Ancient Aliens OST on Bandcamp

So I decided to put the complete midi soundtrack on Bandcamp (rendered just through the normal microsoft wavetable thingy) so that people can listen to it if they want!

https://stuartrynn.bandcamp.com/album/doom-ancient-aliens-ost

It's free to download but if you really enjoy listening to it while playing the wad I wouldn't say no to a few dollars :)

The midis themselves can be found here, if anyone wants to use them in their own maps then knock yourself out, as long as you credit me somewhere :)

Hey, just wanna say I really liked the music for AA and I think it's really cool when someone composes a custom total soundtrack for a megawad; it certainly enriches the experience. I will definitely be downloading this and as long as the payment thing is relatively simple, at least enough for me to be able to figure out, heh, I'll throw a few bucks your way. I believe in supporting fellow artists and especially musicians, from my time in a local band.

Great job, once again, on this soundtrack!

Excellent! Don't have any means of dropping a few bucks on it atm, but I definitely will when I'm able to do so.

For some reason I find it funny that the endmap's track is longer than every other track in the OST, with the exception of The Greater Good :P

Just dropped off 5 bucks into this thing, great job man.

Went ahead and purchased, you starving artist, you. Really is one of the best soundtracks out there.

You sir are like, very nice :D

Unfortunately, I do not have the ability to give out money at this time but trust me, it IS worth it :)

Thank you for your hard work.

Guess I can get rid of my crappy midi to mp3 conversions ^^

Very, very cool!

On a related note, I'd pay good money to be able to get the BTSX soundtracks in the same format...

stewboy said:

(rendered just through the normal microsoft wavetable thingy)

why? :(

At least use VSC. Or get someone with an SC-55 to render them?

I'm assuming they were written for it? Which makes sense, because it's the most common soundfont.

This is so good! Thank you!

What about rendering them with a mid or high range soundfont instead of the generic MS wavetable?

Great! MAP02 MIDI is just gorgeous.

Glaice said:

What about rendering them with a mid or high range soundfont instead of the generic MS wavetable?

Well, a lot of soundfonts have different volume levels or timbres compared to the MS wavetable synth, so I can understand not wanting to do that. The MS synth is basically just a reduced-quality version of the SC-55 though, with no reverb or chorus, so I'd expect a real SC-55 to sound fine with these songs, or pretty much anything made with the MS synth in mind.

That said I haven't actually played AA yet, had enough to do and play + waiting for a more finalized release and/or DWMC play, so I haven't gone and done any comparisons or anything. And I'd expect stewboy probably knows what he's doing, so maybe it really does sound better (or at least more correct) to him this way.

Glaice said:

What about rendering them with a mid or high range soundfont instead of the generic MS wavetable?

MIDI music usually sounds best with the instruments that were used when it was composed and mixed. Otherwise you end up with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5eb15oY2Fw

esselfortium said:

Otherwise you end up with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5eb15oY2Fw

I'm sorry what were you saying?

having the OST rendered with a SC-55 would've been nice, but this sounds fine as it is, anyway. there's no real substitute you can use that doesn't sound completely awful: it generally works for more classic compositions, but most Doom music actually uses the Microsoft synth's sound to its advantage, and there's generally little exception to this rule.

plums said:

Well, a lot of soundfonts have different volume levels or timbres compared to the MS wavetable synth, so I can understand not wanting to do that. The MS synth is basically just a reduced-quality version of the SC-55 though, with no reverb or chorus, so I'd expect a real SC-55 to sound fine with these songs, or pretty much anything made with the MS synth in mind.

That said I haven't actually played AA yet, had enough to do and play + waiting for a more finalized release and/or DWMC play, so I haven't gone and done any comparisons or anything. And I'd expect stewboy probably knows what he's doing, so maybe it really does sound better (or at least more correct) to him this way.

Yeah, I do tend to write with the Microsoft synth in mind, I kind of enjoy playing around with the limited instruments and seeing what I can do. But people will apply what soundfonts they will, it's fine. As long as they don't then complain of balance issues :P

esselfortium said:

MIDI music usually sounds best with the instruments that were used when it was composed and mixed. Otherwise you end up with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5eb15oY2Fw

Sorry. At the time I didn't know how to mix shit, and I thought that I could slap any instrument there and call it a day. By the time I did episode two I was a bit better and more conscious about those two things, although by now I hate both 'remasters', it taught me a lot about musical production which I am thankful for, so, thank you guys for making a kickass sounding soundtrack that inspired me to get better even if I butchered the sound of everything.



I'm still going to do episode three.

Doomhuntress said:

having the OST rendered with a SC-55 would've been nice, but this sounds fine as it is, anyway. there's no real substitute you can use that doesn't sound completely awful: it generally works for more classic compositions, but most Doom music actually uses the Microsoft synth's sound to its advantage, and there's generally little exception to this rule.

A little confused by the underlined. No real substitute for Microsoft's crappy default MIDI synth? 'Cuz stewboy's work always sounded real nice run through BASSMIDI and 8MBGMSFX.sf2 or this SF2 variant of EAWPATS somebody at the ZDoom forums made. Though, really, if you made the MIDI to sound good for the Microsoft MIDI synth as a baseline, then IMO it'll sound pretty good with almost any decent soundfont out there as well.

I mean, there are exceptions, I guess. 8MBGMSFX.sf2 makes MAP12/D_THEDA2 from Hell Revealed 2 sound like this. (Though car screeches would be an interesting choice of percussion...)

Shadow Hog said:

A little confused by the underlined. No real substitute for Microsoft's crappy default MIDI synth? 'Cuz stewboy's work always sounded real nice run through BASSMIDI and 8MBGMSFX.sf2 or this SF2 variant of EAWPATS somebody at the ZDoom forums made. Though, really, if you made the MIDI to sound good for the Microsoft MIDI synth as a baseline, then IMO it'll sound pretty good with almost any decent soundfont out there as well.

I mean, there are exceptions, I guess. 8MBGMSFX.sf2 makes MAP12/D_THEDA2 from Hell Revealed 2 sound like this. (Though car screeches would be an interesting choice of percussion...)

I disagree entirely. Like stewboy, I write my midis for the standard SoundCanvas-based Windows midi instrument set, and I've yet to find any "higher-quality" soundfont replacement that does anything but ruin them entirely. Instrument timbres will be different in undesirable ways, the mixing balance will be different which often causes instruments to get buried, and so on. Even in the rare best-case scenarios, the result has been "well, that's only slightly worse".

Yeah, I suppose we do disagree entirely, then, since I find the stock Windows MIDI software to be one of the worst out there (way too many missing controllers, audio's delayed by a noticeable amount compared to other drivers, low bitrate, no GM2 support, and Microsoft removing the option to change to different drivers from the Control Panel).

Not to knock the Roland SC-55 instrument set, it's fine enough; I just think Microsoft's implementation of it is terrible.

Of course, part of that's also probably me using 8MBGMSFX.sf2 since 2001 or so (first with Sound Blaster cards with native soundfont support like the Live! or Audigy 2 ZS, and then with software solutions with BASSMIDI when I stopped using dedicated sound cards), so it's what sounds "default" to me.

Shadow Hog said:

I mean, there are exceptions, I guess. 8MBGMSFX.sf2 makes MAP12/D_THEDA2 from Hell Revealed 2 sound like this. (Though car screeches would be an interesting choice of percussion...)

That's actually how it's supposed to sound.

LIstening to this soundtrack, there's some pretty charming tracks here!

Shadow Hog said:

A little confused by the underlined. No real substitute for Microsoft's crappy default MIDI synth? 'Cuz stewboy's work always sounded real nice run through BASSMIDI and 8MBGMSFX.sf2 or this SF2 variant of EAWPATS somebody at the ZDoom forums made. Though, really, if you made the MIDI to sound good for the Microsoft MIDI synth as a baseline, then IMO it'll sound pretty good with almost any decent soundfont out there as well.

I mean, there are exceptions, I guess. 8MBGMSFX.sf2 makes MAP12/D_THEDA2 from Hell Revealed 2 sound like this. (Though car screeches would be an interesting choice of percussion...)

eh, not really though. i've tried several soundfonts in the past, and while some stuff sounds okay, the general consensus when i was playing with most Doom music was "this actually hurts my head." the Microsoft synth has never hurt my head, and most of everything sounds okay with it. i do think that the particular soundfont you mentioned is the best substitute i can find, though, but even then, some instruments aren't quite right. i'd honestly try BassMIDI again if it didn't give me oodles of problems when i tried using it, specifically failing to initialize after having used it some time, which makes the thing completely useless for me.

Just want to say that my kids (the two who aren't yet teenagers predisposed to hating everything) can't get enough of "Desk Lamp" and make me play it for them all the time. :D

Salt-Man Z said:

Just want to say that my kids (the two who aren't yet teenagers predisposed to hating everything) can't get enough of "Desk Lamp" and make me play it for them all the time. :D

Wow... I'm really flattered to hear that! Thank you :)

stewboy is 'Desk Lamp' from Sunlust? it sounds very familiar...

Yep! Almost a third of the tracks are reused from other projects.

I hate to bump this, but I have a DMX player app thing using ADL for Android and would love to have the midis from this. Given that I can't figure out how to open WAD files directly, and no tool for Android exists to do this,i can't get very far.

esselfortium said:

MIDI music usually sounds best with the instruments that were used when it was composed and mixed. Otherwise you end up with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5eb15oY2Fw

Is it wrong that I kinda like this? I mean, it's obviously not the original track, but it still sounds good to me.