Converted Mark Morgan Vault Archives to ACM

[badhabit]

I use audiacity for audio editing, it have all features I need.

I downloaded latest version of audacity and cecked it: Audacity is still not supporting lossless MP3 editing, so it is a bad idea to use audacity for adding silent parts or removin clicking parts in begin and end. Better use mp3DirectCut.

To the subject: I know why you have this clicking sound at start of each song, most likely it's a b-product of MP3->WAV->ACM convertion, WAV header (metadata threated as sound by converter program, thus making this noize).

Such artifacts can be easily removed lossless.

Update: I was wrong, just found out that ACM is not a container for MP3s inside, so the conversation can't be down lossless, forget my remarks.

 

[Oppen]

I use audiacity for audio editing, it have all features I need.
To the subject: I know why you have this clicking sound at start of each song, most likely it's a b-product of MP3->WAV->ACM convertion, WAV header (metadata threated as sound by converter program, thus making this noize).
About the sound itself, I'm not sure if remastered version sounds better. It easily can be a placebo effect, because sound in these MP3's is simply louder about 5-7db than original ACM music. Also original music sample rate is 22050Hz. If there is a way to create 44100Hz ACM music that the game will read, it may create a suffucient effect for a user (only with better soundcard/headphones/etc.).

If that's the case, deleting the ID2 metadata before converting to WAV should fix it.

 

[Oppen]

Update: I was wrong, just found out that ACM is not a container for MP3s inside, so the conversation can't be down lossless, forget my remarks.

Still, you can keep the extra loss to a minimum. If you add effects in a lossy way and then reencode to a lossy format, you get a bigger quality loss than if you add the effect losslessly and then reencode.

 

[phobos2077]

Update: I was wrong, just found out that ACM is not a container for MP3s inside, so the conversation can't be down lossless, forget my remarks.

Still, you can keep the extra loss to a minimum. If you add effects in a lossy way and then reencode to a lossy format, you get a bigger quality loss than if you add the effect losslessly and then reencode.

I'm not sure what lossless editing are you talking about. MP3 IS a lossy format as it is. When I edit audio in audacity, it decodes MP3 to RAW data the same way as any audio player. Then I edit this RAW signal and reencode it to ACM.
I think you messing things up. There is no such thing as "adding effects in a lossy way"

If that's the case, deleting the ID2 metadata before converting to WAV should fix it.

Already resolved this. Convertion works without clicks when providing correct parameter for snd2acm (-WAV instead of -16).

 

[badhabit]

Update: I was wrong, just found out that ACM is not a container for MP3s inside, so the conversation can't be down lossless, forget my remarks.

Still, you can keep the extra loss to a minimum. If you add effects in a lossy way and then reencode to a lossy format, you get a bigger quality loss than if you add the effect losslessly and then reencode.

I'm not sure what lossless editing are you talking about. MP3 IS a lossy format as it is. When I edit audio in audacity, it decodes MP3 to RAW data the same way as any audio player. Then I edit this RAW signal and reencode it to ACM.
I think you messing things up. There is no such thing as "adding effects in a lossy way"

While not relevant in this case (ACM can't hold MP3s), in general you can apply several things on MP3s in a lossless way (meaning, no lossy re-encoding, MP3 itself is a lossy format).

What can be achieved lossless on MP3s by messing with the frames and changing metadata is: loudness increase/decrease, cutting or merging of MP3s, removing silence or artifacts in beginning or end, adding silence (adding dummy frames) in front or end. On tools: take a look on mp3DirectCut or Mp3Trim.

(PS: Similar things are possible with JPEG, also a lossy format, but some operations are possible lossless (like rotation or cropping: for instance http://jpegclub.org/jpegtran/ or irfanview has it included))

 

[Oppen]

I'm not sure what lossless editing are you talking about. MP3 IS a lossy format as it is. When I edit audio in audacity, it decodes MP3 to RAW data the same way as any audio player. Then I edit this RAW signal and reencode it to ACM.
I think you messing things up. There is no such thing as "adding effects in a lossy way"

I'm aware MP3 is a lossy format, in fact, my first comment on the thread makes alussion to that fact. However, someone else mentioned adding the fade effect without loss and I assumed he was just talking about something I didn't know about. Also, it does sound possible to me, if you know how to do the transformations, to add a fade out effect without extra loss, using a specific format (MP3 in this case).

EDIT: Following, the relevant post:

Thanks for looking into this, just want to add my minimal expertise: I used years ago successfully http://www.mptrim.com/ for lossless adding/removing of fade-in and out into MP3s. (there is also a free version available). I read over at hydrogenaudio that http://mpesch3.de1.cc/mp3dc.html is also working lossless (and is free) but I never used it myself.

Already resolved this. Convertion works without clicks when providing correct parameter for snd2acm (-WAV instead of -16).

Oh, great.

 

[phobos2077]

Further studying the remastered version.. I don't think it worth it. It has audio tracks mixed up one on another... It is made so you can listen the whole album like one huge song without pauses between tracks. It just does not fit for the game... I can cut the "mixed" parts off, but this is wrong. It's like cutting (even a small) part from a great game. Also comparing remastered version with the original, I really don't hear the big difference in quality on equal volume (I use professional USB audio card with Microlab Solo 5).

 

[Drobovik]

Well, phobos2077, if you can convert the tracks properly I think it will find its own end user. I don't know why remastered version doesn't sound better to you. But again I'm ffaaarr from being an audio afficionado. Ignorance is bliss

 

[phobos2077]

OK, I did it for all of the Fallout 2 music (was lazy doing it for the rest):
http://yadi.sk/d/DQVtdDPHF7mJZ (readme included)

I hope you'll like it (if you will ever hear any difference at all )

btw, I used compression quality ~50%. Not sure if higher quality makes sense (it's already much higher than original).

 

[JaW]

Excellent job, phobos!

 

[Sduibek]

The overlapped track transitions is a very important point to consider. I'd forgotten about those. It does make them sound and feel significantly different at the beginning and end compared to the original game soundtrack. I have not tried in-game, I'm just concurring with concerns about the difference.

And a quick unrelated sidenote, because of this thread I ended up trying 07DESERT used as itself and also renamed for worldmap's music. Hooooly shit, travelling on worldmap is bleak and scary with that track, it feels completely different.

Someone should ask @Timeslip about if she can make the engine support 44kHz music playback.

 

[phobos2077]

Someone should ask @Timeslip about if she can make the engine support 44kHz music playback.

It won't be easy. I tried to convert music 44100Hz Stereo WAV into ACM (in game it played in slow motion), and 22050Hz Mono WAV (in game it played 2x faster). Also studying ACM header in hex editor bring me to conclusion that ACM format does not store any information about audio format at all, except total number of samples (the game itself assumes a priori all music ACMs to be stereo and all SFX to be mono). It means, if we change music playback to 44kHz, ALL music that is 22kHz will be played 2x faster (for example, Restoration Project adds new music - it will have to be converted to 44100Hz in order to be played).

Edit: I had nothing else to do and found out that you can actually change sample rate of ACM audio in the game) After game started, I searched 22050 unsigned int inside memory (fallout2.exe module) using hex editor. The very first occurence is what we need, changing it to 44100 allowed me to listen All that Remain - This Calling in stereo 44100Hz inside main menu
However, looks like this constant affects ALL sounds as well, because I loaded my save and found out all sound effects were played in slow motion

 

[hexer]

Mass conversion of all sounds?

 

[Soda_fr]

@hexer

Few months ago, Killap gave us a nice batch script which can be used with the snd2acm program for mass conversion.
Here it is :

forfiles /s /m *.wav /c "snd2acm -wav @relpath @fname.acm"

Just be sure to have your sdn2acm program and your .wav files in the same directory.
It helped us a lot at Mutants Rising!

 

[phobos2077]

Someone still have too add this feature to sfall (change sample rate)
Again, it will be additional pain for modders to create 2 sets of all new sounds in 44100Hz and 22050Hz.