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You might be surprised how much Liszt's Csardas Macabre, S.224 already sounds like heavy metal, so I made a metal remix of it!

Just a couple of things:

• Might have been the laptop speakers I listened to the original through, but I hear a (tubular) bells part as the melody in Bars 9-15, and that part is generally a perfect fifth above the existing melody (except for your existing melody F's).
• I'm hearing B flats in the melody of the original where rests are in your right hand in Bars 61-72.

I'm also wondering whether setting the tempo to half of what you set it to, halving all the note lengths, and keeping it in 4/4 time would be the better idea. I generally feel the tempo of this theme, especially the quieter sections, as half of what you have.

Only one thing I noticed as really sticking out:

• The ending melody F's (Beat 4.5) in Bars 45 and 49 sound wrong - they're B flats an octave up from the previous melody B flats in the original. Might be my ears, but I can't detect F's in the melody instrument there even though they would make sense.

Looked at and listened to your Mario Kart Super Circuit Bowser's Castle one and found these:

• The tonality of this theme is a little weird: despite the E minor-like atmosphere, G sharp is prominent, so I suspect Phrygian Dominant-like flavour in the original. As a result, I'd much rather change all A flats in your arrangement to G sharps.
• I'm getting the first half of the bassline of Bar 1 as G# (for a half note, all running 16th notes) in the original. The rest of your bassline for Bar 1 is fine and I'd keep the first half of the bassline in that style, but the notes need to change for the first half note.
• I'm getting the first half of the right hand of Bar 31 as 8th rest-D-E-G# (all notes are 8th notes) in the original - in fact, they're the same as the melody of the first half of Bar 29.
• I'm getting straight 8th notes for the first set of melody D's in Bar 37 in the original instead of your dotted quarter note. I'd like that dotted quarter note split into 8th notes (the span is a bit painful, I know, so I'm letting you off for melody articulations there).
• We are going to have to do something about that severe overlap between left and right hands for the first half of your arrangement (Bars 1-17) and Bars 31-32. It sounds surprisingly OK in your arrangement, possibly because you emphasize the melody notes in the MUS, but we might have to cut out all harmony notes in Bars 1-17 above melody notes, accent melody notes only in your arrangement (including in unintuitive places), drop the accompaniment of Bars 31-32 (either drop an octave or drop only the E's an octave), or something like that.

This is my first time composing a menu theme for a (hypothetical) video game: the Mario Kart menu theme-influenced Select on Standby!

It looks like you mixed up which songs I got right, braix - I got #3 right, not #2.

At quick glance, I think this should be in F#m and not Bbm? It does have some weird alterations later on, but at least m1-12 are really F#m based.

The ending measures of the Mario Kart 64 Bowser's Castle theme sound like they're in B flat minor, so I think a key signature change partway through is best.

Hopefully this sounds like it's for 2 hands - here's my newest composition, Etude in E Flat Major For the Left Hand ("Courtly Procession")!

legoenthusiast, can you please use Google Drive or Dropbox to host files next time instead of Mediafire? I don't want to hit pop-up ads with every download, and also risk not downloading the file any time I click on the download link, unlike the experience I just got with Mediafire.

Wonder how well I can compose a march in the style of Eric Coates (Dambusters March and friends)? Listen to my newest march, Forwards On!

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.

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 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.)

I'm a bit confused. Did you mean a regular quarter note? Because if it's a dotted quarter note then it bleeds over into the next eighth note, which doesn't sound rhythmically right to me.

Ah right, I agree with Kricketune54's sentiment that the note cannot be a quarter note like it is now, but I must have overlooked the precise note length mentioned. Yeah, change them to dotted 8th notes.

Also, dropping the difficulty of Bar 26 might be a good idea - just keep the top 3 notes of each 4-note chord there.

(Weird, now I hear the highest note at Beat 1 of Bar 23 as B in the original, too.)

I agree with this from Kricketune54:

-When you have an eighth on beat 3,

Spoiler

[close]

write it as a dotted quarter note instead of an eighth, this applies for a lot of the LH from m3 on for most of the first page, but I this might've just blended in

Some other adjustments I think should be made:

• The countermelody in Bars 15-18 is quite prominent in the original, and I hear it much louder than your harmonization of those measures (to the point that those harmonizations in Bars 17-18 sound wrong). Here's what I hear for that countermelody, assuming we stick to using C flat major instead of B major (Bar 15 might actually be a good time to switch to B major (and possibly fail to change the key signature likewise), as the piece tonicizes G sharp minor/A flat minor and then keys with sharps in their key signature straight afterward):
  
  • Bar 15: G flat half note, A flat quarter note, B flat 8th note, C flat 8th note, all ascending
  • Bar 16: D flat half note, E flat quarter note, F flat quarter note, all ascending
  • Bar 17: G flat dotted quarter note, D flat 8th note, E flat dotted 8th note, F flat 16th note tied to 8th note, G flat 8th note
  • Bar 18: A double flat(!!) half note, G flat quarter note, F flat 8th note, D flat 8th note, all descending
• We'd likewise avoid that awkwardness with accidentals (e.g. A natural-A flat-A natural in the same line) in Bar 21 if we switch to using sharps instead of flats there (and either ignoring the 4-flat key signature there or changing it).
• I hear the highest note at Beat 1 of Bar 23 as D in the original instead of your B.
• I'd say it's safer to make the F sharp in the inner line of Bar 24 a half note instead of a dotted quarter note (thus removing the tied G 8th note there); even at 0.5 and 0.25 speed, I hear the note straight after the cymbal crash at the start of Bar 24 of the original as F sharp instead of G, and the cymbal crash seems to take up less than an 8th note to me.
• I hear the highest notes of the starting 16th note-16th note-8th note pattern of Bar 26 of the original as F sharp-G-F sharp instead of your B-C-B.
• I hear the melody of Bar 33 as being two half notes in the original instead of your syncopated pattern in Beats 3-4.
• Especially if we actually end up using double flats in Bar 18, I'd recommend using C double sharp instead of D natural in Bar 39 and F double sharp instead of G natural in Bar 40 (mainly to dodge twice-in-a-row-on-the-same-note-label accidental usage).
• I hear the topmost notes of Beats 2.5-3.5 of Bar 41 as D sharp-F sharp-E in the original instead of your F sharp-G sharp-F sharp.

This is what I encounter.
Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/lwEY7cU

As far as I can tell, the error message is actually for a text font, not a soundfont.