.MID the way id did - Doom 2 Soundtrack Replacement [RELEASED]

[Diabolución]

Based on this post well organised and fully updated, I have taken the liberty of compiling the MIDIs posted so far into an unofficial PWAD to test them with the real thing in no monsters mode. And well, sincerely, it feels indeed like a (musical) facelift of Doom II. Each and every MIDI matches the mood and atmosphere of its assigned level, even that Duke3Dish one (MAP12). The only exception, for my taste, is the one of MAP17, I think it is too epic, so to speak, for that slot. Volumes seem right, as well.

 

wip_mtwid_21-12-2020_17-33-15_GMT.zip

 

Spoiler

Yes, I am aware that I had said that I have no idea at all about choosing a MIDI for a level, but that is actually because in that case I tend to suffer from a mix of paradox of choice (too many MIDIs, potentially thousands, to choose from) and perfect solution fallacy (the doubt of whether I made the perfect choice). With limited and definite choices, things change.

 

[P41R47]

2 hours ago, Diabolución said:

Based on this post well organised and fully updated, I have taken the liberty of compiling the MIDIs posted so far into an unofficial PWAD to test them with the real thing in no monsters mode. And well, sincerely, it feels indeed like a (musical) facelift of Doom II. Each and every MIDI matches the mood and atmosphere of its assigned level, even that Duke3Dish one (MAP12). The only exception, for my taste, is the one of MAP17, I think it is too epic, so to speak, for that slot. Volumes seem right, as well.

 

wip_mtwid_21-12-2020_17-33-15_GMT.zip

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Yes, I am aware that I had said that I have no idea at all about choosing a MIDI for a level, but that is actually because in that case I tend to suffer from a mix of paradox of choice (too many MIDIs, potentially thousands, to choose from) and perfect solution fallacy (the doubt of whether I made the perfect choice). With limited and definite choices, things change.

 

After listening to the wad Diabolucion made, i found something interesting @Doomkid

Even when the songs are made using the original as base, they are not interchangeable from their slots, and some swapping may be needed to acomodate the tone of the map.

For example, Lippeth's Coliformication and Bucket's Soon both replaces Prince's Doom, but the song by Bucket has a melancholy feel to it that seems to not fit properly with the action packed map Downtown is. Interesting enough, swaping the place of this two songs make a better flow for certain, as map05 has a melancholy feel to it and not as dready as the song Lippeth made for that slot, instead, Lippeth's one makes an outstanding track for Downtown ravaged cityscape.

Same happends with Bucket's Archvile on Line 1 and CammyBanana's Boston Cream Pie. The first has a more episode ending song feel to it. So it would fit perfectly on map20, while Cammy's one has a mystery undertone, kinda mystic even that fits perfectly with map26 Nirvana.

 

Hope you don't take this as an intruding, but its just something that i notice.

Also, musicians, please don't take this as something offensive to the compositions you made, they are all awesome. But the maps also have a tone to them and i think that it would be cool for the music to fit it properly, too (something we couldn't have with the original soundtrack :/)

Edited December 22, 2020 by P41R47

[Doomkid]

I definitely hear what you're saying there, P41R47. I won't force the changes, but if all the musicians mentioned agree and would be willing to swap the tracks, I'll certainly allow it. Ultimately I'll leave it up to Lippeth, Bucket and CammyBanana, but especially with the Map05/Map13 slots, I see what you mean.

[Lippeth]

I'll go ahead and give full consent now for anything that needs to be switched around in the future. I'd much rather be a part of a tonally focused project that people can be happy with than have a so-called 'desired' slot on an unfocused project. So switch around anything that feels like it's needed.

 

I did notice two anomalies with the compiled music so far. Map 02 has some modulation in one of the instruments and that's all fine, but map 03 carries that modulation into the shared instrument channel if using a Sound Canvas, meaning map 03 may need to add a modulation parameter and set it to zero on that channel. It doesn't happen with MS wavetable, but I also didn't dive too deep into testing it or open anything up to check out what's happening.

 

The second thing is way less of an issue, but the current wad is using an old version of map 29's music. The most current version, at least before CammyBanana finishes it, is version 03:     https://www.doomworld.com/forum/post/2214848 though I don't think it matters that much at this point since it's still unfinished.

Edited December 22, 2020 by Lippeth

[Bucket]

Maybe you all play Doom differently than I do.

I was avoiding the same mistake I did with a certain track in the Plutonia MIDI project, where I based the "feel" of the map on a video of 100% speedrun. Going through and playing myself after, the tone felt all wrong.

 

At the end of the day, though, I'm meh about it.

[plums]

6 minutes ago, Lippeth said:

map 03 carries that modulation into the shared instrument channel if using a Sound Canvas

Thanks, I'll make sure to reset all the relevant channels to neutral. I'll try to get it done tomorrow, but I might end up taking a bit longer.

 

While I'm posting, should I lower the overall volume of my song more? I don't mind doing so but it would help to have either a reference song or a specific amount to lower it.

 

Feel free to move my track slot around as needed.

[Bucket]

9 minutes ago, Lippeth said:

I did notice two anomalies with the compiled music so far. Map 02 has some modulation in one of the instruments and that's all fine, but map 03 carries that modulation into the shared instrument channel if using a Sound Canvas, meaning map 03 may need to add a modulation parameter and set it to zero on that channel. It doesn't happen with MS wavetable, but I also didn't dive too deep into testing it or open anything up to check out what's happening.

 

This really should be covered in the Doom Wiki or another compendium. The Doom engine zeroes out some controllers but not others. (I suppose this extends to all the source ports, unless it's specifically addressed.) Pitch bend range is another more obvious offender; the default is a whole step but unfortunately some Doomers are writing MIDIs on software that wasn't designed to do that. Sometimes pitch bend range is set to a ludicrous amount by default and as a person plays through the megaWAD, later songs get mangled.

 

My software can handle this but it slips my mind occasionally. Others are completely unable to, though. Unless we want to wait for another round of edits from EVERYONE, this might have to be part of the compilation process.

[P41R47]

Just now, Bucket said:

Going through and playing myself after, the tone felt all wrong.

Nope, i think we all play it like you.

Thats why we notice things similar to what you felt.

But different maps gives different feels to different people.
While a ruined cityscape may give a melancholy feel, i always felt map13: downtown tries to show not that it is ruined, but instead that it is overrun with demons and they are changing the nature of it.

Again, the music its not the problem, as it is phenomenal as pretty much all your work, pal!

But i do notice that most tracks, aside from being awesome takes on the base material, have a different feel for the map they are made.

 

A good example are ''En el salon'' by Alfonzo and ''This One's For Daisy" by STILES. Both replaces ''The Healer's Stalks'' but they feel really different. Alfonzo feels kinda mystery and spooky, and STILES's has a little low intro to then become really punchy.
On this case, Alfonzo one go better for the slot STILES has, and STILES song goes perfectly with map11 as an action packed episode ending.

[Doomkid]

I've noticed this as well - sometimes while playing in DosBox I've noticed that if one MIDI uses power drums for example, the next MIDI which is meant to use a standard kit will use power drums instead. When I tested the same wad in all source ports - I think even Chocolate Doom, IIRC - the issue was fixed, so it may be most prevalent as a bug in vanilla Doom, but I wouldn't be surprised if some traces of that issue still exist in various source ports.

 

Regarding the track shuffling, I'm really not too worried: I feel 05 and 13 both fit their intended slots well, but could be interchanged as well. Both MIDIs evoke a very similar vibe, in my opinion.

 

Here's a total pack of the most up to date MIDIs by the way, I am very pleased for the most part, however I think there may be some weak links in here. I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on each and every track so far. Please remember that some of these are incomplete, so take that into account before saying "Track X sux!!", lol.

 

EDIT: I haven't swapped 01 and 15 yet, the only two I really feel would benefit from a swap. I also feel like @lazygecko's MIDI could serve to be repeated once, but with a guitar solo added over the top - Would this be okay with you, lazygecko? Nothing about the song itself would be changed, it would just be a second loop with some flare added. Let me know what you think.

 

 

Edited January 25, 2021 by Doomkid

[Bucket]

28 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

While a ruined cityscape may give a melancholy feel, i always felt map13: downtown tries to show not that it is ruined, but instead that it is overrun with demons and they are changing the nature of it.

Again, the music its not the problem, as it is phenomenal as pretty much all your work, pal!

But i do notice that most tracks, aside from being awesome takes on the base material, have a different feel for the map they are made.

 

Sure but it's hardly a slaughter map. The map is vast and fights are spread out. In the second half as you're backtracking it can feel downright desolate. Not arguing, just sharing where my music came from.

[Lippeth]

I will say that while I can see both perspectives and I'm fairly indifferent on it overall, I did title my track based on the coliform bacteria that's found in human shit, alluding to the sewer theme of map 05, so I may need to come up with a new title if it were used for a city, though it might also work because of the other half of the play on words, as in the city has gone to shit.

 

So while I'm open to the switch, I also acknowledge that both Bucket and I composed each track specifically for our claimed mapslots, so there was deliberate intention for the compositions submitted.

 

32 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

I've noticed this as well - sometimes while playing in DosBox I've noticed that if one MIDI uses power drums for example, the next MIDI which is meant to use a standard kit will use power drums instead. When I tested the same wad in all source ports - I think even Chocolate Doom, IIRC - the issue was fixed, so it may be most prevalent as a bug in vanilla Doom, but I wouldn't be surprised if some traces of that issue still exist in various source ports.

Drum sounds carrying over is most likely due to not setting a program change on the drums. It can be easy to forget if you intend to use the generic drums because you can just input notes on channel 10 and it already sounds like drums. Or sometimes if the program change and the starting note are at the same position, some midi players will prioritize the notes and the program change won't be recognized. I'll add that there's nothing to back up my claim, but that's my guess. I'll assume that it could partly be due to Doom's engine, but I've only encountered drum issues because of the lack of program change.

Edited December 22, 2020 by Lippeth

[Doomkid]

Depending on what city you're talking about, that's still accurate! Er uh and yeah also, I really do not want to mess around with the intent of the composers. Some of the tracks were composed incidentally so that's fine, but when the author had a specific track in mind I'm much more hesitant on the change. In the Plutonia MIDI Pack, I really did think my track suited map11 better than map10, so I was a little disappointed by that change (also I think 10 is just a lame Plutonia map in general).

 

I don't want this to be taken as whining, at the end of the day it doesn't matter at all and I've actually had some people tell me it gave that map more purpose, which was a nice compliment - but I don't want to end up doing this to others, I've already had to shuffle some tracks around such as one of STILES', It feels crummy having to move them around like that when you know the author had that specific map in mind, however sometimes you have to do that as a project leader, but I don't really think that's the case here.

 

EDIT: Thanks for that note Lippeth, you're most likely right. The MIDIs where this happened were direct conversions from SPC files, I wouldn't be surprised at all if there's no program change specified as a result.

Edited December 22, 2020 by Doomkid

[Robo_Cola]

On 12/21/2020 at 9:38 AM, Mr. Freeze said:

I'd also like to apologize over my lack of updates. Work is brutal right now with holiday hours and I'm hoping to have more time to work on the songs once things chill out. 

I'm in the same for anybody else curious.  Also have been having issues with internet going down constantly due to my provider last few days.  If you don't hear much from me that's why.

[plums]

18 hours ago, Bucket said:

 

This really should be covered in the Doom Wiki or another compendium. The Doom engine zeroes out some controllers but not others. (I suppose this extends to all the source ports, unless it's specifically addressed.) Pitch bend range is another more obvious offender; the default is a whole step but unfortunately some Doomers are writing MIDIs on software that wasn't designed to do that. Sometimes pitch bend range is set to a ludicrous amount by default and as a person plays through the megaWAD, later songs get mangled.

 

My software can handle this but it slips my mind occasionally. Others are completely unable to, though. Unless we want to wait for another round of edits from EVERYONE, this might have to be part of the compilation process.

That's interesting, I didn't realize that settings didn't get reset to default between every song. (Though now that I've read this, I vaguely remember having problems related to this a while ago with some MIDI playback software.)

 

Do you have a list, or know offhand, which controllers don't get reset?

 

It's probably best practice to just set all controllers for all tracks in a song to what they need to be, rather than rely on default settings. It's safe to assume that some of these songs will be used in other wads by other people, so trying to future-proof them would be best where possible.

 

Also I'm someone that sets pitch bends to a "ludicrous" amount (±1 octave), even when I was trying to use Sekaiju for composing, so, sorry. I guess there's nothing I can do on my end to make sure it gets reset to default on someone else's song.

[Gez]

18 hours ago, Bucket said:

The Doom engine zeroes out some controllers but not others. (I suppose this extends to all the source ports, unless it's specifically addressed.)

All the sound code was taken out of the LinuxDoom source before release, because it relied on DMX which id Software did not own and thus couldn't release as well. As a consequence, source ports had to rewrite their own sound code from scratch, and so this kind of idiosyncrasies has no real reason to be shared unless it's been specifically sought out to be reimplemented in a Chocolate-style "gotta have the same bugs and glitches" effort. (Choco probably actually had some ticket items to glitch some MIDIs in the same way as vanilla.)

 

18 hours ago, Bucket said:

This really should be covered in the Doom Wiki or another compendium.

That would be appreciated. The MUS article would probably be the best place for it.

[Lippeth]

Decided to turn up the organs, and would like to take a short moment to rant for a second. I compose everything on a Mac which uses Apple's Quicktime Music Synth which is NOT at all the same as Microsoft Wavetable Synth so I end up guessing and approximating half the time for volume. The most aggravating thing is that Logic Pro uses a plugin called DLSMusicDevice to play MIDI sounds but doesn't support dls files, so I can't just import gm.dls, and converting it to sf2 throws off the mix levels just enough that I'm still going in blind. I've also had bad experiences with soundfonts because they all seem to have their own mix levels that don't translate to anything useful for me. Composing with a Sound Canvas is great but there are a few instances where that doesn't translate well either and I end up overcompensating for volume differences.

 

I've tested numerous DAWs in Windows and none of them seem to have an accurate way to draw automation as well as Logic, it's all pencil drawing which blows my mind as to how inaccurate it is, and how many automation points it creates. I still love Sekaiju for finishing a song and adding metadata, but the visible lag of the playhead prevents any useful composing. Maybe I'm just spoiled and too accustomed to a certain method. If anyone knows of a DAW for Windows that has clip/region automation similar to Logic or Pro Tools and includes an event list editor, I would love to check it out. Anyway, enough of the rant, here's an updated Dear Onion03.zip

 

[Doomkid]

I have an SF2 that is based on GM.DLS but with all of the levels fixed to be totally accurate to what they're meant to be - would that be of any help?

 

https://musical-artifacts.com/artifacts/724/RLNDGM.SF2_for_SoundFont-Midi-Player-Android.zip

[Lippeth]

If it's as accurate as the claim, it will 100% fix all the issues I encounter by composing MIDI for Windows on a Mac. I'll run some tests and check out its accuracy. I'm actually kicking myself for not saying something sooner. Thanks a ton!

[Doomkid]

I had a similar "wtf, why are there NO accurate soundfonts" moment when trying to convert some MIDs to MP3s a year-ish ago. Desperately checked out gm.sf2, scc1t2.sf2, a bunch of others, and even florestan's scc1t2 fix, but was always annoyed by how slightly off they were. Very few others would likely even notice, but it just stuck out clearly to me. This soundfont (RlndGM) is the first one to ever strike my ears as actually being accurate to the built-in MS synth. Hopefully it's good enough!

[Diabolución]

That track of MAP16 reminds me of the style of Joe Abbati, which is nice as far as I am concerned. Congratulations to its composer.

[Lippeth]

If there is any difference between rlndgm.sf2 and gm.dls, I can't hear it, at least with the tracks I've listened to so far, and without doing something insane like recording every instrument and comparing waveforms, so I can't thank you enough Doomkid! This will shave off so much time that's normally spent on all the garbage it takes to switch between two computers that share the same monitor, speakers and interface, just to hear that it's off in a number of ways and switch back to edit in the blind, rinse and repeat.

 

The only downside now is that I have no excuse for bad levels anymore.

[dmslr]

I've decided to play D2TWID with this pack, not the original D2. The reason for this, I don't really like D2 levels. I've played them (except the first 6 levels) only ONCE in my entire dooming life. I think D2TWID levels should fit with the project's midis since they use the same original midis. What do you guys think: should I play D2TWID or D2?

Edited December 24, 2020 by dmslr

[therealdrgray]

This project is a really cool idea, and I'm disappointed I missed out on the slots!

[TrialD]

21 hours ago, Diabolución said:

That track of MAP16 reminds me of the style of Joe Abbati, which is nice as far as I am concerned. Congratulations to its composer.

Thx. When I looked the guy up and saw the Capstone games being the top search entries I was worried at first but his tunes seem to be fine actually lol.

[P41R47]

3 hours ago, dmslr said:

I've decided to play D2TWID with this pack, not the original D2. The reason for this, I don't really like D2 levels. I've played them (except the first 6 levels) only ONCE in my entire dooming life. I think D2TWID levels should fit with the project's midis since they use the same original midis. What do you guys think: should I play D2TWID or D2?

My plan is using the tracks of this project to replace the original repeated tracks of Doom2.

Just to have a litttle variety in them...but lately i find myself really enjoying the base game as it is.

Really strange for sure.

 

And then the full soundtrack for the D2TWID.

:)

[Doomkid]

Lippeth, the one track where I finally noticed very clearly that the levels were wrong with gm.sf2 (but not gm.dls!) was on E1M6, the synth at the very beginning was far too loud compared to the drums and piano, a few instruments have too much attack compared to what they’re meant to have. It’s very subtle and only seems to affect like, 10 out of the 127 instruments.

 

dmslr, Id love to hear if you think this fits D2TWID - aside from replacing stock music this is also intended to be a resource for custom maps, so if it works there, all the better.

Edited December 25, 2020 by Doomkid

[Gez]

About the switcheroo discussed previously, I think the tracks fit their intended levels just fine, but I would suggest grafting in Coliformication the weird warbled goblins from SOON. They create the sound of flowing water which would fit the sewer theme well.

[Diabolución]

On 12/24/2020 at 10:46 PM, TrialD said:

his tunes seem to be fine actually lol.

 

Yes, they are. I really enjoy his MIDIs and Redbook songs of William Shatner's TekWar.

 

@Gez: including the ones which originally belong (the swapping of them is not confirmed yet) to MAP01 and MAP15?

[Bucket]

It occurs to me that you could probably get away with putting a "reset all controllers" event just in the Intermission song and being done with it. As long as THAT track doesn't do anything unconventional, it's preferable to tracking down all the controller events that need to be reset in EVERY song. It wouldn't work in cases of warping or custom games that are set to skip that screen but otherwise it should do the trick.

[wrkq]

3 minutes ago, Bucket said:

It occurs to me that you could probably get away with putting a "reset all controllers" event just in the Intermission song and being done with it. As long as THAT track doesn't do anything unconventional, it's preferable to tracking down all the controller events that need to be reset in EVERY song. It wouldn't work in cases of warping or custom games that are set to skip that screen but otherwise it should do the trick.

 

Well... yeah. This and, if you can, the map01 track would together cover most scenarios.

If you start game with -warp, you have plain/blank state of the MIDI synth with all defaults.

It's not perfect but it's a ton better result for little work.

 

The only situations that are not covered is idclev/changelevel and a hub-style system with no intermission.

But in the latter case, if it's something like a community project with a "select next map" hub, you can put the reset sequence in the hub's track and that is that.

And in a cohesive project with many different connections between maps... well I guess that is the "edit all tracks" case.