Converting audio Into UMX format

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Re: Converting audio Into UMX format

Post by JackGriffin »

Thank you for the Uncodex! :bowsdown:
So long, and thanks for all the fish
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Dr.Flay
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Re: Converting audio Into UMX format

Post by Dr.Flay »

OK. an update for my updated tutorial !
Good job I am never happy, and always check my own advice to make sure I have not missed anything.

I did miss something! (well 2 things)
Any audio program capable of being used as a multi-track studio will have an OVERALL PROJECT FREQUENCY !
It will render the "Project" back to that quality.
I have also noticed that UEd2.1 is more forgiving with mod compatibility than our humble UT99 UEd2.

It would seem that UT99 mappers may still need to load, then save the fake tracker file with the old "MODPlug Player" to "fix" it first. :pfff:
This may hopefully be something that can be fixed in OpenMPT.
It does require an extra step, but it only takes 2 or 3 seconds.

Anyone who has downloaded a copy, should delete it and get the new version.
Sorry for the inconvenience, but you should now have the correct final file-size for your music, and complete U1 compatibility.
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Chamberly
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Re: Converting audio Into UMX format

Post by Chamberly »

I'm looking into getting a whole song converted for someone with loop/repeating and no long silences... but reviewing these tutorial has made myself get some headache so I'm gonna have to wait out on this unless someone is willing to do so.
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FraGnBraG
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Re: Converting audio Into UMX format

Post by FraGnBraG »

what song? what format?
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Chamberly
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Re: Converting audio Into UMX format

Post by Chamberly »

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
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Dr.Flay
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Re: Converting audio Into UMX format

Post by Dr.Flay »

Boy do I hate this subject :?
I will make a video of the process soon.

UMX is a wrapper for tracker module files.
UMX is not designed to have WAV files hacked into it. You will find random results from hacky UMX files because people who don't know what they are doing, create mangled files.

Generally normal songs are also not designed to loop as they are not made for games, so you have to make an edit choice for the last 2 seconds.

Real "Tracker" files are free, small and designed for this use, whereas hacking WAVs into UMX format is bulky and makes maps into far bigger downloads than they ever need to be.
There are loads of sites with heaps of free tracker files.

:!: I would also point out it is illegal to use copyright material without getting permission, so unless you do the same as you would for a mod, texture or any other U-resource, and contact the author for permission, I would advise against it :wth:
(I run a record label, so what do you expect me to say ?)

Personally I also have a problem with suffering from peoples taste in music used in maps, as they never think about mood or atmosphere, or think in a cinematic way, or consider that after playing the map for 30 minutes it would drive a sane person to murder.
Just picking a song you like to listen to is a terrible way to score a map or video, unless the moodiness or lyrical content relate to it somehow.
....I just listened to most of the track...
Well I can confidently say, after 30 minutes of generic Euro-pop on a loop, I would happily cut off my ears.
It's not very "killing music" (although it would drive me to kill) :noidea
That's not about taste difference, it's just that song just has no mood or atmosphere for repeatedly killing your friends to.
If you just want to listen to your favourite music while you play, it is just easier to switch the music off in UT and use a media player.

I love early death-metal like Cannibal Corpse, and even though many tracks are perfect for warfare, I would not dream of adding music like that to a map as many people would hate it.
Anything with singing is a no-no as far as I am concerned, unless it relates to the map in some clever way.

I am quite brutal with all maps I install that come with a UMX bigger than the map data or contain singing, and I re-save them all with "Fifth.umx" from Unreal.
My last install of UT had 6 different UMX files all with the same damned AC/DC song (which I love), all of different quality and volume, each many times bigger than an mp3.
What a waste of my drive space, when I have the full quality mp3 I can listen to any time.

As I say there are many sites with high quality free music specifically made to enhance peoples maps, but if you feel you must hack a WAV into a tracker format, then at least get permission or get a copyright-free mashup or remixed version of the track.

If you show you have permission or find a mashup/remix alternative, then I would happily convert that.

Here are a few sources of free mixes and tracker files;
http://www.themashupradio.com
http://www.mashup-charts.com
http://www.indiegamemusic.com
http://modarchive.org
http://musicmoz.org/Sound_Files/MOD/
http://aminet.net/tree?path=mods
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Hellkeeper
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Re: Converting audio Into UMX format

Post by Hellkeeper »

Dr.Flay wrote:Personally I also have a problem with suffering from peoples taste in music used in maps, as they never think about mood or atmosphere, or think in a cinematic way, or consider that after playing the map for 30 minutes it would drive a sane person to murder.
Just picking a song you like to listen to is a terrible way to score a map or video, unless the moodiness or lyrical content relate to it somehow.
....I just listened to most of the track...
Well I can confidently say, after 30 minutes of generic Euro-pop on a loop, I would happily cut off my ears.
It's not very "killing music" (although it would drive me to kill) :noidea
That's not about taste difference, it's just that song just has no mood or atmosphere for repeatedly killing your friends to.
If you just want to listen to your favourite music while you play, it is just easier to switch the music off in UT and use a media player.

I love early death-metal like Cannibal Corpse, and even though many tracks are perfect for warfare, I would not dream of adding music like that to a map as many people would hate it.
Anything with singing is a no-no as far as I am concerned, unless it relates to the map in some clever way.
I agree fully. Legality problems aside, music with singing is usually extremely distracting. Any kind of pop song cannot possibly fit the mood (unless you're making a specific pop-themed map, which is a problem in itself) and any player with different tastes in music (which I assume would be a pretty large part of the potential players) will be completely alienated by it. Even people who might like it would surely resent a huge low-quality version of a song they'd normally like be played in a loop while they are trying to focus on the game. I'd even say it's better to set a good music you don't personally like but which fits the map and the mood than set a completely unrelated low-quality pop song you like.

Some people consider music to be an unimportant aside, but that's really not true. A good music can help a map and a bad one can kill it. I have mediocre maps I like because of the track and nice maps I never launch because the music sucks and I'm too lazy to manually change it. Just remember you can't just shut it out of your ears and brain, and that what you're hearing in a FPS is important to get where the enemy is and what is happening around.

EDIT: listened to the track. I'd never launch a map with this song even if it was a good one :s
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Re: Converting audio Into UMX format

Post by ShaiHulud »

Funnily enough, that track has already been used in a UT map - a BT map actually - BT-HighVoltage
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Chamberly
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Re: Converting audio Into UMX format

Post by Chamberly »

This thread is about Converting audio into UMX format. Not about your taste in music and other things, please.
I don't understand how WAV is part of hacking?

Another thing, don't target/attack me because of such thing you don't like.
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Hellkeeper
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Re: Converting audio Into UMX format

Post by Hellkeeper »

Well then the conversting is an easy process.

Save your track as a wav.
In ModPlug Tracker, import it as an instrument.
Play a single C4 note with this instrument, this will launch the track.
Make sure you add enough blank space so that your "note" has the time to finish.
Export as a tracker file and import into UT as a UMX.
This will make the file humongous because you are using an uncompressed wav file. You can counter this by downgrading the quality of the wav, but it will still be large and low quality is unpleasant to hear.
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memsys
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Re: Converting audio Into UMX format

Post by memsys »

Dr.Flay wrote:-snip-
UMX is a wrapper for tracker module files.
UMX is not designed to have WAV files hacked into it. You will find random results from hacky UMX files because people who don't know what they are doing, create mangled files.
Real "Tracker" files are free, small and designed for this use, whereas hacking WAVs into UMX format is bulky and makes maps into far bigger downloads than they ever need to be.
There are loads of sites with heaps of free tracker files.

:!: I would also point out it is illegal to use copyright material without getting permission, so unless you do the same as you would for a mod, texture or any other U-resource, and contact the author for permission, I would advise against it :wth:
(I run a record label, so what do you expect me to say ?)

-snip-

I am quite brutal with all maps I install that come with a UMX bigger than the map data or contain singing, and I re-save them all with "Fifth.umx" from Unreal.
My last install of UT had 6 different UMX files all with the same damned AC/DC song (which I love), all of different quality and volume, each many times bigger than an mp3.
What a waste of my drive space, when I have the full quality mp3 I can listen to any time.
-snip-
I understand you frown on the .WAV in UMX hackery but many people have no clue how to use a tracker to make music or where to find good free tracks. The best they can do to add a custom music track is to hack in a .WAV file.
My latest map has a custom track that is hacked but I did keep filesize in mind (4mb is not that bad) but the only other option is learning how to make music and use a tracker or spend hours and hours to find something that kinda fits.
I find your stand " UMX bigger than the map data" specifically a bit unfair towards the mapper, if the music is crap I understand but in a map like MH-EasterInWonderLand that is well made with music that fits I find that attitude valid but a bit extreme.
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Re: Converting audio Into UMX format

Post by Dr.Flay »

Chamberly wrote:This thread is about Converting audio into UMX format. Not about your taste in music and other things, please.
I don't understand how WAV is part of hacking?

Another thing, don't target/attack me because of such thing you don't like.
The hack reference is due to what is being done to turn a WAV into a UMX.
It is a hack (hacking is older than internet hackers, and simply means making something do a thing it is not made for), and not how tracker modules work. This is why it is a bit messy to make them.
A real tracker module lets the player know when it is finished, but a WAV does not so you have to tell it where it ends.
This is why I wrote my own tutorial to actually teach what is going on.

Sorry if you feel I targeted you, but I did not. What I said is aimed very much at everyone. You just happened to raise the issue again, and as the owner of a record label for free non-copyright music, it is something I will always be passionate about (wrong place, wrong time. don't worry about it)
My only comment aimed specifically at you was "If you show you have permission or find a mashup/remix alternative, then I would happily convert that."
Other than that every single word is aimed at anyone looking to add bloated and illegal material into their distros.

@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.
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Re: Converting audio Into UMX format

Post by Hellkeeper »

Dr.Flay wrote:
Chamberly wrote: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.
Wait, do you mean 8bit mono is not full quality music? You must be out of your mind! next you're going to tell me that 256 paletted colours textures are not HD-compliant!
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Re: Converting audio Into UMX format

Post by Chamberly »

Hellkeeper wrote:
Dr.Flay wrote:
Chamberly wrote: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.
Wait, do you mean 8bit mono is not full quality music? You must be out of your mind! next you're going to tell me that 256 paletted colours textures are not HD-compliant!
I think you messed up on the quoting lol. I'm not sure what's up but it seem like a lot of wreck going on. :?:
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Dr.Flay
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Re: Converting audio Into UMX format

Post by Dr.Flay »

Hehe, yeah the quoting is a bit messed-up, but I no worries ;)

Anyway, see the first post for a quick video showing how to turn a normal music file into a UMX :tu:
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