Soundtrack Disarray in Heretic + Hexen

Sound Options in Heretic + Hexen.

There're a lot of things I could say about Heretic + Hexen re-release, and I'm not sure if I'll end up committing to spilling these thoughts into the void, but there's at least one topic I want to cover separately because I think it's both interesting and important. What started as a mere observation of absent OPL3 version of games' soundtracks turned into discovery of wrongful presentation of music's "Original" option in what seemingly is a vague topic.

I'll start off with notes about current soundtrack options in the re-release and how the likely reason behind Nightdive Studio's mistake was generalization of music in Doom Engine games and then dive further into what version of soundtracks for Heretic and Hexen are closest to the 'intended ones'. Even if the actual chances of this being corrected is extremely low, at least PC players have something to work with to account for this on their own.

Available Options.

If you go into "Sound" section of "Options", you'll see that "Preferred Soundtrack" setting offers four different variations. Due to copyright issues or whatever, their naming can be quite vague depending on how much familiarity you have with this subject. Because of this, the only good way to tell what each version of soundtrack is to simply compare them to existing options via original versions of the game or YouTube uploads.

Here's the list of each soundtrack variation in Heretic + Hexen with links to each version in case you want to either listen to them yourself or if that's easier for you to compare it with re-release to double-check me:

• Original — Roland SC-55's General MIDI version.

• FM Synth — AdLib/OPL2 version.

• MIDI Synth — Gravis Ultrasound version.

• Remix — "Tome of Power" rework.

These options are identical to what DOOM + DOOM 2 has, which you can see be collaborated by other users on sites like Doomworld and re-release's General Discussions on Steam. Makes sense, all things considered.

This list has a few notably absent options, especially for Hexen, but I'll talk about that later. What shared between both Heretic & Hexen in this re-release is lack of OPL3 music variation. Considering how many players (myself included) tend to default to something like Sound Blaster 16 as their sound card of choice in DOSBox, not having a similar option in Heretic + Hexen seems incredibly strange. Like, there's even the support for that janky DMX sound library. There's more to this as well, which is also something I'll mention later as I need to build up to that part.

How can you even tell that it's OPL3 and not OPL2? Because Heretic + Hexen was based on the work done for DOOM + DOOM 2 as stated by Mike "sponge" Rubits in an interview with noclip_2, the way two re-releases handle music is identical. Personally, I've also tried to compare two versions of some music tracks from both games through DOSBox, YouTube uploads (mecha2001's Heretic & Hexen recordings are great to listen to) or even a small comparison from a friend of my with vintage setup that includes proper Sound Blaster AWE32 card. The key difference is in "richness" of the sound as long as it was made with OPL3 capabilities in mind. So the results may wary in each game and even specific compositions.

On the other hand, there's been some mild debates about the subject for both re-releases. While I lost track and couldn't rediscover debates I've seen about Heretic + Hexen, there're some mentions of Edward850, Nightdive's developer, talking about FM Synth representing Sound Blaster 16/AWE32 (they that sound quite differently when you compare them; refer to aforementioned mecha2001 uploads) in DOOM + DOOM 2 at Doomworld and ResetEra. If developer says it is OPL3, that's got to be the definitive confirmation?

Edward850 showing his CT3660 model of Sound Blaster AWE32 card.
Taken from Nightdive's Community Server on Discord. Chip Comparison Copied from DOS Days.

Not always. Unfortunately, it appears that his knowledge of OPL3 is rather flawed. As a result of heated debate where player mistakenly thought that AWE32 is its own thing instead of being a part of OPL3 family (which, again, sounds vastly different from prior Sound Blaster models despite that), Edward850 decided to charitably share a photo of his AWE32 card... except the model he shows is CT3660 and it doesn't have an authentic Yamaha OPL3 chips, but CQM (CT1978, to be specific) chip that imperfectly emulates OPL3. Get to "What Sound to Blaster?" section for more information on that.

I wasn't able to find public information as to who specifically handled music for these re-releases and I didn't ask Edward850 due to known pattern of condescending and passive-aggressive tone of his replies to other people, including me when trying to repost issues and offer some suggestion for Heretic + Hexen. I've had enough of that, so I'm going to assume that Nightdive Studio was more focused on Roland SC-55 and Remix music renditions and implemented both FM and MIDI Synths as an afterthought.

Doomed Generalization.

As I mentioned in the beginning of this "article", it appears that whoever at Nightdive Studio was responsible for implementing the "Original" soundtrack variation have made an assumption regarding music in Heretic and Hexen without doing a proper research. It's also evident that nobody else has double-checked it either. Why did this happen? That's probably due to the fact that both games use the same engine: modified versions of Doom Engine.

What about DOOM & DOOM 2 then? Well, it's commonly accepted by those games' community that Bobby Prince, composer of both games, have used Roland SC-55 to create soundtracks and therefore that's considered to be the most accurate version of the music. You can see this fact being mentioned on The Doom Wiki and pretty much everywhere else, but pretty much none of them actually provide any reference to back it up.

Bobby Prince's Workspace from November 1993. Taken from YouTube.

Thankfully, there's an archived footage from 1993 called "A Visit to id Software" with a segment featuring Bobby Prince at his working place. Equipboard states that this video showcases him using Roland SC-55. I think it's partially obscured by what appears to be a can of cola or something like that, but that seems to be as good of an evidence as I can track down. Maybe there's some quote from Bobby Prince somewhere talking about this in more detail, but I couldn't find it.

Crumbs of Raven's Truth.

When it comes to Heretic & Hexen music, it's kind of a tricky situation. All available information comes from two Doomworld threads: '"Intended" Hexen Sound Canvas Music?' and "Heretic & Hexen original source .MID files". In both cases, original posters managed to reach out to games' composer Kevin Schilder and talk to him about what sound card Schilder used while creating soundtrack for Heretic and Hexen. His replies were as follows:

"As a recall, I was always composing on a Sound Blaster card of some kind. It's hard to know which version I was using at the same. But I usually had access to the latest Sound Blaster..." — as a reply to TheUltimateDoomer666 asking about Heretic's polyphony shown in '"Intended" Hexen Sound Canvas Music?' thread.

Kevin Schilder's Heretic Polyphony Message. Taken from Doomworld.

"Good question. I believe I was composing everything on a Sound Blaster card by Creative Labs. I'm not sure what version. Probably just a Sound Blaster Pro..." — answer to one of the questions The Almighty Egg (about intended MIDI Synth) asked and shared in initial post of "Heretic & Hexen original source .MID files" thread.

Unfortunately, Kevin Schilder doesn't remember what version of Sound Blaster he used specifically while creating music for these games at Raven Software. While this does complicate things to determine what iteration of soundtracks can be considered "original", we do know that it was Sound Blaster — not Roland SC-55. Nightdive Studio should've taken note of that, which they clearly didn't. Better yet, they should've actually contacted Kevin (I'm going to assume that Nightdive didn't) and get some advice from him.

Let's go back to one of those Doomworld threads for more clarity. In '"Intended" Hexen Sound Canvas Music?' thread, TheUltimateDoomer666 shares his observations from comparing Hexen's CD soundtrack (more on that later) to Sound Canvas VA (now discontinued virtual software) in SC-55 mode. He notes several differences between two versions of music, suggesting that neither of them could be the 'intended' versions.

Original poster then goes on to state that certain tracks from Heretic utilize more notes that Roland SC-55 are able to play and this has an effect on music playback in a form of note dropouts. This compelled TheUltimateDoomer666 to contact Kevin Schilder about polyphony limit and I showed his reply to that earlier. So this isn't just about what original games' composer remembers about working on them: there's some technical detail indicating that Roland SC-55 wasn't really considered during the work process.

Another piece of potentially useful information comes in a form of time dates of Heretic & Hexen's source .MID files that were shared in "Heretic & Hexen original source .MID files" thread. They didn't carry over when The Almighty Egg shared the files with the public, but Kevin Schilder did provide screenshots for them. This can help brush off models of Sound Blaster cards that came out after the estimated time period of music's production.

You can also take a look at "Heretic music" and "Hexen music" pages on The Doom Wiki where said dates are more easily viewable. They show following production cycle:

• June-December 1994 for Heretic with one of the tracks (MAREKF.MID) used in the game having a May 30th, 1996 date. This is after the release of original Heretic and Shadow of the Serpent Riders version.

• February-September 1995 for Hexen. Similarly to Heretic, there're three files (HALL.MID, OCTO.MID, OCTOR.MID) with May 30th, 1996 date. After releases of Hexen: Beyond Heretic & Deathkings of the Dark Citadel.

While it's possible that Kevin Schilder could've switched sound card in-between working on Heretic and Hexen, I think it might be safe to assume that he won't have done a switch like that in the middle of developing music for specific game. Kevin stated that he had many iterations on the music (which can be seen in files themselves), but imagine re-recording the entire soundtrack on top of that just because you got a new sound card. This totally could've happened, but I find that to be unlikely.

What Sound to Blaster?

Anyway, you know what is the strangest part in all this? Nightdive Studio evidently knows that soundtracks for both games were made with Yamaha OPL3 chips in mind, even though their developer mentions just "OPL". In other words, they're aware that placement of Roland SC-55's General MIDI soundtracks as the "Original" is a misrepresentation, making the entire situation even more absurd and jarring. Because Nightdive is fully aware that this is wrong, but they're done it anyway.

Nightdive Studio's Software & Netcode Engineer (1,2) about Heretic's Soundtrack.
Taken from Nightdive's Community Server on Discord.

So... Where does that leave us? With composer's memory being rather vague and re-release developer making embarrassing mistake, it's really up to community to figure this out. After all, that's actually what happened with DOOM & DOOM 2 when you think about it. People passionate about the subject have looked into it and determined that Roland SC-55 is the prime way for the soundtracks. It wasn't id Software making a clarification or Bobby Prince elaborating on that directly (as far as I can tell, at least), but classic DOOM enthusiasts looking into it.

Even if Nightdive doesn't appear to be interested in making things right with music presentation in Heretic + Hexen, it doesn't mean that players should just let this fly and do nothing about it. Being local about this can help spread the word, but not guarantee the response from companies involved. And even before making a proper argument about this, there's a matter of having a clear vision of what "Original" soundtrack should be with compelling argument to back up such a proposal.

To be more exact, here are the candidates:

• Sound Blaster Pro — mentioned by Kevin Schilder in a reply from 2023, but it's at odds with "I usually had the latest Sound Blaster" statement from 2018 reply. It doesn't feel likely that he used a sound card from 1991 to create a music in 1994-1995. Also worth mentioning that early models of Pro use two OPL2 chips as opposed to OPL3.

• Sound Blaster 16 — it's seemingly one of the most popular Sound Blaster cards out there. Released in June 1992. Creative's official "Sound Blaster 30 Years of Revolutionizing Audio" and 1991-1995 Milestones pages highlights SB16 one of its landmark moments.

• Sound Blaster AWE32 — fits Schilder's 2018 reply perfectly since it was introduced in March 1994. That's around the time when Heretic's music was worked on. It has backwards compatibility with OPL3, but its own audio capabilities are quite solid. 

Making a choice based on which card sounds the best might lead to a dead end because people will have their own preferences. It appears that Creative never provided specific data on how many copies each version of Sound Blaster card was sold back in the 1990s, so we can't use that to determine which one was the most common. Company seem to hold certain fondness for Sound Blaster 16, but how much it actually matters here is hard to say. Simple logic might suggest that it has to be Sound Blaster Pro since that card was probably more affordable than newer versions that came out years later.

What we can take for sure from Kevin Schilder's replies is that he did use Sound Blaster and all models mentioned are OPL3 cards. It's probably fair to say that details from each answer cancel themselves out, even if you can argue that maybe Kevin's memory was better in 2018 and got a bit worse by 2023. You can also say that it's just arguing semantics by this point. Focusing on one answer over the other doesn't really seem like a good way to approach this, so it's best to take on a different angle.

Should we follow the example of what some Doomworld users did in '"Intended" Hexen Sound Canvas Music?' thread and compare each variation of soundtrack to one another and look at what card realizes it the best? This does sound like a great idea, but it's not that easy because you would want to get recordings from the actual hardware for the most authentic results. Even if current Sound Blaster emulators are close to being near-perfect, I don't know if they are. Not to mention that there're different models of each card, so you would need to choose which one is the best fit to represent specific Sound Blaster series.

The only different path that comes to my mind is some kind of silly deduction. I couldn't find any details about the actual pricing for all Sound Blaster cards at the time (only some models of 16 and AWE32), which would've been useful to guess which one could've been more common based on their affordability. Creative (company behind Sound Blaster) reportedly have never published a number of sold units for their sound cards at the time. All that I can think of is stupid logic: Sound Blaster Pro seems too old and Sound Blaster AWE32 might be too new for that time period, so maybe it's more likely that Kevin Schilder used Sound Blaster 16 at the time.

Either way, it's important to remember about CQM chips — a replacement for proper Yamaha OPL3. Creature started to use them for cut costs on Sound Blaster 16 production in late 1995. This was roughly in the middle of Hexen's development, so chances that a model of Sound Blaster card that utilized CQM was used for creation of its music is very low. CQM can emulate OPL3 sound, but it does so incredible poorly to point where it might as well be OPL2 or something along those lines. Models with CQM chips are to be avoided in favor of authentic OPL3 goodness and due to likely chronological factor.

DOS Days has incredible pages for all cards in previously mentioned Sound Blaster series that I linked to earlier in this "article", which is pretty neat. Unfortunately, there's no specific release dates listed for card models in each series there — only year is mentioned. So we can only really ignore the ones with CQM chips + models that were released after 1995. If detailed information archived somewhere (I think it does), it's probably in some archives of those old tech magazines like Retromags is for gaming ones. I tried to look at some US magazines from 1994 there, but I got nothing.

Because I'm a lazy bastard, I'll opt for simply taking information from DOS Days Sound Blaster pages and list potential card models for all 3 relevant series released in 1994-1995 that use proper OPL3 chips just in case you're also too lazy to look for it on your own:

• Heretic (up until 1994): Sound Blaster Pro (later CT1330), Sound Blaster Pro 2 (CT1600, CT1680, CT1690, CT2600), 1st generation of Sound Blaster 16 (CT1740, CT1750/CT1759, CT1770/CT1779, CT1780, CT1790, CT2700/CT2709), 2nd generation of Sound Blaster 16 (CT2230/CT2239, CT2260, CT2290/CT2291/CT2299, CT2740/CT2749, CT2750, CT2770/CT2770A/CT2771/CT2772), Sound Blaster AWE32 (CT2760(A), CT3780).

• Hexen (1995): 2st generation of Sound Blaster 16 (CT2800, CT2810, CT2830/CT2839, CT2840, CT2860, CT2890), 3rd generation of Sound Blaster 16 (CT2910/CT2911/CT2919).

Note that models listed for Heretic are also relevant for Hexen, but I just decided to not repeat them to keep listing somewhat clean. I didn't a few Plug and Play models due to their lacking descriptions: this could be a mistake on my part. I've also ignored models that have either OPL3 or CQM chip because that can be confusing.

Another thing to mention is that DOS Days done make a point of mentioning how some models of Sound Blaster cards tend to have certain noise issues. I recommend you checking out DOS Days pages to make note about said issues since that could also matter in this subject matter.

Missing Options.

But wait, there's more! In terms of music variety, Hexen really did get a short end of the stick. Not only its "Original" soundtrack is presented incorrectly, you can't select Hexen's CD music because it wasn't added in Heretic + Hexen. It doesn't seem to be that popular compared to typical MIDI music since you must actively seek it out on your own since if all you had was digital version from Steam or GOG: either have a physical copy of Hexen with a CD or discover music's reupload from elsewhere.

Considering how re-release's pages on Steam & GOG proudly call Heretic + Hexen "the definitive re-release of two dark spell-casting shooters", it stands to reason that you would expect the original game to be present in its fullest form and then some, especially with how "Original" & "Remix" soundtracks are implemented in this re-release. Is Nightdive Studio simply unaware about the existence of Hexen's CD soundtrack? Did they thought that it would be "unfair" for Hexen to have extra music option compared to Heretic? I don't know, but either option is kind of stupid.

One of the nice things that came from re-releases of Quake & Quake 2 from Nightdive was inclusion of their Nintendo 64 versions as official Add-Ons and proper campaign respectively. While there's no Hexen 64 campaign in the re-release, having its soundtrack as bonus music option would be neat. It's also worth noting that DOOM + DOOM 2 don't include PSX soundtrack as one of the options either.

My Proposition.

I would like to reiterate that this is not an actual in-depth study on what should be viewed as "Original" Heretic & Hexen soundtracks. I'm just an idiot with some free time who likes to mumble about some nonsense every now and then with links to collaborate stated information or thought. Based on what I've been typing here, I believe that Sound Blaster 16 was most likely used for creation of music for both games. Sound Blaster Pro seem too outdated despite Kevin Schilder called it out in one of his replies. Sound Blaster AWE32 was probably too new and fancy to acquire shortly after its release.

In an ideal situation, I think the following is supposed to happen:

• Rename Roland SC-55's General MIDI "Original" version to "DOOM-like".

• Implement Sound Blaster 16's OPL3 version as proper "Original" music.

• Bring back CD music version for Hexen.

• Bonus: include Sound Blaster AWE32's OPL3 as additional "Enhanced" variation for both games.

• Bonus: include bonus "Hexen 64" soundtrack for the game.

Last two points are mentioned as bonuses since they're technically not quite necessary is the context of current situation, so I'm willing to be not as demanding as I am with Warcraft: Remastered. I'll most likely regret this in the future (not that a lot of people would actually read this), but I'm just too tired and not riled up enough to be all grumpy. Maybe some other time, I don't know.

My focus was on having a somewhat productive monologue about this as opposed to just letting myself be mad over inaccurate details of Heretic + Hexen & condescending and dismissive replies I got from a Nightdive Studio developer (and what it says about the company as a whole) that killed any interest in further bug/mistake reporting on my part. I'll admit that this more than likely affected my perception of this release and some other things in recent time for better and for worse.

Luckily for us, there's a loophole of sorts in Heretic + Hexen that could be utilized by players to make adjustment of their own. This post in "Heretic + Hexen (Nightdive) thread in Doomworld highlights how "Original" and Remix music is contained and played from dedicated .WAD files. Files that can be replaced. It's possible to create a similar WAD of your own with your preferred iteration of soundtrack. "Adding custom music" page on The Doom Wiki does share some insight on this and makes it sound like a relative easy process. If you do that, just rename your WAD into whichever "mus_orig" or "mus_remix" option you which to replace for Heretic and/or Hexen.

Conclusion.

I've been sitting on this post for way too long now. Getting distracted and letting myself double-check everything probably wasn't the most productive way of writing this, but I suppose it highlights just how complicated and confusing certain parts of games can be. How lack of proper documentation can force people to go into a wild goose chase for getting as close to the "right answer" as possible. How ultimately player have to make uncertain call based on available information and fill in the blank spots in memories of people who couldn't remember full answer to this elusive question.

Did Nightdive Studio simply forgot to swap "Original" and FM Synth for Heretic + Hexen? Do they believe that FM Synth is a proper OPL3 emulation because they compared them to games' music played through a sound card with CQM chip? I have no idea. Could this be just another sign that the development of this re-release was rushed and not diligent enough? Yes, but that's a different story worth exploring on its own in due time.

Anyway, it's disappointing that this is the type of text I end up writing for a re-release like this. I think it's also why I've been hesitant to push through and finish this "article". Negativity is all too prevalent around us in these troubled times, so 'embracing' that in any form is saddening. Obviously. That you see here is some poor bastard speaking into the void without having an effect, after all. It helps with clearing the head and "doing what I could", sure, but it doesn't mean I would enjoy it fully all the time.