Aubrey Hodges: New Projects

Regular readers of my little blog here are already familiar with my fondness for the soundtracks composed by Aubrey Hodges for the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 versions of Doom and Quake so I'll try not to bore anyone here by being redundant. (Though I must admit that after reading more about the system limitations he faced with those projects my respect for Mister Hodges has doubled.)

I bring this subject up again because this well-known composer of video game soundtracks recently left a comment on one of my previous posts concerning his works. While I confess that I'm tickled pink to see a renowned member of the video game industry visiting my casual little gaming blog, today's post is not intended to boast of that fact. Instead, I wanted to make this new post to convey some info that Aubrey mentioned in his comment that I don't want to be overlooked by readers whom it might interest. (I'm happy to provide some free advertising; I like the guy's work that much.)

So without further suspense, here is what Aubrey Hodges had to say:

Thank you for sharing my album links and I really do appreciate the kind words regarding my music. I have a ton of new material on the horizon that I have a feeling you will enjoy. Visit my site at aubreyhodges.bandcamp.com for the latest releases. The next release will be in August, 2013 and is titled "Journey Into the Sacred Places" and is a similar ambient style... only beautiful and peaceful. Ok... gotta get back in the studio now. Regards, -Aubrey Hodges

Some of you might wrinkle your noses at that "beautiful and peaceful" part, but not I. My tastes in music are more eclectic than my gaming habits, ranging from as soothing as compositions by Beethoven and Mozart to as tumultuous as albums by metal bands like Cannibal Corpse and Morbid Angel. From what I've heard of his soundtracks for games other than my favorites I think its safe to say that the range of Aubrey's composition talents is just as diverse and his new works will definitely be worth checking out. I'll certainly be keeping an eye (and an ear or two) on his Bandcamp page.

So I once again say thank you Aubrey Hodges, not only for your music but also for your comment here; it truly means a lot to me. Sometimes as I'm taking screenshots of games and typing I honestly wonder if anyone reads this apart from the handful of friends I've made along the way, so hearing from you really made my day.

Thank you and may you enjoy continued success. -Dianna

More Aubrey Hodges

As I mentioned in a previous post, Mr. Aubrey Hodges has at long last made some of his best game soundtracks available for public download. Though I'm still not in much of a blogging mood, this is something that I feel is definitely worth sharing in a follow-up post since more soundtracks are now available. Again, thank you Mr. Hodges!

Need Music?

As a follow-up to my previous post, I would also like to mention in a more general manner the site where Aubrey Hodges chose to make his PlayStation Doom soundtrack available. BANDCAMP, I am currently discovering, hosts a wealth of various styles of music, much of which is suitable for substituting your boring old video game music (thus justifying my mention of it here in my gaming blog). As I'm typing this I'm listening to Field Recordings From The Edge Of Hell, which is really sounding like some great droning ambient music to play DOOM by. It appears that most of the collections of music offered on this site can be had for a mere $1 USD, so even on a budget as limited as mine one can afford to indulge a bit. If you have any love at all for music, do yourself a favor and check out this great website.

Aubrey Hodges Delivers

I know I'm a bit late delivering this news (the DoomWorld News Post was about a week ago) but I wanted to share it here anyway as I feel it's a bit of a landmark.
For a long time now, the soundtrack(s) for the PlayStation version(s) of DOOM have only been available through controversial sources. Now, after some DoomWorld Forums participation by Aubrey Hodges himself, the soundtrack's composer has finally made the original soundtrack available to the public (for a small price). It has also been said that other soundtracks from the other DOOM and QUAKE games done by Aubrey Hodges will soon follow.

The first installment can be found here.

Thank you, Mr. Hodges.

PSXSM

No, that's neither a Roman numeral nor am I typing in cryptograms again; PSXSM is the acronym for PlayStation Style Music and is the title of my latest Doom mod. Though the mod hasn't been fully-integrated into the DoomWorld / id Games Archives yet (i.e. it does not appear in a search with the page where it can be voted upon), it has however been accepted and added to the gamers.org archives and thus I am able to provide the direct download link found there in the first sentence of this post. The DoomWorld and other various mirrors should catch up in a week or so, at which time players will then be able to vote on the mod and post their valued comments.

EDIT: Just minutes after I published this post, the mod became visible here in the Archives as well.

So now you're likely wondering what exactly PSXSM is and what I mean by "PlayStation Style Music". To put it succinctly, PSXSM is a 94.534MB Doom music replacer WAD containing tracks in .ogg format. While it actually contains no music from the PlayStation versions of the game this soundtrack in my opinion elicits the same atmospheric mood that Aubrey Hodges achieved with his legendary score that was more ambient sound than actual music, hence the title of the add-on.

Faithful readers of my little blog here may recognize most of the tracks included in this compilation; this is indeed a re-working of a previous arrangement I had done. I've given it a new title since most of the tracks have been rearranged and at least half a dozen new ones have been added. If you enjoyed the previous version of the mod, please discard it now and download this version.

There's really not much else that I can say about it, except that I hope at least a few of my Dooming readers will enjoy using this alternate music as I have.

Thanks. Game on...

Béla Bartók Plays Doom

Since in the Classic Doom Hall of Fame I seem to be ranked right up there with prolific legends like Terry and Ruba, I've decided that it's time to release my next great Doom project. Though I've taken the project completely seriously, to others it should at least be good for a laugh or two.

I've been a fan of the compositions of Béla Bartók for many years now. Unlike the more conventional works of the famous composers one might think of when classical music is mentioned, the more contemporary pieces written by Bartók tend to be very edgy and somewhat unnerving, to me conveying feelings of mental and emotional chaos. When in the absence of an audio sample trying to verbally describe his music to someone unfamiliar with Béla Bartók, I usually say something like: "Imagine the music from an old horror movie." Bartók's 6 String Quartets are fine examples:

Opus 17, Second Movement

Thinking that Bartók's 6 String Quartets would also work well as a Classic Doom soundtrack, I decided to pack them into a WAD and test my theory. I was pleased enough with the results that I decided to upload the WAD to the id Games Archive, where I'm certain it will be well-received by my peers.

Since I did the FTP thing just a little while ago, the file is not yet available for download from the Archive. In the meantime, anyone interested in this music WAD can download it from GameFront. (Requires a sourceport that supports .ogg playback.)

It should be interesting to see what kind of "reviews" this one will earn...

PSX Doom/Doom64 Soundtracks

I've mentioned here before about my favorite Doom soundtrack being the music by Aubrey Hodges for the PlayStation incarnation of Doom. But no matter how much I babble on about it, nothing I say can really compare to simply letting you hear it for yourselves:

HANGAR

PLANT

TOXIN REFINERY

COMMAND CONTROL

PHOBOS LAB

CENTRAL PROCESSING

COMPUTER STATION

PHOBOS ANOMALY

DEIMOS ANOMALY

CONTAINMENT AREA

REFINERY

DEIMOS LAB

COMMAND CENTER

HELL GATE

HELL KEEP

PANDEMONIUM

UNHOLY CATHEDRAL

MT. EREBUS

LIMBO

HELL BENEATH

ATTACK

VIRGIL

CANYON

COMBINE

CATWALK

FISTULA

GERYON

MINOS

NESSUS

PARADOX

But let's not forget that Mr. Hodges also created similar music for Doom64 for Nintendo. Many of these tracks have a more "techno" feel than their PSX counterparts in my opinion, but still do just as well to set the ambient mood for a sci-fi/horror shootout:

STAGING AREA

TERRAFORMER

MAIN PROCESSING

HOLDING AREA

TECH CENTER

ALPHA QUADRANT

RESEARCH LAB

FINAL OUTPOST

EVEN SIMPLER

THE BLEEDING

TERROR CORE

ALTAR OF PAIN

DARK CITADEL

EYE OF THE STORM

DARK ENTRIES

WATCH YOUR STEP

SPAWNED FEAR

THE SPIRAL

BREAKDOWN

PITFALLS

Now be honest: doesn't hearing these make you want to play Doom with them?

I'm Confused

Followers of my little blog here might notice that a recent post and any associated DL links regarding a WAD file of new alternate music for the classic Doom games is now missing. That's because I was issued a DMCA takedown.

Apparently, when you have a web-page with a bunch of music that can be downloaded for free and call it royalty-free music, what this means is that it's not free and nobody else can use it.

Here's the gist of it:

Blogger has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that certain content in your blog is alleged to infringe upon the copyrights of others. As a result, we have reset the post(s) to "draft" status. (If we did not do so, we would be subject to a claim of copyright infringement, regardless of its merits. The URL(s) of the allegedly infringing post(s) may be found at the end of this message.) This means your post - and any images, links or other content - is not gone. You may edit the post to remove the offending content and republish, at which point the post in question will be visible to your readers again.

A bit of background: the DMCA is a United States copyright law that provides guidelines for online service provider liability in case of copyright infringement. If you believe you have the rights to post the content at issue here, you can file a counter-claim. For more information on our DMCA policy, including how to file a counter-claim, please see http://www.google.com/dmca.html.

The notice that we received, with any personally identifying information removed, will be posted online by a service called Chilling Effects at http://www.chillingeffects.org. We do this in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). You can search for the DMCA notice associated with the removal of your content by going to the Chilling Effects search page at http://www.chillingeffects.org/search.cgi, and entering in the URL of the blog post that was removed. If it is brought to our attention that you have republished the post without removing the content/link in question, then we will delete your post and count it as a violation on your account. Repeated violations to our Terms of Service may result in further remedial action taken against your Blogger account including deleting your blog and/or terminating your account. If you have legal questions about this notification, you should retain your own legal counsel.

Sincerely,

The Blogger Team

Affected URLs:

(redacted)

Now, while this e-mail says I'm supposed to be able to search for the actual complaint that was made against my little blog here by going to the linked site and entering the URL of my offending blog post in a search, I was unable to locate said complaint after attempting to do so several times in several different ways.

Anyway...

I publicly apologize to whomever I've offended for whatever it is I did wrong even though it makes absolutely no sense to me and I promise not to post said offending materials again. Thank you.

Music (A Quick Word About It)

One of the most important elements of a video game to me is the ambient music, particularly when it comes to games that involve immersive 3D environments. While it might be okay to have hip-hop music running in the background while playing Need For Speed, that type of soundtrack is really not befitting of the mood of a game like Doom in my opinion.

I was just chatting via PM with a fellow member of the Nexus Forums about this very subject in regard to the popular Bethesda games and how I consider it to be a bit of an art form to be able to select music from a variety of sources and assemble the tracks into a soundtrack that actually makes sense to have in the given game. (Long ago I replaced the vanilla Oblivion soundtrack with my own hand-picked music, and the player I was chatting with similarly did a major music overhaul for Fallout 3.) After I had finished with that message I realized that I needed to make a post about the subject here.

Before I joined the multitude of PC owners I played Doom in a variety of different incarnations from the Super Nintendo to the XBox. Each of these console versions contained the music from the original game, or a very similar rendition of it. However, there was one very unique soundtrack for the Midway/Williams/GT versions of Doom for the Playstation and Sega Saturn that was completely different, and I fell in love with it. I'm referring to the music composed by Aubrey Hodges.

Unlike the twangy and often annoying and monotonous midi soundtrack of the original Doom where only half the tracks actually seemed to fit the mood of the game in my opinion, the Aubrey Hodges soundtrack for Doom (I believe) is a masterpiece that perfectly fits a game where the theme is exploring the deepest reaches of Hell itself and battling the endless hordes of demons therein. Many of the tracks have a very evil sound and convey the feeling of forlorn hopelessness one would expect to feel when finding one's self in such an environment and situation. After my Dooming experience on the Playstation I refuse to play the game with anything else.

But simply describing this soundtrack does not do it justice; you have to hear it for yourself. The WAD file that I use while playing Doom with GZDoom can be found and downloaded here, at the Doom Depot. Or, you can sample the individual mp3 files to see if you will like them first and download them that way as well, but to use those while playing the game you would either have to use an editing tool (which I'm not going to discuss until later) to pack them into a WAD or pk3 file yourself or simply play them in the background with a media player while you were running the game. The WAD file is by far more convenient and much simpler for newcomers to use and is already configured to work with Doom I, Ultimate Doom, Doom II, TNT: Evilution and The Plutonia Experiment.

Also available at the Doom Depot is a WAD file containing all the music from Doom 64. I believe this soundtrack was an attemt to emulate the Aubrey Hodges music, but the music is more like a random collection of electronic noises and in my opinion does not serve to convey the mood of the game quite as effectively. However, when I'm in the mood for some variety I'll play classic Doom levels with the Doom 64 music as well.

But, if you're a Doom purist and insist upon the original PC soundtrack, the Doom Depot also makes available mp3 versions and enhanced WAD files of the original midis, thus allowing you to enjoy all your Doom favorites with improved quality.

It's my hope that Doomers both new and experienced will find this info useful, and even if you're not a Doomer maybe you'll find something in the music I've described that will work well for you in another game. Who knows unless you check it out?

Until next time, happy Dooming!