MP3 Music

[Onslaught Six]

So I've been without internet at my house for a few days, and I've been occupying myself by making music, as I often do. And I stumbled upon a pretty spooky chord progression on my guitar. And that's when I remembered FreeDoom.

What's going on with the music, exactly? What formats are we allowed to use/submit? I know Freedoom isn't using any source port and one of the goals is to remain compatible with nearly any existing Doom PWAD, but most source ports these days support MP3 music, and I was just curious as to if, exactly, I was allowed to create tunes for it.

The odd thing: When I started, I seem to have forgotten that FreeDoom was for Doom 2, and created tracks specifically to match the feel of E1M1 and E1M8. Oh well. <.<

If FreeDoom isn't quite interested in using MP3 music or anything, that's completely fine--I was just wondering if maybe I could go ahead and keep doing this or what. None of the music I'll make will be taken from existing songs or anything (although there might be a few vague similarities, I guess--I use a similar trick to the original E1M1 theme in my new opening music) and I'm fairly sure all the drum samples are free (They either come from Fruity Loops or actual live drum samples I've taken, I'm sure) and the bass/synth/etc. is just synthesized from FL, so it should be 100% good to use.

If the project isn't interested, I guess I'll just start my own Free Music Resource project and go with that.

[leileilol]

1. mp3 is patented
2. boom doesn't use mp3
3. doom doesn't use mp3
4. prboom doesn't use mp3
5. it's not midi
6. mp3s are huge and bloat
7. fruity loops and stock samples are not 'free'.

[david_a]

Onslaught Six said:

actual live drum samples I've taken

These would be fine if you sampled yourself playing or somebody who is willing to give them away. If the other drums are synthesized that would work too.

If you made some free Doom-ish OGG tracks I'm sure you could host them somewhere... I doubt they would ever be part of the base Freedoom package, but maybe another "companion" project (like FreeDM) could be created. How about FreeDooMusic? :)

[Onslaught Six]

leileilol said:

1. mp3 is patented
2. boom doesn't use mp3
3. doom doesn't use mp3
4. prboom doesn't use mp3
5. it's not midi
6. mp3s are huge and bloat
7. fruity loops and stock samples are not 'free'.

1) So it's illegal to actually utilize free MP3s?
2) Meh. Boom is old and outdated anyway.
3) What, Vanilla Doom? Sure, it doesn't, but who's looking to play this on Vanilla Doom anyway? Remember, FreeDoom's entire purpose is to make something 'free'--and aren't source ports like ZDoom completely free, as opposed to Vanilla Doom?
3) What's PRBoom?
4) So? MIDI files for music are horribly outdated and lack in actual sound. They're 'vastly' limited, especially if you're going to be doing some industrial-style experiments to music (mechanical whirrs, screaming, random noises through creepy ambient tracks), which MIDI can't even begin to simulate.
5) At 128kb/s and around three minutes apiece (also designed specifically to loop) each song is only, at most, five megs. An entire episode's length of tracks is only 45 megs. All three original episodes (or roughly 30 levels ala Doom 2) is only 140 megs, without compression, and that's if all 28 songs are unique files (which, if going by Doom/Doom 2's order, they aren't.) So we're looking at maybe 100 megs altogether, zipped--and that's 'if' I don't just upload the tracks individually and allow people to pick and choose. Besiding that, 'hopefully' it would always be offered as an independant download from the base FreeDoom.
6) I'm 95% sure that the samples Fruity Loops comes with off the bat are open source and can be used freely.

david_a said:

These would be fine if you sampled yourself playing or somebody who is willing to give them away. If the other drums are synthesized that would work too.

That's precisely what I've done with all the non-FL samples.

If you made some free Doom-ish OGG tracks I'm sure you could host them somewhere... I doubt they would ever be part of the base Freedoom package, but maybe another "companion" project (like FreeDM) could be created. How about FreeDooMusic? :) [/B]

So how can I convert them to OGG? I'm mostly unfamiliar with the format, so bear with me.

I was pretty doubtful it'd end up part of the base package as well, but it's always worth a shot. Besides, I'm sure there's an interest 'somewhere' for new, original MP3 music for Doom--I'm sure everyone is tired of MIDI files or MP3 covers of the original songs.

[CODOR]

Onslaught Six said:
2) Meh. Boom is old and outdated anyway.

Freedoom's maps target Boom, everything else should work in Vanilla. That means MIDI (or I suppose MUS for maximum compatibility).

6) I'm 95% sure that the samples Fruity Loops comes with off the bat are open source and can be used freely.

But can they be used under this license?

And according to this, any port using SDL_mixer probably has problems with MP3s. So just go with Ogg Vorbis -- it sounds better at the same bitrate anyways...

[david_a]

Onslaught Six said:

So how can I convert them to OGG? I'm mostly unfamiliar with the format, so bear with me.

Well, first check if whatever program you create your songs in is able to output to Ogg (technically Ogg Vorbis). You would not want to convert from MP3 to Ogg, as they both use lossy compression. If your program doesn't support outputting to Ogg directly the best would be to output to some intermediate format (WAV or something) and then compress that.

The MP3 format is covered by some patents that make free encoders/decoders for it somewhat legally dubious, which is why a lot of (all?) GPL software stays away from it. I know the EDGE port doesn't support MP3 files for this reason. Ogg Vorbis is totally free and open, which make it a popular choice for games (even for commercial games; Doom3 uses it).

[chungy]

Onslaught Six said:

1) So it's illegal to actually utilize free MP3s?

Depending on the country and status of its patents, yes.

2) Meh. Boom is old and outdated anyway.

Boom is a good port to aim for, as many popular ports have partial or full Boom compatibility.

3) What, Vanilla Doom? Sure, it doesn't, but who's looking to play this on Vanilla Doom anyway? Remember, FreeDoom's entire purpose is to make something 'free'--and aren't source ports like ZDoom completely free, as opposed to Vanilla Doom?

Vanilla is the best target for WADs, pretty much every source port works with vanilla-compatible WADs; and plenty of people enjoy playing with Chocolate Doom if they can't easily run Vanilla Doom. Also, ZDoom is illegal for mixing Doom and Heretic and Hexen code all in one ("Who cares?" is a different matter entirely that I won't go into).

3) What's PRBoom?

Primarily a port of Boom to modern operating systems, with some new features and compatibility levels of its own. "DOOM the way it was meant to be... on Windows, Linux, Mac OS, and Nintendo DS too" :P

4) So? MIDI files for music are horribly outdated and lack in actual sound. They're 'vastly' limited, especially if you're going to be doing some industrial-style experiments to music (mechanical whirrs, screaming, random noises through creepy ambient tracks), which MIDI can't even begin to simulate.

but by using MP3 or Ogg Vorbis you're inheritly limiting what ports can play the IWAD; PrBoom supports neither format afaik

5) At 128kb/s and around three minutes apiece (also designed specifically to loop) each song is only, at most, five megs. An entire episode's length of tracks is only 45 megs. All three original episodes (or roughly 30 levels ala Doom 2) is only 140 megs, without compression, and that's if all 28 songs are unique files (which, if going by Doom/Doom 2's order, they aren't.) So we're looking at maybe 100 megs altogether, zipped--and that's 'if' I don't just upload the tracks individually and allow people to pick and choose. Besiding that, 'hopefully' it would always be offered as an independant download from the base FreeDoom.

Maybe for games like Quake 2 or Quake 3, user-made resources are acceptable to be in the multi-hundreds of megabytes range, but Doom has different expectations :P

6) I'm 95% sure that the samples Fruity Loops comes with off the bat are open source and can be used freely.

Probably not.

[Jim Rainer]

Regardless of how this goes, I'll gladly use this music resource. I don't know about everybody else, but I have DSL and a 160 gig hard drive. As long as it's not a ridiculous filesize (and I mean ridiculous, like >700MB), and is spyware/adware/virus/etc. free, I have no problem downloading it, even if it is for doom.
EDIT: And I use GZdoom anyways.

[Jon]

Hey, interesting stuff! Regarding MP3s and patents, this is a concern for some F/OSS projects that implement MP3 encoders, where the patent is actually enforced, but playback is not a problem. In freedoom, we don't have a policy of avoiding known software patents, since there's a software patent for just about every conceivable bit of a program. Only the actively enforced ones are of concern, and even then I'd personally want to consider them on an individual basis.

[Enjay]

Jim Rainer said:

Stuff

I agree. Even if it isn't suitable for FreeDoom, this sounds very interesting and a music resource is always welcome. :)

[Onslaught Six]

Then the consensus seems to be "Well, a bunch of people will use it anyway, even if a select few think it should not be part of FreeDoom wholesale." Which is fine with me.

There's always the case that such music will royally suck, of course, but I'm fairly confident that it Won't. I don't have anything I made for this on hand, but I 'do' have my very recent Regular Song Demo.

http://onslaughtsix.googlepages.com/ApathyDemo.mp3

The guitar tone is meant to be super-distorted and really super "unclean," mind, and obviously Doom music has no lyrics (so just ignore my singing :P) but the bass and drums are all exactly what I'd use for this.

I also looked, and currently the two songs I have done don't even total to five megs, so we're looking at maybe <75 megs or so.

[Jim Rainer]

Onslaught Six said:
[...]so we're looking at maybe <75 megs or so.

Depending on the length of the songs and the bitrate they're saved in. I have a wad of mp3 versions of TNT's soundtrack at 160 kb/s that totals 98.3 MB.

[Onslaught Six]

Jim Rainer said:

Depending on the length of the songs and the bitrate they're saved in. I have a wad of mp3 versions of TNT's soundtrack at 160 kb/s that totals 98.3 MB.

The songs are maybe three minutes in length each (Right now E1M1, which I'm basically using as the outline for all future songs, has two sections that're mostly identical--the only difference is some drum stuff in the middle. If I get rid of that in future songs, it can easily be halved.) and I'm saving them at 128kb/s. And that's if I don't end up redoing the existing songs as OGGs or FLACs. Like I said, though, currently the two songs I have total to five megs, so yeah, around 70 megs--and that's if I make 28 unique songs, which I don't really want or plan to do.

Anyway, here's a quick WAD of the two existing songs. Just use it with Doom 1 and warp to E1M1 or E1M8. I'm probably going to make a third tonight, we'll see how it goes.

http://onslaughtsix.googlepages.com/Freedoommusic.wad

Feedback is muchly appreciated. Along the lines of "This sucks," "This needs more [x]," "This part is great, do more of that." And yes, E1M8 is supposed to be somewhat repetitive in nature and have lots of ambient noises. It's actually not very noticable in-game. (I'm actually kinda unsatisfied with it though, so I may redo it.)