How to add your own music

[wlesmana]

I figured since there's no tutorial for this and it's quite easy, might as well I write one.

HOW TO ADD YOUR OWN MUSIC IN RTW

First of all, you don't need to extract the music pack at all. Just leave it there.
What you need is a folder Data/sounds/music.
Now dump your mp3s in the music folder. NOTE: the files MUST be in mp3 format. I have tried .wma and it doesn't work.
Now go to your Data folder and open this file: desc_sounds_music.txt
Just replace or simply add the names of your music files in the appropriate event lines. It's pretty self explanatory.


LAST NOTE: If you've never modded the music before and you've just upgraded with 1.2 patch, there's a chance you have a file in Data/sounds folder called events.dat. This file is not really used by the game but it does overwrite any changes you made to desc_sounds_music.txt so if you find this file, just rename or dump it.

[Hans Kloss]

It appears now it is not that simple any longer.New music tracks for RTW/BI need to be renamed (same names as original) and repacked (xidx pack)

[Sirrvs]

Really? There's no way to add music without replacing the old ones anymore? Why would they remove that feature anyway?

[Hans Kloss]

I had problems with custom music tracks with 1.3.The only way I could add my own tunes was to rename and repack contain of music folder.As I have just reinstall vanila RTW with latest patche,I will do few more tests tonight

[Hans Kloss]

I have run few tests and it seems that now in order the get RTW to play custom mp3's they need to be renamed to repacked into DAT.RTW will not play any music if DAT "Music" file is deleted, even with unpacked folders.Core of whole problem in my opinion is the way files are set in IDX file.It is possible IDX files can be manually edited -well,I tried and again no luck

[Malrubius]

Doesn't Vercingetorix's xidx program rewrite the idx file, too?

[Hans Kloss]

xidx repacks music and creates idx file but for some reason when using newly created files,RTW does not play my tracks at all (game loads but does not play any music in the menu) or play tracks at random (campaign and battle tracks).There might be a way of editing idx files but I could not find any more informations on that.If anyone does,please let us know

[Empress Meg]

I too am having the same troubles. Sometimes instead of no music I get to hear this wonderfully nasty sound of digital files being smashed together lol. Apparently it was not as easy as it was before with the extractor. The length of the music wouldn't effect the overall performance would it?

Devoirs The Empress

[wlesmana]

I don't know what you people did but I just made my Romans march to the tune of "Ready to Go" by Republica and massacring Carthaginians under "It's A Beautiful World" by Louis Armstrong. This is in 1.5.

Of course, I'm assuming you all follow my instructions and not make up your own.

[Hans Kloss]

I have not got the clue why this is all happening.Before patch1.3 I could replace tracks the way you described.

[Empress Meg]

Same here. I'm gonna try to mess around with an older version of RTW today and see if I cannot just magically transfer the music over to a newer version of Rome or BI.

Devoirs The Empress

[Asean]

I have the same problem, anyone have an answer on how to solve?

[Dayve]

I have followed the guide and renamed events.dat, added a music folder in SOUNDS, put my mp3's into it, gone into descr_sounds_music.txt and put into the command lines the names of the mp3's from my music folder, and it worked! The music i want is now in the game, but the problem is, no other music works anymore.

The original music will not play. All i added was some battle music, and it works perfectly, but the campaign music, victory/defeat music doesn't work, nothing else works except for the ones i changed. Wtf is up with that?

[KonstantinosXI]

it works also in BI....you have only to add also the event.dat file in bi/data/sounds

[Hans Kloss]

Tried everything once again but it simply does NOT work for me.I can get to work in the old style: extract/rename/repack

[scsscsfanfan]

it works. all I did is I duplicated the sound folder contains my own Mp3's both in /data and /bi/data (which may be unnecessary but may save some confusion), duplicated the desc_sounds_music.txt the same way, and changed the event.dat in bi/data/sounds.

[beibe1290]

(i don't know english...)
I know how to do it, but i have not tried yet
The problem is in the *.idx file, that contains the minutes and the seconds of each music in RTW. In the folder Data/Sounds there's two files named Music, one that you can reproduce and the other that is the *.idx file. If you reprduce the Music file you'll listen a song, and at the end of the song will start another song... And when you play rome total war you listen those songs, Music.idx indicates the start and the end of each song.
So if we want to change just a song, we will have to replace all the music file and when we will save the new music file we will have to create a new idx file. I know the program to create an idx file, but i can't affort by buying the program... If the moderators and Administrators can allow me to say the program is: Visual Fox Pro. I have not tried yet but i konw that this can make idx files. Then, when we will add the Music file and Music.idx in the /Data/Sounds/'s folder, we will have to modificate the sounds_music_descr file in /Data/ folder by changing each song with the correct name that the idx file indicates and writing *.mp3 at the end.
I have not tried doing this, but sorry if that does not work.
Bye RTW players

[Barigos]

Hi,everybody!I think there is an important detail:the names of your own mp3's must be without spaces.E.g.: "soulflyIV.mp3" is correct,but "soul fly IV.mp3" is not.Also don't forget to delete events.dat(or events.idx,it also works).Now I have my own music playing as well as the original music.Also I think that long tracks are bad for performance.My starting loading is now about 3 minutes instead of 40 seconds as it was before.

[litteldude92]

i dont understand :P i looked on my RTW(gold edition) and i can find data 1 and data 2 i go on opem on it goes on that winzp thing then i go to open it agen and it sais error somethin i need errr "signuture bytes" or somethin like that .... eny clues ?

[Hoginator01]

wlesmana,

Your tutorial worked for me. Thank you!

[JhudielTheOne]

I Cannot Hear With My Custom Music Help Me

[Ludens]

I Cannot Hear With My Custom Music Help Me

Hello Jhudiel. I'm afraid I never tried this myself, but it should be possible to replace R:TW's music files. If wlesmana's guide didn't work, check if there are spaces in the filenames of your mp3 files. Apparently, that confuses R:TW and makes it unable to play them.

[slitebg]

Hi there, this custom music is driving me nuts. I am trying to add/alter BI/Alex mods' music when I noticed the music doesn't loop. To my surprise, untouched by me mods seem to have this issue too. I tried all sorts of trickeries, deleting/renaming files and alternative paths to music files in descr_sounds_music.txt. All to no effect, whatever I try music still plays 1-2 tracks and doesn't loop. I have to use ALT+M or ALT+S to make the songs run again... Until they stop again. This is driving me nuts, especially since some mods seem to to it and others don't. If my PC/RTW install is the culprit, then all RTW mods should have the issue. I would appreciate help very much!!