What was TNT: Evilutions music composed with?

[Tycitron]

Now i know it's a silly question that doesn't really matter, but i was just curious because we know Doom 1 and 2's music was composed with the Roland SC-55 Mk2, And i was wondering if we knew what the """intended""" listening experience is for those TNT tracks? is it the SC-55 or the Windows Default midi sounds? (Or something else completely?)

 

Yeah that's pretty much it, just curious.

[Individualised]

Because Final Doom had multiple composers it's possible that there's no one correct sound for all of the tracks. I believe L.A. Sieben is still out there, you could ask him what his equipment was.

 

Something interesting is that although The Plutonia Experiment only uses tracks from Doom 1 and Doom 2, the Doom 1 soundtracks are different from their Doom 1 versions on OPL3. This is because Final Doom uses a different patch set (which was also used in Doom 2) to Doom 1.

Edited May 2, 2023 by Individualised

[SiFi270]

Here's what Tom Mustaine had to say about his process:

Quote

ALL of the Doom engine midis below were generated in the same fashion.  I would create a 4 channel .mod inside ScreamTracker (not a midi editor) then convert that .mod file to a .mid using a cool little program mod2midi.exe.  After that, I would create additional tracks and convert them into other .mid files, finally loading each .mid all into my crippled Gravis Ultrasound midi software and combine all the tracks together, fix-up the drum channels and hope for the best.  The results were often beyond painful…

Source.

[Ozcar]

2 hours ago, SiFi270 said:

Here's what Tom Mustaine had to say about his process:

Source.

Thats explain why some music feel off in sc 55...

[Individualised]

15 hours ago, SiFi270 said:

Here's what Tom Mustaine had to say about his process:

Source.

Had no idea these were a thing! So we have Doom 1, Doom 2 and Final Doom source MIDIs (and in this case, S3Ms). They date to early 1995 too, so they're from pretty early in development.

[PsychEyeball]

Interesting to hear that some of Doom's music do have tracker origins. I'm at work so I can't listen to the S3M files, but in the meanwhile I couldn't help but notice the Final Doom music was all rated 1 and 2 stars. I guess it sort of makes sense since they likely were his first songs ever made, but I'll say this: his first songs were far better than mine!

[bofu]

As someone who taught myself to play Sadistic on guitar twenty years ago (poorly but accurately): I just assumed he bought an eight string MIDI guitar and recorded it in real time. :P

 

Really interesting to hear about the origins. TNT's music was one of its strongest points, IMO.

[PsychEyeball]

Finally took the time to listen to the S3Ms, pretty interesting to see that the tracker soundtrack is mostly functional, albeit really primitive since it was meant to be transformed in MIDI anyway. Almost none of ScreamTracker 3's features are used at any point to mess around with the samples, giving the modules a pretty raw feel.

 

Some songs do benefit with having fixed samples, like for example Horizon. The guitar riff that plays through the whole song is more audible and the finale violin riff feels much more alive since the chosen sample had more punch and felt more appropriate instead of the slow violin sample you typically hear in the MIDI version. Also the S3M version plays in a higher key which is different but fun.

 

The strangest song in the whole bunch was AimShootKill. The S3M version forgoes tempo and speed settings so it plays at a much slower tempo than usual, which turns it into some sort of old Black Sabbath sounding dirge. It actually could sound nice with some better samples and use of effects.

 

If you got OpenMPT lying around your computer or got any other module playback program, give them a listen. It's an interesting trip.

 

8 hours ago, bofu said:

TNT's music was one of its strongest points, IMO.

Young me played TNT mostly for the music, which was a nice novelty at the time. Plutonia? The moment I saw some of the level designs and the revenant closets on MAP01, I'd quit and never return (until a few years ago anyway). So not all of Final Doom was lost on me as a teen.

[JDoyle]

On 5/2/2023 at 12:51 PM, Tycitron said:

Now i know it's a silly question that doesn't really matter, but i was just curious because we know Doom 1 and 2's music was composed with the Roland SC-55 Mk2, And i was wondering if we knew what the """intended""" listening experience is for those TNT tracks? is it the SC-55 or the Windows Default midi sounds? (Or something else completely?)

 

Yeah that's pretty much it, just curious.

There was no Windows default midi sounds back then. Most people used whatever midi came built into their sound card ie: Soundblaster OPL or if you were extra fancy Gravis Ultrasound or Soundblaster AWE32. So there really was no standard for TNTs music. I believe the Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth wasnt included till Windows 98 or XP. 

[Individualised]

Just now, JDoyle said:

There was no Windows default midi sounds back then. Most people used whatever midi came built into their sound card ie: Soundblaster OPL or if you were extra fancy Gravis Ultrasound or Soundblaster AWE32. So there really was no standard for TNTs music. I believe the Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth wasnt included till Windows 98 or XP. 

Doom 95 had what would end up becoming the Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth built in. Though Final Doom wasn't intended to be played with it.

[JDoyle]

3 minutes ago, Individualised said:

Doom 95 had what would end up becoming the Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth built in. Though Final Doom wasn't intended to be played with it.

Oh that's a neat bit of trivia, I had no idea. I always used to boot to DOS to play Doom! But yeah, TNT had finished Evilution by late 1995, so it wasn't an option when the music was being written. 

[Individualised]

3 minutes ago, JDoyle said:

Oh that's a neat bit of trivia, I had no idea. I always used to boot to DOS to play Doom! But yeah, TNT had finished Evilution by late 1995, so it wasn't an option when the music was being written. 

Some of TNT's tracks (ones by L.A. Sieben I believe) actually break in Doom 95 so yeah

[DoomGater]

20 hours ago, Individualised said:

Doom 95 had what would end up becoming the Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth built in. Though Final Doom wasn't intended to be played with it.

 

 

BTW: Microsoft bought it from Roland, it is basically a crippled SoftwareSoundCanvas

[Tycitron]

21 hours ago, JDoyle said:

There was no Windows default midi sounds back then. Most people used whatever midi came built into their sound card ie: Soundblaster OPL or if you were extra fancy Gravis Ultrasound or Soundblaster AWE32. So there really was no standard for TNTs music. I believe the Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth wasnt included till Windows 98 or XP. 

Thank you all for the replies :) but yeah doesn't seem like there is an """Intended""" way to listen to them. So i will just continue to use the SC-55 soundfonts, as i consider it the "DOOM" Soundfont.

 

(Although it is interesting to know what they were composed with!)

Edited May 17, 2023 by Tycitron