RAVEN MIDI Pack project - COMPLETE.

[Darman Macray]

2 hours ago, dial-up said:

 

Is anyone able to suggest an album title and contribute an album cover for this?

 

I really liked, "Raven: An Ode to Schilder," as the album title.

[plums]

5 hours ago, dial-up said:

 

Is anyone able to suggest an album title and contribute an album cover for this?

Call of the Raven

Songs in the Key of H

Synth-strings and Sabreclaws

Tones of Power

Schilder's List (no)

Edited August 29, 2020 by plums

[dial-up]

Is there anyone else in this compilation who's musician name is different from their doomworld username, apart from me and Jimmy?

[Jimmy]

@Peter also goes by MegaSphere - I believe he submitted his piece under the alias "MegaSphere" so I kept that name intact.

[Tristan]

I prefer my real name for music: Tristan Clark

[pcorf]

Just uploaded my remastered songs on my Youtube channel. Mostly SC-55 soundfont, but with a few other soundfonts mixed in.

 

E4M3

 

E5M7

 

[dial-up]

Here is the audio release of this compilation:

 

Raven: Songs in the Key of Heretic

 

Please let me know if I've messed up any audio or text.

 

Thanks to @plums and @Darman Macray for helping with the album title. I combined your ideas and added the word 'Heretic' to make it nice and clear what this release is about.

 

I've just put the album on my own bandcamp for now, but crediting each artist. If I end up doing another of these I'll make a seperate bandcamp for these compilations. I'll give this compilation few more listen-throughs before uploading to spotify, etc.

 

On the off-chance this earns any money I will donate it to charity.

 

[Devalaous]

Played through E1 and E2, the new track in E2 was very noticable and kicked all sorts of ass. E3 onwards is going to be fun. (realises E4M1 is still a thing, regrets speaking)

[Nembras]

From previous playthroughs, I remember Heretic's E2 and especially E3 being an amorphous mass of indistinct levels. Not bad levels, mind you, just lacking individuality.

 

Now that I'm playing these episodes again with this midi pack, each level stands out on its own. Part of it certainly is that as a more experienced player, it's easier to quickly wrap my head around a map (and thus, remember it), but a huge part is just because each level has its own music. Mission accomplished, I'd say. Thanks for everybody contributing their time and talent to this project, and thanks to Jimmy for kicking it off. You all have made my life a bit better.

[Redneckerz]

@Jimmy downloading this for review on R667 in the short term, do you recommend a midi soundfont where this album sounds as intended, or will the standard midi soundbank do since its universal?

 

If i am going to review this, then i rather do it the way it was meant to sound after all.

[Jimmy]

Definitely listen to it in the MS GS Wavetable Synth, which should be the default device with most sourceports.

[Redneckerz]

20 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Definitely listen to it in the MS GS Wavetable Synth, which should be the default device with most sourceports.

Splendid. Ill get on to it! Thanks.

[Puzzlewell]

I don't need *much* of an excuse to replay Heretic, but you guys are still giving me great reason to. <3 Truly, thanks for this. I've had different music packs for it in the past that were definitely nice and fit what I was looking for but at the same time, it was just HQ remasters of the already present music. Breathing new atmospheric life into a game I love so dearly is always something delightful for me.

[Gez]

An idea I just had to make a vanilla-compatible version: since you can't go from an episode to another in a single session in vanilla, how about including five bonus wad files that could work like this:

HEREMID2.WAD (for Episode 2):

* "Avenger's Spirit" as MUS_E1M4

HEREMID3.WAD:

* "Docked In" as MUS_E1M1

* "Liquidation" as MUS_E1M6

* "The Ophidians" as MUS_E1M3

* "Legions" as MUS_E1M2

* "Tightrope" as MUS_E1M5

* "Die for Parthoris" as MUS_E1M9

* "Cascade" as MUS_E2M6

HEREMID4.WAD:

* "Clustafalque" as MUS_E1M6

* "Fort Rot" as MUS_E1M2

* "Crushed Spirits" as MUS_E1M3

* "Encrypted" as MUS_E1M4

* "Blood of the Unworthy" as MUS_E1M5

* "Crusade of the Mage" as MUS_E1M1

* "Gravelord's Lullaby" as MUS_E1M7

* "Deathwind" as MUS_E1M8

* "The Cadaver's Waltz" as MUS_E1M9

HEREMID5.WAD:

* "Ravine" as MUS_E2M1

* "Turbulence" as MUS_E2M2

* "Lighthouse" as MUS_E2M3

* "Death Clause" as MUS_E2M4

* "Convergent Kingdoms" as MUS_E1M4

* "Saltbringer" as MUS_E2M6

* "Terror Mansion" as MUS_E2M7

* "The Last Guardians" as MUS_E2M8

* "Schilder's Ladder" as MUS_E2M9

HEREMID6.WAD:

* "Sage Fields" as MUS_E3M2

* "Dragged from the Pit" as MUS_E3M3

* "Serpentine Pillars" as MUS_E1M6

 

Load the file corresponding to the episode you want to play and you can get a unique soundtrack in vanilla Heretic. While there are many duplicate track uses, none are duplicated inside a given episode, so this trick is possible.

 

(Also technically, the wad for 6 could be merged inside either the one for episode 2 or the one for episode 5 without conflict. The others have to remain separate, though. E3, E4 and E6 all replace E1M6, E3 and E5 both replaces E2M6, E4 and E5 both replace E1M4, E5 replaces most of the E2M tracks.)

 

 

Also I think for vanilla compatibility, the tracks would have to be converted to MUS...

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

It's a pity that HHE royally sucks, because with a good EXE hacker it would be trivial to make a patch for the music assignment table.  It's literally just an array of strings and since the vanilla music lumps all use the full 8 characters possible for a vanilla lump name, you could hack them to any possible lump.

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

So I got around to seeing if I could backport the music pack to DOS as easily as I thought might be possible and it went pretty smoothly--no apparent issues converting the tracks to MUS and hacking the assignment table in a hex editor was as easy as I thought it would be.

 

@Jimmy should I go ahead and share the patches for this? I'd probably use IPS format for the EXE patch as HHE seems to be a total no-go for this, its string editing support is lousy and the music assignments aren't where it expects text to be. That also means it's only applicable for true vanilla, not chocolate (you'd have to make a tweaked chocolate build for that.)

[Egregor]

THIS is an incredible project! New MIDI based on Heretic and Hexen, what's not to love? Well, to be honest I've always personally preferred the compositions of Matt Uelman and even Nenad Vugrinec to those of Kevin Schilder, but he does have his moments! I look forward to listening to these as I sharpen my sword and prepare my spells!

[Jimmy]

19 hours ago, ETTiNGRiNDER said:

So I got around to seeing if I could backport the music pack to DOS as easily as I thought might be possible and it went pretty smoothly--no apparent issues converting the tracks to MUS and hacking the assignment table in a hex editor was as easy as I thought it would be.

 

@Jimmy should I go ahead and share the patches for this? I'd probably use IPS format for the EXE patch as HHE seems to be a total no-go for this, its string editing support is lousy and the music assignments aren't where it expects text to be. That also means it's only applicable for true vanilla, not chocolate (you'd have to make a tweaked chocolate build for that.)

 

Please go ahead! EXE editing is fun times. It'd be rad to actually be able to hear these MIDIs running in DOS.

[Jimmy]

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/music/heremidi

 

The pack is finally uploaded to /idgames!

 

I made one last-minute addition: creating a title track by the name of "Tides". It uses the string melody from "Lighthouse" as a sort of reference, for added consistency. :)

 

Hope you all enjoy! This is, definitively, the final release of the pack, and any in-progress projects using these MIDIs should be sure to update, just to be safe. :)

 

I wanna restate that this project was an absolute blast to work with you guys on. Great stuff all round! Very satisfied with the end product.

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

On 2/23/2021 at 9:04 AM, Jimmy said:

Please go ahead! EXE editing is fun times. It'd be rad to actually be able to hear these MIDIs running in DOS.

Here's the conversion, although it's based on the prior version rather than the one you just posted.  The IPS patch should be applicable to either, though, you might just have to reconvert any tracks that were added/changed.

 

Included some technical notes on the location and layout of the music table in the EXE as well, though it's fairly straightforward.

heremus.7z

[SiFi270]

The credits picture is saved in the wrong format. Unlike Doom, Heretic's screens need to be saved as flats. I know, it's ridiculous.

[Dwars]

Once again, great work on this project! I made a UMAPINFO lump file patch for ports that support it. (so far I think only dsda-doom's Heretic support is the only one that really benefits from this.) Should work with demos too. Let me know if I messed up any lines when writing it. Other than that, enjoy!

hereumap.rar

[BetaCarotene]

Hey, just letting people know that, thanks to Dwars asking, I am currently recording all of the tracks included in the file in the first post using my real SC-55. It's a ROM 1.0.0 model, so it's as original SC-55 sound as it gets.

I am currently just recording the music directly from the synthesizer, and letting the instruments fade how the synth naturally does once the song is completed. I also have the output level of the SC-55 set so that it gets close to hot, but never actually peaks. This was done before recording started in earnest, so any volume differences are down to the song's creator. In the event that these songs were to potentially be used in a music pack, though, I do have some questions:

• How should the Music be labelled for proper usage in game?
• What would be the most appropriate compression format for the songs? 
• How should I go about setting up the loop-points?
• Some songs seem to have instruments that don't quite play when being recorded, does anyone know what's going on here? Iron Licks is an example of this, where part of the melody just isn't present for my SC-55.

Edited June 11, 2021 by BetaCarotene

[Lippeth]

4 hours ago, BetaCarotene said:

Some songs seem to have instruments that don't quite play when being recorded, does anyone know what's going on here? Iron Licks is an example of this, where part of the melody just isn't present for my SC-55. 

The SC-55 has a polyphony limit of 24 voices, so those songs may just have too many notes playing at one time for the hardware to play everything. One way I've gotten around this is to record each instrument soloed and then manually sync the audio files, this does take a lot of time but it ensures that no note gets cut.

 

4 hours ago, BetaCarotene said:

How should I go about setting up the loop-points?

If you plan to let the song's tail fade naturally, then that's that right? If you want it to loop like the MIDI you would just have to cut the rendered audio file so it starts on bar one, beat one and end it on the exact beat that it ends. This can have minor unwanted effects because a lot of MIDI songs loop with notes that are still fading out as the song starts over, but it would just be a hard cut with an audio file.

 

4 hours ago, BetaCarotene said:

What would be the most appropriate compression format for the songs?

Do you mean the bit-depth and sample rate/encoding speed, or the file format? Ogg Vorbis is common to use for soundtracks, and 16bit/44.1 mp3 at 128kbit/s may yeild a small enough file as well. The goal is usually to shrink the file size as much as possible without losing too much quality. Normally Ogg Vorbis is the best option. If you're DAW is able to export at the SC-55's native 16bit/32kHz, all the better!

 

4 hours ago, BetaCarotene said:

How should the Music be labelled for proper usage in game?

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but you can just label it anything and set up a MAPINFO (or equivalent) to tell each source port (that supports audio playback) what to play and for what map.

 

I know I answered in reverse, but let me know if I misunderstood anything!

 

Also: I've never known an SC-55 to even get close to hitting the ceiling in a DAW. I keep mine at full volume and depending on the song, it usually outputs close to -10dB on a VU meter (about -30 LUFS or RMS) which is about perfect because I can raise it to my heart's content with a limiter of my choice and ensure no clipping is had. It could vary between interfaces/AD converters I suppose. No real info there, I'm just curious how you're able to get it so loud that you have to turn it down to avoid clipping.

Edited June 11, 2021 by Lippeth

[BetaCarotene]

On 6/10/2021 at 11:14 PM, Lippeth said:

If you plan to let the song's tail fade naturally, then that's that right? If you want it to loop like the MIDI you would just have to cut the rendered audio file so it starts on bar one, beat one and end it on the exact beat that it ends. This can have minor unwanted effects because a lot of MIDI songs loop with notes that are still fading out as the song starts over, but it would just be a hard cut with an audio file.

 

That is one of the bigger issues I am having, as it's hard to actually get a proper looping spot with how some songs are set up. I am also using audacity for my recording because it supports MIDI playback, and I am not the most well versed in it for these purposes. I might just release what I have, so that someone who knows what they're doing can help.

 

On 6/10/2021 at 11:14 PM, Lippeth said:

Do you mean the bit-depth and sample rate/encoding speed, or the file format? Ogg Vorbis is common to use for soundtracks, and 16bit/44.1 mp3 at 128kbit/s may yeild a small enough file as well. The goal is usually to shrink the file size as much as possible without losing too much quality. Normally Ogg Vorbis is the best option. If you're DAW is able to export at the SC-55's native 16bit/32kHz, all the better!

 

In this case, yeah, I did just mean the file format. I've already encoded the first pass of the songs to 44.1 FLAC files as I'd rather not potentially add in some of the oddities that I have encountered with 32k playback on some systems, and can go down to Ogg from there. Thanks. 

 

On 6/10/2021 at 11:14 PM, Lippeth said:

No real info there, I'm just curious how you're able to get it so loud that you have to turn it down to avoid clipping.

I'm really able to crank the loudness with my motherboard it seems. The Line-in needed to be set to 50% to avoid noise, and even then, my SC-55 needed to be set to about two-thirds volume to keep it below -6dB.

[dial-up]

This album has made USD$48 on bandcamp, 40 of which was from one particularly kind purchaser. This converts to about NZD$70 which has been donated to Women's Refuge. Posting here for transparency. 

 

 

 

[Blues]

Too bad it doesn't work on dsda doom.....oh well time to dust off crispy heretic

[Blues]

On 5/20/2021 at 8:37 PM, Dwars said:

Once again, great work on this project! I made a UMAPINFO lump file patch for ports that support it. (so far I think only dsda-doom's Heretic support is the only one that really benefits from this.) Should work with demos too. Let me know if I messed up any lines when writing it. Other than that, enjoy!

hereumap.rar

my god you are my hero

[Hisymak]

Firstly, I'd love to greatly thank to all the composers who contributed into this excellent MIDI pack. I really enjoyed it and liked many songs from it, and made me replay whole Heretic again after some longer time. It was a whole new experience with the new songs, which fitted many levels from the latter Heretic episodes.

Secondly, as all-life OPL synth lover, I definitely played through this MIDI pack with OPL synth as the selected MIDI device (I almost never use anything else anyway). Like I did in the past with Plutonia, Plutonia 2, Revolution! and BTSX E2, I recorded the OPL Synth version of whole Heretic soundtrack!

The key idea of the video is to have the complete Heretic soundtrack with all the original Kevin Schilder's tracks and Raven MIDI Pack tracks put together, making it appear like it has always been the original soundtrack composed by Kevin Schilder for all levels. It should be a surprise to an unaware random watcher who's seeking for a Heretic soundtrack, therefore I'm intentionally not telling the actual truth in video's description.

I hope you will like the OPL synth version and enjoy listening to your own tracks. The most iconic sound in whole Heretic soundtrack is the Synth Strings 1 instrument which is used in almost all tracks. In the OPL soundfont, this instrument has always been one octave up, making it yet more distinctive and typical for Heretic.

Thank you also for your comments.