ARTIST...................: Devin Townsend
ALBUM....................: Terria
TITLE....................: Deep Peace
VERSION..................: 0.2 0.5 1.0
INSTRUMENT(S)............: Lead, Rhythm, Vocals
TUNING...................: Open C (CGCGCE)
CUSTOM TONE..............: Yes
DYNAMIC DIFFICULTY.......: DDC v2.1
PACKAGE ID...............: Cherub Rock
PLATFORMS................: PC

 

Release:

http://customsforge.com/page/customsforge_rs_2014_cdlc.html/_/pc-enabled-rs-2014-cdlc/deep-peace-r4403

Video of song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilVH50CaasU

 

Changelog:

0.5:

- Improved the syncing in various parts of the song

- Other minor improvements

 

Hi everyone,

 

I could use some help for my next DLC... basically I want your opinion on a special problem with this great song.

Deep Peace is kind of one long solo, and there are about seven changes of the BPM in the song, as well as changes from 4/4 to 7/8 and 6/8.

All of those changes are tabbed out very accurately* and I was able to apply them in EOF. The problem is that sometimes Devin does not really stick to the rythm or how the notes may be "supposed to be played" according to the tabs with "perfect rythm". When his instrument is the only one, you don't really notice that he sometimes plays a tiny bit too late or too early.

I see the following options here:

• Add BPM-changes to every single beat that is effected. I tried that but it became quite a mess (e.g. in a 4/4 shorten the first three beats that contain notes and making the 4th much longer, so that the next measure still begins at the same time)
• Move around the notes. From everything I read so far, this should probably not be preferred. Also I think DDC does a better job when all the notes stick to the beat grid
• Simply do nothing. I have to slow it down to 25% to be able to move notes to the correct position, so my thought is that most of this stuff isn't going to be noticed by a regular guitar player. It might even feel better to play exactly with the rythm!?

While I tested 1 and 2, I cannot judge option 3 simply because I lack the skills to play it :smile:

So this is where I count on your help: Which option is the best?

If you can play the song but feel like something is slightly off, you are probably right, so I would like to know about it.

 

Also this is the first time I tried editing tones for a song, so please give me feedback on those.

 

Thanks,

Azrael

 

 

Credit:

*Tabs by Jesse Cohan

http://www.songsterr.com/a/wsa/devin-townsend-deep-peace-tab-s69985t1

You picked a very difficult song to notate :)  It sounded pretty alright the way you uploaded it.  But if you want more precision, here's what I would do.

 

Since the guitarist is kinda doing his own thing tempo-wise, I would just worry about syncing the important notes (what's "important" is open to interpretation).  I consider these the important notes:

http://i.imgur.com/cOcetst.png

 

If the circled beat markers are synced, I bet most users wouldn't notice if the rest is slightly off.

 

It sounds like the tabber did some copy-pasting so there is an occasional overstrum here and there.  I'd always trust your ear over tabs.  Unfortunately there are pelicans and whistles and stuff during the intro so the waveform won't help much when syncing.  The spectrogram might help out a little bit (try grayscale with avg freq).

As always, thanks for your in-depth answer, Rockfirstlast.

I decided to improve the syncing by adjusting the lengths of the beats. I was mostly worried about the beginning of the super long solo, and now I am pretty happy with it :smile:

 

About the overstrums in the beginning... I decided to leave the copy-paste notation untouched for now. When you turn the volume up quite loud, you will be able to hear strums in most of the cases where they are notated. If I now start deleting silent strums, I think it will only make playing it way more complicated. I guess this is more important than the small benefit of making the CDLC a tiny bit more accurate. It sounds ok, and the important part is the solo, anyway :smile:

 

Any comments on the tones? If I do not get any replies in the next week or so, I will finally put this one into the data base.

 

Regards,

Azrael