Andrew Prince is an unfortunate name.
[deleted]
Bobby Prince, composer for Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, and Duke Nukem 3D, has died
51–58 of 58 posts
Re: Bobby Prince, composer for Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, and Duke Nukem 3D, has died
#52His name will be remembered forever in the industry.
Thanks for being a great part of my childhood.
Farewell.
Re: Bobby Prince, composer for Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, and Duke Nukem 3D, has died
#53Many moons ago, I emailed Mr. Prince, and he replied!
> What is the sound card the DOOM sound track was composed on? It sounds different on each one. So we wanna know, how was it "meant" to sound like :D
It was a Sound Blaster 1.0, which first came out in 1989. Creative Labs released almost a version of that card each year, but so many people had bought the 1.0 that the bulk of gamers had that model for several years. And the newer Sound Blasters used the same music synthesizer chip (Yamaha OPL 2 -- an FM type synth chip). A big plus of the Sound Blaster was that Sequencer Plus (MIDI sequencing software) supported making my own sound libraries, and I was able to tweak or "invent" sounds within the limitations of the synth chip. Some time later, I "translated" the sequencer files into General MIDI (GM) files, using the sound set of the GM file spec. Generally, they worked ok, but some of the original FM synth sounds could not be emulated.
As sound cards got fancier, they didn't use the OPL2 FM synth chip, but emulated it. What they didn't figure in all this was that you could bastardize the sound of an FM instrument by playing it well out of normal music range, and you'd end up with a usable percussive instrument sound. I had done just that to create my own drum sets for the OPL2. When those sounds were emulated by the fancier sound cards, they actually sounded a musical tone rather than the bastardized sound. So my snare drum would sound like two little tin drums being played (I used two adjacent musical notes as left and right drum sticks.
As for emulation of the OPL2 FM synth chip, I don't think you can get much better than the synth in DOSBOX (http://www.dosbox.com/).
As for the real thing, you will be able to get the sounds as they were "meant" to be on any sound card that has the OPL2 FM synth chip.
I hope this answers your question.
Best regards,
Bobby
Re: Bobby Prince, composer for Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, and Duke Nukem 3D, has died
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
When it was actual guitar and orchestral music it was one thing, but when it was "much better but still not quite there" midi renderings of orchestras and guitars, that could be a bit uncanny valley. And even when it wasn't, stuff that was really written for a 2 op FM idea of an orchestra, often sounded a bit thin on a real orchestra.
TBH I never really got the point of those "video game score played by a real orchestra" things, although to be fair most of them seemed to be for games from the console world so as a PC gamer I didn't have any attachment to the original tunes in the first place. For me I really felt things turn between Dune 2 and Command & Conquer when Frank Klepacki got to put full-blown lyrics and guitars into the soundtrack. I did…
I like Trent Reznor, but the quake soundtrack is... Not good.
It was the most popular game of a generation. Games that popular don't really need to have good music, it gets heard so much that people grow attached to it no matter how weak it is... But the Quake soundtrack failed even at that.
So it's no wonder game music composing didn't die!
Re: Bobby Prince, composer for Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, and Duke Nukem 3D, has died
#55Many moons ago, I emailed Mr. Prince, and he replied! > What is the sound card the DOOM sound track was composed on? It sounds different on each one. So we wanna know, how was it "meant" to sound like :D It was a Sound Blaster 1.0, which first came out in 1989. Creative Labs released almost a version of that card each year, but so many people had bought the 1.0 that the bulk of gamers had that model for several years…
Brilliant - I’m sure some enterprising person has rendered a version of the soundtrack ‘as it was originally written,’ I should track that down…
Re: Bobby Prince, composer for Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, and Duke Nukem 3D, has died
#56Many moons ago, I emailed Mr. Prince, and he replied! > What is the sound card the DOOM sound track was composed on? It sounds different on each one. So we wanna know, how was it "meant" to sound like :D It was a Sound Blaster 1.0, which first came out in 1989. Creative Labs released almost a version of that card each year, but so many people had bought the 1.0 that the bulk of gamers had that model for several years…
That's awesome, thanks for sharing this!
Re: Bobby Prince, composer for Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, and Duke Nukem 3D, has died
#57RIP Prince
My favourite Doom track, "Into Sandy's City"