Flix's Music Mod for Sacred 2

[desm 329]

oh yes, I shuffled the two packs, I use D2F music pack with D2F yes. Well I'll try this one if I revert to vanilla. Thanks!

[gogoblender 3,068]

Great curation is one of the best assets in a top notch production

Epic accompaniment!

 

gogo

[Flix 5,116]

Well Christmas is only a month away. Here's an early Christmas present:

Northland Music Patch

Download link is also added to the first post.

Just install into the game's "pak/music" folder along with the other .ogg files of the music mod.

 

I never changed the music for this region before, because I could never find anything that could compliment the music Ascaron made. Now I finally found some. The old music is still present, but it is now accompanied by other tracks:

 

Daytime Music 1:

 

Daytime Music 2:

 

Nighttime Music:

 

Dungeon Music:

[Zallk 24]

Awesome! I was really happy you kept the music and audio feel of sacred 2 in the music mod and now made it even better with this! As always Flix, excellent work and much appreciated.

[Charon117 50]

Thx for the music Flix. A point to note here is that you have to have your setttings on stereo, or a setting below 5.1. The music in this mod is below 5.1, and if you set it to something higher, due to not existing 5.1+ files, you wont hear any of it.

Very good mod, Thank you very much.

Edit: Thats acutally a problem that even the vanilla files have, some of them dont have 5.1+ equivalents, including the credit song.

Edited December 4, 2019 by Charon117

[Charon117 50]

Replaced "071_bg_swamp_day2.ogg" monks chore with something less annoying.

Here it is: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1I2BeUjzCTCLhau0T5pZKZz2yQfT850aK

The link will stay active for a few days at most.

 

Also how about uploading everything to a site where you dont have to register to download ?

[Flix 5,116]

1 hour ago, Charon117 said:

Also how about uploading everything to a site where you dont have to register to download ?

There are Google Drive links on the first page.

[Charon117 50]

54 minutes ago, Flix said:

There are Google Drive links on the first page.

Uh, I meant

"Also how about uploading a all-in-one package to a site where you dont have to register to download ?"

[Flix 5,116]

 

10 hours ago, Charon117 said:

"Also how about uploading a all-in-one package to a site where you dont have to register to download ?"

Ok I can do that.  Might also be a good time to remove some of the commonly complained about tracks, and perhaps a few tasteful additions.

[Flix 5,116]

Alright, first post is updated with a single link to an "All-in-One" music mod download (Google Drive).  @Charon117 I have also replaced the Swamp chanting track with a more palatable alternative.

There have been complaints in other threads about the whistling tracks in Tyr Lysia but I love those songs so they're staying put.

The documentation and instructions are also improved and included with the download now.

[dimitrius154 612]

22 minutes ago, Flix said:

There have been complaints in other threads about the whistling tracks in Tyr Lysia but I love those songs so they're staying put.

If I recall correctly, there's only one track in that region, where the whistling is of sufficient, eh, annoyance level. There's a link to the alternative version on the Addendum thread, wasn't necessary to reemove the track itself, just to trim two five second segments.  

[vometia 11]

I've just installed this.  Christmas island was nice but the real surprise was hopping over to Sloeford to do some trading to be greeted by Broken Valley Wakes.  Lovely.

Now if only I could get the bards to shut up...

[gogoblender 3,068]

4 hours ago, vometia said:

I've just installed this.  Christmas island was nice but the real surprise was hopping over to Sloeford to do some trading to be greeted by Broken Valley Wakes.  Lovely.

Now if only I could get the bards to shut up...

Christmas Island's one of my top five favorite places in the game if not my favorite.  I think mostly because the Devs released this as a surprise for the community at, you guessed it, Christmas in that great year of the game's release.

magical

gogo

[vometia 11]

I've deinstalled it again for now, though that's not a criticism, just that I'm feeling very "particular" at the moment and it needs to be interfered with further!

It was actually instigated by something that plays on dryad island which seems to have some clipping issues which I find bothersome; but on a more basic level I'd like the music to be in addition to the default (with the exception of default music I specifically dislike) but a cursory look around hasn't revealed where it's specified, unless it simply loads whichever files it finds that follow the correct naming format.  But I dunno.  I should experiment.

I am curious to know what the tracks are though: Kirill's stuff I recognise, of course, and there are some I don't know that sound very much like him.  At the moment there's a sort of prog-rock sounding instrumental that plays in the desert: would love to know what that is!

And about the bards, I've silenced them (hopefully) for now by copying a bunch of silent oggs as placeholders; it'd be nice to replace them with something but I dunno what.  Maybe some tracks by the Mediæval Bæbes though that'd mean also replacing the bard NPCs; I presume that shouldn't be too difficult though.

[dimitrius154 612]

4 hours ago, vometia said:

It was actually instigated by something that plays on dryad island which seems to have some clipping issues

Interesting. Are you sure there're clipping instances? That would be hard to miss, and I see no such issues in the Addendum's custom version of @Flix's work.

Edited March 7, 2020 by dimitrius154

[vometia 11]

There's some sort of distortion, though I may have used the wrong terminology.  I'll need to identify the track before I start commenting further about what seems to be the problem, though!  I'm not ruling out the possibility that my volume settings are a bit screwy: at Windows' normal volume level, Sacred 2 is very loud indeed requiring me to turn my amp down to -57dB (I usually have it on around -40ish when listening to music) and for some reason it won't remember my volume settings from one run to the next; but I've held off fixing the problem as I get what appears to be USB-related audio interference on my gaming PC (it happens on all USB ports, but only when a full-screen 3D program is running) and turning the input volume down makes it more prominent.  Er, the point being that my audio setup is not ideal.

[dimitrius154 612]

1 hour ago, vometia said:

USB-related audio interference on my gaming PC

Do you have USB-powered external speakers? Budget models tend to be not exactly up to specifications, even safety-wise. I've seen USB-speakers causing short-circuits.

[dimitrius154 612]

2 hours ago, vometia said:

only when a full-screen 3D program is running

Extra power consumption by a videocard. A motherboard circuitry issue, video driver issue, power adapter issue, or speakers issue. I vote for the speakers.

Edited March 7, 2020 by dimitrius154

[vometia 11]

No, just a standard 3½mm stereo jack (I forget offhand if it's onboard sound or a Creative PCIe card: I've tried both, they're the same) through a reasonable quality cable to a 2×DIN amplifier input.  Amp is also good quality, Cambridge Audio Topaz, output is to Sennheiser HD25SP headphones, and the other computers (both just using onboard sound) don't have the same problem.  Games PC's PSU is comfortably over-specced, it's rated at 850W; I can't rule it out but it's my absolutely least favourite thing to replace, not least as the PC is a fairly tight fit in my 19" rack.

I have no definite idea what it is; I don't think it's power consumption as it's a regular problem and Sacred 2 is actually quite well behaved at not overdoing it with system resources (in other words RL power consumption), I've tried re-routing cables and using alternative audio out and USB but the problem persists.  I have a feeling it may be a software bug, I'm thinking that it wasn't a problem until that really big Windows 10 update last autumn, the one I'd been putting off for months.

Edited March 7, 2020 by vometia

[Flix 5,116]

15 hours ago, vometia said:

It was actually instigated by something that plays on dryad island which seems to have some clipping issues which I find bothersome;

So, about the clipping, I had to amplify most new tracks considerably in Audacity to get them to be appropriately loud enough.  Most were just entirely too quiet compared to the base music.

Back then, I did not know about using compression to normalize volume, so a small number of the Music mod tracks may indeed have some clipping (audible clicks).  I did not believe it to be noticeable in-game, though it may be more obvious when listening to the isolated tracks w/ headphones.

It might be worthwhile for me to go through and use some compression to amplify the offending tracks without clipping.  I'll check the Jungle tracks.  If there any others you notice, please let me know and I will address them as well.

15 hours ago, vometia said:

but on a more basic level I'd like the music to be in addition to the default (with the exception of default music I specifically dislike) but a cursory look around hasn't revealed where it's specified, unless it simply loads whichever files it finds that follow the correct naming format. 

The Music mod tracks are in addition to the default music.  Very little of the default music is gone - all I can recall removing is some of the more boring Orc region drums.  In most cases, I merged the default music tracks for a given region (typically short 60s tracks) into a single audio file. That left room for new music to take the file names of the old tracks.

So the Music Mod is more of an expansion than a replacement.

15 hours ago, vometia said:

I am curious to know what the tracks are though: Kirill's stuff I recognise, of course, and there are some I don't know that sound very much like him.  At the moment there's a sort of prog-rock sounding instrumental that plays in the desert: would love to know what that is!

No one's ever asked me before, but it shouldn't be too hard to make a track listing.  I may do that today.  There is indeed a hefty dose of Kirill.  His music in the Divinity games was the first I ever listened to a game soundtrack for pure pleasure.

[vometia 11]

1 hour ago, Flix said:

So, about the clipping, I had to amplify most new tracks considerably in Audacity to get them to be appropriately loud enough.  Most were just entirely too quiet compared to the base music.

Back then, I did know about using compression to normalize volume, so a small number of the Music mod tracks may indeed have some clipping (audible clicks).  I did not believe it to be noticeable in-game, though it may be more obvious when listening to the isolated tracks w/ headphones.

It might be worthwhile for me to go through and use some compression to amplify the offending tracks without clipping.  I'll check the Jungle tracks.  If there any others you notice, please let me know and I will address them as well.

Please don't go to any trouble until I've identified exactly what it was that bothered me!  I'd hate that to happen, especially if it turns out to have been a case of "I'm doing it wrong", which is not unknown to happen.  It may take me a little while because reasons (well, insomnia, to be specific) which I mention as I'm always concerned that my tardiness may come across as being rude.  Especially having kicked up a fuss!

1 hour ago, Flix said:

The Music mod tracks are in addition to the default music.  Very little of the default music is gone - all I can recall removing is some of the more boring Orc region drums.  In most cases, I merged the default music tracks for a given region (typically short 60s tracks) into a single audio file. That left room for new music to take the file names of the old tracks.

So the Music Mod is more of an expansion than a replacement.

Why didn't I think of that?  Argh, now I feel like a halfwit!  Well that dismisses that concern, then.   Though I'm still curious just for its own sake how it figures out what to load; that's nothing to do with your topic, though, so I shouldn't introduce even more sidetracks...

1 hour ago, Flix said:

No one's ever asked me before, but it shouldn't be too hard to make a track listing.  I may do that today.  There is indeed a hefty dose of Kirill.  His music in the Divinity games was the first I ever listened to a game soundtrack for pure pleasure.

Same.  I think Ego Draconis was the first video game whose music truly captivated me.  He had an incredibly talent for creating the right atmosphere.

Er anyway, yeah, I'm interested to find out what's in there whenever your listing is available!

[Flix 5,116]

Music Mod Tracklist: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IFao4qkufCtYk6y2F1ewqTsISZIK6h6L/view?usp=sharing

About 5 tracks are unknown because they came from Wardust's mod, and he never said what they were, other than that they were free, open source music.  I thought I might check the metadata from his original files, but it looks like he took his upload offline.

4 hours ago, vometia said:

Though I'm still curious just for its own sake how it figures out what to load

Soundprofile.txt has regional music and ambient sound assignments.  For example, profilename  = "Region 16 - Snowland", you can see the line event160 = { event = "MUSIC_DAY", resource = 134 };

The resource ID points to soundresources.txt, which in turn points to the ogg files.

[vometia 11]

Thank you so much for doing that!  I shall have a proper listen later on.  Some of what may be Kirill's stuff I may not have heard as I only played half of BD: which wasn't "the usual reason", I.e. the comedy voice acting, but there was way too much grey and black, giving the game the feel of the caves under Seraphim Island... only most of it was like that.

"But I already looked at that file and they aren't there"... until I realised this whole time I've been restricting my searches to the scripts/ directory and just now I inadvertently did the whole lot.  There it is in locale/.

[Flix 5,116]

3 hours ago, vometia said:

there was way too much grey and black, giving the game the feel of the caves under Seraphim Island... only most of it was like that.

I remember that. Act III was especially bad.  Lava and ash.  And Act IV was inside a school.  The game overall was a bit of a slog.  The imp village in act 2 was the most memorable and charming section.  In fact the nonsense phrases that the imps were fond of spouting (Flix! Flax!) are how I got my forum namesake.  They refined some ideas from BD in Original Sin, mainly the whole soul-forging thing. 

3 hours ago, vometia said:

"But I already looked at that file and they aren't there"... until I realised this whole time I've been restricting my searches to the scripts/ directory and just now I inadvertently did the whole lot.  There it is in locale/.

Ah yes, I forgot there is a second soundresources.txt in the scripts/client folder.  Dmitriy added that in CM 1.60, to allow for custom sound resources to be added on a global level, as opposed to having to edit the file in each individual locale folder for all 10 languages.

The reason the music mod doesn't take advantage of this is that it predates CM 1.60 by a long time.

[Charon117 50]

 

More ambient music if people need it.