VVVVVV: Piercing the Sky [VRC6] [2A03]

[SmartKid]

Link to original song: https://souleyedigitalmusic.bandcamp.com/track/piercing-the-sky

I've decided to try to cover my personal favorite song from the VVVVVV soundtrack. This song is heavily layered, making it difficult for me to accurately transcribe the notes. I'm pretty much certain that I have tons of wrong notes everywhere. This is my most ambitious cover yet, and while I'm confident I can nail the melody and the overall feel of the song, I could use some double-checking to make sure the notes of the various harmonies are correct.

EDIT:
I've (sort of) completed this cover! I've entered in all the notes, and I've now covered the entirety of the song. Although, I'm still sure that there are lots of wrong notes, and lots of fine-tuning to be done. If there are any inaccuracies, feel free to point them out.

EDIT:
I've downmixed my cover to 2A03. The 2A03 cover loses a lot of the layers of the original, but I think the core of the song remains intact.

[snowolf]

Wow, this is mindblowing, I just posted a cover of the other bonus track of vvvvvv with 10 minutes of difference.

Your cover is waaaaay better than mine tho, you did a really impressive job!

[SmartKid]

I've managed to cover the entire song. For anybody who wants the (soft of) complete cover, I've updated the 1st post with the new FTM.

[Stratelier]

One of my favorite VVVVVV songs too, and once I heard it (in a user level) I felt this is the song that should've been played during the finale of the story mode.

Some things that feel ever so slightly off to me are:
- Tempo feels slow
- The first notes of the melody track (VRC Pulse 1 pattern 04), the third note in particular feels off timing. I liked the result when I moved that note up just one row.
- Pattern 07 feels not loud enough

BUT the funny thing is, if I look up the original track for comparison, the above issues actually do not exist -- I think it's just how I personally remember the song.

Anyway, awesome work.

[SmartKid]

That's the funny thing, isn't it? I actually remember the same thing happening to me as I was making this cover. The biggest one for me was the transitions between the different sections, especially at the loop point. I thought that the transitions in my cover sounded choppy, but then I realized the original had choppy transitions as well, after I listened to it more closely.

Although I still just can't shake the feeling that there's a wrong note somewhere. It's really difficult to tell because of how many layers the song has, but I'm always striving for accuracy with my covers.

I've updated the FTM with improved instrumentation and timing. I'm wondering if I should keeping trying to improve my VRC6 cover, or if I should go ahead and start downmixing to 2A03. (With every song I cover, I first make a VRC6 cover, then I downmix my cover to 2A03, then I upload both versions to YouTube.)

[SmartKid]

Well, I went ahead and downmixed this to 2A03. I had to strip out a lot of the background layers, so it sounds a bit more hollow in comparison to the VRC6 cover, but I think the melodies survived the transition. I went ahead and added the FTM for the 2A03 cover to the 1st post.

[BioMechanicalDude]

While the 2A03 version does feel more "stripped down", it still has all the melodies, that make the song catchy. It's a pretty cool cover. Well done!