Music

An underestimated aspect of Doom, Bobby Prince's score adds an entirely new dimension to the game. Those with 16-bit soundcards cannot fully appreciate the effort that went into the creation of the Doom music; therefore, we have available for download here every Doom and Doom 2 song in .MP2 format, recorded by Michael Massay on a Roland SCC1 sound card. You think you've heard Doom music? Think again.

If you do not have a .MP2/3 player, go here. People with a 16-bit sound card and at least a Pentium 66 can try out the Yamaha SYG20 Soft Synthesizer, which emulates the sound quality of a 32-bit sound card. Also, the Doom music can be purchased in CD form, with sonically enhanced tracks and additional live instrumentation, here.

And if you ever happen to get tired of the original tracks (but how could you), or if you're looking for some fresh blood to feed your demons, we have a nice little Remix section for your revival pleasure. Many of the individual remixes are mirrored here. This section is maintained by Bloodshedder.

Level	Filesize	Name	MIDI	Description
Map25	916 KB	Adrian's Asleep	d_adrian
Map23	788 KB	Bye Bye American Pie	d_ampie
Map04	1272 KB	Between Levels	d_betwee
Map03	1815 KB	Countdown To Death	d_countd
Map08	2374 KB	The Dave D. Taylor Blues	d_ddtblu	Between DOOM and DOOM II, I worked with John Carmack and Dave Taylor at id to help port Wolfenstein to a video game platform. At that time Dave was doing the sound code for the port and I was designing the instrument samples and tweaking the MIDI files to keep the number of notes to a minimum. Somewhere along the line, Dave mentioned something about a blues song and it stuck in my mind. When I wrote the music for DOOM II, that idea became a song which I named in honor of Dave. Dave has since left id Software to go with his own company, Crack Dot Com. That is the company that developed Abuse which is now distributed by Origin. This song follows the "classical" blues chord progression, which is 12 bars long. The chord progression is as follows (a slash separates each measure and each measure has four beats): I / I / I / I / IV / IV / I / I / V7 / IV / I / I / In the key of E, the I would be an E, the IV would be an A and the V7 would be B7. Listen for the echo on the rhythm guitar. This is one of the first songs where I experimented with doing a MIDI echo. The idea is to play a note and hold it. Then you play the same note over and over again, reducing the volume of each succeeding note. The results are an echo that is almost as good as those played through digital reverberation/echo units. It sounds like some of the original analog tape echo units of the 60's. The lead for this song gets pretty wierd starting at about 3 minutes 37 seconds, but I love the dissonance it causes. It is the same dissonance I felt the first time I played DOOM -- a feeling of almost standing up straight while almost falling on one's butt at the same time.
Map10	2083 KB	The Demon's Dead	d_dead
Intermission Music	1399 KB		d_dm2int
Title Music	135 KB		d_dm2ttl
Map05	2053 KB	DOOM	d_doom
Map31	1177 KB	Evil Incarnate	d_evil	This song was originally written for Wolfenstein which only supported FM synthesizers. In order to get into the mood for it, I rented a movie about the infamous "Doctor of Auschwitz" and watched it until I was totally infuriated. This song was the result of the feeling of evil that came over me thinking about the terrible things the Nazis did. During the development of DOOM II, a decision was made (by John Romero, I think) to include at least one Wolfenstein level. This song had been one of John Carmack's favorites in Wolfenstein, so I translated the FM file to a general MIDI file. The FM version had an instrument that sounded like footsteps (for soldiers marching), and I had to try to find a similar sound among the 128 standard instruments that make up the general MIDI standard. It turned out that the gunshot patch (general MIDI instruments include several sound effects) would work if I played a very low octave note for a relatively short time. One would call this "using an instrument patch by abusing it." The problem with doing this is that not all sound cards have the same effect when you abuse individual instruments. Such is the case here. On some wavetable synths, these "footsteps" last long enough that you begin to hear the richochet part of the gunshot. On the Roland Sound Canvas and the Yamaha MU-80, it does sound like many soldiers marching. Such incompatibilities and quirks are the price one pays for trying to make something do what it was not really intended to do.
Map09	2214 KB	Into Sandy's City	d_in_cit	When I was composing the songs for DOOM, I did not get to see any finished levels. In the case of DOOM II, there were some levels that changed very little from the very early days of development. One of these was what I called "Sandy's City" because it was a level designed by Sandy Peterson. Everyone loved playing that level and I decided that I had to write a song that sounded sorta "city-like." This song was the result. Originally I had a piano playing the part that the harpsichord is playing but no one at id liked the idea of a piano in any of the music. As a joke, I changed the patch to the harpsichord. I expected everyone to voice opposition, but everyone seemed to like it -- so, I left it in! Sandy's City level made it into DOOM II, but there were several changes (made to raise the frame rate, I think). To me, the changes made the level less fun to play (but it's still a great level, especially for deathmatch).
Map20	2206 KB	Message For The Archvile	d_messag
Map30	2205 KB	Opening To Hell	d_openin
Endgame Music	2276 KB		d_read_m
Map18	2420 KB	Waiting For Romero To Play	d_romero	This song was easily named. You wouldn't believe how people in the id Software offices used to line up to watch John Romero play DOOM. Long before the sound effects were in the game, John would provide his own, and he was good at making a lot of sound effects with his mouth. But, the reason that people lined up to watch him play was that he put everything he had into playing the game. If it was a deathmatch, look out! John threw a constant barrage of taunts, screams and other sounds at the opposing players. One day I noticed how quiet things got while people were gathering to watch and I decided to do some pensive music to go with such times. Thus, the song became "Waiting For Romero To Play." John has now left id Software to form his own company. There are better players at id, but none of them will ever have people lining up in anticipation of watching them play as John did. I know that id Software will sorely miss the manic energy that John Romero provided.
Map01	1818 KB	Running From Evil	d_runnin
Map07	2039 KB	Shawn's Got The Shotgun	d_shawn
Map02	2306 KB	The Healer Stalks	d_stalks
Map28	2234 KB	Getting Too Tense	d_tense
Map06	3297 KB	In The Dark	d_the_da
Map32	642 KB	The Ultimate Challenge/The Ultimate Conquest	d_ultima