Mappers, what would help you to find music for your maps?

[continuum.mid]

In the past year-and-a-half there's been an influx of new MIDI projects here on Doomworld, and a lot of new ambitious composers such as myself starting them. Today though, I'm wondering what the mappers' perspective is. There's a still an occasional refrain that there aren't enough skilled composers to match the number of skilled mappers, and a perennial thread asking where to find certain MIDIs.

 

One thing I've considered doing is trying to collect as many MIDIs as possible (that I can share) and upload them to a central repository somewhere, but I'm not sure if that would help mappers to find MIDIs, or create yet another place to look and further complicate things, considering how long DoomWiki's list of places to find music is already very long and incomplete.

 

So I think it'd be best to ask. What's your perspective on the process of getting music for maps? What would make that process better?

[Jacek Bourne]

I personally just find songs I really like and then build maps around them. My only suggestion is to keep making excellent songs.

[DuckReconMajor]

I am very fond of the repo idea, hopefully with usage/license info if available.

[continuum.mid]

5 minutes ago, DuckReconMajor said:

I am very fond of the repo idea, hopefully with usage/license info if available.

For extra context: I plan to include license and usage info whenever it is available, as well as FLAC exports so you have an idea of what it will sound like. If it does happen I'd probably try to get a collection on archive.org, and that's where it would be.

Edited October 27, 2021 by northivanastan

[Faceman2000]

12 minutes ago, northivanastan said:

For extra context: I plan to include license and usage info whenever it is available, as well as FLAC exports so you have an idea of what it will sound like. If it does happen I'd probably try to get a collection on archive.org, and that's where it would be.

Someone made a website for this exact purpose not too long ago, but I forget who and what the web address is.

[continuum.mid]

6 minutes ago, Faceman2000 said:

Someone made a website for this exact purpose not too long ago, but I forget who and what the web address is.

You might be thinking of the Doom MIDI Repository, that's more a place for artists to advertise their music as it doesn't actually store the files (unless I'm using it wrong?)

 

Edit: I am using it wrong. Still, it's very incomplete and limited, only includes a few MIDI packs submitted by artists.

Edited October 27, 2021 by northivanastan

[maxmanium]

A repo would be great. Right now I just have a midis folder on my C: drive with subfolders for certain artists on here who provide their work for download.

 

Personally I'd find it really helpful if midis were also sorted by theme (like, how they feel).

Edited October 27, 2021 by maxmanium

[continuum.mid]

1 minute ago, maxmanium said:

A repo would be great. Right now I just have a midis folder on my C: drive with subfolders for certain artists on here who provide their work for download.

 

Personally I'd find it really helpful if midis were also sorted by theme (like, how they feel).

Hmm, that's a good idea. Although, that would take more effort than just mass-downloading and archiving MIDIs, and would also be very subjective.

[maxmanium]

2 minutes ago, northivanastan said:

Hmm, that's a good idea. Although, that would take more effort than just mass-downloading and archiving MIDIs, and would also be very subjective.

 

Subjectivity could sort of be avoided by having the theme labeled by the artists themselves. But that's even more work so I get your point. I just like to base maps around how they feel to play, not just how they play period, and the midi is a huge component of that. Not a big deal either way tho.

[ax34]

Sadly Internet has no centralized place where we could upload/download midis. But luckily we have such place for tracker music: https://modarchive.org/

[continuum.mid]

1 minute ago, ax34 said:

Sadly Internet has no centralized place where we could upload/download midis. But luckily we have such place for tracker music: https://modarchive.org/

Yeah, my goal would be to just get as many MIDIs as possible (that are high-quality) into one place, particularly the ones that might be useful for Doom mappers, but there are a lot of competing collections online and I'd just be adding to that.

[Csucskos]

The biggest help would be if I actually knew what MIDI I want. Yeah, just the other day I started humming something, but I had no idea what. And when came home to find the piece the word "Yatagarasu" came to my mind. I googled it and yep, that was the piece I was humming. But this only worked because I already knew both the music and the title, so the most helpful would be to have a collection in my mind where I can choose from as I like... Sorry... So to be a little bit more helpful, make a ton of different kind of songs and everything else is on us to keep looking( or listening in this case). I can't imagine a big database where you just type in "upbeat, metal, 3/4" and get exactly the result you want... :/

[P41R47]

18 minutes ago, ax34 said:

Sadly Internet has no centralized place where we could upload/download midis. But luckily we have such place for tracker music: https://modarchive.org/

couldn't they be uploaded to /idgames on the subfolder utilities of stuff or other i don't remember it name?
Since we search for Doom content, i suppose searching for Doom related music on the /idgames would be part of such content, right?

 

EDIT: There is a complete subfolder dedicated to music!

Edited October 27, 2021 by P41R47

[DannyMan]

I rip music from unity android games.

[continuum.mid]

I decided to start downloading MIDIs from the links on the DoomWiki custom music page, and apparently I got 3,825 files out of that. If I manage to put together a repository, it'll be a while from now, but I will let everyone know.

[Morpheus666]

My method for choosing music is from the map itself and what tone i want, Most of my maps use heavy Lighting tricks and i prefer atmospheric maps more, so i build the map, then try to find music that fits the atmosphere i want the map to have