Talks to Watch

DOOM: Behind the Music

1.8M views · Aug 22, 2017 · 1:00:57 · 4 HN recommenders · 5 mentions · discussed 2017–2023

Mick Gordon's GDC 2017 session on composing the Doom (2016) soundtrack. He details his compositional process, production techniques and the experimental instrument and synth design behind the music.

Why Hacker News points people here: HN raves about it as one of the best conference talks, showing a master's creative process and sound design.

“One of my favorite conference talks ever”HN comment, 2023

What Hacker News said 5

Strongly recommendspaultNov 2017

“did a great presentation on the instrument design for the Doom 2016 soundtrack”

Mick Gordon on instrument design for the Doom 2016 soundtrack.

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Here's one of the instruments from the Baschet workshop: link Mick Gordon–who scored the previous Wolfenstein game–did a great presentation on the instrument design for the Doom 2016 soundtrack, which is in my opinion one of the best (the best?) game soundtracks of all time: this video

in “Audio Design Deep Dive: Scoring Wolfenstein II with the Baschet sonic sculptures” · view on HN
Strongly recommendsagentwigglesNov 2022

“His talk at GDC where he goes into some of the process of creating the soundtrack is fantastic”

Mick Gordon explains his soundtrack creation process creatively.

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This is really disappointing to read. Mick's soundtrack was a huge part of making DOOM 2016 and Eternal such great experiences. His talk at GDC where he goes into some of the process of creating the soundtrack is fantastic, so much fun to see the creativity he brought to the game's music. this video The next DOOM will be a little less DOOMy without him.

in “My full statement regarding DOOM Eternal” · view on HN
Strongly recommendsepiccolemanMay 2023

“One of my favorite conference talks ever”

Master of his craft explains experimental sound creation for Doom.

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Mick Gordon did some fun hidden spectrogram imagery in the Doom 2016 soundtrack. He talks about that and plenty of other cool stuff in his talk at the 2017 GDC conference. One of my favorite conference talks ever, he did so much cool experimentation to get the sounds he used on the soundtrack, and watching his talk is one of those moments where you really get to see a master of his craft let loose and explain his process. this video

in “Show HN: I've built a spectrogram analyzer web app” · view on HN
RecommendsacomjeanMay 2020

“the GDC talk by the sound designer of doom”

Doom sound designer shows how synths and effects built the sounds.

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I had a dx7 in college. Its an FM synth, an from the little diagrams on the top, it was fascinating. I could make my own sounds, but I never could get the time to get programming (beyond detuning the sound and doubling it to make a "fatter" sound, the dx7 had a gray matter mod chip). Lamentably in the 90s information about this stuff was harder to come by, plus the 2 line led screen to input things wasn't ideal. You can see the top of the keyboard images here: link But the internet abounds with sound making tools! ableton has a synth basics online class/demo kind of thing: link visual programing sound machines in pd link Also the GDC talk by the sound designer of doom (the new one). He's using sine wave, and a bunch of effects boxes (some in parallel) to generate all those sounds. There is also a sound morph tool they used to combine sounds with a chainsaw sound... The talk starts a couple minutes in after a doom sound trailer thing: this video

in “Learn sound theory with an acclaimed synth company” · view on HN
RecommendsacomjeanNov 2020

“Its more than about just the sound, its about process and change.”

Hour-long talk on how Doom's music came about, with fun stories.

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Doom came out right when I left univeristy. Loved that game. I like the new Dooms too. I think they're fun. Way more "doom like" than anything else I've played since. The "New Doom" music/sound producer gave a pretty good GDC one hour talk about the music came about. Some fun stories there ( the sound easter egg story was fun). Its more than about just the sound, its about process and change. this video

in “Dusk is a 90s style shooter from the mind of a teenager (2016)” · view on HN