Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
Man of Doom

Mick Gordon unlikely to work on another Doom game after Eternal’s OST release

Recommended Posts

11 hours ago, Gez said:

metadata

Forbidden knowledge of a long forgotten race.
Otherwise there would not be question "Mick, this spectrogram locks different", only "Mick, who is this second guy from the 'Artist' field?"

Share this post


Link to post

I’ve had my suspicions about Mick’s methods and time management ever since the noclip interview and his GDC presentation. His experimentation with old synthesizers, feedback loops, and gain stack creation are commendable, but it does give off a slight whiff of pretentiousness when he drones on about these Rube Goldberg Machines he creates that amount to little more than some distorted fart sounds. Compound that with all his cute little Easter eggs and symbolic stuff he spends his time stuffing into his music, he’s always struck me as a pretty inefficient artist.

 

Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that... whatever you need to get inspired and as long as the end result is finished and up to quality standards it’s all in good fun and fair game IMO. But as we can see here, that’s not always the case.

 

 Bottom line is there is absolutely no excuse he could possibly give that would justify him only delivering 2 tracks in a 3 month period. If it’s because he had to restructure and write new parts of songs to make a coherent track, well that’s on him. He should have been more organized  in the beginning to account for this music eventually becoming tracks people listen to in an album format. Chad arranged something like 40 tracks in 3 weeks after all. Guys on YouTube arranged versions within a week of the game dropping. What does Mick finally produce after 4 and a half months including the extensions? 12 tracks of mostly ambient meandering noise. 

Edited by Obzen

Share this post


Link to post

I know there's still some songs that are unused, just barely used or not used entirely, like some classic Doom OST remakes or that Doom 3 one.

Still, it will feel odd simply seeing his music being used after quitting.

At least we got Andrew Hulshult and maybe even other composers like Jimmy.

Something i fear is them being forced to copy Mick's style or being put through restrictions on what they can or cannot do.

 

A reason why Mick's OST works was because he built it with the universe/setting in mind,

Like the Kar En Tuk chants and the singing for Urdak.

Share this post


Link to post

The thing is, we don’t even know if the DLC is getting a new composer, just that Mick won’t be doing the soundtrack for it.
 

I mean, hell, I won’t even mind if it turns out that they just reuse the soundtrack from the original campaign (and for all we know, there’s unused stuff that we may not have even heard before; check the E3 2018 teaser and the QuakeCon 2018 footage to see what I mean). 

 

4 hours ago, whatup876 said:

A reason why Mick's OST works was because he built it with the universe/setting in mind,

Like the Kar En Tuk chants and the singing for Urdak.


Yep, that’s exactly it. Part of why 2016’s soundtrack is essentially lightning in a bottle is because Mick was able to create a distinct sound for both 2016 and Eternal (hell, take a look at his GDC 2017 speech where he basically shows that there’s a very distinct difference between just creating music for a Doom game and creating a distinct sound for a Doom game). 
 

4 hours ago, whatup876 said:

Something i fear is them being forced to copy Mick's style or being put through restrictions on what they can or cannot do.


Yeah, that’s another thing to think about. If they do find another composer, I feel like it might go one of two ways:

-That the DLC soundtrack will sound like something from an entirely different game and it might end up clashing with neo-Doom’s aesthetic (for example, there’s more CHUGGA CHUGGA CHUGGA that basically throws all restraint out the window; a thing that Mick’s surprisingly good at when going full metal/djent is showing restraint and it’s why tracks like “Flesh & Metal” and “BFG Division” are so audibly striking)

-That the composer will basically be forced to emulate Mick or ape his style so that they end up pigeonholed into doing something they may not be comfortable with or suited for

 

Besides, if there’s a composer that I think could be up for the task, it’s Martin Stig Andersen; he actually worked alongside Mick to do part of the soundtrack for The New Colossus as well as did work on Wolf: Youngblood.

 

7 hours ago, Obzen said:

Bottom line is there is absolutely no excuse he could possibly give that would justify him only delivering 2 tracks in a 3 month period. If it’s because he had to restructure and write new parts of songs to make a coherent track, well that’s on him. He should have been more organized  in the beginning to account for this music eventually becoming tracks people listen to in an album format.


Yeah, no. The thing is, the job to basically mix and cobble together tracks for an entire OST was kind of piled on him last-minute due to the game being delayed and whatnot.
Supposedly they were going to do the mixing in-house, but then changed their minds after the release got pushed to March. Besides, it’s not just the restructuring and writing new material for tracks that require time, it’s the mixing that needs to be done as well to make it sound as dynamic as possible.

 

EDIT: This shit right here broke me

 

Edited by Man of Doom

Share this post


Link to post
5 hours ago, Man of Doom said:

Yeah, no. The thing is, the job to basically mix and cobble together tracks for an entire OST was kind of piled on him last-minute due to the game being delayed and whatnot.
Supposedly they were going to do the mixing in-house, but then changed their minds after the release got pushed to March. Besides, it’s not just the restructuring and writing new material for tracks that require time, it’s the mixing that needs to be done as well to make it sound as dynamic as possible.

 

 

 

I used to be a runner at a recording studio. Average turn around to mix and master a whole album (45-65 minutes worth of music) is about 2 weeks, and that's with a mastering engineer juggling a couple projects. The time he was given was ample given the job. It does not take 3 months to mix and master a whole OST worth of music, let alone 2 songs. Again, there is absolutely no excuse to why it took him so long. I am a huge Mick Gordon fan and life-long guitarist, he inspired me to get out of my comfort zone and dig deeper into synthesizers. I bought the Limited Edition Vinyl because I loved the 2016 soundtrack so much. I would LOVE to be wrong about this, but the timeline simply doesn't make sense. I know how long these things take, and If what Marty says is true, it it's a very bad look for Mick.

Edited by Obzen

Share this post


Link to post
5 hours ago, Man of Doom said:

Yeah, no. The thing is, the job to basically mix and cobble together tracks for an entire OST was kind of piled on him last-minute due to the game being delayed and whatnot.

 

That doesn't correspond with what Marty says in the letter. He says that at the time of E3 last year, they didn't yet have him *contracted* to do the OST because of ongoing issues they were already having in receiving the music (ergo, Mick was already working on it at that time) and they didn't want to add the distraction at the time. Mick didn't sign the contract until January this year, but that doesn't mean he wasn't already working on it. 

 

Besides, they even announced at the Eternal reveal (back at Quakecon 2018) that Mick would be doing the music again, so it's not like they hadn't discussed it, and it certainly wasn't dropped on him 'last minute'.

 

@Obzen I'm just wondering what exactly led to the situation. It seems quite clear that Mick had trouble delivering the OST even though he had ample time, but why? It's not like he hasn't delivered lengthy, comprehensive soundtracks of stellar, top-notch quality plenty of times in the past. Why the trouble now? Was he overworked and experiencing creative burn-out? Going through some personal issues in life that made it difficult to work? I personally have experienced all those things before and know how difficult they can make things. I would still be interested in hearing from Mick what exactly happened on his end.

Edited by Caffeine Freak

Share this post


Link to post
14 minutes ago, Caffeine Freak said:

 

@Obzen I'm just wondering what exactly led to the situation. It seems quite clear that Mick had trouble delivering the OST even though he had ample time, but why? It's not like he hasn't delivered lengthy, comprehensive soundtracks of stellar, top-notch quality plenty of times in the past. Why the trouble now? Was he overworked and experiencing creative burn-out? Going through some personal issues in life that made it difficult to work? I personally have experienced all those things before and know how difficult they can make things. I would still be interested in hearing from Mick what exactly happened on his end.

 

It's hard to say without knowing the guy. Was he working on multiple projects at the same time? How far behind was he on supplying the core game tracks in January when he accepted to mix and master the OST for the Collector's Edition? We honestly won't know until he says something. One thing to keep in mind is this isn't the first time this has happened with him. How quick we forget this exact same discussion happening when he was dropped for missing deadlines for Killer Instinct Season 3...

 

KI-mick-fired.png

Share this post


Link to post

He generally is known to take a lot of time composing his tracks however.

 

Note that Doom 2016's OST was released 4 months later. So yes, this was already pointed and gestured at. Nothing new really, honestly.

Share this post


Link to post
1 hour ago, Caffeine Freak said:

Was he overworked and experiencing creative burn-out?

That kind of would be my guess, as it brings the whole "doubtful I'd work on Doom soundtracks again" in a different light.

Share this post


Link to post
6 hours ago, Caffeine Freak said:

It seems quite clear that Mick had trouble delivering the OST even though he had ample time, but why? It's not like he hasn't delivered lengthy, comprehensive soundtracks of stellar, top-notch quality plenty of times in the past. Why the trouble now? Was he overworked and experiencing creative burn-out?

 

This is what I've been wondering. On top of DOOM 2016, he's done three Wolfenstein games, two seasons of Killer Instinct and most of Prey (regardless of what I think of the game, the soundtrack was amazing) -- it's not like he can't deliver. And I think his social media comments that led to this thread are being parsed wrong; he feels bad, but the assumption early on that he was hard done-to was the biggest mistake. Perhaps he feels bad because, boy knows he done fucked-up. And the 'doubt' over working on DOOM again? Could just be his depressed ass thinking "why would they even bother with me when I failed them like this?".

Before the usual low-standard of reading comprehension I expect from the Internet kicks in, I have not said this definitely happened. Only people who can know that for sure are those involved. But damn, a lot of people turned a nasty 180 on Mick here and it's awful to see. Our boy's not beyond reproach for sure, but this is probably (nay, almost definitely) more delicate a matter than is being portrayed, still.

Share this post


Link to post

Seconding Jayextee. I hate to see how Mick is being antagonized since Marty wrote the open letter - not just here on DW, but all over the Internet. It only goes to show that people online tend to jump to conclusions way too quickly. Besides, Mick hasn't said anything on his own behalf as of yet, and until he does, the crux of the whole situation is still open to speculation. There are two sides to every story.

Share this post


Link to post
On 5/9/2020 at 4:48 AM, Jayextee said:

 

This is what I've been wondering. On top of DOOM 2016, he's done three Wolfenstein games, two seasons of Killer Instinct and most of Prey (regardless of what I think of the game, the soundtrack was amazing) -- it's not like he can't deliver. And I think his social media comments that led to this thread are being parsed wrong; he feels bad, but the assumption early on that he was hard done-to was the biggest mistake. Perhaps he feels bad because, boy knows he done fucked-up. And the 'doubt' over working on DOOM again? Could just be his depressed ass thinking "why would they even bother with me when I failed them like this?".

Before the usual low-standard of reading comprehension I expect from the Internet kicks in, I have not said this definitely happened. Only people who can know that for sure are those involved. But damn, a lot of people turned a nasty 180 on Mick here and it's awful to see. Our boy's not beyond reproach for sure, but this is probably (nay, almost definitely) more delicate a matter than is being portrayed, still.


Now that you mention this, I’ve now been thinking about the time at GDC 2017 where Mick talked about beating himself up because back when he was just trying to figure out the sound for Doom 2016, the sound designers were all like “you’re not quite there yet, but you’re close”.

Additionally, those IG comments where he mentioned that he wants to put out a full mix of the OST? That came from one of those #tbt posts of him doing a live performance of the D2016 soundtrack at The Game Awards, presumably showing much happier times than this.

 

And like I said, it’s also possible that Mick never meant to throw Chad under the bus for the OST, just that he was stating who worked on it. Perhaps it really was just “I just didn’t like how the OST came out” and that was that, not “I disliked how the the OST came out and this guy is the reason why”.

 

And I know I keep mentioning that there aren’t any bad guys in all of this, but I actually feel kind of ashamed that I framed Mick to be an antagonistic party even when I never meant to. (Not helping is that I went through a personal situation that eerily mirrors what went down with the OST.)

 

Goddamn, I genuinely hope Mick’s doing ok throughout all this. I know that this can’t be good for one’s mental health.

 

And just to clarify, this is not me saying that this definitely is the case, but it just seems like there quite a fair amount of weight behind this theory.

 

But then again, this is the Internet, where nuance goes to die.

Edited by Man of Doom

Share this post


Link to post
On 5/10/2020 at 6:30 PM, MFG38 said:

Seconding Jayextee. I hate to see how Mick is being antagonized since Marty wrote the open letter - not just here on DW, but all over the Internet. It only goes to show that people online tend to jump to conclusions way too quickly. Besides, Mick hasn't said anything on his own behalf as of yet, and until he does, the crux of the whole situation is still open to speculation. There are two sides to every story.

 

True, but how likely is it that Mick will do the same as Marty did at this point.

 

From my POV, Mick should have done this from the very beginning when asked, and not make salty, very open to interpretation comments. I'm still waiting for his side of the story and I'm not antagonizing him, but I doubt it'll happen anymore. Looking forward to being proven wrong.

Share this post


Link to post

Unpopular opinion: I'm ok with the next Doom game/thing not having Mick's music. He's great but I think his style has outstayed its welcome after two games, with Eternal's OST not doing anything very different to 2016's while not being as good either. Tough act to follow I guess. There are plenty of games I would love to see (hear?) him involved with but that's another story.

 

But it's unfortunate that things ended the way they did and I wouldn't blame him for being pissed off about it.

Share this post


Link to post

I love Mick's style too but the guy was playing in like drop F# tuning and rarely moved past the first few frets for the entire soundtrack. Why would you compose like that?

Share this post


Link to post
On 5/9/2020 at 8:17 AM, Obzen said:

It's hard to say without knowing the guy. Was he working on multiple projects at the same time? How far behind was he on supplying the core game tracks in January when he accepted to mix and master the OST for the Collector's Edition? We honestly won't know until he says something. One thing to keep in mind is this isn't the first time this has happened with him. How quick we forget this exact same discussion happening when he was dropped for missing deadlines for Killer Instinct Season 3...

 

I'm only now noticing this.

 

Damn, so a similar situation happened before? This might be a bit telling then - or maybe not, remains to be seen if we ever see Mick's side of the story. I can understand how hard it might be for creative persons to deliver something that meets their expectations, but if you're repeatedly missing deadlines, that sounds like an indication that you're doing something wrong, either not focusing enough or you're very inefficient.

 

KI Season 3, D2016's OST coming a few months later, and now Eternal, it looks like the story is just repeating for some reason, so something gets screwed up along the way. It's hard to guess what without exact information, maybe he was working on multiple projects simultaneously and the products had to be delivered in a short timeframe, or I dunno, but it's certainly not alright to repeatedly miss deadlines, especially if you keep doing it.

 

10 hours ago, DoomUK said:

Unpopular opinion: I'm ok with the next Doom game/thing not having Mick's music. He's great but I think his style has outstayed its welcome after two games, with Eternal's OST not doing anything very different to 2016's while not being as good either. Tough act to follow I guess. There are plenty of games I would love to see (hear?) him involved with but that's another story.

 

Unrelated to the discussion, but I agree as well - in all honesty, Mick's style never really managed to grow on me, hard to say why exactly. I wasn't wow'ed by 2016's OST either. 

 

That being said, after two games, I do consider it a good idea to go in a different direction rather than keep on doing the same thing over and over. again I'll admit I'm dreaming of something more atmospheric, but with the direction the new games are heading I'm not expecting that to come to fruition.

Share this post


Link to post
10 hours ago, GoatLord said:

I love Mick's style too but the guy was playing in like drop F# tuning and rarely moved past the first few frets for the entire soundtrack. Why would you compose like that?

Same. I don't really listen to much music that has really low tuning besides old Korn and Cannibal Corpse when they switched to 7 strings. Whenever i play guitar i either stick to E, Eb, Drop D, or like C# if i'm already in Eb tuning (i guess that's what it is; it's been a while lol). I don't switch tunings very much as i prefer to play with a Floyd Rose. C was the lowest i ever tuned to and that was to learn some Metallica St. Anger songs when i was younger, of all things lol.

 

I didn't mind the soundtrack as i've listened to both of them. I think they fit the games well. They just aren't my favorite thing to listen to like the original Doom/Doom II ost are.

 

Anyways, this whole debacle is just insane. I can't believe what happened and i did read this entire 8 page thing, although it was a few days ago and in little "spurts". I really don't have much to say that hasn't been said already except that i hope it gets resolved soon (although i guess it kind of has?).

Share this post


Link to post
38 minutes ago, CyberDreams said:

C was the lowest i ever tuned to and that was to learn some Metallica St. Anger songs when i was younger, of all things lol.

 

Now downtune it to Z and learn Beherit's Drawing Down the Moon :D - I think Holocausto said the guitars were downtuned to that point on the album, but I could be wrong.

 

I may know music, but not music theory, sadly.

Share this post


Link to post

"Z tuning" isn't real, musical notes range from A to G with inbetween flats/sharps amounting to 12 semitones in an octave. Ultimate Guitar has Beherit's tuning for a bunch of songs either in half-step down or D standard so I don't think they went very far. 

Share this post


Link to post
On 4/19/2020 at 6:39 PM, Man of Doom said:

So I already posted about this in another thread, but then I figured that this news would be enough to warrant its own thread.

 

So while someone was looking over the files of the Collector’s Edition release of the soundtrack, someone asked Mick Gordon about why there seemed to be so much compression with “BFG Division 2020” compared with the original BFG Division track:


After a long thread of explanation, Mick himself gave an explanation of why it turned out to be this way (and the reason why is because Mick only did mixing for a small handful of tracks for the official release, while the rest of the soundtrack got outsourced to someone else):

 

And in case what you’re wondering what this is all building up to, it’s that Mick may not be returning to score another Doom game for the foreseeable future (unless something gets radically changed):


And as the proverbial cherry on top, he deleted a tweet that mentioned him doing a Doom-themed event at next year’s MAGFest.

 

EDIT: Additionally, it appears that Mick’s recent history of liked tweets shows some kind of hard feelings or bad blood against id or Bethesda.

 

I think this might partially explain why the official release for various outlets like iTunes and Spotify have been delayed for the next few weeks, and I think it explains why the collector’s edition OST release turned out to be messy. 
 

As a couple of examples:

-every other track has a voiceover from characters like Samuel Hayden, VEGA, or King Novik prior to the start of the track

-there are about three if not four variations of the same song, but mixed differently (“BFG Division 2020”, “You Can’t Just Shoot a Hole Into The Surface of Mars”, and I think “Acquiring the BFG” are all differently mixed versions of BFG Division)

 

I mean, the official release of the soundtrack could be switched up to sound and feel more cohesive, but we’re only a few weeks out from said release and then we’d end up with two different soundtracks for one game.

 

Either way, this situation is deeply fucked, to put it lightly.

 

Mick didn’t sound too happy about what’s happened to his work, and I honestly can’t blame him if he decides to completely cut ties with id & Bethesda as a result of all this.

Not a fan of his Doom music personally, but there's something odd going on at id.

Share this post


Link to post
19 minutes ago, The Strife Commando said:

Not a fan of his Doom music personally, but there's something odd going on at id.

Uhh, you might want to actually read the thread. The situation has been explained:

 

Share this post


Link to post
18 hours ago, The Strife Commando said:

Not a fan of his Doom music personally, but there's something odd going on at id.

 

Nothing "odd" is happening here...

Share this post


Link to post
On 5/15/2020 at 4:09 AM, Mr. Freeze said:

"Z tuning" isn't real, musical notes range from A to G with inbetween flats/sharps amounting to 12 semitones in an octave. Ultimate Guitar has Beherit's tuning for a bunch of songs either in half-step down or D standard so I don't think they went very far. 

I heard a composer/tuba player managed to play a real Z note, and his head exploded!

Edited by Gokuma

Share this post


Link to post

I believe the "brown noise" discovered on south park was an X note and you see how bad that was!?

 

Also I believe they're compressor noises rather than vacuums.

Share this post


Link to post
3 hours ago, Gokuma said:

I believe the "brown noise" discovered on south park was an X note and you see how bad that was!?

Off topic but: LOL! I remember that episode. Man, the old episodes were great!! I don't know what the hell happened to that show but it just isn't funny anymore imo.

 

 

Share this post


Link to post

Something else just occurred to me:

 

I may be wrong about this, but doesn’t Mick live in Australia? (I know for sure he’s Australian, but I could be wrong about the previous thing.)

 

Anyway, I bring this up because of the whole “Australia is burning” thing which has become so prevalent even to this day that it’s even become something of a meme (a really dark meme, but still).


Perhaps the Australia bushfires could have been a factor in why he was unable to fulfill even his contractual obligations? I ask because I’ve heard that it’s gotten really bad over there, to the point of evacuations and such.

Share this post


Link to post
1 hour ago, Man of Doom said:

Perhaps the Australia bushfires could have been a factor in why he was unable to fulfill even his contractual obligations? I ask because I’ve heard that it’s gotten really bad over there, to the point of evacuations and such.

 

Don't worry, we managed to extinguish 'em all two months ago. We're no longer on fire, but the millions of native wild life and hectares of bush land that was lost has been really devastating. Not sure if Gordon still lives here. Most Aussies tend to move to Europe or the US when their creative careers really take off and I can't find anything of him mentioning it on his social media. I did manage to find something cool though: he autographed a special copy of the Doom Eternal soundtrack album that was sold in an auction to help raise money to combating the fires.

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×