Soviet Waterways Audio Bug

[Philipcrash]

Hey, I've been experiencing a rather annoying Audio bug with the Soviet Waterway mod for about 2 years now. Whenever I crashdive, speed up the game (at any rate) and slow it down back to 1x, a fraction of an audio track, half a second long, with the noticable ringing of an alarm in the background and someones voice, plays on a constant loop, every few seconds, for the entire game, and it doesn't go away until I go back to the menu. I find this really, really annoying because crashdiving is rather important and I haven't been able to use crashdives for 2 years now, since I would always be blared by that irritating noise.

Has anybody else ever encountered this, and has anybody found a fix for this?
Help me.

[Aktungbby]

Philipcrash!

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by Philipcrash

Hey, I've been experiencing a rather annoying Audio bug with the Soviet Waterway mod for about 2 years now. Whenever I crashdive, speed up the game (at any rate) and slow it down back to 1x, a fraction of an audio track, half a second long, with the noticable ringing of an alarm in the background and someones voice, plays on a constant loop, every few seconds, for the entire game, and it doesn't go away until I go back to the menu. I find this really, really annoying because crashdiving is rather important and I haven't been able to use crashdives for 2 years now, since I would always be blared by that irritating noise.

Has anybody else ever encountered this, and has anybody found a fix for this?
Help me.

See if this is similar to what you have:



That is from an early beta of FotRSU years ago. It seems that the "Creaks_Level1, 2, 3, & 4" files are the main culprit. They cannot exceed 15 seconds in length. The quick fix is to copy the four files out of your stock game's Sound folder and paste them into your waterways modded game folder. Most of the wav audio files in the game have certain "requirements" demanded by the audio streaming engine in the game. Generally speaking, a "stereo" (2-channel) file should be 44.1kHz at 16-bits, and not have any Zero dB "overs". Any "mono" (1-channel) files should be 22.050kHz 16-bit (which is the same quality as the "stereo" files). From there, some sounds are further restricted in length, such as 2 seconds, 5 seconds, 12 seconds, 15 seconds, one minute 15 seconds, etc. There is no "manual" to find this information in. Use the Stock game, and copy approximately the lengths they used there. If you look at the SH.sdl file in Silent3Ditor, you will see what the files are used for, such as gun shots, or sound effects, or ambience. Those categories determine how long the file can be time-wise... Good luck!

[Philipcrash]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

See if this is similar to what you have:



That is from an early beta of FotRSU years ago. It seems that the "Creaks_Level1, 2, 3, & 4" files are the main culprit. They cannot exceed 15 seconds in length. The quick fix is to copy the four files out of your stock game's Sound folder and paste them into your waterways modded game folder. Most of the wav audio files in the game have certain "requirements" demanded by the audio streaming engine in the game. Generally speaking, a "stereo" (2-channel) file should be 44.1kHz at 16-bits, and not have any Zero dB "overs". Any "mono" (1-channel) files should be 22.050kHz 16-bit (which is the same quality as the "stereo" files). From there, some sounds are further restricted in length, such as 2 seconds, 5 seconds, 12 seconds, 15 seconds, one minute 15 seconds, etc. There is no "manual" to find this information in. Use the Stock game, and copy approximately the lengths they used there. If you look at the SH.sdl file in Silent3Ditor, you will see what the files are used for, such as gun shots, or sound effects, or ambience. Those categories determine how long the file can be time-wise... Good luck!

Well, No.

It's not the Creaking noises, as there are no creaking noises added in either the soviet waterway mod, or the russian voices mod. Forgot to mention, but the noise only occurs when I have the Russian_Voice_Crew_for_SH4 (Corrections) or Russian_Voice_Crew_for_SH4 enabled.
And those 2 don't have any Creaking audio files.

[Philipcrash]

After assiduously testing the audio files of the Russian_Voice_Crew_for_SH4 (Corrections) mod, It turns out that the Submarine_CrashDive_INT.wav is at fault. It sounds like the very end of that 16 second long file is cut off and put on a loop. Removing the file fixed the issue, but it also feels rather barebones without it. Is there are any possible fix that could be implemented on the file?

[propbeanie]

As I said, there are limits to the lengths of certain sounds in the SH3/SH4 Sounds wav files. Look in the Game \Data \Sounds folder, and you might also find other files that are too long, or at the wrong frequency, and maybe even bit depth. Bad audio can cause any number of seemingly un-diagnoseable issues, such as what you have. Several things you can do. Download skwasjer's Silent3Ditor app from here, and use is to look at the mod's SH.sdl file. Find the crash dive in the list:



Notice that it is set to "4 - FxMain"?? Find the DepthCranks playlist:



Notice that they are also set to "4 - FxMain"? Those files are limited to 15 seconds in length. Some are limited to 10 seconds.

Open that Sounds folder in the game, and find the associated files, such as:



If you right-click any file, and then choose "Properties", and then click on the "Details" tab, you can see how long the file is, which is 13 seconds in the above FotRSU example.

In order to do what you want, download the Audacity audio editor, and load in the crash dive file (Submarine_CrashDive_int.wav). On the menu, choose "Effect" and then "Change speed and pitch". You can use either a multiplier, such as "1.09" or a percentage of change, or type into the bottom set of digits for "New Length". You want it to play the file in a shorter period of time, such as 14.98 or whatever. You could also try some of the "Stretch" settings under that for "tempo", since the Change does do speed and pitch, so the pitch of the sounds will go up using that. You might also be able to cut off some blank time at the beginning and/or end of the file, and not have to use so much of any one Effect. If you have something like Sound Forge or any one of a number of other audio editors, you can do similar. You may or may not like the results you get that way. For some sounds that I have worked on for other mods, I have cut audio out of the middle of a file, and then "slide" the cut portion over another part of the file, and "mix" them together... It can be a lot of fun doing that, but if things do not work the way you want, it can be frustrating as well... If you make cuts though, be sure you use what are called "zero crossings" to place your cuts. You have to zoom way in on the audio file to see the actual "wave" of the audio amplitude. But you want your cuts to be at 0dB locations...

[Philipcrash]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

As I said, there are limits to the lengths of certain sounds in the SH3/SH4 Sounds wav files. Look in the Game \Data \Sounds folder, and you might also find other files that are too long, or at the wrong frequency, and maybe even bit depth. Bad audio can cause any number of seemingly un-diagnoseable issues, such as what you have. Several things you can do. Download skwasjer's Silent3Ditor app from here, and use is to look at the mod's SH.sdl file. Find the crash dive in the list:



Notice that it is set to "4 - FxMain"?? Find the DepthCranks playlist:



Notice that they are also set to "4 - FxMain"? Those files are limited to 15 seconds in length. Some are limited to 10 seconds.

Open that Sounds folder in the game, and find the associated files, such as:



If you right-click any file, and then choose "Properties", and then click on the "Details" tab, you can see how long the file is, which is 13 seconds in the above FotRSU example.

In order to do what you want, download the Audacity audio editor, and load in the crash dive file (Submarine_CrashDive_int.wav). On the menu, choose "Effect" and then "Change speed and pitch". You can use either a multiplier, such as "1.09" or a percentage of change, or type into the bottom set of digits for "New Length". You want it to play the file in a shorter period of time, such as 14.98 or whatever. You could also try some of the "Stretch" settings under that for "tempo", since the Change does do speed and pitch, so the pitch of the sounds will go up using that. You might also be able to cut off some blank time at the beginning and/or end of the file, and not have to use so much of any one Effect. If you have something like Sound Forge or any one of a number of other audio editors, you can do similar. You may or may not like the results you get that way. For some sounds that I have worked on for other mods, I have cut audio out of the middle of a file, and then "slide" the cut portion over another part of the file, and "mix" them together... It can be a lot of fun doing that, but if things do not work the way you want, it can be frustrating as well... If you make cuts though, be sure you use what are called "zero crossings" to place your cuts. You have to zoom way in on the audio file to see the actual "wave" of the audio amplitude. But you want your cuts to be at 0dB locations...

Honestly, I thought about using Audacity at first, but I didn't know how to export it as a .wav file.
However, it works now.
Thanks.

[propbeanie]

It is definitely a counter-intuitive process "Exporting" a wav file, but once you get the hang of it, it seems easy-peasy. Just be sure you are using the 44.1kHz at 16-bits for the files...