Jam session with Kalafina - Mirai

His_Cifnes

His_Cifnes

I like Yuki
Ahoi together! : ] - A lot has happened since [ last time ] in June 2024.

New piano with new sounds, lots and lots of hours practicing, and of course taking all advices into account. (Thank you again, @CloisteredFlame!)
Practice focussed especially on timing, reading ahead while playing, scales and more timing, timing, timing, timing.

Found that online teachers and online courses really DO help.
The online courses are especially nice, as they have no schedule, and can be done at any time of the day. : ]

For me jamming to existing music is sooo damn fun, I somehow do "forget" that I'm practicing, and simply have fun while trying out new songs.
Question is though, I would also like to play the songs not voice-over one day. But how? There are karaoke versions of many songs, but I would need it the other way around: I need the singing voices, but not the instruments. I suppose there is no such thing? ; )

However, for the lulz I jammed to Kalafina's Mirai this time.
I'd like to ask the forum's opinion.
~ [ Kalafina - Mirai ] ~

One of my mates suggested the piano was too quiet, so in this video I raised the volume, and thought the result the best compromise between listening quality and actually being able to tell my piano and the RD-700SX from the original track apart.
Using the RD-700NX's "Piano 3" voice in the video.

So, dear forum, did I do better this time? : )

Thanks for your time. ^____^
Cif ~
 
Congratulations on the progress you're making! I'm pleased to hear this.

So what you're trying to achieve now is to isolate the original vocals and use them over your solo keyboard playing (instead of the original instrumentation). Am I getting this right? If that's the case, maybe you can use audio splitting apps to separate the vocals from the instruments, then save the vocals to a separate audio file. You can check online for free tools for doing this... The you could overlay the vocals on your keyboard recording and see how it sounds.

I just listened to your "Mirai" accompaniment video and you've definitely improved in your timing. Keep working on it! I would like to hear your playing by itself maybe as a separate upload. I would suggest trying out using a metronome as well to tighten up the timing.
 
@CloisteredFlame, again many many thanks for your (always) useful feedback. Excellent! *___*

Yes, I'm looking for a way to extract the voices and do the instruments myself. (Not at the same time of course, but with overlaying tracks.)
There are such apps, that can extract the singing voices from existing tracks? Do they work? I know some noise removal applications, that can (based on a sample) remove that sample noise on the whole track... which works quite well, but doesn't sound perfect, as you hear something is missing.
I wonder if these voice extraction applications work better. I'm going to find out. - Thank you! ^^


CloisteredFlame said:
I just listened to your "Mirai" accompaniment video and you've definitely improved in your timing. Keep working on it! I would like to hear your playing by itself maybe as a separate upload. I would suggest trying out using a metronome as well to tighten up the timing.
Click to expand...

You asked, you get it. : ) -- Please find the piano track separated in [ this video ]. It's not listed on Youtube, as clearly it's not as polished as an official "release" on the channel. ; )

The piano comes with a built-in metronome, but I struggle to use it in the scenarios I'm in. This is because the starting point of the playback video and the starting point of the metronome do differ. With this, running the playback video does not appear to have a constant delay. So the metronome would be off each time.

I have not yet tried to upload the song into the piano, and start the playback music together with the built-in metronome. THAT might actually work out, but then why? --> Since I'm playing to a pre-recorded song, this should be as good as a metronome.

I do not hear my own piano separated. While playing I listen to my piano AND the playback recording at the same time, so I can jam to that live.
The key strokes should therefore fit to the underlying music, also time-wise. - In theory.. ; )

If the timing is off, then it's because of my own inability to keep eyes on the scores while playing the piano.

As I could find out, the underlying reason for my impatience is that I still need to look on the scores AND the keys. First peek on the scores reading ahead the next few tones, then next look on the keys to locate the next accord... but then I do not see when the next tone needs to be played, since the eyes are still on the keys, which is why I currently need to guess the right moment for the next tone.

My teacher said, I should focus on NOT peeking at the keys. "Eyes should remain on the scores at all times, or else you need to become better at guessing..." he said. ; )
Practising to play blindly since a couple of weeks now, and it takes shape, but still is not there yet.

And I noticed a flutter in the left hand, that I appear to have (like at minute 2:00 of that recording). This might appear to lenghten a tone... which sounds ok for me while playing to the playback, but when listening to that separately it sounds awful, and I need to get rid of that, completely.

Btw.. uploading the piano-only version of Mirai, Youtube insisted that the content is copyrighted, even though, I did it all myself. :o - I suppose Youtube did recognise the song, even though it's just the piano. I fear, when I play all the instruments myself, Youtube could falsely flag the videos as copyrighted later as well. This could be a potential problem. But I face that later. ; ) - Technical improvement needs to be done anyway.

Cif ~
 
That's great news! Separating the singing voices from the instruments sounds like witch craft. * ___ *
Thank you. : ) - I will try this out. Might take "a moment" though to get that far to perfect all the instruments for a release. (and then unite them again together with the singing voices)
However, everthing needs to be started from a certain point. I'll get started asap.

I'll follow the instructions and give this a nice try.
 
Addition:
While researching these kind of tools, I also found this:

https://www.acestudio.ai

How to use: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcZTDVnROWs

This is a different approach than lalal.ai
With this you can either sing yourself (in ugly or nice) and the tool transforms your singing into something purely awesome (so it's advertised).. regardless if input is male or female.

Alternative would be to play the notes on the piano (using midi f.i.) and then edit the text along the melody, and the tool will sing with the selected voice(s) in your melody, in the pitch you have selected, taking all the little settings into account.

Also worth a look, I suppose. Besides English, this tool also supports japanese language..

Cif ~
 
CloisteredFlame said:
I can see you're really getting into the research.
Click to expand...

^___^ Yup, it's soo much fun to make musik. - Imagine to create it from scratch. Track by track, channel by channel.. and then add singing voices to it.. *__* - Definitely worth trying lots of things to achieve such a thing.
This... however, might take a moment until the first release of such a creation.. : )

That's harder than just to jam to something existing. (still jamming remains LOADS of fun, and that's also ongoing, of course. :D)

*happy* Cif ~
 
[lalal.ai] is A W E S O M E ! o.o::

I did the following with YK's Fake Wings:
1) [play alongside] to YK's piano and to the girls voices (without lalal.ai) and recorded my piano in a separate audio channel.
2) play YK's piano intro [alone without anything else] from memory
3) Use lalal.ai and remove YK's piano from the song. In a 2nd step [added my recorded piano track to Yuriko and Kaori's singing]. (Please forgive my heresy, but it's all for science!! :p)

I noticed two things:
The song played alone (2) sounds reasonable okay.
When removing YK's piano, the song (3) doesn't sound consistent anymore. Reason: The timing is off, since YK pushes and pulls time when she sees fit. You can hear me catching up and slowing down to match her time shifted playing. That's not good at all.

Today I tried something even more experimental (had never done that before)...
I know the piano can start a wave form via a trigger (YK's RD-700 GX and NX can do this as well..).. so I uploaded the extracted singing voices from Fake Wings to the RD-2000, created a trigger and started playing.
Intro was like (2) from above, then Kaori joins via trigger, and I simply keep playing from memory (not alongside to YK), then Yuriko also joins, and it was a blast. :D

Thing is: The timing issues are FINALLY gone this way \o/ YAY(!), since I don't have to wait for Yuki's piano, and so the whole thing sounds rouded up and better than (3).
I don't yet have a recording of that, since this needs to be practised and perfected even better to make it sound more original. "The YK sound" needs to be replicated better: Somehow her left hand appear to play a fuller sound, than I can replicate from memory. My version sounds a bit thin, still.

Instrument sounds quite similar, but not 100%. I did chose a combination of the RD-700GX's Stage Grand Piano3, a choir (very silent) to add magic to the keys, and the RD700 GX's Mellow Stage Piano (which adds some soft bass to the left hand).
I will upload and link this here as soon I have a couple of minutes. (might be after christmas though)
For me, this is quite a leap ahead, and I'd like to thank you for your great help, @CloisteredFlame, @Lorde-Kowz and @george1234! \^____^/

Please have great christmas holidays and an excellent start into 2025!! : )

Cif
 
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George, it's time to reap what you have sown.. ; ))

As last release of 2024, Fake Wings is somewhat complete with the new piano voice. I've tried to come as close to the original as possible. (original linked in the comments underneath the video)
Later, when Kaori and Yuriko are joining, things become interesting.. : ]

===-> [ https://youtu.be/kQxIkNbxlsM ]

What do you guys think? : )

Have a great start into 2025! May it bring happiness and success!
 
I listened and the timing was on point!

I think the only thing I noticed was that you there were differences in some of the chords you played at certain times, but the accompaniment was on point in terms of the ebb and flow of the song.

"Broken Wings" is one of my favorites from that concert and the song that first got me to really recognize Kaori as an expressive singer, in terms of delicacy not power. That's before I discovered her Sound Horizon work.
 
@CloisteredFlame

Thank youu for your feedback. ^____^ - As always very helpful!
I did indeed have no scores infront of me, so I am playing what I remember, in the pace that I remember, with the uniqueness I remember.

As I tried in Take03 of that song, playing alongside YK and just record my piano, does not work, as you, as a listener, always notice that I am either waiting or trying to catch up to YK's piano play, as she tends to be variable in speed at times. - So that doesn't work. Playing from memory (Current Take04) solves that problem, but creates a new one: Chords can be different at times, compared to the original.

The most difficult parts were (in order)
(1) trying to keep the uniqueness of the piano sound in each part - Took countless tries to kind of resemble this level of YK'ism in the piano play (I am sure though that there is pleenty of more stuff to include, still)
(2) hitting the trigger at the right moment, so Kaori can join at the right spot (Requires weight lifting, since the right foot is already in use for holding the tones, left foot used for the voice trigger.. I wasn't used to that at first.) - Who thought two arms and two legs would be enough for humans?? : ]

Thing is, you cannot hold this moment forever, so the voices need to join quite soon and in that same moment, the suspended tones need to vanish, making space for the new scattered chord when Kaori joins... but these need to be more soft than before, since the focus is now shifted from piano to the singing voice. - All at the same moment. Never did something similar. The result may sound simple, but is not. :D - It's been a fun process however, and more songs could follow of this kind. : )

The result is quite okay'ish in my ears, but still lacks volume at some places. YK does some magic here and there, especially in bass, that I do not yet fully understand. (Too bad her piano is not on display when this happens.. >_<)
I would pay quite some money if I could watch her hands playing Fake Wings for the whole song.. - Learning from the best brings fast (and cool) progress. :D

Speaking of Kaori: Oh yes, I still remember. I was playing Minecraft and listened in the background. When hearing Kaori join in for the first time, I had to switch over and watch her singing. *___*

Regarding Sound Horizon: Unknown to me yet, got something new to listen to now. : ] - Thank youuu!

Cif
 
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