Customizing the music

[seclists]

As most of you probably know, the game music is in MP3 format and you can easily customize the music for extra colour. I'm finding this a very nice "feature", since I was not overly thrilled with some of the preset tunes. They were either too short or too bland/repetitive/similar. Here are some replacements that I did, and I must say they positively added colour (to an already immersive game):

Easy combat: "Mars, Bringer of War" (from "The Planets" by Holst) & "Riddle of Steel/Riders of Doom" (from "Conan the Barbarian")
Normal combat: the Sacrifice scene (from "King Kong" by Steiner) & "Capricorn One" (end credits? main theme?)
Tough combat: "Largo" (by Handel?, from "Barry Lyndon") - it is very funeral-style and ominous, but I may replace this with something more aggressive in near future
Victory: Military March from Barry Lyndon & Fanfare from King Kong (I left #3 unchanged)
Wilderness: "The Search" (from Conan the Barbarian) & "Cutthroat Island" (main title) - these two are superb!
Underground: "The Species" (end credits)
Arnika: "Concerning Hobbits" (from "The Fellowship of the Ring", by Howard Shore)
(Trynton - this was an atmosmpheric tune and I left it unchanged)
Umpani: ok, here I felt a bit humorous (because I find the Umpani - in all their seriousness - rather comical) and picked the Military March from the classic Disney cartoon movie, "The Jungle Book"!
T'Rang: haven't decided yet, but I'll probably pick something from Holst's "The Planets" for them

If you have customized the music, too, what are *you* using? Please let me know... [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Ragash]

Woo, that's a wicked idea [img]smile.gif[/img] I've never customized the music in any other game than Tribes 2 (only a few tracks), but I thought of doing it for Morrowind. Since I'm spending more time than I ever have with a computer game in Wizardry 8 I might as well start fiddling with it [img]smile.gif[/img]

I'll post my list when I've got it sorted.. expect it to be heavy tho

[Horpner Sneed]

Those sound like excellent choices!

I wouldn't choose the Holst because it's too familiar, though.

I customized the music for a while, and liked it:

Easy Combat: Chopin Prelude No. 24, played by Rubinstein
Easy Combat Variation: They Might be Giants: "Space Suit", from _Apollo 18_
Combat: Master of Puppets, Metallica
Combat Variation: Don't Trust the Needle, Queensryche
Hard Combat: Damage Inc., Metallica


I also replaced one of the outdoor themes with Rush: Natural Science, and the Arnika theme with Bach Prelude in C Major from the C major cello suite, played on banjo by Bela Fleck.

I've turned them all back to the defaults now, but you've given me some good ideas. A main one being that I should get the Conan soundtrack.

Horpner Sneed

[Nightowl2]

That IS a terrific idea! Can you explain exactly how you went about doing this?

I didn't see Barry Lyndon, but that Largo might be from Handel's Xerxes, which is a bit gloomy (though good). If you want something really funereal, try Albinoni's (but not really) Adagio, which might be good for those times when the party is crushed

Nightowl2

[Ragash]

WHOA, I picked Master of Puppets for combat too! .. it ain't done yet tho I think I'll be switching songs pretty often, at least the combat ones..

Another Queensrÿche fan then? [img]smile.gif[/img] Listening to Operation: Mindcrime as I type this

[seclists]

For those who haven't tried to customize the music yet, here's a simple "how to":

Locate the data\music\ subdir inside your Wizardry 8 folder. The tracks are the mp3 files in this folder. Most of them use 160 kbps, but (IIRC) some use 192 kbps instead; you can verify this with your mp3 player. I don't know if the bitrate makes a difference, but I tried to encode the new tracks using the bitrates that the respective original tracks had.

All you need to do is to replace a sound file with a new one (mp3 format). The names are very descriptive and give you a good idea of which track is used when (or you could simply open them with your mp3 player). Of course you might wish to make backups of the original files before replacing them, just in case something goes wrong so you won't have to re-install the whole game... [img]smile.gif[/img]
(I have a separate "backup" directory with the original mp3 files.)

[ 01-14-2004, 06:55 AM: Message edited by: seclists ]

[Horpner Sneed]

Ragash wrote:
> WHOA, I picked Master of Puppets for combat too!

I believe I got the idea from reading old posts on this board, so you may have been the inspiration.

> Another Queensryche fan then? Listening to Operation:
> Mindcrime as I type this

That is a brilliant album. It might be a bit too dark for some people, though. I love the instrumental section of "Needle", which makes it a great combat song.

The Dark Savant is going to be staring into the eyes of a stranger quite soon. I hope he enjoys it.

Seclists wrote:
> I don't know if the bitrate makes a difference [...]

You do not need to worry about matching bit-rates on your replacemtns files. I haven't paid any attention to them, and had no trouble. The MP3 library used by Wiz8 must be somewhat general-purpose.

Horpner Sneed

[Pyrates]

For anyone who wants a step-by-step explanation: http://geocities.com/jandrall/Wizardry8/musicchange.htm , which is a great site anyway...

Cheers
Philipp

[seclists]

I'm digging up this old thread I started a while ago simply because I have just discovevered the PERFECT track for the Rapax! The CD had been in my shelf since 1993 or so and I had completely forgotten all about it.
So the Rapax areas in my game now play "The Enemy God and the Dance of the Spirits of Darkness" from Serge Prokofiev's Scythian Suite. Its overall atmosphere somewhat resembles that of the original Rapax track, sinister and menacing, but it is faster, louder and more aggressive than the original track.
My CD is the Neeme Jarvi version (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...53548?v=glance), but there should be a good few brilliant recordings of this extraordinary work.
Yes, it makes the game even MORE fun to play. [img]smile.gif[/img]