How To Add In Your Own Music To M2TW

[LuiSius_ScutaRuS]

I'm playing SS 5.0 too. I'm going to do that then, copy the text files, edit the 'battle_events' and then delete the events files.

Thanks

[Artemikon]

have a question.

how can i play a mod (Deus lo Vult, is for Medieval2:Kingdoms) with a music from Kingdoms addon?

i need just a Tactical map music(not a battle map music) from a Crusaders campaign, for all factions.

[Chevalier IX]

Okay then,I followed through all of the instructions,but lo and behold it is just not working out...I am quiete good at directions and followed them through,but just no dice...now perhaps this is it...is it perhaps one must change ALL of the music files,and not just some for this to work??I have looked at the files of others that have changed the music ingame and this seems to be the case...please,any information would be great

edit:alright then,I have since figured my problem and everything is running smooththanx to all that took notice and thank you for such a wonderful tutorial

[funky_kiwi]

it's a nightmare I can't believe it ! I had it right on my former computer but on my new one, I am exactly following the instructions (I'm trying to change the main menu's music), but nothing changes, I've erased (Frontend_1)_Amen from the music folder AND deleted all the required .DAT & .idx files, I it still finds a way to reappear in the game !!!!!! can someone help me please ??

[funky_kiwi]

allright I'have figured out something, when the game starts, I get the original music (that I had supposedly erased from the music folder), then if I come back to desktop using the task manadger thing, WITHOUT quitting the game & the come back to the game, then the music changes & I get the new one. Can anyone explain me what's actually happening ?

[Javolenus]

Many thanks for this tutorial, which has helped me insert some good music into MTW2 vanilla.

But I'd like to have my custom music in Stainless Steel, which I play more than vanilla. Although I followed the guidelines here in this thread, I can't seem to get the modified music working in SS, only in vanilla.

Is there a solution to this?

Also, although I unchecked 'read only' on the preferences.cfg and added the first line command, whenever I go back into the preferences file, the first line command has disappeared, even though I saved the file after adding the line.

could this be why the modded music won't work in SS?

Any help appreciated!

[Javolenus]

Hi Guys,

Ignore my last post. I managed to get music working great in both vanilla and Stainless Steel. I just followed both methods in the original tutorial (thanks again for that!). First I modded the vanilla folders and then I modded the SS folders. I also improved the sound quality of my added mp3 files by downloading a prog called mp3Gain.

Finally, if anyone's is interested, the music I added was:

John Dowland (lute musc)
Thomas Tallis (vocal music)
plus some Polish medieval music and some medieval church music

Changing the game music has improved the game environment for the better. Thanks again for the great tutorial - much appreciated and much indebted.

[DeuxExMachinema]

MAIN DATA FOLDER METHOD

For this method, you'll have to use the io.file first command. You can either create a new batch file with the "medieval2.exe --io.file_first" command or you can put:
in your config file (medieval2.preference.cfg).

For the main data folder method I understand every step except this one.

[Yamoto]

Ok, weird. I've have my music in the game, but I've lost all other sounds.
So whats happening? (BTW, I'm playing with Deus Lo Vult.)

[Trajan]

For the main data folder method I understand every step except this one.

Open up your medieval2preference.cfg file and put this inside:

[io]
file_first = true

Save it and right click the cfg. file, properties, and be sure "Read-only" is checked.

Ok, weird. I've have my music in the game, but I've lost all other sounds.
So whats happening? (BTW, I'm playing with Deus Lo Vult.)

Not sure. Doesn't that mod add it's own sfx or music? It could be maybe you made a mistake in the descr_sounds_music.txt file? Read the instructions again in the first post and be sure you follow it carefully.

[~Ghost~]

nice tutorial very usefull.

[uanime5]

Is it possible to edit the descr_sounds files so that M2TW uses the sound files in the vanilla directory, rather than the mod sound folder (so you don't have to copy the whole folder vanilla data/sounds folder)?

I tried changing the path links in these files from 'folder data/sounds' to 'folder ../../data/sounds' but this didn't work.

[Hermes33]

Following the instructions in this thread, I now have music from Gladiator, Master & Commander, Kingdom of Heaven, Last of the Mohicans, King Arthur, Braveheart, the original MTW score and various classical pieces from Wagner, Holst and Prokofiev in my M2TW games and mods. It took a few hours to do it but what took me the longest time was fitting my music collection styles in appropriately with the "mobilize", "tension" and "battle" concepts and cues. To do a better job than just simply dump the whole track into the game I edited most down to smaller segments; I used that old faithful prog "Cool Edit pro" to do that and it worked beautifully. I'm no programming expert though so if I can do it, anyone can

Thank you Trajan x10000!!!! You made M2TW into a whole new game for me. I'd +rep you if I was able to.

EDIT1: uanime5, forgive me if you're referring to the sound effects rather than the music? I can only assume by "sound files" you mean the "music" as this is what this tutorial thread is about. Then yes, like you I thought of doing that too. I agree, at first it seemed like a good idea (i.e. in the interests of saving hard disc space?)

BTW, of course, you don't have to copy the vanilla M2TW music folder like you mentioned; whether you do - or don't - depends on what individual mp3's you want to play in the game... personally I wanted to keep all the original campaign map atmospheric music and just added Jeff van Dyck's nice MTW1 map music to it (as well as all the Kingdoms audio cues).

For example, if you extract the M2TW: Kingdoms British Isles Campaign music from a fresh install: Medieval II Total War\mods\british_isles\data\sounds\Music.dat and take a look at the files in there, you will see that it has ALL of the mp3's required for playing the mod (including the "old" M2TW music tracks it uses, such as a couple of vanilla battle and tension tracks if I remember right). So, as far as I could tell, it appears that the game was designed to use the music files in one place only (Music.dat) and not in several different locations. I could be wrong about this, but let's say our idea worked with editing descr_sounds_music.txt to point to several different disc locations such as the vanilla M2TW folder. Well, even if worked, it's only going to get compiled into a combined Music.dat anyway every time you run a particular mod.

EDIT2: I play Stainless Steel 6.1 mostly and the procedure for modding the music in that is no different than any other mod (other than the fact there's a lot more editing to do as it's quite a large mod compared to the default Kingdoms campaigns). Notice that if you extract the Music.dat from it (or for me, as I recall it was already in mp3 format in its data\sounds\music folder), you'll see that the team renamed the Last of the Mohicans frontend menu track (actually Promentory.mp3) to the Kingdoms British Isles default "(Britannia_Main_Menu)_Dream_of_Albion.mp3". This is one way of doing it, but to save confusion I renamed it back to its original filename and added the Albion track as well as a few other menu tracks (I don't think there is a limit other than RAM or hard disc space). Just put your edited "descr_sounds_music.txt" in the data folder above it and don't forget to make a copy so you don't lose all your work.

Thanks again Trajan for an awesome tutorial, you really made the game for me. Cheers!

[King Clivus]

Excellent tutorial, thanks Trajan! Thank you to Hermes too, I now understand the file format perfectly (or at least good enough that I have new music)

[The Colonel]

Hey, on which line do you find the main menu music? ive edited everything else fine, i just cant seem to find where the main menu music is! how do i edit it?

[Trajan]

Hey, on which line do you find the main menu music? ive edited everything else fine, i just cant seem to find where the main menu music is! how do i edit it?

It's located in the frontend section:

;;; FRONTEND


		state MUSIC_FRONTEND
			event 
				folder data/sounds/music
				Menu_Theme1.mp3
			end

[Linyoa]

thanks for the help! this worked great!

[SSJPabs]

I'm trying to add in the Kingdoms music. Where are the Kingdoms folders "descr_sounds_music.txt" files? I can't seem to find them and I have unpacked the campaigns. I want to know what songs go where officially. For now I have added them manually.

Also, W00t a crash! Playing Retrofit... luckily I backed it up before I started but here's the code.

ED: Got it to work. Had to delete all the sound files except for descr_sounds_music. It looks like it's working but I'll have to try out a European faction to make sure that War of Kings plays (it's my favorite TW song you see...).

[Piotrburz]

How to add own music to mod Stainless Steel? I added track to sounds/music and added title of track in descr_sounds_music, and nothing happend.

EDIT: Problem solved, i was enough stupid or not enough focused on topic.
Too much beer and everyhing is twice harder

[virtu]

Thanks for the tutorial.

I'm trying to edit my SS music, I've successfully changed the main menu music, what I did was added the music file to sounds/music folder, and wrote the names in sounds_descr_music.txt file and deleted the necessary .dat/.idx files.

I tried to do the same for campaign map and battle music but had a major fail, reading the tutorial I realized I have to install the sound text file from CA, I did that and edited the names a bit and the game CTD twice before it finally starts and the sounds was messed up, interface and my faction sounds were missing.

From what I understand, the sound text file downloaded reset the sounds in the game or something, what I need to do is just add some music to the already existing ones, namely the Medieval TW music, how can I do that without messing the mod up?