Incronaut Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 Just out of curiosity, if there was a new game that came out with an awesome track that you just HAVE to remix right away.. Without the MIDI to help you find what all the notes are, what are your guys' general process to starting a remix? and how do you find what notes to use? (or are you all THAT musically gifted to do it by ear? cause that would be amazing) I mean, logically, it would be to recreate the song in piano or something and work from there, but last I tried doing that, recreating the song alone took forever! Just wondering what the pros do! Thanks. Edit: Wow thread title was supposed to be ReMix Songs WITHOUT MIDI... Fail. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lazygecko Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 Transcribing by ear isn't such a superhuman feat you're making it sound like. Like everything else it takes practice, but not as much practice for becoming a good composer or producer or whatever. For remixing purposes you might not even need to get the whole song, just the essentials and you can substitute the rest with your own stuff. If you're having trouble picking out chords, try to imagine them as arpeggios first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquid wind Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 Harmonies are really hard for me but I don't even really try to transcribe melodies, I'll frequently be playing around on my keyboard and suddenly be playing something familiar without realizing it, I don't think it's that difficult For things that do take more work I'll usually just load the song in question into FL and try to play alongside it with a sine wave, it's pretty easy to tell when you have the right notes that way Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omni-Psyence Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 I try to transcribe everything I do by ear simply because it's just practice that's going to make you better and better at it each time. Investing in skills and abilities is never a bad move. Get to it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dannthr Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 Eat your vegetables! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darangen Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 Gecko's right, ear training can do wonders. Before I could hear and identify pitch pretty well, it was literally a trial and error method. I'd sit at the piano and literally start at C and play it, go "nope, that's not it", then move to the next note until I finally had it figured out. Took FOREVER. After a while though, with training, you start being able to say "Oh, yeah, that sounds like C minor" or something like that and it gets exponentially easier. It's like training your eyes to see colors, you look at red and it doesn't take long for your brain to say "Hey, that's red." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkeSword Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 Learning some very basic theory also helps in transcription. When you can listen to a song and understand it's in a major key, that immediately narrows note choices down, and harmony is easier to figure out because harmony is generally written diatonically. When you understand what intervals are and are able to identify them, it's easier to figure out a melody. You can go note by note pretty efficiently when you know your intervals. Same with rhythms; if you know about time signatures and understand how meter can be broken up and organized, it becomes easier to figure out syncopated lines. Unless you're absolutely tone-deaf, transcription by ear is a skill you can easily hone with practice and honestly, it's less about super-mega-talent and more about having the tools to be more efficient with your "guesses." I do everything by ear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean Of mArc Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 I would agree: transcribing by ear takes a lot of time and patience, but it's a skill that any good composer should develop. Doing some simple songs (with a lot of step-wise motion and straight-forward rhythms) first might help you feel more confident before taking on more complicated pieces. I always start off by transcribing the melody, and then the bassline, as those are the essence of most music melodically and harmonically. Then I try to fill it in, and there is some guess work involved at times. But even so, if you've got the melody and bassline, you've usually got something solid to work off of. If you're REALLY having trouble with a part, you can always ask someone else on OCR to help you out by providing what you have and pointing out what you can't just "hear". I'd be willing to help out if you need it, and I'm sure many others would too. My advice to you would be: don't rely on MIDIs or other people's transcriptions all the time. Try transcribing music, even if you take the "is this it? nope" approach that Darangen started with. It'll make a HUGE different in your compositions, because you'll become unconsciously more familiar with theory along the way. (I say unconsciously because you might not know WHY something works, but you'll just know that it does because you've heard it so many times). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rexy Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 Even for games in which MIDIs are really hard to find, I'd have a go at transcribing some key parts to use later, or to just learn to play it on the piano based on what I can hear and what techniques I am most comfortable with. Developing an ear for just writing music takes years to learn, and over time you will be able to identify notation in these songs that you might not have noticed without this training. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dannthr Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 Recently, I was watching an episode of Family Guy where Peter is a great piano player when he's wasted. And there's this moment where Stewie is like, "now play the sad walking away theme from The Hulk," and Peter plays this melancholy little piano thing, simple, but pretty. They used that gag for the ending credits of that episode as well, and when it finished, I went over to my keyboard, and hit a note, then another, and found the starting note, and then played the rest of the theme with only one mistake. I was pretty satisfied, even though it was simple, that I could just sit down and figure it out pretty quick. Ear training, it's awesomeness sneaks up on you. Kind of like working out, all of a sudden you can run the whole distance and you don't even break a sweat, and you're like, whoa, I didn't know I could do that. You couldn't suddenly do that, it's just something you didn't notice before, but you worked up to it without even realizing it. Eat your damned vegetables, they're good for you--lots of vitamins and iron and stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rozovian Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 With everyone else talking about ear training and that, lemme talk arrangement. Failing to transcribe everything correctly, or leaving stuff out can lead to more interesting remixes. Usually, listeners recognize the lead voice of a song before anything else, so the rest can be switched up. While it's nice to have everything in midi to pick and choose from, starting from just the melody and writing your own chords, your own rhythms, your own stuff to go with it typically leads to a more personalized remix. While ocr likes to have the source in there, nothing says you have to use the parts the same way as the original did. if allusions to the melody work better as a bassline while something along the lines of the source's bass might work better as a lead melody. Transcribe what you can and what you need. For all the good practice is, practice just ain't fun when you just wanna work on a mix. While I'm not saying you shouldn't practice (yes, it's helped me too), just focus on getting the melodies and rhythms you need, and use those. Over time, this'll be easier because it _is_ practice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darangen Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 Failing to transcribe everything correctly, or leaving stuff out can lead to more interesting remixes. I use this approach 99% of the time actually. I find it very effective at keeping the creativity flowing to allow a remix to retain it's originality while still letting itself be molded into your own emotions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoozer Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 Eat your vegetables! Do it, what you learn is going to stay valuable for everything you do in music from remixing to your own compositions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BONKERS Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 Without a MIDI?? ....I transcribe 99.99% of my music by ear. Either directly into a sequencer, to sheet music or on to an instrument. :< Learn to use your ear folks! It comes in so much more handy than just being able to transcribe music. It helps oodles with mixing and production on audio/music. But most importantly, how you arrange a song depends on the feeling/mood and style you are going for. Always though, ALWAYS keep the melody relatively conservative (not always during a song, just long enough for people to recognize what the song is) IMHO. Some amazing arrangements completely change everything but the melody and end up sounding totally unique. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gario Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 How do you find what notes to use? (or are you all THAT musically gifted to do it by ear? cause that would be amazing) Well, we don't like to boast... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SonicThHedgog Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 Well, we don't like to boast... hmm hmm It practice practice practice! theres alot of ways to practice arual tranning Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickomoo Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 I originally relied solely on midis, but now I use mp3s mostly. If I'm really desperate I'll slow down the file and play along with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoozer Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 That is not desperation, that's practice. First you have to be able to play it correctly - slower is not a problem. Key transpose is a bigger problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dannthr Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 While it's a really important exercise in ear training to attempt transcription. It is also a very important exercise in good arrangement and orchestration training to study written scores. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nabeel Ansari Posted March 22, 2012 Share Posted March 22, 2012 Not transcribing by ear and using a MIDI file will hinder your ability to properly interpret the note sequences. It will force you to start with the original and then you'll have to change it from there. Doing it by ear (especially after not having to listen to it for a long time) will make you transcribe it the way your brain wants you to. Changing the MIDI for interpretation is harder. This is all my experience, anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calum Posted March 22, 2012 Share Posted March 22, 2012 I used to put itunes on shuffle, sit at my keyboard and just attempt to play along constantly. When i had nothing to do i'd just do that and it really worked wonders. Mostly I would work out the chords but also you find that you kind of automatically get a feel for what the intervals of melodies are too. It wasn't a huge effort to sit at my keyboard and play along, it was fun but i did it so much that it really really helped me out with ear training. So i'd say DO THAT! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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