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

[MrHofmann]

1 hour ago, NoXion said:

I said something very similar when I gave my reaction after playing the game for the very first time. I can't find the post because the search is broken, but it's in one of the initial reaction threads. I have the music volume set to maximum, yet the music definitely doesn't make its presence felt as much as it did in D16.

Which is a shame, because the music itself is fucking ace. It's just let down by terrible audio dynamics.

 

 

[BluePineapple72]

This whole shitstorm is only going to make things worse. Bethesda is gonna see the PR nightmare and decide to cut ties with Mick, hell we didn't even see their side of the story. Plus, that DM screenshot, real or fake, isn't exactly a good look for him; if they see that then they'll think it's unprofessional to cut ties with a studio through DMs. All in all, this is just a stinky shitstorm that I wished didn't happen.

 

The best timeline is iD parting ways with Bethesda, but I don't see that happening any time soon (nor do I think they even can.)

[Caffeine Freak]

1 hour ago, Gifty said:

So, because Mick is swamped with his huge task, the album gets delayed. And when that second deadline rolls around and the work is still not finished, some mucky muck drops the hammer and says "this is taking too long, you either turn it in now or someone will do it for you," at which point the unfinished mixes are dropped into the lap of Chad Mossholder, with the order to "get this up to mastering level by last week, please." Which is presumably what he did, because the mixes that were released bear all the hallmarks of a quick'n'dirty "loudness mix." Mick is naturally dismayed at this ungraceful handling of his material and very understandably hesitant to come back and work with such people again.

 

I don't really have any ill will towards Chad (although the fact that he has a co-composer credit on most of the album seems pretty bizarre to me), who most likely got this dog assignment at the 11th hour with no time to do anything close to a good job. From the state of the mixes I wouldn't be surprised at all if he didn't even have access to the multitracks, and was only working from semi-finished mixdowns of all the songs.

 

A huge shame all around, Mick's music has been hugely influential on me not just as a regular vidya gamer but as an actual musician, too.

 

 

 

This is pretty much what I was speculating earlier in the thread. And honestly, I feel bad for Mossholder, who will probably receive a fair degree of flak for this, even though the blame would really lay with whomever it was higher up the foodchain that decided the album just couldn't wait anymore. Assuming this scenario is true, I don't think this should reflect poorly on Mossholder---the last two Doom games are a testament to what an incredible audio designer/engineer he obviously is. But when you have such a limited window of time to finish a project, you can't always do the job it deserves.   

 

I originally posted this yesterday, and then edited it out of my post because at the time I felt it was going too far speculation-wise. I keep thinking about this interview Mick did months back(November), where the guy asked him if he was still working on Eternal's soundtrack, and Mick replied 'I'm not *meant* to be, but yeah.'

 

(Skip to 15:13)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C2bpMe7nh8&t=61s

 

It's a very brief, almost offhanded answer, but I feel it's a bit revealing if deadline conflicts were already occurring back then.

[⇛Marnetmar⇛]

I don't consider myself an audiophile but holy fuck this sounds like shit

 

 

You can actually hear the suction of the compressor as it clamps onto the signal not to mention the piss poor mixing job overall. 

Edited April 20, 2020 by Marn

[Caffeine Freak]

@Marn Fucking hell. I can practically feel the dulled signature of that audio. It's like a song ripped and uploaded to Youtube from 2007. 

[Urthar]

I thought there was something off about Eternal's rendition of BFG Division, but being musically ignorant, I couldn't put my finger on it.

[silentzorah]

I'm sad to see Mick go, but I respect his decision, and hope he does well wherever he lands.

[NoahRules]

Thanks Todd

[⇛Marnetmar⇛]

This was upvoted to the top of the Doom subreddit. People are pissed. 

 

[BluePineapple72]

14 minutes ago, Marn said:

This was upvoted to the top of the Doom subreddit. People are pissed. 

 

Jesus. I'm surprised it took this long for Reddit to do something like this.

[The Civ]

The Reddit and Discord are both going nuts with this stuff right now.

Luckily, both places are areas that id and Bethesda keep close eyes on.

Granted, if minds are set in stone, I doubt it'll do much. But it's mildly satisfying knowing that they're seeing how pissed people are.

[whatup876]

I wonder if this situation has to do with cut/unused-in-game music or stuff like how some unfitting part of the Gladiator's theme plays when you smash his head with a mace, instead of a more "epic" part of his theme.

Reminds me of Wolfenstein 2: The scene where BJ has a Nazi attack him, then Anya shoots said Nazi had a cool song playing when BJ was in the wheel chair. Game releases and it's a different, unfitting and boring song with no impact.

 

 

What's worst about the possibility of Mick Gordon quitting working with id is if the possible new composer, even if still amazing, also gets screwed in the future.

Like Andrew Hulshult for example, nobody wants anything bad to happen to him.

 

This whole thing is pretty much suicide but Bethesda always had a reputation of shooting their feet until they vaporize.

 

15 minutes ago, The Civ said:

The Reddit and Discord are both going nuts with this stuff right now.

Luckily, both places are areas that id and Bethesda keep close eyes on.

Granted, if minds are set in stone, I doubt it'll do much. But it's mildly satisfying knowing that they're seeing how pissed people are.

I wonder how easy is for them to read Reddit posts, considering the amount of posts being made and the pace for it or whether or not they even check recent comments or judge things by upvotes.

Because at least in a place like this, things don't feel as fast and topics feel more "centralized".

Plus, Doomworld has more Doom related history.

[TheRedTide]

4 hours ago, Marn said:

I don't consider myself an audiophile but holy fuck this sounds like shit

 

 

You can actually hear the suction of the compressor as it clamps onto the signal not to mention the piss poor mixing job overall. 

Jesus Christ that was fucking terrible to hear.

[MFG38]

9 hours ago, Kronecker–Capelli said:

And I said "showing off" because I almost sure that Mick was hired to create "some coll metal soundtrack". And Mick like Meshuggah (and he not shy to admit it), so he think that something that sounds like Meshuggah is cool, so he create something that sounds like Meshuggah because he was asked to create some cool music.

 

Surprisingly, that's where you're wrong. The original brief Mick was given stated that there were to be no guitars whatsoever in the soundtrack. They were added in way later. This is all explained in Mick's 2017 GDC talk.

[Doom64hunter]

8 hours ago, Marn said:

This was upvoted to the top of the Doom subreddit. People are pissed. 

 

This is peak Reddit.

 

Imagine thinking Bethesda gives a shit about what the community thinks.

 

Edit: Also, they have no idea what actually went down behind the scenes. Creative differences? It doesn't necessarily have to be that Bethesda simply "didn't allow him to finish his work". Furthermore, the goose is cooked, the soundtrack is out. I doubt it will be changed in hindsight.

[Kronecker–Capelli]

3 hours ago, MFG38 said:

Surprisingly, that's where you're wrong. The original brief Mick was given stated that there were to be no guitars whatsoever in the soundtrack. They were added in way later. This is all explained in Mick's 2017 GDC talk.

Hmmmmm....that was...I doint know how express my feelings.
Now I know why I have a feeling that D16 soundtrack is sounds like a jumble of sounds...because its actually constructed from deformed sine waves.
 

[Gez]

4 hours ago, Doom64hunter said:

Furthermore, the goose is cooked, the soundtrack is out. I doubt it will be changed in hindsight.

In the age of Internet and every physical media being replaced by downloads, there's no technical obstacle to a "Director's Cut" version of the soundtrack to be made available later. If the reason is that the soundtrack album took too long and Chad Mossholder had to rush a product out, rather than some intrapersonal conflict between Mick Gordon and the guys at id, then it could be done.

[SulfurOccult]

I hadn't noticed the music in game sounding off? Does anybody know if the in-game music suffers from the poor mix or is it only the OST release that does?

[NoXion]

3 minutes ago, SulfurOccult said:

I hadn't noticed the music in game sounding off? Does anybody know if the in-game music suffers from the poor mix or is it only the OST release that does?

I noticed right at release that the music in Eternal doesn't stand out as much as it did in 2016. And yes, the music volume was at maximum.

[Chami]

46 minutes ago, SulfurOccult said:

I hadn't noticed the music in game sounding off? Does anybody know if the in-game music suffers from the poor mix or is it only the OST release that does?

Mick talked about this on his livestream, as I recall. He joked that the in-game mixing was 'crap' and super compressed compared to how it'd be in the OST, but that that was kind of a necessary evil in order for it to mix properly with the sounds of combat and whatnot. YMMV.

[Taurus Daggerknight]

I know precious little of the technicalities of audio-mixing, and honestly I didn't notice anything too super jarring in-game myself (other than a rare glitch in which the music simply doesn't play at all). I assume it is a massive undertaking in and of itself, and amazingly time consuming, so my next statement should not be taken as trivializing that at all.

 

With that said... I think it's a little unfair to be jumping entirely on Bethesda as being the obvious villain. As some have pointed out earlier, we do not have their side of the story, and only have fragments of Gordon's. Given that the game itself was delayed by a fair bit, one could assume that maybe he was also given extra time on the production of the album, but for whatever reason still missed his deadline. Which is an important thing to note; for good or bad reasons, he may have simply missed his deadlines multiple times, which might have led to Bethesda saying "fine, we're salvaging this". Not a masterful stroke, but it's hardly rare for companies to put their foot down in such cases. 

 

Please note that I'm not trying to criticize Gordon for anything here. Again, don't know the ground reality, and I'm sure even if he was late, there was a good reason. I'm just playing devils advocate for a moment, and saying that any finger pointing on the matter is a) too early, and b) a bit unfair given that we have yet to hear the other side of the mess too.  

[chemo]

Personally, I'm waiting until we get some concrete statements from Bethesda, Id, and/or Mick.

 

Right now, there's too many pieces of the puzzle missing for a party to comfortably be given the blame. That being said, if there's no substantial update before the soundtrack releases on music platforms, then I'd be content with saying that Bethesda is in the wrong, since such a scenario would indicate that they're unwilling to admit that they're at fault.

 

I would also not take the DM for granted, since that could easily be faked.

[Koko Ricky]

Sounds to me like too much was asked of Gordon in terms of quantity and time allotted, so they brought in Mossholder to do most of the mixes, who handled Doom 2016's sound and, to his credit, has composed for a few games. The cruddy sound is what happens when you don't give artists enough time to do their job: You get a sub-optimal product.

[Caffeine Freak]

5 hours ago, NoXion said:

I noticed right at release that the music in Eternal doesn't stand out as much as it did in 2016. And yes, the music volume was at maximum.

 

I personally haven't noticed this issue at all. For me, the music in Eternal has always seemed just as prominent as it ever was in 2016, both during intense fights and slower sections of the game.

 

The ONE exception I might make to this is the final phase of the fight against the Icon of Sin. There's so much utter chaos happening during that fight that at certain points, the only audible parts of the music are the percussive notes.

[thewormofautumn]

18 hours ago, Doom64hunter said:

This is peak Reddit.

100%
 

lets be clear, NO ONE knows the full story outside of the impacted parties.

The fact that there is now a petition to let Mick Gordon finish his work is amazingly funny.

Critical thinking needs to be added as part of every school syllabus.

 

Theres’s nothing wrong with making guesses and trying to piece together a puzzle, even without all the pieces; but to then stretch it to making a petition.... amazing 

[whatup876]

I do think some people are overreating and treat Mick Gordon like a god and not just a talented music artist, while this situation needs more detail.

I've seen people literally saying he's the number one important part about Doom, somehow above gameplay, programming/code or even the overall themes/setting/identity of the series.

 

I think some people can't imagine Doom before 2016 was released and what the fanbase was like and how it handled Doom.

I think even Mick Gordon himself is like "i appreciate you enjoy my work, but calm down. the developers literally crunched for this game, we all worked hard".

[AtimZarr1]

2 hours ago, whatup876 said:

I do think some people are overreating and treat Mick Gordon like a god and not just a talented music artist, while this situation needs more detail.

I've seen people literally saying he's the number one important part about Doom, somehow above gameplay, programming/code or even the overall themes/setting/identity of the series.

 

People are too quick to point fingers even though we don't know all the details to the story. That said, I think the "overreaction" is justified: people are upset about the OST's quality and upset that Mick may not return.

 

"BFG Division" and "Rip And Tear" from 2016 have 27 million and 28 million views on YouTube respectively, among the most viewed Doom content. The music is not "above" the gameplay or anything else, but it's hard to deny the widespread influence Mick Gordon's music has had on getting people interested in the new Doom games. The gameplay, visuals, performance, tone and AI get plenty of praise and recognition as well.

 

2 hours ago, whatup876 said:

I think some people can't imagine Doom before 2016 was released and what the fanbase was like and how it handled Doom.

 

That's true, but keep in mind the last Doom game before that was 2004's Doom 3, which was overshadowed by the more beloved Half-Life 2 released that same year. And that even that Doom was divisive among the fanbase. So it's reasonable to say that some people only know modern Doom.

[NoXion]

Yeah, I'm not at all on board with this elitist sneering at Reddit. If folks are producing images and petitions over this situation, then they're doing so because they're passionate fans who care about what happened. Music stirs the emotions, Mick Gordon's work is top tier, so I can forgive people for reacting in such a way. Personally I think it's a good sign that the Doom community has had reactions to this situation other than fatalistic indifference.

[Mr. Freeze]

Reddit being passionate isn't the problem. Reddit just has this tendency to think itself at the center of the universe, and a petition demanding Bethesda/id to unfuck Mick's work is yet another example of unwarranted self-importance on par with /r/gaming believing downvoting an EA community manager's post was causing EA’s stock price to crash. As if Marty/Todd Howard/Pete Hines are going to look at /r/doom and say "Oh fuck, a couple hundred people want something! We were in the wrong all along!". 

[NoXion]

1 minute ago, Mr. Freeze said:

Reddit being passionate isn't the problem. Reddit just has this tendency to think itself at the center of the universe, and a petition demanding Bethesda/id to unfuck Mick's work is yet another example of unwarranted self-importance on par with /r/gaming believing downvoting an EA community manager's post was causing EA’s stock price to crash. As if Marty/Todd Howard/Pete Hines are going to look at /r/doom and say "Oh fuck, a couple hundred people want something! We were in the wrong all along!". 

I don't believe that a significant portion of any subreddit had any genuine belief that downvoting anything would have an effect on EA's stock price. People are just registering their displeasure, and in the case of EA they did pull back on the ridiculous monetisation of Star Wars Battlefront at least a little bit, and if not due to the negative reaction of the playerbase (beyond just Reddit), then what?

If customers hadn't kicked up a fuss and instead docilely accepted whatever dicking the likes of Bethesda had sent their way, then what motivation would they have to fix any of their mistakes?