Hi everyone, first shot at making CDLC! Would love some feedback. So far the bass chart is a lot more done than the lead part and I would like to add rhythm once I feel better about the lead. Charted by ear. E minor scale at 114 bpm. My thought process on lead was octaves to mimic the Puerto Rican cuatro instrument but seems very hard to play, not sure if better off making it single notes with some octave tone effect if that's possible. Working on lead right now fixing up the slides (will all be unpitched in final) and making sure no wrong notes. Hoping to get lyrics looking a little better as well. Lead is E Standard and Bass is C Standard.
#Bad Bunny - Una Velita
empty cypress
opaque aspen
Hi! thanks for sharing I'll try to give you some help on this. I know you're probably trying to make this interesting so there's actual bass to play but I don't hear this in the recording:
empty cypress
yeah that's right
in terms of bass there's just the 4 4 4 4 4 part and the bridge and outro long sustains
so I added that to fill it out
opaque aspen
ok understood, how about a low output bass tone for these parts?
empty cypress
good idea, how do I do that?
opaque aspen
and then switch to louder bass for the parts with more audible bass
you need to add tone change events. you're using EOF or Charter?
opaque aspen
not sure about the octaver I'd be open to that idea but I think more importantly just a bit quieter
empty cypress
okay i'll defer to your judgement
opaque aspen
ok so in EOF, find the note where the tone should change, then go to the grid space like 1/32 note before that note and do ctrl + shift + t
then name it something, doesnt have to be long I keep mine short and easy to type again and remember
like "bass" or "lo"
empty cypress
i think there was a list somewhere of good clean tones and things like that from official dlc, do you know of any resource like that?
opaque aspen
the default tone in this case for you would be the low output tone. you don't need to add a tone change for that, it will ask you to pick a tone for default
empty cypress
I just used Blue Oyster Cult Don't Fear The Reaper for everything because I had no clue
opaque aspen
the official DLC tones are accesible simply with the DLCBuilder
click that little plus next to tones and do from collection
then you have all these to search and choose from
empty cypress
yes I did that I mean charters had mentioned their favorites somewhere
opaque aspen
as far as which tones are good for what idk what resources are good for that yeah
you gotta use your best sense and maybe look up playthrough videos
empty cypress
okay thanks
opaque aspen
to see what works
that sustain on that 4E is definitely too short, just remove it
I think the other ones around it are fine
empty cypress
ok i will do that
opaque aspen
so your sections/ phrases are a bit long, espcially the longest ones seen here
there's about 4 phrases that are a fine size
the rest should be split again at least once
empty cypress
okay I see what you mean
opaque aspen
honestly I'd even split the shorter ones. typically I aim for 4 measures a phrase
empty cypress
how do I delete a tone change if I put in the wrong place?
opaque aspen
I think there's not an easier way to remove a tone chnage the go to the menu here and delete it from the tone change list
I wasn't sure I could play this on bass yet because I broke my A string and haven't restringed it yet but turns out I'm good 😅
empty cypress
yeah it's not complicated at all lol
opaque aspen
only one string lol
So I'll look at lead but I do wanna mention lyrics real quick - Props on doing those first of all, and even adding the spanish accents it seems 🫡 we do wanna format them a little better though if you'll hear me out...
the main thing first of all is the lines are too long, some of them even go so long that they overflow into the next line...
you want to keep to very short lines
empty cypress
yeah there's not a lot of documentation on lyrics so I felt super lost there
opaque aspen
3-7 words maybe
empty cypress
not sure how to make short lines
opaque aspen
sometimes less
empty cypress
I had to edit the xml with Notepad++ so if it can be done that way, would be great
opaque aspen
to mark a line in EOF select the group of notes you want to be a line, then do ctrl + m
empty cypress
because of the special characters
opaque aspen
unfortunately the characters aren't going to stay that you added in notepad. next time I'd do that last
empty cypress
yeah i made a copy of the xml with the correct characters for if that happens
opaque aspen
yeah making a copy is good but you want to perfect the sync and everything first so I still kind of want to insist that we fix them up a little bit. the long lines are distracting and start to poke into the note highway and some even flow into an additional line too causing the first letter not to be capitalized
next, we want to remove most punctuation. commas, question marks, exclamations etc.
if you see a part with a comma, typically that's a good place to do a line break as well
empty cypress
sorry back to tone changes real quick, how do i tell it to go back to the default at the end of the special phrases?
opaque aspen
it seems you didn't syllabize them but at least you could extend the sustain on some of the words so that they are held out properly like you hear in the song
that would improve it I think so it doesnt die immediately
empty cypress
I did that at first but I couldn't press spacebar fast enough when he's rapping
opaque aspen
sorry back to tone changes real quick, how do i tell it to go back to the defaul...
you need to make another tone change
then once you have more than 2 tones, when you save it EOF will ask which to make the default
empty cypress
doing it on UltraStar Creator
opaque aspen
I did that at first but I couldn't press spacebar fast enough when he's rapping
here's a hint too a lot of people don't know you can hold out the spacebar for sustained vocals
but yes ultra star should just be a starting point, and you'll improve at tapping that as well but you will always want to edit timing and other things further in EOF
in the vocals tab
first issue I noticed on the lead is this: this slide is way too quick and it's a pitch slide without a linked target note/ chord so it's not right
empty cypress
for sure all slides will be unpitched in final
opaque aspen
similar issue with this
empty cypress
there I am not sure what I am hearing to be honest, I tried a few ways but I am stumped
opaque aspen
ok I'd like to see them with unpitched because there's more to say possibly about how to improve that
empty cypress
for sure I'll try to send an update for that asap
opaque aspen
I'm not sure what you're going for either. I'd say this not an actual guitar part or what is tabbed here is not guitar
empty cypress
is two tones for the bass okay?
opaque aspen
yeah 2 seems good
empty cypress
yeah it's not guitar
But again there is guitar at the very end so I tried to mimic whatever melody I could here with what sounds like a grandfather clock synth
opaque aspen
so when we get to this part
there's something you can do to improve it
notice how the fingers below don't change with the slide...
this is because you need to mark a handshape on both sides of these chord slides
do you know how to do that
empty cypress
ctrl + shift + h or p? first question, should I keep the octaves throughout?
empty cypress
idk if it makes it unnatural, I don't see charts like that often
opaque aspen
but it is in the song I think
empty cypress
that's the genre haha
opaque aspen
mhm
opaque aspen
ctrl + shift + h or p? first question, should I keep the octaves throughout?
ctrl + shift + h yes. you want linked chord slides to be marked with handshapes on both sides with a gap between it, like this:
The end part is a bit of mess to be honest, I think some or most of it you have transcribed as double stops or octaves is just single notes with different layer overdubbed and would be way more playable to just focus on one note at a time
empty cypress
for the whole song?
empty cypress
okay sure I will change it to single notes, if it’s not playable there’s no point
opaque aspen
then measure 108 to the end
yeah it's not playable at this point and doesn't sound to me what's on the recording I heard some different lead layers panned to different sides of the headphones even
and they sound like single notes
if anything it's 12 string
so it sort of sounds like it has 2 notes at once because each note is 2 strings
make sense?
so charting as octaves is overcharting for sure
empty cypress
yeah like i wrote in OP it’s the puerto rican quatro so that’s why i did the octaves since it’s 4+4 strings
that’s where i didn’t know how to mimic that best if with octaves or single notes+octaver
opaque aspen
you want to chart it like one note at a time though, use a tone for that kind of octave effect if you want to mimic it better
yeah
I've heard of the cuatro before yeah
same kind of thing I was thinking of which is why I mentioned 12 string, some strings are doubled
empty cypress
right
opaque aspen
er all strings
empty cypress
then i will make these changes and post a new one tomorrow
thanks very much for your input 🙏
opaque aspen
and definitely listen to the DLC builder flagged issues - I think these are the slides I was pointing out that were wrong, you can't have no sustain on things like slides
empty cypress
where is this?
empty cypress
so is it expecting \n?
opaque aspen
we do have to mark line breaks, and it's a lot easier to do in EOF before worrying about special accents
tough thing to pick lyrically for your first chart
empty cypress
i just need to see how it’s done once and i can do it in the xml i’m betting
opaque aspen
but I'd just wait on readding the accents
chart them in EOF without the accents as regular letters then when you are near the end you can maybe edit the xml
empty cypress
EOF also added - at the end of every division, what i thought was a line, that is made in UltraStar Creator
how do I keep that from happening?
it’s why i abandoned doing it in EOF today 😅
opaque aspen
huh eof added what now?
that? ^
nah that shouldn't happen I use ultra star all the time
you can remove such things in the vocal tab though
just edit the word/ syllable by selecting it and pressing "l"
yeah from my end you've got lyrics and none of them are marked as lines which is not correct
empty cypress
in what program is this?
opaque aspen
EOF
I tap lyrics with ultrastar creator first to get them close then edit further in EOF
empty cypress
but it does it for every word/syllable so something ain’t right and would take a long time to fix that way, i tried :c
empty cypress
yeah i tried troubleshooting but idk what to do
empty cypress
nope it’s all of it
opaque aspen
that's normal. but if you have something else then you did something wrong in the process I can't say what that is right now
empty cypress
nope looks like I- seen- her- throwin’- up- H-Town- You- was- livin’- off- of- Dru- Hill-
😞
opaque aspen
idk why. I'd just start over in the process
empty cypress
yeah hopefully that fixes it, thanks
opaque aspen
Here's a rough quick edit I did to the lyrics to prep for tapping in ultra star, I removed the accents, punctuation and split the lines up:
hang on
it's too long
Como llego este momento
El ano pasa volando
Pero este mes siempre se va lento
Pasa serio y amenazando
El cielo esta oscureciendo
Y el viento ya esta soplando
El mar se va enfureciendo
Y la montana rezando
Ey 'ta empezando a llover
Otra vez va a pasar
Por ahi viene tormenta
Viene temporal
'Ta empezando a llover
Otra vez va a pasar
Por ahi viene tormenta
Quien nos va a salvar
Ah ah-ah-ah-ah
Ah ah-ah-ah-ah
Ah ah ah
Mmm
Mm-mmm
Y que Dios proteja a Borinquen
En el nombre del Padre
Del Hijo
Y del Espiritu Santo
Que Dios cuide mi canto
No quiero toldo
Quiero su manto
Ey
Obviamente la luz se va a ir
Sabra Dios
Y nunca va a volver
El puente que tardaron en construir
El rio crecio' lo va a romper
Par de cancione' guarda'
En el cel pa' cuando
Se vaya la senal
La senal ya se dio y no la quieren ver
Falta que el boricua quiera despertar
No olviden la viejita de alli
Que vive sola
Hay que irla a ayudar
Recuerden que to' somo' de aqui
Al pueblo el pueblo le toca salvar
Con el gobierno no me envien na'
Que esos cabrone' lo van a esconder
Van pa' la calle
Pa' fotos na' ma'
Por mi toditos se pueden joder
Fueron cinco mil que dejaron morir
Y eso nunca se nos va a olvidar
La palma en la que quieren
Ahorcar el pais un dia
De estos la vamo' a tumbar
Y ojala y ojala y ojala
Y ojala que no venga no
Y ojala y ojala y ojala
Y ojala que no venga no
Y ojala y ojala y ojala
Y ojala que no venga no
Que no venga
No pero
'Ta empezando a llover
Otra vez va a pasar
Por ahi viene tormenta
Quizas huracan
'Ta empezando a llover
Otra vez va a pasar
Por ahi viene tormenta
Quien nos va a salvar
Dime si la quiere' pasar conmigo
Dime si la quiere' pasar conmigo
Dime si la quiere' pasar conmigo
Eh-eh
Pa' no dormir solito'
Dormir abrazao'
A mi na' me da miedo
Si tu estas a mi la'o
Prende una velita pa' ver
Tu carita antes de acostarme
'Toy esperando a que salga el sol
A que salga el sol
Va a salir el sol
Ah-ah
'Toy esperando a que salga el sol
A que salga el sol
Va a salir el sol
by the way, ultrastar creator has a button that splits up into syllables for you too:
you can set the language up top to spanish too
it's not perfect but it's a good start usually
empty cypress
Thank you, will try this!
empty cypress
by the way, ultrastar creator has a button that splits up into syllables for you...
couldn't find this button anywhere but now there are no dashes- after every word, thank you so much
opaque aspen
ah that's good. the button is quite small so I think you're probably just missing it, it's at the very bottom right above the mammoth but below the text box
empty cypress
this is what I see https://i.imgur.com/d3Babss.png
but I worked on the lyrics in EOF a lot yesterday so I don't think I can go back to UltraStar for this one at least
unless there is a way to export to UltraStar and back?
empty cypress
New version with updates, @opaque aspen could you take a look?
opaque aspen
🫡 Will get to this today
opaque aspen
this is what I see https://i.imgur.com/d3Babss.png
ah that's weird I wonder if they moved that button on updated versions of USC. I don't see it in that screenshot either.
empty cypress
appreciate you 🙏
opaque aspen
but I worked on the lyrics in EOF a lot yesterday so I don't think I can go back...
nah, no way to do that, just continue working in EOF
opaque aspen
looking better overall so far
I think you're missing one bass pluck here, should be on the beginning of the measure and then sustained as far as you have the previous one
the low output tone is working well, I think that's a really nice touch
I do think some of the FHP could be done a little differently for the main low output bass riff you added
probably finger 2 for all the 11E notes
and finger 2 for all the 12E notes
so FHP10, for the first one, and FHP 11 for the second
then here it should be FHP6
and shift to FHP4 up ahead after the long sustained open 0E note
there
actually maybe for this case shift to FHP4 on the open note
yeah. since it's the beginning of a new phrase
I think at the very least this 9, 11, 12E should be moved up to the yellow string so 4, 6, 7A
much smoother to get back to this 4E
then same thing as it repeats
I think the phrases are much better I still think there's that one in the middle that could be easily split in half right?
then kind of not sure I'd do the end phrases like that theyre a little inconsistent but overall much better like I said
Lemme check the lead and I got some other things to comment on, the lyrics are better too but I think you still got some weird accents we can get rid of even before we add the proper ones back for spanish accents in the xml
I still want you to worry about that last
the main bass tone is very non offensive btw, and fine if you wanna keep that one but if you're looking for one that sounds more like synth bass/ 808s I got suggestions for that
opaque aspen
something to keep in mind for situations like this: the unpitched slide end fret can correspond to the finger lane... so in this case it would slide up to fret 11 instead of 13, keeping it on finger lane 2
same here, should look better sliding up to fret 11 instead of 12
that's assuming the FHP you've got now for this part is even ideal. not sure how to interpret what I'm hearing in the music. the notes fit but not sure how this part would have originally been played or on what instrument
for this long phrase on the lead path you should probably use a path specific "no guitar" section
once that note ends theres some measures of rest so best not to include those in the phrase
slide here changes fingers
probably just FHP11 on the 12B note for the easiest fix
nah there's more issues, the riff after this point is timed wrong
you have it offset somehow
until you get the longer sustained notes
then it sounds right again
too much climbing up on one string for this part. you need to transpose some notes to the higher strings and try to keep a similar hand position, something that's a little more playable
some similar issues in the next little bits too
empty cypress
wow thank you so much
I am trying to figure out using multiple strings more instead of all on one, not sure how to manage it yet. When it’s on bass is the deeper tone of the low E string not preferred for a beefier sound? That was a bit of my reasoning thought mostly noob mentality
opaque aspen
gonna be a bit excessive because of the shifting
I'm fine with how it is in most of the song until we get to that end section
as far as transposing to other strings you need to learn how to do so, on bass it's pretty easy it's just 5 frets up or down for changing to another string
guitar it's similar but some strings are tuned in different intervals
empty cypress
the main bass tone is very non offensive btw, and fine if you wanna keep that on...
definitely a synth/808 tone would be awesome, what should I look for?
empty cypress
that's assuming the FHP you've got now for this part is even ideal. not sure how...
It’s produced by Bad Bunny’s usual guys “La Paciencia” and Tainy, I assume everything is synths or samples so it’s tough to say
empty cypress
and finger 2 for all the 12E notes
this is how I had planned out the bass, is there a better workflow for FHP?
and what do you put for finger when it’s an open string? 🤔
opaque aspen
Sorry just waking up, may not have time to answer all these until after work tonight
opaque aspen
and what do you put for finger when it’s an open string? 🤔
Depends on the context but for shifting FHP we generally recommend waiting to shift until the next fretted note
If a phrase/ section starts with some open notes though might be better to shift FHP on the beginning of the phrase though . That’s just one example of an exception
empty cypress
no worries, whenever you get a chance is fine! 🙂 I think I have mixed up finger definition and FHP so I will take some time to review and upload a new version when I make all the changes
opaque aspen
Yeah. Hand position (FHP) implies finger position by the highlighted fret lanes
empty cypress
Yeah I've been putting in finger for each note but never FHP yet
opaque aspen
ok I can explain how to do that the easiest way for you at this point I think is to generate the auto FHPs then edit them where you want them to improve
there's a couple way to do this, but here's how I do it - I select all or whatever portion of notes in the arrangement that I want to generate FHPs for then I do this:
then if you cycle to the right view setting using Shift + F11 you should see some red numbers for the FHP changes
like so
you should always create sections and phrases before doing this too, since they are somewhat tied and based on phrase placements (each phrase should have a FHP marked at the beginning of it)
then you can add or edit FHPs using shift + F
opaque aspen
definitely a synth/808 tone would be awesome, what should I look for?
sounds weird maybe but try Wi$h Li$t by Taylor Swift lol and use my "SBASS" tone
empty cypress
do I just download the psarc and it will be in DLC builder?
empty cypress
thank you, changed it to that now!
empty cypress
how do you do COUNT and END phrases?
opaque aspen
shift + P to make a phrase. add COUNT at the beginning starting from the first empty measure before your notes start
add END after the last notes are done to complete the last phrase and tell the note highway to stop highlighting
keep in mind the sections/ phrases can be track specific. so for this song in my screenshot for example the guitar starts but the bass doesnt come in right away. here's what the bass track sections/ phrases look like...
here's the end of the bass track
the COUNT should never need to be track specific, but sometimes END could be
since the instruments end in different spots sometimes
you always want COUNT to last all the way until your first played note though
make sure you don't have additional empty phrases before the first played note in each track
does that make sense?
empty cypress
what if I don't have an empty measure before my notes start? 🥲
opaque aspen
yeah you definitely should sorry I didn't notice that you didn't yet. I'll tell you how to fix it, but next time you can make sure you have one either in a tab before you import or just have an empty measure directly in EOF before the first notes
you're going to want to go to the first measure and click this 4 times
empty cypress
will this affect the phrases?
empty cypress
Push Offset Back is greyed out
opaque aspen
hm make sure youre on beat 1
I'm not really sure what's wrong or why it's telling you you can't use that function rn
empty cypress
opaque aspen
can you show more context, and go to the beginning of the project
I think I know why
empty cypress
on top of the first measure
opaque aspen
yes it's saying measure 2 instead of measure 1
so
you don't want measure 1 to start at the beginning of the song
you want measure 1 to start after some silence
you didn't need to drag the first beat/ measure to the beginning of the silence
I used to make this mistake too
empty cypress
this might be from the guitar pro file how I accounted for the silence in the beginning of the sound file
opaque aspen
regardless it's the way you need to sync it in EOF
empty cypress
opaque aspen
next time instead of a measure of 1/8 just do a full 4/4 measure
and use that as the count
see how on mine it's blank until measure 1
empty cypress
then it doesn't match the mp3, is that okay?
opaque aspen
yes you don't want to think of it in the terms you are
that extra silence is not a measure of 1/8 in itself
so there's a few things you need to do to fix this
some of it involves resyncing at least the first beat
I have to go to work though 😩
empty cypress
okay no worries, thank you for the help so far!
opaque aspen
you're going to want to change the time signature for the first measure to 4/4 then add 3 additional beats with push offset back
but it won't let you do that until you get beat / measure 1 further to the right
empty cypress
yes that's what i'm trying to figure out now
opaque aspen
you can use this and check "this beat only"
that will still get the rest of the song out of sync but don't panic
do that, carefully drag everything from beat 1 to the right a bit, then change time signature to 4/4 and add the other 3 beats with push offset back
then try to sync the entirety of the song using the dragging from beat 1
this isn't fun to fix so next time try to do this right with an empty measure
a full measure, not 1/8
opaque aspen
good luck I gotta go, yeah set the bpm to what it should be for the rest of the song
think of the COUNT measure as a 4 beat count off like if the drummer was clicking off the band with stick clicks
empty cypress
alright I'll post when I got something to show, appreciate your help
opaque aspen
which you can also add in RS events too if needed. it's a nice touch and I add it on many songs
opaque aspen
alright I'll post when I got something to show, appreciate your help
no prob