Doom 3 Music In Spin

[Guest Wyvern]

Yeah, kinda like that. Music that twists and shapes itself to what's happening.

If you want a better idea of what I mean, play System Shock 2. When you're by yourself and exploring, the music is ambient and moody. However, as soon as a battle begins, the music leaps forward into a pulse-pounding track. Once the danger is over, things slowly settle back down to the ambient track.

It could work REALLY well for DOOM 3. The main thing I don't want Trent to do is spend a weekend making the score (like he presumably did in Quake). I want him to actually think through it and make something that actually fits the game.

DOOM wasn't all about ambience all of the time; Quake was. DOOM had levels with quiet music and levels with metal-style music. It was all different. I can't actually think of any track that sounds the same (that wasn't re-used) in the original DOOM game. Each song was different.

To be totally honest, Trent's work for Quake all blurred in together. I can't honestly put a "face" to any of the "music" in Quake except for the title track. Everything else just kinda mushed together with no clear-cut differences. That might be Trent's style, but it's not DOOM's style.

Just my $0.02.

[locust]

Where is it? All I can find on his homepage is the Quake3 sound pack..

[Guest Wyvern]

Right here, buddy. :)

http://www.3ddownloads.com/showfile.php3?file_id=7428

[Guest Anonymous User]

<a href="http://www.bgcsoft.f9.co.uk/musician/pleasure 2000.mp3">Click HERE for what should be the end credits for DooM 3</a> I know i know the start has not started yet but i thought you should download this! (opps plug)

[Guest Anonymous User]

http://www.bgcsoft.f9.co.uk/musician/downloads.html and make sure you check out "PLEASURES OF DOOM 2000"

[Guest Anonymous User]

I want to frag you like an animal, / I want to splatter all your insides, / I want to frag you like an animal, / Your whole existence is flawed / You get me closer to God mode...

[Guest Anonymous User]

in response to Wyvern...

i don't know how well the music molded in system shock 2, as i haven't played it--but from my experience so-called 'interactive music' has kinda been a failure in my eyes...

i highly doubt trent will spend 'a weekend' on the doom soundtrack -- remember, DOOM is what got Trent in touch with id in the first place -- he was completely addicted to it.

if i remember correctly, there was a quote of him saying something along the lines of "i could have made 15 albums in the time i've spent playing DOOM..."

sure, unlike QUAKE's soundtrack, DOOM wasn't all about ambience all the time... but that is the thing -- at the time...

DOOM is pretty old, and i don't think it is going to live up to everyones expectations. people seem to /really want/ to feel like they did when they played DOOM the first time... i highly doubt this will happen to everyone. think of the new Star Wars movie -- while continuing the epic, it did not live up to everyones expectations of the original three... its a completely different time, and also a completely different storyline that just so happens to have something to do with the original.

in DOOM and DOOM II, metal music was the thing--and all of it wasn't even originally written by Bobby Prince. didn't anyone recognize part of a Pantera song in there? how about the music to MAP07 in DOOM II -- have a listen to Slayer - South of Heaven, and tell me that it doesn't sound 'remarkably' similar...

and to those that didn't know about the above, yes--it's all true... if i recall, there was also music clips from soundgarden and/or alice in chains... i wish i knew which maps and which songs...

Trent's music may have blurred together from QUAKE--if you listened to it outside of the game. it proved to be a perfect ambient backdrop /behind/ the ambient sound effects and the monsters and then weapons. the music wasn't meant to get your attention -- so by you saying that you couldnt put a 'face' on it, then trent was successful in what he originally wanted to do.

i can say Bobby Prince did a good job for DOOM and DOOM II. back then we all had generic sound cards, mostly without wavetable synthesis, relying on our 'Adlib FM' chip to let us listen to the music. do you want Bobby Prince to do the music for the new DOOM? have you listened to the revamped MP3's that he's done? granted, they sound better on the higher-quality MIDI equipment, but do we really want a 'beefed up MIDI soundtrack' for a game of this magnitude?

i would hope not...

on that note, judging from previous legal battles with id over the ownership of the music and/or sound effects from DOOM and DOOM II, its hard to tell if either sides are willing to work with one another...

its nice that i can come here to actually discuss this topic, outside of all the other troll on the other news sites...

-jer sypult
http://www.mindgrid.net/

[Guest Wyvern]

You make some very valid points there, Jer, and I can defintely see where you're coming from.

However, perhaps I should have said a bit more about this. So, here goes.

I believe that Bobby Prince did great work on the DOOM soundtracks, and I wouldn't have had any other person do them (using my 20/20 hindsight). He pretty much made my little Sound Blaster ISA card play MIDI for all its worth back in the day.

What about now? Could he produce the same kinda stuff? I really don't know that for sure. I don't know if he's progressed past MIDI. Perhaps he may have gone into tracking. I can't say. However, I CAN say that he should be a influential factor in the soundtrack, since he's the one who put together the original ones. Sure, some of them sounded like other songs. I know one song in DOOM 2 (Adrian's Asleep, I think) sounded like Alice in Chains' Them Bones, and lots of MIDI sites thought that MIDI WAS the song. Regardless, he's definitely someone to have look over the process, whether he composes any music or not.

Referring back to tracking comment above, using tracking files in the game (or adding support for them) would be a nice feature to have. It worked for Unreal and Unreal Tournament, even though most of its soundtrack was ambient/chant or techno. Tracker files are relatively small in size and can produce some really high-quality songs.

Although, I still really like the thought of a System Shock 2 kind of music structure. They essentially did it like this:

1.) Compose a full-length song for a level.
2.) Carefully cut the song into sections that can be looped by themselves.
3.) Depending on the scenario, piece the parts of the song together to make a dynamic score.

So, they would just make combos like:

Intro->Ambience->Pre-battle intro->Battle loop->After-battle wind-down->Ambience

Each part was the part of a whole song that was like:

Intro->Pre-battle intro->1 Battle loop->After-battle wind-down->Ambience

Each part could be arranged in any order, depending on the circumstances. This makes for a very powerful and very dynamic score that will adapt to the environment and the player's actions.

If there's one good thing I can say about Trent doing the score is maybe he could tie in some way to make the music reflect the player's traumatized psyche while going through all this hellish torment. A BIG focus in this installment should be how all the death, demons, and hell refernces seriously mess with a normal human mind. Hallucinations, hearing things, etc. If done right, music can really add to this.

Just my now $0.04 total. :)

[Crusader]

Lucasarts did this with their IMUSE system in the original X-Wing sim, with patrol, enemy approaching, battle, etc. themes. Furthermore, their Star Wars Dark Forces FPS did this, which also worked very well.

Also, Hideo Kojima has said that his upcoming uber-game Metal Gear Solid 2 will have what sounds like a really cool feature:

One thing that I couldn't do before, that I'm sort of able to do this time, is as if we have a full orchestra right next to the player, so that when the player moves Solid Snake around, and when Solid Snake faces a certain situation, the orchestra sort of leaves the percussion only. Instead of playing track A instead of track B, we're not switching tracks, but making changes to that one track, as if the full orchestra sitting next to the player is making changes.

If Reznor can accomplish this for Doom... well, that'd just plain kick ass :)

[Guest Wyvern]

Hideo Kojima is DA SHIZNIT. That man knows how to make a game. :)

If even Hideo thinks an active score is a good idea, then it must be a good thing.

Hrm... DOOM orchestral... That actually sounds pretty cool. John Williams could pull it off. The guy who did the score to Predator (I foget his name) would be cool, too.

[Guest Anonymous User]

I believe doom's music was mostly some metal remade onto midi, this had for effect to render the metal riffs and such into an "easy listen" music which is fine, i mean for real full blown metal if you dont concentrate on listening to it you will just pass it out as a background noise (im a huge metal fan, and i noticed this when im mapping or doing 2d art or chatting, i wont register the metal at all really, ill just forget it and dismiss it as a background grinding noise until i suddenly realise hey shit im playing one of my favorite tracks and im not even headbanging to it)

Therefore for doom 3 i think midi "remakes" of metal songs would be just fine like those in doom2 : if it works so wellwhy change it...

I dont like the idea of music that morphs with the situation , to what ive seen in unreal and such it doesnt work that great although it can be quite good
and then, with all the monsters and action that will be in doom 3 (hopefully) wont it just end up 100% of the time on fighting/action mode ? :)

stick to doom' original recipe i say, simplified good metal.

About Reznor, hes great, but more for quake 1 ambiance, gray borwn dark gritty dirty atmosphere, im not sure he would fit in for doom type ambiance, although im sure hes flexible enough and if hes played doom that much he must have a good idea of it.

[Guest Belac]

The music in the first two games was one of the most notable features. Quake doesn't really have music, it just has background sounds. Quake music tends to match the objects and creatures in the level. Kind of physical, I mean. Doom music tends to not have much to do with what's in the level, but instead with the emotions in the Doom hero's head while he's in the levels. When he's pumped up and ready to kick a$$, fast music plays. When he's a bit nervous, slow creepy music plays. Eeriely beautiful levels like E1M3 have eerie music. Dark music plays in a low-light level, and upbeat music plays in the next high-light level when the character is relieved to finally get out in the open where he can shoot his enemies from a distance, not crawl through dark tunnels knowing they are just around the corner.

Quake pretty much had a constant "creepy" feel and the music matched that. Doom shouldn't have that feel. Doom was a combination of medieval and futuristic genres, creepy levels and action levels, tunnel crawling and a$$-kicking. Even the Doom title graphic represents this, being 50% circuitry and 50% Gothic.

[Guest Anonymous User]

Guess I'll be playing with the music off

[Guest Wyvern]

I don't know... All metal would REALLY get on my nerves after a while. Remember, this game is supposed to be "over-the-top", so I'm willing to bet the element of surprise and unpredictability will reign here. I doubt they could go with that concept with the same kinda song playing over and over and over. At least the original DOOM music had some variety. Constant metal would REALLY get on my nerves, and I really like metal!

When Quake 2 first came out, I played the audio portion of the CD for a while. Usually, when I get a new CD, I loop the ever-living SHIT out of it. Only after a few months or so will I get tired of it. The Q2 soundtrack I couldn't do that with. It just sounded so repetitious that I could only loop the CD once per sitting. I would hate for DOOM to have a score like that.

And why on earth should they stick with MIDI? Electronic music has advanced FAR beyond MIDI now with MP3's, tracker files, etc. MIDI worked for DOOM back when that was the best feasible option for music, but not now. Even redbook audio isn't a feasible option now. Take a look at some of the DOOM ports that have built-in MP3 support!

I believe that if DOOM's coding technology is to advance, the music format should advance, too.

A lot of us are setting ourselves up for a HUGE letdown with this new installment of DOOM. When we first play it, we're more than likely gonna say, "This doesn't FEEL like DOOM." And you'd be right. It's a bradn new DOOM. A far more advanced DOOM. To use a cheesy expression, this ain't your father's DOOM (my dad never played DOOM, so I guess that doesn't really apply :D).

I just pray that the music does the game justice. And I can't stress enough that MIDI may have been the apex of music back in the day, but it's NOT the best option today. To use MIDI would waste all of the advances we've had in music technology.

It's really tough, but some things you just gotta let go.

[Guest Anonymous User]

lets look at a couple things:
DOOM -- MIDI music (hardware dependent)
QUAKE -- CD-audio (cd-rom, bad looping)
QUAKE3 -- WAV files (22050hz, lesser quality)

judging by the list, and the 'audio' position of id software, nobody is really going to push any different technology. they do not have an internal sound person. id Software has always stuck to 'standards'.

the closest they came to anything dynamic was with QUAKE3--where they had an 'intro' WAV (from the FLA tracks), and then a 'loop' WAV which picked up after the 'intro' finished...

now look at Trent... he is a musician. as a musician, you want to be in complete control of what the person is listening to. he writes the music, and he writes the direction the music goes.

he never puts out anything that he think sucks. he is a control freak.

and i don't blame him either. you can write some cool music, but it could sound like shit if it is not explicitly arranged the way that the pieces should be. there needs to be direction.

between the two, i would be willing to guess that the technology used won't be too ground breaking... but does it need to be?

i have no doubts that Trent's work on the soundtrack will be nothing short of amazing. he is one of the most talented and creative artists of today.

even though id Software won't be utilizing 'tracker' music--ala Unreal and Unreal Tournament--or any other means of 'dynamic' music, i have no doubts in my mind that with a 'static' limitation to the music, Trent will find a way to give us some of the best music we can hope for in the new DOOM.

-jer sypult
http://www.mindgrid.net/

[Guest Anonymous User]

Erm i dont see how all metal music could b reptitive , metal isnt one song or one type of beat
there is so many different genres of metal and songs to be inspire from
It doesnt have to be midi what i meant is it should be reduced to a midi like SIMPLICITY, meanign basically metal riffs beats and such converted to simple clear sounds taking awy the singing of course. Thats what was done for doom and it worked great as i already said
There hasnt been many more advances in the music line really, its just become easyer ot make something soud good thru the use of n34t gimmicks, kinda like its become easyer to make levels look nice with Quake 3 thanks to all the l33t curves and fog.

Mp3 format is a problem in games : it will eat up alot of your speed, unless everyoen decides to buy sound cards that process the mp3's in hardware, its like dvd's and video cards with hardware processing for the mpeg

And as i said, tracker files are annoying and would be useless , if this is doom well its gonna be non stop action so it wud just result in the action music being played thru all the time, not even worth it.

If it works so well dont change it

Minimalism can be good too you know.

[Guest Anonymous User]

Hope for a rememberable ambiance.

Doom's music was good not that it had
an initial wow factor, it was since you
instincively remembered what music to
what level.

So, examples:

E1M2 was basically "the" doom1 title song in my mind, if only because the first demo you saw was for E1M2... what you saw when the game was first installed on that 486 so long ago.

MAP09 in doom.. woo, get ready.

etc etc.


Lets hope Trent leans more tward the ambiant
side of the song world. One problem i have with people is they think ambiant=boring. Trent had promise in Q1 when he DIDN'T go metal hungry.

Get some weird/unusual/phyco sound effects/fonts and make songs that use those effects.. and make them sound good!

that will be rememberable/cool/fitting =)

Map30 ... bowed!

.02- change due.

[Guest Wyvern]

Well, according to Mr. Carmack, the id guys have decided to utilize "specialized artisans," if you will, for producing the various aspects of the new game. One dedicated to developing all the sound stuff, one to work only on the networking code, etc. So, with all of this modulized staffing, each aspect of the game will have its own focus, which will then come together at the end.

I honestly don't think using MP3 format would be any less system resource intensive than anything else. Take a look at the freeware MP3 player CoolPlayer (www.daansystems.com/coolplayer). This player plays MPEG layer 1, 2, and 3 audio files. It is also coded in C and uses Windows API's. This makes for a player that takes all of only 3% of system resources, and the executable is only 362K (you can fit that on a floppy easily!). Doesn't sound too bad, to me. If the rumored target system is a 700MHz box with 128MB RAM, 3% system resources WON'T be an issue. If the guy who made CoolPlayer can make a nice MP3 player that is very easy on system resource usage using C and Windows API's, then I'm MORE than certain the guys at id can do the same. Sound cards are a LOT more powerful now, and they are perfectly capable of handling more intensive processes.

Now, let's focus on Trent. I will not argue with anyone at all that he is a fine musician. I personally liked his earlier work as opposed to the later, but that's my opinion.

As good a musician as Trent is, I just don't "trust" hime to do justice to DOOM. I mean, I really didn't care for the Quake soundtrack. I don't want ambience all the time, I want the music to occasionally throw some adrenaline-inducing phrases at me. Something to break the monotony. THAT'S what the Quake soundtrack was; monotonous. You can tell me all day long that the "music" was supposed to flow together and just be creepy, but I found myself on more than one occasion muting my CD audio and just playing without music, or putting something else in.

For a scary movie or game, sometimes the best music is silence. When all you hear is the humming of a fluorescent bulb in a dim hallway and the occasional water drip or metal groan, the BEST thing that can really make you go, "Oh, SHIT!!!" is to have a monster jump out at you and have an appropriate musical sting at that time. They did it all the time in the Resident Evil series and other survival horror games (and no, I don't want to drag anything else about those games into this; that was merely a reference point).

I would honestly LIKE having Trent doing the soundtrack more if he would look back on his earlier works (Head Like a Hole and stuff like that). Perfect Drug was a NICE mix of both hard and soft music styles. At the beginning, it started out kinda low volume with the plucking of violins (REALLY cool part, IMHO), increased to a harder section, and then turned to a soft, piano-accented section (I absolutely LOVE the way that piano sounds; all old and slightly out of tune).

Now, if Trent can come up with stuff like that IN ADDITION to ambience, then I would readily accept it. Although I like Trent's more "mellow" (for lack of a better term) songs, I also really enjoy his more aggitated works, too.

Give me a varying Trent cornucopia of music and I'm all for it. Just ambience, no. Just metal, no. Both and a few extra things thrown in? I'm all for it.

My now $0.08 :)

[Guest Confusion]

I feel bad having not commented on this yet, so I'll just agree wholeheartedly with Wyvy. Some very good points, there.

[Guest Wyvern]

Nice to know I'm not smoking the wrong kind of crack. :)

[Guest Anonymous User]

They should have like Trent Reznor, Andrew Eldritch, Blixa Bargeld and Ralf Hutter
collaborating with the music...
Of course this could never happen...

[Guest Anonymous User]

Geez, Alice in Chain's "Them Bones" does sound like the "barrels of fun" music from Doom2. God I hate that tune! :)

[Guest Wyvern]

:)