Arranging.

[Crazy Hand]

I can't arrange by ear at all, but reading through the treads, it looks like there is some other way to arrange video game music. If there is, what is it? Because I would arrange if there were some other magical way, but I don't know if there is.

[FireArrow]

Well... you can arrange by midi, but from my experience, it really doesn't end up to well and you're very limited in your song choices. While arranging by ear may seem like an unachievable super power, it really isn't, and it's surprisingly easy to learn once you break the "I have no idea what I'm doing" barrier.

[Sebastian]

When I arrange, I use an app that slows down the song without changing the pitch.
Its called Anytune. Its very helpful

[Winter]

You'll need to know a few things.

1) How to write music and a general understanding of music theory which you probably have if you are here in the first place.
2) Software that can turn your thoughts into sheet music form (Finale)
3) A trained ear, or as mariolegofan said, software to help you out. Personally I always used Audacity to slow it down to like 50% and then changed the pitch up 100% accordingly, and I'll do it again if it's still troublesome.

After you give it a shot, it becomes easier. We're all here to help! But yes you will be plugging in every note manually, unfortunately it's very tedious and there's no magic involved, although there's at least 3-4 arrangers who probably DO have magic and are holding out on us!

[SlowPokemon]

If you can't arrange simply by hearing the piece and writing out the notes, you can't arrange. There is no "magic software" that will create a good arrangement from a sound file. You need to listen to it a few seconds at a time and pay attention to what you hear.

[Winter]

Well, what I used to do is listen to one note/chord in the song, and sound it out on a piano over and over until I found the right one. then you can take those keys and write them. It's the extended version of 'hearing it and knowing'

[spitllama]

Yah I do what Winter does. I can't recognize anything without finding it on a piano.

[spitllama]

Yah I do what Winter does. I can't recognize anything without finding it on a piano.

[Ricky]

I could go on giving lots of tips how you should do but I won't since I don't have so much time right now. The basic idea however is ear training, that's the secret. There are lots of different ways to do ear training and plenty of different areas to practice. The most basic is to practice recognizing intervals, for example here. Once you've got a hang of it the next step might be start practicing recognition of rhythmic patterns and finding rhythms (while still practicing intervals). After a long while maybe you're ready for practicing writing down more or less simple melodies, this is a perfect site for this (all you need is to download all the mus files, have Finale Notepad installed, have sheet music paper and a good enough ear). I also recommend Theta Music Trainer for practicing many different areas of ear training (and also singing and music theory), can be good once you've got your intervals down (the rhythm games are especially useful).

Anyways, before arranging video game music it's a good idea to start with something simplier like for example two part counterpoint pieces for piano. Also there are lots of areas to practice like instrument recognition, chords, progressions, scales, finding time signatures, understanding structure of pieces better and so on. It's a long way to go and it will take lots of time and patience. Probably quicker and better ways to practice this but this is just one way (and I haven't described it in detail).

[GaryOak]

Opening a midi file with Finale and playing with that is a good way to start. I did that all the time when I started arranging. I still use midi files because it's faster and the outcome is usually the same as arranging by ear, depending on the song of course.

[TheZeldaPianist275]

although there's at least 3-4 arrangers who probably DO have magic and are holding out on us!

This.

[MaestroUGC]

Well if I told you my secrets then there'd be no reason for you to keep me around.