What are your thoughts about using the same music several times in a wad?

[DMPhobos]

I don't mind it too much as long as maps that use the same track are kept on a more separated slot. On the IWADS i thought the music selection was good, i specially like the use of d_shawn on map07 and map29, very different maps but that music gives them a personality of sorts despite of having the same track

Edited January 11, 2019 by DMPhobos

[snapshot]

As long as you don't use 1 song for the entire mapset, I can handle it.

[Capellan]

14 hours ago, Bauul said:

As someone who spends hours and hours meticulously choosing the right music tracks for my maps, this makes me really sad!

 

Don't be - there are plenty of players for whom it is really important, and they'll appreciate the effort.

[nrofl]

In my opinion, using the same track is fine. For example the music in Grove has been used a lot and I don't mind it. Maybe if EVERY wad used the same track that would be a little annoying.

[hella knight]

In the same way I think a mapset should have a unique map in each slot, it should have a unique midi in each slot too :p

obviously this is just 'ideal', people have made good points to the contrary 

[AD_79]

Depends on what the project is going for, though I tend to be in the "yes to track repetition" camp regardless. For more "classic" or old-school sets, it works incredibly well and I would love for more people to do so (@valkiriforce, consider this for Akeldama perhaps?). Modern sets tend to have a greater emphasis on an individual map's personality, especially with community projects having a wide range of contributors who bring different things to the table, and unique music choices help to solidify this. With that being said though, I find myself still wishing for some track repetition here and there where fitting. It's part of why BTSX's hub maps resonate with me so well. To me, it's an important part of making your track listing feel like a game soundtrack. Should I ever make a large-scale project again, it's very likely to use at least some of this.

[Gez]

By the way, I want to bring up that with features such as MUSINFO or scripting, you can change the music played in a map. This can be used for effect. For example, each map could have its own theme for general exploration, but with a recurring "brawl theme" for areas with intense encounters, and perhaps a "victory" theme when getting close to the exit, or even a "bonus" theme for large secret areas. (Large as in "there's a lot of extra gameplay you can get here", not large as in "you can actually go into the big empty courtyard and pick up a blue armor or something".) Then the final boss map could use a remix of the brawl theme.

[valkiriforce]

I'm honestly indifferent to it - I like that both Memento Mori 1 & 2 do this; the first one only had about 15 tracks which were reused in different parts of the wad, whereas the second one had all 32 maps with unique music. It seems like it's preferred that each map has its own unique feeling and I understand that, but I do like the unity that comes from certain tracks getting reused again. It's kind of a thematic element to one singular adventure, whereas if you had 32 unique songs you might have missed it the first time it played if you got too caught up in the action of another map. I like both honestly, but I do agree it would be nice to see another project try and go the route of using the same tracks, maybe even slightly different arrangements (I think Requiem's MAP18 and MAP23 MIDI aren't exactly the same).

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

@Gez I've rarely seen that done in a way that was particularly good.  The best instance I can recall is in some of the Legacy of Kain games where they basically had a few different mixes of a composition and could seamlessly transition from the "calm" version to the "intense" one or whatever based on what was going on.  Not sure if there's anything in Doom ports advanced enough to do that sort of timing matching.

[Gez]

Something like iMUSE? No, or perhaps I should say maybe.

[hella knight]

4 hours ago, ETTiNGRiNDER said:

@Gez I've rarely seen that done in a way that was particularly good.  The best instance I can recall is in some of the Legacy of Kain games where they basically had a few different mixes of a composition and could seamlessly transition from the "calm" version to the "intense" one or whatever based on what was going on.

Most games do stuff like this.

[seed]

On 1/10/2019 at 12:48 AM, Roofi said:

So , what are your thoughts about this? Are you bothered when a megawad doesn't have 32 different music or maybe you don't care a lot about it? Is it boring or rather interesting for you?

 

Interesting, for the same reasons you pointed out.

 

My only problem would be with tracks that are heard in more than 3 levels or so, at that point a lack of creativity and imagination could be noticeable and it simply becomes tiresome to hear the same thing over and over again.

[Fonze]

Delete

[Tarnsman]

More projects need to do this. It gives individual tracks more personality and flavor and helps get them more exposure. 

 

It's a shame when a track is 9 minutes long and only gets used on one two minute map.

[Juza]

On 1/16/2019 at 3:06 PM, Tarnsman said:

It's a shame when a track is 9 minutes long and only gets used on one two minute map.

The Last Ninja games have some extremely long, extremely badass and extremely underrated tracks that have been remade in midi and published on the net. Wish more people would use them in their maps, but people only use the opening theme of Last Ninja 2. Alien Vendetta map24 and Kama Sutra map18 for example. 

[jazzmaster9]

Preferably having each map have different music is the best for me, but at the same time making 32 new music tracks for a megawad can be quite daunting especially if you want your project to have completely original music. 

 

If you have to rip tracks from other mods just for the sake of each map having different music, i would much rather have the author reuse his original tracks a few times.