Feedback requested on "Kiss From a Rose" (bass)

[Elara]

Hello everyone,

 

I've charted the bass arrangement for Seal's "Kiss From a Rose".  It is a combination of two .gp files (one in Drop D, the other in B standard) and working out parts by ear.  The chart is in E standard.

 

I've asked two Rocksmith streamers to test it, and both have found that some of the notes sound too sharp.  This isn't true for all the notes, though, and playing everything one fret lower either doesn't sound better, or sounds worse.

 

The sheet music I've seen suggests this might be in Eb.  It might also be that that tuning is slightly flat from E, or that the bass is just so faint in parts of this song that it's difficult to tell whether it's correct or not.

 

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for this chart, as I'm not happy uploading it as it is, but I'm not sure what else I can do with it.

 

The download link for the chart is here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_5NRlhhqTyPby1RejRhclJ4OEk

 

Thank you,

 

Sophia

[albatross213]

I might have time to try it out later, but a few ideas in the meantime.

 

You can check the key and tuning frequency of a song using the tONaRT demo. Just drag and drop a .wav onto it and it will tell you the key (it might give a relative major or minor instead or something like that sometimes) and tuning frequency, which can help you tell whether the recording is somewhat sharp or flat.

 

Second, the bassline is relatively slow for much of the song, so you can probably use software to detect the pitch, which is pretty easy with bass as it's usually the lowest thing in the audio (though drums can mask it out). In Audacity you can select a region of the song and do Analyze -> Plot Spectrum, then look for the note associated with the lowest peak (and often the harmonics to doublecheck that they're the right harmonic series as the lowest peak can be uncertain enough to give the note neighboring the right one, but the harmonic series usually corrects that if it happens).

 

I hope those ideas help some.

[Elara]

Thank you very much for your help!  The tONaRT demo is very useful, and your suggestions have helped to rule out some possible problems. I've now got the chart to a point where I'm content to upload it.