Hey, everyone! I know it’s not often that we post outside of a Friday release, but we want your opinions on something.
Keys parts in rock music often belong to one of two schools; either they’re an integral, leading part of the song (“The Final Countdown”, Elton John, Billy Joel, many New Wave songs, etc.) or they perform a less exciting support role, sometimes the same few chords for the whole song. The second kind of keys chart, the less exciting one, is often much lower in the final mix than vocals, drums, or other leading instruments. Harmonix, with all of the stems for each song, was usually able to bump these parts up for Rock Band, making them more noticeable to a Keys/Pro Keys player. Unfortunately, at C3, we don’t have that luxury, and it’s often very difficult to chart a “buried” keys part with any degree of accuracy, even with frequency banding and other tricks. This has led to us releasing a few keys songs without a Keys/PK part, like my own “Dragostea din tei”.
We’d like your thoughts on these “buried” keys parts in the poll below. IMPORTANT: THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO EVERY SONG WITH KEYS! If a song has a prominent keys part, there’s no room for debate — the C3 custom will include a chart for it. This poll only applies to keys parts that are muddy, inaudible, or otherwise near-impossible to chart without stems.
Thanks, and see you on Friday!