Converting audio Into UMX format

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papercoffee
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Re: Converting audio Into UMX format

Post by papercoffee »

Chamberly wrote: The song is this:

September - Cry for you
Hellkeeper wrote:EDIT: listened to the track. I'd never launch a map with this song even if it was a good one :s
Me neither, because the song has vocals :wink: ... the Song itself is irrelevant for me.
...but I would prefer a karaoke version where the vocal is remixed in another instrument.
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Re: Converting audio Into UMX format

Post by memsys »

Dr.Flay wrote: @memsys
Hardly a relevant comparison.
Many people also have no clue how to play an instrument or use a mixing-desk. You don't have to learn how to make any other form of music to "use it", so why would you have to learn how to make tracker music to use it ?
You simply import a module you like in UEd and save as a UMX.
Simple. done in 2 steps, and you don't need a tutorial, only the ability to use any search engine and find some good tracker sites, where musicians have already done the work.
If you can search google or youtube for premade music you didn't learn to make, why is searching sites with free music intended for our use so difficult ?
Bandcamp and the web archive host masses of free music on many net-labels that cover every imaginable genre, so finding something you like is not difficult.
The label GV-Sound http://gv-sound.bandcamp.com has loads of stuff very suitable for soundtracks, and all the authors require is asking and credit.

If you listen to the awesome work being released over at UnrealSP, you will see there are Unreal people with the ability to use tracker programs, and often new modules are made on request.
Tracker mod communities are full of musicians looking for a project to be involved with, and games maps are often what they prefer. Unfortunately that requires asking.

If people are brave enough to move forward into this century with the new OpenAL renderer, they can stop messing about with hacking WAVs into tracker format, and import a higher quality stereo OGG file into UEd.
If people simply upgrade they can import OGGs and almost every tracker format known to man, without any extra software or tutorials, and wave goodbye to crappy 8bit mono scratching in the ears. Say hello to full quality stereo music.
Import OGG, save UMX, done. In fact I will make a quick vid to show how much easier it is.
Note to self: do not write a post when short on time.
I am certainly not saying getting a tracker file working in ut is a problem or hard, hell it could hardly be easier. What I am saying is that sometimes people have specific tracks in mind that only exist as a non tracker file.
Finding stuff is still not easy, sure once you know where to look it becomes a lot easier but even then you have to spend quite some time looking trough the tracks in order to find one you like for the map.
I also find it ironic that you tell me to search for stuff that is going to give you non-tracker files when you admitted more or less that any umx file that is a non-tracker file gets deleted from your system.
On the part of the ask nice people to make a custom track for your project you have to KNOW that. I certainly never thought of looking for such a place so saying it like that is rather easy when you know a place like that exists. On the part of asking, I don't mind asking unless it's a large ass company like say a record label (This is not meant as a personal attack if you where wondering) because often they only care about money and could not care less about my hobby project. I would genuinely be surprised if they replied with "looks neat, as long as it's non-commercial and add a little bit of text in the read me about copyright you are free to use it" instead of "we are not interested, if you even dare to think of adding our copyrighted material we will sue you for everything you have and ever will own".

OGG support in ut would be a dream come true but we both know this is unlikely to be widely supported so yea :/ .
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Re: Converting audio Into UMX format

Post by Chamberly »

Are we going to stay on topic or bash about music because of choice of disliking? I'm trying to help someone for this, and this seem like a lot of disrespect.

I don't talk about anyone else's choices and tell them what to do.
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Re: Converting audio Into UMX format

Post by Hellkeeper »

Chamberly wrote:I think you messed up on the quoting lol.
Argh, forgot to delete some "quote" markup. Nevermind, you understood what I meant :P
Chamberly wrote:Are we going to stay on topic or bash about music because of choice of disliking?
What exactly do you require? I explained how you would do it a few posts above, it's only a matter of importing the song as an "instrument" in a tracker and playing a C4 with it for the duration of the track. If you want something else, ask away and answers will be given :wink:

I could do it for you, it's a matter of 50s work. I won't however, since you're dealing with a commerical song, and that means illegal distribution of a copyrighted file and I'm not going there. Knowing the Internet though, finding someone who doesn't care shouldn't be that hard...
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Re: Converting audio Into UMX format

Post by papercoffee »

Chamberly wrote:Are we going to stay on topic or bash about music because of choice of disliking? I'm trying to help someone for this, and this seem like a lot of disrespect.

I don't talk about anyone else's choices and tell them what to do.
Is this meant for me?
I was just suggesting that a non vocal version would be better for a map background music.
Vocals are simply irritating and will distract the player... that's all.
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Re: Converting audio Into UMX format

Post by Dr.Flay »

The irony of the fact I disapprove of hacky bloat-ware, but then write a tutorial on how to do it properly, and even link to sites with non-tracker files, is not lost on me :D
However, people are going to continue to try and do it anyway, and without knowing what they are doing they continue to create terrible quality audio.
I am a "teacher" not simply an "enabler" so I show all options and explain the pros and cons.
If you are going to do something, learn to do it properly.

Chamberly, I think the no-vocal version Paper found seems much more suitable as a backing track. What do you think ?
Perhaps suggest that to the person wanting the conversion, and see what they say ?
I'm always in favour of finding a compromise, and karaoke versions of songs tend to to be distributed amongst DJs so they can make remixes and mashups.
If this person is set on having it with vocals, then a copyright-free mashup will have to be found.
As I said, I will happily convert it, and will do it to the very best quality possible in the limitations of 8bit mono, but nothing illegal.

memsys, I can't say I'm not disappointed in the lack of general awareness of the option to ask someone at UnrealSP or OldUnreal for help with a tracker file.
Also many tracker sites and forums have been around longer than any Unreal site, as they have been a core part of the gaming, coding and demo-scenes, even since before most of the software companies that now exist.
All games and demos used tracker files for many years beyond the ability to use solid audio files, because they are still perfect for the genre.
Tracker files can contain multiple songs so save even more space, or so you can include fast action and slow tension music in the same file.

I do understand that people may wish for a specific track, but just because it is not available as a tracker or free version, does not make it OK to use the real thing without asking. It simply means you use something else (life is like that).
You will often find that artists on a small independent label are actually grateful for the exposure, and are quite happy for their work to be used in free projects or things such as student films.

Thankfully you can stop dreaming as high quality OGG support already came true (feel free to use it any time you like), and is widely supported because OpenAL is a default part of UEd2.1. It works the same as any other UT update. Install it and use twice as many channels of awesome audio that actually reacts to the map geometry.
If you make something that requires something, then you include it, or a link to DL it. This is the same as using any mod, or even the D3D9 and 10 renderers.
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Re: Converting audio Into UMX format

Post by papercoffee »

Dr.Flay wrote: You will often find that artists on a small independent label are actually grateful for the exposure, and are quite happy for their work to be used in free projects or things such as student films.
http://www.jamendo.com/en :wink:
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Re: Converting audio Into UMX format

Post by FraGnBraG »

Chamberly wrote:
FraGnBraG wrote:what song? what format?
Format? It's for a ut99 map (.umx) unless I'm noob enough to explain and acknowledge my ignorance.

Just a little bit off, I have been playing some .umx music in my Windows Media Player, and I notice the song was like sometimes 20% of the length and the rest is just blank/empty. I do think UT have some special programming for .umx that it can be played over and over without a short song and a bunch of silence I guess unless it's from how it is made in .umx. However, when we were listening to a good song, then all of the sudden cut off... incoming chat spam of 0mG lol.

The song is this:

September - Cry for you
hmm, sorry if i caused some ill will by asking about the actual "music" ... didn't mean too cause a stir...

the reason i was asking which song, was to hear it and try to determine the "complexity" (for lack of a better word) of the audio being imported, and the type of audio source you were planning to use (ex. which kind of stream, or flac, mp3/4, ogg, cda, wav, etc.) The resulting package of the conversion is of course going to be a UMX, seeing as this is UE1, but the audio quality stuff needs to be considered when trying to process the "song track" into "the very best quality possible in the limitations of 8bit mono" (as dr.flay so perfectly summed it up) ...

Well, seeing as i'm so late coming back to this thread, there's not much really for me to add ...

So perhaps a few thoughts:

- No matter what "quality" you start with, in the end you have mono 8-bit audio channels - iirc.
So for stereo you need two tracks (one for stereo Left, and one for Stereo Right).
If wav size is a problem you might have to just use one mono track (yuk)

- Yes, it is an old game, but galaxy was very good game audio for the time...
You can improve over the default settings a bit - read this: http://yourunreal.wordpress.com/2012/11 ... io-tweaks/
but just remember it will never sound 100% as good as modern game audio tracks, and that's OK, imo.

- Acquiring MOD music to use in your maps: most seem to be IT, which is Okay, but beware these can sound different in UMX because not all IT commands are supported in UMX. I also recommend you open the tracker file and inspect it - use OpenMPT nowadays. Ideally it should be 16 channels or less. If it is more then you run the risk of dropping UMX channels in-game, which produces odd sounding music (with missing instruments, lol)
If you have the tracker skill, you could edit the file and reduce the tracks down to 16, but the normal considerations of "modding" apply here so you should seek permission before doing that. Lastly, iirc, Galaxy supports XM commands better than IT or S3M. So best to listen to the candidate MOD file in a few different players besides Galaxy (VLC, WinAmp, OpenMPT, etc) to see how Galaxy handles it...

Good luck :)
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Re: Converting audio Into UMX format

Post by memsys »

Dr.Flay wrote:-snip-

memsys, I can't say I'm not disappointed in the lack of general awareness of the option to ask someone at UnrealSP or OldUnreal for help with a tracker file.
Also many tracker sites and forums have been around longer than any Unreal site, as they have been a core part of the gaming, coding and demo-scenes, even since before most of the software companies that now exist.
All games and demos used tracker files for many years beyond the ability to use solid audio files, because they are still perfect for the genre.
Tracker files can contain multiple songs so save even more space, or so you can include fast action and slow tension music in the same file.

I do understand that people may wish for a specific track, but just because it is not available as a tracker or free version, does not make it OK to use the real thing without asking. It simply means you use something else (life is like that).
You will often find that artists on a small independent label are actually grateful for the exposure, and are quite happy for their work to be used in free projects or things such as student films.

Thankfully you can stop dreaming as high quality OGG support already came true (feel free to use it any time you like), and is widely supported because OpenAL is a default part of UEd2.1. It works the same as any other UT update. Install it and use twice as many channels of awesome audio that actually reacts to the map geometry.
If you make something that requires something, then you include it, or a link to DL it. This is the same as using any mod, or even the D3D9 and 10 renderers.
In that case, may I humbly suggest you create a sticky topic about it, (assuming this has not been done already) this would increased awareness and hopefully result in maps with better music.
I am well aware that sample based music has been around for a long LONG time and that there are many advantages and I honestly think it's a shame it has fallen out of favour.

As for asking for not permission, I know it's wrong to use stuff without permission and in case of a small artists/labels I would probably ask for permission (I have never been in such a scenario mind you) but with the big companies honestly, fuck them! They abuse the law in their favour and lobby to have laws changed/added for them to abuse. I am not against copyright but I AM against it's current form, as it stands it's an excuse for the big companies to make money selling the same old stuff for forever + 1day instead of creating new content.

That is pretty nice but Ued 2.1 is not completely compatible with ut IIRC and I will probably not use if I make another map. Is that an excuse for being lazy/not interested in the headache of getting it working and having to deal with people who can't get it to work? Yes, it is.
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