My new sound effects are static

[Deleted User bye]

In the past hour, I've been attempting to replace the monster and player death sound, but whenever they trigger with my new sound effects, it plays a loud static sound:

(Loud sound warning)

https://1drv.ms/v/s!AoWCowdleidrlHJZ74aD3di2U-V5?e=PiPgxo

 

It works in gzdoom, and all of the audio is in the OGG format.

[Shepardus]

You'll need to convert the sound effects to the Doom sound format for them to work in most source ports. I believe there's a function in SLADE to do that if you right-click on the lump.

[Deleted User bye]

2 minutes ago, Shepardus said:

You'll need to convert the sound effects to the Doom sound format for them to work in most source ports. I believe there's a function in SLADE to do that if you right-click on the lump.

Could you show me how, I don't see it.

[Shepardus]

Ah, turns out SLADE can convert WAV format to/from the Doom format, but not OGG. You'll need to use other software to convert to WAV and then use SLADE to convert to the Doom format (when you right-click a WAV format lump there should be an "Audio" menu, within which is "Convert WAV to Doom sound").

[Deleted User bye]

Just now, Shepardus said:

Ah, turns out SLADE can convert WAV format to/from the Doom format, but not OGG. You'll need to use other software to convert to WAV and then use SLADE to convert to the Doom format (when you right-click a WAV format lump there should be an "Audio" menu, within which is "Convert WAV to Doom sound").

Tysm, just one more question :D When you convert it, will it decrease audio quality?

[Shepardus]

Conversion to WAV should be lossless but the Doom format would probably lose some resolution on account of using 8-bit samples (see wiki article on the sound format).

 

I also just remembered that DMXConv, part of the DoomTools suite, can also do this conversion, and can also handle non-WAV formats if you have FFmpeg.

[Dark Pulse]

2 hours ago, AtomIsTired said:

Tysm, just one more question :D When you convert it, will it decrease audio quality?

In a sense of speaking, yes, because most Doom sound effects are unsigned 8-bit, 11 kHz, mono. (The few exceptions are the Super Shotgun reload sounds and the item respawn sound, which are 22 kHz instead.)

 

Therefore, it's likely better that you convert your sounds to that as a WAV before importing.

 

For what it's worth, this really only matters for Vanilla - many source ports would be able to play Ogg SFX just fine. Obviously though, a vanilla-friendly method will also be the most universally-compatible one.

 

In theory, though, it could handle anything between 1 Hz and 65535 Hz, so a typical 44100 Hz sound might well work (at the cost of considerably growing the WAD's size, of course), but if it doesn't, downgrading it to what I mentioned is almost sure to get it to work.

Edited September 25, 2023 by Dark Pulse

[SupremeBioVizier]

I just import mp3 files into slade with correct file names...no problem 

[Edward850]

On 9/25/2023 at 4:09 PM, Dark Pulse said:

For what it's worth, this really only matters for Vanilla

You'd think but the situation with sounds is much different than music for Doom ports. A lot of ports support alternate music formats because that system can be split off and run almost entirely dumb, you just signal that music starts to a particular library then grab the output buffer.

Sound effects however are different, they need to be run through a positional mixer and the mix needs to update on a per frame basis. Most ports still use Doom's original 2 channel mixing, with typically only ZDoom based ports changing this since it started using FMOD (and later OpenAL) for the 3D sound positioning (even Odamex lacks this). This means that a lot of these systems still only support Doom audio files because it's the only thing that's immediately compatible. Maybe the occasional port can also support WAVs directly due to it being basically the same buffer, but other encoded formats are very unlikely to be supported this way for the majority of ports.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Edward850

[Professor Hastig]

1 hour ago, Edward850 said:

Most ports still use Doom's original 2 channel mixing...

 

I have found this to be a recurring issue with many ports of older games. While often a lot of attention is put into enhancing graphics - even if it is just going from 320x200 to 640x400 -, there is virtually no awareness how such old sound code can affect the experience if you connect something better to the computer than two cheap-o speakers with horrible sound reproduction.

 

GZDoom's sound system and Woof's new OpenAL backend are really lightyears ahead of the competition.

[Graf Zahl]

10 hours ago, Professor Hastig said:

there is virtually no awareness how such old sound code can affect the experience if you connect something better to the computer than two cheap-o speakers with horrible sound reproduction.

 

I have a suspicion that this is precisely the reason why good sound is not on the agenda for many developers. I have my computer connected to my 5.1 stereo system so these ancient 2 channel mixers immediately stand out, but I do not know many people who use real quality hardware for their sound playback.