The Imp's Song/Dark Halls - D_E1M2.mus and D_E1M3.mus Mixes

http://www.solarstudios.net/MP3/Imp.html

- it's a bit of an experiment with phases and synthesised strings. The strings are designed to sound more or less technical/Doomy. Both are synthesised, not just the synth strings part (right channel).

Feedback is welcome, if enough people like this, there might be more.

I actually kind of do like this. I'd change the bass though, maybe something more wet. I really like your take on the strings. I'd love to see your take on other ambient tunes in Doom 1.

Reminds of some sort of central air system or mechanical saws for some reason.

The bass is synthesised (modelled), which is why it doesn't cut through as well as a real thing (which, like most fretted instruments, tends to detune away from open string notes). Its slap lick does pull through in the 96/24 mix, which you can download by clicking on the image. This is about as good as it gets for MP3 really though, and there's a lot thrown on the bass track to make it stand out (EQ, saturation, etc.).

There's a "claustrophobic" effect because the strings and claves and one part of the bass are mixed out of phase. That sounds more like a "cave-in", the drums are in phase and more cheerful because of that.

It is meant to sound industrial and reminiscent of fans and pumps and such in a nuclear station.

Sodaholic: the bass could be more wet, but then it becomes more spacious and the claustrophobic effect is lost. That's why it has an inverted-phase copy of itself mixed in. Some sort of effect might highlight the metallic part of the slap, but it does come through in 96 KHz, it's more an issue of low-res and MP3 that the harmonics are damaged and the space/slap are flattened...

Since you've asked...

http://www.solarstudios.net/MP3/Darkhalls.html

- D_E1M3.mus. This is final, and pretty much set in stone...

S-Priest said:

Since you've asked...

http://www.solarstudios.net/MP3/Darkhalls.html

- D_E1M3.mus. This is final, and pretty much set in stone...

I'd lower the resonance on that bass if I were you, it sounds like bubbles.

Good mixes altogether though.

It's a refinery. Hence the "petrol bass".

There is more, D_E2M2.mus, D_E2M8.mus, and D_Victor.mus mixes... That last one didn't come out too good, hence it won't get online.

No guitar mixes for now, since there's no decent guitar sampler (yet). There is a free synth that can do good guitar emulation, but it doesn't quite fit, as the (real) guitar has to be tuned down, to C or B. Metal tuning.

MP3 compression does something to ambience, original files don't sound as flat. The original mixes are 96/32, and noticeably more expressive.

Hit the images to download 96/24 FLAC files, those play decently.

Yep, the "real" 96/24 FLAC mix bass is deeper and more impressive, and overall everything sounds like it's playing somewhere, rather than just flat instrument contours as in the MP3 file.

Synth guitars never sound like the real thing and sampled guitars are either too lo-fi sounding or not flexible enough because of cheap recording software.

However, running a standard synth patch through various pedals and amps usually produces a pretty realistic guitar sound.
Something to keep in mind.

Well... Here's something to give you an idea...

http://www.solarstudios.net/Music/Chap_2R.flac

The muted guitar is my own G-310 fed through a Marshall Jackhammer. Sampled. With decent microphones off a Marshall guitar amp. It's only the song's notes sampled, but it does sound like a guitar rather than the queer plasticky stuff in most people's mixes.

The distorted guitar part is played by the Zynaddsub-FX soft synth with some fancier effects on top (guitar cab emu without a guitar cab plugin, pretty much).

It's just not a "doomy" sound, Doom sort of requires something more spatial yet growly and powerful.

The pseudo-guitar stack is simply a Zynaddsub-FX guitar patch, modified and fed through a bit more powerful built-in overdrive. The effects on top are Spline EQ doing a Celestion G12H speaker frequency response (it's what Tony Iommi has in his guitar cabs) and a free Naive LPF on top to emulate guitar speaker lag. Sounds better than any guitar amp plugin. And the only paid bit here is the Spline EQ VST plugin, which is $20.

IMHO the main problem with mainstream guitar samplers is, they've guitars tuned thin, to the standard acoustic EADGBE setup. Whereas metal bands tune several steps lower, to C, B, C#, even down to F#. This obviously is a thicker, more powerful sound. And nobody really records cabs correctly (the dynamic must be on-axis and very close, like 2 cm. away from the mesh, the condenser also ought to be more or less close), unless they're specialised rock/metal sound engineers (which strangely don't often make samplers).

If there's enough interest in a goodie-sounding electric guitar like this...

http://www.solarstudios.net/SG/Amplugged.ogg
http://www.solarstudios.net/SG/Villstep-Full.ogg

Then the sampler could be made. Frankly the only thing that's been pulling one off pulling it off is the amount of work involved (22*6=132 notes, multiply by 6 and that's 792 individual wave files which have to be cut and mixed out of a dual microphone feed). It would be a fairly large sampler as well, of course (decay time on the muted sampler for Hexen tracks was limited to 15 seconds). But realistic, needless to say.

Now if you or anyone would be interested in using that, for, say, Doom music, it could be made. You could have it for free, anyone else though would have to buy the thing (there's no way an amount of work like that is going to be done for free, otherwise).

That's quite a bit of work to make a fully sampled guitar patch for people -- especially for free.
IMO, if someone really wanted a realistic-sounding guitar sampler, they should just buy a real guitar instead. It'd save them the trouble of hunting down a quality sample pack.

Do you sample your own drums as well?

It wouldn't be free. The sampler could be free for whoever works on Doom/related music. But the sampler would go on sale - not too expensive, either.

A real guitar is noticeably more expensive than a sampler, besides there're advantages for composers who can just edit notes in a sequencer. Offline, without spending money and effort to set up a decent guitar recording rig.

All the drums/percussion in these mixes, also in Hexen/Mageslayer soundtracks, are original. Check out the Hexen soundtrack page for an idea of what all the percussion sounds like - there're MP3 players there.

The drumkit sampler right now is in beta (being tested by a composer and a drummer, among other things), but it will be commercial.

Samplers can be a lot of trouble to create, once they're operational though, it's bliss. Six toms instead of regular three is wonderful. The composer even said 12 would be better, one per each note.

Here's how it plays, these are dampened toms:

http://www.solarstudios.net/MP3/Campfire.html

These are not splashy-powerful like rock toms (and they likely will be absent from the commercial release), but then that's what works for the particular style.

Hearing The Imp Song now, it's really eerie, takes well the scary fell of the original track... great job!

Eerie? It sounded cheerful in a doomy way... In-game it certainly sets the pace.

Hmm. Kind of a mix of Genesis and SNES.

Just gave the 24/96 version a listen. I do the like the sound of the strings - they're probably my favourite bit. The wood block sounds kinda shrill. The instrument for the second verse(?) harmony, on the left channel, sounds very strange - almost percussive, and like the sound is clipping. I think I'd find it difficult to register the harmony if I wasn't already familiar with the piece. Why have the drums over to the right? The whole thing sounds a bit jumbled once everything is in play for the third verse. I'm not sure about the muted bass. I suppose I'd like the track more with a more open sound - seems rather closed in and veiled as it is - but since that's not what you trying to achieve you probably needn't worry about that. Anyway, I hope this isn't discouraging - it's great that people are still reinterpreting these pieces, and a hi-res download is always welcome :)

It's not a woodblock, it is claves. There's a bitcrusher effect on them, so the patch sounds a bit weird, but then that's the intention. Doesn't sound shrill at all here though.

The left-channel instrument must be the chorused saw lead. It's meant to remind of the imp clawing/dancing.

The bass isn't muted, it's actually slapped. It gets somewhat lost, but then again, it used to go too spatial unless it was muted by its own inverted-phase part. The idea is for the piece to sound claustrophobic/ambiental. Somehow like the level.

The drums are actually spread all over the place, the bass kick plays slightly to the left, and the snare to the right, with hi-hat in the left/middle. It's all rather subtle/darkish and reverberated to play "in the hall".

It did translate well to Doomsday soundtrack for Doom, as a 320-kbps MP3 file. Strangely it sounds more open in-game.

Try it yourself, download the files and drop to \Doomsday\Data\JDoom\Music

http://www.solarstudios.net/MP3/D_E1M2.mp3
http://www.solarstudios.net/MP3/D_E1M3.mp3

It really is weird, but the MP3 compression makes it sound less shut-in in-game, which says a lot about erasing harmonics and poor space definition in a 44-KHz lossy format... It's even cheerful. Sort of the Doom equivalent of flowers in the morning. Which in this case would be an imp dancing in a nuclear powerplant...