Doom 2 music over SB16

Hi,

I didn't find the thing by searching the forum, so I'm posting the thread. I'm looking for Doom 2 mp3 soundtrack but recorded clasically over Sound Blaster 16 (but not AWE32!). I've browsed many websites and I didn't find a complete pack. I'm not for that all newer music packs, I prefer to have that one only. As long as my Doom2 has got issues with running under my system, I'd like to have at least its music to enjoy.

Does anyone have this? I'd be grateful for help, coz the last time I heard Doom 2 music over SB16 was years ago (youtube videos with it doesn't count, usually they're poor quality ;)).

Greets!
seidr

I don't recall MP3s recorded from a Sound Blaster 16, although DOSBox and Virtual PC, that let you run the DOS executable engine on modern systems, and the Chocolate Doom and ZDoom source ports can all emulate the OPL3 chip in the sound card, to get that sound you're looking for.

myk said:

I don't recall MP3s recorded from a Sound Blaster 16, although DOSBox and Virtual PC, that let you run the DOS executable engine on modern systems, and the Chocolate Doom and ZDoom source ports can all emulate the OPL3 chip in the sound card, to get that sound you're looking for.

A person on Youtube made some soundtrack videos recorded with SoundBlaster. This is the sound what I'm looking for, however that person doesn't have all music tracks, just a few:

examples:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMy8AmVBSEs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwqmhNhldtA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbWnqXJ7qys

Just a note here, if you don't listen to them on the exact same speakers you used back then, you're likely to be disappointed.

E.g. I used a pair of amplified Quickshot 4W speakers for years, and always listened to Doom with Bass Boost and Treble Boost on from those particular speakers, first through an original SB 8-bit then through a SB 16-bit Vibra, then through a SB AWE 64, and I also connected them to a modern sound card using DOS BOX's FM emulation.

So what gives? If I connect those same speakers (I still have them) without the boosting on, to any of the aforementioned systems, it just sounds too thin and I refuse to believe that this is how it's supposed to sound, even on the original Sound Blasters (still have a lot of vintage hardware around, so I can verify this personally quite often).

Just a friendly reminder that nostalgia bias can work both ways, and that it's quite possible that NO option whatsoever sounds right for you, unless you go back in time or manage to put back your exact same hardware ;-)

Thanks to this thread, I just found this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfwaLm2Tl9s&feature=related

This was how it sounded way back when I was first playing final Doom on Doom95 on a win95 shitter. Every computer onwards has never had this track sounding so amazing. Back then this track made every level it was on a level I never wanted to leave :D

I wish I could get it sounding like this again.

EDIT: compare it to this :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rpJ7XlCKoY&feature=related and you'll know why :p

OPL purists would rip you a new one for that statement ;-)

The first video does indeed sound great...because it's played through the Sound Blaster Live!'s hardware wavetable synthesis, which had nothing to do with the older Sound Blaster line.

The second one sounds more like traditional OPL FM sound, so for some people, video #1 is the shitty one, not viceversa ;-)

As for getting to sound it like this again...maybe if you find out what patch set was used by SB Live! at the time.

The second one isnt BAD, it just has a lot of parts too quiet. The piano at the start as a large example.

I had about 5 or 6 different versions of that track in tabs after that post actually :p

As for Soundblaster Live being entirely different to normal Soundblaster: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcqKsd5OnS8&feature=related

No kidding :D That sounds amazing and terrible at the SAME TIME. (distinctive part on the guitar is almost entirely gone, and wtf at all the pauses, but otherwise amazing)

Maes said:

As for getting to sound it like this again...maybe if you find out what patch set was used by SB Live! at the time.

Probably something like CT2MGM.SF2.

You can use ZDoom's softsynths to try different sound fonts. The Creative soundfonts (CTxMGM.SF2, where x is 1, 2 or 4) are easy to find on the net.

TiMidity++ with CT4MGM.SF2 comes close on some points; but no cigar. Percussions are a lot softer, too.

The sound font is not everything, though. The way it's used matters as well, because the same font sounds different on FluidSynth and TiMidity++. And neither are Sound Blaster emulators...

[nitpicking]
It's also possible to get Doom music that IS technically "over SB16" but is not what the OPL purists expect: e.g. playing the Doom MIDIs over a Windows or DOS MIDI player will sound different, with a different set of timbres, even if you have an original Sound Blaster with a genuine Yamaha chip.
[/nitpicking]

Gez said:

Probably something like CT2MGM.SF2.

You can use ZDoom's softsynths to try different sound fonts. The Creative soundfonts (CTxMGM.SF2, where x is 1, 2 or 4) are easy to find on the net.

TiMidity++ with CT4MGM.SF2 comes close on some points; but no cigar. Percussions are a lot softer, too.

The sound font is not everything, though. The way it's used matters as well, because the same font sounds different on FluidSynth and TiMidity++. And neither are Sound Blaster emulators...

I really wish Fluidsynth would get it's crap together. there's some Sondfonts it chokes on, and some it does ok on.

Maes said:

[nitpicking]
It's also possible to get Doom music that IS technically "over SB16" but is not what the OPL purists expect: e.g. playing the Doom MIDIs over a Windows or DOS MIDI player will sound different, with a different set of timbres, even if you have an original Sound Blaster with a genuine Yamaha chip.
[/nitpicking]

You're right IMO. This is exactly what I've figured out. Besides in that examples I've posted (videos) an uploader achieved almost (but still not the same) instruments. However - I'm looking for something that is 'close enough' to SB16 - just like that music in example videos.
Windows and DOS midi differs with their waveset or something.

seidr said:

Windows and DOS midi differs with their waveset or something.

DOS Doom had it's own set of OPL2 FM timbres (the equivalent of the "Waveset", as you said), while in general different DOS games had different such "wavesets", and of course Windows MIDI drivers had their own, different still.

Furthermore, Doom's OPL2 FM "instuments" happened to be particularly good (for OPL2 instruments) and especially suited for the game's soundtrack (e.g. E1M1's electric guitar lead sounds totally wrong with other wavesets: either too short, too weak, too plucky etc. or even sounds like a squarewave banjo).

Probably they were hand-crafted/especially tuned for it individually, that's why it's next to impossible to find ONE particular MIDI patchset that gets EVERYTHING right, no matter what synthesis technology or sample quality it uses.

I'm working on a full soundtrack ripping from Doom 2 (with that SB16 "genesis/mega-drive" old school aspect). I'll upload on rapidshare as soon as I finish, and you'll can use it on Doomsday =]

I'm pretty sure someone at the ZDoom Forums posted MP3 downloads of the whole soundtrack from DooM run through SB16.

What prevents OPL emulation from being 100% accurate, is intermodulation distortion, no matter how perfect your OPL emulator is.

Unless sound cards that can play back at 49716 Hz sharp (or perfect multiples) are made, it will never sound "quite right". 44.1 KHz won't sound right. 48 KHz won't sound right (unless you play everything at a lower pitch without actually downsampling). A 96 KHz recording may do the trick, if compression doesn't kill the high frequencies after.

However 96 KHz will work only for recording, not emulating the output.

A recording which will be at one of the above frequencies and on top will have some form of audio compression, will fall even shorter of expectations.

Other than a genuine OPL2/OPL3 chip (preferably NOT one used in an AWE64 or C-Media codec), the best way would be to use an external DAC with a fully programmable frequency setting, no downsampling, and an emulator.

seidr said:

I'm looking for Doom 2 mp3 soundtrack but recorded clasically over Sound Blaster 16 (but not AWE32!).

I'm working on a set I'd recently recorded from my old P2-333, had hoped that a recently acquired wavetable board would magically improve the sound but it wasn't to be - maybe I don't know what I'm doing.
Anyone know of a hack/patch for the vanilla executable to disable looping on music playback? That would make my life easier.

Someone awhile ago made a torrent of every doom song recorded to high and low quality oggs or maybe flac with sb16. THeres a thread somewhere.
I should still have them laying around another harddrive.

I found two threads with torrent links here and here, though most appear to have been recorded through a Roland Sound Canvas.

Maes said:

What prevents OPL emulation from being 100% accurate, is intermodulation distortion, no matter how perfect your OPL emulator is.

Unless sound cards that can play back at 49716 Hz sharp (or perfect multiples) are made, it will never sound "quite right". 44.1 KHz won't sound right. 48 KHz won't sound right (unless you play everything at a lower pitch without actually downsampling). A 96 KHz recording may do the trick, if compression doesn't kill the high frequencies after.

However 96 KHz will work only for recording, not emulating the output.

A recording which will be at one of the above frequencies and on top will have some form of audio compression, will fall even shorter of expectations.

Other than a genuine OPL2/OPL3 chip (preferably NOT one used in an AWE64 or C-Media codec), the best way would be to use an external DAC with a fully programmable frequency setting, no downsampling, and an emulator.

lol.. yeah, that is for enthusiasts... dunno about the author of the thread but, in my case, I don't think it should be THAT accurate, just a little bit of that old-school feeling is enough, that old mega-drive music feeling, its ok, DOSBox can do the job pretty well

I have an sb16 in one of my boxes. I can backwire it and directly record it output. Maybe some day ill get around to it.

GreyGhost said:
Anyone know of a hack/patch for the vanilla executable to disable looping on music playback? That would make my life easier.

MUS Play can play the song once, but I'm not sure if it produces output identical to doom.exe...

Only one way to find out, give it a try and compare the results - thanks.

CODOR said:

MUS Play can play the song once, but I'm not sure if it produces output identical to doom.exe...

it only works with DOOM 1..... no Doom 2 or Hexen... =/
too bad...

Sounds strange. There should be no differences in the MUS format between Doom 1 and Doom 2, or even Heretic. For Hexen, I'm not too sure, as it might have moved to a MIDI-only music library.

BTW, Doom v1.9 is also able to use normal MIDI files inside MUS lumps.

Are you trying to run MUSLib from somewhere other that it's own directory by any chance? In that case you must supply the instrument bank file (GENMIDI.OP2) through the /B switch explicitly at the command prompt.

The problem is EXTRACTION. The application doesn't extract the MUS files from Doom 2, Heretic, Hexen... BUT, it plays every MUS file pretty well, no matter what source it comes.

And the question is: how to extract the MUS files from these 3 games, since MUS Play extract only MUS from Doom 1... =/

condorcondorcondor said:

And the question is: how to extract the MUS files from these 3 games, since MUS Play extract only MUS from Doom 1... =/

1) Get SLADE 3 (http://slade.mancubus.net or http://svn.drdteam.org/slade/
2) Open ur wad in it
3) Pick 'Audio' form pop-up list at the bottom. That will hide most other lumps.
4) Select all music lumps. Hint: Doom uses D_ prefix for the music, Heretic uses MUS_, so type that in the 'Filter' box.
5) Choose 'Export' from the context menu.
6) ???

I already had the mus lumps extracted, I didn't realize it would play doom.wad directly...

Maes said:
In that case you must supply the instrument bank file (GENMIDI.OP2) through the /B switch explicitly at the command prompt.

Also: use the GENMIDI lump from the game whose music you're trying to play. The one in doom.wad is distinct from the one in doom2.wad/tnt.wad/plutonia.wad (which means the songs in Plutonia that were taken from Doom will probably sound different when played on an OPL2/3, but the Doom II songs will be identical) -- and of course Heretic's is different from either of these (dunno about Hexen).

tempun said:

1) Get SLADE 3 (http://slade.mancubus.net or http://svn.drdteam.org/slade/
2) Open ur wad in it
3) Pick 'Audio' form pop-up list at the bottom. That will hide most other lumps.
4) Select all music lumps. Hint: Doom uses D_ prefix for the music, Heretic uses MUS_, so type that in the 'Filter' box.
5) Choose 'Export' from the context menu.
6) ???

thanks, it worked just fine, but the MUS Play is buggy... it doesn't play all MUS files properly, it does pretty well with some files, unfortunately not all...

Does anyone know any other good MUS player?

Xmplay supports MUS and soundfonts.
What tracks does MUSplay not play correctly?

Never_Again said:

Xmplay supports MUS and soundfonts.
What tracks does MUSplay not play correctly?

I've downloaded and tried to play MUS but no success, is it necessary to install some add-on first? I've searched but didn't find anything

The main examples: Doom 1 - D_INTRO.MUS and Hexen - HEXEN.MUS... it's buggy, unfortunately

I wonder if there's a cheat code in Hexen just like "idmus##" to listen to the MUS tracks... I know you can type "~##" if you're playing the CD version and listen to the tracks from CD, but it doesn't work for MUS tracks...

btw, in another ocasion I've ripped the full soundtrack from Doom 1 (sb16 quality), in case anyone interested there you go: http://rapidshare.com/files/448998057/Doom1SoundtrackOPL.rar