E3M8: Facing The Spider - time signature

[BROS_ETT_311]

Hopefully this is a pretty straight forward question:

What is the music time signature for "E3M8 - Facing The Spider" by Bobby Prince?

I think I have the BPM correct (82 or 164 if I'm not mistaken), but I can't for the life of me determine the beat measurements for the track. I tried syncing it up with either 5/4 or 7/8, but neither seem to match up! Maybe it has something to do with the sustained bit in the beginning of the track, though even with that part removed the song still does not conform to any sort of time signature. Any music aficionados out there know the answer to this mystery? Because good lord...this keeps me up at night.

[Bashe]

Barring the intro, the song is in 4/4. The reason you may be having trouble with the time signature in general is because the game's MUS files don't preserve the tempo information from the original midi file that it was converted from, which leads to basically none of the notes aligning to the grid sensically. As far as I know, there's not a way around this other than manually editing the song or having the original midi file on hand, which I don't believe still exists for Doom.

[BROS_ETT_311]

the game's MUS files don't preserve the tempo information from the original midi file that it was converted from, which leads to basically none of the notes aligning to the grid sensically.

True, however I am indeed familiar with this issue. The BPM I'm working with is actually the corrected one after converting and properly aligning the MIDI notes via Logic Pro X. It's not perfect though as it seems to take some sort of average value between the timing of the notes. It has worked quite well for some of the other tracks though, like "At Doom's Gate" for instance actually translates to 110 BPM as oppsed to the 95 that's attached to the file.

Barring the intro, the song is in 4/4.

Hmmm, that simple? I mean, I did try cutting that intro part from the beginning. Perhaps the conversion I did was somehow inaccurate. I could try cutting the intro and keeping the tempo at 120 to see if everything lines up.

[Jimmy]

Grab hold of un08.mid which is the original MIDI file used for D_E3M8*, and load it in a MIDI editor. You should be able to see how it lines up to the grid. It is indeed 4/4.

* Although it's not the final version, clearly - the beginning power chord is missing, and it lacks the repeat.

Your guess as to the tempo is a bit off, incidentally. It's 240bpm, while the intro is 120bpm.

[BROS_ETT_311]

Yeah, I meant to get back about this sooner. It would seem I owe you an apology Bashe since you were correct!

Grab hold of un08.mid which is the original MIDI file used for D_E3M8*, and load it in a MIDI editor. You should be able to see how it lines up to the grid. It is indeed 4/4.

* Although it's not the final version, clearly - the beginning power chord is missing, and it lacks the repeat.

Your guess as to the tempo is a bit off, incidentally. It's 240bpm, while the intro is 120bpm.

Funny enough, I came across this just last night while diving deeper into my search about the track! I can't believe I didn't know about these unreleased songs sooner . I almost feel like its cheating using it, but...I mean it is basically the exact same song minus the things you mentioned. Thankfully, since everything is actually timed up properly I was easily able to address the repeat issue, and everything else just sort of fell into place. I can't say I understand why the original is giving me such a headache, especially while all the others worked just fine with the processing technique. I guess that's why it's for the final boss!

Thanks so much for your help guys, I'm hoping you'll see/hear the results in the upcoming weeks (or this week depending on my work schedule)!

[MFG38]

It's basic 4/4.

[Xeotroid]

As far as I know, there's not a way around this other than manually editing the song or having the original midi file on hand, which I don't believe still exists for Doom.

There's this small tool to change the tempo of a MIDI file while stretching the notes to keep the actual tempo intact. It's pretty handy, just make sure you make a copy of the original file since it automatically overwrites whatever you feed into it.