Undertale - La Valse d'Papyrus

[NyxTheShield]

Just now, timaeus222 said:

Either way, the hand placement would be the same; you would just leave your middle and index fingers in place and move your thumb for the high note.

Hahaha yeah, I get that, but he was saying the chord repetition sounds MIDI because the volume was the same (Which, is the case because there is no chord repetition, I just hold the chords and repress the highest note)

[timaeus222]

52 minutes ago, NyxTheShield said:

EDIT: Updated almost the entire score, opinions? https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/93823550/Papyrus_5.mp3

Yeah, that sounds better, though still noticeably plunky. Do you think you could check an even more substantial exponential velocity response? So maybe "Convex 60%" or however it's called. Getting there!

[NyxTheShield]

27 minutes ago, timaeus222 said:

Yeah, that sounds better, though still noticeably plunky. Do you think you could check an even more substantial exponential velocity response? So maybe "Convex 60%" or however it's called. Getting there!

 

I will try to edit by hand, I kinda like the sound I got with the lower chords and I don't wanna mess with it hahaha  (I only have limtied options, Linear, Convex 25/50/100 and Concave 25/50/100) 

 

EDIT: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/93823550/Papyrus_6.mp3 Tried with another setting.

[Slimy]

Left hand sounds much better now, and the right hand is integrated with it better. I liked the tempo change at 0:11. Much better dynamics too. I didn't mention this before, but I like how you incorporated a bit of megalovania into this.

Concerning the right hand, although it sounds better, I think the "pluckiness" problem is happening because attack of the right hand notes sounds much louder than the sustain. Is this is because you've made most of the right hand notes very staccato, and it's just the reverb carrying the notes afterward? If so, I don't think having so many overly-staccato notes fits the overall style of the song, or the left hand.

Some minor things:

• The grace notes at 0:28 are a bit painful. I think it would sound better if the grace notes were quieter, or started soft, but led up to the velocity of the actual note.
• Are the right hand notes at 2:37 octaves? If so, I think the 2nd note should have a lower velocity and maybe have some imperfection, because the pianist would barely have to to play it before having to move their hand.
• I think the repeated right hand notes at 2:11 and 2:14 get overly loud. I think you could ease off the velocity after the first time of a repeated note in this case.

[NyxTheShield]

22 minutes ago, Slimy said:

Left hand sounds much better now, and the right hand is integrated with it better. I liked the tempo change at 0:11. Much better dynamics too. I didn't mention this before, but I like how you incorporated a bit of megalovania into this.

Concerning the right hand, although it sounds better, I think the "pluckiness" problem is happening because attack of the right hand notes sounds much louder than the sustain. Is this is because you've made most of the right hand notes very staccato, and it's just the reverb carrying the notes afterward? If so, I don't think having so many overly-staccato notes fits the overall style of the song, or the left hand.

Some minor things:

• The grace notes at 0:28 are a bit painful. I think it would sound better if the grace notes were quieter, or started soft, but led up to the velocity of the actual note.
• Are the right hand notes at 2:37 octaves? If so, I think the 2nd note should have a lower velocity and maybe have some imperfection, because the pianist would barely have to to play it before having to move their hand.
• I think the repeated right hand notes at 2:11 and 2:14 get overly loud. I think you could ease off the velocity after the first time of a repeated note in this case.

Agree with most of those suggestion, I think I fixed them all. I also changed some of the staccato in the song, but I kinda enjoy how it sounds in the Megalovania part, where I just toned it down a bit.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/93823550/Papyrus_7.mp3

[timaeus222]

1 hour ago, Slimy said:

Concerning the right hand, although it sounds better, I think the "pluckiness" problem is happening because attack of the right hand notes sounds much louder than the sustain. Is this is because you've made most of the right hand notes very staccato, and it's just the reverb carrying the notes afterward? If so, I don't think having so many overly-staccato notes fits the overall style of the song, or the left hand.

I agree, that would do it, if "true staccato" samples aren't available (if they were, the notes should feel really short).

37 minutes ago, NyxTheShield said:

Agree with most of those suggestion, I think I fixed them all. I also changed some of the staccato in the song, but I kinda enjoy how it sounds in the Megalovania part, where I just toned it down a bit.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/93823550/Papyrus_7.mp3

I think this is getting to the point where we'd have a hard time describing things more specifically (like how I might say "adjust the second note on measure 192" or something). I would suggest comparing back to the examples I gave to see if there are any notes of yours that are being "played" particularly hard when you meant to have them "played" more softly (like at 0:59 - 1:00 in the left hand).

Another thing I'd say is that if all the notes in a chord are the same intensity, it doesn't make sense. It would imply that your pinkie is as strong as your thumb when it's almost always weaker. This is why it would help to get a pressure-sensitive MIDI keyboard if you haven't already, so you don't have to simply imagine how hard each finger would likely hit the keys. Every finger will hit the key slightly differently in intensity AND timing on each chord, which is what gives each chord its own dimension and textural richness.

[NyxTheShield]

Went to eat and take a walk to refresh my ears and changed once again the notes on the left hand that seemed weird to me plus I adjusted the timing, so now there is an actual offset between notes. After that i Listened to the song through my  Sennheisers, Earbuds, Cheap Earphones and Notebook Speakers and now I am really happy with the results:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/93823550/Papyrus_8.mp3

Thanks guys for your help, I really, really appreciate it.

[Rozovian]

Just as a reminder, take off the eval tag once you get an eval. That way, we'll know when you're looking for an evaluation of a new version.

Glad to read you're making progress. I'll try to catch this next time it's on eval, I don't want to spoil it until then.

[NyxTheShield]

17 minutes ago, Rozovian said:

Just as a reminder, take off the eval tag once you get an eval. That way, we'll know when you're looking for an evaluation of a new version.

Glad to read you're making progress. I'll try to catch this next time it's on eval, I don't want to spoil it until then.

Hahaha I think I am done with this one for a while, Just to be sure I listened once again to it with refreshened ears and now I can't see any of the flaws that the first version had (I actually worked all day on this), unless Slimy or another person in the forum has another comment on it I think i will keep the eval tag (I almost submitted it to be honest hahaha)

[NyxTheShield]

Le bump

[timaeus222]

You don't need to keep posting to bump the topic.

Quote

5. Wait a week or two. If you don't get a response from an Evaluator by then, PM one or two of them. They're supposed to review your track within a few days. Sometimes it just takes a little longer.

 

[NyxTheShield]

1 hour ago, timaeus222 said:

You don't need to keep posting to bump the topic.

 

Oh sorry, I didn't read that part, thanks for the heads up

[timaeus222]

The louder notes still seem fairly hard-toned; I'm guessing it's still from that velocity response (last I checked, you had it set to "Convex - 50" or something like that). Here's something you could try. It might be kind of a pain, but try holding Ctrl and left-click-drag to select all the notes with velocities of, say, 100~127, and lower them all at once using Alt+Mouse Wheel roll. If you don't have a mouse wheel, try Alt+X and set it so the new velocity magnitudes are a bit lower. Then compare back to the previous version to see if the "playing" sounds softer. Currently it sounds like the "pianist" is sporadically pressing down fairly hard on the keys when playing the louder notes, rather than having the dynamics come naturally from the flow of the other notes. As a result, it doesn't quite feel realistic to me.

[Rozovian]

Going by my previous eval post, I should be on the lookout for piano humanization issues. Timaeus covered it well, and better than I could have. I don't think it's to an extent where it'd be NO'd on that alone, but worth looking into regardless. For your own development, if not for the remix'.

There's some overall dynamics things that could be smoothed out, or emphasized, or otherwise changed around, but any specifics would go into personal preference. Still, e.g.: The stuff around 0:08 are significantly louder than the preceding stuff. Not individual notes, but a set of them. Around 0:25 things get rather soft, while picking up around at 0:30. How intentional is this? It feels a bit directionless. How do you want it?

The ending is extremely soft, probably too much.

Dynamics on the micro level, dynamics on the macro level. That's still there to work on. Consider looking at the track waveform to get some idea of the overall dynamics of it. it might help you identify where things are weird. If necessary, run a high pass filter over it before exporting the version you're going to look at, just to make sure some bright attacks aren't messing up the waveform view. Just figure out how loud you want different parts to be, and make it sound more deliberate.

I don't think you need another eval for this track. Unless you're going to introduce any new problems, it's just dynamics left. Good luck, and nice work.