Overused & Underused Unofficial Doom MIDIs

[SPG]

As the title indicates, I'm curious what you all think are overused and underused MIDIs that aren't the official ones from the official games.

Links to listen to said MIDIs is preferred, or if you're suggesting a type of MIDI instead of a specific one, an example would be nice.

Note: Whether something is overused or underused doesn't mean it's good or bad. You may note something overused but still think it rocks!

[Hebonky]

I've only seen opening to hell used twice, and the second time was some community project, it's really ominous. I guess the reason is bad memories of map30, and you can't hear the damn song!

 

 

 

[SPG]

33 minutes ago, Hebonky said:

I've only seen opening to hell used twice, and the second time was some community project, it's really ominous. I guess the reason is bad memories of map30, and you can't hear the damn song!

 

 

 

That's an official MIDI. This thread is for unofficial MIDIs.

[Mr795]

i haven't seen a single wad with freedoom's map30 midi, even the new one in the current dev builds over at freedoom's soulsphere website.

 

New version.

Old version

Edited January 4 by Mr795

[LVENdead]

There's so many custom MIDIs out there I don't know how you might define overused outside of "used slightly more frequently than others" but to that end, my vote would probably go to Astral Dreadnought by Jimmy - which is a fantastic MIDI, but I hear it crop up a lot and really I think many maps that use it don't really earn it.

[Devalaous]

A bunch of BTSX midis ive heard in multiple projects, sometimes its like 'oh, this track again'. As for 'underused', I wish I'd hear Mark Klem's Organic Gods/Destiny more often. I know its in a gargantuan monster called Jade Earth that will scratch my itch, but still!

[Li'l devil]

2 hours ago, LVENdead said:

There's so many custom MIDIs out there I don't know how you might define overused outside of "used slightly more frequently than others"

On the contrary, I don't know how can one define an underused midi. I'm sure there are tons of midis out there that were used only once in just one wad.

[BoxY]

Overused: The Mucus Flow. I know it's really atmospheric and cool and good and you just got done building slime-themed slaughtermap #12,005,477 but please pray to some higher power to give you the strength to resist the temptation.

[Andromeda]

1 hour ago, BoxY said:

Overused: The Mucus Flow. I know it's really atmospheric and cool and good and you just got done building slime-themed slaughtermap #12,005,477 but please pray to some higher power to give you the strength to resist the temptation.

It's funny that I've only encountered that MIDI in the original despite having played several thousands of levels at this point. I guess the wads I pick to play aren't prone to using it.

[RHhe82]

I wouldn’t want it to become overused, but I’d really be delighted to hear the track from Tarnsman’s Projectile Hell E1M1 every now and then.

[Pechudin]

Overusedd - You Suck by Lee Jackson. Bonus points if it's in a map that is WAY too long for its length.

[faceplant641]

Part of me wants to hear more Ancient Aliens midis out in the wild, but so many of them are so closely linked to the aesthetic character of that wad that it might be really weird.

[LadyMistDragon]

I almost never hear "Time Runners" by Mark Klem basically anywhere but it's such an awesome midi! "Mint Petal" from the Revolution! Midi Pack is one I've basically never heard anywhere else. 

 

"Astral Dreadnought" and "Hate Machine" are probably overplayed.

[Treehouseminis]

5 hours ago, BoxY said:

Overused: The Mucus Flow. I know it's really atmospheric and cool and good and you just got done building slime-themed slaughtermap #12,005,477 but please pray to some higher power to give you the strength to resist the temptation.

Ive done this.  lol.  No regrets though.  It had turquoise slime and bookcases though!

[Enzo Carozza]

Would be nice to see Freedoom's tracks in more PWADs. :P
One mapper that I do see using tracks from there more often is @Hayden49. :)

Edited January 5 by Enzo Carozza

[Hydrus]

The estimates are that there's over 100,000 custom WADs on the internet now, and I'd say that the number of original custom Doom MIDIs has to be at least 10,000. At least 95% of those have probably only been used once, in their level of origin. Even if you picked only the best 10% of those MIDIs, you'd still have nearly a thousand awesome tunes to use in your map. And I've been leaving out the huge amount of custom MIDIs on other parts of the internet that have never been used in any level! By comparison, there's probably been like 5 overused custom MIDIs, maybe? So poke around! Try obscure WADs! Search dusty forgotten corners of the internet! You might find the best music ever - and if you do, make sure to use it in your level before it gets lost to time forever. B.P.R.D. found Equinox MAP13's music (one of the best in the mapset) off of somebody else's website, and later forgot the name of the website and the author's name. The website has likely since gone down, and the author's name has probably been forever forgotten, but the music remains, even after 23 years.

[Plerb]

19 hours ago, Hydrus said:

B.P.R.D. found Equinox MAP13's music (one of the best in the mapset) off of somebody else's website, and later forgot the name of the website and the author's name. The website has likely since gone down, and the author's name has probably been forever forgotten, but the music remains, even after 23 years.

Lately I've been thinking about the possibility of tracking down the origins of this song and a few others in BPRD wads (namely Nuts 2's track, which was actually another unknown song ripped from the internet). The fact that they were all converted to MUS and any metadata they once had was removed makes this much more difficult.

 

Yesterday I began an attempt to find the exact MIDI cover of Popcorn from Run.wad, in case any of the other MIDIs appearing in his WADs came from the same place (though probably not Equinox MAP13's music). So far, I've only found two different covers and neither of them were it.

Edit: Clearly I wasn't looking in the right places because I just found like 20 more. Still haven't found the exact one but I've found pretty similar ones.

 

Edit 2: No way, I actually found it. It's the popcorn midi on this site: http://area512.htmlplanet.com/music/wonka.html The version in Run.wad swapped out some instruments and expanded on the drum beat but it's clearly derived from this exact MIDI. Unfortunately I don't think any other BPRD songs are on this site. But hey, now we know where BPRD got the music for a random joke wad he made that isn't even on Doom Wiki (that also has the funniest story in a wad ever)!

Edited January 6 by Plerb

[THEBaratusII]

I do feel like the MIDIs by Vakhtang Adamiya for Kraisoft Entertainment's games have pretty much been underused and would've love to see more WADs use these MIDIs in the future. (I know A.L.T. has used a couple from Astrobatics iirc)

 

 

 

[Plerb]

54 minutes ago, THEBaratusII said:

I do feel like the MIDIs by Vakhtang Adamiya for Kraisoft Entertainment's games have pretty much been underused and would've love to see more WADs use these MIDIs in the future. (I know A.L.T. has used a couple from Astrobatics iirc)

HOLY SHIT I WAS NOT EXPECTING TO SEE SOMEONE MENTION KRAISOFT! Even among Kraisoft games, which are already fairly obscure, I feel like the Warkanoid (aka Jetball) series is the most overlooked. I played them as a kid, they were on an eGames compilation CD. I've listened to the shit out of the soundtrack my whole life, and it's my favorite video game soundtrack ever. It's also one of the biggest influences on my own MIDIs. Expect a lot of these songs to pop up in my WADs.

 

[Horizon]

wish "Danielle's Face" by Edwin van Veldhoven was used more, I recall seeing it in quite a few older WADs and I really like it

[MEMEAIDS]

I can't rightly speak on any OVERused unofficial tracks, but I think that Blood midis outside of Infuscomus and Unholy Voices get absolutely SLEPT on. The other tracks in Blood's midi OST are such an incredible basis for cultivating a gripping atmosphere, that wad authors just kind of... Ignore.

[SPG]

As OP, I asked this in part because my own experiences are limited to mostly official stuff and whatever is shown on the popular YT channels like decino and MtPain27. I do get the impression though that more subdued music is preferred over "typical" music for an action genre, particularly when paired with extremely difficult maps, but I don't know if it's fairly common for that subset (and "overused") or if such a potential preference would be because it's not used often (and thus "underused"). Whenever I'm looking to make maps, I don't want to end up inadvertently finding out that "oh, they're using music from THAT -- so overused!" or, even if people like it, I'd like to avoid using something that's commonly used.

[TheHambourgeois]

the underused ones are mine, OP :) :) :)

[raddicted]

considering how many people think that the mucus flows midi is overused, its funny to think that i basically NEVER see equinox midis anywhere but from their source wad ;D

[LightningBoltForever]

I'm amazed this one hasn't been used more outside of TNTR:

 

 

[Cutman 999]

Overused is obviously d_runnin, that thing is in 3000 levels from maximum doom you dumb!

[uhbooh]

I've never seen anyone use the Doom 2 intermission song for a level.

[T-Squared]

On 1/4/2024 at 3:28 PM, Pechudin said:

Overusedd - You Suck by Lee Jackson. Bonus points if it's in a map that is WAY too long for its length.

 

Scythe?

[Hasamnas]

With how popular Eviternity is, I can't say that I've heard a lot of its midis outside of it, aside from Brutal Schism. As for overused midis I'd say Fire Hive from the Plutonia Midi Pack.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

36 minutes ago, Hasamnas said:

With how popular Eviternity is, I can't say that I've heard a lot of its midis outside of it, aside from Brutal Schism. As for overused midis I'd say Fire Hive from the Plutonia Midi Pack.

I've heard Midnight Call a lot, but obviously that one doesn't count. I like a lot of the music from Eviternity from the snow episode onward. I don't know why, but the music in the maps before that never stood out as much to me. Even with Midnight Call, I only like the beginning of the song.