(Soundtrack) Palais Matinee - album

[Benedict]

Hi All

A new album from me - 3rd this year it appears! This time it is about the Classic age of cinema. I give you the Palais Matinee

Official: https://benedictroffmarsh.com/2020/05/2 ... s-matinee/

Palais Matinee is about the early Classic era of movies. How enthralled audiences were to go to matinee movies where they could be whisked from their daily lives into stories of Egyptian Mummies, Cowboys, Detectives…

We start the album with a rather lackluster pre-show performance from the local pit orchestra. It is a shame that the proprietor of the Palais doesn’t keep his piano in-tune. The pit orchestra is on its way out anyway with stereophonic sound & earthquake speakers on their way.

Compositionally I very freely mixed synthesis & orchestral samples. It is often hard to tell what is what. A couple of the cuts started life as scores for film scenes.

Everything is Reason 11 with mostly Europa, Thor & Subtractor. Some of the "orchestral" sounds are The Orchestra but mostly they are synths too.

West Of The World is essentially my score for the Westworld car chase scene comp. Kings Of The Vally started life as the score for my partner's humorous one-up animation about people going all-out to put out their bins during lockdown.

[EdwardKiy]

The good: arrangement, mixing, harmonization of what is. Skill level: god.
The "ok": rhythmic solutions in some parts are really impressive and sometimes a complete blunder. End result: vague narrative and intermittent grooves.
The bad: melodic component is poor, and based on that, the instrumentation choices had to be very thorough, but they weren't.

My overall score: 3.5/7

[FHtH]

Very interesting and atmospheric. There is a desire to listen and just watch the video. The technical side is excellent. The creative part is a matter of taste but I liked it.

[Benedict]

The good: arrangement, mixing, harmonization of what is. Skill level: god.
The "ok": rhythmic solutions in some parts are really impressive and sometimes a complete blunder. End result: vague narrative and intermittent grooves.
The bad: melodic component is poor, and based on that, the instrumentation choices had to be very thorough, but they weren't.

My overall score: 3.5/7

Thanks. I'm glad you like some things here.

For your criticism to seem more constructive than subjective, it would be nice for you to explain your conclusions in some more detail. Like where are my rhythms "a complete blunder" and why? Also I have no idea what your comment on instruments means at all.

There is/was a fellow on KVR called Wags who used a scoring system too.i quote liked it as he always explained himself so it was easy to understand why he drew his conclusions (and when he was suspicious that they may have been personal he noted that too).

[EdwardKiy]

Thanks. I'm glad you like some things here.

For your criticism to seem more constructive than subjective,

Subjective criticism can still be constructive and it is all I have to offer, unfortunately. I am treating your work as a ready and complete piece of music, and not a showcase of a certain set of skills.

it would be nice for you to explain your conclusions in some more detail. Like where are my rhythms "a complete blunder" and why?

I can try to do a few

So, the starting groove is a chord (swell) into a passage with either strings or the glockenspiel.
The glockenspiel seems to miss the tempo @ 1:17+ which breaks that groove while being the center of attention = blunder
the groove is later not followed by the piano @ 1:23+ where instead of picking up the narrative it makes a pause and then it does... something

this kind of thing

Also I have no idea what your comment on instruments means at all.

I mean the choice of some of the instruments for particular ranges.
Like the synth that enters @ 0:50, although fills a range neatly, sounds a bit flat and inexpressive, and also awkward in a tremolo (0:55).

You've already put in a titanic amount of work into this - that's obvious. It's an orchestral work with a lot of fine craftsmanship. I salute you for taking it up, let alone bringing it to this stage! You can leave it where it is and this will still be a job well done, but I can hear in my head that it can be a little better and that you absolutely have all the necessary skill for it. In cases where potential matches the required skill I'm a bit more harsh than I probably should be to push someone, just like I would want done to myself.

[Benedict]

Thanks. I'm glad you like some things here.

For your criticism to seem more constructive than subjective,

Subjective criticism can still be constructive and it is all I have to offer, unfortunately. I am treating your work as a ready and complete piece of music, and not a showcase of a certain set of skills.

it would be nice for you to explain your conclusions in some more detail. Like where are my rhythms "a complete blunder" and why?

I can try to do a few

So, the starting groove is a chord (swell) into a passage with either strings or the glockenspiel.
The glockenspiel seems to miss the tempo @ 1:17+ which breaks that groove while being the center of attention = blunder
the groove is later not followed by the piano @ 1:23+ where instead of picking up the narrative it makes a pause and then it does... something

this kind of thing

Also I have no idea what your comment on instruments means at all.

I mean the choice of some of the instruments for particular ranges.
Like the synth that enters @ 0:50, although fills a range neatly, sounds a bit flat and inexpressive, and also awkward in a tremolo (0:55).

You've already put in a titanic amount of work into this - that's obvious. It's an orchestral work with a lot of fine craftsmanship. I salute you for taking it up, let alone bringing it to this stage! You can leave it where it is and this will still be a job well done, but I can hear in my head that it can be a little better and that you absolutely have all the necessary skill for it. In cases where potential matches the required skill I'm a bit more harsh than I probably should be to push someone, just like I would want done to myself.

Thank you for explaining. I had a feeling that this was the case. You judged the whole work on the first piece which you have misunderstood (oops would that be a blunder ).

"We start the album with a rather lackluster pre-show performance from the local pit orchestra. It is a shame that the proprietor of the Palais doesn’t keep his piano in-tune. The pit orchestra is on its way out anyway with stereophonic sound & earthquake speakers on their way."

I wrote that in the OP just to try to avoid your very criticism. Yes, they are all out of time with each other. The pit players don't care, they see the writing on the wall. History is about to erase them.

Maybe you don't like synths and want to push me into cliche instrument choices. Your thing, but it isn't me. Kinda like writing nasty reviews on Michael Bolton (an accomplished performer) because you only like Metallica. That first piece is deliberately loose - every instrument Randomized by 128 ticks in Groove. I take it you have never heard the very same in Queen's "God Save The Queen". It is a legitimate form of parody from a bygone era.

They say all press is good press so fair play and thanks for the Bump/s.

[EdwardKiy]

You're welcome. Here's another.

[Jagwah]

I love this album and I am excited at how you are progressing with the animations (ridiculously tedious work unfortunately).

Kings of the Valley is insane you are always so good with those brass sounds (I just noticed you actually have a video tutorial on that, awesome), the song has such power and strength in some of the sounds it just blows me away.

I still think you could upload that one ^^ here on its own, people's attention spans and all that

Great album Benedict!

[Jagwah]

You're welcome. Here's another.

Just so you know Benedict comes at things like music in many layers, kind of like Kubrick did with his movies, hence the out of tune piano (and the note about it too!).

No offense intended but I find your criticisms extremely harsh considering it appears you only listened to 1 or 2 minutes of what is an entire album (those 2 minutes being intentionally low quality as part of an overall story).

A great thing you could do here is to go back and check out the 'Kings of the Valley' track on this album (it's hyperlinked in the pinned comment on Youtube) and drop a note here about your thoughts on it, cheers.

[Some Desperate Glory]

Wow this is quite an impressive piece of work. I quite liked it and loved the atmosphere how you can really lose yourself in it.

For me personally, it evokes memories of those old adventure games from the late 80s/early 90s with their epic soundtracks and (for the era) mindblowing visuals. In particular it takes me to the same place emotionally that playing, for instance, It Came From the Desert for hours on my Amiga when I should have been studying. Obviously your music is better (and the sounds themselves better, clearly) but that is where it is taking me. It says a lot I think that a modern piece of music can take me back to 1990 so well.

[Benedict]

Thaks Carl

[Dabbler]

I watched this on Youtube yesterday. Sounds and looks totally pro to me.

[Benedict]

Thanks Mr Dabbler