Music should be curated

[Blastfrog]

Freedoom's music is a very mixed bag. I think the bad/unfitting songs should be cut. FreeDM has most of the good tracks, IMO.

Which tracks would you rather see go, and which ones would you rather see stay?

[AxelMoon]

D_DOOM sounds more like it should belong in Blasphemer.
D_ULTIMA current seems a bit too random to me to sound fitting. It honestly has that Commander Keen-ish or other similar game vibe however, but doesn't feel too fitting in it's current location.


I do like D_THEDA3 quite a bit, it's one of the better tracks.
D_COUNTD is another on of my favorites, due to the tension and mood it sets for the map, which it does perfectly.
D_RUNNIN? Pretty damn catchy, I catch myself humming it from time to time.

[raymoohawk]

iirc theres several people who joined the forums recently looking to make music for projects, maybe we could contact some of them to see if they are interested in making new music for freedoom?

[MrFlibble]

raymoohawk said:

maybe we could contact some of them to see if they are interested in making new music for freedoom?

I agree, that's a good idea.

[Varis Alpha]

i would be interested in donating some tracks for the project, as i feel the same way about the music. Phase 1's music is probably the worst, Phase 2 has mostly decent ones, but some could stay to go (D_DDTBLU in particular.) is there any particular style it should be in?

[fraggle]

I heard some positive comments regarding the choice of music in FreeDM. The difference there is that a while back I made a deliberate effort to find music that fitted each level. It didn't require a lot of effort, just a bit of time and imagination, and the result is pretty nice.

Some of the music tracks should definitely be cut and moved to the attic. We do have a number of good tracks but as far as I know, for the single player IWADs there has never been any attempt to really match them with levels - they were just placed in slots to fill gaps where levels were missing music.

[jute]

A normalizing of volume between tracks would help FreeDoom a lot.

[chungy]

fraggle said:

Some of the music tracks should definitely be cut and moved to the attic. We do have a number of good tracks but as far as I know, for the single player IWADs there has never been any attempt to really match them with levels - they were just placed in slots to fill gaps where levels were missing music.

I can admit guilt with this. i'm a very bad judge at picking appropriate music for a level, and would appreciate input from anyone to re-arranging the tracks and re-assigning them :)

[Varis Alpha]

i wouldn't mind re-arranging some of the tracks and making some of them louder to make a better listening-experience all-around. i might not even have to donate any tracks myself if the material available at hand is good enough as it is.

[fraggle]

FWIW, my method for the FreeDM was something like:

1. Go through all the available music tracks and categorize them into types: fast-tempo tracks, medium tempo ones, slower and spookier ones, etc.

2. Go through the levels and do the same thing, categorizing them into types: small/cramped "arena" levels likely to induce fast-paced combat, more medium-sized levels, large expansive levels, etc.

3. Match up the music and level categories: fast tempo tracks go with fast-paced levels, while the slower ones go with the large ones.

4. Once you have both in categories it's a lot easier to assign music tracks to levels. Some tracks naturally fit particular levels - for example MAP22 and MAP24 are these huge expansive levels so I assigned them atmospheric tracks that make them seem like these spooky abandoned bases. MAP11 is all steps so it got this fast-paced music track where the notes go up and down on a scale - I imagined people running up and down those steps.

I suspect it'll be harder to do for the single player levels just because there are far more tracks. But it should be possible to apply the same principles and place levels into categories based on the atmosphere they project. But we should pay particular attention to the opening and boss levels - certain music tracks are very deliberately "boss music" for example.

[raymoohawk]

Doomhuntress said:

i wouldn't mind re-arranging some of the tracks and making some of them louder to make a better listening-experience all-around. i might not even have to donate any tracks myself if the material available at hand is good enough as it is.

it would still be cool to have at least some tracks from you tho :)

[Death Egg]

I feel that the music tracks should have a similar sound to whatever track they replace from the original doom. Not similar melodies but like replace a creeper sounding song with a new creepy song. There are maps it there placed on certain map slots because they were designed with that music task in mind (mostly older wads but still) and running them in freedoom would mess them up in that way.

[fraggle]

Death Egg said:

I feel that the music tracks should have a similar sound to whatever track they replace from the original doom.

No, no, no, no, no. I cannot repeat this enough times: no.

Freedoom is not supposed to be a clone of Doom. Its music tracks are not supposed to be "replacing music" from Doom. We're making our own thing here. We want new music that fits the levels - the new levels that we have made for this new game we have made.

[Gez]

Having a soundtrack with a different mood is not something that breaks mod compatibility, no more than having textures with different graphics is.

The music should fit the Freedoom levels, not hypothetical PWAD levels meant to be using vanilla music.

[MrFlibble]

Actually I like most of Freedoom's current music. Some pieces certainly need to be balanced for loudness, and maybe indeed rearranged as it was suggested above by Doomhuntress. New tracks would also be welcome of course :)

Another thing is that the music in Freedoom indeed tends to be much more varied than that in Doom. Perhaps we could start by just naming tracks that feel inappropriate to gameplay in general or to the particular level they're used in?

[fraggle]

Gez said:

Having a soundtrack with a different mood is not something that breaks mod compatibility, no more than having textures with different graphics is.

The music should fit the Freedoom levels, not hypothetical PWAD levels meant to be using vanilla music.

Exactly. The compatibility thing is important but people take the principle way too far. Really I can't think of anything in Freedoom apart from textures where compatibility is important. Even with textures many are far closer than they need to be.

[Varis Alpha]

it would be interesting to compose music with a distinct style for this game. most of the tracks have a unique style as it is, even the ones that are basically just variations of existing tracks. Phase 2 is mostly fine on the music front, but could stand to have everything consistently loud. Phase 1 is the one that really needs new music, but as i can see, it doesn't have as many finished levels than Phase 2, so assigning tracks to unfinished levels would be a bit of a waste.

a personal priority of music myself would still be D_DDTBLU though. i'd try to whip something up if i get the mood for it. are there any other tracks floating around that aren't in the game yet?

[Blastfrog]

No offense to Jute, but his tracks just don't do it for me and are kind of the prime example of what I don't like in Freedoom's music selection. I feel bad saying that, though I may as well be honest about it.

[jute]

None taken. I don't think I spent more than 30 minutes on any of those tracks.

[Danfun64]

I know they were just added, but most of Mogul's tracks sound like noise.

-MogulFreedoomMusic1, MogulFreedoomMusic2, MogulFreedoomMusic3, MogulFreedoomMusic5, MogulFreedoomMusic6, MogulFreedoomMusic7, MogulFreedoomMusic9, are just plain bad.
-MogulFreedoomMusic4 is an abomination of awfulness.
-MogulFreedoomMusic8 actually doesn't sound that bad...maybe it's because it sounds like a mix of the Christian worship song Strong God (compare the first 18 seconds of MogulFreedoomMusic8 with this.) and the Luigi's Mansion theme. Similarly, MogulFreedoomMusic10 sounds like a ripoff of the Green Hill Zone theme, and unlike MogulFreedoomMusic8, it's not even a good ripoff.
-MogulFreedoomMusic11 doesn't sound *good*, but it doesn't sound as bad as most of the other songs. I can't tell if he is ripping off anything though.

Mogul like to overuse a certain instrument (which I can't identify) that completely takes over the song and drives it to the nearest cliff. Oddly enough, that instrument can still work (Ralphis's map01 comes to mind) in the song, but not if it's droning like Mogul does things.

A lesser problem. both map01 and dm02 use the same piece of music (Ralphis's crudreams3.mid). It's not a bad song, but it doesn't feel right to have the song appearing near the same place in both freedoom2.wad and freedm.wad

[Blastfrog]

Danfun64 said:

A lesser problem. both map01 and dm02 use the same piece of music (Ralphis's crudreams3.mid). It's not a bad song, but it doesn't feel right to have the song appearing near the same place in both freedoom2.wad and freedm.wad

I don't really consider that a problem.

[Varis Alpha]

so i finally decided to get my ass off and make something for this project. https://www.dropbox.com/s/bv5m7olvai4lq7c/freedoom.mid?dl=0

[MrFlibble]

Doomhuntress, that's a very cool track! Sets quite the right mood for action and exploration :) Thanks!

[Danfun64]

I've already given my opinion on the Mogul tracks. What do you think of them? Personally, I think *all* of them should be replaced by the tracks in the Jimmy wads that he made himself. Sorry Mogul, but your tracks just aren't that great, and a couple of them are questionable copyright-wise.

[AxelMoon]

@Doomhuntress That is a very nice track. Pretty catchy too.

[Gez]

Danfun64 said:

Personally, I think *all* of them should be replaced by the tracks in the Jimmy wads that he made himself.

Jimmy only mentioned offering reuse of his maps; he didn't say anything about music.

Jimmy said:

I'm gonna be totally wacko-jacko probably, and allow the re-use of any of my already-released maps in FreeDoom.

[Varis Alpha]

plus, the idea was that the music should be made to fit the mood of Freedoom. maps are the easier part, since the gameplay is exactly the same, so they can be taken from whatever (which is why Phase 1 E4 is all of Double Impact.) i would donate more songs, but most of them are Doom-flair and doesn't seem like they'd go hand-in-hand with the project.

i'll edit and fix my MIDI file up in a bit. i think Sekaiju still works on my system.

edit: Sekaiju says the MIDI data is "abnormal." welp. someone else will have to fix the shit inside it then.

[Danfun64]

For the record Doomhuntress, the midi you composed is pretty good.

edit: Funny thing. The Mogul midi's don't sound as bad under the sc-55 soundfont (compared to the fluidr3 that I was using earlier). Of course, this isn't the first time a midi sounded better with sc-55 compared to fluidr3.

(THE FOLLOWING IS NOT A SUBMISSION!)

Take this midi from The Magic School Bus: Inside the Human Body (1995) for example. With the sc-55 soundfont it sound warm and hopeful, but with a sense of forboding. In fluidr3 it sounds like junk.

(THE PROCEEDING WAS NOT A SUBMISSION!)

I'm not saying the Mogul tracks are *good*, but they are a lot better with the sc-55 soundfont...

...and that's the problem with soundfonts aimed at realism. Whenever a midi tries to be too creative, it sounds bad in the realistic soundfont.

[bytebeats]

hi guys
i just made an account so i could post on this thread lol
but i'm interested in composing quite a few of the tracks in freedoom because i was watching a video of someone playing version 0.10 and thought "WOW this music needs some revamping"

so i have some samples that i started work on, hopefully you guys'll like them!

https://soundcloud.com/bytebeats/sets/freedoom-tracks/s-ieHSC

i'm interested in bringing a much more melodic style to freedoom's music!

[HorrorMovieRei]

Those are pretty good. I think they're perfect for the project. Are you gonna finish those two you posted?