OPL music in Doom II's map12

[Coon]

I haven't played Doom with an OPL-powered sound card in over a decade, but I don't recall this track sounding nearly as bad. I searched the forum but the suggested workaround does nothing.

I suppose I can switch back to regular midi wavetables if this won't change, but boy, does OPL feel refreshing these days.

[Graf Zahl]

Sounds as awful as I remember it from long ago. I doubt there's anything to fix.

[Enjay]

Running Doom2 with DOSBox, it sounds pretty close to the Zdoom OPL output (and both are awful).

[Coon]

Running Doom2 with DOSBox, it sounds pretty close to the Zdoom OPL output (and both are awful).

"The MAME OPL core used by ZDoom (and DosBox)" - Randy

http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=15939

[Enjay]

Heh, oh well, I guess they would sound the same then.

[Project Shadowcat]

I hated that track anyway. Sounded ugly in my memory and it's just as bad now.

... The remix on Delta-Q-Delta was a refreshing change, though.

[Graf Zahl]

Indeed. That track sucks no matter what you play it with. OPL is just a bit worse than the rest...

[Coon]

I think the point here is whether or not the track is being played correctly regardless of how much it sucks. OPL was still popular back when the game came out so I've got a bit of a reason to believe it is not composer-side negligence. I could, of course, be wrong, but without a recording of the song in question playing through real OPL hardware to compare it against, I can only take your word for this.

[Bashe]

It sounds basically the same, even with real DOS hardware.

I kinda liked how it sounded in OPL. The fretless bass sounds a bit more "menacing," if that's the right word to use.

[Graf Zahl]

OPL was still popular back when the game came out

No matter how popular it was, the track still sounds like shit - as it did 14 years ago. Furthermore, OPL emulation is not perfect science and fiddling around with this code to compensate for discrepancies that may or may not be there is wasting time that's better spent somewhere where it counts.

[Csonicgo]

even weirder is how MAP02 sounds. listen to it in 2.2.0 and then 2.3.0...

[randi]

even weirder is how MAP02 sounds. listen to it in 2.2.0 and then 2.3.0...

I can't hear any glaring differences. Care to elaborate, please?

[Xaser]

Actually, the Map12 track is, indeed, wrong. The OPL "fretless bass" sample in general is badly distorted, moreso than it once was. I actually ripped the sound ages ago from a recording on my old DOS-compatible machine for use in some silly old module song of mine, so I figure I may as well dig it up to demonstrate the difference.

Here is the first note of D_THE_DA, as it sounded years ago on my old system in doom2.exe:
http://ionline.vectec.net/DARKSND.wav

And here is what it sounds like now, as emulated by ZDoom's OPL synth:
http://ionline.vectec.net/DARKSND-bork.wav

As you can see hear, the first sound is much "smoother", while the second barely seems to produce a tone at all. Not quite sure what the error in the OPL synth may be, but case in point, the sound is not exact and the difference is noticable enough to drastically reduce the quality of the sound. The quality of the music track itself is naturally debatable, but the lesser-quality instrument sound in the emulated version is quite obvious.

So, to address to the original topic: Is the emulated behavior incorrect? Absolutely. Now, is this fixable or not? That's the real question here.

[Bashe]

Wow, I guess my memory is bad. I always remembered map12 sounding like the second sample, but now the difference is clear. The first one sounds like a a single note, while the second one sounds like a freaky dissonant chord.

[randi]

But do 2.2.0 and 2.3.0 sound different?