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Heretic + Hexen CollectionMidi music in these old 90s DOS games(10 posts)(10 posts)
(10 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted January 24, 2021
The midi music was great on Heretic, and even greater on Hexen. Last time I had a system that could run these under pure MS-DOS was back 2001. When I tried them on Windows ME when that old system died, all these old 90's classics sounded awful. The midi music instruments all just plain wrong! Since then every next re-incarnation of Windows has made it worse IMO.
Dos-Box disappointingly did not restore that old midi music quality, it still played "Windows shite"! :)

I'd love to play these again now on Win8.1 or Win10 (have access to systems with both) - but would like the music to be as it was in the old days!

I remember hearing once something about "VPN Sound"(?) that was meant to make midi tracks sound as originally intended.
Anyone any guidance on what to do?

Thanks!
Post edited January 24, 2021 by JMayer70
Posted January 24, 2021
avatar
JMayer70: The midi music was great on Heretic, and even greater on Hexen. Last time I had a system that could run these under pure MS-DOS was back 2001. When I tried them on Windows ME when that old system died, all these old 90's classics sounded awful. The midi music instruments all just plain wrong! Since then every next re-incarnation of Windows has made it worse IMO.
Dos-Box disappointingly did not restore that old midi music quality, it still played "Windows shite"! :)

I'd love to play these again now on Win8.1 or Win10 (have access to systems with both) - but would like the music to be as it was in the old days!

I remember hearing once something about "VPN Sound"(?) that was meant to make midi tracks sound as originally intended.
Anyone any guidance on what to do?

Thanks!
1) Download and extract GZdoom: https://zdoom.org/downloads

2) Place heretic.wad, hexen.wad, and hexdd.wad in the same folder as GZdoom.exe.

3) Double-click gzdoom.exe and select Heretic or Hexen.

4) Select Options --> Sound --> Midi Device: LibADL

5) While still in the Sound menu, then go to Advanced Options --> Midi Player Options --> ADLMidi

6) Under the "OPL Bank" setting, in the menu that opens, select "WOPL (DMXOPL BY SNEAKERNETS)". When you have enabled this setting, it will appear as the name "Bank 72". You'll notice that the OPL Bank list contains many other choices, so if Bank 72 doesn't sound right to you, try the others and see if those work for you or not.

GZdoom also supports SC-55 sound packs:

http://sc55.duke4.net/games.php#heretic

https://forums.duke4.net/topic/2505-roland-sc-55-music-packs/

To load the sound pack, you have to drag the zip file onto the GZdoom executable and then run Heretic as normal.
Post edited January 24, 2021 by TheBigCore
Posted January 24, 2021
avatar
JMayer70: The midi music was great on Heretic, and even greater on Hexen. Last time I had a system that could run these under pure MS-DOS was back 2001. When I tried them on Windows ME when that old system died, all these old 90's classics sounded awful. The midi music instruments all just plain wrong! Since then every next re-incarnation of Windows has made it worse IMO.
Dos-Box disappointingly did not restore that old midi music quality, it still played "Windows shite"! :)

I'd love to play these again now on Win8.1 or Win10 (have access to systems with both) - but would like the music to be as it was in the old days!

I remember hearing once something about "VPN Sound"(?) that was meant to make midi tracks sound as originally intended.
Anyone any guidance on what to do?

Thanks!
For the correct sound in DOSBOX games, and even old windows Midi games, you need external apps and a good soundfont. VirtualMidiSynth as an example.

The bad quality of Midi in the old tites is due to the Microsoft GS Wavetable synth new wndows has enabled by default. Not very accurate. The General Midi windows emulation does not sound like in the past. What make apps like VirtualMidiSynth is change it with a most accurate and quality MIDI music. Changing the wavetable Synth with its own.
Posted January 27, 2021
avatar
JMayer70: The midi music was great on Heretic, and even greater on Hexen. Last time I had a system that could run these under pure MS-DOS was back 2001. When I tried them on Windows ME when that old system died, all these old 90's classics sounded awful. The midi music instruments all just plain wrong! Since then every next re-incarnation of Windows has made it worse IMO.
Dos-Box disappointingly did not restore that old midi music quality, it still played "Windows shite"! :)

I'd love to play these again now on Win8.1 or Win10 (have access to systems with both) - but would like the music to be as it was in the old days!

I remember hearing once something about "VPN Sound"(?) that was meant to make midi tracks sound as originally intended.
Anyone any guidance on what to do?

Thanks!
avatar
TheBigCore: 1) Download and extract GZdoom: https://zdoom.org/downloads

2) Place heretic.wad, hexen.wad, and hexdd.wad in the same folder as GZdoom.exe.

3) Double-click gzdoom.exe and select Heretic or Hexen.

4) Select Options --> Sound --> Midi Device: LibADL

5) While still in the Sound menu, then go to Advanced Options --> Midi Player Options --> ADLMidi

6) Under the "OPL Bank" setting, in the menu that opens, select "WOPL (DMXOPL BY SNEAKERNETS)". When you have enabled this setting, it will appear as the name "Bank 72". You'll notice that the OPL Bank list contains many other choices, so if Bank 72 doesn't sound right to you, try the others and see if those work for you or not.

GZdoom also supports SC-55 sound packs:

http://sc55.duke4.net/games.php#heretic

https://forums.duke4.net/topic/2505-roland-sc-55-music-packs/

To load the sound pack, you have to drag the zip file onto the GZdoom executable and then run Heretic as normal.
Thank you for the reply, but I am stumped at step 5)
I've installed GZDoom, put Heretic.wad in it's directory. Gone to GZDoom's sound menu, found Mindi Device:LibADL,
but there is *no* Advanced Options..... so I can't proceed further. The options that were in reach still had very poor midi music, nothing like how Heretic used to be.
Posted January 28, 2021
I found it. There were two sets of options pages. It was under "show full options" then "sound options". Not just "sound options". I still can't find anything that sounded just the 90's though! :/

I did manage to get (AFAIK) that SC-55 soundfont (I'd never even heard that term until this thread!) installed...... which I was quite please with, not being very techy, I'd have expected it way beyond my skill!!

There are at least some interesting ones!
Post edited January 28, 2021 by JMayer70
Posted January 28, 2021
avatar
JMayer70: I found it. There were two sets of options pages. It was under "show full options" then "sound options". Not just "sound options". I still can't find anything that sounded just the 90's though! :/

I did manage to get (AFAIK) that SC-55 soundfont (I'd never even heard that term until this thread!) installed...... which I was quite please with, not being very techy, I'd have expected it way above my league!

There are at least some interesting ones!
Oh, GZdoom must have moved the options around in GZdoom 4.5. I'm on a slightly older version of GZdoom, where it is listed under Advanced Options --> Midi Player Options --> ADLMidi .

If you want your SC-55 sound pack to autoload every time you run Heretic in GZDoom:

1) Go to your GZdoom folder and open gzdoom-username.ini. The word "username" will be your windows username.

2) Open gzdoom-username.ini and go down to the line [heretic.shadow.Autoload] .

3) Add the following onto the next line:

PATH=location\of\your\sc-55zipfile

For example: PATH=c:\heretic_sc55_mp3.zip

4) Save the changes you just made.

This avoids you having to drag the zip file onto the GZdoom executable every time you run GZdoom.
Post edited January 28, 2021 by TheBigCore
Posted March 02, 2021
Look up "Heretic OST OPL" and "Hexen OST OPL" on YouTube. Are these the ones you remember? If so, and you have no interest in any modern "enhancements" (modern resolutions, vertical mouselook, etc.), download Chocolate Heretic and Chocolate Hexen (source ports made to be as accurate as possible to the DOS version - even including the original bugs and engine limits), extract them to separate folders, copy your heretic.wad and hexen.wad to their respective folders then run the setup and configure everything the way you want it to - but keep the music on either the OPL2 or OPL3 modes.
Posted March 03, 2021
Heretic 1 includes OPL, Midi and other mixers for musics, but was done with a Sound Blaster, so OPL... (also Hexen 1)

(OPL2, NOT OPL3)
Post edited April 11, 2021 by FulVal
Posted April 11, 2021
avatar
Robzah: Look up "Heretic OST OPL" and "Hexen OST OPL" on YouTube. Are these the ones you remember? If so, and you have no interest in any modern "enhancements" (modern resolutions, vertical mouselook, etc.), download Chocolate Heretic and Chocolate Hexen (source ports made to be as accurate as possible to the DOS version - even including the original bugs and engine limits), extract them to separate folders, copy your heretic.wad and hexen.wad to their respective folders then run the setup and configure everything the way you want it to - but keep the music on either the OPL2 or OPL3 modes.
Actually those YouTubes all sound like how Heretic and Hexen sound now when using GZDoom and all it's soundfonts. I'm beginning to think what I remember from the 90s was all false memory! Despite the fact I do not believe in so called "false memory" psychobabble. It's just a dumb pysch tool those of opposing "beliefs" use to make you doubt your own mind, convictions and beliefs etc. "Pysch" and "neuro" <ahem> sciences <ahem> love it. Lol! But's that's way off topic for this forum!

Found lots of other full game OSTs like off "Descent" when checking these out though! Thank you!
Post edited April 11, 2021 by JMayer70
Posted April 25, 2021
avatar
Robzah: Look up "Heretic OST OPL" and "Hexen OST OPL" on YouTube. Are these the ones you remember? If so, and you have no interest in any modern "enhancements" (modern resolutions, vertical mouselook, etc.), download Chocolate Heretic and Chocolate Hexen (source ports made to be as accurate as possible to the DOS version - even including the original bugs and engine limits), extract them to separate folders, copy your heretic.wad and hexen.wad to their respective folders then run the setup and configure everything the way you want it to - but keep the music on either the OPL2 or OPL3 modes.
avatar
JMayer70: Actually those YouTubes all sound like how Heretic and Hexen sound now when using GZDoom and all it's soundfonts. I'm beginning to think what I remember from the 90s was all false memory! Despite the fact I do not believe in so called "false memory" psychobabble. It's just a dumb pysch tool those of opposing "beliefs" use to make you doubt your own mind, convictions and beliefs etc. "Pysch" and "neuro" <ahem> sciences <ahem> love it. Lol! But's that's way off topic for this forum!

Found lots of other full game OSTs like off "Descent" when checking these out though! Thank you!
If you're also looking for more authentic Heretic music, you could also try loading Heretic in https://dosbox-staging.github.io/v0-76-0/

It now supports several different ways of loading MIDIs.
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Heretic + Hexen CollectionMidi music in these old 90s DOS games(10 posts)(10 posts)
(10 posts)