NinSheetMusic Forums

(Edit: This OP is not up to date anymore)

Hi, it's me again!

I've wanted to contribute to NinSheetMusic for years, but I've always felt a barrier in that I'd have to get used to Finale Notepad, which is if I'm not mistaken, an outdated, free version of a music notation program.
However, I now once again have a specific reason to want to contribute: Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, widely regarded as the best Story of Seasons game, is getting a remake for the Nintendo Switch. In combination with this, a few weeks ago I ran a batch file on all of my GBA games to see if I could rip their music (i.e. if it used the Sappy sound engine). To my great surprise, Friends of Mineral Town was one of the games from which the soundtrack was successfully ripped: this surprised me because I thought I would have tried in the past, as it is one of my favourite games, and I'd already learnt two tracks on piano.
So my plan: listen to all tunes (the used ones, at least... there are a bunch of themes in the rip that I don't recognise at all ???) and determine which ones could be easily played on piano, without too many musical sacrifices. For each of those, input the MIDI into MuseScore 3, and process/clean up the track (which could take an hour or two for some tracks maybe, but will certainly be a lot faster than carefully arranging by ear, and then inputting all of the notes). I will then print the sheets and play them; this will hopefully let me find inconsistencies or inconveniences in the sheets, so I can improve on them further where necessary.
And then of course I'd like to submit them to NinSheetMusic, because I bet some people will be looking for them, when the game is released for the Switch! (the music seems to have stayed mostly the same in the remake)
However, I could use some tips or encouragement on getting into Finale Notepad, and maybe advice on how to convert a MuseScore sheet to a good-looking NSM sheet. :)
I have been working on another project as well, and there are also older covers for which people might like the sheet music... this one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnDE0tIoYis), for example. But this Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons idea seemed like something good to start out on, especially considering the timing. :)
Edit: Listening to the rip again, I'm not sure if many could actually be arranged with all voices intact... but I know that for many games it is impossible (take a game like Super Mario Galaxy...), so that doesn't mean that I couldn't make an arrangement NSM-worthy... but it'd be more musically challenging. ;)

If you intend on importing MIDIs, I highly recommend reenteering all their notes manually into a separate file; bizarre things happen to note volumes otherwise, and added dynamics do not behave like you would expect.

(I once imported a MIDI file from a game that stored all its music as MIDIs and had that happen to me.)

Quote from: Dekkadeci on October 07, 2019, 02:43:22 AMIf you intend on importing MIDIs, I highly recommend reenteering all their notes manually into a separate file; bizarre things happen to note volumes otherwise, and added dynamics do not behave like you would expect.

(I once imported a MIDI file from a game that stored all its music as MIDIs and had that happen to me.)

Ah, thanks! I had noticed that all the notes except those that I had redone seemed too loud, and I couldn't change it. Huh. That seems like a lot of extra effort, so I'll look into another way to fix it first. ;)
Edit, half a minute later: it was extremely easy to fix. :P https://musescore.org/en/node/277424

I finished the sheet. :) Making it from the MIDI certainly improved the accuracy: I had not heard the extra voice playing an E and an F# at the end, nor the high D being sustained there. I also hadn't realised that in the first section sometimes the same note is played by both hands, and in those cases, it matters which hands actually plays it, because in the way I used to play it it became an 8th note instead of a quarter note in most cases.
Anyway, here's the draft (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sM6i0s9NA-emgwBV1uXvUAnjROCqpU5z/view?usp=sharing)! :)
I suppose I should get Finale Notepad now, right? ;)
Edit: In measure 7 or 8, depending on if you count the anacrusis, I took the merit of moving the right hand note to the left hand for ease of playing. Is that a good choice, because it doesn't matter as far as the sound is concerned, or should, for whatever reason, the upper of those two notes on the left hand be played by the right hand as is the case in the original theme?

Ok, I need to interject here; 607, you need to know that this is all entirely wrong.

Arrangers do not make sheets from MIDIs imported directly from games; the transcription process is the main factor that distinguishes real musicians from... whoever else. 607, listening to the music and writing it down is the most important part of the arranging process, and if you're skipping that part to save time, well, at the moment I'd hardly call you an arranger at all. Sure, it may seem convenient and spare you the embarrassment of someone finding an possible errors in the transcription, but straight to the core, it's not your sheet. Yes, we on NSM might use applications like AudioStretch to listen to songs slowed down, or Audacity to increase the volume of the bass. We may even, on rare occasion, use emulators to listen to separate tracks when they're too muddied together. But importing MIDIs is another story; not only is it failing to improve your own skill, but if you ever decided to use someone else's MIDIs, submitting sheets using them would get you into some trouble.

You need to take the time to listen to the songs by ear, and practice writing the notes down manually; this helps to train your ear and help you become a better musician overall. That's the only way we grow here; along with understanding the capabilities of the keyboard performer and dynamics of proper sheet formatting, writing down what you hear, even if it's hard and takes years of practice, is essential. Arrangers who don't do this or don't bother to polish every factor of their sheets are missing the point.

I don't mean to sound harsh, understand that. But I need to make it clear at your beginning that you need a new approach. The many others and I all around you are willing to help you through this and make your arrangements look professional, as well as distinguishable from imported transcriptions. Feel free to reach us privately if you need to; we're all here to help, (which is why some of us are even still here at all).

Quote from: LeviR.star on October 08, 2019, 06:25:35 AM607, listening to the music and writing it down is the most important part of the arranging process

Why? I think it's the result that matters, not anything in the process, as long as the process doesn't include plagiarising someone else's sheet. Sure, I'm using the original tune without permission, but so are all NinSheetMusic arrangers.

Quote, and if you're skipping that part to save time, well, at the moment I'd hardly call you an arranger at all.

That's fine, I just called this topic "607's Arrangements" in line with the others. :P

QuoteSure, it may seem convenient and spare you the embarrassment of someone finding an possible errors in the transcription, but straight to the core, it's not your sheet.

It is my sheet. I imported the MIDI, cleaned it up, and made slight changes to make it nicer looking or nicer to play. I didn't create the MIDI, but again, none of the arrangers here created the tunes themselves, that's not the point.

QuoteBut importing MIDIs is another story; not only is it failing to improve your own skill

It has in fact improved my skill. Doing the arrangement by ear I failed to notice a few things, as pointed out in my previous post, and noticing them in the sheet, checking them against the original tune and deciding how to represent them in the sheet, I all learnt from.

Quotebut if you ever decided to use someone else's MIDIs, submitting sheets using them would get you into some trouble.

Obviously. :P I have used fan-made MIDIs years ago, when I couldn't yet arrange by ear well, but my skill quickly transcended the skill of the average MIDI creator. There's no point in using a fan-made MIDI, as it might have mistakes, just as my arrangements done by ear might have mistakes. If, however, the MIDI can be ripped from the game, it should be used, I think, as it will be accurate (of course there could be exceptions to this, which is why I did carefully check if those extras I hadn't noticed were actually in the tune).

QuoteYou need to take the time to listen to the songs by ear, and practice writing the notes down manually; this helps to train your ear and help you become a better musician overall.

For sure. I have done this often, and will do it forever. Well, listening to the songs by ear, at least. I'm not sure if I'll write down notes forever, as the better a piano player I become, the less I need sheets; however, if I have fun contributing to NinSheetMusic and/or others benefit from my work, I will keep doing that as well. ;) (I'm using 'forever' colloquially here, I doubt I'll be arranging video game music in eternity :P)

QuoteThat's the only way we grow here; along with understanding the capabilities of the keyboard performer and dynamics of proper sheet formatting, writing down what you hear, even if it's hard and takes years of practice, is essential. Arrangers who don't do this or don't bother to polish every factor of their sheets are missing the point.

... Why? To me, a sheet should be as accurate to the source as possible. Of course some sacrifices can be made to make the tune work better on piano, or be playable by someone as skilled as I, but I think one shouldn't add notes just because it sounds nice, or remove notes just because they don't like them. To me, sheets should deviate as little from the source material as reasonably possible.
...
But you might disagree. And it seems like you specifically do disagree, but I meant the NinSheetMusic community in general. In that case that'd be good to know, and I'd like to hear your alternative vision explained. ;)

Hey there, just thought we'd chime in here real quick:

@Levi: While the intent of your post is well meaning it is rather hostile towards newer arrangers trying to get into the craft. The overall tone is dismissive of the effort 607 has made, and can be read as shaming him for not following our standards. You have some good advice in your post, but calling him out for his methodology and repeatedly asserting he was wrong for doing so is not the way to encourage newer members here.

@607: We are always excited when newer members show an interest and desire to start arranging, but as Levi has pointed out there are some requirements we have here to ensure NSM has the highest quality sheets. First and foremost is the fact we do not tolerate plagiarism which we identify as using the work of people as the basis for arrangements, such as: MIDI arrangements, rips directly from the ROMs of the games, or copying of any officially released materials. This helps us to avoid overstepping any copyright infringement and maintain our reputation. As such we do require that anything submitted for review be made entirely of your own efforts, or that of collaboration with other arrangers. That said we do have a number of resources to help you get started (https://www.ninsheetmusic.org/forum/index.php?board=5.0), as well as a community of great arrangers to ask for help both here on the forums or through our Discord server (https://discord.gg/0oSPTyXpcFRZ9Iym). We do want accurate sheets, but we also want honest arrangers who put in the work. We look forward to seeing the kind of arrangements you make!

Quote from: MaestroUGC on October 08, 2019, 10:51:50 AM@607: We are always excited when newer members show an interest and desire to start arranging, but as Levi has pointed out there are some requirements we have here to ensure NSM has the highest quality sheets. First and foremost is the fact we do not tolerate plagiarism which we identify as using the work of people as the basis for arrangements, such as: MIDI arrangements, rips directly from the ROMs of the games, or copying of any officially released materials. This helps us to avoid overstepping any copyright infringement and maintain our reputation. As such we do require that anything submitted for review be made entirely of your own efforts, or that of collaboration with other arrangers. That said we do have a number of resources to help you get started (https://www.ninsheetmusic.org/forum/index.php?board=5.0), as well as a community of great arrangers to ask for help both here on the forums or through our Discord server (https://discord.gg/0oSPTyXpcFRZ9Iym). We do want accurate sheets, but we also want honest arrangers who put in the work. We look forward to seeing the kind of arrangements you make!

Thanks.
Interesting. I frankly had no idea of that (which should be obvious from the OP :P). I will not be able to submit this sheet to NSM then (which seems quite strange, because legally I don't seem to have infringed more copyright by ripping and reusing the data than I would have by listening and replicating it, and because the end result is indistinguishable except in my case by accuracy), which will lower my motivation from doing such sheets at all. Although... at least I don't have to get into Finale Notepad. ::)

I did think of one issue with my vision, however. One year ago, I arranged the Lucky Luke soundtrack for GB and GBC, composed by Alberto José González, for piano, and I have been practising the themes since (6 out of 14 arrangements have been recorded). In that case, I take a bit of pride in having arranged everything by ear. It was a fun challenge, and although it took me a lot less time than the actual practising, I did put a lot of effort into it.
However, it must technically be possible to convert GB tunes to MIDI. I just did a Google search and found a tutorial for a work-around way that may or may not work, but I'm sure it is possible. And that poses an issue... if I were to want to upload the sheets, according to my ideology, I should first attempt to get the MIDIs to check if I haven't made any mistakes in hearing, or missed things. However, I have already recorded (and even uploaded) some performances, and moreover, it is cool to be able to say "I arranged all of these by ear", which I cannot fully do anymore once I've compared my arrangements with the actual note data. So I've got a dilemma... :-\
With the availability of new technology, one needs to consider whether one should use it. ;)

PS: By the way, does this mean that if someone takes a look at my sheet, they can't submit the tune themselves to NinSheetMusic anymore? ??? I get some of your argumentation, but at the same time I don't get it at all, because all sheet music on this site infringes copyright.

I'd like to apologize for the particularly bitter aura from my post from earlier, 607; on my part, that was inexcusable. Maestro is right; my interjection was hostile, and too intimidating to serve as any use to you or any other new arrangers in the community. I thank you for your composed reply, which I did not deserve; and yes, I would be willing to share my alternative vision, albeit less aggressively:

Maestro's explanation of the NSM rules above is a perfect outline to follow, and I agree with it wholeheartedly. While I am in no position to defend my previous post, I will say that part of its forceful nature came from my wish to dissuade you from using this method anymore. That's not to say your process was unprofessional or lazy by any means, but admitting to it in submissions would stir up some conflict (and none of it in your favor). My very much misguided explanation was trying persuade you to try the more genuine (or as Maestro put it, honest) process from the start, and let the updaters or more experienced arrangers help you find the smaller slip-ups here and there. We all have those, but we help each other find them; that's why we're a cooperative community to be proud of.

My view on these NSM sheets is relatively simple: the arrangers that produce them should strive for as much accuracy as possible, while still keeping the playing difficulty within manageable boundaries, and taking artistic liberties minimally, yet, if they wish, creatively enough to make their work distinguishable. No, I don't say that you should "add notes just because it sounds nice", or "remove notes just because they don't like them". I'm saying that I, as well as many of the others on here that taught me a thing or two, know that this site is about distinguishing performer-friendly arrangements from straight transcriptions. Those standards may not hold up in all of our sheets, given our site's age, but our views are set on the future: always improving, always challenging ourselves, and never settling for less than what we're capable of.

If you'll allow me, 607, I'd like to help you in any way I can, and so would everyone else. If you have questions on what does and doesn't work, what sheets you can arrange, or how you can contribute in anyway, we're here, and we're all learning together. I could get you started by reviewing a sheet of yours and readying it for the submission process if you wish.

NINJA'D EDIT:

Quote from: 607 on October 08, 2019, 12:08:29 PMPS: By the way, does this mean that if someone takes a look at my sheet, they can't submit the tune themselves to NinSheetMusic anymore? ??? I get some of your argumentation, but at the same time I don't get it at all, because all sheet music on this site infringes copyright.

This... is a debate that might be too long to have for your PA's own good. It's long and complicated, and honestly, mostly over my head. But if you need answers, some others could help and chime in, and possible take your question to another thread.

Perhaps it'd be better to consider arrangements to be interpretative rather than transcription. Part of our process here is to not only recreate the original music but also edit and modify it for the purpose of performance. Therefore in many cases our sheets aren't 100% exact copies of the originals. We also exist in a grey area regarding copyrights, so we have these measures in place to make sure we try to stay on the favorable side of the law.

Aside from that, as both Levi and myself have stated we as a community can help you train these skills. Even if you don't want to prepare written arrangements for NSM, or even at all, these are important skills to have a musician and would be things you'll be taught anyway should you pursue music beyond a hobby.

Thanks for your more constructive reply, LeviR.star. :) (what's that name for short? :P)

Quote from: MaestroUGC on October 08, 2019, 12:29:08 PMPerhaps it'd be better to consider arrangements to be interpretative rather than transcription. Part of our process here is to not only recreate the original music but also edit and modify it for the purpose of performance. Therefore in many cases our sheets aren't 100% exact copies of the originals. We also exist in a grey area regarding copyrights, so we have these measures in place to make sure we try to stay on the favorable side of the law.

Aside from that, as both Levi and myself have stated we as a community can help you train these skills. Even if you don't want to prepare written arrangements for NSM, or even at all, these are important skills to have a musician and would be things you'll be taught anyway should you pursue music beyond a hobby.

Quote from: LeviR.star on October 08, 2019, 12:21:45 PMMy view on these NSM sheets is relatively simple: the arrangers that produce them should strive for as much accuracy as possible, while still keeping the playing difficulty within manageable boundaries, and taking artistic liberties minimally, yet, if they wish, creatively enough to make their work distinguishable. No, I don't say that you should "add notes just because it sounds nice", or "remove notes just because they don't like them". I'm saying that I, as well as many of the others on here that taught me a thing or two, know that this site is about distinguishing performer-friendly arrangements from straight transcriptions. Those standards may not hold up in all of our sheets, given our site's age, but our views are set on the future: always improving, always challenging ourselves, and never settling for less than what we're capable of.

Okay, these two parts do make sense to me. ;)
I realise that doing arrangements by ear is both more fun and more educational. Inputting notes into notation software, I'm not so sure about, but I suppose I might get more efficient at it. ;) I have always had a standard of being as exact as possible (courtesy of my autism, I suppose :P), and now that I realised I had the MIDIs available I got excited with being able to get 100% exact. I now see using such ripped MIDIs however poses issues: both apparently some copyright problem I don't understand (but that's fine, I'm not in charge of this website) and the dilemma I explained in my previous post.
So I think that I will decide on not using the MIDIs. In that case though, I do have an issue with this one specific song, as I have been wanting to cover that for years (I think I first tried arranging it four years ago, then again one and a half year ago, and then again last week). I can do it accurately now, and I don't think there's any reason to go back to a simpler arrangement I had done by ear - after all, I have also got quite some performances on my YouTube channel that use NinSheetMusic sheets instead of my own arrangements.
But what to do about the sheet? :P
I suppose I could redo the Winter theme from the same game first, one that I learnt five years ago, from... a fan MIDI. ;) I would like to redo it, though, as there might be some mistakes in it, and although it'd be a challenge, I think I could do it (challenge is good!).

There's more I'm considering, but it's getting late here, so I'll sleep a night over all this first. ;)

I have a transcription question and I guess this is the place to ask it.
I did a GBA Rainbow Road transcription from MIDI a while ago but was not skilled enough to be able to perform it, back then. It also wasn't that great, as it excluded more voices than necessary. Now I'm doing another, by ear.
I expect that in some cases it will not be feasible to play all voices, but where it is, I've found that it can be hard to notate it. :P
Here is my transcription of the intro.
(https://i.imgur.com/sDLfC78.png)
That's not too clear, is it? :/

(https://i.imgur.com/GmNuQPa.png)


Here's how I would have notated this part. I gather you're using Notepad, so I'm not sure whether all of these features are available to you, but there's a few things you can do to improve readability here if possible:

• Make sure you don't add in extra layers when they're not necessary: it was straightforward for me to combine two of the LH layers in the first measure and there isn't a compelling musical reason to have them separated.
• Hide rests judiciously: for example, in the second half of m2, I hid the half rest you have in the LH (corresponding to the layer with the C-F eighths) since it doesn't contribute to understanding the rhythms.
• Align rests with the parts they correspond to and point stems away from each other: it improves readability a lot just to point the stems in the lowest LH part downwards instead of upwards.

Quote from: Greg on November 07, 2020, 01:26:38 PM[snip]

Thank you, those are very clear tips!
The colours in the notes are not supposed to appear in the eventual score, right?
I use MuseScore (3, meanwhile), not Finale. I hope that if people would like me to submit a score of mine to ninsheetmusic, it would be convertible with fairly little extra work.

Quote from: 607 on November 08, 2020, 12:18:57 AMThe colours in the notes are not supposed to appear in the eventual score, right?

Oh yeah, the colours are just a visual aid which disappears when you print or generate a PDF.

Well, here we go again. ::)
I have got back to my old Wario Land medley, starting by redoing all my arrangements by ear and making transcriptions.
I'm wondering if NinSheetMusic would be interested in the transcriptions?
I didn't look at note data, this time, or even listen to individual channels: I did listen to a rip very many times, including replaying one part a few times in a row, and in some cases playing back at half speed using Audacity's 'Change Tempo' effect. Also, as far as I know, my transcriptions are accurate. I do not take artistic liberties unless needed.
Here is an example of part of a recently done arrangement.
(https://i.imgur.com/EUQXevT.png) What do you think? Do these cross the line also?

Quote from: 607 on January 01, 2022, 09:05:10 AMI did listen to a rip very many times, including replaying one part a few times in a row, and in some cases playing back at half speed using Audacity's 'Change Tempo' effect.

<snip>

What do you think? Do these cross the line also?

The only rips I trust for transcription purposes are ones straight from the makers (e.g. the OST for the original Shovel Knight, the OST of early Incredible Machine games, Team Fortress 2 OST music, La-Mulana's OST, Cohen's Masterpiece from Bioshock, whatever .nsf's you can find at www.zophar.net). If the rip was fan-made, treat it with several grains of salt, especially the moment it diverges from the original music. (Let's put it this way: I generally cannot trust MIDIs from VGMusic after repeatedly finding inaccuracies in them.)

Quote from: Dekkadeci on January 01, 2022, 11:41:47 AMThe only rips I trust for transcription purposes are ones straight from the makers (e.g. the OST for the original Shovel Knight, the OST of early Incredible Machine games, Team Fortress 2 OST music, La-Mulana's OST, Cohen's Masterpiece from Bioshock, whatever .nsf's you can find at www.zophar.net). If the rip was fan-made, treat it with several grains of salt, especially the moment it diverges from the original music. (Let's put it this way: I generally cannot trust MIDIs from VGMusic after repeatedly finding inaccuracies in them.)

Music you find at Zophar's Domain isn't straight from the makers. Nevertheless, in my experience Game Boy rips from Zophar are usually accurate, and I have no doubt that these are. Also, VGMusic doesn't host rips, only fan-made MIDIs. These are not useful in the arrangement process except to novices, as indeed they usually are inaccurate.
That's not relevant to my question, though. When I previously used a rip in an arrangement, Levi and Maestro explained that this was not allowed. However, in that case I directly used the rip in my arrangement. This time, I 'only' used a WAV render of it. I did not even listen to the separate channels, let alone use MIDI data obtained from them. So I'm wondering if maybe this is allowed.
And if not, I would be curious what is, even though I don't think I'm ever going to do arrangements by listening to the tracks in the game itself once or twice, and then doing everything from memory. :P

Quote from: 607 on January 03, 2022, 08:09:07 AMMusic you find at Zophar's Domain isn't straight from the makers. Nevertheless, in my experience Game Boy rips from Zophar are usually accurate, and I have no doubt that these are. Also, VGMusic doesn't host rips, only fan-made MIDIs. These are not useful in the arrangement process except to novices, as indeed they usually are inaccurate.
That's not relevant to my question, though. When I previously used a rip in an arrangement, Levi and Maestro explained that this was not allowed. However, in that case I directly used the rip in my arrangement. This time, I 'only' used a WAV render of it. I did not even listen to the separate channels, let alone use MIDI data obtained from them. So I'm wondering if maybe this is allowed.
And if not, I would be curious what is, even though I don't think I'm ever going to do arrangements by listening to the tracks in the game itself once or twice, and then doing everything from memory. :P

I find listening to a rip (presumably ad nauseam) to be useless for transcription purposes compared to listening to the original ad nauseam. Rips are always less trustworthy than the original. When even renditions of the original uploaded by different users have differences (e.g. one sounds blurrier), what hope does a rip have?

If you're not looking at a rip, I personally find using it as a resource useless.

I hope you checked your work by listening to the original at least once. If your transcription and the original diverge too far, it really better be for good reason (and I generally accept only playability reasons). If your transcription sounds too little like the original, seriously reconsider publishing it. (I've shelved two of my transcriptions so far as a result.)

I personally do transcriptions of video game music I cannot find reliable sheet music and/or a reliable sound file (MIDI/.nsf) for by listening to a YouTube video of it as many times as necessary, picking out its parts by ear, and possibly octave-shifting those parts. In order to make the transcription playable, I often end up ignoring the quietest accompaniment parts. (I generally add extra repeated notes for drum beats because I value preserving the momentum of the original.) I generally listen to that video - or at least some portions of it - 5 or more times when transcribing for solo piano, often at 50% speed or even slower.

If what you mean by "rip" is YouTube video, then I apologize. My understanding of the word "rip" is that it means any attempt at transcription or rearrangement that does not involve simply recording the audio from the game.

[I had responded to the rest of Dekkadeci's post first, but it turned out to be useless due to the confusion hopefully cleared up below.]

Quote from: Dekkadeci on January 04, 2022, 06:58:22 AMIf what you mean by "rip" is YouTube video, then I apologize. My understanding of the word "rip" is that it means any attempt at transcription or rearrangement that does not involve simply recording the audio from the game.

Okay, I should have read this before. That explains the confusion. :P
Here's some info! :)
A rip is data copied from another medium, such as a cd. In this case, the rips were done from Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges. This is generally more reliable than recording from the console, because when you are recording, you might also record static, or have sound effects obscure the recording, or just have poor equipment, etc. You mentioned nsf: this is a format for NES and Famicom rips. NES rips are almost always accurate, in my experience, as long as you get them from a reliable source (eg. Zophar's Domain). So are Game Boy rips (gbs), which is relevant here. Of course it is still indeed important to check against the original console, as for example, all rips you'll find of The Smurfs for Game Boy are in mono, while in the game there is an option to have the music play in stereo instead. Note that ripping is only reliable for platforms that have a sound chip. It is very hard to rip GBA games, and when you do manage, the result often ends up sounding slightly different (mostly higher quality) than it does in game. This is because the GBA does not have a sound chip, and sound is managed by the CPU.

If your arrangements are accepted, it seems likely that mine would too! Especially because you also use slowing down of the video.
It could still be that my arrangements are too accurate, though. You mention arrangement choices, but I don't have to make these in this case, as I'm arranging tracks that can be played on piano with two hands without leaving out any notes (except the percussion on tracks that have it), so it's probably more of a transcription than an arrangement.

I'm still intending to submit the Wario Land arrangements/transcriptions at some point. However, in some kind of envy I don't want to do so before I publish my performances, and I have been practising very rarely lately (I've been playing worship instead). As mentioned before, I've arranged the entire Lucky Luke soundtrack for piano, and now and then I've been writing those down in MuseScore (I only did two during the arrangement process).
I might submit some of those soon, after getting into Finale Notepad. However, with quite some of them I find it challenging to figure out what rhythmic notation I should use. I might get into drumming, maybe that will give me more of a feel for it. I have most trouble with deciding between two speeds, e.g. 172 bpm with the melody in 8th notes or 86 bpm with the melody in 16th notes. Anyway, there are some where I was able to decide on a tempo to notate in! (and hopefully I was right :P)
Here's one of the scores, do you see any issues with it, other than the formatting? :)
(https://i.imgur.com/7S48Az4.png)
Let me know if it'd be better to attach a pdf or MusicXML file, rather than an image.

This one feels much better as you have it written. Drum experience isn't required to figure this out, just time playing sheet music and transcribing it. It lets you figure out what feels most natural to notate and, most importantly, what will feel most natural for the performer.

First glance looks pretty decent. Most people share their arrangements by uploading them to dropbox or google drive and sharing links since the forum file attach system isn't really that versatile or good.

Anyway, it's great to finally see some alberto gonzalez sheets being arranged, love that guy's work.