Editing the Sounds of Music
Joke name aside this tutorial will be showing in general how to find the sound you want to replace/edit. With the end result hopefully making it so you can edit the base Cabin Music - More Variety mod by beccatoria and myself. That will be easier to edit than some examples in this tutorial as I made sure that package was remade to be easier to edit. I will show what it originally looks like compared to the mods version of the same package. I highly advise only remaking a package if you know what you are doing or testing thoroughly once you've done it.
Legendary Explorer
- Asset Database
- Package Editor
- Sound Explorer
- AFC Compactor
ME3 Tweaks Mod Manager
- ASI Manager (Streaming Levels HUD)
First we need to work out where we want to look at, to do this we want to use the Streaming Levels HUD asi so in game we can see what packages are being streamed, which will give us a good idea of what packages to look at.
The Streaming Levels HUD ASI is super handy to help work out what PCC (package) you want to edit.
You can find it in ME3 Tweaks Mod Manager > Mod Management > ASI Mod Manager (see image 01)
Once open click on the game you want to install the ASI for, then click on Streaming Levels HUD and then install ASI (see image 02)
Then in game you get to the area you want to edit. On top left you will see green and yellow text such as image 03 below.
So why do we do this? We do this to better work out what PCC we may need to edit in the area we go to. So when we use asset database we can search for all mentioned packages and open them until we find the one we believe the sound is being streamed from.
So from my image above we would assume the Cabin music is being streamed from BioD_Nor_101CabinMusic
So since we have a rough idea of which file we want to edit or look at we open Asset Database which can be found Legendary Explorer > Utilities > Asset Database (see image 04)
If you have already scanned the game to create the database for the game you're editing it will look something like this (see image 05)
For more detailed information on the other tabs we won't be using in this tutorial for Asset Database including setting up the database see this guide Finding in game assets quickly by Kinkojiro
However if you want to generate a new database go to Database and generate new database (see image 06)
Now in the top right search bar type in the package you want to find, in this case CabinMusic (see image 07)
Now right click the package and click open in windows explorer (see image 08)
This will open the game folder with the package highlighted (see image 09) so we can copy the package into our dlc folder, this way if we edit anything it won't be editing the basegame file but a copy of it.
Now don't close asset database as if we find out we need to edit another file we can search for it and copy that as well.
So now we want to open the package we copied in package editor. Found under Core Editors in Legendary Explorer (see image 10)
Drag the package you copied into the part of the window of package editor that says welcome to package editor (see image 11)
Open up the folder that says WWise Streaming. Wwise is the format used for the sounds in the game. Now when opened up you will see at the top we have two things that say play and stop, that have a positive number and then a bunch of files that start with negatives. (see image 12)
If you ever see files that start with negatives this means the files are streaming from another package. If we scroll down this list until we find the ones with shepradio in the name we can see those are negative as well. This means Shepards music in the cabin streams from another package not the CabinMusic package (see image 13)
Right click on one of the music files and then we want to click on Attempt to find definition of import, as the package editor says it will attempt to find the source of the import. But due to how unreal engine handles memory it may not be the one it uses. So far in most cases it has for me found the one it uses (see image 14)
It will open a package file directly to a asset of the same name of what you wanted to search for. As we can see now the files are not a negative and in upper right it is the BioP_Nor (see image 15)
Now if we wanted to straight replace this track or all these tracks we would right click the sound asset and Open in Sound Explorer (see image 16)
Now if no other mods edited this file it would be okay, or you would need to make a patch for the other mod that edits it as well. However in this instance the BioP_Nor is used in a very popular mod, Expanded Galaxy Mod. So if we wanted to edit the sound in the BioP_Nor it would override EGM's if mounted above that mod. Or EGM would override ours if we were mounted below.
However having said that let's continue, as patching would come later once your mod is done. When Soundplorer is open it will look like in Image 17
Now if we wanted to replace this track we would first click Replace (see image 18)
Now locate the track you want to replace the music with, and in the new window (see image 19) change the Sample Rate to 44100 and make sure it picked the correct game under Game then click replace Audio. If you run into issues where the music doesn't play fully click Update Event Lengths on import
When you've finished replacing all the sounds you want to replace for your mod you need to use AFC compactor (see Image 20)
This is what afc compactor looks like when it opens (see Image 21)
In the drop down menu change to the game you are working on, in this tutorials example LE3 (see Image 22)
Now if you have multiple options for your mod in which case you likely have folders outside your DLC_MOD_yourmodname folder. Such as Image 23
Before using AFC it is best to move these optional folders into the CookedPCConsole folder within your DLC_MOD_yourmodname folder so afc compactor will compact the edited audio in these as well (see image 24)
Now once you've done this we can go back into afc compactor and click on Select folder and locate your DLC_MOD_yourmodname folder making sure to click on that folder (see Image 25)
Then we click on scan for references (see image 26)
Once it finishes scanning you may need to tick and untick the audio to include for example see image 27
Now if the compact Audio text is not greyed out you can now click on it to compact your DLC afc (see Image 28)
Now once its finished compacting and you've tested your mod is working, your mod is finished. Congrats
So this is where we come to why I've done the edits I have done for the Cabin Music - More Variety, I rebuilt the CabinMusic package to still work as it normally does, but to also not be streaming from BioP_Nor instead it directly uses CabinMusic for the music. However due to how the mod works you still need to be mounted above this mod in order for you to only need to edit CabinMusic. Which basically makes Cabin Music - More Variety a framework.
So what Cabin Music - More Variety does by having the sounds in that file and having the framework your mod doesn't require the BioP_Nor it just requires this mod to be installed for others to use, as it makes it compatible with EGM and leaves any updates to that file only on my end not your end. And is why myself and beccatoria also made it so more music could be used via an extra playlist. In fact without beccatoria the second playlist would not be a thing, which is why the mod is as much hers as it is mine.
And also why we made it as a base for anyone who wants to make their own cabin music, though please read the permissions before doing so. As we put a lot of work into this mod to make it as a base for others.