How to start? Is there a secret technique?

[LeKris2505]

Hi there all together,

in my opinion, the best way to start making own music, is to cover or remix songs you like. From this you are able to learn,
how other musicians made music, which can be a good point to use some techniques for your own songs.

I am listening to OCRemix-Tracks very often and since a very long time. I am not sure, but most tracks use the scale, the rhythm
and / or the same speed as the original track. 
And here it comes to my question:
How do you get the melody, the chords, the bass and so on from the original track?
I can't imagine, that all of you musicians get all the notes simply by listening and writing it down.
So, is there a secret technique to get the tones, which everyone is using, but no one is talking about?
Maybe, because it is so obvious? Idk

It would be nice, if someone could help me to get on the way.

Thx in advance

LeKris 

[H36T]

Depending on the source, sometimes you have no choice but to do some or all of it yourself. However for me personally, after years of transcribing by ear and trial and error, I don't want to do that anymore haha. It's a thankless job, can be arduous, and frustrating if you aren't into it. Not that I want or deserve extra like... adulation or anything LOL. But it's mostly just a skill that while worth building, is also worth skipping if possible for work flow purposes. But again, sometimes you have no choice either fully or partially.

 

But with that aside, yes there is a uhh, not so secret technique. Midi files. If you're old like me you are probably intimately familiar with them from the early internet days, and if not you may still be haha. Midi files contain some are all of the sources original composition to varying degrees of accuracy. Some people make them (transcribing as I said above) and some people rip them from the source audio when/if possible.

With a midi file, you can import that source into your DAW and from there work with it how you will. You can keep it very basic (which is not OCR quality) and slap some instruments where they should be and bam, you got a song. But with the source midi you can also begin to get creative and play around with it, make changes, add things, take them away, etc. Anything you can imagine I suppose. Some people may just use it as a guideline and actually play the parts themselves for humanization, idk. It just depends on you or what you are going for. And again, some people may not need a midi at all if the song isn't that complex or you are building something really different. There really is no one way to do things.

 

TL; DR - I rambled so here is a short breakdown. A shortcut to avoiding transcribing (writing down by ear) is to get a midi file and import it into your DAW. Not all people do this and what people do after that is sort of up to them. Midis arent always readily available and sometimes they aren't well made either so you may have to do it yourself anyway. But that shortcut is often available, especially for older game music.

[Eino Keskitalo]

I usually listen by ear. This is a lot of work, but with practice it becomes easier. I usually might only just learn specific parts of the source, not everything. For example, just figuring out the melody is often a lot easier than figuring out the backing track. And it's also quite fun to reharmonize the backing. You kind of get the "personalization" of the arrangement for free. Though I have to say earlier I was a lot more careless about the source tune when transcribing, where now I'm more interested in actually learning how it goes. But you can start "easy" with just the melody. Depends on what you want.

Like HH360 says, someone might have transcribed the source tune into a MIDI already. These can be useful. That said, I haven't found a nice flow to working with them. They usually end up constraining the track too much for my liking, compared to me transcribing the original myself.

Edited December 30, 2022 by evktalo

[Jorito]

I am extremely lazy when it comes to transcribing (that's the technical term you're looking for), and I usually only transcribe the melody, loosely, and by ear. And then just have a play with it. Bass, chords, etc might come from the source track too, but I usually wing it by doing it by feel or by ear, roughly. And melody is usually the easiest part to transcribe. Just play the part on repeat, sit back with a midi keyboard (or other instrument of choice), and try to get the right notes and the right rhythm (and you can do those separately if you need to, can come in handy for faster parts.

Bonus points of doing it that way (for me at least) is that I will automatically add enough own interpretation to it for OCR's standards, because I only take the melody and write the rest myself. 

For faster or more tricky songs I will sometimes download the song from online (e.g. by converting a Youtube video to mp3), put that in an audio editor and slow the tempo waaaaay down. That way it's a lot easier to get the notes and/or rhythm.

And if you are taking older chiptune songs as a source (e.g. from a (S)NES, Megadrive or basically most consoles before the PlayStation), you can often use emulators where you can play/mute and export every single channel of the track and then transcribing it that way. Which is of course a lot easier than having to transcribe a piece of music when there's 8 things going on at the same time.

So in this day and age, also don't forget to take advantage of technology (audio editors with slowdown functionality, emulators, midi) because it can really make things a lot easier. Definitely a lot easier than when I started and I had to play back & rewind things from cassette tape like a few hundred times to get the right notes...

[mikeHEARTu]

I tend to listen to things by ear and transcribe material myself when possible. For me, it's a fun skill to develop but that's obviously not everyone's cup of tea. Usually, I'll load the song into my DAW and also a very plain synth then play along if I need to make absolutely sure I'm hearing what I think I'm hearing.

To that point, I find that my tools help alot with this process. I use Reaper and there is a global speed control that's independant of the project tempo so if I need to slow a song down to hear it better, that's useful. I don't know what DAW you use but there might be a similar feature.

I also transcribe rock and metal songs and load them into Guitar Pro which currently has a similar feature with the added benefit of being able to go note by note if need be.

 

[H36T]

8 hours ago, Jorito said:

I am extremely lazy when it comes to transcribing (that's the technical term you're looking for), and I usually only transcribe the melody, loosely, and by ear. And then just have a play with it. Bass, chords, etc might come from the source track too, but I usually wing it by doing it by feel or by ear, roughly. And melody is usually the easiest part to transcribe. Just play the part on repeat, sit back with a midi keyboard (or other instrument of choice), and try to get the right notes and the right rhythm (and you can do those separately if you need to, can come in handy for faster parts.

Bonus points of doing it that way (for me at least) is that I will automatically add enough own interpretation to it for OCR's standards, because I only take the melody and write the rest myself. 

For faster or more tricky songs I will sometimes download the song from online (e.g. by converting a Youtube video to mp3), put that in an audio editor and slow the tempo waaaaay down. That way it's a lot easier to get the notes and/or rhythm.

And if you are taking older chiptune songs as a source (e.g. from a (S)NES, Megadrive or basically most consoles before the PlayStation), you can often use emulators where you can play/mute and export every single channel of the track and then transcribing it that way. Which is of course a lot easier than having to transcribe a piece of music when there's 8 things going on at the same time.

So in this day and age, also don't forget to take advantage of technology (audio editors with slowdown functionality, emulators, midi) because it can really make things a lot easier. Definitely a lot easier than when I started and I had to play back & rewind things from cassette tape like a few hundred times to get the right notes...

This is one benefit I'm curious about if I should reconsider: transcribing by ear to fit OCR standards. Since I always go by midi and my style fits it, often I like to go for very light changes in part A, then part B I really begin to move things around and make big changes because often the midi file has run out (because the song would just repeat in game) and I need more material. That's often where I'll start copy pasting but then I'll edit individual parts and begin to play things manually too. I could and have done this all around before but Im just wondering if your way would clean up my own workflow. 

[Jorito]

9 hours ago, HarlemHeat360 said:

This is one benefit I'm curious about if I should reconsider: transcribing by ear to fit OCR standards. Since I always go by midi and my style fits it, often I like to go for very light changes in part A, then part B I really begin to move things around and make big changes because often the midi file has run out (because the song would just repeat in game) and I need more material. That's often where I'll start copy pasting but then I'll edit individual parts and begin to play things manually too. I could and have done this all around before but Im just wondering if your way would clean up my own workflow. 

In my personal experience, having a midi gets in the way too much. Not only does it push you stay close to the original when it comes to the notes (because you’ll likely end up using the same chords, same chord progression, etc) by design (because the material is already there), it also pushes you to stay close to the source when it comes to the structure (as to your point with the midi running out and making changes in part A and B).

For me, not using a midi helps in a few ways. The first way, not sticking to exactly the same notes and making up my own chord progressions and basslines I already elaborated. The second one, structure, is equally important. I like to think out of the box with it. Who says that part A in the source needs to be part A in my remix? Why shouldn’t I make part C the verse, part A the chorus and use part B as a bridge or foundation for a solo section?

Structure is for me always on a case-by-case basis and a bit of an interesting puzzle and a neat challenge to think about and play with. And looking at track writeups from my mixposts, that approach seems to be appreciated. In general I’d like to think of my arrangements as bits of legos that I can move around in different orders until I have a structure and arrangement that I think works. And there’s no single good answer

Lastly, this approach works very well whenever you’re trying to create a remix that uses more than one source. I can’t imagine the hassle of having to wrestle with 2 (or more) different midis in one project and trying to make that work, sounds too cumbersome to me.

TL;DR: I’m lazy and this was the easiest method method for me to work (as counter intuitive as it may sound to some of you).

[Hemophiliac]

You're welcome to come by discord to the #workshop or utilize the workshop forums here to ask any questions you may have or get feedback on things that you are working on.  People are always willing to take a listen and provide constructive criticism for improvement.

[jnWake]

I actually do it a little different from what's been shared here. I tend to start by trying to figure out the bass (the root notes at least) and from there get the chord progression and key of the song. In my opinion, you get a lot of useful information from a song from just this. Melody is important of course, but a ton of VGM songs tend to play around the chord notes so, once you know the chords, the melody comes easy.

When it comes to actually writing a remix, I tend to learn the song and then just sit down and improvise. It helps if you have a predefined idea, like, "make a metal cover", but usually just playing around with the melodies and chords is enough to trigger some inspiration.

[LeKris2505]

Hi there,

first of all: Thank you very much for all of your help in this short time! Astonishing.
A little information about me:
I do had piano lessons and play it since a very long time. I started to make music with Software like Cool Edit '95, Dance Machine, Cubase and ended up the first time in Impulse Tracker under DOS.
Later I switched to Fruity Loops, which is now known as FL Studio, so I am also familiar with this software. My actual DAW is Ableton Live which is, in my opinion, the best DAW for me.
MIDI-Files are not unknown to me, since I tried to write some in Guitar Pro years ago and also in Cubase.
So I am familiar with different kinds of music and types of arranging them.
My goal in first place is, to remix songs I like (from videogames like SNES, GB, Genesis and so on) to get better knowledge of song structures and builds, so that I am able to use it in my own music.

I try to sum up the things posted below my question:

If you want to Remix a track, there are different methods:
- It is possible to look for MIDI-Files, which already have every track you need (but not every OST Track is transcribed correctly)
(I already tried a rebuild of the Ending Part of Super Mario Land, the intro of Fortress of Fear and the Moon Theme from Duck Tales by simply using MIDI-Files and edit them)
- Better ideas are to do the transcription by ear (which I do have to develop over time, since I think that I am not good at it)
- It can be helpful to get the chord progression, because most melodies are going round the actual chord
- It is also a good idea to get the main melody by ear (for this it is helpful to slow down the audio, if you have it). In this case, it can be very cool to develop own chord progressions and bass lines
- When it comes to structure, you may think out of the box, which means, Part A in the original hasn't to be Part A in the Remix (which is, in my opinion a very creative idea)

I hope, that I didn't forget anything and reconstruct it correctly.

My actual project, which was a suggestion by a friend of mine is: Trunks Theme from the SNES games Dragon Ball Z - Super Butoden 2
I try to keep you informed about how I am doing, if you are interested in.
But then, I will post maybe on the Discord Channel or the Workshop Forum on this page.

[Geoffrey Taucer]

I do it all by ear, and honestly a lot of my "interpretation" just comes from being sloppy in this process. As long as it's recognizable, I don't really worry about whether I've got all the exact same notes and chords as the original. That's a lot of the fun of arrangement anyway: those moments where you go "that doesn't sound quite like the original..... but actually, I kind of like it, so let's roll with it"

As for how to come up with arrangement ideas, every mix I do starts out as a rhythm guitar part. I figure out some chords that sound close enough, then mess around with it. Try it faster, try it slower, try it with swing, try it in a different time signature, try messing around with the chords and see if I can still hum the melody over them, try switching everything to minor if it was major and major if it was minor, etc. Then once I find a style I like, I build back up from there.

Edited January 1, 2023 by Geoffrey Taucer