[NDS] Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth 2 - "Raymond Shields ~ Joking Motive" by Altissim

Started by Zeta, December 02, 2015, 09:00:25 PM

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Zeta

Submission Information:

Series: Ace Attorney
Game: Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth 2
Console: Nintendo DS
Title: Raymond Shields ~ Joking Motive
Instrumentation Solo Piano
Arranger: Altissimo

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Altissimo


Hoo boy. Many comments/questions about this.

Formatting

1) The game's title on-site is "Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth 2". This is kind of a theoretical title, because the game, though a sequel to "Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth", was never properly released in English (only given a fan-translated patch). The game's Japanese title is Gyakuten Kenji 2 (translates roughly to Turnabout Prosecutor 2). There are two AAI2 sheets on site: one which gives the game-title as "Turnabout Prosecutor 2 (Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth 2)" and one which gives the title as "Gyakuten Kenji 2". Obviously, neither of these match up with the site's title. I chose Gyakuten Kenji 2 for this, but it might be worth coming to a standardization on this.

2) This song's title is the theme song for one of the characters introduced in this game. This means he doesn't have an official English name, but as you can see above, even Youtube soundtracks prefer to use the fan-translation's name of Raymond Shields over the Japanese name Tateyuki Shigaraki. The on-site sheet for another character uses the Japanese name over the English name. I chose the English name to keep consistency with both the Youtube video and the NSM site's calling the game by the English name "Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth 2". Again, a verdict on this would be helpful.

Musical
This is the first song I'm submitting for a DS game so my arrangement may currently be subpar as a reflection of some difficulties I had in interpreting harmonies.

a) This song is in the A blues scale, which gives the notes as A C D E-flat E-nat G A. This means that it differs from A major in that A major's C# and G# are made natural. I have it notated as A-major with consistently naturalized C and G. Should this be the key signature, or should it more accurately reflect the actual accidentals used in the piece? (Or should it even be based off the A minor key, considering the A chord that permeates is a minor one?)

b) Not sure about the playability of the left hand. The easiest solution is to remove the top note from each of the chord hits, though.

c) I'd LOVE to incorporate the sliding-piano-thing in m. 56 but I dunno how that even is notated in music, and if it's even possible to incorporate it without disturbing the melody.

I might think of more things but that's all for the moment

mastersuperfan

Quote from: NocturneOfShadow on February 11, 2016, 03:00:36 PMthere's also a huge difference in quality between 2000 songs and 2010 songs
Quote from: Latios212 on February 11, 2016, 03:29:24 PMThe difference between 2000 songs and 2010 songs is 10 songs.

Altissimo

They... seem to be working fine for me? (Like, I can re-download them without issue.) I can't fix it if I don't see the problem though lmao

mastersuperfan

They're still broken for me. When I download, I just end up with a file called index.php.

Oh, well. It's working on your Personal Arrangement Thread, so I'll check it out from there (provided that the version you last posted is the current one).
Quote from: NocturneOfShadow on February 11, 2016, 03:00:36 PMthere's also a huge difference in quality between 2000 songs and 2010 songs
Quote from: Latios212 on February 11, 2016, 03:29:24 PMThe difference between 2000 songs and 2010 songs is 10 songs.

Altissimo

No... they're not the same version. I'll go post these links there, though, and see if you can get them.

mastersuperfan

It's awfully cramped as is--I suggest fitting three measures per line.

Put the mezzo-forte in between the right and left hand staves instead of below the left hand.

In m13, change the two consecutive eighth rests to a quarter rest.

I think the big thing about transcribing this to piano is that the piano chords in the original overlap with the melody, which, I assume, prompted you to move the chords an octave down into the left hand. I'm not positive about this, but I personally think it would sound much better if the sections with the melody and the piano chords were transposed an octave up. The chords right now are very muddy in the low register, so I think that would be a better solution.
Quote from: NocturneOfShadow on February 11, 2016, 03:00:36 PMthere's also a huge difference in quality between 2000 songs and 2010 songs
Quote from: Latios212 on February 11, 2016, 03:29:24 PMThe difference between 2000 songs and 2010 songs is 10 songs.

Altissimo

Quote from: mastersuperfan on December 05, 2015, 06:33:05 PMI think the big thing about transcribing this to piano is that the piano chords in the original overlap with the melody, which, I assume, prompted you to move the chords an octave down into the left hand. I'm not positive about this, but I personally think it would sound much better if the sections with the melody and the piano chords were transposed an octave up. The chords right now are very muddy in the low register, so I think that would be a better solution.

Actually, the issue I had with the chords wasn't that they were too high, initially. The very bottom notes of the bass line, throughout, represent a hard-to-hear actual bass line that is played by a single instrument and not accompanied by chords. It's an octave lower than written here, so I jumped it up in order to avoid the very muddying you discuss - because the left hand cannot simultaneously play the low bass and the chords, whether in the register you're suggesting or the register I wrote them in. However, you are right that it sounds less muddy up an octave.

MID / MUS / PDF

How's this? I did both the transposition and the other things you recommended. (Didn't update OP so that people can compare the difference.) Some notes on the transposition though:
-Some notes of the LH chords were taken out in order to avoid confusion/overlap with the RH melody.
-M. 1-3 (and repetitions thereof) were left un-transposed to keep the distinctive feel they have, since they're not chords - only octaves.
-M. 40 was left in the original octave for the same reason.
-M. 45-47 were kept in the original octave to avoid confusion with the RH in m. 46-47. Following the chordless baseline of m. 48 (which did go up the octave), it m. 49+ are in the higher octave.
-M. 56, a chordless bass, stays in the original octave, again to avoid confusion with the RH.

As always thoughts and comments appreciated. (I'm especially curious about m. 26-27, if it's better in the higher octave or not - or whether it sounds okay in general.)







Onionleaf

So groovy! You've done so much work on this, I hope it'll be approved for you soon. :)

-It would be awesome to add the glissando in m. 56, to add some extra flare! You can use the glissando tool for that (the same one you use for arpeggiation, located in the Smart Shape toolbar). I'm not quite sure how to alter its Playback to make the run sound how you want it to, but maybe someone else can help you with that. :) It should look something like this (see below), but as I've never used them this way before, don't copy me, lol!



-You might like to check those chords in m. 26-27 again, to me it sounds like the chord needs to be more "jazzy". Not quite sure what it needs to look like at the moment, sorry I can't be of much help.

-You might like to listen through the track again and see if the trumpet voice that crops up occasionally (for example, in m. 7-8) could be added in other places as well.

-I see what you mean about the playability in the left hand in measures 41-44. You could try lowering the chords a bit or play the highest note in the chord with the right hand. Here's what I mean, but you can experiment with it more and see what sounds best:



-Finally, change the dotted half rest in m. 40 to a half rest + a quarter rest.

Hopefully someone with a bit more experience will stop on by to review your sheet, but I'm really liking it so far!