FS fan music (piano cover)

[Siam]

Do you remember the music that plays after beating the boss at the end of the demo and getting the cave's treasure? It's a sad, beautiful piano tune that's quite different than the cheerful tunes before it.

Anyway, I wondered if I could learn and play that song on the piano, and here is my first attempt:

http://thaiwonders.com/design/379/fortune-summoners-piano/

It doesn't have the perfection of the original, but I hope it captures the feel of it. What do you think?

[Sabin Stargem]

It doesn't sound quite right to me.  One of the more noticeable aspects is an background "tinkling" noise, which doesn't mesh with the piano music.  The last one or two seconds of the piece have an wavering and echoing quality that feels weird.  I recommend going to Ocremix and posting the piece in the workshop forums, so that the musicians there could give an more comprehensive examination.

[mirioki]

I like it. It definitely has the feel of that song in there, but I would suggest cleaning it up a bit.  The post before me mentions the gripes I have with the clip.

[Siam]

Thanks for the feedback! :-)

I'll improve on the recording quality, though the basic recording setup that I have access to is going to limit that.

Sabin, I've checked out OCR before, and while the stuff they do is fantastic, their high quality standard for audio makes it feel a bit intimidating to put stuff like this on there. XD But thanks!

[David J Prokopetz]

Sabin, I've checked out OCR before, and while the stuff they do is fantastic, their high quality standard for audio makes it feel a bit intimidating to put stuff like this on there.

Being too shy to ask for the pros for constructive criticism'll hurt you in the long run. Just go for it - maybe explain that you're just trying to get the kinks worked out of the performance itself, and it's not meant to be a production-quality recording.

Incidentally, are you doing your recording with integrated audio? That is, does the microphone plug directly into your computer's motherboard, rather than into a separately installed sound card? If so, I think I know what's causing that "tinkling" noise mentioned upthread: it sounds like your audio hardware is picking up some crosstalk from the CPU. This is a common design flaw in motherboards with integrated audio hardware, and unfortunately, the only way to resolve it is to buy a dedicated sound card.

[Siam]

Incidentally, are you doing your recording with integrated audio?

Yes, and perhaps the worst kind: one on a laptop. It's just a headphone jack out from my keyboard into the laptop's mic input. When on a real piano, it's a mic pointed in the general direction of the piano and plugged into the same laptop mic input. In other words, as amateurish as it can get. :) I clean up the raw audio with Cool Edit Pro (predecessor of Adobe Audition). Perhaps this is one part where I could do a better job.

Good points about asking the pros - perhaps I'll do it then, but I want to make sure I tried all I could beforehand.

Thanks again for the advice! :-)

[David J Prokopetz]

Yes, and perhaps the worst kind: one on a laptop.

Yeah, that'd do it. The physical proximity is a killer - the analogue-to-digital converter in your audio hardware could be picking up that scribbling noise from just about any nearby component that has a processor in it, and in a laptop, everything is nearby.

[Morse]

Awesome job dude!

[Franuka]

Beautiful indeed

Keep it up!