Ragtime2.WAD Ragtime music for Doom2 BACKGROUND The enclosed RAGTIME2.WAD file completely replaces all the music in the commercial version of Doom2 with piano music from the ragtime era. But strictly speaking, it's not all ragtime. Even way back then the purveyor's weren't above calling music whatever would help sell it... e.g, the St. Louis Blues issued in 1914 was 1st billed as a southern rag, later a blue rag, and finally started a whole new denomination of music: the Blues. So this PWAD contains a variety of piano music in the styles popular between 1897 and 1929, such as ragtime, old-time, stride, novelty, waltz, and tango. This is the music that is the foundation of modern day jazz and blues. LOADING This PWAD is designed to work with the commercial version of Doom2. If Doom2 is installed on your hard disk in the C:\DOOM2 directory, copy RAGTIME2.WAD to that directory and run doom as follows: cd c:\doom2 doom2 -file ragtime2.wad You should see a message such as 'loading doom2.wad' followed by 'adding ragtime2.wad' and a warning about running a customized version. Hit the ENTER key and you're off! METHODOLOGY How was it done? First you need some MIDI files. Mine are live performances of pianist Sue Keller played on a Yamaha Disclavier, with MIDI recorded by CakeWalk for Windows. The MIDI files used here are the same files used to feed a Turtle Beach sampler array (4 Maui's in 1 computer loaded with Yamaha, Stienway, and Bosendoerfer samples) from which the commercial audio CDs are manufactured (see AVAILABILITY below). In addition, vocals appear on some titles of the audio CDs and are recorded direct to the hard disk of a 2nd computer which is synced to the MIDI with SIMPTE. The difference between the piano sound of the commercial CD and the RAGTIME2.WAD you play is limited only by the quality of the samples and effects in your sound card. Note that I have refrained from trying to include the vocals in the PWAD for space reasons... the vocal to the St. Louis Blues, for instance, is over 50 megabytes in size. For doom application, my next step was to convert 35 of my favorite MIDI files to MUS format with the shareware MIDI2MUS utility. I then used Doom Editor (the real thing) to list out the music objects in the doom2.wad file. Next, I renamed my files to match the names of the embedded doom2 music objects. The final step was to use DEU 5.21 to convert each of the MUS files to a WAD (the 'I' command) followed by opening each WAD (the 'R' command) and gathering all of them (the 'G' command) into the single RAGTIME2.WAD provided here. My thanks to Scott Kearney who pointed the way with his classical music CLASSICS.WAD and was good enough to explained to me how he did it. MUSICAL CREDITS The musical performances contained in RAGTIME2.WAD are live recordings of one of the world's top ragtimers, Sue Keller. They are distributed here strictly for the purpose of promoting the ragtime art form, promoting the contemporary composers writing ragtime (bet you didn't know anyone still did that!), and also to promote Sue Keller and her recordings which are available for sale on Compact Disc. Redistribution for these purposes is encouraged, but the performances are copyrighted and their commercial use requires the permission of Ragtime Press (see AVAILABILITY below). In addition, commercial use of any contemporary composition requires permission of the author. The included music is as follows: Int The Furry Lisa Rag (George Schnieder, 1972) 1 Nola (Felix Arndt, 1925) 2 Hot Rolls (Christopher Seppe, 1988) 3 Belle of Louisville (Frank French, 1991) 4 Alexander's Ragtime Band (Irving Berlin, 1911) 5 Alligator Crawl (Fats Waller, 1924) 6 12th Street Rag (Euday Bowman, 1914) 7 That's a Plenty (Lew Pollack, 1914) 8 Cranberry Stomp (Sue Keller, 1983) 9 Hyperragmania (Jonathan Jensen, 1973) 10 Crazy Bone Rag (Charles Johnson, 1913) rd1 Dizzy Fingers (Zez Confrey, 1923) 11 St. Louis Blues (W.C.Handy, 1914) 13 Hard-Hearted Hannah (Yellen, Ager, et al., 1924) 14 Charleston Rag (Eubie Blake, 1899) 15 Mississippi Mud (Cavanaugh & Barris, 1927) 16 Great Crush Collision March (Scott Joplin, 1897) 17 Solitude (Christopher Seppe, 1988) 18 Modernistic (James P. Johnson, 1929) 19 Pork and Beans (Lucky Roberts, 1913) 20 I Love a Piano/Cannonball Rag (Berlin/Northrup, 1915) 21 Bedlam (Christopher Seppe, 1974) rd2 Lion Tamer Rag (Mark Janza, 1913) 22 Coaxin the Piano (Zez Confrey, 1922) 23 Alabama Jubilee (Yellen & Cobb, 1915) 24 Wanhal Stomp (Sue Keller, 1994) 25 Alabamy Bound (1925) 26 Jingles (James P. Johnson, 1926) 27 Maple Leaf Rag (Scott Joplin, 1899) 28 The Suffragette (James Scott, 1914) 29 Waitin' for the Robert E. Lee (Gilbert & Muir, 1912) 30 Junk Man Rag (Lucky Roberts, 1913) 31 Hanon Rag (Bill Edwards, 1985) 32 Wild Cherries (Ted Snyder, 1908) AVAILABILITY Commercially available audio CDs on which these and many other titles appear are available for $15 post-paid from: Ragtime Press Post Office Box 40554 Staten Island, NY 10304 (718) 815-3273 Feel free to call or write me at Ragtime Press if you have any questions or need to contact any of the contemporary composers. Also check us out on the Word Wide Web at http://www.rtpress.com/ or send email to ragtime@rtpress.com