Quake 1 music: PC vs N64

Which one is better in your opinion? PC soundtrack by Trent Reznor or N64 one by Aubrey Hodges?

Good question becasue I've grown up with both versions. Quake 64 was a very solid port and the music fit in very well. I think I'll side with Trent's efforts, but Aubry's music is good too.

Main theme and a couple of random level tracks from each.

Trent:

Aubrey:

I always played the game without the CD, so I have no idea.

Trent Reznor wins for me but I really love Aubrey Hodges' work.

Do any of you know how to make similar music than Aubrey? I'd really like to learn how to make dark ambient tracks through his work (precision: I am a noob at music making).

Your best bet would be looking up MOD trackers.

I'd probably go for Trent's here, it's more nostalgic for me. Sounds like Aubrey has done a good job, too, though.

K!r4 said:

Trent Reznor wins for me but I really love Aubrey Hodges' work.

Do any of you know how to make similar music than Aubrey? I'd really like to learn how to make dark ambient tracks through his work (precision: I am a noob at music making).

I can sorta do his style but I can't exactly tell you how...just gotta study it and imitate it... Any music program would be able to do it, you just gotta have the ear for it. Personally, I prefer to use Reason 4 to make his style of dark ambient music as there are more sound choices and it's flexible. Cakewalk can do it, too, if you have the right soundfonts. Really, you just gotta practice, like with anything else.

Thanks for the tips guys! I experimented a bit following pcorf's explanation of how he makes dark ambient on another topic and I start to like this. Using Audacity and an obscure software to stretch samples ATM . I should try Reason soon.

I love pc Quake's music the most, I also love this track:

I'd forgotten all about Quake64's music being different, let alone having been composed by Aubrey Hodges.

I'm definitely feeling nostalgic for Aubry's music. I'd forgotten how ambient it really was.

Trent's music had a huge impact on my impression of the game and my overall feelings about Quake, so I'm going with that. Aubrey's sounds excellent though, I'd not heard any of it before.

Glad I never played Quake with the original soundtrack. Aside from being pretty much non-music it's completely out of touch with the fast-paced action that I remember from Quake.

Metallica's Load was my usual choice for Quake sessions.

Belial said:

Metallica's Load was my usual choice for Quake sessions.

I'd have to play on an empty stomach.

Belial said:

Glad I never played Quake with the original soundtrack. Aside from being pretty much non-music it's completely out of touch with the fast-paced action that I remember from Quake.

You should try at least once. It gives a very atmospheric and desperate feel to the lovecraftian world of Quake.

Aubrey's stuff fits the vibe of Quake, in a badly-done-generic-ripoff-of-NIN sort of way, but the sheer production quality and attitude of Reznor's title track alone outdoes Aubrey's entire library, in my opinion. However, Reznor rarely gives you anything you can "jam" to and say "fuck yes" as you destroy your way through the game's inter-dimensional hordes, and Aubrey's ambient repertoire is admirable. The two soundtracks aren't miles apart.

Some people think the kinda-sorta ambient feel of the vast majority of Reznor's tracks for Quake are a stroke of brilliance. Personally, I just see it as an expression of how much money it would have cost for Reznor to make an entire game's worth of music as amazing as the game's title track. This was in-between Downward Spiral and the Fragile -- Reznor was on top of the world both critically and commercially. id was rolling in the dough also, but no game development studio would pay Reznor's fee, whatever it was, to complete even an hour's worth of real NIN-quality productions for their game. In the end, that's what killed the DOOM 3 deal, also.

Anyway, despite my disappointment in Reznor's ambient music on Quake (for an example of this that works better, DOOM 64/PSX is amazing), I give it the edge over Aubrey's tracks, with no reservations, as Aubrey's music sounds amateur on a number of fronts, at least when he goes non-ambient.

As much as I'll always love Trent's work on PC Quake, after listening to a bunch of Aubrey's tracks I'm completely undecided. They're both great. I'm still amazed how I'd forgotten about them. Should be a poll option for those of us who can't make these kinds of decisions.

Belial said:

Metallica's Load was my usual choice for Quake sessions.

I get that ambient drones aren't everyone's cup of tea, but why are you listening to that album... at all?

Mogul said:

However, Reznor rarely gives you anything you can "jam" to and say "fuck yes" as you destroy your way through the game's inter-dimensional hordes

I don't buy your theory that Trent only did as much work as he was paid to do, and I don't think it was ever intended to make a rockin' soundtrack besides the main theme. It's minimalistic, and it works perfectly in my opinion.

I've never played the N64 version, though I didn't know what the jusic was like, but the ambient tracks there are actually pretty good. However, while I've never really listened to Quake either due to not having the cd in when playing or however that worked, I was never really used to his either.

However, I think I like Trent's just a bit more.

I wonder if a soundfont could be extracted from the Quake 64 tracks like Doom64EX does with the Doom 64 soundtrack? That would be very cool.

Mogul: given how great Aubrey Hodges' MIDI soundtrack for Quest for Glory IV is, I don't think "amateur" is an accurate description.

I am specifically referring to his work on Quake 64, which you still may disagree with me on. But really, listen to the main menu music from Aubrey. There's so much there that sounds amateurish. At the moment I really don't feel like going much more in-depth than that but I guess I can if it appears further explanation is required.

DoomUK said:

I get that ambient drones aren't everyone's cup of tea, but why are you listening to that album... at all?

Because it's my favorite Metallica album.

Belial said:

Because it's my favorite Metallica album.

You must have gone deaf before June 4, 1996.

Sounds like this is what inspired the entire Half-Life soundtrack, lol

Orchid87 said:

Sounds like this is what inspired the entire Half-Life soundtrack, lol

I'm not really seeing the resemblance.

That is one of my favorite Quake tracks, though. One of the few times a game has made me feel genuinely disturbed was playing E1M2 with that music in the background for the first time.

Dragonsbrethren said:

I'm not really seeing the resemblance.

Because you've cherry picked the least similar tracks out of HL?

Just a random sampling.

Having played through Half Life I don't remember much resemblance to Quake's music myself.

I've never heard either soundtrack. Whenever I would play Quake, I always put in a different CD... either Robert Miles "Dreamland" or Die Krupps "Rings Of Steel". I always felt that the game had plenty of atmosphere on its own, with its creepy designs and background sounds.

Eponasoft said:

I've never heard either soundtrack. Whenever I would play Quake, I always put in a different CD... either Robert Miles "Dreamland" or Die Krupps "Rings Of Steel". I always felt that the game had plenty of atmosphere on its own, with its creepy designs and background sounds.

What's great about Quake is that is has plenty of background ambient sounds. It's probably the first shooter ever to have this feature. And because of that it's fine without any music. Jaguar Doom, for example, felt too empty without the music.

AndrewB said:

I always played the game without the CD, so I have no idea.

THIS! My first response to this thread was, Q1 had music? Huh?