I think that's unfair, because the way ROMplers work is antithetical to electric guitar sound. It works by intermodulation, but a ROMpler has no way to produce that when you're playing two tones, since it's purely additive. For real, the sound made by a guitar amp for several tones isn't the sum of the individual sounds. Except, there's a trick. Look into the GM patch map, guitar section, notice one called "Guitar Harmonics" - ever wondered what it's for? Now you're supposed to layer this over your guitar riffs and chords to make them gel together more, and you may have to pick a fairly random note or be creative with it. It doesn't sound good alone, but it helps fill it out and make your distorted and overdriven guitars suck less, even if it's not fully authentic. Now unfortunately the Doom soundtrack doesn't make use of this trick, at all. Apparently the knowledge of how to do it made its way around in Japan but hasn't reached the West. You can get hyperoptimised soundfonts which don't do much well except a handful games, but who needs an e1m1 only soundfont? I feel Arachno kind of leans in that direction a little even if it's not actually bad. Though i guess if e1m1 sounds like CT1MB or QS700 then no need to consider any further :D
sc55 patch93 & EmperorGrieferus seems the better ones to me. More balanced overall and with the right amount of punch... I always used patch93 but EmperorGrieferus seems cool too, I need to test it. EDIT: oh EmperorGrieferus's is a modified version of patch93's one, now I get it
Deemster's version of the Roland SC-55 soundfont that ships with Windows also sounds pretty nice considering the small file size. He added reverb and chorus to the instruments without resampling.
Absolutely 100% correct. Best overall DOS gaming Soundfont! Timbres of Heaven is one massive file, however, I’ve found some anomalies with it for certain DOS games. Some instruments overpowering others, etc.
I'm a young guy and like it. But my only complaint is that there's not much bass drum so the drums sound a bit empty to me as a drummer. Might just be the recording. Sounds phenomenal for DOS
The author of TOH is aware of it and therefore states that, unlike other soundfonts, this one doesn't require normalization. Actually, the loudness is about 4 times larger than usual.
Played Doom back in 93 with 3 different sound setups. The first was through PC speakers. It was as bad as you'd imagine. Next paycheck I got an SB16 and it was relatively amazing. In 95 I got an SB AWE32 and I stuck an extra RAM chip on it. I was blown away by how good it sounded.
I remember listening to the old beeps and blips of the PC speaker - I know it sounds lame to most people, but that super basic Windows 95 MIDI sound (gm) combined with the proper sound effects were like heaven compared to the tiny little tweeter!
@@Trimint123 They didn't use a soundfont to emulate the GUS. It is actually emulated on the fly using the original GUS .pat files. The GUS was a soundcard that DOOM originally supported, but it's weird how they selected it even if: 1. Most people heard it on a SoundBlaster card back in the '90's. 2. Bobby Prince used an SC-55 to originally compose the soundtrack 3. GUS had a mapping bug in vanilla DOOM that can be fixed, but still exists by default
Thank you so much for this!! I love doom and wanted to emulate its music but with other more modern soundfonts around it for one of my own songs and this was an insanely helpful guide!!
POV: You're Doom Guy, and want to go on your demon killing spree as usual. So you bring an mp3 player to listen to some good ass rock music, but can't decide which one bops the most.
SGM is by far the best sounding soundfont I've ever come across. I still use the samples constantly despite having access to Kontakt samples. They're so warm and analogue-y sounding, and are EXTREMELY versatile cause they don't have too little harmonic information, but not so much you need to compress it to hell. SGM works great with 0 compression whatsoever, it's amazing
I would go with either 18:03 or 19:20. First one sounds nearly identical to the real thing but has a bit too much reverb for my tastes while Patch93's has the right amount of reverb and has always been my go-to for DOOM or other games that use MIDI. EDIT: Went with the former. Sounds crisper and way more closer to the MusicallyInspired recordings with the right amount of reverb. Patch93 did me well though.
I personally use ChoriumPro v2.4 with Drums!BySlavo overriding the drum kit, it works well with most SC-55 based games and does the choir based doom tunes pretty decent as well.
This is very cool! Thank you for this. I knew there were different versions of the music but I had no idea there were all different soundfonts you could choose from also. I really like Airfont_380 at 2:40 and ESS Tech 3 at 7:09.
i think the Gravis Ultrasound.sf2 is the one that Doom1+2 have on the Doom3 bfg edition. the percussion sounds like someone making pop noises with their mouth
Holy sheet, Power GM sounds awesome for MIDI rock! Honestly I feel like it's a shame the guitar sounds this way on 32MbGMStereo, because it's an awesome soundfont to work with otherwise, it has one of the best Synth Brass 1 patch out there in my opinion.
And there are SF files where there are 600 or about a thousand tools? How are these files created? How do you get samples from the same Sound Canvas? I don't want to be picky and fussy, but I could use an SF based on the Roland SC 8850 where there are 1700 instruments.Although for my level, about 300 pieces are enough, for example, GeneralUser, there are so many tools there.
Guys, I did tons of testing using different midis (Ancient Aliens and Memento Mori soundtracks are good ones, since they use a lot of different instruments) and I think GM2 Map Soundfont is the best one overall. It can be complemented with better guitars and drums though... Oh, and thank you very much for providing this, Doomkid :)
@@daemonspudguy I have no idea, but you could probably search around for "E1M1 in (x amount of) soundfonts" and eventually stumbled onto it. That's how I found it, anyways.
18:03 and 19:59 are the best, 18:03 drum was not loud enough, to much reverb, and 19:59 guitar font was not that cool. The combination of them would be great.
See if you can select a "MIDI device" in FL studio. If that doesn't work, look for somewhere to set a track instrument. (I've heard that FL studio supports MIDI but isn't really optimized for it, by the way)
opl3 128 sounds like garbage lol EDIT: it's not using the same midi bank as doom and that's why, i'm assuming it's the default bank because a ton of games use it
OPL > everything else (GUS is a good 2nd place) You: Why? They sound absolutely nothing like real instruments, they sound like computer noises To which I say, that's exactly the point. I love that synthy feel of midi that feels like the raw sound of a computer. Why bother with pseudo-realistic soundfonts that sound inferior to true CD/mp3 quality anyway? I like midi for that synthy sound.
Yeah, no OPL soundfonts seem truly accurate, I think it may be impossible to get a perfect recreation due to some technological difference under the hood that I don’t quite understand.
EDIT FROM ORIGINAL ARACHNO COMMENT: List of soundfonts here that are just shittier version of Arachno: GeneralUser DooM JNSGM2 Masterpiece MUSTHEORY Reality_GMGS_falcomod
Soundfonts are shady software the way I found out about this Soundfont is The VLC Player now I think the VLC software is shady cuz The VLC software forces you to download Soundfonts to play midi files
@@patrick7799 That's some shady English, first and foremost. Plus, if you cannot use a computer properly doesn't mean that legitimate software is "shady".
![Printer of DOOM! - PRINTING IN HELL [HD] E1M1](/img/n.gif)
Decided to write timestamps since I thought they'd be helpful.
[Examples 1-5]
0:00 - 8MbGM_Enhanced18.sf2
0:44 - 8MbGM_SFX.sf2
1:23 - 32MbGMStereo.sf2
2:01 - 44GMgsmt.sf2
2:40 - Airfont_380_final.sf2
[Examples 6-10]
3:18 - Arachno SoundFont - Version 1.0.sf2
3:57 - Chaos Bank v1.9.sf2
4:35 - ChoriumRevA.sf2
5:13 - Ct4mgm.sf2
5:52 - Ct8mgm.sf2
[Examples 11-15]
6:31 - DooM.sf2
7:09 - ESS Tech 3 MB GM.sf2
7:47 - FluidR3 GM.sf2
8:26 - GeneralUser GS v1.471.sf2
9:08 - GM.sf2
[Examples 16-20]
9:46 - GM2 Map Soundfont.sf2
10:24 - Gravis Ultrasound.sf2
11:03 - Industrial_Dance_PC.sf2
11:42 - JnsGM2.sf2
12:20 - Masterpiece.sf2
[Examples 21-25]
12:58 - MIRACLE.sf2
13:37 - Mustheory2.sf2
14:15 - Nintendo_Soundfont.sf2
14:53 - OPL-2_FM_v2_FAT.sf2
15:31 - OPL-3_FM_128M.sf2
[Examples 26-30]
16:08 - Power GM 1.5.sf2
16:47 - Reality_GMGS_falcomod.sf2
17:25 - SC-55 Deemster [GZDoom].sf2
18:03 - SC-55 EmperorGrieferus.sf2
18:42 - SC-55 JMSexton.sf2
[Examples 31-35]
19:20 - SC-55 Patch93.sf2
19:59 - SCC1T2.sf2
20:37 - SGMv2.01-GuitsPlusBass-V1.4.sf2
21:15 - SnesDoom.sf2
21:53 - Timbres of Heaven GM_GS_XG_SFX V 3.4 Final.sf2
[Examples 36-40]
22:31 - Unison.sf2
23:10 - WeedsGM3.sf2
23:49 - Yamaha DB50XG Presets.sf2
24:28 - Yamaha XG sound set re-map.sf2
25:06 - Yamaha XG.sf2
Hope these are useful to someone! :)
Thank you for doing this 👌
I remember a wise man once saying that a good rule of thumb to rate a soundfont is to listen to e1m1 through it and see how much you like it 😎
Calling him a "wise man" is an understatment! It is the ultimate way of testing a soundfont!
I think that's unfair, because the way ROMplers work is antithetical to electric guitar sound. It works by intermodulation, but a ROMpler has no way to produce that when you're playing two tones, since it's purely additive. For real, the sound made by a guitar amp for several tones isn't the sum of the individual sounds.
Except, there's a trick. Look into the GM patch map, guitar section, notice one called "Guitar Harmonics" - ever wondered what it's for? Now you're supposed to layer this over your guitar riffs and chords to make them gel together more, and you may have to pick a fairly random note or be creative with it. It doesn't sound good alone, but it helps fill it out and make your distorted and overdriven guitars suck less, even if it's not fully authentic.
Now unfortunately the Doom soundtrack doesn't make use of this trick, at all. Apparently the knowledge of how to do it made its way around in Japan but hasn't reached the West.
You can get hyperoptimised soundfonts which don't do much well except a handful games, but who needs an e1m1 only soundfont? I feel Arachno kind of leans in that direction a little even if it's not actually bad.
Though i guess if e1m1 sounds like CT1MB or QS700 then no need to consider any further :D
yeah i usually use e1m1 to test if the drums are shit or not in soundfonts that i use
2:40 - Airfont_380_final.sf2 my favorite
I just spent 30 minutes of my life listening to E1M1 and I have 0 regrets
you'll have lots of regrets if you get those surgeries
@@normanred9212 Took me a little to get this one.
same here actually
Ah, yes. SNESDoom soundfont.
Sampled by covering the mic with a wet song and recording the sample while the guitarist was in the other room.
sc55 patch93 & EmperorGrieferus seems the better ones to me. More balanced overall and with the right amount of punch... I always used patch93 but EmperorGrieferus seems cool too, I need to test it. EDIT: oh EmperorGrieferus's is a modified version of patch93's one, now I get it
Deemster's version of the Roland SC-55 soundfont that ships with Windows also sounds pretty nice considering the small file size. He added reverb and chorus to the instruments without resampling.
i think EmporerGrieferus is used in the official android/mobile version?
I found * Arachno * the best overall for emulators, I played several games with it including all levels of DOOM 1993
I wholeheartedly agree
Absolutely 100% correct. Best overall DOS gaming Soundfont! Timbres of Heaven is one massive file, however, I’ve found some anomalies with it for certain DOS games. Some instruments overpowering others, etc.
I often jam eveternity arachno in my car. Izz gud
@@christiangottsacker6932 I often jam Doom and Doom 2 Arachno at the gym!
I'm a young guy and like it. But my only complaint is that there's not much bass drum so the drums sound a bit empty to me as a drummer. Might just be the recording. Sounds phenomenal for DOS
Finally, I can now have a proper GM soundfont to go with Arachno if I ever wanna switch around a bit with how I want the standard midi to sound a bit
Ah, Timbres of Heaven. The big bastard.
Those samples are so GODDAM LOUD.
It really is the loudest soundfont I've ever heard! Even Arachno sounds downright quiet by comparison.
The author of TOH is aware of it and therefore states that, unlike other soundfonts, this one doesn't require normalization. Actually, the loudness is about 4 times larger than usual.
BAD WORD! DAAMN
Average iPad kid
@@cloudtaker633 lol wut
I gotta give love to Airfont 380 here. I love it and use it for a lot of stuff
Played Doom back in 93 with 3 different sound setups. The first was through PC speakers. It was as bad as you'd imagine. Next paycheck I got an SB16 and it was relatively amazing. In 95 I got an SB AWE32 and I stuck an extra RAM chip on it. I was blown away by how good it sounded.
I remember listening to the old beeps and blips of the PC speaker - I know it sounds lame to most people, but that super basic Windows 95 MIDI sound (gm) combined with the proper sound effects were like heaven compared to the tiny little tweeter!
You can get the AWE32 soundfont !
7:09 When the machine uprising comes but they stop for a Doom playthrough.
It's awesome, sounds like a Floppotron cover.
The ps3 and xbox 360 version's of doom used this type of music 10:24
no. they used digitized disc quality versions
@@alternatecheems8145 oh ok
@@alternatecheems8145 No, he meant the soundfont they used for XLA version.
@@Trimint123 They didn't use a soundfont to emulate the GUS. It is actually emulated on the fly using the original GUS .pat files. The GUS was a soundcard that DOOM originally supported, but it's weird how they selected it even if:
1. Most people heard it on a SoundBlaster card back in the '90's.
2. Bobby Prince used an SC-55 to originally compose the soundtrack
3. GUS had a mapping bug in vanilla DOOM that can be fixed, but still exists by default
Thank you so much for this!!
I love doom and wanted to emulate its music but with other more modern soundfonts around it for one of my own songs and this was an insanely helpful guide!!
Glad I could help!
POV: You're Doom Guy, and want to go on your demon killing spree as usual. So you bring an mp3 player to listen to some good ass rock music, but can't decide which one bops the most.
I give my thumb up for SGM, very clear sound in general, but try it with "room" drumkit, it sounds even better. Yeah rock n roll !!!
SGM is by far the best sounding soundfont I've ever come across. I still use the samples constantly despite having access to Kontakt samples. They're so warm and analogue-y sounding, and are EXTREMELY versatile cause they don't have too little harmonic information, but not so much you need to compress it to hell. SGM works great with 0 compression whatsoever, it's amazing
I would go with either 18:03 or 19:20. First one sounds nearly identical to the real thing but has a bit too much reverb for my tastes while Patch93's has the right amount of reverb and has always been my go-to for DOOM or other games that use MIDI.
EDIT: Went with the former. Sounds crisper and way more closer to the MusicallyInspired recordings with the right amount of reverb. Patch93 did me well though.
I personally use ChoriumPro v2.4 with Drums!BySlavo overriding the drum kit, it works well with most SC-55 based games and does the choir based doom tunes pretty decent as well.
This is very cool! Thank you for this. I knew there were different versions of the music but I had no idea there were all different soundfonts you could choose from also. I really like Airfont_380 at 2:40 and ESS Tech 3 at 7:09.
Thanks for the links in the description, I've been looking for some of these for a while
No problem!
Thank you for sharing your collections in the description!
You're welcome!
i think the Gravis Ultrasound.sf2 is the one that Doom1+2 have on the Doom3 bfg edition. the percussion sounds like someone making pop noises with their mouth
SC-55
I personally like the Scc1t2, but the GUS soundfont is very good too, maybe that's why I use both...
Holy sheet, Power GM sounds awesome for MIDI rock!
Honestly I feel like it's a shame the guitar sounds this way on 32MbGMStereo, because it's an awesome soundfont to work with otherwise, it has one of the best Synth Brass 1 patch out there in my opinion.
Man that sound is so cool
And there are SF files where there are 600 or about a thousand tools? How are these files created? How do you get samples from the same Sound Canvas? I don't want to be picky and fussy, but I could use an SF based on the Roland SC 8850 where there are 1700 instruments.Although for my level, about 300 pieces are enough, for example, GeneralUser, there are so many tools there.
Sorting them in alphabetical order is a neat idea... any other sort order would have been fairly subjective :)
Thanks for the comment. Love the Arachno soundfont!
21:53 Timbres is the best one
It’d be interesting to see what a combo mix of all these takes would sound like.
That would be insane, I'd love to hear it
3:18 sooo epic bro
10:24 my favorite
Anarcho soundfont sounds cool
Guys, I did tons of testing using different midis (Ancient Aliens and Memento Mori soundtracks are good ones, since they use a lot of different instruments) and I think GM2 Map Soundfont is the best one overall. It can be complemented with better guitars and drums though...
Oh, and thank you very much for providing this, Doomkid :)
You're very welcome!
Big fan of the Arachno Soundfont in Doom!
I think one of my personal favorites is the Studio 2007 soundfont (not listed here). It's a huge-ass file, around 800MB, but it's also very realistic.
Where can I get that?
@@daemonspudguy I have no idea, but you could probably search around for "E1M1 in (x amount of) soundfonts" and eventually stumbled onto it. That's how I found it, anyways.
Please could you make a video on how to change story text screens in Doom 2?
I can do that, no problem. You need WhackEd4 but I’ll make a proper tutorial soon!
@@DoomKid I'm going to be making a mod for Doom 1 it called Baxter Doom
Reality_GMGS_falcomod.sf2 has always been my main soundfont
Love that one.
18:03 and 19:59 are the best, 18:03 drum was not loud enough, to much reverb, and 19:59 guitar font was not that cool. The combination of them would be great.
I like Airfont 380 Final the best.
GeneralUser GS rocks
the arachno v1.0 sounds great
gravis ultrasound is also known as chaos btw
doom.sf2 is the default soundfont for my favorite source port, the Doomsday Engine, Does anyone have an idea who made it?
Sadly it didn't come with a TXT file so I'm not certain
Timbres heaven sounds l o u d
Airfont_380 does it for me, guess it's time to replay vanilla campaign
Snes Font is surprisingly good
Someone needs to layer all of these on top of each other to see what it sounds like
Dear god..
What about the original one, "Slayer - Behind the Crooked Cross"? =)
Gravis Ultrasound is the best. Gus had relatively punchy guitars
why does it just sound like piano in fl studio and how do i make it sound normal
See if you can select a "MIDI device" in FL studio. If that doesn't work, look for somewhere to set a track instrument. (I've heard that FL studio supports MIDI but isn't really optimized for it, by the way)
Chaos Bank sounds like a beefed up version of the original, at least at the beginning.
I like the 21:54
Doomkid, you should check out Chaos Bank 2.0, there isn't a lot of changes, but it's leagues better in my opinion m
Dude must be downloading like 40 gigabytes of soundfonts for these damn videos dude 😂
I did lmao! Over a few years, but still
@@DoomKid I pray for your hard drive
When when there's no ez download for power gm 1.5 in the drive
Check the 500 soundfont pack on archive.org
Where do the drums come from?
In this case, they're all built right into the soundfonts
@DoomKid oh. I've had a look through them and didn't find any drums
The Nintendo soundfont sounds amazingly retro, too bad the same could not be said for the Super Nintendo soundfont...
agreed....
What did you use to compare them?
Vritual MIDI Synth
@@DoomKid I thought so, but thanks anyway! and i make doom styled midi if you're ever interested.
@@alyctro8158 Awesome, always nice to see more MIDI composers :)
sfpack don´t work with Gzdoom
Use SFPACK.EXE to convert the .sfpack soundfonts to .sf2, the format which works for GZDoom and soundfont players
@@DoomKid thanks
i use arachno soundfont
Can you do this with E1M8?
Good idea, may do that soon!
Personally I used for playing midi karaoke instead. (Only with full instrument soundfont)
That’s a good usage!
opl3 128 sounds like garbage lol
EDIT: it's not using the same midi bank as doom and that's why, i'm assuming it's the default bank because a ton of games use it
OPL > everything else (GUS is a good 2nd place)
You: Why? They sound absolutely nothing like real instruments, they sound like computer noises
To which I say, that's exactly the point. I love that synthy feel of midi that feels like the raw sound of a computer. Why bother with pseudo-realistic soundfonts that sound inferior to true CD/mp3 quality anyway? I like midi for that synthy sound.
My OPTI 930 definitely didn't sound like this OPL3......
Yeah, no OPL soundfonts seem truly accurate, I think it may be impossible to get a perfect recreation due to some technological difference under the hood that I don’t quite understand.
opl requires a software synth to be accurate. zdoom has 2 softsynths that give pretty accurate recreation of opl3 chip.
EDIT FROM ORIGINAL ARACHNO COMMENT:
List of soundfonts here that are just shittier version of Arachno:
GeneralUser
DooM
JNSGM2
Masterpiece
MUSTHEORY
Reality_GMGS_falcomod
BAD WORD
@@null3739 kid im 19
scc1t2 just sounds like a piano any help?
Sorry for late reply, how are you loading the soundfont, with VirtualMIDIsynth?
@@DoomKid Im using Sforzando
@@DoomKid i want to also be able to play the sounds on my keyboard
Any second now I can feel the corruption coming and turning this into high pitched trash metal.
The soundfonts names make no sense. Send sphere now.
Soundfonts are shady software the way I found out about this Soundfont is The VLC Player now I think the VLC software is shady cuz The VLC software forces you to download Soundfonts to play midi files
Neither soundfonts nor VLC are shady, lol. Soundfonts are an industry standard used by many high level music producers.
@@DoomKid the operating system has its own soundfont so the VLC not letting you us that soundfont is shady
@@patrick7799 That's some shady English, first and foremost.
Plus, if you cannot use a computer properly doesn't mean that legitimate software is "shady".
@@DoomKidNO I SAID SOUNDFONT IS SHADY!!!!!!!! FAAAK