Doom's OPL Synth brought into new level: Remix of a real song!

[Hisymak]

Hello Doomers!

Some of you might remember about me having fun playing around and tweaking the Doom's OPL Synth and creating much better quality OPL soundfont: A Hisymak's GENMIDI:

In that topic, I made recordings of various Doom (and also other) music tracks, played with OPL Synth and Hisymak's GENMIDI soundfont. I think those were pretty cool...

 

Well, I did not stay only with Doom's MIDIs, and made something more:

An OPL Synth remix of a real song from my most favourite singer from 80's. I enjoyed creating this pretty much, as I love the sound of the oldschool Adlib/Sound blaster's OPL sound, as well as how I love this particular song. I hope you will like this too, or at least, find it somewhat interesting kind of musical "art".

I basically got the existing MIDI version, and tailored it to sound well along with the OPL instruments. I tweaked some of the instruments to go well with the song too.

If you have ever played Doom or Heretic with OPL (or an old PC with Adlib/Sound Blaster card), you will hear some familiar and beloved instruments, like the basses, the legendry harmonica-like sound from E2M8, Kevin Schilder's beloved Synth Strings that can be heard all around Heretic, and the deep Warm Pad which was screeching in the middle part of Heretic's E2M7 music.

 

So here's the track.

The FIRST video is my OPL remix.

The SECOND video is the original version, for comparison.

Enjoy!

 

 

 

[Nevander]

Anything OPL is automatically awesome.

[bertrandguegan]

Sounds really warm and balanced ! Well done!! :)

 

During choruses it feels like sometimes one of the two instruments playing the melody is a little bit off (in terms of timing). I wonder if there is an issue with the MIDI part or if there is maybe a too long attack in the ADSR envelope for one of the synth? What do you think ?

[Hisymak]

2 hours ago, bertrandguegan said:

Sounds really warm and balanced ! Well done!! :)

 

During choruses it feels like sometimes one of the two instruments playing the melody is a little bit off (in terms of timing). I wonder if there is an issue with the MIDI part or if there is maybe a too long attack in the ADSR envelope for one of the synth? What do you think ?

 

Thanks for nice comment! I hoped this one to be one of my best creations in terms of OPL-style music.

Actually, in the original czech version of the song, there's a male voice singing together in the chorus part. Maybe the little off-timing was made intentionally, to mimic two singers singing there. I'm not author of the MIDI, I did just little adjustments in terms of instrument choice and volume balance.

I'm also curious what you think about the instrument choice - the instrument for the main singer's voice is always the hardest one. In the end, I decided for Doom's Square Wave Lead (with prolonged release rate for nice echo-effect) as it was quite strong and resonant sound which did not sound bad. I was also very happy to use Synth Strings 1 into its full potential, as this is absolutely iconic sounds for Heretic, whose soundtrack was one of my most favourite.

 

Just for comparison, here's the czech version (a whole music video), you can say which one you liked more. Not sure which country you are from, but just for curiosity, there's also a german version.

 

And I made even more OPL Synth remixes than this one, several more for songs of the same singer. If you are curious, you can visit my Youtube channel (the originals can be found very easily).

 

I would point out this one particular song, as this was my very first OPL Synth remix I made intentionally. The story behind this one was, that back in the day I was playing around with OPL Synth stuff (and recorded Plutonia and Plutonia 2 soundtrack with OPL) and listening to various songs from Doom megawads. Some of wads even used a MIDI version of a real song. So I basically spontaneously listened to "kinda OPL remixes" of these songs, and then got a brilliant idea that I could try to remix some of my favourite songs and have fun. I just did not know which song to choose - I did not want to use any globally known song from generally known artists (like Michael Jackson or so) because there would indeed exist remixes of these already and it would not be anything interesting for me. I wanted to be more original and try with an artist from my home country. Then one day later I was randomly riding a car into work and listening to radio. They played a song which impressed me very much, and I just said "that's the song I want to remix".

Well, honestly, this is probably not a song of a genre people would usually use for these kind of "chiptune-like" remixes. So you will probably be very surprised with my choice. I just very like the song and it sounds very emotional to me, and I wanted to make something very original.

So just listen. I hope you will like this one as well.

First video - original song

Second video - OPL remix

 

 

 

The technical solution is pretty much same, there I also took special care of the main voice instrument.

When I listen to this remix, I can say I feel like I taught the Yamaha YMF262 chip feel emotions and sing. It can sound kinda weird to say so, but you can say what you think about it.

[Daytime Waitress]

2 hours ago, Hisymak said:

When I listen to this remix, I can say I feel like I taught the Yamaha YMF262 chip feel emotions and sing.

Careful now, that's how we ended up with Miku!

 

Even though I don't know a lick of Czech, the remix in particular is really emotive - makes me want to create a WAD featuring a crumbling baroque palace set in late summer. With waltzing revenants.

[SyntherAugustus]

Slightly offtopic, but do you know synthwise how the OPL guitars work? I'd like to reverse engineer them somehow into Zenology and thus my Roland keyboards that support it. 

[Hisymak]

5 hours ago, Daytime Waitress said:

Even though I don't know a lick of Czech, the remix in particular is really emotive - makes me want to create a WAD featuring a crumbling baroque palace set in late summer. With waltzing revenants.

 

Well, not sure if you used a translator to translate the song's lyrics or at least the song's name, but what you say is EXACTLY what this song is about. She's singing a melancholy about the end of summer and and all the summer joy that's going to be the past times. Did you guess that just from the melody?

If you would happen to create such a wad you talk about, I'd really love to see that one.

 

Not sure if you, by chance, found this on your own, but I believe you will be stunned.

Firstly, there's a music video for this song.

Secondly, you don't even need to understand any of Czech, and you will still understand the lyrics. Just try it out.

 

Thanks for a nice comment.

 

4 hours ago, SyntherAugustus said:

Slightly offtopic, but do you know synthwise how the OPL guitars work? I'd like to reverse engineer them somehow into Zenology and thus my Roland keyboards that support it. 

I'm sorry, but I think I did not understand your question. Any OPL Synth instrument is defined as a set several of integer values, the values which are programmed into OPL chip's registers, defining the ADSR envelope and other parameters of the song. There are many articles and videos explaining how that stuff works.

[Daytime Waitress]

14 minutes ago, Hisymak said:

 

Well, not sure if you used a translator to translate the song's lyrics or at least the song's name, but what you say is EXACTLY what this song is about. She's singing a melancholy about the end of summer and and all the summer joy that's going to be the past times. Did you guess that just from the melody?

If you would happen to create such a wad you talk about, I'd really love to see that one.

 

I translated just the title, but the rest I could feel out - as you said, a very melancholic melody.

[Hisymak]

22 minutes ago, Daytime Waitress said:

 

I translated just the title, but the rest I could feel out - as you said, a very melancholic melody.

Alright. I'm really pleased by your guessing and imagination.

The music video is not an official one, but rather seems to be a fan creation. But still, I feel it's very good inspiration and moreless about the same what you described.

I wonder if similar musical video could be recreated with your WAD. Let's see.

[SyntherAugustus]

18 hours ago, Hisymak said:

I'm sorry, but I think I did not understand your question. Any OPL Synth instrument is defined as a set several of integer values, the values which are programmed into OPL chip's registers, defining the ADSR envelope and other parameters of the song. There are many articles and videos explaining how that stuff works.

 

What waveforms are used so that if I used a synthesizer, I can reverse engineer them. That's all. Are there samples involved? 

[Daytime Waitress]

On 9/19/2022 at 3:20 PM, Hisymak said:

Alright. I'm really pleased by your guessing and imagination.

The music video is not an official one, but rather seems to be a fan creation. But still, I feel it's very good inspiration and moreless about the same what you described.

I wonder if similar musical video could be recreated with your WAD. Let's see.

 

It'll be a long time coming, I'm afraid, but I want to put that one in the vault for now and get it out there some day.

[Hisymak]

This is a little out of the main topic, but still related.

There is another song from the same album, which reminded me of Decino's video about the origin of Doom sounds. Funnily enough, that song is very loosely connected to Doom, as it features the Rocket Launcher firing sound in it! When I listen to that song, I'm really thinking like I'm firing rockets in Doom. It appears several times, for example at 0:22 and 0:45.

Secondly, this song features a double-voice singing. Basically, the singer sings a duet with herself (starting at 1:07). This is not anything super special, rather a common thing in pop songs, but I specially like it here.

If you know something about Doom's OPL Synth and GENMIDI features, there is support for double-voice instruments, with the detuning of second voice option. I love this feature in particular and use it in lot of instruments (like it was originally used in the Synth Strings for example), as it creates much more interesting and resonating sounds. The double-voice singing in the song in question pretty much reminds me of the same. In that part, it sounds like a double-voice OPL instrument is playing, similar effect.

I am imagining creating an OPL remix of this song, emphasizing this feature, and putting DSRLAUNC sound in background into the same places. That would probably sound cool as well.

If you haven't checked yet, I remixed FIVE songs in total from this album, because I just love it. My wish was to remix the complete album, but that's not going to happen, as there are no MIDIs for all the songs, and it would be overwhelming task for me anyway and some songs would not be that good for remixing.

 

Here are the videos.

First video is the mentioned song.

The second video is Decino's one, pointing out that Doom's sound.

Enjoy!

 

 

 

[Sonikkumania]

Very nice remixes!

What are these songs about? They have this Slavic melancoly melody that hits home very much.

Compare to this Finnish 80's Goth synth song that's a cover of older song.

 

[Hisymak]

On 9/21/2022 at 5:36 PM, Sonikkumania said:

Very nice remixes!

 

Oh, thanks very much!

I would add there yet one more remix (maybe you already hit that one, but I'd still like to emphaseize it there). This one is a song that comes from a well-known czech fairy tale (basically a czech version of Cinderella and three hazelnuts), which might also be known outside of Czech, it's especially popular in Norway.

I made this one as another experiment, where I wanted to try how OPL would stand out with a fairy-tale theme, and I think it went quite well again. This has kind of Christmas feel in it, and it very much reminds me of Christmas Lemmings, a game from 1991/1992, which featured OPL music with similar feeling.

The third video is the Lemmings music in question, for comparison.

Note that several years ago I visited the castle where the music video was shot. Lot of different czech fairy tales took place there.

 

 

 

 

On 9/21/2022 at 5:36 PM, Sonikkumania said:

What are these songs about? They have this Slavic melancoly melody that hits home very much.

 

Well, if that really hits, then THIS song will be like an atomic explosion of Slavic melancholy to you!

This one comes from a russian fairy tale (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Frost_(1964_film)) and was made as a song into Czech figure skating musical theatre.

That was basically the first time in my life (I was about 9-10 years old) when I heard Iveta Bartošová and her voice really hit my ears unforgettably. Maybe the best soprano voice in the Czech pop scene, at least for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5z7mRX3ngE

 

The album is actually full of such jewels.

For example this baroque-esque song which most likely comes from another musical theartre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LM4QSRSvtY

 

And this kind of celtic/medeival-esque catchy tune:

Original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R2tPRENDEQ

OPL Remix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGqUU2hecAY

Note that I also visited that castle shown in video, very nice one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwtzmoPmiXU

 

One more melancholic song:

Original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX-tc2V8IM0

OPL Remix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT-R9iHZsro

 

And yet one more emotional song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PviPazeeZGw

 

On 9/21/2022 at 5:36 PM, Sonikkumania said:

Compare to this Finnish 80's Goth synth song that's a cover of older song.

 

Yeah, there's a similarity, but quite a different genre.

Btw, may I ask which country you are from? Finland?

Edited September 22, 2022 by Hisymak

[Sonikkumania]

Yes I am from Finland. Our music is quite similar in field of melancholy, taking inspiration from Slavic music. Maybe my example song was a little off because it indeed wrong genre.. It's an cover song of a Schrader music song by artist named Carola.

 

I read from wiki that this lady who has passed away in 2014 had quite a "colorful" personality .. OR more like being constantly chased by the press.

Can you elaborate more on this topic, @Hisymak

[Hisymak]

12 hours ago, Sonikkumania said:

Yes I am from Finland.

 

Ah, that's a nice coincidence, happy to hear that!

I'm working for a finnish IT company called TietoEvry, so I'm also in contact with finnish people within my job.

I'm more familiar with basically two finnish musicians: Loituma and Nightwish, and I'm aware Finland is famous for being the country with the highest concentration of metal bands, indeed I (randomly or intentionally) heard some songs from those.

 

I know Loituma for their famous song "Levan Polkka", not only because it became a meme song which was one of the most remixed songs on the internet, but mainly because a group of my classmates from a high school where I studied performed that song! Here I have the recording on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5106II45V74

I'm really curious what you say about these Czechs attempt to sing in finnish. Unfortunately the sound quality of this recording is very poor (recorded that on a compact camera from a greater distance), but in real it could sound quite better.

 

And Nightwish is actually my favourite band, especially my brother is listening to their songs. I strongly prefer the symphonic metal genre, the hard metal is not much of my taste. Except very nice instrumental music, it also features an opera/soprano singer, which is what I especially like there.

Funnily enough, my story about Nightwish again starts with Doom and its OPL Synthesizer. I was playing some Doom Wads with OPL synth on, and got to play a map which featured a MIDI of a Nightwish song. So the FIRST thing I ever heard from Nightwish in my life was basically the OPL remix! I especially like that song, and tried to find more from that band. Here I made a quick recording of the OPL version: 18.zip

Various Doom WADs used various MIDIs of some real songs, so for example I heard Britney Spears's Toxic song in OPL, and countless of other rock/metal songs which are very common genre for Doom. However, the Nightwish song specially hit home due to that emotional singing towards the end of song. The MIDI uses, afaik, the Calliope Lead instrument for both male and female voice. For the male voice it's kinda miss, but for the female voice It was more a fit.

This song was probably the most inspirative to me and lead me to try with my own OPL remixes of my favourite songs. I easily chose Iveta Bartošová because she has (for me subjectively) the nicest voice and I wanted so hear her songs through my beloved OPL synthesizer I spent basically my whole life listening to.

So, uh, that's the story about one man's fulfilled musical dream.

 

12 hours ago, Sonikkumania said:

Our music is quite similar in field of melancholy, taking inspiration from Slavic music.

 

Yes, I see you're quite close. I would say also Balkan music is pretty much melancholic.

I hope you liked also the other songs I posted and their OPL remixes.

 

12 hours ago, Sonikkumania said:

I read from wiki that this lady who has passed away in 2014 had quite a "colorful" personality .. OR more like being constantly chased by the press.

Can you elaborate more on this topic, @Hisymak

 

I kinda presumed you would get more interested.

Basically she was one of the best Czech pop stars of late 80's and 90's, not only because her voice and songs, but also dancing performances and trying to get pretty close to the western pop scene, you could see that in the other song which sounded close to a Sonic music. There's another good example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_iFr5HtX_4

Her best times were the end of 80's/beginning of 90's, and secondly the late 90's when she made the album I remixed the most. Unfortunately, she was not lucky in personal life and could not easily stand out the attacks of tabloid media and life with her men. She was basically very talented and beautiful princess, but very fragile personality. I believe she was a very good person who liked people, and I can say the whole Czech nation loves her and remembers her songs.

This is going way too off-topic, so using spoiler for more stuff.

Spoiler

If you're somewhat more interested in her personality, there's for example an interview show from 2010, that was from the time after she experienced very hard time and temporarily got into better condition. I know you won't understand any word from that, but at least you can see her expressions and tone of voice, to see her personality. She got basically some tough questions from the moderator and tried to come up with some reasonable answers. This is still pretty much decent interview, there were some worse.
https://youtu.be/y5Z0s4s0IQs?t=165

 

And there's also a Christmas musical show she made on 2013 Christmas, about half year before her death. That was the last time she got into pretty good condition. I would say she's definitely not any bad person.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQx5OvcRud0

 

 

Edited September 23, 2022 by Hisymak

[Sonikkumania]

Hello again @Hisymak

 

I watched your school band cover and unfortunately either/both the video audio and my laptop audio output quality isn't super good, still some pronounces sounded legit and fluid :D why on earth were they covering a Finnish song from the late 1920's?! It's pretty amusing, heh.

 

Myself I've never been into Nightwish despite it's been around my whole life. I still remember there was a news outlet when the original singer Tarja Turunen resigned or was expelled from the band God knows how long ago, that's pretty much all I have to say. I prefer some heavier and harsher stuff when it comes to Metal music.

 

You do good OPL remixes, man.. and you know it's funny that I once made a Sega Megadrive stylish cover of a Czech musician Ivan Mladek, you obviously know his discography :P it's this:

Spoiler

 

From what I understand he's basically a multi tasking guy in field of comedy music and inventions, right? I've been fascinated about him for a long time, lol.

 

I also visited Prague on my holiday in 2019, for 5 days. Very beautiful and impressive city and I'd love to visit somewhere else there someday. Beer was good and cheap - cheapest pint costed 50 Cents in a Pub. Here a 0.33cl can of bad quality cheap beer alone costs 0.95 Cents. Yeah .... Also what's with the pensioners doing guard job, taking money at the Metro station toilet entrances?

 

But yeah regarding late mrs. Iveta Bartošová, I guess she was a typical fragile artistic soul who couldn't really take the pressure of public attention let alone the media chase, it's very typical with artistic personalities from what I can tell.. She wasn't an alcoholic though, right? Here many old school musicians and other artists used to drink very heavily which ultimately led them to early grave - it's sad but life can be.

Edited September 28, 2022 by Sonikkumania

[Hisymak]

On 9/28/2022 at 10:37 AM, Sonikkumania said:

why on earth were they covering a Finnish song from the late 1920's?! It's pretty amusing, heh.

I think that was because that song became extremely popular on internet, for some reason, maybe either because it's very interesting and special song, maybe because of that leek spin anime meme. I'm happy to hear their pronunciation was understandable to you, as I don't understand a word in finnish.

 

On 9/28/2022 at 10:37 AM, Sonikkumania said:

I prefer some heavier and harsher stuff when it comes to Metal music.

I see, everyone has different preferences. I was never into hard rock and metal and don't actively visit any rock/metal band concerts. I'd rather come to some classical/baroque music concert, or at most some good pop singer. I like pop music from 80's and 90's due to presence of those oldschool synth chips and keyboards I love, the modern pop music is less interesting to me.

Regarding Doom, I like most Doom music, but I prefer more variation over pure rock/metal theme. One of my most favourite soundtracks is from BTSX2, which features mostly tribal/ethnical/moody music tracks, I recorded OPL version here:

 

I recorded several more complete Doom megawad soundtracks in OPL - those I specifically liked, for example Plutonia or Plutonia 2.

Also I need to say that I much more prefer Heretic's soundtrack than Doom's. The medeival/fantasy is my favourite theme as well.

When it comes to fantasy, this one specific Doom's music track is probably my absolutely most favourite. It plays in Memento Mori, and it has some strong dark fantasy feel into it that hit me very much. Obviously I like the OPL Synth version, which probably changes the feel a bit from the original. When I listen to that track, I imagine I'm in a marvelous castle in a magical fantasy world. Here it is:

 

On 9/28/2022 at 10:37 AM, Sonikkumania said:

You do good OPL remixes, man..

Ah, thanks for saying that!

I spent my whole childhood with the OPL chip music while playing numerous DOS games. I loved the sound, because I believed "that is how computer game music is supposed to sound like". I was not concerned about the "lesser" sound quality, but what was important to me, it was something "different", distinct from real world music and musical instruments, what had its own personality. I loved the abstract instruments, the sounds that could never be heard in nature. One of my most favourite soundtracks is from Dune 2.

As an adult, my little dream was to be a composer and musician and create good music specifically for OPL chip. Unfortunately I don't have creative abilities, so that's not going to happen, but at least I started playing around and experimenting with OPL instruments, which ended up by creation of my own GENMIDI. My goal was to mitigate the biggest flaws of OPL (those crappily sounding instruments, which was one of main reasons why OPL was so unpopular) and create well-sounding, strong and interesting instruments, so that the OPL music can attract the listeners. Which I managed to do, I believe.

I just love how versatile the OPL chip is. There are other much more popular synth chips, like NES, SID from Commodore 64, Sega Genesis and so, which have stronger sound, whereas the OPL sound feels rather tinny. But on the other hand, OPL can create really big variety of different sounds, some can sound very close to real instruments, whereas there can be purely abstract and crazy sounds.

I was doing some experiments and tried with a classical piece from Tchaikovsky. I can say, some instruments, like french horn, clarinet or flute, sound pretty convincing.

 

On 9/28/2022 at 10:37 AM, Sonikkumania said:

Czech musician Ivan Mladek, you obviously know his discography

Oh, oh, oh. Well, I was previously shy to say, that, uhm, I don't know Ivan Mladek. Actually, when I looked for him and his songs right now, I realized I knew those songs and I definitely heard them in my life, but I was never explicitly interested and listening them intentionally. You know, when I was a kid, I was much more interested in computer game music, and listened to other music rather passively. I knew a few singers, including Iveta Bartošová, and got more interest basically as an adult. So, that's it, maybe you know better that guy than me.

 

On 9/28/2022 at 10:37 AM, Sonikkumania said:

From what I understand he's basically a multi tasking guy in field of comedy music and inventions, right? I've been fascinated about him for a long time, lol.

It's funny how different persons are fascinated by different things.

 

On 9/28/2022 at 10:37 AM, Sonikkumania said:

I once made a Sega Megadrive stylish cover

I was really interested to hear that cover, could not imagine how that song would sound (I already knew the song "Linda"). Your cover seems not to be like what I expected (something like what I did myself, a remix of full song with all the instruments and voice), but rather a hand-made piece of the main part of song. I admit I kinda "cheated" with the use of existing MIDIs, so I'm fascinated you took your effort creating something like this, pretty good. I also like the image in the video.

I'm quite less familiar with the Sega sound system, as I got to know about SEGA consoles later in my life. I understand it's from the same family as OPL chip, namely SEGA Genesis/Megadrive uses OPN chip. The sound is quite similar to OPL, but feels stronger, and is also much better with sampled drums.

My wish, a pie in the sky I wrote in my last comment in my the other thread about one song sounding like Sonic music, is to have SEGA Genesis cover for that song. Just wondering whether you or someone else would be able to recreate it with the highest possible fidelity (of the instruments).

 

On 9/28/2022 at 10:37 AM, Sonikkumania said:

I also visited Prague on my holiday in 2019, for 5 days. Very beautiful and impressive city and I'd love to visit somewhere else there someday. Beer was good and cheap - cheapest pint costed 50 Cents in a Pub. Here a 0.33cl can of bad quality cheap beer alone costs 0.95 Cents. Yeah .... Also what's with the pensioners doing guard job, taking money at the Metro station toilet entrances?

Yeah, Prague is one of the most beautiful historical cities, there are loads of foreign tourists. I'm happy you liked it there. I've never been to Finland, I was only once in Stockholm for a business trip. But some of my colleagues were in Finland and they were fascinated by the infinite forests, and saunas everywhere.

Those pensioners? My only thought is, that maybe all money they get paid from people using the toilets (it's probably not so much money per a day), would go to their salary anyway, so there's no more income for operating the toilets. Feels quite strange to me, but on the other hand, I think it's mainly because those pensioners get some basic job and extra money.

 

On 9/28/2022 at 10:37 AM, Sonikkumania said:

But yeah regarding late mrs. Iveta Bartošová, I guess she was a typical fragile artistic soul who couldn't really take the pressure of public attention let alone the media chase, it's very typical with artistic personalities from what I can tell.. She wasn't an alcoholic though, right? Here many old school musicians and other artists used to drink very heavily which ultimately led them to early grave - it's sad but life can be.

I pretty much agree with what you say. I don't feel very comfortable to say, that she actually became an alcoholic too, as a consequence of her personal problems and media chase. I must say I feel sorry for her, rather than thinking bad things about her. I was bullied on elementary school by my classmates, because, I had very different interests from others and could not get with others. It was very hard times to me, so I could feel something like what she was experiencing in her later life. That's probably one of the reasons I got to like her (expect I really LOVE her songs and voice). She will always be the singing princess to me.

Edited October 3, 2022 by Hisymak

[Hisymak]

Ok, so finally, here goes one of my biggest OPL Synth creations ever: A whole music video!

It's from a czech musical fairy tale from 1973, which is full of beautiful songs, and it's one of the most popular classic films that goes here mostly during Christmas time every year. I pretty much like the story, visuals, places, and most importantly the songs, we were growing up with. So in the end, after some good experience with remixing Iveta Bartošová's songs into OPL, the idea of remixing these songs grew up in my head. I just wanted to have fun, challenge myself, and enjoy those lovely songs in OPL!

I remixed 7 songs from that film, and one specific song has an interesting story behind it.

As you might have noticed, my specific area of interest in terms of OPL Synth is kind of "mimicking" human voice in songs, with use of appropriate OPL "instrument" with a fitting timbre. I always felt that playing female voice in OPL comes easier than male voice, due to the nature of OPL sounding more likely high-pitched. So I tended more into remixing songs with females singing in it, and made a few songs from that fairy tale.

I showed those songs to my job colleague, who also very liked this fairy tale like me, and he was impressed. But he told me that he was missing one specific song which was sung by an evil king, which was his most favourite. He asked me to remix this particular song for him. So I got a challenge! As always, I needed to come up with an appropriate instrument for the human voice, and I needed to mimic a deep old king's voice. After a while, I managed to come up with something that could work. Then I tailored the rest of song and was pretty happy with the result. When I showed that to my colleague the other day, he was really amazed and told me, it was genius perfect remix!

So here it is. I'm really curious what you would think. Enjoy!

 

The first video is original song, the second is my remix with video part. All seven songs are in the video.

 

 

 

[Sonikkumania]

It sounds like it would suit very well in a medieval fantasy setting inside a Doom .wad :D maybe something more lighthearted though?

In the future, would you give permission to use these OPL songs (with proper crediting naturally) in a project,

@Hisymak

[Hisymak]

3 hours ago, Sonikkumania said:

It sounds like it would suit very well in a medieval fantasy setting inside a Doom .wad :D maybe something more lighthearted though?

Heh, interesting thought. I was never thinking those songs would fit in any wad at all, as these remixes were mainly made as a tribute to those songs I liked. But why not, the imagination has no limits, and it could turn into something interesting and original.

3 hours ago, Sonikkumania said:

In the future, would you give permission to use these OPL songs (with proper crediting naturally) in a project, 

@Hisymak

Yes, feel free, you can contact me via PM if you want anything specific, like a MIDI file or other stuff.

[bertrandguegan]

You really know your way around the OPL chip @Hisymak ! I've always found OPL music more organic than other kinds of chiptunes, and you remixes do justice to this statement, as they sound organic, smooth and musical too. Kudos to you :)  

 

You mentioned that lots of people tend to dislike (even hate) this kind of music. Many composers from the 90's didn't like those sounds too, because they would so much prefer deal with real instruments. I understand why, but it's throwing the bathwater out with the baby IMO. As one can be so creative with OPL ! 

 

I may be biased since I grew up listening to OPL music, playing DOS games back in the early 90's. But still... And I'm happy to know that even today there are still people out there loving those OPL sounds :)

 

Your Doom's remix is awesome! Did you ever send it to Mark Klem ? I'm sure that he would really love to hear your OPL version ! :)

 

 

[Hisymak]

On 11/4/2022 at 3:17 PM, bertrandguegan said:

You really know your way around the OPL chip @Hisymak ! I've always found OPL music more organic than other kinds of chiptunes, and you remixes do justice to this statement, as they sound organic, smooth and musical too. Kudos to you :)  

Thanks! Yes, I agree about that. I think that the point is, while some other synths are more about square, sawtooth, triangle etc. waveforms, OPL synthesis is made by modulating sine or sine-based waveforms. The sound of natural musical instruments is based on sine waves and harmonics, that's probably why OPL can make more natural and organic sounds, whereas square-wave based synths sound stronger, but more chip-py and computer-y. OPL added the square waveform in OPL3 which fixed the lack of this kind of sound from earlier OPL2, but unfortunately, OPL3 was not much used in practice (in games), so it did not get much chance to shine.

On 11/4/2022 at 3:17 PM, bertrandguegan said:

You mentioned that lots of people tend to dislike (even hate) this kind of music. Many composers from the 90's didn't like those sounds too, because they would so much prefer deal with real instruments. I understand why, but it's throwing the bathwater out with the baby IMO. As one can be so creative with OPL !  

Heh, that's right, OPL does not get that much attention nowadays and most Doomers are not even familiar about this MIDI playback option in Doom ports, or would not choose that one anyway. But I understand. Many games from early to mid-90's had music which was primarily composed for some more advanced or sampled MIDI synth, like Roland MT-32, Roland SC-55 or so, and the playback on Adlib/Sound Blaster cards was considered as an afterthought, kind of "secondary", less-fancy option. Therefore, the composers and game creators did not take really much effort on OPL Synth playback, and just made it as simple MIDI playback on the stock OPL soundfont (i.e. the Fat Man, DMX library soundfonts etc) which were not that great quality, and many instruments sounded dull or crappy. And the music sounded just... bad. That's why not many people came to like it, I was rather an exception.

On the other hand, there exist many examples of games with great and shining OPL soundtracks, where the composers and musicians took really solid effort creating the OPL music. The Dune soundtrack by Stéphane Picq, Dune 2 soundtrack by Frank Klepacki, these are best examples of how OPL music can be made well, and what the chip can offer if you know how to use it.

On 11/4/2022 at 3:17 PM, bertrandguegan said:

I may be biased since I grew up listening to OPL music, playing DOS games back in the early 90's. But still... And I'm happy to know that even today there are still people out there loving those OPL sounds :)

Well, at least, we are the two, and I believe there are more people around who love OPL! We're the minority, but we're not alone.

On 11/4/2022 at 3:17 PM, bertrandguegan said:

Your Doom's remix is awesome! Did you ever send it to Mark Klem ? I'm sure that he would really love to hear your OPL version ! :)

Nope, I am not in contact with Mark Klem, I'm wondering whether he's even visiting the Doomworld forums? But I love his music, not only the Doom tracks he composed for MM series or Requiem, but I've played the game Wacky Wheels, and its music, composed by Mark Klem, are great OPL pieces as well! The OPL version is way better than the standard MIDI version.

I wonder what Mark Klem would say on that, but I suppose he would like it. Do you have contact on him?

But still, we can be in contact with @Jimmy, one of my most favourite present-time musical composers (and mappers). He is making so great music tracks for various Doom megawads! I listen to his Doom MIDIs in OPL, and recorded many of his tracks in OPL. I believe he already heard them and likes them - does he?