RWBY: Divide - Orchestral Metal Remix

A symphonic metal cover of Salem's theme, doubling as the Volume 3 ending theme.

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There was no single MIDI available for this one, so to start out, I took one that had the guitars sequenced, and one for the lead vocal line and frankenstein'd them together, applying fixes where needed. That left the rest to be done by ear. I started with the drums, even more of a logical starting point since the track begins with a drum solo, and in so doing found out the track is almost entirely played in thirds. The more you know.
When it came to the intro, the I knew I wanted to change that up, always finding the Arabic scale a odd choice to go with. One could argue that since Salem is ancient, it's to allude to Cradle of Civilisation peoples, but that's probably reaching. Anyway, I had a clear idea of what I wanted to change it for, though the short string notes in-between the two big chords went through some tweaking to fit the timings.

From there, it was pretty smooth sailing, until I got to the bridge, where I had to guess hard. Not only for the tempo changes, but also the notes for the backing vocals. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what they were supposed to be. What I ended up with isn't what the original sounds like, but it sounds about right in isolation, and that's good enough for me.

For the second verse and chorus, I rewrote some of the lyrics, this time before the original lines didn't rhyme when everything that preceded it did. I mused a bit on what to do with the original "when you get what you earned" like, until the word "yearn" came to mind and it clicked.

After finishing the arrangement, I went back and forth across it a couple of times, making tweaks and adding details here and there, then tweaked the mix a couple of times, mostly amounting to adjusting volume levels.

Time spent working on the track: 40 hours.

Credits:
Composed by Jeff Williams and Ben Zecker.

MIDIs referenced sequenced by a unknown UltimateGuitar user, and shunky_funky, of Musescore, respectively.
https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/...
https://musescore.com/user/7922971/sc...

Artwork used in thumbnail:
https://www.deviantart.com/cadhla182/...

Video made with FL Studio ZGameEditor Visualizer plugin
Effect author credits:
Electric - nimitz Twitter: @stormoid Adapted from https://www.shadertoy.com/view/ldlXRS
WormHoleEclipse, Blooming, TextDraw - Jph Wacheski http://jph_wacheski.itch.io/
Polar - Kjell, Dubswitcher
Dubswitcher Starburst, Dubswitcher Soft Glitch - Dubswitcher

Wanna hang out? Follow me on Bluesky!
https://bsky.app/profile/nailik-notew...

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