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Doom Eternal's soundtrack released today and id Software seems to have mixed it poorly themselves to Mick Gordon's dismay

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Sun's Resting Place

Sun's Resting Place

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Oct 25, 2017
2,165


From the twitter thread transcribed:

Now maybe you're unfamiliar with audio mixing , & you're thinking "okay there's clearly a visual difference, but how does that translate to what I'm hearing?" Basically when there's more definition in the wavelengths, there's greater dynamic range between the instruments. In the case of music, dynamic range gives instruments more "breathing room" so-to-speak. While there are exceptions, in most cases you don't want instruments to compete with each other for dominance. You want them to harmonize together to create new & interesting sounds.

So what's happening is that in the left image from Doom 2016, the instruments have greater dynamic range which is shown from the wavelengths not being as compressed together, giving the instruments that "breathing room" I was talking about. HOWEVER, the image on the right from Doom Eternal is not this case. The wavelengths on each instrument have been compressed to the point where they are all playing back at the same volume, with exception to an occasional peak.

These heavily compressed mixes were then thrown together and had their combined master volume lowered, which is what creates those seemingly perfectly parallel edges throughout. The instruments are all fighting each other, & thus the mix sounds very poor as a result. Mick Gordon is a far more talented audio engineer than me, it's not even close & that's what makes this especially frustrating. I expect much better from him. Again, the music itself is phenomenal, but this mix on the official soundtrack is frankly terrible.
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Mick Gordon responded to the tweet thread with this:



I kind of get the impression Mick Gordon isn't happy with how Bethesda's been handling his music for Doom, considering he made this comment a couple months back on a fanmade cover of The Only Thing They Fear is You.

www.youtube.com

DOOM ETERNAL 8 String Guitar Cover -- The Only Thing They Fear Is You (Mick Gordon)

DOOM ETERNAL is coming soon! Here is one of the tracks by Mick Gordon off of the upcoming game titled "The Only Thing They Fear Is You." Left guitar is my au...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

vdRaAAM.png


As an addendum: sorry for this thread being simply a 'Mick Gordon made a reply to a tweet' level of content, but this sort of stuff interests me and it is a clue to a much larger issue.

It's also not a call to harass some random guy, or get up in arms at id software or Bethesda and bring out the pitchforks.

edit: PCgamer reached out to Mick Gordon about this.

www.pcgamer.com

Doom Eternal's official soundtrack wasn't mixed by its composer, and you can tell

Something sounds off.
www.pcgamer.com www.pcgamer.com

From the article:

"I reached out to Gordon to get more details on the mix and his relationship with id and Bethesda.

"I take a lot of pride in my work," Gordon told me. "It's all I do, it's all I have and I pour my heart and soul into it." He added that he's still trying to understand the situation himself and has no further comments at this time. "

That seems pretty damning.
 
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Deleted member 62561

Dec 31, 2019
539
you lose a lot of detail when you compress it that hard.
 
Carnby

Carnby

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Oct 25, 2017
12,244
They always figure out a way to mess something up. Unintentionally of course.
 
Carnby

Carnby

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Oct 25, 2017
12,244
Gordon not working on the next Doom would be very disappointing. His sound track in Doom E was one of the few things that was better than 2016.
 
SolidSnakeUS

SolidSnakeUS

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Oct 25, 2017
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The fact that he couldn't mix the soundtrack himself is extremely disappointing. I have yet to play Eternal, but I sure as fuck wanted to buy the OST. Probably won't be doing that now :(.
 
freshyk

freshyk

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Jan 15, 2020
317
Him and his music deserve better. This is dismaying. I was hoping the delay was some extra love being put into it.
 
dex3108

dex3108

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Oct 26, 2017
22,639
Someone on Reddit said that he and Hugo didn't agree about some things, so maybe it's not Bethesda this time.
 
Zips

Zips

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Oct 25, 2017
3,913
Mick's music was one of Eternal's few saving graces and you're going to do him dirty like this? C'mon, Bethesda (edit: or id?)
 
OP
OP
Sun's Resting Place

Sun's Resting Place

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Oct 25, 2017
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dex3108 said:
Someone on Reddit said that he and Hugo didn't agree about some things, so maybe it's not Bethesda this time.
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Yeah, I kind of wonder if this is on iD now instead of bethesda, since the question in that reddit post above is 'would you work with iD again' not 'would you work with Bethesda again.' Debating changing thread title.
 

Deleted member 49611

Nov 14, 2018
5,052
This sucks. Hopefully they remaster them. As for them not working together again...honestly I don't mind. I loved the soundtrack in 2016 but Eternal just wasn't as good (both the game + soundtrack). It wasn't bad but it just didn't feel as badass.
 
SuperBanana

SuperBanana

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Oct 28, 2017
3,748
Losing Mick Gordon is a huge fucking loss. I don't even know if I'd be interested in another Doom without him. His music is so key to the game and I feel like a lot of other metal composers would end up using a different style which wouldn't fit the game.
 
SolidSnakeUS

SolidSnakeUS

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Oct 25, 2017
9,624
SuperBanana said:
Losing Mick Gordon is a huge fucking loss. I don't even know if I'd be interested in another Doom without him. His music is so key to the game and I feel like a lot of other metal composers would end up using a different style which wouldn't fit the game.
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Might as well hire the mixed most of the album. I mean, marketers can do anything anyone else can do right?
 
Musubi

Musubi

Unshakable Resolve - Prophet of Truth
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Oct 25, 2017
23,633
Bethesda are fucking morons. LET THE MAN WORK. He fucking killed it on the first game. Hearing this now really cements why Eternal's music has not stuck out to me nearly as much as 2016's.

Shame. I hope they patch things up. Very much a letdown.
 
NightShift

NightShift

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Oct 25, 2017
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Australia
This makes so much sense.

I really hope whatever issues between Gordon and whatever dumbass at Bethesda who's making these decisions gets sorted out before it's too late to work on the OST for the next Doom. If not, that game is going to be missing out a huge part of what made 2016 and Eternal so fantastic.
 
SolidSnakeUS

SolidSnakeUS

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Oct 25, 2017
9,624
Musubi said:
Bethesda are fucking morons. LET THE MAN WORK. He fucking killed it on the first game. Hearing this now really cements why Eternal's music has not stuck out to me nearly as much as 2016's.

Shame. I hope they patch things up. Very much a letdown.
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Remember, when he was working on the DOOM 2016 OST, they didn't want metal or guitars in the music and Gordon proved them wrong, but I guess Bethesda got their revenge.
 
Dest

Dest

Has seen more 10s than EA ever will
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Jun 4, 2018
14,072
Work
If they make another DOOM and Mick Gordon aint doing the music for it I really don't know how I'd feel about it.

What would he do? Killer Instinct 2 (if it so exists?)
 
EatChildren

EatChildren

Wonder from Down Under
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Oct 27, 2017
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Unless I'm misremembering, Gordon had small issues with Doom 2016's OST too. Something like Bethesda originally telling him they didn't want heavy metal influence on the soundtrack, no crunchy guitar riffs, and he managed to sneak it in anyway and by that point in development people really liked it and so it stuck.

SolidSnakeUS said:
Remember, when he was working on the DOOM 2016 OST, they didn't want metal or guitars in the music and Gordon proved them wrong, but I guess Bethesda got their revenge.
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Ha! There you go. My brain still works.
 
Gush

Gush

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Nov 17, 2017
2,096
There have been so many mixing blunders from Bethesda published games this gen, I'm not surprised they fucked this up too

I don't know what's going on with them but those audacity screenshots say it all.
 
entremet

entremet

You wouldn't toast a NES cartridge
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Oct 26, 2017
60,279
Bethesda is weird. The soundtracks are very well-loved, why are you not feeding your guy.
 
Nazo

Nazo

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Oct 25, 2017
2,831
Everything about this sucks. losing Mick would be a damn shame. The only other composer who even comes close would be Andrew Hulshult and I'm not sure he could fill those shoes for another Doom game.
 
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