Dos Game Club

Doom Map Pack

Developer Notes

MIDI Soundtrack | Tijn | 14 Apr 2025

After failing to learn the level making tools in time to be of any help during the DGC Map Pack collaboration project (turns out making levels is really hard!), I ended making a custom MIDI track for the project instead. I think it's played back during the intermission screen (the one after each level, with your time, score, etc). Making music is more my forte.

If you want to download the MIDI file and play it back for yourself, you can download it here: dgc-doom.mid

Inspiration

It might not be immediately apparent, but the music in the pack is loosely based on the DOS Game Club podcast theme tune. I started by making a guitar pattern that roughly resembles the rhythm of the voice that goes DOS D-D-D-D-DOS Game Club and it grew from there.

Technical details

The DAW of my choice these days is Reaper, so that's where I wrote it in. To get a feel of how the track would sound in DOS using a standard SoundBlaster OPL chip, I searched for a plugin that would roughly replicate it. I found some generic FM synth plugins, like Oxe FM Synth or JuceOPLVSTi, but I couldn't find the appropriate Doom sound banks to go along with it, so that didn't work out.

I did find a soundfont on doomworld.com, so I went with that. I loaded it in JuicySFPlugin and hey presto, now it sounds like Doom. After adding a bass, drums, strings and bells channel, I also tested and tweaked it a bit with the generic Windows General MIDI synth, hoping that would be enough to make sure it sounds ok on various other MIDI devices. You can't fully control what a MIDI song ends up sounding with all the various hardware people might have, but that's just how it is.

My MIDI history

I started making MIDI files as a teenager all the way back in the 90s with Cakewalk on Windows 95. Back then I had my Yamaha PSR-510 keyboard connected to the computer, so I could use it as a MIDI device and get slightly better sounds than were coming out of my SoundBlaster clone soundcard. Since then I've been fiddling with lots of different programs and MIDI devices, including a Roland JV-2080 I borrowed from the guitarist of our band for a while, and a smaller box I borrowed from a coworker at my temporary summer job, possibly a Yamaha VL70-m.

In the early 2000s my interest in MIDI technology faded to the background, as I focused on the then-current music technology advancements, notably the growing industry of VST effects and instrument plugins, and the advent of impulse response-based guitar amp simulation (I've also been playing guitar sinds the late 90s).

I hadn't really made a MIDI file in many years when relatively recently I was approached to contribute some music to Princess Fighter, a freeware JRPG for MS-DOS that someone named Mickey96 was making. It turns out the general MIDI sounds I had found so awful back in the 90s had grown to be weirdly pleasant and nostalgic for me, so I enjoyed working on that for a bit. Sadly the project seemed to have been stalled somewhat, but I hope it will be finished some day.