Origins of Doom sounds

Most of Doom's sounds were taken from the Series 6000, originally created by Mike McDonough, while others were recorded by Robert Prince during development.

Arch-vile's death
The arch-vile's death sound was created by Robert Prince, who recorded a young girl saying "why" and then transformed this sound by shifting it down and mixing it with other sounds.

Doom doors
One of the most famous sound associated to Doom is the sound of its doors. These sounds came from Sound Ideas and were originally recorded for the radio serial . The components that were layered together to make this distinctive noise included an old three-phase generator turning on or off, the engine of a CD tray, a ball bearing rolling inside a balloon, and the hissing of a truck's hydraulics.

Icon of Romero
When John Romero discovered that id's graphic artists had used his head as the sprite of the actor that, behind the scene, handles the damage inflicted to the final boss, he decided to show he knew about the prank by putting in another Easter egg in the evil voice heard when the player enters the presence of the Icon of Sin. Robert Prince recorded him saying "to win the game, you must kill me, John Romero" and deformed the sound by putting heavy flanging and echo, then reversing it.

Spawn cube
Another extremely common Doom sound is the one associated to the final boss shooting one of its spawn cubes,. This is also a Series 6000 sound, entitled "Fire, Ball – Impact And Large Fire Burst, Rumble", originally created for the cartoon , specifically for the scene where the ground opens and the magic cauldron is revealed. This sound was created from a layering of slowed-down fireworks and the rumblings of a piece of sheet metal with the high frequencies filtered out.