Making Your Own Sound Files

Article written by Billy Bombar
Published on 02-17-2005
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Introduction

Putting your own recordings into your scenario will give it a far more unique feel. They are not used a lot in the scenarios at the Blacksmith because of the lengthy download time for these types of files. However, with only a microphone and a sound editing program, you can do wonders for your scenario. Here is my guide to how to make and use recordings along with some tips and other things–from the basics of creating a first recording to finding an ES-standard voice talent.

Your Own Sound Files

The freedom of hearing your own voice or a friend’s is a very satisfying feeling. To make your sound files, you will need a microphone and a sound-editing program. I recommend Creative WaveStudio, Goldwave, or something similar. It must also be able to convert recordings into MP3 format as Age of Empires II will only play files in this format correctly.

First Sound Files

What should you record first? You should try making a test recording and then see how it sounds. How can it be improved? How far away should you be from the microphone? Work these things out and continue to try until you think you’ve got a really good recording. Try out some of your displayed instructions in one of your scenarios and run them. If you have an editing program which illustrates the sound wave on the screen then you will find this very useful as you will be able to easily cut and add things to your work.

Saving Files

Each file should have a descriptive name so you can distinguish it easily. Also, if you’re going to have recordings for other scenarios, you won’t want them getting mixed up. Therefore you must invent some sort of code for each scenario. I use the initials of the scenario as an indicator and then a good overall name for the file. For example:

_RC Stand fast, bothers.mp3

The scenario is called “Richard’s Camp” (hence the initials) and the message spoken is “Stand fast, my brothers, or else the Saracens will overrun us!”

If you want them at the beginning of the Sound File list in the game you can put an underscore or something similar before the name. It is very important to make sure the file is in MP3 format. If your program doesn’t do this, then you will need to find one that can before you include them in your game. Once you are satisfied, we can continue.

Putting Files into the Game

They should be placed in the Scenario folder within the Sound folder in the Age of Empires II directory for the game to find them. They will then appear in the Sound File list after you start up the game. The Sound\Scenario folder can be found here:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Age of Empires II\Sound\Scenario

Within the folder you will find all of the recordings from the game’s campaigns. This is precisely the place you want to put them by dragging or copy/pasting.

Your sound files should appear in the Sound File list of your triggers. Sort the recordings out into their proper display instructions or chat messages. During the game, the sound files will play to the corresponding text once the trigger’s Condition is activated.

Advanced Recording

That’s the basics over. Next your want to advance your knowledge and expertise at creating sound files. You can then become excellent at this creative work and reflect this in your scenarios.

Creating Good Recordings

The thing about recordings is that they have to be worthwhile. Usually downloadable games will have a few sound effects for good measure but hardly ever do they include a recording for every line of speech.

  • Sound files should be free of static noise or the rumbling of your hand moving on the microphone handle (hand-noise). These interruptions can be fixed by deleting them using your program or – if they run over the speech itself – re-doing the recording.
  • Your microphone might come with a stand. If so, I encourage you to use it so that you can avoid bumping it against things or making hand-noise.
  • The door to your recording-room should be closed so that the sound of a vacuum cleaner doesn’t drone on in the background or something.
  • Having pillows around the microphone will contain the sound and block out most of the outside noise on the air.
  • You may notice that sometimes when you pronounce a ‘p’ or a ‘b’ that you release a little puff of breath from your lips which hits the top of the microphone. This makes a little ‘pop’ in the track. The solution is to either move further away from the microphone or instead speak with it to the side. This way, the puff of air will go past the microphone head and it won’t pick it up.
  • Good actors are needed for good recordings. The voice-talent in the Age of Empires II campaigns is brilliant and this quality is what you’re aiming for. The performance and drama you or your voice-talent puts into you recordings will add greatly to the value of your scenario.
  • Add interesting effects to bring intrigue into the experience. If you can add an echo or make the sound fade out then go on and experiment. See what you can come up with.

Making a “Recording Script”

If you have many recordings to make then I suggest drawing up a “recording script.” This is a sheet or several sheets of paper which will act as a script for your voice-talent. He or she will have the recordings in a list just as they are displayed in the game. This will make things much simpler for you. Each entry should also have who is speaking and even what the planned name of the sound file will be for your own reference. Here is an example:

File name: _VS Angry Viking dad.mp3

Father: [red-faced] I thought I could trust my own son!! And then he goes off on his own and makes a huge hole in my ship with his stupidity!

File name: _VS Shameful son.mp3

Son: I’m sorry, Father. I just wanted to see what the real sea was like.

You may even want to give a hint of how the recording must be spoken like in play-scripts. e.g.: whispering, puffing, yelling, etc.

The way to create a faultless recording script is to go into the trigger itself, copy, tab out of the game and then paste the message into Word or whatever. This makes sure that you won’t have to change the text in the game because of a mistake in the script or redo the recording. The messages will soon pile up to make a list of all the things you need and you’ll soon have a good recording script that is user-friendly for you and your actors.

Sound Effects

Creating your own sound effects needs a creative and resourceful mind. These recordings can be as simple as banging something on a desk to re-enacting the sound of battle. Let’s say that you have a joust in your scenario. You could add in the ringing of a bell at the beginning or even just hit a big metal pot with a wooden spoon for a gong. You want someone to die in agony? I’m sure anyone would be happy to perform a cry of pain. Terrified villagers can be done easily, too. The possibilities are almost endless and they can’t all be written down here. Sound effects will add to the excitement and action and give fresh sounds for your player to listen to. You can very easily make your own!

Closing

So ends my article on recordings. I hope this gives you inspiration for future scenarios and leads to some experimentation with this ability that the great people at Ensemble Studios included on their game.

Good luck and happy recording!