Barrels of Doom (Carnival Night Zone)

[DJ H0us3C0rP3]

I am not sure what genre this would be to be completely honest but screw it. One of my least favorite Sonic levels of all time...Carnival *******Night Zone. The music is cool but that STUPID BARREL I SWEAR TO GOD..... sorry. Just remember ...UP and DOWN....UP and Down.

 

[Gario]

EVAL

This is a very interesting take on a cool song from a terribly frustrating level (yes, I've experienced the frustration of "UP AND DOWN" myself, I feel the pain). As far as this arrangement goes... it's weird. That's not a bad thing, as I still got a kick out of it. I think you were going for that, too, so good work.

The beginning drags a bit. After 1:13 things take an interesting turn, but for a song that's less than four minutes that's a little bit of a stretch to have little more than the bass, theme and repetitive ostinato. One or two small moments of glitching will help keep the listener's attention while not spoiling the rest of the track too much.

Interestingly, it grows on you once you know what it's going for. It's annoying, it's frustrating to listen to, but it's well produced and let's face it, you WANTED this to be frustrating (like them barrels). The beginning could use a LITTLE bit of sprucing up, but otherwise I can't think of any suggestions that would improve this without compromising the frustrating nature of it. It would make for an interesting submission for OCR, though; I think you'd do alright on the panel even as is.

... And yes, I laughed a little at 2:19. The frustration was real.

[Rozovian]

Oh come on, this timing.

Well, I already wrote it, so...

No link to the source, so I'm completely ignoring source usage in this evaluation.

eval:

The sound is blatantly synthy, with creative use of effects not to hide the synth-ness, but to emphasize it. I can appreciate that. That makes for a nice soundscape. But the lead synth and drums are laid raw and exposed on top of that, and don't quite seem to fit. I think the choice of synths don't quite align with the mood of the piece. Many of them seem more at home in a hard, aggressive genre, whereas this track leans more towards classic circus stuff, played with brass bands and steam organs. It's a weird juxtaposition of sound and style, and in this case I don't think it works. Don't get me wrong, the sounds are cool, but they don't seem to fit this particular track.

The writing gets repetitive fast. There's variation in the iterations of what I assume is a key melody from source, but the variations are fundamentally similar and so they don't break the repetitiveness. There's a lot of unison writing and octave doubling, which in itself isn't a problem and makes for some interesting variations, but I find myself wanting more harmonic and rhythmic variation instead, perhaps a different melody used entirely (from the same source or from another).

Voice clips and sound effects don't feel appropriately used. I know I'm biased against them, but they, along with some variations of the melody, seem to be thrown in for the sake of some variation or novelty.

Overall, the dynamics seem to wobble around the same level, with some stop-and-go moments. That can work when there's a cool groove to keep the track moving. The more staggering rhythm and arrangement here doesn't lend itself to those flat dynamics. I'd want a softer section, a louder section, a faster section, a slower section, a more sparse section, a more dense section... Something more different than this.

Mismatched sounds, repetitive writing, and an arrangement that isn't sufficiently dynamic (or varied). I'm not convinced this could make it through the panel. I'm sure it was a fun experiment, but it didn't work out. It might be worth fiddling with, but I'd take what I learned from it and move on to the next track. Work on your arrangement and sound design choices.

And clearly I have a very different impression of it than Gario did.

[Gario]

I'll let you know the source usage was sufficient, even slightly conservative (though not TOO conservative, in my book).

Just throwing that out there, for completeness' sake.

Giving a heads up, Rozovian isn't wrong in his analysis, either - it IS repetitive at its core, and you might have a few judges go that route and NO this on those grounds. I gave the opinion that I did specifically because I know the context of the source and understand this is a bit of a joke remix (based on the barrel that makes no goddamn sense as far as game design goes), and the things that make this annoying to listen to (that damn ostinato, the repetitive themes, etc.) fit in with the theme that it's a really, REALLY annoying level. The voice clip in the middle cinches it as 'Definitely a joke', and I didn't find any particular production issues and such to withhold a vote otherwise.

But again, Rozovian isn't wrong on his criticisms, so if you want to play it safe on the panel (as a few judges may agree with that line of thought) pay attention to what he said and adjust accordingly.

[Rozovian]

This is how I want evals to work. Actually, how I want feedback overall to work here. Someone posts, someone else adds to it with agreement or disagreement, and the remixer gets a wider range of feedback. Hous3, you got lucky here.

[DarkEco]

Hahahaha this is absolutely brilliant! The only real tiny thing that bugged me was that the sample of the "elevator" that plays at the start isn't in time with the beat!! Could you try either time-stretching or slicing and crossfading to sync it up? I also agree with Rozovian that there are a some samples that feel a bit to randomly plonked and don't add much to the experience. I would also maybe like to hear it progress to a different arrnagement after the "rage sample". Goes on a bit too long.

I was one of the idotic few that never figured out "That Barrel" until they were about 20 years old! As a massive Megadrive Sonic fan it was really strange experiencing the Carnival Night boss for the first time ever that much later on in my life. Let's be honest though, it was pretty daft game design. At no other point in that game or the entire series had it been introduced as a mechanic! It was genuinely the last thing i thought of and i hate myself!

But sweet remix anyhoo. It triggered me so it must be good

[DJ H0us3C0rP3]

Thank you all for the feedback. I don't know why i never received emails about people commenting on here...i guess i forgot to set the notifications. This was kind of a experiment /  humor track and I am glad that @Gario and @Darkeco  got the inside joke on this one. I was going for a glitch trap kinda feel as i have never done either or before. Don't worry @Rozovian not all of my music sounds like this hahaha. Anyway, thanks again for the feedback