A few questions on Arranging / Remixing

I will give my two cents on this even though I haven't published anything here, because I feel qualified in that I've done original stuff before. <_< I'm also not sure what your music theory background is, so please forgive me if I'm telling you a lot of stuff you already know.

Workflow: That's usually where inspiration and free time comes in. xD Either I'm listening to existing tracks and think "hey, that sounds like it could work really well with (insert other song here)" or putzing around on the piano until a melody or ostinato forms itself, or I find some chord progression/interval that I really want to use. The actual production step can take not much time at all or a whole lot of time depending on how fleshed-out the idea is, and sometimes snippets sit on the back shelf until I can think of something to use them in.

Usually having a melody is a good way to establish at least a time signature and chord progression; if it's a well-developed one it's easy to visualize how the rest of the instruments can support it (quiet sections, repeats, etc.) and get a general feel for the rhythm (slow and ponderous, quick and driving, disco, etc.). So with the style in mind, I usually then list out a bunch of instruments that typically go well with it, and play around with which instruments get which parts as I write them (since that's pretty easy to do in a lot of MIDI editing software). And once I'm satisfied with the overall "notes", so to speak, that's when adding the effects (dynamics, articulation, filters, etc.) comes in.

So yeah, usually to get a start, I pretty much need to have a melody and time signature in place at least, and usually a chord progression as well (although you'd be surprised how much interesting stuff you can come up with just by tweaking one or two components of the "vanilla options" by a semitone or two--eg. F- to Emaj7--and as long as the chord has a note in common with the melody, it usually fits). The nice thing about doing remixes, though, is that most of that is decided for you, more or less. Really, I'd just say take the basic melody and rip it apart. xD It's up to you whether you want to stay true to the original form of the song, or meld it to a more typical progression or pattern, or write a completely new song with bits of inspiration from the original. (Just make sure to call it a remaster or a remix or whatever, appropriately.)

Usually I'm really bad about over-relying on one pattern, but as long as it isn't overdone, it's kind of how the human brain works--usually the most basic forms are along the lines of "do something twice, then change it for the end or it risks getting old" or "do something, respond, do the same thing, respond differently". And there are ways to justify it, such as ostinatos, the average drum line, etc.

As for key changes... If it doesn't sound good to change the key of either the source or the part you want to add, and you can't find a key that works for both (sometimes instruments are the culprit and may need to be changed for it to sound natural at a new key), you could modulate to the new key through various methods (at most basic, going through a chord that they both have in common--in the example you linked, the A♭ already works with the C- of most Pokémon battle themes--but again, you can again fiddle with this to add color, and jazz theory knows a lot more about that than I do).

I'm more of a drummer than a composer, so if I'm having trouble making out notes, one thing I do is listen to one measure and just listen for one instrument, and just record the counts where that instrument plays, regardless of the tone (which I then correct through rapid start-stop-note-at-a-time action). Usually the biggest problems for me come when the instrument is in a really muddy mid-low range and it's hard to hear under everything else, in which case (barring intensive ear training) you can put something that at least fits the key and rhythm. But keep in mind that a lot of those hard-to-hear notes are tensions that add a lot of depth to the track, so you might get the same result by, again, fiddling.

The programs I use for MIDI editing are really good about showing measure lines and whatnot, so I usually don't have de-syncing sort of problems--not actually sure what FL Studio's interface looks like, so I can't really help you there, sorry. The thing about both those tracks, though, is that the main lines are heavily syncopated (hits are mostly on the off-beat, so to speak), so it takes particularly close attention to where you are in the measure when you're typing in the notes. (Here's a link to someone's sheet music of the latter song, and you can see that the melody line is almost completely on the off-beats.)

Aside from that, I think the best way to "fill out" a song is to add some dynamic contrast--eg. start a sustained note slow, or else start it louder than normal, then immediately quiet, but building up over time, and things like that. Usually melodies start off at a certain volume and get louder towards the middle and softer towards the end, or build up over time, or start strong and get softer--this usually doesn't happen on tracks on handheld systems because of sound quality reasons, but it can add a lot to a rendering.

Thanks for the very complete answer !
It going to take me a while to process all this XD

My musical background is pretty limited.
Basically, its what I learned in elementary and high school, coupled with guitar lessons, reading 2 "for dummies" book on music theory and musical composition, talking with a friend who's seriously much, much, much more advanced than myself, and reading stuff on the web + doing a bunch of tutorials.
And I got a very, very basic grasp of harmony. I only recently began understanding chords a little more, and moved away from doing unisons all the time ^^;
I'll say that I think I mostly understood what you meant. And a lot of this I wasn't really aware of. So that's all really helpful!

Now I have a few more questions though XD

To be honest, I'm not sure why transposing a F chord a few semitones could result in a Emaj7 chord. I mean, why add another note to the triad in this case? :/
Its the first time I hear of that, so pardon my ignorance XD

Also, when you say "as long as the chord has a note in common with the melody", you do mean the one note from the melody that's playing at the same time as the chord, right ?


But, aren't ostinatos exactly just a repeated pattern ? Or maybe I don't understand what they are exactly ?

That's another thing. For some reasons, everything sounds 4/4 to me XD
So I have a hard time determining a measure's length..

Well, its not really the interface, even though its a piano roll kind of thing. Its more that, I hear something, but I can't tell how far from the beat it is exactly. And then small mistakes gets amplified when I align other things with that. And I end up not knowing what I should trust exactly XD
So, syncopation is pretty problematic for me. Either I overdo it, or not enough..

I tried using musical notation software. It takes me longer, and sometimes gets me better results, but for off-beat stuff its kind of a nightmare IMO.. Then again, I had to use Anvil Studio, which is a pain in the butt to work with, because the few others I've tried tend to crash a lot.

I actually ended up moving a lot of off-beat notes in both, because they didn't end up sounding like they should, and I wasn't sure anymore what was actually syncopated, or on beat :/ And I actually got the actual origial extracted MIDI for those tracks, but I'm afraid of opening them up and "cheating" a little too much. I mean, one of the reason I'm doing that is to train my ears after all. But then again, its hard to know if I did things correctly :/

And, about dynamics, the soundtrack for the PMD2 games on the DS are pretty out of the ordinary! They use the "Procyon Sound Driver" and that thing support most commons MIDI controls, namely "expression" which is basically a second volume control on a note per note level. It also supports velocity panning, "mod", etc.. Its really interesting to look at how it all works! But I'm drifting off ^^;

Anyways, if there's anything else you want to add, or if anyone else wants to add their own answers as well, I'd appreciate it too ! Getting as much input as possible is pretty much what I'm looking for!

EDIT:
Got ninja-ed XD
I'll take a listen to that track, though its getting late here, and I'll probably have to reply tomorrow.

Sorry, I should have written "F-" as F minor; I was using a bit of a weird notation there. And I also forgot to mention the 7. xD Taking the first and seventh notes down a half step while leaving the other two gives that change (F, A flat, C, E flat --> E, A flat, B, E flat). So by just "mis-fingering" a couple notes you end up with a vastly different-sounding chord, that could still work in context of the melody if it has a note in common and you change the rest of the supporting instruments to follow the new chord.

And yep, the note that's playing at the same time, or all the notes that play over the duration of that chord. (eg. Treeshroud Forest is a good example of adding unexpected chord changes to a melody, either that or I just really like the song and want an excuse to link to it)

Yeah, ostinatos are just patterns that repeat through the whole thing; what I meant was that it's fine to use repeating patterns and there are cases (like that) where it's encouraged to do so anyways.

Definitely takes a lot of practice to be able to recognize time and rhythm! (That's probably one of the advantages of drumming and going through band class, since it's a lot easier to practice.) But the general mental process tends to be something like:

• When you hear the downbeat, or you start to hear a consistent rhythm, count the easiest "beat" of note to follow, with consistent spacing, conductor-style ("1, 2, 3, 4" for quarter notes; or "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and" for 8th-notes, or "1-e-and-a-2-e-and-a..." for 16th-notes)--of course, this won't always sound like it's on the downbeat or the most emphasized beat! In most cases (unless you recognize a speed-up or slow-down) it doesn't change even if a note plays on an off-beat. Physically tapping a foot or finger to the beat can definitely help.
• Once you get a tempo that feels like it lines up with the rhythm and starts on a downbeat at least every couple bars, stick to that speed and don't speed up or slow down unless you can hear the song as a whole speeding up or slowing down.
• If you count 2, 4, 8, or 16 beats per section (regardless of how many notes play on or off those beats), it's probably safe to put it in 4/4 time. (eg. Sky Tower is in 4/4 the whole time, even though it changes the chord on the "4th" beat sometimes in the chorus-ish section)
• If you count 3, 6, 9, or 12, it's probably in 3/4 time or some variant (eg. Great Canyon is definitely in 3/4).
• Some variants of 3/4 can also be written as 4/4 with triplet notes, or as multiples of 3/8 (eg. Mt. Blaze is best interpreted as 6/8 or 12/8, because you could split each measure into 2 or 4 "beats" where each of the beats is split into 3 pieces; usually a strictly "4/4 with triplets" signature applies better to "swing" rhythms which are another matter entirely).
• If you get 5, 7, or something like that, it's probably in a weird time signature like 5/4 or 7/8 (eg. Holehills from PMD:GTI is in 5/8 but changes to 6/8 for some sections).
• Time signatures often change partway through a song (especially in a lot of PMD stuff!), but they're usually consistent for a few consistent-sounding or repeated "sections" in any case. (eg. you can tell, counting from the kick drum hits on the downbeat, that Mt. Thunder is in 3/4 (or equivalently and possibly better descriptive of the number of audible beats per measure, 6/4) for the main section, but for the "bridge" (at 1:02 in that video), it switches to 4/4, and back to 6/4 again at 1:22).
• Songs with tempos and/or time signatures that change frequently without a recognizable pattern are notoriously difficult to play and arrange, so nobody likes to make them, but you might still come across some. xD

It really is up to practice, ear training, and strengthening sense of rhythm, though, and some songs are easier than others; orchestral-style songs, particularly ones that don't have a solid percussion line, tend to be a lot harder to keep track of. (Even in that egegrious example, you can start to hear sections where the rhythm comes into clear focus, and those are the points it's best to start counting and get a feel for the beat.) On top of that, pickup notes can easily throw us off because they come in towards the end of the previous bar rather than starting on the downbeat, which is why it's usually better to listen for the chord to change rather than for which note has the most emphasis. (Although chord changes can happen in the middle of measures too, there's almost always a chord change on the downbeat of a measure immediately following in those cases.)

Key is the same, just with different instruments (like woodwinds instead of strings for the melody line), and it's missing the strings/choir and the reverb on the melody. Sticks do mark a measure, louder clicks are the quarter-notes, and the quieter clicks are the 8th-notes.

Downside of Pokémon music is that a lot of it is syncopated (particularly town themes in the main series, I find, which are usually based off Latin forms of music I think? Bossa nova and such? Or at least an even-8ths form of jazz...), so rhythm is admittedly challenging. You do have a really good ear for the tune, though; maybe one thing I could recommend is trying songs that have a straight, repeating percussion line, or look at a lot of sheet music as you listen.

Not the key, necessarily, because the scale the song is in can change every time the chord does! (Like when you're playing a song in the key of C Major, and you play an F chord, you can think of it as switching to the F Lydian scale which happens to be a mode of the C scale, so there are no accidentals (flats/sharps) or key changes. But you could just as easily switch to a different scale and key and play an F minor chord from the F Minor scale, etc. etc. and that's where a lot of really unique-sounding chord progressions come from.)



*huzzah for XD/Colosseum! * Yeah, guitar is annoying to transcribe by ear, especially when it overlaps with the crash cymbal like in that song. ._.,



There definitely don't seem to be any rhythm issues; the first half sounds perfect, in fact, as far as I can tell.

But there are a few parts in the second half where there's a clash between the bass guitar and the melodies (or between one melody and another), because they're playing different chords at the same time at certain points. Tensions aren't bad per se, but they can be jarring if overstated, especially with brass instruments.

One thing I do to my tracks if I hear things clash is try to find which scale and/or chord each instrument is playing in, and shift the notes as needed to make them fit the same scale or chord, usually the one in the melody--which is a matter of personal taste, but in any case, the songs don't have the exact same chord progression, so a little flexibility is needed.

For example, at 1:41, the bass line seems to be playing D flat while the melody is playing parts of a G major chord; musical-theory-explanation of why that's particularly noticeable is that it forms a tritone, or diminished fifth, which is pretty much the most tension you can get between two notes (especially since the D natural is playing as well, which is also in tension with the D flat). So, to fix it, consider that the bass is playing some form of D flat chord, probably from C Phrygian scale, while the melodies are playing the G chord from the C Major scale. In this case it'd probably be easier to change the bass line there (for example, to a D to remove the tension, or to a G to remove the tension and reinforce the chord) because it's not particularly characteristic to the song.

Also, having both melodies playing at the same time, particularly with equal focus and in a similar octave range, tends to make a track feel cluttered (polyphonic music is a thing but really hard to pull off, hence why it's fallen out of favor along with classical composition), so you might want to consider highlighting piecemeal sections of one track or the other, or bringing one higher or lower at certain times. And of course, all the instruments' parts must have the same chord progression or be shoehorned into such.

Well, it is slightly complicated, but modes are basically using the same key but starting from a different note on the scale (for example, using the C Major scale, if you start at A and go up the scale from there you get A Minor, which is a mode of C Major). Phrygian, Lydian, etc. are just different types of scales, like major and minor (and harmonic minor and the like). There should be some good video/audio tutorials on Youtube for things like that.



I don't think "chords playing against each other making tension" is an official musical thing, but I find it's helpful to be able to identify it because it's often a source of tension.

Simplest explanation I can think of for finding it is to compress a measure or two's worth of notes played by a certain instrument, play them all at once, and then identify what chord it is. Or if it has enough to form a nearly complete scale (or if chords nearby provide clues), use the root note of that scale to find out what chord it is.

Perhaps having some sustained notes in the lower-mid-range, or arpeggios, or rhythm-guitar-style lines in the song would help fill in the gaps?

Inverted chords just take a note or two of the basic triad and bring it up or down an octave (so rather than the bottom note being the root note, you get the bottom being the third or fifth or whatever extra notes are added on). Seventh and fifth (and sixth, flat third, fourth, ninth, etc.) are just names for where a note is in the scale (for example, in C Major Scale--CDEFGABC--the G is the 5th, or the 5th note in the scale; the B is the 7th... although on paper there's a distinction between "7" and "major 7" that comes into play when a chord includes notes in addition to the basic triad. Diminished and augmented mean bringing a note down or up (respectively) a half-step; diminished and augmented chords are when you do this to the fifth note and have a minor or major third as appropriate (eg. Cdim is C, E flat, G flat/F sharp; Caug is C, E, G sharp/A flat)...

As far as general music theory stuff goes, there are a lot of helpful video and audio tutorials that are a lot easier to understand than me typing at you. xD Here is one channel, for example, that goes into a lot of the theory around chords and such (and then some), so just take a look around. And experimenting around on a piano also really helps. And then there's more for stuff like rhythm and tension/resolution and whatever else you can think of.