EarthBound piano

[Orion]

Not sure if there is an Earthbound piano arrangement album out there... or if there will be one. But in commemoration of Mother 2, I arranged Fourside for solo piano.

https://soundcloud.com/crystalkingdom/fourside

There is almost a calypso type of beat being outlined by the percussion in the original piece. I made an honest effort to import that vibe to the piano and likely failed completely.

If anyone is interested in a piano arrange album of mother series, please let me know. Might be a lot of fun!

[timaeus222]

I don't believe you actually play piano; this arrangement sounds mechanically sequenced, both in velocity and timing. I do hear the reverb though.

Edited June 6, 2013 by timaeus222
Test Edit

[Byproduct]

The velocities do seem somewhat odd to me too, and I don't even play the piano. (Not well anyway.)

I do like the melodies, though. I'd imagine enjoying this if it had some other instrument. In my opinion make solo arrangements only for those instruments that you play yourself, and go with synths otherwise. This is because there are expectations for a solo instrument's sound, and it sounds "wrong" to a lot of people if it's programmed to play in an "unnatural" way. Synths, on the other hand, have no such limits.

Then again, if you did actually record this on an actual keyboard, I'm obviously talking completely out of my ass and everyone should just ignore me.

Edited June 6, 2013 by Byproduct

[timaeus222]

In my opinion make solo arrangements only for those instruments that you play yourself, and go with synths otherwise. This is because there are expectations for a solo instrument's sound, and it sounds "wrong" to a lot of people if it's programmed to play in an "unnatural" way. Synths, on the other hand, have no such limits.

Then again, if you did actually record this on an actual keyboard, I'm obviously talking completely out of my ass and everyone should just ignore me.

In my opinion, that view seems narrow-minded. If you know how an instrument should sound, regardless of whether or not you play it, it's not wrong to use it. Sometimes, a person just has the intuition and the instrument really is that easy to think up. I've never played a duduk, nor do I know what it even looks like, but I know how I want it to sound, and I've written a short song that uses a duduk before that I rather like.

Synths do also have that phrasing aspect, not just organic instruments. A synth can definitely feel unnatural if its tone begs for expressiveness, like a waveshaped detuned saw wave or something non-generic, and it doesn't have to be a complex tone to warrant attention to detail.

Also, even if someone did record a piano song on their MIDI keyboard or even a real piano, if it sounds mechanical, it's either stiffly sequenced or stiffly played.

[Orion]

The problem is probably due to a lack of humanization. I step recorded a lot of what you're hearing with this piece. I haven't found a way to streamline the process of making each note sound like it's being played by a non-robot. I did change velocity of groups of notes sectionally but it ain't getting the job done. When I make an attempt to get it done, it sounds really messy to my ear. I think it's kind of a bad habit in my method to let it slide when in reality I haven't found a way to get it to work. It also might be b/c the dynamics for the piano patch I am using don't sound convincing at extremes on the velocity scale.

[timaeus222]

I step recorded a lot of what you're hearing with this piece. I haven't found a way to streamline the process of making each note sound like it's being played by a non-robot. I did change velocity of groups of notes sectionally but it ain't getting the job done. When I make an attempt to get it done, it sounds really messy to my ear.

...

It also might be b/c the dynamics for the piano patch I am using don't sound convincing at extremes on the velocity scale.

That's probably the issue. Step recording, if I'm understanding you correctly, would be defined as recording sections of a remix separately and stopping the recording in between good stopping points. It just so happens I've done that before, but it sounds reasonably realistic (except in some spots that I am actually aware of but don't really want to fix. Yeah, ignore the strings, I know they aren't realistic. ) because I play piano.

However, for a person who doesn't play piano, it might not sound as cohesive. In essence, you're playing a different take in every section, so it isn't as natural as you would hope. It would be like you had a different person play each section and then you combined it. Try to treat a combination of separate recording sessions as a cohesive whole. Make each section sound like it's connected to the others, instead of concentrating on getting it to sound right on its own. The most important thing in recording piano is the timing. If you play piano, you can probably figure out the velocities on your own time if you didn't really record velocities well in particular while recording the first time.

Edited June 7, 2013 by timaeus222