FirebrandX

Finally got my hands on a modded N64 with UltraHDMI. What this does is bypass the analog A/V processing and outputs a pure digital A/V signal for HDMI. You can select various resolutions up to 1080p, set integer scaling, and remove the N64's infamous 'muddy' function that blurs the graphics. Doom 64 looks MUCH better via UltraHDMI, and on top of that, the audio is now clean with ZERO electromagnetic noise or cross-talk interference (this is something that plagues the analog audio of N64 consoles). I uploaded a 720p demonstration on Youtube, but unfortunately Youtube's compression loses much of the crystal clarity. Below is a link to the Youtube video, and if you're interested in seeing the uncompressed video quality, there's also the link to that below it: https://filetrip.net/dl?Wv0JXlxOsX

My guess is he didn't have the files for it. I recall him mentioning a lot of the stuff had been lost over the years. However, he did have original hardware for the Doom PSX soundtrack, and in that one, there's much higher quality stereo reverb than you actually get in the game. Anyway, I hadn't thought to try this before, but it seems Doom 64 does not need the deblur function. It has sharp pixels by default, and the only other instance of this I've seen in 240p N64 games is Quake II when 8MB expansion mode is turned on.

There's actual proof he used analog output on the N64 tracks. One of the tracks has a glitch where on the loop point, two of the channels drop out and it plays the 2nd loop without them. He recorded the 2nd loop thinking it was not the end of the track. Had he been using original master files, the glitch wouldn't have happened. In another track, he forgot how long to record and ended up playing two loops instead of just the single playback, causing the track to last nearly 15 minutes. This is all of course aside from that fact that you can actually hear the 60-cycle hum in all the original game tracks. Indeed it does. It pulls the digital signals from the same chip as the digital video. I believe it is the "Reality Coprocessor" made by Silicon Graphics.

BTW another benefit of UltraHDMI: Crystal clean digital audio. N64 analog audio is notoriously dirty with 60-cycle hum and hiss, whereas there's ZERO interference or crosstalk via the UltraHDMI audio. I've been comparing the quality to Aubrey's OST, and you can definitely hear the 60-cycle hum in his tracks, which again, is entirely absent in the UltraHDMI output.

They (various modders) have been working their way through the consoles from back then. There are several HDMI solutions for NES and Gamecube, though none yet for SNES.

Thanks! Yeah, big fan, and I even got a tattoo of Firebrand on my shoulder. Regarding the UltraHDMI mod, it's hard to come by as it sells out the moment installers get new stock in. Recently a couple modded N64s sold on ebay for $600 to give you an idea of the demand for these mods.

I don't know if I'd say it was entirely emotional, but Dark Citadel put me in that ambient mood of the game where I just clicked with it. Where I went from liking the game to thinking it's one of my all-time favorites. The layout, artwork, and music track came together to really convey the dark tone of the game.

I don't recall if it's the same in the PC version, but the PS "ka-thunk" sound of the Pinky demon's body dropping dead was one of my favorites. That, and the Doom64 gurgle sound of the Mancubas spotting the player.

Been out of the loop for a bit with my other projects involving the XRGB-mini. Just wanted to post a special thanks to Aubrey for coming out with the 20th anniversary edition of the PS Doom soundtrack. I bought it the other day after discovering the listing on his web site. Of course I take some special credit in harassing him into revisiting those tracks ;-) Also wanted to say that I went ahead and put up my own web page of the interview I did back in 2003 with the level designers of Doom 64: http://www.firebrandx.com/doom64interview.html Doom Depot being down once again finally gave me the determination to keep the interview safe and sound on my own web site. Thankfully I still had the transcript from a previous web image archive. I made the mistake of thinking Aubrey was paying homage to X-Files, but it turns out the sound libraries are widely available and called "A Poke in the Ear" or something to that effect. I bought a copy of the CD of those same sounds some time ago. I recall noticing that Trent Reznor also made extensive use of the same library. Edit: Here's the CD I bought of those sound libraries: http://www.rarefaction.com/pokeaudi.html

Lol!

I noticed the same thing with sound effects I heard in Resident Evil, where years later I'm hearing those same effects in commercials and movies. The very worst offense is when movies and/or shows uses stock Atari 2600 sound effects from Pac Man and Donkey Kong to depict a modern console being played by the actors. It's insulting because everybody knows where those sounds came from, except of course the cheap-asses that decided to use them for sound effects.

My favorite track also happens to be heard on my favorite stage, which is Doom 64's Dark Citadel. I remember I liked that stage so much that I made an epic Unreal Tournament 16-man death match version of it way back in late 2000 I believe it was. My version was all eye-candy and much too big for proper death match flow, but I enjoyed just wandering around in it.

I saw a friend playing it while at his work place in spring of 1994. I personally didn't get into the series until December of 1995 when I got it for the Playstation. As such, I was completely put off by the music of the PC version when I finally did play it. It seemed so "wrong" to have midi-rock playing in such a dire setting.

If it will help, here's the miniUSF I made of MUSAMB15 (Alpha Quadrant): http://www.firebrandx.com/downloads/Doom%2064%20-%2009%20-%20Alpha%20Quadrant.zip It can be compared to Aubrey's rip so you can see they are the same data. I personally use Foobar2000 for USF playbacks, but you can also download 64th note for winamp to play them.

Yes I have, and they are the same on both miniUSF, real hardware, and Aubrey's own OST for that matter. They all have the exact same data, and are about 13 minutes long. MUSAMB 15 is just plain missing half the data.

Already know about those files, and I made better ones with proper tag information and loop points (Josh had incorrectly assumed ID made the game and Bobby Prince was the music artist). As I mentioned before though, miniUSF files emulate the real hardware, and as a result, have a lot of high frequency artifacts. If the USF driver had a smooth sinc interpolation option for playback, then they would be the best playback method. As it is, they are one of many options with their own pros and cons.

So with the try on foobar being a disappointment, I'm back to having to do manual rips of EX's sound output. Maybe at some point Kaiser can add in a wave-dump option, but it's not a big deal for now. It just means a little extra bit of time doing it manually, but then I can flac the finished waves and call it a done package. Since MUSAMB15 is missing the 2nd half of the song data, I just tacked on the 2nd half from miniUSF output. Best I can do for now.

Good call so far. I just tested both playback and wave dumping of MUSAMB19 and it passed both tests. In addition, it had incredibly fast dumping to wave. I'm using the midi component by kode54 and have it set to BASSMIDI with sinc interpolation. I'll start testing all the tracks to compare for artifacts, but already I'm liking the results. I'll report back. Edit: Well not so good now. The sinc interpolation causes audible "clicks", whereas linear interpolation has no clicks, but poor quality.

It would be difficult to report properly. I'd have to make example segments compared to FluidSynth, upload them on my web site, send him the links, and try to explain what he needs to listen for between the two examples. I'm busy with my own projects first, then maybe if I feel like it after, I might go through all the trouble.

Possibly different versions of FluidSynth. I did confirm the playback is even more glitchy when you set VLC to dump the file directly into FLAC, and I also determined the timing was off on those last 2 tracks in normal VLC playback. Most of the tracks seemingly play fine, but I'm not going to take any chances and just continue doing my live wave dumps from EX's own playback. I also want to point out that MUSAMB15 (Alpha Quadrant) is an incomplete dump compared to Aubrey's OST, which is twice as long and unique throughout.

Further analysis with the VLC method shows some Doom 64 tracks are not being played properly compared to even EX itself. MUSAMB19 and 20 play incorrectly in VLC, and play even more glitched out when you save/convert them into a directly dumped flac file. Thus, the only way to get all 24 tracks correctly dumped is to do a live wave recording while in EX with the sound effects turned off. I'm in the process of doing this now.

In reviewing the midi files in SynthFont today, I have to say I agree with Kaiser 100% that the N64's playback of Aubrey's music really is glitched and broken. I just compared the main intro music, and the midi file has properly building fade-ins and fade-outs, meanwhile on the N64 playback, there's glitched fade-ins and dropped notes that suddenly come back mid-tune. So it all comes down to "authentic experience" versus "intended experience", with the latter having bit-perfect quality and no artifacts. Edit: Also noticed SynthFont has an interpolation issue that leaves its own artifacts on notes that are played at low sampling rates. As such, the VLC playback method using FluidSynth is the better/correct way to play/dump the music files.

Already had done something similar to this a year or two ago. I recall last time I messed with the MIDI lumps, I was playing them via SynthFont and messing around with the Fade and Pitch-Bend arguments. I had thought of manually "mimicing" the real hardware versions of the songs and reprogramming the playback to exactly match, which would net an absolutely perfect 100% digital version of Doom 64 music without the high frequency artifacts.

just got done comparing Alpha Quadrant, and it also had several more notes than the hardware version. I've come to the conclusion that these notes do exist, but are played at an extremely low volume level for whatever reason on the N64. Other notes seem to fade in earlier on EX than they do on the N64 as well, though not all notes have this issue.

Yeah Holding Area with the first track that came to mind. I'm currently in the process of comparing wav signatures from EX's playback on each of the tracks. "Eye of the Storm" looked to be spot-on, and "Dark Citadel" is very close, but I found a couple of spots where the notes do not fade in at the same moment they do on the hardware version. It's about 99% accurate on that track I'd say. One thing I will say though is EX's sound quality is simply the best. It blows both the real hardware away, and the emulated hardware from the miniUSF files.