Command Performance On Your Boat's Radio

[Von Manteuffel]

COMMAND PERFORMANCE

IF YOU DO NOT EDIT YOUR RADIO.INI, THIS MOD WILL NOT WORK.

Command Performance contains 90 shows, approximately 30 minutes in length ( Christmas and other Specials are longer)

Shows are broadcast at 20.00 on the 5th and 19th of each month from January 5th 1942 to July 19th 1945. The Christmas specials - the 19th December show in 1942, 1943 &1944 - range between 1 hour (1942 ) and 2 hours (1944).

The 5th & 19th broadcast pattern is changed after July 19th, 1945 to enable inclusion of the “Victory in Europe “ Special on the day it was actually transmitted – 14.08.45. The next programme is on 24.08.45, followed by the VJ Special, again on the actual broadcast date – 02.09.45. All are at 20.00.

Command Performance was produced by the American Forces Radio Service out of Los Angeles. The show’s original Producer went to the Head of the Station with the idea for a show whose contents were based on requests from U.S. servicemen abroad. Soldiers, sailors and airmen would write-in saying who they would like to hear – singers, bands, Hollywood stars etc – and the artists would be invited to perform. “Invited, Hell!” said the Station Head, “We’ll command them to perform!” and so the show was born. It ran from early 1942 to 1949 and featured most of the household names in music, comedy and Hollywood of the time.

Command Performance was designed as an unashamed morale-booster and the biggest names in entertainment, when requested, made every effort to appear, rather than disappoint “the boys over there.”

The shows follow the same generic format, but the emphasis ( music / comedy ) depends on the guest stars. Since all the acts were requests from servicemen overseas there are lots of references to individuals in the different branches of the service in all parts of the world. This IMHO really adds to the immersion.

If you want to increase the number of plays for each show, you’ll need to edit the events.ini file to include repeats ( say on the 12th for the shows from the 5th and the 26th for the shows from the 19th ) It’s a fairly straightforward process.

I’m afraid the whole thing’s a bit hefty, coming in at around 500 MB uncompressed. (but you are getting nearly 50 hours of genuine, wartime radio, designed specifically for servicemen.)

The mod is JSGME format. Non-JSGME users, please see the READ ME file with the download. Whether using JSGME, or not you will have to edit your own radio.ini file so you don’t clash with any other radio mods you might have. You will need to add the following to your radio.ini found in \data\sound\radio

;COMMAND PERFORMANCE
;==========================

[CHANNEL]
Name=Command Performance
Folder=AFRS
Freq=XXX
Antenna=01.01.1930-01.01.2000:13.35,142.20:100000

;==========================

You’ll have to enter your own frequency, replacing “XXX.” If you have other radio stations already in your radio.ini file, remember that the frequencies of the different stations must be within the file in numerical order and it’s best to have a gap of at least 10 between adjacent frequencies.

The easiest solution is to paste this new channel at the bottom of the list. For the frequency number, look at the frequency of the previous station and add 10 to it to get the freq number for this station. Frequencies go from 1 to 1000, but if, like me, you have a large number of radio stations in SHIV, it can be a bit of a bind tuning your way up station by station.

If you want a different frequency, you can paste this entry in between other stations and select an appropriate frequency in between those stations. Make sure to have the stations ordered by frequency in the radio.ini. For example if you make this station's frequency=23, do not paste it before stations lower than 23 nor after stations higher than 23. Remember to space them roughly 10 frequencies apart.

If you don't use JSGME, just drop the AFRS folder in \data\sound\radio and make sure to edit the radio.ini as instructed.

You can put music files in \data\sound\radio\AFRS if you want (these files will play randomly on the station), but currently that music will overlap with the Command Performance shows when they’re transmitted making them hard to hear. The next patch should allow for a fix for this issue.

Finally a huge thank you to tedhealy for his invaluable and patient help and guidance and for the ground-breaking work he’s done and continues to do for the benefit of the Subsim community.

Here’s the download link:



http://hosted.filefront.com/ddudley/



W.I.P. Glenn Miller Station
BIg Band Station(s)
Avalon Time (Red Skelton)

[tedhealy]

Downloading now.

[Von Manteuffel]

\oops!

It's been edited!

[tedhealy]

I haven't tried it in game, but I listened to parts of some of the files and looked over the events.ini...This looks and sounds great

[tedhealy]

I see you have events for august 14th, 1945 and even later. I believe you get the war is over message and the game ends on the 13th or 14th, so you'll never hear those files.

[Von Manteuffel]

Thanks, Ted,

Another Oops!

I've never actually got that far in the game.

I won't bother editing the files and re-uploading, but the end of War specials are well worth hearing. I suggest that anyone interested goes into the events.ini file in the \Date\Sound\RAdio\AFRS\Events\ folder and edits the last 4 entries as follows:





;august 1945
;------------

[EVENT]
StartDate=05.08.1945
StartTime=20.00.00
MediaFile=CP4501545.mp3

[EVENT]
StartDate=10.08.1945
StartTime=20.00.00
MediaFile=CP4501645.mp3

[EVENT]
StartDate=11.08.1945
StartTime=20.00.00
MediaFile=CP4501745.mp3

[EVENT]
StartDate=12.08.1945
StartTime=20.00.00
MediaFile=CP4501845.mp3



So, there'ss be a broadcast on August 5th and then 3 on consecutive days - 10th, 11th & 12th August, which should give a suitable culmination to the end of hostilities.

[Bill Nichols]

Whatever happened to this? It's no longer available at the download link.

[XanderF]

Indeed, seems 'thoroughly gone' - can't find it ANYWHERE!

EDIT: Actually, looks like it's up on U-Boot.RealSimulation

[XanderF]

After downloading these...I'm finding a LOT of very time-specific recordings. Has anyone tried to create an 'event' file for this to have the recordings only happen around a certain date?

[tedhealy]

Von Manteuffel did make a events.ini. 2 shows a month get run. Looking over the events.ini, the programs appear to be within the correct year, but I don't know about the month based on the file names.

edit: It seems as though the u-boot.realsimulation link to this file doesn't include the events.ini? I'll upload the version I have which has it to my filefront account tonight as it's a great mod and I know Von Manteuffel put a lot of work into the events.ini. I'll post the link here when it's uploaded.

[nikimcbee]

Does it have a specific channel setting?

[tdean001]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

Does it have a specific channel setting?

For the only version currently available (the one at ubootsimulation), there is no radio.ini file. So, you have to edit radio.ini (in your MOD folder if you're using JGSME) and include Command Performance.

Here's my current setup:

[CHANNEL]
Name=Command Performance
Folder=AFRS
Freq=50
Antenna=01.01.1930-01.01.2000:42.00,-87.00:100000
;MusicVolumeOnNews takes values from 0.01 to 1

Currently, there is no event.ini file, either, so the tracks just play at random. As Ted mentioned above, he's going to add his copy of the old event.ini file to his FileFront account, so we can get it and have these tracks play at the right times.
MusicVolumeOnNews=0.01

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by XanderF

Indeed, seems 'thoroughly gone' - can't find it ANYWHERE!

EDIT: Actually, looks like it's up on U-Boot.RealSimulation

Can't get there.

Need to be registered to download and registration page's input fields seem to be disabled - at least for me.

Any other mirrors?

[Von Manteuffel]

Apologies. I've been away from the game and the forums for quite a time and just decided to do a bit of catching up before having to disappear for another few weeks. Not sure what happened to the Filefront File. I appear to be having a few problems with FileFront at the moment. If anyone wants the original events.ini file, just drop me a PM with an e-mail address and I'll send it to you.

[tedhealy]

Just uploaded a mirror of the original version.

http://files.filefront.com/CommandPe.../fileinfo.html

and here's the ini just in case you don't want to download 400+ MB just for the ini

It will go in the \data\sound\radio\AFRS\Events folder with the command performance audio files.

http://files.filefront.com/commandPe.../fileinfo.html