Docteur Robotnik's Mean bean Machine / Sonic & Knuckles - "La Méchante Machine à Haricots"

[Colin J. Brigato]

(Please be Aware I'm French, so my english is known to be sometime quite ... Frenchy. Sorry for that.)

Edit : 

• 07/08 @22:57 GMT+2 : Fixed Version as Ready for review ! More info on Materials, and writing. Also Final Name !

• 07/04 @1:35 GMT+2 : Wip Update With bridge to part2

• 07/04 @08:23 GMT+2 : Wip update With Completed part2 with more source material (Sonic's Genesis robotknik(s), Final-Fantasy VI hear-alike, "Batman" hear-alike, and some other micro-cameos)

Hello World ! 

I'm coming back from the dead since my OCR01946 of ... 2009 (with another account since I've lost the other one's email Long time ago).

Anyway here it is, an "Orchstral" Rework / Whole new sight on the Infamous "2Players VS" of Dr Robotnik's Mean beans Machine. I think I've already heard the original tune going endlessly in mind-breaking loops for Something like 18h straight when I was younger. 

Two decades after that, I'm up with a W.I.P. of an expiation of sort. It's meant to be a First track of an upcoming series called "Eggman Plays The Orchestra" so it's voluntarily meant to be "huge" as a "catchy" announcement to what's coming next.

As usual with me it's written with a lot of ostinato's and Staccato's, with distinguishable part.
The main part's are written in 4/4 for the first one (Dr Robotnik Mean bean machine), and alternating 9/8 and 12/8 for the Second part (Mainly Eggman theme from Sonic & Knuckle as a base).

The song name "La méchante Machine à Haricot" is a straight French translation of the "The Mean Bean Machine" locution, which fits quite well for Eggman's behavior and being, I thought.

I Hope it sounds at least pleasant for your ear or your mind (if you have the same Sega's puyo-puyo trauma as I have).
Hoping for feedback, hopefully the unpleasant one's are the most important to go through so... Don't hesitate to be rough !

Best Regards,

C.

The Song :

• mp3 : 

http://www.brigato.fr/files/CBLMMAH.mp3

• Soundcloud :

The Original Materials :

 

More materials from : Various Sonic/S&K cameos, Final Fantasy 6&7 hear-alike (Intro from FFVI, Jenova from FFVII, Kefka From FFV6I, Decisive Battle from FFVI...)

[Gario]

Funny fact I only stumbled upon when listening to this and remembered the game: The mythos from Mean Bean Machine is from the Sonic cartoon... which is a television version of the original Sonic games. No idea why they went that route, but it's pretty funny when you think about it.

Anyhoo!

EVAL:

Gotta say, there are some very nice samples in this, and the attention to the humanization and articulations is certainly there to help flesh those samples out. Because of the repetitive patterns in the texture, though, over time I hear repetitions in the articulations and dynamics, as if the parts were copy/pasted with dynamics and articulations. Any individual phrase sounds human, but over the course of the track it makes the samples sound mechanical. Put some minor variation into the dynamics and articulation and it'll help sell the realism of this quite a bit more.

That lead string texture gets pretty old in this quickly. You're working with a full orchestra, but 80% of it is strings. It makes the orchestration sound pretty bland when you have so many other tools to work with. Judges may consider the instrumentation static for long stretches because of this, which could affect the panel outcome. Don't be afraid of having other instruments cover the texture from time to time, like the piano did at 3:07.

The beginning sounds oddly muffled and overcompressed for a fraction of a second, likely due to all of the instruments coming in at once, and when things get busy you can hear overcompression issues. Overall the track is well balanced, but be careful not to crowd the compressor when things are overly busy.

It's a great idea, but as it stands the humanization, compression and static orchestration would likely hold this back on the panel. I like it, though, so hopefully some of my advice gives you what you need to make your epic comeback on OCR!

[Colin J. Brigato]

Hello @Gario

First of all, I would like to profoundly thank you for such a clear, precise and objective feeback, with such wisely chosen words. This kind of feedback is more than one could hope for. So again : Thanks you very much.

About the compression and "muffling", you are being very kind here : the levels are awful, EQ's are mediocre. It just sound right know totally different from one sound system to any other. I hope you had at least a clear-enough system to have it hearable.

On this understanding, I was hoping very hard for comments on the other parts, and you did a perfect job at providing them here, these are really insifghtfull.

About the Choice of so much strings, I'm quite sad on learning it creates such feeling of blandness, as  the piece was meant to be as is. It's a rough announcement for upcoming songs, and was meant to be as broken-winded, clumsy and "rough" as Eggman was to me : He tries really hard, does too much, and don't suceed in this way.

It's mean't to be "too much". Then right now, I'm quite embarassed with what to do with that information. Maybe finally this piece and the next should be made "one" (I think the could), as both together they would both break (I hope) these feelings and for sure cover a lot more of the orchestra.
As you've well understood, a strong  will was made on humanizing the samples, as such a repetitive (We're talking about 90% of the tune accounting a total of... ONE™ Chord) piece with so much staccatos are to be very quickly heard as repetitive and reveal once again the "sampled" status of our todays personal pocket orchetras. 

Thanks again for your feedback, Which make me definitely think that this piece should be "cut down" to less sections for the first part (like dividing the whole 4/4 part duration by two) then made one with what was to be the next song.

Best Regards,

Colin