The music for Doom may be ripped off from some actual rock and metal songs, but it still holds a special place in my heart because it comes from a day when western developers seemed to care about good memorable tunes being a part of game design. Unfortunately, despite the good melodies, we can all agree that the old midi sound is a bit weak and outdated. Some people out there who felt the same way took the time to give those songs a facelift, either by completely reinterpreting the songs in one way or another, or by just giving the old melodies a better set of instruments to play through.
Regardless, there are quite a few packs out there that would work very well within the games themselves, so I've taken the time to gather these updated soundtracks, put them into wads, and host them in the hopes that I can make all of your adventures in Doom and its sequels just a little bit more enjoyable. So, browse the extensive and varied selection, and enjoy.
Sycraft - Doom - Doom 2 - TNT
These wads contain all the updated versions of Doom, Doom 2, and TNT music from Sycraft, who's website may be found here. This is the only set that replaces ALL of the music in all of the Doom games. This is a good overall upgrade to the music, though for the most part individual songs don't quite stack up to any counterparts that might be in the other packs, barring maybe the Paul set depending on your preferences.
A note: The TNT music was actually originally set up by the people who made TNT to replace the Doom 2 music. So, if you load up the TNT wad, it'll replace all the Doom 2 music anywhere it's used, which pretty much includes Doom 2, Plutonia, and TNT. So if you like the TNT music you can use it with those other wads for a change of pace.
Shane Strife
He already has a thread up for his music here. No real point in re-hosting it. It seems to cover everything just like Sycraft, and is also another example of where the midi pretty much just got run through a better soundfont, so no real heavy remixing here, just an overall increase in quality.
Paul - Doom - Doom 2
A fairly comprehensive set created when this Paul fellow ran the original midi through a better soundfont and made some tweaks. Check out his site here. This set covers all of the doom music excluding the title screen, and most of the doom 2 music excluding Map 23, Map 25, Map 28, Map 30, Map 31, and Map 32.
Doomworld - Doom - Doom 2
Here we have another pack of songs that got run through a better soundfont. Interestingly, I have no idea who made them. I got it through the same torrent that brought me the Ashley Carr and Kinkiness packs. According to Orangewaggs, they can be found at the Doom Depot here if you scroll to the bottom. It says they're "from Doomworld" there, so that's what I'll credit this pack to.
Zora - Doom - Doom 2 - TNT
Though the quality here isn't much better than Midi, Zora actually did do actual remixes of a lot of the music, with a lot more focus on fast guitars, so even the slower and more atmospheric tracks are changed into more energetic versions with this set, which some people might like. I put together the mp3s on his website, but you can also grab a pack of midi versions here if you scroll to the bottom.
This set is missing the intro screen songs, though that's no terrible loss really.
Ashley Carr - Doom - Doom 2
Ashley Carr, otherwise known as dj redlight (website here) brings us this slightly more liberal interpretation of the soundtrack. Definitely a good balance between a straight update and Dark Side of Phobos. Also, it's made to loop properly.
This set is missing the intro screen songs.
Kinkiness - Doom - Doom 2
Similar to Ashley Carr's work, this brings us a set of songs that deviate a bit from the original soundtrack's feel, but is still perfectly suitable for doomin' it up. Visit his almost painfully minimalistic website here.
Perkristian - Doom - Doom 2
This artist has created some pretty stunning rearranged versions of various tracks from Doom and Doom 2. His website may be found here. This set doesn't replace every single song, unfortunately, though it does replace quite a few. These are the tracks that get replaced:
Spoiler:Perkristian also made a wad of hi quality sound effects for the Doom games. Check it out here. Also be sure to check out his smooth weapon animations.
Sonic Clang/Thumpmonk (Classic Doom 3) - Doom
A lot of you probably already know about this music. Easily some of the most badass Doom rearrangements out there, though unfortunately only spans the stage themes of the first episode of Doom, so it's usage is fairly limited. Might be good for a play through KDiZD though! Of course, keep in mind that some of the episode one songs are also used in episodes two and three, so you can wring a little bit more longevity out of this.
Note: I just realized these songs aren't exactly formatted for gameplay, since they fade out before they loop. I'll need to put them through Audacity to get them to loop right.
The Dark Side of Phobos - Doom
Here we have the big Doom remix project from the folks over at OCRemix. Of all the packs, this one is by far the most liberal interpretation of the Doom soundtrack out there, which shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody familiar with how OCRemix typically operates. This means that you're in for a completely different feel to Doom if you use this pack. Also, being tracks intended for an album rather than a game, they aren't exactly loop-friendly. I can't promise I'll ever be able to "fix" that since they simply weren't intended for looping.
Usage
A lot of you probably already know enough to figure this out, but I'd like to point out that these wads can be loaded up together in different arrangements in order to get different combinations of music. So, if you set it up to load the Sycraft Doom wad first and then the Classic Doom 3 wad after that, the Classic Doom 3 songs will take precedence over the Sycraft music for the Doom episode 1 stage themes, but the rest of the songs (intro, intermission, etc) will still be replaced by the Sycraft versions.
Future?
This is ridiculously easy to do. If anybody has any other music replacements they'd like to suggest, it wouldn't be any problem at all for me to whip up some more wads to share. I could even maybe do music replacement for other games besides the Doom series. But be aware that I'd appreciate it if it was restricted to actual rearrangements of the game's music, or official alternate versions of the music, such as the music from the PlayStation version of Doom. I'm not here to set Doom to your favorite metal band or whatever, unless there's some overwhelming demand to do so. Also, any suggestions must be accompanied by some way I can freely and legally access the suggested music. I'm not spending any money on this, or breaking laws.
Disclaimer
I should probably explicitly state this: I simply found all this music and put it all into wads. I do not claim ownership over any of the actual music, nor do I claim that I created any of it. So there.
