This must have been shared before, but as a massive fan of videogames and of DOOM since the 90s, this is a fascinating insight into how the music of DOOM (2016) was created using a whole lot more than the normal compositional tropes. Modular synthesis, guitar pedals, splitters, compressors, sidechaining, spectral synthesis and sound morphing between guitars and the original DOOM chainsaw sound… A recipe for success!
What it shows to me is that timbre really is king - we’re talking melodies comprised of as little as one note, processed with interesting effects, can create the most weird and wonderful results that really embody the concepts of the overall work.
Sad to hear that over the last few years one of the executives has been trashing him (well after id treated him poorly as a contractor), and doublesad that the “we gottem, Reddit!” crew is trying to trash his reputation out of some adoration of shitty gaming business execs and monied people over the actual people who make games and exist in a state of general insecurity because of the myth peddled by high level execs (and repeated by many that have their identity wrapped in “gamer”) that employees “should be paid in doing what they love”
The brightest spot of Doom was absolutely Gordon’s soundtrack work and ability to update the industrial metal associated with the games to something that absolutely slaps.
Edit: Phrasing could be improved, but while I am still fixated on WaxTrax era stuff, NIN, Clouser and the like, “industrial metal” and rock is out of favor in media and probably seen as dated, mostly because of soundalikes chasing the vibe without committing or adding anything transformative.
The sine to fx box workflow discussed let through a lot of distinct, tuned noise good for modern speakers and expectations of crisp production.
I’m sorry to hear that and I wasn’t aware until now. There’s no doubt he’s a very intelligent and vastly talented sound designer/composer.
It’s wonderful how they got someone in to work on a project who has first hand experience of the source material. It’s absolutely paramount for authenticity, and it’s such a shame that this is rarely the case.
Yes, and I haven’t even gotten deep into whatever bug up their butt the self-proclaimed “Reddit army” decided would be necessary to suck up to abusive gaming execs and knock down developers as “whiners”.
Lots of anti-worker “suck it up, buttercup” attitudes abound there by “alphas” overinvested in a specific and quite sad Gamer-identity presentation, I see it too much with other targets to dip my brain into the seething and groupthink on whatever organized harassment project of the week.
ANYWAY, avoiding that aspect after I brought it up in the first place, I should see how well I could do a similar experiment (though without nearly as much room in my studio for a bajillion noise boxes )
Thank you for sharing this. Confused by @thermionic 's post, I had been under the impression Mick Gordon was the antagonist in this and was about to go off and so some research. I was confused by the whole thing from the beginning.
I don’t expect I’m going to enjoy the impression of Marty Stratton and iD this is going to leave.
Sorry, half communication because my brain shut down when it comes to outrage junkies, intention was to groan about decent people getting shit on by bootlickers and champion the dude for being cool and creative.
Im saying that I think I was successfully psy oped by Marty’s original letter because I thought Mick Gordon was the bad guy in this. So to read your original post got my google fingers twitching.
I am now lusting for a guitar pedal effects chain with a bunch of Dwarfcraft and WMD and tube distortions… What a cool job…
… However, this issue faced with DOOM Eternal highlights the stresses of being a contractor working for a company which is more interested in pumping out a product than looking after its clients. Imagine not being paid for 9 months, and then not being paid again for 11 months. My mate is going through a similar situation now with his contracting role for a media company and it’s enough stress to take years off your life.
On a not entirely related note, I couldn’t stand DOOM Eternal. Was so hyped for it but it paled in comparison to DOOM (2016). But then again, I seem to be more interested in the psychological horror and cleverly designed levels aspects of the series rather than the kind of KILL MILLIONS OF TELEPORTED ENEMIES IN A SINGLE ROOM mentality of a lot of the wads back in the day. I’m hoping the next game dials things back a bit in the overt humour department too, picking up plushies of enemies and hearing THAT sound upon executing a Cacodemon got old for me real quick.
Anyway, I’m going to go back to grunging the fuck out of sine waves with multiple layers of distortion.
In other news - there’s a Lyra in the Eternal menu music; apparently:) (or I’ve understand this video description wrong, which could be, don’t know these Doom games)
)