If yes, then I have something of your interest: A highly enhanced GENMIDI lump to improve the sounding of many instruments and to take the best of the FM/OPL synthesis! With this GENMIDI lump you can listen to MIDI music tracks with better quality than the original Doom's GENMIDI lump can offer.
Update from 2017-11-29
After some time, an update is finally here! I edited several more instruments, and most importantly, the drums are finally much better!
I could not resist and took some of the percussion instruments from Csonicgo's DMXOPL project. Percussion is my weak point when it comes to OPL Synth, and even the other sources which I took instrument patches from were not ideal. Csonicgo did really hard work with them, so all thanks go to him!
I also created some demonstration tracks, where I'm going to showcase some of the best instruments featured in my GENMIDI. There are seven new demonstration tracks linked in this post!
After all, here is the list of instruments which were changed since the last release:
Major changes:
- Clavinet
- Reed Organ
- Trumpet
- Baritone Sax (Blind - I had no midi using this instrument to test)
- Guitar Harmonics (Taken from DMXOPL - I really love it!)
- Bowed Glass (Taken from DMXOPL)
- Acoustic and Electric Snare, Open High Hat, most of the Cymbals, Vibraslap (Taken from DMXOPL)
Minor changes:
- Acoustic Grand Piano (release rate adjust)
- Timpani (volume increase)
- Alto Sax (volume increase)
- Piccolo (volume increase)
- Lead 7 (5th sawtooth) (key scale level swap)
From this version, this GENMIDI requires OPL3, because it utilizes the new waveforms - basically the same applies to DMXOPL3. Guitar Harmonics is the only melodic instrument which utilizes a square wave (and generally any OPL3 waveform) and the drums, of course.
Feature list:
- Used Doom2 GENMIDI lump as a base
- More than half of the instruments are modified, either completely or a very minor tweak was made
- The instruments which sounded bad and crappy were totally relplaced to sound better
- Many instruments were highlighted and made louder (if they were too quiet for example)
- Extensive utilization of double-voice feature of GENMIDI (I can afford it as ZDoom supprts emulation of up to 8 OPL chips). Due to this you need to configure emulation of more OPL chips, otherwise many note cutoffs will happen.
- Many instrument patches were taken from other games (mostly "The Fat Man" patches, Duke Nukem 3D, ROTT, Blood). I tried to take the best of them and combine them together in various ways.
- Some instruments, mostly the drums, were taken from DMXOPL project. Credits go to Csonicgo and everybody who participated the project.
- I also made my own unique and interesting modifications and creations
- Requires OPL3 due to usage of the new OPL3 waveforms
Download:
Latest version: This time I am also including a file with statistics which instruments were edited and which not, with detailed description of the change I made.
How to use:
- Start (G)ZDoom with the wad file
- Go to Options - Sound Options, change Midi Device to OPL Synth Emulation
- Go to Advanced Sound Options and change OPL emulation core to some OPL3 core (I recommend Dosbox OPL3 as this one I used for development). Increase the Number of Emulated OPL Chips to at least 4-6.
- Listen to some MIDI tracks!
Demonstration tracks:
1. Memento Mori 2 MAP03
This track demonstrates the entire philosophy and purpose of my GENMIDI project: Improve instruments which need improvement, and leave unchanged the instruments which are iconic to DMX and Doom MIDIs overally, and sound great on their own. This should retain the original feeling of Doom music.
This track was previously recorded and uploaded on Youtube with the original unchanged GENMIDI, that's why I chose this song for demonstration - you can directly compare with mine and the original version!
From the very beginning you can hear the improved Clavinet. Then after a little while you will hear the Muted Guitar and Distortion guitar at higher pitches. Percussion is significantly improved too. On the other hand, the Overdriven guitar, and Slap Bass 1 and Ride Bell in later parts remained unchanged, as this is the typical Doom sound we all are familiar with.
https://soundcloud.com/hisymak/memento- ... nmidi-demo
Here is the original version of the same song (recorded with unchanged GENMIDI):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgRqwHJG4TQ
2. James Paddock: Fallen Sun
Another great song I really like. This song was previously recorded with the original GENMIDI as well, so you can hear direct comparison here too!
Main instrument changes:
- Cello (at 0:09)
- Reverse Cymbal (at 0:17)
- Nylon Guitar (at 0:36 and 1:21)
- Xylophon (at 0:54)
- Bright Acoustic Piano (at 1:40)
- String Ensemble 1 (through entire song)
https://soundcloud.com/hisymak/james-pa ... nmidi-demo
Here is the original version of the same song (recorded with unchanged GENMIDI) but got some post-processing (bass frequencies, reverbs etc.), that's why it might sound better in some cases:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ6NUmseiLg
3. James Paddock: Ripsaw
One of the recent and awesome songs by Jimmy. Here you can hear for example Rain FX (from beginning) and Bass lead (lead 8).
https://soundcloud.com/hisymak/james-paddock-ripsaw
4. Electric Guitar (clean) demo
The Clean guitar is one of my most favourite instruments I created. This is one of the most significant examples of an instrument, which does not sound like how it's supposed to, but is made to sound originally and nicely. I would call it something like "Sweet Guitar" fot its lovely sound. It can give a completely new feeling to the songs where it is used, like this example:
https://soundcloud.com/hisymak/electric ... nmidi-demo
5. Pizzicato Strings demo
Pizzicato Strings is quite hard to replicate in OPL, but I think I managed it very well with the help of Duke Nukem 3D patch. Here you can hear an example:
https://soundcloud.com/hisymak/pizzicato
6. Waltz of Flowers
This is an example of a classic song. Here you can hear for example French Horn (0:50), Clarinet (0:58), Flute (2:02), Oboe (3:10) etc.
https://soundcloud.com/hisymak/tchaikov ... nmidi-demo
7. Shadow Warrior: Everybody Off!
An example of a song from Shadow Warrior. Here you can hear Koto (beginning), Ocarina (0:23) etc.
https://soundcloud.com/hisymak/shadow-w ... nmidi-demo
Music recorded with older versions of the GENMIDI:
Spoiler:Examples of edited instruments (full list available within download):
- Distortion Guitar (combinaiton of original Doom2 and the Fat Man patches, improving it significantly)
- String Ensemble 1 (sounds closer to a Violin sound - especially in higher pitches)
- All Toms (taken from ROTT)
- Muted Guitar, Clean Guitar, Nylon Guitar
- Hammond Organ
- Pizzicato Strings
- Bass lead (original was really crappy)
- Soundtrack FX (Using fine tuning and Chorus effect pretty well)
- Choir Aahs
- Many others...