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twipley

[SEEKING] Intended Doom SC-55 Music

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Some more marginally on-topic stuff about music in Raven games:

A few of the CD audio songs in Hexen sound somewhat different than their MIDI counterparts. bonesr is in a different key on the CD than in the MIDI. foojar's MIDI is a little faster, and the instrumentation sounds a bit different in some places - maybe just the result of different MIDI devices, though. Likewise with falconr.

Some of Hexen 2's music is also remixed from Hexen.

A lot of Hexen 2's music sounds different enough from the CD and the MIDI versions that I tend to think they did more than run the tracks through a high-quality MIDI interface for the CD audio. It feels like there's some proper mastering there, and maybe some non-GM instruments too. This is especially the case for tulku4. tulku7 is also much faster on the MIDI. Lastly there's a sort of joke-song on track 12, the last track of the CD, a techno song filled with Hexen 2 sound effects. This doesn't get used in-game anywhere.

For some reason Hexen 2's expansion music is not in sequential order on the CD. For instance track 2 is tulku7.

Some versions of Heretic 2's soundtrack have one more song than other versions. I think it's for the sky castle level, not entirely sure right now.

OK I think I'm done.

edit: Not quite done, just came across this post in ZDoom forums.
http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?p=653179&sid=117c9d7b3dfada250a9011e5d08ddcf9#p653179

Also some more information from the man himself: the synthesisers he used for Hexen II/Heretic II are Ensoniq TS-10 (which is a huge expensive beast of a professional workstation synthesiser with really magical sound, very fat DAC stages in there), and Korg DW-8000 for drums.

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Some good news: I just added support for HQ sound packs to Chocolate Doom. So in the next release it will be possible to play using the substitute music files people have been linking to. I've been trying it myself and can confirm it is awesome.

I'd quite like to put together a set of "HQ music packs" to distribute alongside Chocolate Doom in some kind of semi-official capacity. Is there any consensus on which of the two sets of recordings that have been linked to is the better one? We also need music packs for all the other IWADs (doom2.wad, tnt.wad, and Heretic/Hexen/Strife).

The way I've implemented it, music substitution is done based on content (of the original MUS track). This means that Plutonia, for example, already works - it's just composed out of Doom 1's music tracks. Also, PWADs that reuse IWAD MIDI tracks get the substitution automatically - I tried with Suspended in Dusk and it worked flawlessly.

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That is fantastic =D can't wait to give it a try. Did you add support for the loop-point meta-data in MI's recordings?

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Nothing that elaborate (yet?). Supporting that is something that I'm interested in, but tricky - it means patching the SDL_mixer library used by Chocolate Doom to play back music.

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Are you open to allowing users to specify their own tracks by lump name and/or map slot, rather than being limited to lump content? It'd be kinda fun to use the PSX soundtrack with the music assigned to the right slots.

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You could theoretically achieve that using a supplemental PWAD containing junk (but unique) MIDI data for each track. This is strictly intended as an "upgrade my music" mechanism, not a "change my music" mechanism.

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fraggle said:

Nothing that elaborate (yet?). Supporting that is something that I'm interested in, but tricky - it means patching the SDL_mixer library used by Chocolate Doom to play back music.

SDL_Mixer doesn't already have a function to take arbitrary looping points?


Apparently not.

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Oddly relevant video.

Anyway I took a look last night at how to handle the loop points and I think it should be possible to implement with a bit of work.

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One potential issue with setting up loop points for non-MIDI music formats is that note/reverb trails will be abruptly cut off at the loop point.

One possible way of countering this would be to overlap the end with the beginning when looping, such that the reverb trails from the end are played simultaneously with the opening notes, but this might also cause issues (distortion) if there isn't enough headroom to do it without signal clipping, and of course this all severely complicates the issue of playing digital audio formats as music replacements.

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MusicallyInspired has demonstrated some pretty serious attention to detail in his previous posts so I'd assume that this is something that he has already considered when choosing the loop points.

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fraggle said:

MusicallyInspired has demonstrated some pretty serious attention to detail in his previous posts so I'd assume that this is something that he has already considered when choosing the loop points.

Ah, okay! You're right, he set up his loop points to take this into consideration. Great :)

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Chocolate Doom now has implemented such-packs support! :applaudes:

EDIT: beaten by fraggle.


That being said, more pack reviews would be needed!

EDIT: beaten by fraggle, too. (hehe)


Awesome work by fraggle in the past weeks, first off adding a hardware-based-scaling prototype, then support for such-packs. :applaudes: :)


I have two questions in mind:

a) as for the sound effects (http://www.perkristian.net/game_doom-sfx.shtml, for example weapon, monster, and washing-machine-switch sounds, they are not stored in MIDI form and therefore a sound-effects pack would not be needed in order to reach original experience, right?

b) I have asked MI if he could publish uncompressed versions of his pack, which he said he would do. If I remember correctly, he told me in an email that it has to do with the volume level, which might be best not to fiddle with using in-port volume sliders, which would best be left at 100% (in order to prevent degradation or something?). That being said, I have noticed Chocolate Doom, probably in order to match the original game, has that slider set to 50%. Would not that go against the recommendation stated above, therefore inducing (if I did understand correctly) degradation? Or perhaps did I just misinterpret, which might well be the case. In any case, I am leaving this here in order for all to reflect on.

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twipley said:

a) as for the sound effects (http://www.perkristian.net/game_doom-sfx.shtml, for example weapon, monster, and washing-machine-switch sounds, they are not stored in MIDI form and therefore a sound-effects pack would not be needed in order to reach original experience, right?

If you want the original experience then you shouldn't use the Per Kristian sounds pack. That said, he's done a great job remaking Doom's sound effects and I'm a big fan of his work. I just included it in those videos because it seemed to fit the "remade in high quality" theme. It's not really related.


b) I have asked MI if he could publish uncompressed versions of his pack, which he said he would do. If I remember correctly, he told me in an email that it has to do with the volume level, which might be best not to fiddle with using in-port volume sliders, which would best be left at 100% (in order to prevent degradation or something?). That being said, I have noticed Chocolate Doom, probably in order to match the original game, has that slider set to 50%. Would not that go against the recommendation stated above, therefore inducing (if I did understand correctly) degradation? Or perhaps did I just misinterpret, which might well be the case. In any case, I am leaving this here in order for all to reflect on.

Chocolate Doom starts at half volume because that's what Vanilla Doom does, and I doubt I'm going to change that. I think there's probably a balance to be had between "mixed for highest quality" (which inevitably leads to quieter tracks) and "at a reasonable volume level" (ie. using a bit of compression). Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of the loudness war but Doom's soundtrack is heavy metal, so a reasonable volume level is kind of expected.

What he might be saying is that when you play at 100% volume you're getting the raw sound samples as he mixed them, but if you reduce the volume then you're doing a multiply that reduces the sample range. For example 16 bit samples range from -32768 to +32767, but if your volume is at 50% then you're only getting -16384 to +16383. Basically don't do something silly like set your in-game volume at 50% and then turn up your speakers to compensate.

MusicallyInspired is clearly the expert though so I defer to his judgment.

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fraggle said:

What he might be saying is that when you play at 100% volume you're getting the raw sound samples as he mixed them, but if you reduce the volume then you're doing a multiply that reduces the sample range. For example 16 bit samples range from -32768 to +32767, but if your volume is at 50% then you're only getting -16384 to +16383. Basically don't do something silly like set your in-game volume at 50% and then turn up your speakers to compensate.

Yeah, I think that's about what he said! (Or, at least what I inferred from it!)

Although, I didn't understand all of the repercussions, so I asked him if he could publish those "unmolested masters" in order for us all to test on. More choices means more stuff for reviewin', right? :)

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I think I downloaded from the torrent but the FLAC files are not playing at all. VLC media player does not play them.

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I have kept an eye on this thread for the past week and now that I'm finally back "in business" I'm able to download them for myself, and I really look forward to it!

Thank you to all parties involved.

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fraggle said:

Chocolate Doom starts at half volume because that's what Vanilla Doom does, and I doubt I'm going to change that. I think there's probably a balance to be had between "mixed for highest quality" (which inevitably leads to quieter tracks) and "at a reasonable volume level" (ie. using a bit of compression). Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of the loudness war but Doom's soundtrack is heavy metal, so a reasonable volume level is kind of expected.


This was more or less my reasoning. Because the sound effects are inherently so loud they would drown out the music tracks if you used the uncompressed versions, you would have to turn down the sound effects, turn up the music and then possibly turn up your speakers. If you dont want to bother with that, the compressed tracks are your best bet.

And yes, I made my tracks for seamless looping so that instrument and reverb sounds are not truncated. I did this by copying the MIDI data of the beginnings of each track to the end before recording and setting the loop point metadata to start shortly after the beginning. The result is a perfect uninterrupted listening experience.

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Just got an email update from the choc-doom github, loop-point metadata is now supported =D

Not only do we now get to hear the music from a sound canvas, but I'm pretty sure those that prefer fm-synth, or whatever else that isn't windows midi, can hear the music the way they want using one of the other available music packs

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MusicallyInspired said:

I have a question, does the music slider in Chocolate Doom control the volume of digital music solely (not sfx) as well as MIDI volume?

The volume control should work for MIDI and digital playback.

And yes, loop point metadata is now supported. I've been playing for the past few weeks using MusicallyInspired's FLAC recordings and they sound great!

I put together some configuration files yesterday that could be used for HQ MIDI packs, though at the moment we obviously only have the Doom 1 music. It would be nice to get similar music packs for the other games (I'm planning to do a CD rip of the Hexen music at some point, at least).

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I will be doing SC-55 recordings of the other Doom engine games (the ones I have, anyway). The CD tracks from Hexen would be nice I'd just be worried about them being seamless. Though if they loop at the end just before fadeout that would be enough to create metadata loop points. But there are more MIDIs in the game files than there are CD audio tracks aren't there?

I think the Saturn version has the soundtrack recorded with still another synth which sounds nice. I'll record that one as well.

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MusicallyInspired said:

I The CD tracks from Hexen would be nice I'd just be worried about them being seamless. Though if they loop at the end just before fadeout that would be enough to create metadata loop points. But there are more MIDIs in the game files than there are CD audio tracks aren't there?


There are. The CD tracks don't loop seamlessly but then neither do the MIDI files, for the most part - most of them have a distinct ending, at which point the track restarts from the very beginning.

fraggle said:

I'm planning to do a CD rip of the Hexen music at some point, at least.


I can do this if you'd like. Not that I'm personally concerned, but what's the legality of distributing these?


Anyhow I've finally given both the Blume and Roth versions of the music from the torrent a proper listen and on comparison I have to say that the Blume ones sound much better overall. The most obvious difference to me is that the Roth ones use some pretty heavy and sharp reverb which makes many of the drums sound "doubled", like every snare is a flam (two drum strokes at almost the same time). To me this sounds overprocessed and likely untrue to the intended sound.

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plums said:

The most obvious difference to me is that the Roth ones use some pretty heavy and sharp reverb which makes many of the drums sound "doubled", like every snare is a flam (two drum strokes at almost the same time).

I noticed that too, and it surprised even me. When I find the time, I will try rerecording these directly from Vanilla Doom rather than the MIDI files I used, and see if this makes a difference.

Either, there are different revisions of the SC-55 engine, or the MIDIs weren't converted accurately.
Or does Doom send reverb commands which are not even part of the MUS lumps?
In any case, I did reset the SC-155 unit before every new title to be sure that no unintended settings are in the way.

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LogicDeLuxe said:

I noticed that too, and it surprised even me. When I find the time, I will try rerecording these directly from Vanilla Doom rather than the MIDI files I used, and see if this makes a difference.

Either, there are different revisions of the SC-55 engine, or the MIDIs weren't converted accurately.
Or does Doom send reverb commands which are not even part of the MUS lumps?
In any case, I did reset the SC-155 unit before every new title to be sure that no unintended settings are in the way.


So those recordings are straight from the SC-55, and you didn't add any reverb? Very odd, I would have thought for sure that that reverb was from some kind of mastering/post-processing. I don't think that Doom's music contains any kind of reverb send - especially not with its MUS format, since it strips away lots of information.

Listening to them closer, it sounds like that reverb/note doubling is only on the drum channel? I don't hear the same effect on other percussive instruments where it should be apparent.

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It could be the chorus effect and not the reverb effect. The SC-55 has both. It could be either something was sending excessive chorus data to the drum channel, or I'm missing the intended chorus in my tracks. I'll give a listen from the game myself on my old 486 to be sure as well.

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I assumed that the "Doom Music" album by Robert Prince, which contains some (edited) songs from DOOM, would show what the intended sound is... I don't have the album, but I have heard two of the tracks from it (on YouTube): At Doom's Gate and the Victory music.

The CD's version of At Doom's Gate has a heavy chorus effect on the kick drum and snare.

However, the CD's version of The End of Doom does not contain any chorus effect on the drums.

So...maybe the game's MIDI music is not supposed to have any chorus effect on the drums? And perhaps Robert Prince just added a chorus effect for the CD's At Doom's Gate? I'm not really sure why Logic Deluxe's recordings would have chorus on the snare...

It's possible that it might be caused by a different revision of the SC-55... Also, there is an instrument difference in some SC-55 revisions... (going a little off-topic here). On early SC-55 units, PC#122 is "Fl. Keyclick", but on later SC-55 units, PC#122 was changed to "Breath Noise" (this is what all other GM-compatible synths used). But since the original earliest SC-55 modules actually play #122 as Fl. Keyclick, would this be the intended instrument in DOOM 2's Opening To Hell? Edit: I managed to find a recording of Opening To Hell from the Doom Music album, and it uses the GM-standard breath noise.

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TheUltimateDoomer666 said:

I managed to find a recording of Opening To Hell from the Doom Music album, and it uses the GM-standard breath noise.

Since Bobby Prince handled that one himself, that's probably what he intended. Might be worth checking the FM synth patches in the Doom 2 IWAD to see which one it's trying to emulate. Though perhaps shareware Doom 1's 1.0 IWAD should be checked too, as Opening to Hell was written in the middle of Doom 1's development (and is implied to have been the original title theme).

That, or just ask him directly.

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