Why Heretic megawads/levelpacks mostly lack custom music tracks?

Hi!
I've already played a couple of DOOM2 megawads. In the most part, the levels in the megawads included its custom music track (MIDI) that was playing in the level and was supposed to fit the level. Mostly the music was from a different game (Duke3D, ROTT, Heretic,Hexen etc.), it was MIDI version of some existing song, or in the best case, it was a music originally composed for that particular level (like in Plutonia 2).
I can say that a good or well-chosen custom music adds really much value to the level and for me it makes half of the gaming experience because I like to listen to something new.

Then I also played several Heretic megawads/levelpacks. There is not as much of them as for Doom, but I played some good ones, like:
- Hordes of Chaos X
- Curse of D'Sparil
- Heretic Treasure Chest
- and some I cannot recall the names of.
Contrarily to the Doom megawads, the new Heretic levels mostly did not have any custom music and either reused the native Heretic music, or sometimes there was a music from closely related game (Hexen, Hexen 2, sometimes Doom). I wonder - why? Listening still to the well-known music over again bores me and takes down the gameplay experience for me.

I have some idea. There is not so much medeival-themed music available that would fit the Heretic levels (Doom being more "generic" in terms of music that's fitting its levels) and the composers are not so good or willing to make music for Heretic.
But I actually think there can be some good music found. For example I heard MIDI version of the music playing in some Doom level: https://youtu.be/4sgWbtU8oqE?t=15m10s . I think this, or some other track from that game, could fit Heretic.
I also got an idea. I really think that The Curse of D'Sparil really deserves its original composed soundtrack. Like Plutonia MIDI Pack was made several years ago.

Have you played Realm of Parthoris? That had nearly all new music.

You mentioned the Plutonia MIDI Pack, but that was an IWAD and MIDI packs for PWADs seem to be very niche and it's up for debate whether it's worth the time involved. It took us a year to make the Revolution! MIDI Pack, and so far it's sailed right under the radar.

Eris Falling said:

It took us a year to make the Revolution! MIDI Pack, and so far it's sailed right under the radar.

Well I like it.

Eris Falling said:

Have you played Realm of Parthoris? That had nearly all new music.

Thank you for this tip! I actually didn't have opportunity to check for more recent stuff as I still have many existing things to play on my queue. For example I still did not finish all episodes of HOCX. But I will definitely favour that Realm of Parthoris just for the presence of custom music. I'm curius how good the levels will be, hope at least the quality of Curse of D'Sparil.

I can say that I owned Plutonia IWAD many years earlier, but did not play through it back then because without custom music it really bored me. When I recently found out about the Plutonia midi pack, I played through all Plutonia with passion and some of the tracks really very impressed me.
But for me the original compositions are not really necessarily needed, it's pretty good enough when some existing music is used and well-chosen for the levels. It's a pity the authors of good Heretic wads (like Curse, HOCX) didn't even bother doing that.

other Doom engine games aren't as popular as Doom is. they're acknowledged, but the amount of custom stuff for Heretic, Hexen and Strife is not as frequent as it is for Doom.

furthermore, like you mentioned, Heretic has a very different "style" than Doom, you can't just put any MIDI in Heretic and it would work like you can with Doom. Heretic's OST is pretty iconic, so that's probably why it's reused all the time, and i can't imagine a Duke 3D MIDI working well at all with Heretic's fantasy setting. so with the lack of custom levels and interest in modding Heretic comes a lack of original music composed specifically for Heretic (Realms of Parthoris is probably the only one that has that so far.)

also, making custom music packs doesn't seem to hold as much interest as other custom resources like textures, sprites and misc graphics do. i've contributed to 3 MIDI packs myself for specific mapsets, and i hear people talking about it... occasionally? maybe? does anyone care if it's not a new project that has levels in it? it seems to be all about "make maps or bust" more or less.

As Viscra says music packs are not as common as maps or textures etc- they do indeed take a lot of work to make, just ask Jimmy!
But there are plenty of midi resources around the place, just try scouting Vgmusic for example and you'll find hundreds of candidates! :)