scratch built b89 batman theme repost

Hey there,

I've taken the time to meticulously reconstruct the original theme from the 1989 batman film, mostly by listening extremely carefully to an MP3 of the original soundtrack I have on hand... and so I'm curious to see what the community here thinks.

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Batman_1989 revised.mid (27.9 k)</td></tr></table></center>

P.S. To anyone with admin privileges, now that I've found the appropriate area this, the other thread can be deleted at any time.

Howdy Kyle,

DANG! That's one heck of a transcription!

I was listening to it using my default soundfont, Taiji Generation, and it sounded great! The gong effect was really good, except for the very last one, so I switched to another one (Chaos), and boy it sounded cool! Very nice use of the available GM instruments to achieve the right sounds, and

This is an excellent example of getting really good notation AND an excellent performance for a piece. The fact that you transcribed this from a recording speaks very well of your ears

I went to see that movie release in the theatre, sitting up front and center. I can still remember feeling the seats vibrate through some of that opening theme. I was listening with headphones this time, but it was enough to remind me of the first time I heard the music

Great job! It would be really interesting to hear you expand a bit on various tips and techniques you used in creating this transcription and performance.

ttfn,
Sherry

thankyou very much. Yes the problem with the last gong I have yet to solve as it does get cut off at the end for some reason.

As far as tips and techniques go, probably one of the best ways I could convey what I did would be to post the notation file for it. (maybe get some help with the cutoff at the end as well)

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Batman_1989 revised.not (371.1 k)</td></tr></table></center>

As you can see from the notation file, I had to play around with the timing, note for note in some places. In regards to the instrumentation I actually had to almost double up some of the tracks with another instrument to make it sound correct, one example being the bass trombone and brass sections.

In regards to the gong being cutoff at the end, the notation and piano roll does show up correctly.

Edit: I just took a look at it again with everything but the gong muted and it doesn't seem to like playing past one measure (the long noted section before it speeds up has a cutoff on the gong as well despite not being noticed with everything else playing). If this is a problem with Notation then I don't think I can do anything about it.

I actually showed a version of this to a friend, hiding the file type and he was surprised it was a midi and not an MP3!

Howdy Kyle,

The cutoff at the end may be device-dependent. When I switched from my SB Synth B (which has Taiji Generation loaded) to my SB Synth A (which has Chaos loaded), that last gong fade sounded fantastic.

Sometimes doubling-up instruments does make a big difference in "filling out" the sound - you've made excellent use of that technique in this file for a big bombastic sound when needed.

ttfn,
Sherry

I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the use of different devices, I don't suppose you could educate me on the subject?

Also I plan on doing most of the original score for the movie, two of the highlights for me being "charge of the batmobile" and "attack of the batwing".

Howdy Kyle,

You can quickly see which MIDI playback devices you have available on your computer by opening Composer, and checking out Setup/Quick MIDI Device Setup. You can use the drop list in the top field to see what device(s) you have available. Some soundcards have the capability to load soundfonts (like my SB Audigy), or they may have their own "hard card" sounds. There's also the GS Wavetable, present on all Windows systems. If you have any other MIDI capable sound modules they will show up here as well.

If you're planning to do all that scoring, I'll have to let my boys in on this. They love Batman, and Bat-music

ttfn,
Sherry

thank you again, looks like all I have is the default GS wavetable.

In relation to the rest of the sound track I'm doing, the first piece will basically serve as a template for most of what's to come as I'm sticking with the peaces that hold the main theme within the score but there are alot of variations that I'm running up against that I'm having a hard time with, figuring out time signatures without a rhythm and tempo changes being the hardest for me