More metal for the god of metal! And lengthy stories, too!
https://soundcloud.com/user-595154314/magical-catastrophe-shikigamiIt's sympho-power this time, though. I felt kinda disappointed with myself for unwillingly making the punk-like tune again, so I decided to try again and get it right this time at all costs. Luckily, I had lots of power and sympho-power tabs on my hands to refer to, and I mostly tried to make it sound like one particular song that you might even be able to guess. I didn't borrow any lines from there (they're all ZUN's, and yeah, it's an
interpretation arrangement again, though I prefer to think at least I approached it with a reasonable amount of creativity), but it's quite similar in terms of style, and it's actually a popular band and a popular song, that's why.
It's rather interesting how I used some of the lines where they actually do not belong... I'm talking about the solo (= the line in question really exists in ZUN's midi, it's barely even perceptible in the original song as it's a sort of synth padding used to accent the beat a little, but in fact it contains a very catchy rhythmic drive and makes for a great guitar solo line. The 3/4 part - I actually constructed it based on ZUN's harmonies in some parts, and I really needed it to be there in order to properly shift the tune a half-tone back. Turns out, it's very easy to change the tonality when several lines in an arrangement end - for some reason, it feels very natural that way, but not the other way around, when additional lines are introduced. There's also that harmonic movement at the end of that section, it returns the music back to C# and tonicizes it really well after only a few bars, and it isn't found in the original song - obviously, because it is structured in a completely different way and just isn't necessary there at all. I wish GenericArrangements commented on my intricately crafted drum lines for that part
the drum lines in other parts, however - I wrote them according to some patterns I noticed in all those tabs that I studied. Figures, I was severely mistaken for overusing the closed hi-hat in the former metal arrangement. That's
not a thing to do in metal, and it's probably an important reason why it sounded like hardcore punk again. The straight 4th open hi-hat lines and lots of various cymbals are prevalent in power metal genre. Then the new snare sound
I took it from the Timbres of Heaven soundfont, because it has much better sound than the SGM ones. The other drums and cymbals, however - not so much. For the lack of vocals (yeah... again...) I double-timed the main melody and used it for the "verse" as the guitar lines... yeah, "lines" as in plural - I kinda tried to make a more "professional" sort of arrangement, with automations, cool effects like chorus and other stuff, and one of the reasons for that (besides developing my skills) is that the reference song was also very full of those things and it's barely even possible to perform it live, at least from my point of view - it's a very studio-type song. I also changed the tempo: it's slower than both the original composition and the reference song. I can't explain why, but I think this was the right thing to do. In fact, I have some mystical subconscious understanding of which tempo should be used in each particular arrangement... but maybe I'll try to explain it next time: the post is getting ridiculously long already.
This is my interpretation of the extra theme of PCB, and I wrote a funny description on SoundCloud that would also explain the name - it has nothing to do with Tenshi's theme despite having "catastrophe" in the title. It turned out pretty long, 4:28 - one of my major works so far, but I'm not too hasty to call it an Opus Magnum, or even a lesser part of the concept. Sure, it's rather complex from a purely technical point of view, but it's not like I was particularly showing off my arranging skills (because I didn't modify the existing lines for the most part, only changed the order in which they appear, also they repeat a lot). In fact, I learned a lot of things while making this arrangement, so it's pretty amazing that way, but between acquiring new skills and mastering them to perfection lies a huge gap that I'm yet to cross - in the future, hopefully. The good thing is it took much less time than I expected to make this arrangement, and most of it was actually spent mixing and getting proper sound of the instruments. I'm still not completely satisfied with it, especially that rhythm/power guitar, but let's just pretend I'm a better arranger than a soundman (lol I wish that were true...)
You know what comes next - the fails part of the story
for instance, take that 3/4 part: at first, for about 2 bars, it doesn't even feel that way due to the note lengths, but the drums lines are slowly pushing it there. Except for the snare, which just stays there like the time signature never changed... I guess I was a bit
too creative there. A similar section actually exists in the reference song (it's not in 3/4 though), so that was another reason to put it there, but I wonder if it suits the general idea of this arrangement at all. I hope it does, or at least that I didn't fail too hard trying to make it happen. Rendering took reeeeeaaaaaaaallllyyyyyy long. I think it was more than 3 hours... or, actually 3 times that amount: tumblr didn't accept the flac like SoundCloud requires (first render) and the 320kbps mp3 (second render) was just a tiny bit larger than the tumblr restrictions of 10 megabytes. Third render, 256 kbps... I really wish my DAW could render into VBR V0 >_< it sucks to be forced to reduce the quality when I expected tumblr to
not spoil the hi-hats and the sound in general. It's not a music-specific platform like SoundCloud and it's not really that convenient, so I guess I won't be using it much... or at all... after the event in question ends. I wonder where else to go, however... This post is also a fail, actually - I was too exhausted after finalizing the track and all that rendering, so I wrote it only on the next day, after I got the chance to recover a bit. These are damn hard to write, but I hope that's worth it. Also, it's good to practice my English like that, and I just try to convince myself at times that you do like to read those stories of mine (= but, more importantly, I hope that you like my arrangement! And maybe give some feedback as well, cos I kinda like feedback :blush: thanks for stopping by!
PS: thanks for unbanning me, sir Kilgamayan, and to GenericArrangements as well. This post wouldn't even come to exist without your help! Much appreciated.
