The Dark Side of Phobos

honestly people, it is an artists interpretation of teh music. All the songs DO have parts of teh originals in them to keep wit hthe doom theme. Most of the songs here in this compilation are more "Cinematic" than the originals...For example E1m5's track is a very intense symphonic peace with powerful hits and thundering percussion...though not frantic as lets say E1m1 or E2m9's tracks.

Honestly this is a decent artistic re-creation of the doom soundtrack. People should just take it as such...an artistic expression of a group of artists. So it is neither good nor bad honestly...it is all about how the end user feels and understands the art (and yes people music is an art form). So people will like it and others won't...but it is NOT fair to the artists in question to say "this sucks and has NO doom feel at all". But if you honestly listen closely there are MORE than enough references to th eoriginal tracks...even if it is a bar or 2 of notes. but you do hear some of the same things. :)

anyway thats my 2 cents...

BTW the "Darkness Dawning(text music)" is by far the best of the bunch..its nice how they added lyrics to the note changes and kept the singers voice in teh same tones as the Id written midi, and the demonic hook at the end was nice.

Either way i enjoyed the compilation, though I think some of the songs were a little flat, but in an overall manner they were wel written. But thats just my opinion as a muscian :)

DJ_Haruko said:
Hmm, do I smell a slight reference to Moogs in the title of this?

No idea what that is, but one of the tracks starts with a faint heartbeat, sort of like what starts Pink Floyd's album (I am certain there is no need for me to name the album's title under the circumstances.) A few other bits reminded me a little of Pink Floyd as well... including some of the wacky stuff in a few tracks.

Dark_Shadow4002 said:

BTW the "Darkness Dawning(text music)" is by far the best of the bunch..its nice how they added lyrics to the note changes and kept the singers voice in teh same tones as the Id written midi, and the demonic hook at the end was nice.

Either way i enjoyed the compilation, though I think some of the songs were a little flat, but in an overall manner they were wel written. But thats just my opinion as a muscian :)

I've listened to it some more, and tbh the more I listen the more I get bothered by the tracks, even the ones I liked first. Darkness Dawning is one of those. The singer being from sweden is a bad start already. She makes all the common swedish mistakes in the pronounciations. And it is really bothering me. then when the voice is supposed to change it's so haphazardly done that it's not even funny. It's way too obvious that it's not the same person doing the vocals.

And the E1M8 remix was another I liked at first, but when I listened to it again, I noticed the sloppy/amateurish guitarplay and that really ruined it for me. This is studio recordings. Not live. There shouldn't be such clumsy mistakes.

The bunny remix was just a bad remix alltogether, it completely threw away the whole point of the entire song.

The e1m9 remix, I couldn't even recognize the original tune. And to go from heavy thumping metal to csylophone plonking, might be a daring move that could be very rewarding. But in this case it failed.

That was just to pick a few.

kristus said:

I've listened to it some more, and tbh the more I listen the more I get bothered by the tracks, even the ones I liked first. Darkness Dawning is one of those. The singer being from sweden is a bad start already. She makes all the common swedish mistakes in the pronounciations. And it is really bothering me. then when the voice is supposed to change it's so haphazardly done that it's not even funny. It's way too obvious that it's not the same person doing the vocals.

And the E1M8 remix was another I liked at first, but when I listened to it again, I noticed the sloppy/amateurish guitarplay and that really ruined it for me. This is studio recordings. Not live. There shouldn't be such clumsy mistakes.

The bunny remix was just a bad remix alltogether, it completely threw away the whole point of the entire song.

The e1m9 remix, I couldn't even recognize the original tune. And to go from heavy thumping metal to csylophone plonking, might be a daring move that could be very rewarding. But in this case it failed.

That was just to pick a few.

Once again you're making the assumption that everyone out there shares your opinion on what "the point" of a song is.

Let me define something for you when it comes to ReMixing. The term "ReMix" is a term that djpretzel came up with to mean a new style or arrangement of a piece of music, so you're not simply copying the midi and replacing instruments, nor are you necessarily redoing it in the same genre and style just in better quality (ie: covering it.)

The point of this project, as already pointed out, was an artistic remixed album. The mixers took their respective tracks, and gave the spin to the tracks as best they could and as fitting as they could for their style of music.

Taking E1M9 for example. We know that's a rock piece in it's original form, but I'm tired of hearing rock remixes of it. It's boring and it's been done before. So instead I tried a nice ambient melodic Glockenspiel style mix. It's different to what you would expect, yes. But that's the point. The theme is still there and it's very noticeably a remix. You say "In this case it failed." Well, who are you to make that call? All negative feedback like that does is hurt the mixers who try these new things and give a bad feeling to the rest of the mixers in the project too. If you're going to make claims like it "failed" then how about explaining why without falling back on your opinion?

Sorry, but this project took a long time, and we put all this effort into it just to please you, the doom community. If you don't like it, then don't listen to it. It's that simple. But insulting the mixers and making outrageous claims like "The whole album is bleeps and bloops" is just immature and unnecessary.


Edit: as for the swedish comment. You're nitpicking. Saying she's making pronounciation mistakes? Those pronounciations are obviously correct to her. Who says you have the right to judge what the correct pronounciation of a word is?

The only enjoyable one, IMO, was E1M1. I mean, the tracks used for the boss level music are as bad as the originals. And when I say bad, I mean out of place. E2M8 is the big one here. The only Industrial that is suiting to Doom is Industrial Metal, plain and simple.

pilottobombadier said:

The only enjoyable one, IMO, was E1M1. I mean, the tracks used for the boss level music are as bad as the originals. And when I say bad, I mean out of place. E2M8 is the big one here. The only Industrial that is suiting to Doom is Industrial Metal, plain and simple.

Once again, who makes you the judge on what is suited to doom and what's not?

People, have an open mind, this isn't meant to go into doom, it's an artistic album. Just enjoy the music.

These tunes rock.
It would have some bad aftertaste if i had to pay, but for freeware they are just way too cool ^.^

EDIT: Darkness Dawning has some heavy touch of Nightwish to it. MORE!!! GIMME MORE OF THAT!!!!!! *g*

i agree with Orichalcon there. it's very rewarding to listen to lot of genre, and not limitating yourself to one of then.
And you are thinking of remixes that fit when you play, we are talking about music to listen, not automatically one you can use to play doom.
I'am very happy to discover ambient music turn into metal or boss dynamic music turn into something peaceful.
that how i can enjoy a tune. by listening to it, from different way.

The Orichalcon said:

Edit: as for the swedish comment. You're nitpicking. Saying she's making pronounciation mistakes? Those pronounciations are obviously correct to her. Who says you have the right to judge what the correct pronounciation of a word is?

Why would they be correct to her? I can tell correct English pronunciation from incorrect pronunciation, but I certainly couldn't fool anyone into thinking I'm a native English speaker.

Also, the correct pronunciation is the one that doesn't make people react; the same goes for spelling.

And take note that Fredrik is swedish.

As am I.

The only track I really disliked on this one was the Bunny track. The last few tracks built up this great, spectacular mood and then it all just comes crashing down with the bunny mix. I think they could have done without that, the Text Music would have been a perfect ending to the two-disc set.

Marty Razor Kirra said:

On the Text Intermission Remix...it just creeped me out when the chick turned into a demon like voice...Good stuff...good stuff...

Dark_Shadow4002 said:

BTW the "Darkness Dawning(text music)" is by far the best of the bunch..its nice how they added lyrics to the note changes and kept the singers voice in teh same tones as the Id written midi, and the demonic hook at the end was nice.

Bastet Furry said:

EDIT: Darkness Dawning has some heavy touch of Nightwish to it. MORE!!! GIMME MORE OF THAT!!!!!! *g*

Thank you to you and rest who have praised the project

kristus said:

I've listened to it some more, and tbh the more I listen the more I get bothered by the tracks, even the ones I liked first. Darkness Dawning is one of those. The singer being from sweden is a bad start already. She makes all the common swedish mistakes in the pronounciations. And it is really bothering me. then when the voice is supposed to change it's so haphazardly done that it's not even funny. It's way too obvious that it's not the same person doing the vocals.

She is not supposed to sing in perfect english. She sounds EXACTLY the way she is supposed to. If it sounds wrong to you, then I guess she did a pretty good job, wouldn't you say?

It is not supposed to appear as if the voice shouting "Doom I'm bringing!!!" is the same that has sung throughout the rest of the mix. It is not supposed to be a "smooth" transition either...

It seems to me that all your critique is based on prejudice which is really a shame.

Maybe some of the critics here should stop their borderline fanboyism and open their minds, expand their horizons. Sometimes when things sound wrong it's because they are SUPPOSED to sound wrong. People should realize that their particular perception of reality is not always shared by the rest of the world. Of course there are different tastes but that's not exactly the same. Instead of going: "This is how this is supposed to sound like!", try going: "Hey! I never thought this could sound like this!"
This is a really well worked through album. A LOT of work has gone into it and a LOT of energy is coming out. So drop the pretences, drop the expectations of what you think a Doom song is supposed to sound like and just listen to it as music, plain and simple. The lesser expectations you have, the greater rewards...

I don't mean to sound angry or what have we. I just wish people would put some thought into it. And by it I mean everything...

Not that my opinion matters or anything, but I thought that it was all very worthwhile. I plan on burning it on to CD so I can listen to it in my car.

On some of the tracks, (e1m9, e3m8 etc), you have to really listen to be able to hear the music from the original track. It is there. On others, (e1m8, e2m8) it's somewhat obvious where the original came from.

Overall I feel that the presentation and the quality of the music was quite professional.

And fact known, not everyone likes the same kinds of music. I like rock and techno, so I for one enjoyed it as a whole.

kristus said:

True, but holding John Romero up as some kind of judge on weather the music is good or not, is not only retarded, but insulting IMO.

Hes the one who picked the songs for each level. his opinion on the motion and direction of the themes is quite important.

Downloading now, opnions later

The Orichalcon said:
You say "In this case it failed." Well, who are you to make that call? All negative feedback like that does is hurt the mixers who try these new things and give a bad feeling to the rest of the mixers in the project too. If you're going to make claims like it "failed" then how about explaining why without falling back on your opinion?

It's just his opinion; keep in mind it was he who posted above about the opinions on music being each his own. His opinion isn't that important, either (no disrespect meant, kristus, you know I mean there's no point getting annoyed at you.)

Sorry, but this project took a long time, and we put all this effort into it just to please you, the doom community. If you don't like it, then don't listen to it. It's that simple.

I'm assuming you guys didn't make it to please anyone more than yourselves, else it would be like someone listening to music expecting it to be something, other than whether it's music or not. Just like a listener shouldn't have set expectations on music, you can't be considering your music in relation to the expectations of others.

pilottobombadier said:
The only enjoyable one, IMO, was E1M1. I mean, the tracks used for the boss level music are as bad as the originals. And when I say bad, I mean out of place. E2M8 is the big one here. The only Industrial that is suiting to Doom is Industrial Metal, plain and simple.

I must say, are you listening to the music or whether the music fits in DOOM?

As for DOOM, metal tracks aren't bad for some maps, since they fit in with the action, but fortunately DOOM also has moodier tracks based on different gernes. E2M8 itself is pretty cool, setting a weird reverberating tone that suits the circumstances of battling atop the damned Tower of Babel.

One can like the music or not, but if the reason one doesn't like it is because it wouldn't fit in a DOOM wad or something akin to that, then the listener is quite deaf:

"Oh shit, I was looking for tracks to put in the wad with my next map... these are not going to work... uh, they suck!"

kristus said:
The singer being from sweden is a bad start already. She makes all the common swedish mistakes in the pronounciations. And it is really bothering me.

Yeah, they should have sought another singer, how dare she sound Swedish (ew, Swedish!) I mean, the fact that she sings very well is irrelevant, a somewhat half-assed one with 100% English or American pronunciation would have been much better, eh?

Anyway, to be quite honest, the Swedish accent makes the song more enchanting than a plain expected standard accent. I can understand perhaps it's jarring to a Swede, since then it's less strange, and not more so.

then when the voice is supposed to change it's so haphazardly done that it's not even funny. It's way too obvious that it's not the same person doing the vocals.

I'd say, try listening to gernes who do that all the time (e.g., doom metal or black metal), combining a duo of lyrical and distorted voices to contrast abrasiveness and melody. The (musical) point indeed isn't continuity but juxtaposition with contrast; they are like different instruments altogether.

Fredrik said:
Also, the correct pronunciation is the one that doesn't make people react; the same goes for spelling.

People are always listeners with varying expectations, so finding incorrect language only really happens either practically always, or when it's not definitely coherent or comprehensible.

Someone with Swedish accent has Swedish accent, not incorrect accent. Maybe it's incorrect (eastern or southern, or...?) American accent; but if it were corrected, it would still be incorrect English accent, and then if that were perfected it would be incorrect Australian accent, or Scottish.... so...

In this case, the first people who jumped at the incorrectness of the accent were Swedish, and I didn't since I like that accent and expect it (see above, and since many bands sharing the style used in that song are Nordic.) To you guys it might sound like something you can discern in English class, so it feels artificial; others won't note it like that, and not necessarily out of ignorance.

myk said:

Someone with Swedish accent has Swedish accent, not incorrect accent. Maybe it's incorrect (eastern or southern, or...?) American accent; but if it were corrected, it would still be incorrect English accent, and then if that were perfected it would be incorrect Australian accent, or Scottish.... so...

You are right, except for the first sentence. With that logic, you could as well speak of "correct incorrect accent" or whatever.

Yes, perhaps. Oxymorons are a fun and unavoidable resource of language and our reasoning; an "correct incorrect" is kind of what did occur (to me) in regard to the example that started all this:

I said:
Anyway, to be quite honest, the Swedish accent makes the song more enchanting than a plain expected standard accent.

@Kristus,

The guitar referance you are speaking about if you listen carefully, it is an obvious and intentional palm mute of the string for a variance in the note duration in this case to simulate a possible 16th rest (depending on the time signature and tempo), either way that was obviously not "ameturish" as you would put it. Though as you should agree ALL muscians are never "masters" of their instruments but only learning further. Either way i personally feel you are being far to critical of things jsut to make your point. But hey, you are allowed your opinion in the matter do not think i am saying that you aren't.

In any case these are as i stated earlier..just "Re-makes/Re-mixes" of the songs...not all the parts will remind a person of the song that was originally created...though there are similar parts. This compilation seems to be more of an experement to see if this community would accept it. But i will agree with the common theme in this thread..." you'll either love this compilation or you'll hate it" there really is no middle ground here.

I personally think a few minor changes could have been made to the songs but thats because my idea of the styles used here are far different than the creators...aka creative differances. But i will not say and agree with others that this was a terrible experement. it was a good attempt and a fair to moderate amount of effort was put into the planning of the project.

As someone said earlier..." if you don't like it don't listen to it." and thats a good way to put it. Its like a megawad that is hyped and a few core members love it but a few hate it...its just a matter of preferance. i added a few more cents to this :P

I'm not talking about palm muting. I'm talking about the incapability to hit the strings correctly throughout the entire song. Yes, I am picky. To you. But to me that is important.

deathz0r said:

I'll take your word for it. Anything on OCRemix is garbage anyway.

Uh, ok. And why is this exactly? Have you listened to everything there? Oh I suppose you haven't.

To me, it sounds like you're just a major asshole because they rejected your total horseshit years ago. Actually, I know that's why.

The Orichalcon said:

The point of this project, as already pointed out, was an artistic remixed album. The mixers took their respective tracks, and gave the spin to the tracks as best they could and as fitting as they could for their style of music.

People have been listening to the original .MIDIs for years now. Quite a few will consider doing creative things such as adding vocals to the text screen song equivilant and making upbeat and fast songs slower paced blasphemy.

Sorry, but this project took a long time, and we put all this effort into it just to please you, the doom community.

I hate to tell you this, but Doomworld aren't a bunch of "OMG THANK YOU WE LOVE THESE SONGS YAY" types that you think we are. We'll nitpick, complain and say that the remixes lack the Doom feeling all we want. If you want people to endlessly go on and on about how you guys are great, just post this at the ZDoom/Zdaemon/Newdoom/Skulltag fourms. You'll get endless amounts of praise.

The Orichalcon said:

Let me define something for you when it comes to ReMixing. The term "ReMix" is a term that djpretzel came up with to mean a new style or arrangement of a piece of music, so you're not simply copying the midi and replacing instruments, nor are you necessarily redoing it in the same genre and style just in better quality (ie: covering it.)

No. DJP did NOT create this word.

Also, you must be a linguist since you define interpretations of language and stuff. Perhaps you'd like to go more in depth since I'm sure you hold a degree in language.

But, I appreciate this project. As a matter of fact, originally I was going to do the E1M8 track but due to time constraints I dropped out of the project. I understand the point of OCRemix and read the forums and mix on a daily basis, but don't come here and spout BS because the people here just aren't going to like it.

With Ashley Carr (DJ Redlight) and others contributions, it seems like a Final Doom remix project was already off to a great start, incidentally. Memoriam remains one of my favorite OC remixes.

An unrelated thought, but I'm surprised that there are no ROTT remixes...

Ralphis said:

it sounds like you're just a major asshole because they rejected your total horseshit years ago.

I've already mentioned this to you, but I'll repeat it again for everyone else: It's not the fact that they rejected my (which i now consider) shitty remixes back in 2000, it's the fact that they did not even respond is what I hate. It's total fucking disrespect to anybody who submits something to a web site.

Back then, DJ Pretzel was the only one who accepted submissions, and it even explicitly stated in the submission guidelines (EDIT: at least at one point it did, such as in the somewhat old guidelines here) that songs that were rejected would likely receive no response.

christ almighty dude, that was five fucking years ago. i still remember the OCR of 5 years ago. it was very simplistic. the layout was just a template based on overclocked.org, which is where OCR used to be hosted. the site has changed a LOT since then. it's much more professional-grade now.

i assure you, if you were to resubmit, they'll give it a listen and respond.

as far as i'm concerned, some of these are quite nice. i'm around 2/3rds through the whole thing, and for the most part i like what i hear. would i have them playing in the background while i played doom? some of them, to be sure. some fit quite well. others wouldn't fit at all, but i wouldn't take points from them for that, i would judge based on their musical merit alone.

What's everybody getting so mad about? It's not like DOOM's soundtrack is good to begin with.

(...kidding...sort of...please don't kill me).

As a remixer who originally signed up for the project and was too lazy and irresponsible to put out, I'm looking forward to listening to it when I get home on a stable computer.

The problem is, of course, that playing a game for ten years or so leads to some pretty idealized versions of those repetitive tunes in obsessive fans' heads and they get mad when a mixer takes liberties with their beloved tunes. The thing is, mixers do make stuff in the hopes that it will please fans but ultimately everything is done for their personal enjoyment. If it were an album full of glorified metal covers, it would probably be met with much more immediate praise, but I think the remixers in the project are *GASP* trying to branch off and expand the material some. Though Doom's material isn't the greatest for musically meandering off into different territories, so it kind of boxes in what you can and can't do. Also remember the the people making the mixes are fans, not professionals.

That being said, I don't think there's a whole lot that can be explored without monotony with such a large scale and such minimal source tunes to work with. Looking at the length and the tracklist, it looks like it drags on way too long. Then again, I was in the Donkey Kong Country remix project and I thought that dragged on too long too. I generally think that everything drags on too long. And the Pink Floyd reference is more than a little cliche (Besides, everyone knows that Piper At the Gates of Dawn is by far the best Floyd album!)

Whatever.

Vile said:

An unrelated thought, but I'm surprised that there are no ROTT remixes...

Now that would be totally rockin'. Anywho I liked a couple of these, but I still think some of them stray a bit too far fro m the originals, although perhaps that's the fanboy in me speaking. Overall though I think it was a great effort.

ROTT has phenomenal music. The problem is it's not nearly as popular a game, so organizing a project around it would be difficult, and it's just hard to remix to begin with because there's not a lot to expand on.