[SNES] Shin Megami Tensei - "Mansion of Heresy" by Rwars

[Zeta]

Submission Information:
Series: Other
Game: Shin Megami Tensei
Console: Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Title: Mansion of Heresy
Instrumentation Solo Piano
Arranger: Rwars

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[Rwars]

Opted to not go with the higher notes during a portion of the track to save hands. Also went with calling the Cathedral of Shadows, despite it being disputed for this particular game what this track is called, the official sound selection CD calling it a Pegan Castle, some translations calling it a Jakyou Manor, but later games calling it a Cathedral of Shadows.

[Libera]

Some non-arranging/accuracy things:

-The loop should definitely not be written how it currently is.  Put the final bar back in rather than reusing bar 12 and then use a D.S. to go back to bar 13.  It will be way clearly this way rather than breaking a phrase across 2 pages.
-Your left margin is really big gives the whole sheet a kind of lop-sided look.  I'd suggest decreasing it to between 0.6 and 0.7, which leaves enough room for hole-punching but doesn't make the sheet look too asymmetrical.
-I'd also suggest dropping the staff size from finale's default, which I generally think is too big for all but the shortest sheets.  In the below picture I've dropped the staff size to 0.65cm and incorporated the above two points also for reference.

Spoiler

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Other things:

-Your pdf export is only the second page for some reason.

Opted to not go with the higher notes during a portion of the track to save hands.

-I'm not sure this is exactly the best approach here.  I think that it'd be a good idea to try include some of the extra harmony/lines rather than just dropping them entirely.  You can always move around octaves etc. if that helps to make it fit under the hands better.  Primarily I think it's an issue because sometimes the sheet just doesn't sound like it's capturing the movement in the original very well by leaving out that whole line, particularly towards the end of the loop.

Also went with calling the Cathedral of Shadows, despite it being disputed for this particular game what this track is called, the official sound selection CD calling it a Pegan Castle, some translations calling it a Jakyou Manor, but later games calling it a Cathedral of Shadows.

- I freely admit that I know nothing about this game, but if an official sound selection calls it Pegan Castle, then surely that's the best option to go with?  Naming tracks after renamings in later versions is not what we usually do here, at least as far as I'm aware.

[Rwars]

Don't know why the PDF export sometimes does that, it's super weird. Either way, margins have been fixed, and so has the loop. I have also added in the countermelody/harmony. In the discord, it was settled upon calling the track Mansion of Heresy, so, this is updated with all the fixes. Is there anything we should do, probably about that harmony?

[Libera]

That looks better but there are still some things off presentation-wise.

-I really still recommend a smaller staff size than finale default, but if you really want to keep it as-is I won't stop you.  If you do still want to stick to finale default, then 4-5-5 might be a better system distribution than 5-5-4.
-You're really close to the copyright on the first page.  You should bring up the systems there to accommodate.  Also, related to that is the fact that the copyright isn't aligned correctly to the bottom margin.
-I suggest a double barline at the end of bar 12.  It helps to separate the introduction from the loop and also makes it visually easier to find the segno.
-You have double accidentals in places where both layers have the same accidental (bars 24, 28, 35 etc).  I don't know why finale is doing that since it should sort that out itself automatically, but since it isn't you'll need to fix it.
-You should align the first systems of pages 2 and 3 so that they start at the same height.  It's better to have white space at the bottom of the final page rather than at the top.
-There are some other visual issues (like collisions in bars 27 etc) but I imagine that most of those will go when other feedback is implemented.  (And if not those can still be fixed later.)

Onto the now-added harmony:

You asked whether it is OK for the second layer to coincide with the first, and while that is fine, I'll be honest in that it doesn't actually seem to serve any use in this arrangement other than making everything more confusing.  In nearly every case it seems that the doubled note would be better replaced by a currently omitted harmony note.  That brings me to my second point which is that at the moment the harmony doesn't seem wholly accurate.  I'd recommend having another close listen and really trying to find the correct harmonies and movements as there are currently lots of mistakes (missed/incorrect notes).  It might help to notice that this whole piece is not in standard tuning and is in-fact slightly sharp, which might be throwing you off.

Hopefully that's enough for you to work on for the time being, but if you have any more questions / need more guidance feel free to ask.

[Rwars]

I have updated the submission with the first part of your requests. 

Hopefully that's enough for you to work on for the time being, but if you have any more questions / need more guidance feel free to ask.

I tried to get ahold of you multiple times and ask about whether different changes would be okay to implement into the submission to make it better in the Ninsheetmusic discord but I never got a single reply. I guess I'll state it here.
I've been messing with things for this track to see what I could do to make it better, and II could omit parts of the harmony, cut out notes that would intervene with other notes in the 8th note run which would leave it sounding unfinished, implement the other part of the harmony that I found upon taking a close listen which could make things even more confusing, or I could transpose the harmony and give it to the LH instead. Or if none of those work, please do tell.

[Libera]

I tried to get ahold of you multiple times and ask about whether different changes would be okay to implement into the submission to make it better in the Ninsheetmusic discord but I never got a single reply.

Sorry about that.  I usually try to respond to things but sometimes I see them at a bad time and don't remember about it afterwards.  If I'm not responding, just try pinging me again; it won't be because I'm intentionally ignoring you, it'll just have slipped my mind that you asked.

I've been messing with things for this track to see what I could do to make it better, and II could omit parts of the harmony, cut out notes that would intervene with other notes in the 8th note run which would leave it sounding unfinished, implement the other part of the harmony that I found upon taking a close listen which could make things even more confusing, or I could transpose the harmony and give it to the LH instead. Or if none of those work, please do tell.

It's not really a matter of throwing everything in until it you can't put more in without it becoming confusing.  That's one way of doing things but it's not guaranteed to get the best answer.  What I would suggest here is looking at the harmony, working out the chords and then using the most important notes to outline the harmonic progression below/above the quaver pattern.  As I said last time, I think that removing doubled up notes is a good idea in this situation as it only makes the sheet look more muddled than it needs to.  You could also try moving some harmony to the left hand, but I don't expect it will be necessary and it might not be such a good idea putting the harmony that low anyway.

Another thing, you might have taken this point a little too far:

It's better to have white space at the bottom of the final page rather than at the top.

The top systems on the 2nd and 3rd pages are now too close to the page numbers/subtitle.  You can look at the picture I sent in my first post to see what sort of spacing there should be at the top of subsequent pages.

-I suggest a double barline at the end of bar 12.  It helps to separate the introduction from the loop and also makes it visually easier to find the segno.
-You have double accidentals in places where both layers have the same accidental (bars 24, 28, 35 etc).  I don't know why finale is doing that since it should sort that out itself automatically, but since it isn't you'll need to fix it.

These two ^ still need fixing as well.

[Rwars]

So I think I got everything. Unfortunately, double accidentals still exist on the .mus, and I am unable to remove them using the program I use. Thing is though, they don't show up on the .musx, only when I export to .mus.

[Zeila]

So I think I got everything. Unfortunately, double accidentals still exist on the .mus, and I am unable to remove them using the program I use. Thing is though, they don't show up on the .musx, only when I export to .mus.

It's a hassle to do, but if you want to get rid of double accidentals in mus files then you have to explicitly show the doubled accidentals on the second layer (you can just select a note then press p in case you didn't know), then select those with the accidental mover tool in the special tools palette and pick a different blank spot for the alternate character. The accidentals in the first layer should reset back to their proper positions, but if not then you can just manually move them yourself

[Rwars]

It's a hassle to do, but if you want to get rid of double accidentals in mus files then you have to explicitly show the doubled accidentals on the second layer (you can just select a note then press p in case you didn't know), then select those with the accidental mover tool in the special tools palette and pick a different blank spot for the alternate character. The accidentals in the first layer should reset back to their proper positions, but if not then you can just manually move them yourself

Thanks to your help, I think I got all the doubled accidentals. And now, I think that should be everything? Is there anything else I should fix about this?

[Libera]

Generally speaking it's looking better.  Still, somethings could be improved on.

-Many of the bars are misaligned for whatever reason.  You can click on them to respace them automatically.
-Now that there are even more notes, I'm going to say this again: this sheet would massively benefit from a decreased staff size.  Systems like the second to last on page three are getting extremely cramped at this size and you would gain a lot in clarity by decreasing it to somewhere ~6.5cm.
-Some bars, like 28, don't have enough space for the accidental at the start (it's almost colliding with the barline.  I don't really know why this is, but you can try re-entering the notes or otherwise manually adding extra space to the start of those bars.  Compare the difference in the amount of space between barline and accidental for bars 28 and 44; it's huge.
-In some places you might want to consider inverting the second layer chord town once.  The reasoning is that it will help to not obscure the contour of the moving line by doing it.  A good example would be beats 2 and 4 of bar 52, where the second layer chord just sticks above and causes the melody to sound like it's restriking when it isn't.
-Bar 8 has the A below middle C in both left and right hands.  I'd just remove it from the second layer chord.

This is getting there though.

[Rwars]

Generally speaking it's looking better.  Still, somethings could be improved on.

-Many of the bars are misaligned for whatever reason.  You can click on them to respace them automatically.
-Now that there are even more notes, I'm going to say this again: this sheet would massively benefit from a decreased staff size.  Systems like the second to last on page three are getting extremely cramped at this size and you would gain a lot in clarity by decreasing it to somewhere ~6.5cm.
-Some bars, like 28, don't have enough space for the accidental at the start (it's almost colliding with the barline.  I don't really know why this is, but you can try re-entering the notes or otherwise manually adding extra space to the start of those bars.  Compare the difference in the amount of space between barline and accidental for bars 28 and 44; it's huge.
-In some places you might want to consider inverting the second layer chord town once.  The reasoning is that it will help to not obscure the contour of the moving line by doing it.  A good example would be beats 2 and 4 of bar 52, where the second layer chord just sticks above and causes the melody to sound like it's restriking when it isn't.
-Bar 8 has the A below middle C in both left and right hands.  I'd just remove it from the second layer chord.

This is getting there though.

Alright, I think I got everything. I have shrunk the size of the staves, monopolized the size of each bar, and gave accidentals plenty of room and removed a couple As. Tell me if I missed any chords I should've inverted or if there's other stuff I missed, I don't have the brightest eye when it comes to what thing to invert and what not to invert.

[Rwars]

Bump.

[Libera]

Truly sorry for the wait, I've been extremely busy these past months.

Notes:

-Bottom note in left hand bar 35 beat 3 should be an E?  Just an input mistake there I think.
-C# on beat 3 of left hand bar 47 should be a Cn.  That's what I hear anyway, although it is admittedly out of tune a little.
-On beat 4 in bars 20 and 28 I hear the bass jump down an octave (so another A crotchet but an octave lower).

Other things:

-The last crotchet in layer 2 of bar 52 is misaligned.
-There's a doubled up E below middle C on beat 2 in bar 52.
-In bars 33-36 all of the semibreves are inside the stems of the quavers.  If you want to keep them there you should nudge them away from them a bit to the left.  That being said, it might be better to have the harmony beneath there, though maybe you were worried it was going too low and didn't sound how you wanted it to.
-I'd put the A down the octave in bar 26 beat 3.  At the moment it gives you a consecutive A in the right hand which muddles up the contour of the main voice and there's plenty of space below for the A to sit comfortably.
-You've got plenty of white space at the bottom of pages 2 and 3 so you could spread those systems there out a bit more which might look more even overall.

Sorry again for the wait!

[Rwars]

Oh, no worries! I completely understand what you mean.
Anyways, I think I fixed all that was listed, do tell me if there was a detail I missed.