Topics

as an aside I think it'd be real nifty if y'all had like a basic music help topic, there's the key/time sig topic but that just covers, well, that, and sometimes ppl (like me) might have questions on arrangements without necessarily wanting to wait til the submission process to put it up there, but whatever that's my suggestion

anyhow ok so
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpu6dUJbfjg, this is key of Bb, the very second note in that first measure (and by extension, like measures). is it just an F in the bass, F doubled at the octave (aka an F in the upepr voice as well as lower), or bass F with upper voice high A (Olimar said he heard this but I just do not)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5dp6luze0uh5pck/Sunflower%20Park.mus?dl=0 here is my transcription if it helps

the reason for this is bc I've known this track for like 15 years and so my like "expected" hearing of it might be clouding my actual ability to hear that note

bonus points if you can use tech to state this conclusively like Ben does sometimes

thx

Y'all seriously need to fix your interface. It's trash.

Anyway there's a box that says "Which sheet would you like to replace?" and there's not a drop down or anything. It's just a box you can type something in. So I typed in the name of the sheet and it gives me an error saying I need to "select" a sheet to replace (which suggests I should have options). I don't have the option to pick anything. If it's supposed to be there it isn't working. It's literally just a text entry field.

Fucking fix your damn website.

Please remove all of my sheets from the main site. This community no longer deserves my support or patronage.

Because I'm bonkers, I am beginning to seriously consider a Youtube series (possibly involving streams if there's enough interest) showcasing me completing a living dex in one game in every set in the main series (e.g. one of RSE and one of FRLG even though they're in the same gen). This is still kind of a thought-in-progress sort of thing and almost definitely a project for after I have more money (so I can purchase the needed recording and playing equipment) and have gotten through my backlog of other projects, which includes the aforementioned Mystery Dungeon series. Regardless, it's on my mind, so I wanted to post about it here for a few reasons:

1) Who would be interested in watching such a series?
2) In order to spice it up so it's not just a thousand videos of me catching things in successive games I'd want to spice it up a little with gimmicks or challenge conditions, and I am open to suggestions on that.
3) I'm also open to additional rule suggestions or changes.

My current plans are as follows:

I will complete a living dex in one game from each of the following sets: RBY, GSC, RSE, FRLG, DPPt, HGSS, BW, BW2, XY, ORAS, SuMo, USUM. Additionally, I will need access to Colosseum and XD in order to get Ho-oh and Lugia in the gen 3 games, so I will also show off "completing" those games (which I haven't ever finished before this for the record). Event legends aren't going to be used unless there's a glitch that allows me to obtain the event legend, in which case I have to figure out how to make that work and get the event that way. (By blanket-excluding event legends I'm removing the potential headache nightmare that might come from trying to find a clean copy of Ranger to get Manaphy from or the Colosseum bonus disc or all of that nonsense. I'm only mostly insane.)

In each set of games, I'll pick one to use as my Pokédex-game. The one I choose to use as the Pokédex-game can only be started once, and that first file will be the file I complete with the Pokédex. Things like getting mutually exclusive mons (starters, fossils, etc) will have to come from another game in the set.

In the Pokédex-file, I am going to make a point to complete as much of the Pokédex as possible within that file alone before trading from another game. So for example if my Pokédex file in GSC era is Gold, I must get Suicune in Gold rather than trading it from Crystal even though doing that would be a hell of a lot easier. This is partially because it's my historical method of Pokédex completion but also partially because it is probably more interesting to watch me catching things in RSE and FRLG separately than completing the dex in RSE and then trading it all to FRLG. :p

With cross-compatible sets of games (e.g. RBY/GSC or DPPt/HGSS or USUM with literally every single other game) I have a little bit of a method to the hierarchy I plan to use for trade among these games as well:
RBY's Pokédex must be completing using solely RBY. This means I don't have access to breeding and must manually acquire Eevee and its evolutions as well as each form of the starters.
GSC's Pokédex must be completed as much as possible with GSC. Only when I can't get a mon (Kanto starters/legends/fossils) in GSC proper will I resort to trading it up from RBY.
In gen 3, my hierarchy mostly goes as follows: for RSE it is RSE > Colo/XD > FRLG, in other words very roughly in order of release date. (I'm still working this out due to the overlap between Colo/XD and FRLG and the additional headache caused by the Pokémon added for Emerald. Ideas on this are appreciated.) For FRLG it is FRLG > RSE > Colo/XD.
In gen 4 onwards, my hierarchy prioritizes games of that generation before possible transfers. In completing SuMo for instance the order is SuMo>USUM>any transfers (probably ordered in RBY/GSC > gen 6 > gen 5 > gen 4 > gen 3).

My other big rule for this, which I may or may not relax on at some points (it's a soft rule at the moment), is to prioritize as well the means by I receive Pokémon. Roughly it is a Wild > Gift > In-game Trade > Evolve/Breed organization, which means that if a Pokémon is available in the wild I must catch it in the wild, even if it can be obtained by evolving another mon. The reason this is a soft rule is because while I think it's more interesting than evolving a million thing, we all know there exist nightmares like SOS battle Salamence and fishing in rippling water for Dragonite in BW(2?) and things like that and I don't yet know if I'm willing to commit lol. So yeah feel free to offer opinions on that lol

I was also thinking about making each Pokédex-file playthrough have a different gimmick, like one file is a Nuzlocke and another is a monotype and stuff like that. So I'm also looking for ideas on the potential gimmicks or challenges to use in this.

Also. I'm not even sure if I'm going to do this lol and it's insane as hell so also feel free to dissuade me from it :B

[Special care should be taken to acknowledge that (most) fan-100%s are not tracked in the game. We want to make a comprehensive guide of what the game tracks and what it doesn't, basically.]

I floated this idea around on the Discord for a little bit but figured I should discuss it somewhere more... permanent.

Basically I had the idea for a gaming wiki that goes into detail about what is needed to achieve certain levels of completion in video games. I came up with this idea after being unable to figure out if SNES F-Zero had a special bonus or anything for winning first place overall; all the sources I could find suggested all you need to do is place in one of the top three in every race, but didn't say anything about winning. I thought it might be nice to create a wiki with some information about games that also states what can be achieved for certain "completion objectives", so that completionist gamers like myself have a nice handy source to consult if they're curious about what the game actually tracks and what kinds of things could be counting toward completion.

It was idle musing in the Discord, but then a number of members stated they would be willing to write about specific games or series, so I figured I'd see what the actual interest level looked like before committing to anything. (I am known all over the Internet for incredibly stupid waste-of-time projects that appeal to extremely limited niches and are definitely not worth the time I put into them, but I still do them because of my own obsessive need for categorization. So this project would really be nothing in comparison. The only thing is that I have less time now than I did when I made my previous stupid waste-of-time projects and would rather not commit to this unless I know I'll have a) community support [not just from NSM members either! feel free to spread the word, anyone is welcome on this!] and b) a decent prospective userbase.)

The general formula would be as follows:
1. Description/overview of the game. Basically, a short description of the game goes here. I haven't decided yet if I want it to be pretty formal a la Wikipedia or less so a la The Cutting Room Floor.

2. Game content. This basically tells you what is in the game that might be considered for 100% completion.
Ex. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon contains a 'story mode' (the main game) that is required to progress through in order to unlock more areas of the game and eventually see the credits roll. The player can also recruit other Pokémon to their rescue force, and these Pokémon are tracked by the game, with an achievement being given for obtaining them all. The game also features rescue ranks, which are reflections of how many missions (and the difficulty thereof) the player has taken, with an absolute upper limit on rank. The game also features an achievement system that tracks the player's progress through the story, through recruitment, and through optional extraneous goals (such as using all Pokémon to lead the rescue team).

3. Basic objective. This outlines the game's provided objective to "beat" it. Usually, this means making the credits roll, but in games where credits are located separately or the game doesn't really have an objective (think SSBM, where credits roll after beating any single-player adventure but that is a rather arbitrary point), you could either use the speedrunners' view on what constitutes "any%" or use fans' arbitrary goal points (in SSBM this would probably be 'unlock all characters and stages' since that's making everything accessible for multiplayer, which is the whole point of SSBM.)

4. Additional objectives. This outlines what else you can do to "complete" the game. If the game has a percentage counter that tracks your progress, simply say what needs to be done to get it to 100%. (ex. in Kirby 64, collect all Crystal Shards and beat Miracle Matter again, or at all if it's your first playthrough.) If the game doesn't have a percentage counter, you can use speedrunners' view on what constitutes 100% (ex. 100% Pokémon runs tend to beat the E4 and fill the Pokédex) or other achievements offered by the game (ex. any% Super Mario Galaxy is beating Bowser, 100% is getting all the Power Stars, but then the game also acknowledges if you do it all again with Luigi).

5. Fan objectives. Depending on the game, there may be some options here for fan challenges/fan-suggested 100%-completion objectives. In SSBM, for instance, all of the unlockables and actual rewards are completed once you unlock all characters and stages, beat 1-player with all characters, gain all trophies and bonuses, beat all Event Matches. However, the game will give you special congratulatory messages for, say, beating Event Match 51 without dying once or playing 1,000,000 matches. As far as I'm aware those are not really counted as far as "beating" SSBM goes, and I myself was done after getting all trophies and bonuses, but they do exist as far as the game's programming is concerned and could be mentioned.
For an example of a fan-100% that doesn't relate to the game's own achievement system, consider the Pokémon completion strategy called "living dex". Strictly speaking, the game only tracks what is registered in the Pokédex and will reward you when the Pokédex is full. However, many fans (myself included) will take it a step further and attempt to get one of every species of Pokémon in the cart itself. This provides no benefits and makes the task harder, but for some fans is a version of 100% completion. Special care should be taken to acknowledge that (most) fan-100%s are not tracked in the game. We want to make a comprehensive guide of what the game tracks and what it doesn't, basically.

Of course this all varies on a case-by-case basis but this is generally I think what would work for most games.

Here are a couple barebones sample game analyses that kind of illustrate what I'd be looking for in the articles:

Super Mario Kart (SNES)

Super Mario Kart is a 1992 kart-racing game released by Nintendo for the SNES. It was the first in a long line of Mario Kart games that are now a staple in Nintendo's game lineups.

Game Content:
The game features two single-player and two multi-player modes. Only one of the single-player modes, Mario Kart GP, has attainable goals tracked by the game and that will trigger the credits sequence. This mode involves the player racing in 4 cups of 5 races each. The player can choose from 3 difficulty levels on these cups. Getting first, second, or third in the cup will be remembered and commemorated by the game, which provides the player a colored trophy based on which position they came in. Unlocking the third difficulty level requires getting gold trophies (winning 1st place) in all cups in the two preceding difficulty levels.

Basic Objective:
In order to see the credits roll for the first time, the player must do the following:
-Get a gold trophy (1st place) in all 3 cups in 50cc
-Get a gold trophy (1st place) in the first 3 cups in 100cc. Doing these two steps will unlock the fourth cup, the Special Cup.
-Rank in the top three in the Special Cup.

This is the way to see the first set of credits. In order to see them roll a second time, the player must also do the following:
-Get a gold trophy (1st place) in the 100cc Special Cup. This will unlock the 150cc difficulty level.
-Rank in the top three in every cup in 150cc.

Additional Objectives:
The game will show you the highest level of trophy you have obtained on any given cup. Thus, winning the gold trophy on all 11 cups will be shown by the game and can be considered to be the game's highest level of completion.

Fan Objectives:
The game only tracks which trophies you have obtained, not how well you did in order to achieve that trophy. Nonetheless, if you really want bragging rights with this game, try to get the maximum score on each race - winning it in 1st place to get 9 points, which will get you 45 points for the whole cup (and, by necessity, the gold trophy).

[close]

Kirby and the Amazing Mirror

Kirby and the Amazing Mirror is a 2004 platformer in the Kirby series released for the GBA. The game differs from most other games in the Kirby series in that it is set in a labyrinthine world instead of a linear progression through levels, and the player must seek out treasure chests by solving puzzles and using their Copy Abilities in certain ways in order to traverse the game world.

Game Content:
Progression through the game is marked by defeating eight bosses, each of which helps restore an important mirror. Upon beating all eight bosses, Kirby can fight the final boss. The game also contains 80 treasure chests which can be opened for temporary prizes (heals, 1-ups) or more permanent items (sound test files, extra life points, maps); the permanent treasures can be seen through an option in the menu of the file and are saved by the game. The game also tracks which rooms Kirby has been in, displaying unvisited rooms in red on the map and visited ones in gold. Ones that have been completed (i.e. any and all treasure chests have been opened) will shine. Kirby can also link faraway places to the central hub area by finding hidden switches. Hitting every hidden switch will open a bonus room that contains every Copy Ability.

Basic Objective:
Defeat all eight bosses to unlock the final boss and defeat him as well. This will cause the credits to roll. Treasure chests are not required, but the player will likely run into them by chance as they seek out the bosses.

Additional Objectives:
The game has a percentage counter. To get it to 100%, the player must do all of the following:
-Defeat all eight bosses and the final boss
-Visit every room
-Open every treasure chest
-Hit every switch that connects a faraway map to the basic hub area
Doing so will trigger a message that the player has attained 100% completion.

Fan Objectives:
There isn't much to say here as the game tracks the important things. If you really want to complete additional objectives, you could try to win the game's three minigames on every difficulty level, or retrace your steps through the whole game using the post-final-boss Master Sword ability, either accessing old treasure chests with it or beating all the bosses with it. You could also try to go through every door in the game if you are really dedicated.

[close]

Xenoblade Chronicles

Xenoblade Chronicles is an action-RPG released in 2010 for the Wii and ported to the New Nintendo 3DS in 2015. The game features the character Shulk traveling across the land with his bizarre and powerful weapon, the Monado, to discover its secrets and to fight the creatures, Mechon, that have been ravaging his homeland.

Game Content:
The game is a rather linear JRPG. The main party must move to certain locations and complete plot objectives in a certain order to advance the plot, fight bosses, and eventually take on the final boss. Along the way, the player is able to take sidequests, create links with NPCs, and do things like crafting and leveling up skills in order to strengthen the characters. The player can also engage in a detailed sidequest that involves rebuilding a destroyed colony by taking sidequests there, inviting NPCs to come join it, and collecting items that can be used for the construction. An achievement system keeps track of many of these and gives achievements for things like reaching certain milestones in number of sidequests taken or NPCs spoken to, etc.

Basic Objective:
The credits will roll and the player will have access to a New Game+ upon defeating the final boss. Once this happens, that file will be stuck at the last point the player saved before the final boss fight (unless it is overwritten with the New Game+ file), so the only objective that constitutes "beating the game" is to defeat the final boss.

Additional Objectives:
The game has a lengthy list of achievements. The whole list can be found here. Completing all objectives on this list basically constitutes 100% completion as far as the game tracks it.

Fan Objectives:
Despite the lengthy achievements list, not everything that can be done in the game is covered on the list. For instance, you will get an achievement for completing 300 quests, but there are more than that in the game; that's just the highest number represented in the achievements. So, you could also do any or all of the following:
-Complete all quests. (Note: Some are mutually exclusive. 'All quests' here means 'all possible quests considering mutual exclusivity'.)
-Explore the entire map and reach all areas. If you are very dedicated you may even wish to make the map show the entire region and not have any black spots whatsoever, although this isn't required.
-Register all NPCs on the Affinity Chart. You may also want to get the highest possible Affinity with them all.
-Have all Heart-to-Hearts go perfectly. However, this will lock you out of the one achievement that requires one Heart-to-Heart to go badly.
-Raise all Arts of each character to the maximum level.
-Defeat all of the Superbosses.

[close]

Feel free to post suggestions/criticism/whatever here, I'm still not sure I'm going through with this so I'd definitely like to hear feedback before making a decision!

So as I am currently discussing in the Discord chat, a fair few NSM members like the idea of having a Discord movie night some time. Historically I tend to see these done on Fridays but we can be variable!

How this works: There's a website called https://cytu.be/ where, basically, you can drop a movie in and everyone who is connected to that page (you don't need an account) will be able to watch it, and it will be synced up between all users. If the account holder pauses it, it gets paused for everyone, making it convenient to work with for large crowds.

It accepts video formats from Youtube, Dailymotion, and Vimeo at least, idk about other sites. So in other words, if we want to watch a movie via cytube, it will need to be available on one of these sites.

If you're interested, go ahead and post here with:
-TIMES you are available. We'd prefer weekend days to accommodate as many people as possible. Be sure to include TIME ZONE in your post.
-MOVIES you'd like to see. Please try to ascertain that you can find these on some video site before posting.

... that's about it. Who's in?

So I had a thought as I was driving home. It occurred to me that the NSM website is a little counterintuitive when it comes to expressing to visitors the ways in which arrangements get on site. For instance, the About page says this: "All of the music is arranged by members of the site. We also have forums where members can request and submit sheets, or just discuss games, music, and anything else."

In this, the "also" prefacing the note about the forums seems to indicate that the forums are separate from the main site, and that it is members of the site who submit sheets, not members of the forum. Do you see the difference? I feel like it might be rather difficult for a newcomer to figure out where they're supposed to go if they want to contribute to the site.

This is answered to some degree in the FAQ, which has the questions "How can I request an arrangement?" and "I have arranged a song, how can I submit this?", both of which direct the reader to the forums.
However I know from experience that not everyone always reads FAQs... that's why they're FAQs.

I propose that there be an entirely new page created for the main site specifically, entitled "Contribution Resources" or "Contributing to NSM" or "How To Contribute" or something like that that basically says in big bold letters what you need to do. The formatting guidelines could be provided there verbatim from the forums, or linked to with big bold letters that say "if you don't follow all of these we won't accept your arrangement". The same page could also link to Finale's website, explain that we use MUS's and why we use MUS's (because that's a common question from new submitters, and "new submitters that ask that question" is a category that used to include me lmao), and also explain, in detail, how one can transfer an arrangement from an alternate music software into Finale. It could also link to the Templates thread, or have a direct download for the templates, to assist people in that.

Not only would this decrease the number of people who show up to the forums asking questions about how to do something (as it stands now, this information is rather scattered through multiple threads and sometimes not made immediately obvious), which would save everyone time, but it would also (presumably) decrease the number of unformatted arrangements that get submitted, saving both the arranger and the updaters - whose time is, as we know, short to begin with lmao - valuable time.

Further, I had a second idea for this theoretical page. Notice that one of my titles for this page was "Contribution Resources". The FAQ has the following question: "I have arranged a song, how can I submit this?" In my mind, this implies an air of "you've already done it and don't know what to do now". I know from personal experience that people coming on the site for the first time may wish to arrange music, but have literally no idea where to start with that.

Therefore, I propose that this page, in addition to including information about the submission process at NSM, also include links to outside resources that will assist with arranging. For instance: youtube-to-audio-file pages; audiostretch; the bpm calculator; etc. In my vision, it would also include some resources on music theory for people who may not have much theoretical training. Links or explanations, of key signature, of rhythm and meter and how to notate it properly, of chords and scales, of the question of enharmonics and knowing which ones to use, of articulations and ornaments, etc. It would also include some general information about standards of piano-writing so we don't end up with new arrangements asking the player to play two octaves in a single hand. If we wanted explanations, I would be totally willing to write these up; I could use a chance to test my ability to write about music theory, haha.

In addition, the proposed page would also include a handful of guides on how to arrange prepared by seasoned arrangers, geared toward the new arranger who isn't sure where to start with a piece. They would walk the reader through the process as they perceive it, and the reader could obviously read them all and get an idea of which one works best with their individual experience.

I feel like there's a lot of defeatism when it comes to arranging. Like, "oh, that's too complicated, I could never do that." I thought so once, when I was a teenager, and... uh... that's changed after probably over 100 arrangements. It's easier than you think it will be, but I know it can be hard to figure out where to begin. By putting all the information in one place, and a place on the main site at that, I think it may encourage community interest and draw a new base to NSM.

Thoughts?

you read that right, I said NES, and yes, this is 2016 and not 1983

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/28256-the-nintendo-entertainment-system-will-launch-november-11-for-5999/

Gist of it is: Nintendo is making a modern-compatible $60 NES, with which you can use Classic Controller (Pro) if you want, that is bundled with 30 Nintendo titles - including such important ones as Mario Bros (1-3), The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II, Final Fantasy, Ninja Gaiden, Castlevania, Kid Icarus, and Kirby's Adventure. The games are in the system memory, so you more or less have an NES emulator-machine, since it doesn't seem to be able to play actual NES carts. The upside is that you can actually play with two people though, and all the games have a Virtual Console-esque savestate option.

I never thought I'd see the day where this happened. Thoughts?

so im thinking about asking for an electric keyboard/piano/whateverthefuck for a graduating present. All I know is I want one with 88 keys but i know jack shit about keyboards, can anyone recommend me which ones are dabes

Soo I'm working on this. The way it repeats itself is confusing me how best to write it. To wit, it moves approximately like this:
Intro [3 bars: 0:00-00:05]
A section [17 bars: 0:05-0:37]
B section [16 bars: 0:37-1:06]
Intro reprise [3 bars: 1:06-1:12]
C section [16 bars: 1:12-1:44]
B section reprise [16 bars: 1:44-2:13]

and then the entire piece repeats. The way I have it written now is basically as above - |:[Intro][A][B ][Intro][C][B ]:|. But I feel like there's a way to incorporate the repeated B section in, like with DC or DS or first/second endings. But none of my ideas so far have been successful. For instance:

[Intro][A]S|:[B ][Intro]DS[C]:| such that the roadmap would be Intro --> A --> B --> Intro --> C --> B --> Intro --> DS to A --> repeat from there. Except that in practice, the fact that the DS is in the B section means the playback (and possibly performer) wants to take the DS the first time around back to the S, which just results in Intro --> A --> B --> Intro --> A --> B which is not correct.

I also thought about using first/second endings and a DS:

[Intro]S[A]|:[B ][Intro]1[C]:|2[Intro]DS

except that this results in a first ending that's like 16 bars long and that just seems like it's too long.

Is the best way to write it really just re-writing the entirety of the B section or is there actually a better way to write it?

(For the record: It's part of my personal style to have repeats of the whole song in my arrangements of looping video game tracks, rather than just a double bar line. This would be easier if I weren't trying to fit an entire-repeat in, but alas)

So as we ALL know I've been putting together my Hamtaro soundtracks from the youtube playlists I myself created, which were in turn recorded from the emulator. Well I just ran across rips of the soundtracks I uploaded and they include some interesting stuff - namely, unused music. What's NSM's policy on posting unused music? I know y'all do beta music and the like, are you willing to put up unused tracks as well?

(I ask because, in the Ham-Hams Unite OST - the entirety of which I've already arranged, except for a whopping SIX tracks that I only just found in the rip that aren't in the game - there's three really interesting tracks I'd like to arrange: 8-bit excerpts from Dvorak's New World Symphony!!!)

Speaking of NSM policies, here's another question: Three of the four Hamtaro games use the Hamtaro TV show's opening theme for their intro/title screen. However, the show's opening theme is different in the Japanese and English(/European language) versions of the show, and therefore, the title track in these 3 games is different. Would publishing both on NSM be possible, or would you prefer just one language-version?
This also affects another track. In the Japanese version of one of the games, the Menu screen's music is the bass + percussion tracks of the title theme, but in the American/European version, it's replaced with the bass + percussion tracks of the credits sequence (which is the same between the games). Can I upload both of those, as well?

[COMPLETELY, 100% WORTHLESS.]

Okay, I don't know a better place to put this so it's going here.

Today I had Latios and Olimar both tell me to use the Finale template so that I could submit files that had the proper formatting. They really pushed this template. I don't have anything against it, it's a good template, but there's a problem: for Finale Notepad users, it's COMPLETELY, 100% WORTHLESS.

Maybe some of you who have had upgraded Finale for a long time have forgotten this, but Notepad does not allow you to change time signatures of key signatures from pre-sets. Not every song is in the key of C major in 4/4 time. Many aren't. And copy-pasting from another Finale file (say, an import from another program) does not carry the time and key signatures from the original to the template. So, using the template will fix your formatting problems! Yaaaaaay hooray! Except now it's in the complete wrong time and key signature. But I guess formatting's more important, eh?

What I'm trying to say here is that pushing the template when people have formatting issues is absolutely not going to fix them. Many times, it will actively be a problem: people will spend wasted hours futilely trying to get their time and key signatures to carry over without realizing it's not going to work and so that's plenty of wasted hours that could have been spent, y'know, just having someone with an upgraded Finale fix the files. As it stands the constant push to use the template is akin to saying "Oh, you want to paint the wall but you have no tools? Here, have a potato! It doesn't work? Nonsense! All the great painters use potatoes."

Recommendation: Make a note about the fact that the template is worthless to Finale Notepad users so that people don't waste hours to it. And stop pushing the template to people who use non-Finale programs for the bulk of their sheets. It just wastes time and frustrates people like me to no end. If I could have fixed my formatting, I would have. But the template is useless.

So, as I've mentioned before, my eventual goal is to arrange every piece of Hamtaro video game music that there is. There's a few cases, though, where I'm not sure how I would go about listing the composer or copyright info; any assistance would be much appreciated.

1) Between Ham-Hams Unite and Ham-Ham Heartbreak, 4 small (by "small" I mean like "15-20 second") excerpts of classical pieces are used. For Ham-Hams Unite, Bolero (from Ravel's Bolero) and Postman's Rush (from Necke's Csikos Post), and for Ham-Ham Heartbreak, Moonlight (from Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata) and Flower Waltz (from Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flowers).
2) Something like eight songs are re-used (some, with key changes) between Ham-Hams Unite and Ham-Ham Heartbreak, albeit upgraded in quality as the former is a GBC game and the latter a GBA game. The composer is the same between both games. Should the copyright information reflect the fact that the songs were composed for the GBC game initially, though re-arranged for the GBA game?
3) This is a bit related to situation 2, but not exactly the same. The title theme for both games is Hamtaro Time (GBC version; GBA version), which is a MIDI-fied version of the show's opening theme. According to the English credits the music in the show is the work of one Motoyoshi Iwasaki, who is decidedly not the Sakoto Yokota credited in the games' credits as the games' composer. Where should the credit and copyright go for this song?

So as my signature and all of my arrangements thread indicate, I want to arrange Hamtaro music. My ultimate goal really is to have most, if not all, of the Hamtaro soundtrack(s) arranged on site, there's only four games after all and they're sorely unappreciated!! But because they're sorely unappreciated... the music simply isn't on the internet. There's an OST of the first game, Ham-Hams Unite, with several major tracks and none of the smaller tracks. There's a couple videos of some of the early big tracks of the sequel Ham-Ham Heartbreak. There's absolutely nothing for Ham-Ham Games.

What I've been doing, in order to arrange these tracks/provide Youtube videos for quality checkers, is record them myself from my emulator, with QuickTime Player. The only problem is it doesn't record the audio as it is in the computer - it's more like if I held my GBASP up to the mic and recorded it directly from the GBASP. Same key, you can hear everything, but it's a bit distorted, "airy" and quiet. Not really the best for arranging off of, or providing a quality check based on.

So I'm wondering if anyone knows a way to record audio directly from an emulator to a sound file, or alternatively, if someone knows how to/knows someone that can rip the soundtracks directly from the game's code.

Thanks!

[Completed by SlowPokemon]

Completed by SlowPokemon

Probably one of my favorite gym leader themes, I'd love to see it get a full arrangement but again 32-bit music is proving too difficult for my current skill level. But I really want to see it arranged because I promised someone like five years ago I'd record a video of me playing the Gym Leader theme and I am still going to do that dammit

[if we can determine which sheets on the site need formatting fixes, this may be a starting point to figure out which sheets need musical fixes.]

I talked this over a little with Latios212 the other night and he agreed with what I was trying to do, so I'm gonna make myself a topic for this.

Basically, I had this thought the other day. That thought was about the fact that we have a lot of replacing and fixing projects going on pretty much at all times here. But they seem to be pretty random, spurred on by the fact that one person is like, "let's go ahead and fix this game up" and that ends up being what happens. I was hoping to find a more systematic way to determine what needs replacing or fixing. I don't really care to listen to every track and compare it to the site's version of the music note-by-note to see what's wrong. On the other hand, I love making useless text documents and lists. So here's my thought: if we can determine which sheets on the site need formatting fixes, this may be a starting point to figure out which sheets need musical fixes.

Here's my reasoning: NSM did not always have the quality standards it has now. Half the sheets on the site are pieces of shit. We know this. Having downloaded several of these sheets for myself - and I mean several - I've also noticed that the ones that are less meticulously formatted also tend to be the ones with musical errors. For instance, I'm pretty sure - though I've never even listened to the soundtrack or played the game - that this arrangement of Glitter Gulch Mine from Banjo-Kazooie is definitely in a compound meter and not 4/4 time with a billion triplets. It also happens to have no measure numbers, copyright, subtitle, metronome marking, dynamics, and the wrong formatting for the composer/arranger names. Similarly, this arrangement of Sloprano/The Great Mighty Poo from Conker's Bad Fur Day is pretty clearly in A minor, and yet there's not a single G-sharp to be found anywhere - only A-flats and more A-flats. Then it changes key to... F minor? Don't you mean B-flat minor...? This one also has the wrong formatting for the composer/arranger names, title, and subtitle, and again lacks a copyright.

So I'm sensing a pattern here. Things with bad formatting also tend to be musically incorrect. It's only easy to spot if you either know the piece extremely well or know music theory extremely well (or both), which means looking for musically incorrect pieces by the actual musical content could take a while. But, bad formatting also implies lower quality standards on the musical nature of the piece, as far as I'm concerned. Which is why I've started doing what will be the essence of this project:

What I want to do is go through the entire website, all 2479 sheets, and make a list of the ones that are improperly formatted in some way.

I'm honestly fine with doing it by myself, since as I've said I love making lists. But really if I did it all myself I'd probably spend more time in what's left of my summer than I want. Plus, Latios212 already called the entire Pokémon section, so why don't I open the floor to anyone else here at NSM who is interested?

Here are the formatting errors/issues that I'm looking for. I don't feel like downloading every MUS on the site, so I'm just using the PDFs and therefore am not going to notice any issues that might be present with the MUS version - though if there's a problem with the PDF, there is likely a problem with the MUS as well. Though, I won't be able to notice from a glance if the text size of everything is correct. Only if everything else is.

1) Title - Should be bolded, in quotation marks, and be just the title (there's a few sheets in the Banjo-Tooie section that are labeled as "[Title] - BT" for instance which is incorrect), which in turn should line up with what the link to the PDF is called (unlike for instance this Pokémon sheet which is labeled "Surf" on its link and "Surfing" as its title). Should be present on all pages.
2) Subtitle - Should be the name of the game, italicized. Nothing more, nothing less, unlike the Sloprano/The Great Mighty Poo sheet linked above that has "Sloprano" as its title and "The Great Mighty Poo" as an italicized sub-title, with "Conker's Bad Fur Day" below that.
3) Composer name - "Composed by <x>, <y>, & <x>" or "Composition by <x>, <y>, & <z>". Bold-faced.
4) Arranger name - "Arranged by <x>" or "Arrangement by <x>". Italicized.
5) Metronome marking, with the BPM.
6) At least one dynamic marking at the beginning of the score.
7) Measure numbers at the beginning of each line.
8.) On the left, the first system is indented with "Piano" and each subsequent system is not indented and does not repeat the "Piano" marker. You may be surprised to hear I actually found a few sheets that kept the secondary "Pno." markings that Notepad automatically adds.
9) This may sound trivial, but make sure the music ends with either a double bar line or a repeat sign. I found one that didn't.
10) Copyright - [Publisher] © [Year Published]. I've seen a few "©Rare © 2000" type stuff here and there. Also, make sure the copyrights are consistent with other copyrights for the same game. In the Banjo-Kazooie section it was mostly "Nintendo/Rare, but I saw a few just "Nintendo" and a couple "Rareware" and "Nintendo, Rare". In Animal Crossing, most New Leaf sheets were © 2013, but a couple were © 2012. I don't know enough about the game to know which is correct, so I just went with which date was more prevalent as the "correct" date - 2013.
11) Site URL - More than anything else, this is what needs fixing. Half of Deku Trombonist's sheets in Animal Crossing and Banjo-Kazooie still have the defunct ninsheetm.us URL on them. Make sure to check every sheet for the URL, even if everything else on the sheet looks correct.

Now that that's all out of the way... I've already checked every sheet in the Animal Crossing and Banjo-Kazooie sections. Here are the sheets requiring fixing:

Animal Crossing

Animal Crossing:
K. K. Bossa - Missing a dynamic marking
K. K. Ragtime - Arranger and composer written as "Arranged By" and "Composed By"; copyright year given as 2002 instead of more popular 2001
Rainy Day - wrong site URL

City Folk:
Mr. Resetti's Theme - wrong site URL

New Leaf:
1:00 A.M. - wrong site URL
2:00 A.M. - missing metronome marking and dynamic marking; wrong site URL
8:00 P.M. - wrong site URL
K. K. Jongara (Aircheck) - site link says "K. K Jongara" vs. the sheet's "K. K. Jongara"; copyright year given as 2012 instead of more popular 2013
K. K. Moody - site link says "K. K. Moody" vs. the sheet's "K. K. Moody (Live)"; copyright year given as 2012

Wild World:
2:00 A.M. - no dynamic marking; wrong site URL
2:00 P.M. - wrong site URL
6:00 A.M. - no dynamic marking; wrong site URL
9:00 A.M. - wrong site URL
K. K. Metal - no dynamic marking; wrong site URL
Main Gate - wrong site URL
Museum: Observatory - site link says "Museum (Observatory) vs. the sheet's "Museum: Observatory"; wrong site URL
The Roost - wrong site URL
Town Hall (Day) - wrong site URL

[close]

Banjo-Kazooie

Banjo-Kazooie:
Bubblegloop Swamp - ends on a regular bar line instead of a double bar or repeat
Clanker's Cavern - copyright is "Nintendo © 1998" rather than the more popular "Nintendo/Rare © 1998"
Click Clock Wood (Autumn) - copyright is "Nintendo © 1998"
Click Clock Wood (Spring) - title overlaps music on pages after 1; no subtitle; composer line has "By"; arranger line is bold instead of italic and overlaps with music; no metronome marking; no dynamic marking; no measure numbers; no copyright or site URL
Click Clock Wood (Winter) - apparently composed by "Grank Kirkhope"
Gruntilda's Lair - missing "Piano" marking on the left
Gruntilda's Lair (Mad Monster Mansion) - site link says "(Mad Monster Mansion Lobby)" vs. the sheet's "(Mad Monster Mansion)"
King Sandybutt's Maze - subtitle seems too small; copyright is "Rare © 1998"; wrong site URL; metronome markings could possibly be improved; silent measure at end of piece
Mad Monster Mansion - subtitle reads "Banjo Kazooie"; no metronome marking; copyright is "Rare © 1998"; wrong site URL
Mumbo's Hut - no "Piano" marking on left
Opening - no "Piano" marking on left
Overture - site link says "Overture" vs. the sheet's "Banjo Overture"; copyright says "Nintendo © 1998"
Prickly Pear Island - no "Piano" marking on left; subtitle reads "Banjo-Kazooie/Dream"; copyright says "Nintendo, Rare 1998"; wrong site URL; site link adds "(BETA)" where the sheet lacks it
Rusty Bucket Bay - no "Piano" marking on left; wrong site URL
Rusty Bucket Bay: Warehouse - site link says "Rusty Bucket Bay (Warehouse)" vs. the sheet's "Rusty Bucket Bay: Warehouse"; no metronome marking or dynamics; missing measure numbers; copyright says "Rare © 1998"; wrong site URL (when the hell was this place a .net?!)
Spiral Mountain - title is missing quotes; subtitle is not italicized and written as "Banjo Kazooie"; arranger is bold and not italic; missing metronome marking, dynamics, and measure numbers; no copyright or site URL
Spiral Mountain (Duet) - no metronome marking; lines after the first read "Pno. 1" and "Pno. 2"; copyright says "Rare © 1998"; wrong site URL
Treasure Trove Cove - title is missing quotes; no subtitle; no "Composed/Composition by"; arranger is bold and not italic; no metronome or dynamic marking; no "Piano" at left; wrong type of bracket used; no copyright or site URL
Treasure Trove Cove (BETA) - wrong site URL
Treasure Trove Cove (Sand Castle - Aquatic) - wrong site URL
Treasure Trove Cove (The Salty Hippo) - wrong site URL
Wonderwing! - title is italicized; subtitle reads "Banjo-Kazooie/Tooie"; "Composed By" and "Arranged By"; no metronome or dynamic marking; no measure numbers; no copyright or site URL

Grunty's Revenge:
Spiller's Harbor - wrong site URL

Nuts & Bolts:
Banjoland (Challenge) - wrong site URL; copyright is "Rare © 2008"; wrong site URL
Logbox Lunacy - subtitle reads "Banjo Kazooie"; copyright is "Rareware © 2008"; wrong site URL
Showdown Town - space in "Banjo-Kazooie" in the subtitle; composer is "Composed by Robin Beanland/G. Kirkhope"; no metronome marking; copyright is "Rare © 2008/2009"; wrong site URL

Banjo-Tooie:
Banjo's House Blues - wrong site URL
Battle with HAG1 - "Piano 1" at left and subsequent "Pno. 1"; no metronome marking; copyright is "Rare © 2000"; wrong site URL; titles on pages 2+ are "Battle with Hag 1."
Bottles' House - wrong site URL
Cauldron Keep - wrong site URL
Chilly Willy/Chilli Billi Battle - wrong site URL
Cloud Cuckooland - site link is "Cloud Cuckooland (Two Pianos) vs. the sheet's "Cloud Cuckooland"; "Pno. 1/2" at left; coppyright says "Nintendo, Rare © 2000"; wrong site URL
Credits - site link is "Credits" vs. the sheet's "End Credits"; title is not in quotes; subtitle reads "Banjo Tooie" and is not italicized; arranger is bold, not italic and says "SamWaetford"; no metronome, dynamic marking, or measure numbers; no copyright or site URL
Fun and Games! - site link is "Fun and Games!" vs. the sheet's "Fun 'n' Games!"; wrong site URL
Glitter Gulch Mine - title is not in quotes and includes "BT"; no subtitle; arranger is bold and not italic; no metronome marking, dynamics, or measure numbers; no copyright or site URL
Grunty Industries (Basement) - copyright is "©Rare © 2000"; wrong site URL
Grunty Industries (Inside) - site link is "Grunty Industries (Inside) vs. the sheet's "Inside Grunty Industries"; title lacks quotes; no subtitle; composer just says "By Grant Kirkhope"; arranger says "Arr. by Commander6" and is bold and not italic; no metronome, dynamics or measure numbers; no copyright or site URL; pages after the first have [Title]
Grunty Industries (Outside) - subtitle is "Banjo Tooie"; wrong site URL
Hailfire Peaks (Fire Side) - subtitle is "Fire Side" rather than game title; title is not in quotes; composer just says "By Grant Kirkhope"; arranger says "Arr. by Commander6" and is bold and not italic; no metronome, dynamics, or measure numbers; no copyright or site URL; pages after the first have [Title]
Hailfire Peaks (Ice Side) - site link is "Hailfire Peaks (Ice Side) vs. the sheet's "HailfirePeaks (Icy Side); copyright is "Rareware © 2000"
Here Comes Trouble! - subtitle is "Banjo Tooie"; wrong site URL
In the Hall of the Zombie King - no dynamic markings; copyright is "Rare © 2000"; wrong site URL
Isle O' Hags - title is not in quotes; no subtitle; composer just says "By Grant Kirkhope"; arranger says "Arr. by Commaner6 [sic]";  no dynamic marking or measure numbers; no copyright or site URL; pages after the first have [Title]
Jiggywiggy's Temple - subtitle reads "Banjo Tooie"; wrong site URL
Jiggywiggy's Temple (Duet) - subtitle reads "Banjo Tooie"; wrong site URL
Jinjo Village - game title is part of composition title; title is not in quotes; no subtitle; arranger is bold and not italic; no metronome marking, dynamics, or measure numbers; title on pages 2+ is "Jinjo Village/BK2" and overlaps with music
Jolly Roger's Lagoon - copyright is "Rareware © 2000"
Jolly Roger's Lagoon - Atlantis - subtitle is "Banjo Tooie"; no "Piano" at left; copyright is "Nintendo, Rare @ 1998"; wrong site URL
Kickabout - copyright is "Rareware © 200 [sic]"; wrong site URL
Lord Woo Fak Fak - site link adds "Self-Important Anglerfish" while the sheet has that as the subtitle; title is not in quotes; subtitle does not contain game name; composer is just "By Grant Kirkhope"; arranger is "Arr. by Commander6" and is in bold and not italic; no metronome marking, dynamics or measure numbers; no copyright or site URL; pages after the first have "Lord Woo Fak-Fak" as the title
Mayahem Temple - subtitle says "Banjo Tooie"; wrong site URL
Mr. Patch - site link adds "Strange Wobbly Inflatable Thing" while sheet adds "Witchyworld Boss"; title is italicized; no metronome marking, dynamics or measure numbers; no copyright or site URL
Race with Mary - site link says "Race with Mary" vs. sheet's "Race with Mary - Gliter [sic] Glutch [sic] Mine"; title is not in quotes; subtitle has unnecessary spacing in game title; composer is just "By: Grant Kirkhope"; arranger is "Arr. by Commander6" and is bold and not italic; no metronome marking, dynamics, or measure numbers; no copyright or site URL; pages after the first have [Title]
Targitzan - site link adds "Despotic Dizzy Totem God" vs. sheet's just having "Targitzan"; title lacks quotes; no subtitle; composer says "By Grant Kirkhope"; arranger says "Arr. by Commander 6" and is in bold and not italic; no metronome marking, dynamics, or measure numbers; lacks copyright and site URL; pages after the first have [Title]
Targitzan - Despotic Dizzy Totem God (Duet) - copyright says "Nintendo, Rare © 2000"
Terrydactyland - sheet adds "BT" to the title; title is not in quotes; no subtitle; arranger is in bold and not italic; no metronome markings, dynamics, or measure numbers; no copyright or site URL
Weldar - site link adds "Visually Impaired Reading Torch" and sheet has that as a subtitle; the piece has been "Arragned"; no dynamic marking; copyright is "©Rare © 2000"; wrong site URL
Witches' Theme - subtitle seems too small; lacks metronome marking, dynamics, and measure numbers; copyright is "Rare © 2000"; wrong site URL
Witchyworld - wrong site URL

[close]

Feel free to post sheets with incorrect formatting as well as their issues and I'll update this first post with them. I'll also be working through the sheets myself over the next few days.

(Note to Latios212: The Pokémon sheets probably all have the wrong subtitle, if not because of game then because of "Pokemon" instead of "Pokémon". I feel like we should just ignore that for now and focus on the rest of the formatting issues lol)

snip

hello I am here again with another musical question. here is an upload (that I did because nobody else has uploaded it, which is also why the video is shit quality) of a theme from Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak. It's pretty much the same as a theme from Ham-Hams Unite that I already arranged, except transposed from B major to E-flat major. However in the transition from GBC to GBA music there were a couple of changes made, and one of them is that there is a harmony line accompanying part of the introduction, in the same rhythm as the melody, that I'm having a bit of trouble with. Here is the PDF link to the theme in question (directly transposed from the other one I arranged with no edits, hence why the bass line is all wrong); the harmony can be heard for the duration of m. 2. I can hear that the first three notes are G, moving up to A-flat on the fourth and back to G for the fifth (aka beat 2), but after that I get a little lost. They can't really continue down in 3rds because then the downbeat of m. 3 will be an E-flat in the melody against a C in the harmony when it's clearly an E-flat major chord and therefore C has no place, but I'm not good enough at hearing harmonies to tell what's going on there. D: Any help?

(also I'm sorry if I'm making too many topics with strictly musical questions in this board, but I'm not sure where else to put it lol)

Edit: Listening again, it sounds like the harmonies actually continue throughout most of the loop sequence. I'm hearing something like this for the most part, but any comments would be helpful :p

Editedit: I think I figured out the first part of my own question - parallel sixths not thirds as seen here. That being said I could still use a look over the harmonies in the loop section :p (edit x3: also I think there are harmonies in m.1 but I dunno about those either)

(by the time I figured this all out I was like "well maybe I should just go put it in my arrangement thread and not have an entire help thread dedicated to something I actually figured out on my own" but I can't delete topics lmao)

Hey everyone,
I'm working on another Hamtaro arrangement, this time of Sky Garden from Ham-Hams Unite. I have the majority of the song done, but as you can hear in the recording, the left hand is entirely sixteenth-note arpeggios spelling chords. There is one measure where I cannot for the life of me figure out what chord is accompanying the melody - the measure from 0:23-0:26.
MUS /MIDI / PDF of what I have. If you don't feel like looking at any of that, the entire piece is in E major, and the chords around the mystery chord are (as far as I know...), starting at 0:16: B7 - E - F#m - ? (has a C# as its highest pitch) - B7.

Assistance would much appreciated, I've spent far too long failing to figure out this single chord...