Plutonia MIDI Pack: OPL Synth cover

[Hisymak]

[Youtube link HERE]
https://youtu.be/TeQzexPTLRs

Hello!
Some time ago I found out about this excellent Plutonia MIDI Pack. It really impressed me and I liked many tracks from it, and most importantly, playing Plutonia with this was way much better experience than with those boring reused Doom/Doom2 music tracks.
In ZDoom I am permanently using "OPL Synth emulation" as a MIDI device. That means, I heard all the soundtrack with OPL synth while playing Plutonia. The reason is that I played Doom and other games back in late 90's with a Sound Blaster-compatible sound card and strongly got used to its sound, so I still want to listen to the music like that.
I was looking for Plutonia MIDI pack recordings on Youtube and found many versions played with some high-quality soundfonts (for example Patch93's Roland SC-55 soundfont), which sounded really good. But I could not find any OPL synth version. I understand that people are mostly not interested in it, because it does not provide the best quality sound, and they prefer the modern fancy midi synthesizers. But then I got an idea: Why not to record Plutonia MIDI pack played with that oldschool OPL synth myself?
So basically the purpose of this video is to show how the music tracks from Plutonia MIDI pack would sound on an oldschool Adlib/Sound Blaster card if they were composed back in the 90's. But not exactly like this, because I recorded the music with ZDoom's built-in OPL synthesizer (MAME OPL2 core).

I personally think that some tracks sounds quite good, while some not much good.
I'm curious about your opinion too, especially if you are the composer of one or more tracks from it.

[Bashe]

How exactly did you go about recording this, in terms of specifics? Like what version of ZDoom (or GZdoom, QZdoom, etc.) did you use? The reason I ask is because on the tracks featuring the Distortion Guitar, such as the beginning of map13's music, the Distortion Guitar patch sounds much more like the standard OPL one you'd hear through Windows when using an older Sound Blaster of the day (called the "Fat Man" timbres I believe), instead of the one you'd normally hear through Doom in OPL. I can, however, hear the Doom one faintly, but overall I hear the "other" guitar whenever the Distortion Guitar patch plays.

I tried to reproduce this on my end using the same midi pack and all the different OPL cores that ZDoom offers, but for me, the Distortion Guitar sounded like it usually does in Doom. I figured there might be a new GENMIDI lump in the wad that changes such a thing, but that does not seem to be the case. Interesting thing going on here. It seems to be the only instrument in your recordings that is altered in such a way.

[Hisymak]

Bashe said:

... I figured there might be a new GENMIDI lump in the wad that changes such a thing, but that does not seem to be the case...

Yes, my own customized GENMIDI lump is the answer!
I intentionally did not say that I edited some of the instruments in the GENMIDI lump, because I wanted to see how many people will actually listen to the music carefully enough to notice the difference. And you noticed well.
The Distortion Guitar is the most obvious, I think it is the most used instrument in the midi pack (but also in many Doom MIDIs overally). And you're right about the "Fat Man". The distortion guitar patch was imported from the game Hocus Pocus, where Fat Man was the author of OPL instruments. As GENMIDI allows double-voice instruments (which I am really thankful for), I added this as a second voice, playing simultaneously with the original Doom patch. The reason for the edit is that I want to make it sound "deeper", and for example its sound is strongly highlighted in MAP12 music.
But I edited many other instruments, in order to generally improve the sounding. I'm really curious about how many other instruments you can find! Hint: I used the patches from games like: Hocus Pocus, ROTT, Duke Nukem 3D, Blood.
I can provide the GENMIDI lump I used for recording if you're interested.

[Bashe]

Hah, that's nifty. I knew something about this was different than normal. The guitar is probably the only one I can pick out reliably, since it sounds so much different.

[Sharpie]

Hisymak said:

I can provide the GENMIDI lump I used for recording if you're interested.

Personally, I'd love the GENMIDI lump. Gives a feel more akin to some Genesis games with their raw, harsh FM instruments.

[CapnClever]

If you want to playback MID files using GENMIDI instrumentation, you can also use this driver and group of OP2 files: in this way you can play it back through any media player that supports MID. I found it handy when trying to get a decent recording of Raptor music.

[Hisymak]

QuirkyKirk said:

Personally, I'd love the GENMIDI lump.

Here you go: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_Lu2XP55IIVTGl5V1lIZHAxVEU
But please remember that you need to increase the number of emulated OPL chips to at least 4 or 5, since much more voices are needed. This can be set in advanced sound options.

Right now I'm tailoring a GENMIDI lump for Plutonia 2 music. I'm thinking about recording Plutonia 2 soundtrack too, but I'm not sure if I will do it.

[Sharpie]

Hisymak said:

But please remember that you need to increase the number of emulated OPL chips to at least 4 or 5

Thanks! And don't worry, I always have the chips at max. Because I figure, might as well have the chips there in case something needs them.