Spinky

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,139
London
If you've read all of this, thank you for your time and attention. As for the immediate future, we are at the point of moving on and won't be working with Mick on the DLC we currently have in production. As I've mentioned, his music is incredible, he is a rare talent, and I hope he wins many awards for his contribution to DOOM Eternal at the end of the year.
I'm as disappointed as anyone that we're at this point, but as we have many times before, we will adapt to changing circumstances and pursue the most unique and talented artists in the industry with whom to collaborate. Our team has enjoyed this creative collaboration a great deal and we know Mick will continue to delight fans for many years ahead.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck me. It's over.
 

Mórríoghain

Member
Nov 2, 2017
5,172
Big ooof to that read. Regardless of which side has the "right" story, Bethesda and Mick won't be working again.
 

Issen

Member
Nov 12, 2017
6,891
I understand being disappointed that the collaboration between Mick and idSoft is over but I would suggest to everyone to wait until we see what upcoming DOOM OSTs will sound like before proclaiming the death of the series.

Mick Gordon is insanely talented and the music he produced was groundbreaking. But he is not the only good musician in the world.
 

Deleted member 2317

User-requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,072
Neither side looks good at all dealing with this in public in isolated salvos, both come across as hugely unprofessional. This is the type of shit you talk about with your coworkers in the industry, not divulge without credentials or receipts online to create "narratives".
 

NDA-Man

Member
Mar 23, 2020
3,353
what the hell happened?

Mick Gordon, the composer for Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal did not have control of the mixing of Doom Eternal's soundtrack. When it came out and people complained of it's lower quality compared to the ingame versions of his songs, he said he didn't mix it, someone in corporate did, and he was considering not working with iD or Bethesda on future projects.

So, now we get confirmation from iD that it's over, and they state Mick didn't deliver tracks on time so they relied on in-house audio professionals to complete the OST to sell.
 

AgentStrange

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,892
Sad to see this happen but as they say "all good things come to an end". Wouldn't be surprised if they brought Andrew Hulshult on board.
 

Monprr

Member
Nov 28, 2017
195
Mick created a great soundtrack, but it's not like he is the only great artist out there. KI season 3 didn't have Mick and still had some badass music.
 

Moff

Member
Oct 26, 2017
4,845
Doom Eternal is my favorite video game soundtrack ever, I have listened to these tracks countless times by now.
it just makes me sad honestly, I love Mick's work but I can't possibly say he is blameless in this. Doom won't be the same without his music.
 

dreamfall

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,125
Woooooof - A true shame they couldn't figure out mixing in time and the pressure to deliver by a date was not met. He will be sorely missed! Stratton sounded adamant about making sure this relationship was over.
 

Irrotational

Prophet of Truth
Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,350
hmmm - I bet not one of the people writing angry rants/tweets etc about the Lead music person, or Id, or Doom has the attention span to read any of that, and realise they were wrong :-(

People suck.
 

bounchfx

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,752
Muricas
That sucks, but maybe the next artist they get for Doom Forever Eternal or whatever will be fucking dope as shit too. I'm gonna choose to be excited for that instead of pretending there's no other good musicians.
 
Oct 30, 2017
15,278
At E3 last year, we announced that the OST would be included with the DOOM Eternal Collector's Edition (CE) version of the game. At that point in time we didn't have Mick under contract for the OST and because of ongoing issues receiving the music we needed for the game, did not want to add the distraction at that time. After discussions with Mick in January of this year, we reached general agreement on the terms for Mick to deliver the OST by early March - in time to meet the consumer commitment of including the digital OST with the DOOM Eternal CE at launch. The terms of the OST agreement with Mick were similar to the agreement on DOOM (2016) in that it required him to deliver a minimum of 12 tracks, but added bonus payments for on-time delivery. The agreement also gives him complete creative control over what he delivers.

Mick agreed to churn out an entire OST in less than 3 months? id had promised an OST with the deluxe edition before having hired anyone to compose the music?

Man, bad decisions on both sides.
 
Feb 3, 2019
157
While mick gordon's music is great, it's disingenuous for me to act like he's the major reason this games were amazing the way they were, and as hard as it may be for some to hear, he is indeed replaceable.
 

NeoBob688

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,672
Their response is incredibly and almost embarrassingly defensive as all hell, so much so I am finding it painful to read.
 
Dec 26, 2019
403
Neither side looks good at all dealing with this in public in isolated salvos, both come across as hugely unprofessional. This is the type of shit you talk about with your coworkers in the industry, not divulge without credentials or receipts online to create "narratives".
Oh ffs. If id is right on this, Chad got attacked for no reason and they are supposed to just stay silent?
 

Akumatica

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,758
"It's important to note at this point that not only were we disappointed to not deliver the OST with the launch of the CE, we needed to be mindful of consumer protection laws in many countries that allow customers to demand a full refund for a product if a product is not delivered on or about its announced availability date. Even with that, the mid-April delivery would allow us to meet our commitments to customers while also allowing Mick the time he had ideally requested."
 

Vandal Deca

Member
Oct 21, 2018
424
Disappointing for sure. These things happen and it sucks. At least we got a lot of great contributions from Mick on numerous high profile id and Bethesda projects and I'm sure he'll be contributing to other big projects going forward, as the man has mad talent.

As for the future of music for Doom...is Andrew Hulshult available?...
 

Vash63

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,682
Props to id for how they handled the public release here. Shame it went down like this but at least they seem open about it all.
 

SunBroDave

"This guy are sick"
Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,390
Well, that's a very thorough and level-headed explanation of the situation. It's a shame that Mick's music might not make it into the next game, but maybe that's for the best if the composer they do get can better work within the production deadlines.
 
Oct 24, 2019
6,560
Neither side looks good at all dealing with this in public in isolated salvos, both come across as hugely unprofessional. This is the type of shit you talk about with your coworkers in the industry, not divulge without credentials or receipts online to create "narratives".
Their response is incredibly and almost embarrassingly defensive as all hell, so much so I am finding it painful to read.

Marty's message sounds extremely professional. He's defending his employees who are being unfairly attacked. He was very courteous throughout and praised Mick several times. He also highlighted issues that make their relationship with Mick untenable.

Props to Marty for standing up for his team and for explaining what happened without denigrating or bashing Mick.
 

Deleted member 2533

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,325
Mick agreed to churn out an entire OST in less than 3 months? id had promised an OST with the deluxe edition before having hired anyone to compose the music?

Man, bad decisions on both sides.

Mick seems like he misunderstood, or wasn't properly informed, of the scope:

After reaching out to Mick several times via email to understand what prompted his online posts, we were able to talk. He shared several issues that I'd also like to address.

First, he said that he was surprised by the scope of what was released – the 59 tracks. Chad had sent Mick everything more than a week before the final deadline, and I described to him our plan to combine the id-edited tracks with his own tracks (as he'd suggested doing). The tracks Mick delivered covered only a portion of the music in the game, so the only way to deliver a comprehensive OST was to combine the tracks Mick-delivered with the tracks id had edited from game music. If Mick is dissatisfied with the content of his delivery, we would certainly entertain distributing additional tracks.

I also know that Mick feels that some of the work included in the id-edited tracks was originally intended more as demos or mock-ups when originally sent. However, Chad only used music that was in-game or was part of a cinematic music construction kit.

Seems like id asked him to master 12 tracks, he said "no problem," and though it was going to be like a motion-picture soundtrack where he was just going to master the most notable music, but id wanted to put out a soundtrack featuring literally every bit of music that appears in the game.
 
Oct 27, 2017
1,078
Mick agreed to churn out 12 high quality tracks an entire OST in less than 3 months? id had promised an OST with the deluxe edition before having hired anyone to compose planned out the music?

Man, bad decisions on both sides.
That was my takeaway from both sides. Shame on both parties for piss poor planing. Shame on them for last minute contract. Shame on Mick for not delivering.
 
Last edited:

show me your skeleton

#1 Bugsnax Fan
Member
Oct 28, 2017
15,701
skeleton land
Mick agreed to churn out an entire OST in less than 3 months? id had promised an OST with the deluxe edition before having hired anyone to compose the music?

Man, bad decisions on both sides.
mick was the composer for the game, they're saying that mick wasn't contracted for the separate soundtrack. that (depending on how much everyone involved cares) can be a huge project in itself even if the music is recorded already as you're now arranging a lot of individual stems and cues.
 

mrndkra

Member
Oct 25, 2017
320
Mick Gordon, the composer for Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal did not have control of the mixing of Doom Eternal's soundtrack. When it came out and people complained of it's lower quality compared to the ingame versions of his songs, he said he didn't mix it, someone in corporate did, and he was considering not working with iD or Bethesda on future projects.

So, now we get confirmation from iD that it's over, and they state Mick didn't deliver tracks on time so they relied on in-house audio professionals to complete the OST to sell.

Except Marty says in the letter above that he did have complete control over his mix but okay.

What actually happened was Mick had a deadline to complete the soundtrack, didn't get it done on time, was allowed a 6 week extension, still didn't get it done on time, so id had to use their lead audio designer to mix the rest of the soundtrack by the release date in order to avoid problems with consumer protection laws.
 
Oct 27, 2017
1,369
what the hell happened?

Did you read Marty's post? There's not much ambiguity there.

Well that's absolutely fucking braindead.

Doom needs his music.

What about it is brain dead? From Marty's account, the dude missed his deadlines by a big margin and left id with no other choice. Sounds like he mixed as many of the tracks as he wanted to and no more.

Then he threw his business partner under the bus. You don't work with people after something like that. Missing the deadlines was probably hard on their relationship, but you don't throw your partner under the bus and expect to keep working with them.
 

White Glint

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
3,617
Respect to Marty for standing up for his own guy of course.

But this whole thing seems like something left to the sidelines when they were in crunch mode. Too sad.
 

Nzyme32

Member
Oct 28, 2017
5,319
Bit of he said she said stuff to this, but in the end it seems like a rough spot if id comments are legitimate. I don't know the scope of the consumer laws in such a case, but there seems to have been a lot of reasonable effort involved on id's part. At the same time, Mick's position is unenviable as an artist seeking to do justice to his work, but he did set the timelines. I'm sure the truth of all this is somewhere in between.

IMO while Mick's work is quite iconic to the new Doom games, I have absolutely no doubt that others can compose and deliver a Doom score / ost with their own stamp, on a similar or better level vs Mick. Best of luck to whoever gets in
 

NDA-Man

Member
Mar 23, 2020
3,353
Except Marty says in the letter above that he did have complete control over his mix but okay.

What actually happened was Mick had a deadline to complete the soundtrack, didn't get it done on time, was allowed a 6 week extension, still didn't get it done on time, so id had to use their lead audio designer to mix the rest of the soundtrack by the release date in order to avoid problems with consumer protection laws.

I hit reply before fully reading it, based on my knowledge of Mick's side of the controversy ("I didn't mix it and wouldn't have done it that way" vs. "We let him mix it his way and he dragged his feet to the point we were risking legal trouble"). It was giving a TLDR, when I in fact only read on side's argument.
 

Moff

Member
Oct 26, 2017
4,845
Except Marty says in the letter above that he did have complete control over his mix but okay.

What actually happened was Mick had a deadline to complete the soundtrack, didn't get it done on time, was allowed a 6 week extension, still didn't get it done on time, so id had to use their lead audio designer to mix the rest of the soundtrack by the release date in order to avoid problems with consumer protection laws.

which mick even agreed to well in advance, according to marty stratton, I think that's an important detail
it definitely doesn't make him look good to criticize the product at the end then
especially if the id audio designer didn't even have the source files
 

Aeana

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,999
Mick agreed to churn out an entire OST in less than 3 months? id had promised an OST with the deluxe edition before having hired anyone to compose the music?

Man, bad decisions on both sides.
It's important to note here that "OST" refers to the actual soundtrack, not the in-game music. That is, the versions of the music that will show up on disc/iTunes/whatever, rather than the versions that show up in-game.
 

Duncan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,125
The music in Doom 16 and Eternal are a defining trait to those games but change can be a good thing.

This is Marty just saying his side of the story and comes across simply as a case of someone unable meet a deadline. Big ups to Marty seriously going to bat for Chad the audio lead.
 
Nov 14, 2017
4,929
Mick seems like he misunderstood, or wasn't properly informed, of the scope:

After reaching out to Mick several times via email to understand what prompted his online posts, we were able to talk. He shared several issues that I'd also like to address.

First, he said that he was surprised by the scope of what was released – the 59 tracks. Chad had sent Mick everything more than a week before the final deadline, and I described to him our plan to combine the id-edited tracks with his own tracks (as he'd suggested doing). The tracks Mick delivered covered only a portion of the music in the game, so the only way to deliver a comprehensive OST was to combine the tracks Mick-delivered with the tracks id had edited from game music. If Mick is dissatisfied with the content of his delivery, we would certainly entertain distributing additional tracks.

I also know that Mick feels that some of the work included in the id-edited tracks was originally intended more as demos or mock-ups when originally sent. However, Chad only used music that was in-game or was part of a cinematic music construction kit.

Seems like id asked him to master 12 tracks, he said "no problem," and though it was going to be like a motion-picture soundtrack where he was just going to master the most notable music, but id wanted to put out a soundtrack featuring literally every bit of music that appears in the game.
Mastering 59 tracks in 'more than a week' (so I assume less than two weeks?) sounds like an insane undertaking. Even if he'd had more tracks sent before that date, composing and mixing so many tracks in such a short amount of time sounds impossible.
 
Oct 27, 2017
1,369
Neither side looks good at all dealing with this in public in isolated salvos, both come across as hugely unprofessional. This is the type of shit you talk about with your coworkers in the industry, not divulge without credentials or receipts online to create "narratives".

I'm pretty sure Marty's post was from a verified account. You don't think it was really him who wrote that? What "credentials" are you looking for?

I'm sure id and Marty especially would have preferred to stay silent. Mick throwing them under the bus forced their hand.