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Bubbleman100

Bobby Prince or Mick Gordon

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I want to discuss with you the differences between Bobby Prince and Mick Gordon, what they like about each one, what they don't like

I think Mick is a more technical and creative musician in his composition

Plus Bobby Prince also made a very good soundtrack for Doom

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Prince is better at the timeless classics. The original two Doom games have some of the best music to come out of 90s gaming.

Gordon is better at immersing the player. Smashing open imps while listening to BFG Division or pulling apart Cacodemons with The Only Thing They Fear Is You blasting in the background fits the game so well.

 

You can't compare the two. Both of them represent Doom in their own way and they're both god damn amazing

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Bobby Prince got me into writing music and playing guitar (first riff I ever learned was Doom's intermission). So, Prince. 

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This might be an unpopular opinion but I don't really like Mick Gordon's Doom 2016 soundtrack. I have not played Doom '16 but I have listened to some of the more popular tracks on YouTube. It did not appeal to me. Maybe it's because I'm listening to the music without the atmosphere of the game but as it's own thing, the music felt... chaotic (but not a good way) to me. Like it's too noisy.

 

Doom 1/2's soundtrack I can still listen to while I do other stuff.

 

Again, my dislike of the Doom '16 track could also narrow down to personal preference and listening to them outside of the game.

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Bobby Prince is good. Lee Jackson, another composer from that era, and a more logical option to compare, is better. Mick Gordon is also better.

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Two different eras. You really can't compare a guy who was constrained to MIDIs to a guy who gets the luxury of as many voices and effects as he pleases.

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Bobby Prince. Mick Gordon's music is incredible but songs like Running in the Dark, Into Sandy's City, Opening to Hell, and basically all the other songs in Doom 1 and 2 are some of my favorite songs in video game history.

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Yeah, the technology differences between the two era make it hard to make meaningful comparisons. I don't think Mick Gordon's music would work at all in MIDI; he'd be forced to make more traditional pieces.

 

I'll say that both soundtracks fit their own games very well -- BFG Division playing in E1M1: Hangar would be very out of place with the primitive graphics; and inversely At Doom's Gate in all its MIDI glory would not fare much better in a NuDoom level. (There's the same kind of deal with Sigil; where IMO Jimmy's MIDI tracks fit much better than Buckethead's riffs.)

 

44 minutes ago, Zulk RS said:

Maybe it's because I'm listening to the music without the atmosphere of the game but as it's own thing, the music felt... chaotic (but not a good way) to me. Like it's too noisy.

The chaos and noisiness is very deliberate, Gordon wanted the sound itself to reflect the idea of Hell's corrupting influence, so he set up basically a complex noise machine that he dubbed "the Doom instrument" and where the notes, instead of fading to silence as with normal instruments, fade to noise. The soundtrack really fits the game; without the action on screen it's a harder sell, yes.

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What if Bobby Prince worked on the next DLC pack for Doom Eternal? Like, he could do recreations of Into Sandy's City, Running From Evil, etc.
But I think Mick is best on the Doom reboots (2016, Eternal onward,) while Bob could make new music for any official classic Doom WADS created by either Carmack or Romero. Highly doubt Carmack though, he'd have barely any time for that.

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Everything's already been said about the two amazing composers, but personally I have to choose Bobby Prince. He's the one who inspired me to write music in the first place and defined my MIDI style.

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3 hours ago, Gothic said:

Bobby Prince is good. Lee Jackson, another composer from that era, and a more logical option to compare, is better. Mick Gordon is also better.

 

Just out of interest, I wonder if that first view is influenced by Duke3D, as I think Bobby Prince seemed to have lost his touch a bit by then, and that Lee Jackson's music for Duke3D is generally the stronger.  But I wouldn't put it up there with the music for Doom 1, which I think of as Bobby Prince's magnum opus.  The music for Doom 1 was quite a strong influence on me at an early age, as was the music for the first Hexen, which I generally regard as Kevin Schilder's best.

 

As others have said it's hard to compare Mick Gordon as he's writing music for games with completely different technology, although he's still managed to find ways of subtly interpolating some of Bobby Prince's music into his own.  I think DOOM 2016's soundtrack was generally very good, and that Doom Eternal's would have been even better had it not infamously been botched post-processing wise for various reasons.

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Bobby Prince. While I don't think Mick Gordon's music is bad, it turns that noisy metal is not my kind of music. I'm more of thrash and art rock/metal and basically anything that has a distinguishable good melody. This is why I absolutely love the music from the first games, while the music from DOOM 2016 is totally indifferent to me. Just not the kind of tracks I would search on YouTube to hear one more time.

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Trying to be objective, Bobby only has one credit to his name in the last two decades so there really is no way to judge if he is even up to creating compositions on Mick's level. You may not like Mick's style (everyone has their own preferences and that's fine) but I have no evidence Bobby could even create the kind of compositions expected of modern games. He probably can do more than just compose MIDIs these days but I cannot know for sure. So based on the evidence, I would say Mick is probably the superior musician and composer, especially since some of Bobby's compositions were... somewhat derivative, though I am unsure if that was due to his decisions or direct request from id.

 

But ultimately it is personal preference. Mick's music suits the new Doom games. Bobby's suits the old. I can not see Mick's music in Classic Doom and vice versa. I like both when they are used in the right situation.

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I'll say only this: Bobby Prince is the shit, he created the soundtrack to a generation, he was open to listening to styles of music he wasn't necessarily into and create original works in that style, he is a former lawyer, and even though he was 'only' the sound designer for OG Doom I/II, he could probably still brutally murder every member of this forum easily. 

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7 hours ago, Murdoch said:

Trying to be objective, Bobby only has one credit to his name in the last two decades

I hesitated to bring up the Wrack OST here, because if I'm not mistaken, @Carnevil asked him to make retro-style music, channeling his Doom and Duke Nukem 3D days.

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1 hour ago, Gez said:

I hesitated to bring up the Wrack OST here, because if I'm not mistaken, @Carnevil asked him to make retro-style music, channeling his Doom and Duke Nukem 3D days.

 

Definitely throwback style and that's perfectly fine if that is what the developer wanted. Solid compositions judging by my quick skim that call to mind the earlier time period so mission admirably accomplished.

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Mick Gordon: Dynamic numetal

 

Bobby Prince: Don't forget to eat your veeegetables (plus points if you get reference)

 

Seriously though, like others I just can't compare. None are better than each other for what they do?

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thumb_why-not-both-i-feel-liketransgende

To be for real for a second, Mick has taken Rob's past tracks, and done them justice. Bobby has given his seal of approval, there is an entire interview with bobby on youtube, paying Co-op E1, and talking about his time on the game and many others! 

Part 1, Mick is mentioned at 13:04

 




Parts 2-8

 

Edit: I like both.

Edited by Alexo : I like both

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I love Bobby Prince's music, but the majority of what we hear in Doom is a simple riff set to a 12 or 16 bar blues. Nothing spectacular or notable about that. However, what he did very well was make those simple riffs and melodies memorable within that framework. Mick Gordon's music is cool but so different than they're nearly incomparable. 

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19 hours ago, The Nate said:

Aubrey Hodges

 

Yep.  Without question, his stuff aged a LOT better than Prince's and still holds up incredibly well today (and doubly so for the since-released expanded mixes).  Prince's music simply sounds too dated and cheesy now...pretty much ruins Doom I/II for me...Hodges' ageless tunes somehow make DI/DII/D64 feel more modern than they have any right to.  But I readily admit just as I'm sure those who heard Prince's compositions first were likely shocked whenever they played PSX Doom for the first time (and simply couldn't embrace Hodges' change in direction), I had a similar reaction trying to adjust to Prince's MIDIs...they take me completely out of the game...no sense of dread or foreboding.  

 

Haven't played the newer Dooms yet and am not planning to at this point, so can't really judge Gordon's work yet.  Reading about him here makes me curious enough to check out playthroughs of Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal though, just to hear how his contributions work with the more current Dooms.  

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1 hour ago, Devils950003 said:

Haven't played the newer Dooms yet and am not planning to at this point, so can't really judge Gordon's work yet.  Reading about him here makes me curious enough to check out playthroughs of Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal though, just to hear how his contributions work with the more current Dooms.  

 

They fit them like a glove, but that being said, according to what you've just said a few paragraphs earlier, I don't think they will be your cup of tea.

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12 hours ago, Maximum Matt said:

he was open to listening to styles of music he wasn't necessarily into and create original works in that style

 

This is a great point about Bobby Prince.  A lot of us assume that Bobby's Doom soundtrack is based on his own love for bands like Metallica and Pantera... but I think Bobby would have been a bit too old at the time to be into those "new" bands.  It was the younger designers (Romero mostly) that were giving Bobby CDs of those bands to study and copy the style for Doom's music, since that heavy metal style was the game designers' vision for Doom's music.  They were right though, it fits the game perfectly.  I actually like Doom 2's music a lot less as it lacks many heavy/intense songs.  Other games from the era like Blake Stone and Duke Nukem 2 have some great heavy songs as well.

 

3 hours ago, Chezza said:

Bobby Prince: Don't forget to eat your veeegetables (plus points if you get reference)

 

Keen Dreams!

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52 minutes ago, seed said:

 

They fit them like a glove, but that being said, according to what you've just said a few paragraphs earlier, I don't think they will be your cup of tea.

 

I happen to LOVE metal, of all genres BTW...given that from what I've seen of the new Dooms (in that they don't really remind me of the classic games at all), I may very well agree with you, that metal-based soundtracks for Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal might indeed be perfect for those games.  I just have to see and hear those Dooms before I can say either way.  

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I prefer Doom 1's soundtrack to Doom 2's too, partly because I personally think it works better in game and as a standalone experience, and partly because it is somewhat less derivative.  Many of the Doom 2 tracks lie somewhere around that murky grey area between "inspiration" and "rip-off", but I can only think of a couple of Doom 1 tracks that come close, and certainly none of the more iconic Doom 1 tracks.

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