What's your favourite Doom port soundfont?

[RetroAkaMe]

Doom's ports had different music.

For example, SNES Doom has a soundtrack with some kind of echo instrument, while the original one (or at least shareware) has a very simple synth. The 3DO one too, and every Doom port. (except jaguar god damnit)

What's your favourite soundfont from all the Doom ports?

 

(Btw soundfonts are instruments)

[Jayextee]

Kinda an iffy question since both the Saturn and 3DO used redbook audio and thus weren't soundfonts to speak of; 32X is FM synthesis, GBA's some Frankenstein's monster creation of Gameboy-compatible square-wave/noise output and whatever the GBA-specific hardware was. But also, "original" could mean anything depending on the player's soundcard and whether or not it actually supported soundfonts.

[Doomkid]

“Original” will mean the MS Synth for 85% of people, OPL for 10% of people, and something obscure for everyone else.. For real results, the two would have to be separate categories. They sound very different, with the Roland-based stuff being what Bobby Prince approved of at the time.

 

But still, my pick is the MS synth, AKA Roland GM, slightly simplified version of SC-55 which is what the soundtrack was composed for.

[Wavy]

For console, it'd be SNES Doom for me, with 3DO being close second.

 

Overall though, SC-55 (specifically) all the way.

 

9 hours ago, Jayextee said:

both the Saturn and 3DO used redbook audio and thus weren't soundfonts to speak of

IIRC Saturn Doom used the same soundfont-like system as PSX Doom for map music (excluding Club Doom).

 

Speaking of, I have no idea why PSX and Saturn are split in the poll as both share the same soundtrack. Only difference is that Saturn is missing a few tracks.

[Steve D]

@Jayextee mentioned soundcards, and back in the day when I played Doom on the Mac -- and MacDoom is a port, so more in a moment on how it sounded -- I was really jealous of this one PC dude online who claimed he had a Roland sound card, because when he played Doom music through that, it was awe-inspiring. This was all a long time ago, so I may be misremembering what he said. Was there ever such a thing as Roland sound cards for Windows, or was he more likely talking about custom hardware specific to a music workstation? In any case, whatever he had, it sounded great. I suppose that begs the question of whether it's a good idea today to fork out money for something like an Edirol UA-25 in hopes that Doom music will sound better. Is such a thing even appropriate for a non-musician? And would it be a good idea to download Roland Sound Canvas if MSGWS is mostly that already?

 

Okay, now about MacDoom. I'm not sure how MacOS X handles midi, but back in the days of MacOS 7.5.x, the OS came with a Midi Instruments app as part of Quicktime. The music in MacDoom sounded really good on it for the most part, and especially in Dark Halls, where it was easily the creepiest of all the Doom music. What made it so creepy was that the long synth parts sounded like a vocal choir, but a choir for the kind of horror movie where some soft ahhhh-ahhhhs worked on you psychologically. This sound was, in my experience, exclusic to MacOS 7.5.1 through 7.5.3. After that came a major Quicktime upgrade in 7.5.5 which ruined everything by including a lot more percussion -- percussion you actually don't have in Windows even today. With the heavy percussion came a transition from a choir sound to a synth sound, such as you have in Windows, and that special magic was suddenly gone.

[Jayextee]

5 hours ago, Wavy said:

IIRC Saturn Doom used the same soundfont-like system as PSX Doom for map music (excluding Club Doom).

Saturn's a redbook version of the PlayStation version; you could pop the disc in your CD player and listen to them if you wanted. But some tracks were truncated for length or missing entirely.

[Wavy]

28 minutes ago, Jayextee said:

Saturn's a redbook version of the PlayStation version; you could pop the disc in your CD player and listen to them if you wanted. But some tracks were truncated for length or missing entirely.

Huh. Perhaps that's the only good thing about the Saturn port hehe

[RetroAkaMe]

7 hours ago, Doomkid said:

“Original” will mean the MS Synth for 85% of people, OPL for 10% of people, and something obscure for everyone else.. For real results, the two would have to be separate categories. They sound very different, with the Roland-based stuff being what Bobby Prince approved of at the time.

 

But still, my pick is the MS synth, AKA Roland GM, slightly simplified version of SC-55 which is what the soundtrack was composed for.

I only put original because I thought Ms synth was the only synth.

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

From console ports, Snes doom is my favorite, since I grew up with that Doom port. For PC I use the Scc1t2 soundfont and GUS emulation in Timidity.

[Absolute Lambda]

Hard to pick

 

 

(yes this legit how many SF's I have.

 

Edited August 10, 2021 by Absolute Lambda

[BaileyTW]

I'm biased towards snes doom's soundfont cause that was the first way I played doom.