Hexen CD Music

[Nash]

(Hexen disc photo taken from https://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/hexe ... rId,77542/)

Download: Google Drive / MediaFire

Hexen CD Music Pack
by Nash Muhandes

Recommended GZDoom version: 4.7.1

GZDoom 4.7.1 was what I used to test while making this. I haven't tested it with any previous versions of GZDoom.

Most likely will work as long as the GZDoom version supports the filter folder feature.

[ https://zdoom.org/wiki/Lump_filtering ]

Description:

This is simply a music replacer for Hexen and the Deathkings expansion.

This mod replaces all of the music heard in the games with their CD audio counterparts.

For mapping the MIDI tracks to the CD audio, I have used these pages for reference:

[ https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Hexen_music ]
[ https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Deathkings_music ]

Take note of the entries marked with * on the Hexen music wiki page. Some of the songs will differ from their MIDI counterparts. This is intentional, for better or for worse. :)

The CD audio was extracted straight out of the Hexen v1.0 disc, courtesy of Dynamo, so special thanks to them for helping me out with grabbing the audio files.

The songs were extracted as .wav, 44.1 16 bit - standard Red Book Audio format.

They were then converted to FLAC using the FLAC command line tool. Contrary to what some people would like to claim, this conversion is 100% lossless and does NOT degrade the audio. Additional reading can be found here:

[ https://opensource.com/article/18/9/com ... s-flac-wav ]

Additionally, I can personally confirm that the conversion is lossless - I did a wav -> FLAC -> wav conversion, putting both the FLAC file and the 2nd generation wav file (FLAC converted back to wav) in my DAW, inverting the phase on one of them, then playing both tracks back together - it produces dead silence. This means the audio signal on both the FLAC and the second generation wav files are 1:1 and completely sample-accurate.

It's 100% lossless. :)

What's the point? The CD songs are just MIDIs ran through a Sound Canvas LOL

Yes, but there are subtle audio mix differences between the MIDIs and the CD versions. There's also the different music mappings for the CD version, as mentioned before (again; for better or for worse).

At the end of the day, this mod might satisfy the curiosity of what it would have been like to play the original Hexen games with CD audio back in the day. :)

How to use:

Simply load HexenCDMusic.pk3 into your play session (either with the -file parameter, or using your favorite launcher).

It is safe to keep this autoloaded with any Hexen game as it makes use of filter folders.

Special thanks:

Dynamo - for helping me extract the audio from the CD

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[Gez]

Additionally, I can personally confirm that the conversion is lossless - I did a wav -> FLAC -> wav conversion, putting both the FLAC file and the 2nd generation wav file (FLAC converted back to wav) in my DAW, inverting the phase on one of them, then playing both tracks back together - it produces dead silence. This means the audio signal on both the FLAC and the second generation wav files are 1:1 and completely sample-accurate.

Shouldn't this test be done with the original WAV instead? The way I understand what you explained, it only proves that the FLAC-to-WAV conversion was lossless.

(Not that it would bother me anyway. I think I have the Hexen CD tracks in MP3 somewhere... and that audio quality is largely sufficient for my audio equipment.)

[Nash]

Additionally, I can personally confirm that the conversion is lossless - I did a wav -> FLAC -> wav conversion, putting both the FLAC file and the 2nd generation wav file (FLAC converted back to wav) in my DAW, inverting the phase on one of them, then playing both tracks back together - it produces dead silence. This means the audio signal on both the FLAC and the second generation wav files are 1:1 and completely sample-accurate.

Shouldn't this test be done with the original WAV instead? The way I understand what you explained, it only proves that the FLAC-to-WAV conversion was lossless. :geek:

(Not that it would bother me anyway. I think I have the Hexen CD tracks in MP3 somewhere... and that audio quality is largely sufficient for my audio equipment.)

I was explaining it like as if you took a PNG file, converted it to JPEG, and then back to PNG. But yes, you are right, I could have gotten the result faster by comparing the original WAV file to the FLAC. At any rate, results are identical.

[Devalaous]

This is neat, my first experience with Hexen was the Playstation version, so the CD music is what I remember most. Used to listen to it on my stereo via the redbook audio.

Does make me wonder what the other tracks would sound like if they had gotten the same treatment though.