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[NDS] Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin - "The Gears Go Awry" by Atcero

Started by Zeta, May 25, 2020, 04:59:04 PM

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Zeta

Submission Information:

Series: Castlevania
Game: Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
Console: Nintendo DS
Title: The Gears Go Awry
Instrumentation Solo Piano
Arranger: Atcero

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Atcero

Quote from: Dudeman"When Atcero and Dudeman are busy whooping Maelstrom's ass, Alfonzo mans the Spirit Train."

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Static

    I have a lot of feedback, so I split it up in different categories to hopefully make it more manageable to sift through.

Engraving/Theory
  • I would have no key signature for m1-14, and just save the G# minor keysig for m15. m1-14 are not in G# minor at all, it actually switches around from D minor to C minor.
  • m1-4 are actually in D minor, so the E#s should be F naturals.
  • m1-6 LH should be an octave higher.
  • m5 is written in E# minor, but it would be better written as F minor in this case. This means E#s should be Fns, B#s should be Cns, and G#s should be Abs.
  • m6 beats 3-4 should be written in as Eb: D#s should be Ebs, A#s should be Bbs, Bns should be Cbs.
  • m7: B#s should be Cns, D#s should be Ebs, A#s should be Bbs.
  • m8: E#s should be Fns, B#s should be Bns, G#s should be Abs.
  • m9: Keep the spellings in this measure the same.
  • m10: E#s should be Fns, G#s should be Abs.
  • m11: Keep it simple here, it's just a regular old G major chord (G-B-D). You can move around the inner voices as you like, but the important thing is to make sure the G is the bass (bottommost note).
  • m12: D should be the lowest note, not A.
  • m14 and beyond: Welcome to G# minor! This means lots of sharps. All G naturals should be Fxs (part of the D# major chord), all D naturals should be Cxs (A# major chord, some chromatic neighbor tones).
  • m32: The RH and LH are written differently even though they're the same note length. They should be the same.
  • m35 LH should look like m33 LH in terms of rhythm (16th note rhythms should always be beamed in groups of 4 in x/4 time).
  • m37-44 LH: The ties between beats 1 and 2 should all be flipped down to highlight the slightly different note length of the top note.
  • m47 LH: Same as m35 above.

Notes/Arranging
  • Bassline stuff:
    • m15 beat 4: First 16th note should be D# instead of B.
    • m16 beat 4: This note shouldn't be tied, there should be an 8th rest here.
    • m17 beat 1: The A# should be tied to beat 2.
    • m17 beat 4: The last 3 16th notes should be D# (below staff), D# (middle of staff), and D# (below staff).
    • m18 beat 4.75: This very last 16th note should be Fx again, not G#.
    • m21 beat 4: The first 2 16th notes on beat 4 should just be an 8th note like on beat 3.
    • m22-24 sound really empty without the cool bass figures on beats 2-4. I would strongly suggest adding them. I think I actually prefer just keeping the entire bassline for m22-24 and leaving the chords in the RH, but up to you.
    • m25: Every first 16th note (beat 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, 4.5) should be an octave higher, similar to m21.
    • m27 beat 3: The rhythm here should be flipped: 16th-16th-8th, like in m29.
  • m34 beat 1.5 LH should be B instead of D#. In addition beat 4 should be 8th-16th-16th, with the notes being Cx-A#-Cx. These both also apply to m46 LH.
  • m33, 35 LH beat 1: The first 2 16th notes should be flipped around (A# and then D#). Same applies to m45 and 47.
  • The triplets in m34, 37 LH could be more simply written as quarter notes with mordents. I don't hear the triplet in m46 LH, it just sounds like it should be a regular quarter note.
  • m13: (I saved this for last on purpose) Based on the style of this piece, it would make more sense to put fermatas on m11 and 12, or alternatively put a caesura after m12 (both of these would remove m13 entirely). The pauses, while you may be able to count them out exactly, just don't fit the pseudo-classical style; they should be unmetered. I would use a metered pause if there was a weird drum break or something, but not here. My feedback above assumes m13 hasn't been deleted yet, so save this for last.

Text/Formatting
  • Tempo marking is missing.
  • Measure numbers are missing.
  • Page numbers/titles/copyright info are all outside the page margins, and are a bit too small.
  • Page titles after page 1 should have quotes as well.
  • Konami is misspelled, and the game was released in 2006, not 2005.
  • System 1 should be indented.
  • The measure distribution is kinda wonky sometimes, like you have a one measure system on page 1, but then 3 on page 2. Just make everything a uniform 2-measure distribution from m1-12.
  • Try to mess around with the measure distribution to make it a full 4-page arrangement. It's almost always better to have full pages over half-full ones.
  • All the systems on pages 2-4 are pretty cramped on top, but have so much extra space on the bottom of the page. You can move all those down.

From looking at the sheet, it looks like you use MuseScore, but you also provided a .musx file. I'm not sure about your setup, but if you need any help making these changes let me know and I can do them for you.

Atcero

I'll get to that all this weekend, thank you! I have the trial for Finale right now but I do most of the OG stuff in musescore, and I try to catch everything the conversion misses but I still miss a lot sadly. I'm still pretty terrible at using Finale so I might take you up on some of formatting I can't do.
Quote from: Dudeman"When Atcero and Dudeman are busy whooping Maelstrom's ass, Alfonzo mans the Spirit Train."

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Atcero

Ok I got everything done except the formatting, which I will definitely need help with, and these two:

Quotem9: Keep the spellings in this measure the same.
m37-44 LH: The ties between beats 1 and 2 should all be flipped down to highlight the slightly different note length of the top note.

I didn't quite understand what you mean by those two.
Quote from: Dudeman"When Atcero and Dudeman are busy whooping Maelstrom's ass, Alfonzo mans the Spirit Train."

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[close]

Atcero

Quote from: Dudeman"When Atcero and Dudeman are busy whooping Maelstrom's ass, Alfonzo mans the Spirit Train."

Spoiler
[close]

Static

Looks great! The only thing is that after m12, there are still a bunch of G naturals and D naturals; all of those should be F or C double-sharps, respectively. Also, the tie in m38 should be flipped. The offbeat 16ths should also be C naturals instead of A naturals.

That's all I have left for this one, nice work.

Atcero

Its all updated (minus the MUSX file since I lost my Finale trial) but it should be good to go!
Quote from: Dudeman"When Atcero and Dudeman are busy whooping Maelstrom's ass, Alfonzo mans the Spirit Train."

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Static

Added the musx for ya, and with that I'll be approving this one. Looks good!

Atcero

Quote from: Dudeman"When Atcero and Dudeman are busy whooping Maelstrom's ass, Alfonzo mans the Spirit Train."

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[close]

Atcero

Quote from: Dudeman"When Atcero and Dudeman are busy whooping Maelstrom's ass, Alfonzo mans the Spirit Train."

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[close]

Latios212

Final feedback!

In general, there are a number of places where a single layer plays a quarter tied to eighth rhythm on beat 1 / beat 3. This is better condensed into a dotted quarter.

Aside from that, I went through the sheet with Atcero and corrected a few transcription errors here and there. They include:
- Melody in second half of m. 6/10
- Melody in beat 1 of m. 16
- Bass in m. 14
- Bass in m. 33 and 45
- Melody in m. 22-23
- Melody in m. 26
- Beat 2/4 melody in m. 28-29
- Added harmony in m. 30-31
- Harmony in m. 33-34
- Lowered RH of m. 46 an octave to transition better with the parts around it
- Added some more bass notes in the last few measures and corrected pitch (Cx) in m. 49 beats 3-4

Take a quick look over to see if I've messed anything up - if this all looks good to you, will accept this one! :D

edit: ninja'd haha, accepting now! Happy first sheet accepted!
My arrangements and YouTube channel!

Quote from: Dudeman on February 22, 2016, 10:16:37 AM
who needs education when you can have WAIFUS!!!!!

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Zeta

This submission has been accepted by Latios212.

~Zeta, your friendly NSM-Bot