whole velocities thing. Do you know of any tutorials on that kind of thing?

Final version! Only a slight change with this, but that's all it needed. I'm submitting it tomorrow.

Wait, is everyone talking about v2.0, or v2.0 with added reverb? I'm confused... And a little worried.

If you guys would like me, I'm in. Just for the sake of saying it, I'd really like to do something for Pokémon Rumble Blast (or Super Pokémon Rumble or whatever you call it). I specialise (or at least am solely good at) making piano remixes. I've done a Pokémon Mystery Dungeon mix in the past too. That said, I'm probably not up to the standard of some of you guys (I've never actually had an OCReMix accepted) but I think this could be fun. Is this still going ahead, by the way?

Thanks, dude! Do you have any final suggestions or criticisms? I'm literally going to go over it in the next few hours and look for anything final before I submit. I'm nervous...

Is this the kind of thing you mean? I added quite a lot more.

Thanks! I know there's quite a lot of repetition, but that sort of carried over from the original (despite my best efforts). That said, I sort of had my work cut out for me when I chose to have 5 pianos. It exhausts most ideas sort of quickly (hence the solo piano part in the middle of the piece). Also, I'd just like to say thank you for the feedback you've been giving since I posted this. It's been really helpful and I think that the remix is a lot better as a result.

Here's version 2.0! This is the finished version of the song. Everything is done, everything is fixed and the final product has finally been reached. Any changes from here will be minor ones made before I submit it to the actual judging process. I'm also going to change this to Mod Review to hopefully get some sort of idea if this might be good enough for actual submission.

Here's version 1.2: I basically cleared everything up here. I still might add a bit more interpretation nearer the end, but at the moment this appears to be close to being finished. Any suggestions would be appreciated! This should be the penultimate version before I actually submit it.

I've decided to halve the length of the phrase after it and make it just a single two-bar pause with the normal bar length.

@HoboKa: A piano quintet actually involves only a single piano, with two violins, a viola and a cello. That's what I like about the style I went for with this - it's not a very used way of making a piece, so I can actually make a unique version of a song. In the sections coming later in future updates I'll also be adding quite a bit more personal interpretation. @Cheersm8: Glad you liked it! The final product should be (hopefully) coming fairly soon - possibly in the next week. @Kuolema: I really like the new section as well! It's a nice little break from the previous section, and helps to break the whole thing up a little. As with adding a pause (which now I come to think of is probably necessary), how long would the pause be? I'm thinking 1 or 2 bars, but it either seems far too long or slightly too short. As with the left hand, that may be a good idea because at the moment it sounds a little too simple (even with the expansion that happens in the later bars). Thanks for the useful feedback! I'll probably also do what you've just said now for the ending with an extended version of the 2:30 part to slowly wind down and then end with a sudden acceleration into a final chord - or if that doesn't work I'll just finish it with a quiet solo repeat of the main melody with a lot of deceleration as it approaches the end. @chimpazilla: Thanks! As for the velocity variation, how do I make it more convincing? I played each of the parts in realtime with a bit of quantisation, so I really don't know which route to take on doing that kind of thing. Do I emphasize each high note, each starting note, or go along different lines? I'm really at a loss with this sort of thing because I'm fairly new to adjusting velocities at all (most of my work before I got a MIDI keyboard used the same velocity throughout). With the dropping of some of the faster notes, I can see where this idea is coming from, but - and this may just be me - I feel that it adds urgency and helps to contrast to the middle section where the piece goes quite a lot slower. Next version will likely be up tomorrow.

So here's version 1.1. I'm still working on a section after the first 'repeat', so it's not finished yet. I've also added a solo piano section in between the two main repeats, and I'm not so sure whether it really works properly or not.