Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
Reisal

The Doom2 Variations released [music]

Recommended Posts

I made a thread a little while ago speaking about Dimaension X making a tribute to Bobby Prince's game music, notibly Doom 2. The good news as it has been completed and available for download.

If you wanna check the project out, go here as he has done all the level music.

Share this post


Link to post

Finally got around to giving these a proper listen. They sound pretty epic!

The real guitar tracks really add an edge to the music, and the drum fills work well to add a really rock-n-roll atmosphere and groove. I thought a few were a little off, maybe the lounge songs are a bit too laid back and "loungey" for an action game, and overall they're great! This will definitely go on the iPod and in the car.

My favorites would be MAP10, MAP18, and MAP28 and MAP31, not usually tracks I pay attention to, but these remakes certainly grab me.

Share this post


Link to post

Wow, these are really impressive. I've always condsidered the Doom music much better than the Doom2 music and much of the Doom2 music actually pretty weak. However, these reworkings really bring them to life and have significantly improved my perception of the tunes. They have far more depth than I used to think.

However, I still prefer the Doom music. I wonder if Dimaension X plans on doing anything with them?

Share this post


Link to post

Enjay: What do you mean what will Dave do with his music? He also has stated in the Archives writeup that users are free to make a music WAD with his tracks, which is exactly what I have done. All I am going to do is test it out on the dev version of Skulltag before releasing.

Share this post


Link to post

I think Enjay meant he wonders if Dave is going to remix the original Doom 1 music too.

Encourage him to if you can. Can you just imagine Dim X covers of At Doom's Gate, Suspense, Sign of Evil and Untitled!

Share this post


Link to post

I'm not a huge fan of Doom 2's soundtrack, so I only listened to a few tracks from this. The ones I did listen to were pretty good, though. Wasn't really a big fan of the random drum solo before the keyboard part in the MAP01 remix. :P

His remix of Into Sandy's City is probably my favorite out of the ones I listened to.

Share this post


Link to post

Enjay: I'm not sure what Dave wants to do but I know he is done with Doom related music right for now but I will talk to him in the future if he wants to do some of Doom's episode 2 and 3 songs (since Sonic Clang already did episode 1).

If he ever did that, I would drool over the particular songs: E2M2, E2M4, E2M6, E2M8 and E3M3.

AgentSpork: Somehow, I really like that song that he redid despite I never really liked the level in the game. I really dig MAP01, MAP07, MAP10, MAP18, episode intermission and MAP30 along with the above mentioned.

I'll keep you folks informed, and I'm glad I am seeing positive feedback for this project, surely Dave appreciates this a lot as well.

PS: Check the /music section on the Archives sometime later this week for a PWAD music version of this to use for ZDoom based ports. :D

Share this post


Link to post

I'd love to hear an E1M8 by him. I think The Demon is Dead, Running from Evil, and Sign of Evil are the top three songs of the genre that really capture 'the feeling' of the story.

Map10 really just gives that 'spooky' feeling to a map in my opinion. It tends to make me start jumping whenever I hear the monsters.

Map01 just captures the desperation of the 'Hell on Earth' story. The music has such a 'need to succeed' feel to it.

E1M8 is one of those great emotionally moving songs. It makes you dread whats to come. It really has that whole going-to-hell feel of it. Perfect atmosphere to the Baron's introduction. It's simply a song that just makes you feel BAD.
Most fitting song of Doom in my opinion.

Share this post


Link to post
eargosedown said:

I'd love to hear an E1M8 by him. I think The Demon is Dead, Running from Evil, and Sign of Evil are the top three songs of the genre that really capture 'the feeling' of the story.

Map10 really just gives that 'spooky' feeling to a map in my opinion. It tends to make me start jumping whenever I hear the monsters.

Map01 just captures the desperation of the 'Hell on Earth' story. The music has such a 'need to succeed' feel to it.

E1M8 is one of those great emotionally moving songs. It makes you dread whats to come. It really has that whole going-to-hell feel of it. Perfect atmosphere to the Baron's introduction. It's simply a song that just makes you feel BAD.
Most fitting song of Doom in my opinion.

Replace "Running from Evil" with "Shawn's got the shotgun" and I'll agree with you 100%. :p

Share this post


Link to post

I think I hear the unmistakable NI EZDrummer :P

Sounds great, the drum work / fills especially sound really good.

Share this post


Link to post

Sorry for the confusion. Yes, I was wondering if he had any plans to do something similar with the Doom music.

I'm sure that I had the Sonic Clang stuff already but I'm re-dowmloading just in case. PerKristian's music is great too but the more the merrier. Personally, I rate E1M5, E1M7 and E1M8 very highly as tunes and I'd like to hear Dimaension X's reworkings of them as I like his style very much. However, from what's been said, it seems unlikely that they will get done.

Share this post


Link to post
Ed said:

I think I hear the unmistakable NI EZDrummer :P

Sounds great, the drum work / fills especially sound really good.


Yup - EZ Drummer "avatar" kit only.

I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone here who has actually taken valuable time to listen to my music, and a big shout to Mr. Chris who has been a fan for a while now for the initial posting here. He's done most of the updating of most of my "websites". President of the Fan Club, perhaps?? Hmmmm. Join the last.fm "fan club" at: http://www.last.fm/group/Dimaension+X+Fans

As to my next musical journey - I'm not quite ready to tackle any more Doom music for now. I am actually helping a band record a demo, and am trying to complete more original music in more of a rock-fusion mode. Maybe I'll work on a few of the Doom (1) songs here and there just to start compiling them. Maybe.

The response to this project has been very positive so far, and I really enjoyed learning these songs and figuring out the best way to play them on real guitar. This is really just a hobby for me, but has been very rewarding to my fragile ego lately (as I lost my job recently and hope to get a new job soon). Hey, anyone wanna recommend me to 38 Studios to do music for them??

Anywhoo - major thanX again to all of you, and I hope to hear more.

Share this post


Link to post

"Registered to make one post"

yeah, I am a newbie here, but I do hope to participate in the conversation regarding the music more than once, so ...

Oh, by the way - unfortunately I have difficulty playing first-person shooters due to severe "simulation sickness", which I first realized I had way back in 1995 while playing DOOM. So I really can't play most RPGs with 1st person views anymore.

Which totally sucks because my son is majoring in Interactive Media and Video Game Design in college. I may not be able to play most of the games he designs. Anyone have any suggestions to relieve "simulation Sickness?"

Share this post


Link to post

Welcome aboard :)

Dimaension X said:

Anyone have any suggestions to relieve "simulation Sickness?"

The reason your body makes you sick playing games is because your eyes see something different to what your balance center is feeling. Your brain receives these mixed messages, assumes you have ingested poison and starts trying to make you vomit it back up.

Playing in a well-lit room, and taking regular breaks has been known to help. Get your body used to the fact that it's okay to see things which it's not feeling. Start with one playing session around 10 minutes long per day and slowly work up from there.

For me, the more realistic a game is, the more likely I'll feel nauseous playing it. I can happily play Doom, with its' big pixels my brain and balance isn't fooled, but anything more complex and I'm usually in trouble. I recently tried to finish Deus Ex again and couldn't sit through any more than a half hour of solid play.

Share this post


Link to post

Hi Dave, it's nice to see you mingle with the doomers who may have questions for you regarding your project.

It seems the music WAD is up on the Archives now and will end up being reviewed for the next /newstuff chronicles in about two weeks, which is normal time between reviews.

Share this post


Link to post
Dimaension X said:

Yup - EZ Drummer "avatar" kit only.

I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone here who has actually taken valuable time to listen to my music, and a big shout to Mr. Chris who has been a fan for a while now for the initial posting here. He's done most of the updating of most of my "websites". President of the Fan Club, perhaps?? Hmmmm. Join the last.fm "fan club" at: http://www.last.fm/group/Dimaension+X+Fans

As to my next musical journey - I'm not quite ready to tackle any more Doom music for now. I am actually helping a band record a demo, and am trying to complete more original music in more of a rock-fusion mode. Maybe I'll work on a few of the Doom (1) songs here and there just to start compiling them. Maybe.

The response to this project has been very positive so far, and I really enjoyed learning these songs and figuring out the best way to play them on real guitar. This is really just a hobby for me, but has been very rewarding to my fragile ego lately (as I lost my job recently and hope to get a new job soon). Hey, anyone wanna recommend me to 38 Studios to do music for them??

Anywhoo - major thanX again to all of you, and I hope to hear more.


Thanks for taking the time to post!
Been loving your work, and will definitely be following your blog :)

You may also want to check out some of the information on Wikipedia about Simulation/Motion sickness. You might get some help from some of those remedies.

Share this post


Link to post

I tried to download the big zip file containing everything, but my Mac won't let me unzip it for some reason. Made me sad face.

Still, nice music dude, I enjoyed it. :D

Share this post


Link to post

Here's a few more links where it's available if you're having difficulty with the Internet Archive links:

http://tinyurl.com/d2vari (megaupload)
http://www.last.fm/music/Dimaension+X/The+Doom+2+Variations (last.fm)
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=949223 (Soundclick)

ThanX again for the mostly positive responses. I have gotten a few comments about the music being "... rather underwhelming, honestly. Sounds like a straight midi rip, guitar aside."

And in truth, that's exactly what it is. Straight from Mr. Prince's original MIDI files from the game, and modified and updated a bit.

Oh well.

Share this post


Link to post
Dimaension X said:

ThanX again for the mostly positive responses. I have gotten a few comments about the music being "... rather underwhelming, honestly. Sounds like a straight midi rip, guitar aside."


You stayed truthful. Any Doom fan will be more than satisfied with a recreation and a little buffing up like you did, over complete altering. I've heard some really good remakes that halfway through simply shoot themselves in the foot halfway through by changing the song completely.

If it's any consolance, you inspired me to go dig my drum set out of my basement that I haven't touched in years =P

Share this post


Link to post

Reading one of the comments on the PWAD version of the music on the Archives, that person thinks a drum machine was used for all drums..I can't really tell but only Dave can let us know since the drums sound real enough to me.

EDIT: Drums are real. :)

I am not saying the drums are bad because there are a few artists I know (Mirrorthrone, for example) who have great drum programming on their releases.

Share this post


Link to post
Ed said:

I think I hear the unmistakable NI EZDrummer :P

Sounds great, the drum work / fills especially sound really good.


As noted by Ed (who must do some music sequencing and recording himself to hear and distinguish this in the mix), the drums are programmed. The drum samples used are very high quality, from the Toontrack EZ Drummer kit, which are basically sampled from a real drummer sitting at a real drum kit.

I often "play" the drums myself on either an edrum kit, or on an M-Audio MIDI controller keyboard, both of which trigger the EZ Drummer sounds.

In this case, I wanted to stay pretty "traditional" and mostly used the original GM MIDI files from Bobby Prince. But the original files are "out-of-sync" with the tempo when you import them into a sequencer, so I did do some serious modification to the files, re-did some of the drums and other instruments, and used newer and better samples for the other instruments. In some cases, changed sounds entirely. Then added the live guitars.

A real challenge to do these songs. Which is why I'm going to hold off on trying to do Doom 1 for a while. Any other musicians want to take up the challenge?

Hey, could that be a thread (or does it exist already and I just haven't paid enough attention to the list of posts)? Doom fans/musicians doing their own versions fo the songs. Am I creating a monster??

Share this post


Link to post

The music section on Doomworld lists a lot of individual track and complete remixes - http://www.doomworld.com/classicdoom/info/music.php?wad=remix

Sir Galahad keeps a page of original MIDI tracks simply put thru a good soundcard - http://www.sirgalahad.org/paul/doom/

OCRemix did an album a little while ago, but I'm not that much of a fan - http://doom.ocremix.org/main.html

There's the /music/ directory of the idgames archive where all the games mods are kept - http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?dir=music/

Bobby Prince released his own remix CD in 97, which is just his versions of the songs with game samples (roar, bang bang, moan) dubbed over the top - http://rs.4chan.org/?s=doom+ost

And there's a torrent called "DOOMusic" or "DOOMMusic" which I can't seem to find right now, which has the good-midi files and a few well-known remixes all in one.

If it encourages you to do Doom 1 any, your versions are the best I've listened to yet. The use of a real guitar, and the liberties you took with the drum machine, add an edge that I haven't found in other artists' covers.

Share this post


Link to post

Way too much reverb on everything. Sounds really 1990ish. The midi bass is also pretty bland. You should do some better EQ on the guitars as well. nice effort though.

Share this post


Link to post

i was looking up some doom II audio stuff tonight (mainly why there are so many near exact copys of alice in chains, slayer, and pantera songs as level music) and got the idea to record doom2 map I as a real song and then i stumble upon this, haha. irony

but i'm going to do it anyway. i heard your rendition and its good but my original thought was to have it be more guitar based as if a regular band was doing it, with some of the synth stuff underneath, instead of the opposite like you did. very metal oriented. i also intend do learn the "lead" in the second half and play it on guitar. harmonizing with another guitar or the synth would be awesome i think. dream theater-ish for sure.

ill listen to the rest of the tracks when im on a better connection in a week or so

oh, if i could ask.. could i just find a .mid file of the music and import it into sonar and run my processing on it before recording? you mentioned tempo issues but when i import midi files typically the tempo stays intact.

Share this post


Link to post
MegaGoo said:

you mentioned tempo issues but when i import midi files typically the tempo stays intact.

MUS format as Doom uses it is a stripped down MIDI format. Tempo is fine, as long as you don't intend to print or edit the notes.

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×