Madsa Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 This is the first time i'm posting here so be nice.. :) anyway i am sure a lot of you have noticed you cant customize the music in skyrim the way you could with morrowind and oblivion. All the music is encoded in XWM format and are located inside the "Skyrim - Sounds.bsa" file. So my (noob)questions are: How do I change the music/add new music to the game? what software do i need for changing a .bsa archive? Is it even possible to make the game read additional sound files? If anyone would be willing to share their expertise on this i would be mucho grateful! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blankstate Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 (edited) Hiya Madsa! Welcome to the forums. I got here like... 12 hours ago. XD The game will indeed read replacement sound files from a directory created inside the Data folder (e.g., for the main menu music it's /Data/music/special/mus_maintheme.xwm.) You need merely pop open the .bsa you found with a program like BSAUnpacker or Fallout Mod Manager and get the file names of the music you want to replace. Extracting them and listening to them so you can idea for their tempo, length, and other factors is probably a really good idea too. Windows Media Player can play/preview .xwm files, so you won't have to decode them to handle this step. As for ADDITIONAL music (i.e., new music, if that's what you meant), I don't think we can do that quite yet. To convert .WAV files into .XWM files, check thissere thread out: http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/470044-how-to-encode-xwma-files/ EDIT: I just ran through the BSA and extracted all the music files. XWMA is magical freaking compression! Only 89.5MB for everything (though it's possible I missed something here and there). Edited November 21, 2011 by blankstate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madsa Posted November 21, 2011 Author Share Posted November 21, 2011 Sweet. I'm gonna be changing some of the duller combat music into my fav epic themes (game of thrones, Lotr, etc.) anyway thanks again for helping me out! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blankstate Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 (edited) Hey, no problem! Happy to help. As an update, I totally tried to preview the files using my WMP and it didn't work. >_> I am currently updating my VLC Media Player and will see how that plays out. I swear I saw someone say you could listen to the music using WMP... EDIT: Okay, yeah, VLC works. It's a little choppy/clippy (sounds like the decoder is having trouble keeping up with the file -- which is understandable, as xWMA is capable of compressing a 24MB file into a 980KB file) but you can definitely hear the music enough to get an idea of the length/mood/etc.! P.S. - Just don't go changing the level up sound to the Final Fantasy victory music or anything. ;D P.P.S. - ... He said, as he began to drop World of Warcraft music into his game. <_<; God help us all. Edited November 21, 2011 by blankstate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blankstate Posted November 22, 2011 Share Posted November 22, 2011 So far so good! Have all of the outdoor world exploration replaced, dungeon music replaced, Castle Dour and Stormcloak HQ music replaced, working on combat music right now -- each song includes a 'finale' that plays if combat ends early, so that threw a bit of a speedbump in my way. Hope you're making good progress, Madsa. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madsa Posted November 22, 2011 Author Share Posted November 22, 2011 hehe are you replacing the "finale" parts too? btw i didnt get to change that much of it today as i had a lot of other stuff to do.. but i replaced the first combat music with "riders of rohan" :P gonna try to edit away most of the song up until the end so i can use that final fading part for the "finale" music also i gotta say I love this game!:D i'm about 50 hours in and it feels like i'm barely just scratching the surface ^^ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmilianoCAPT Posted November 22, 2011 Share Posted November 22, 2011 First off; THANK YOU (both of you) for this topic. I really mean it. I was really upset when I figured out that unlike Oblivion, I couldn't change the music, the usual way. I have a question for you guys; how can I replace the music inside the bsa file? I got the preview part and the conversion part (thanks Blankstate!) but I'm still missing the replacement part. Sorry for my noobiness ;) thanks in advance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blankstate Posted November 22, 2011 Share Posted November 22, 2011 (edited) Hiya EmilianoCAPT! All you have to do is create a folder - Skyrim/Data/Music. Music files go in there. You'll have to check the directory structure of your BSA in order to determine where your song is going to go. For instance, main theme music goes in /Music/Special/, world exploration music goes in /Explore/, combat music goes in /Combat/, etc. You simply drop your new .xwm files in the appropriate directory and voila, presto change-o. :D And Madsa, I am indeed! It's a little rocky to start with, though -- there's gonna be some tuning involved before the 'finale' parts work more smoothly into the music. I also have some files that won't play. I think it might have to do with the original format of the file (i.e., not everything in my iTunes library is MP3 - I don't think the MP4s/AACs converted smoothly into WAV, etc. etc.) but I'm not sure yet. Will have to do some detective work on that front. Edited November 22, 2011 by blankstate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmilianoCAPT Posted November 22, 2011 Share Posted November 22, 2011 So you mean I don't need to replace the Skyrim-Sound file but, after creating a folder, by putting the xvm files in it, following the correct folder's 'tree' of course? I'll give it a try and get back to you, hopefully with some results! :) Thank you so much for the help. P.S. Try "Anvil of Crom" by Erich Kunzel in the Combat folder ;) Is from the 20th anniversary edition of the Conan the Barbarian OST. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darksun45230 Posted November 22, 2011 Share Posted November 22, 2011 Someone make a custom soundtrack with this in it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts