[Q] Thememd.mix Additions not Holding

[Chaotix000]

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Hi.
I'm back with another dumb question only because I can't find the answer searching the forums.
I'm trying to add my music the the thememd.mix to have it all in one file instead of loose in the folder. Has anyone done this with any success? I know that the Mental Omega mod has the music in a mix file so it's definitely possible.

[WoRmINaToR]

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While certainly possible to achieve by just plunking files into the game's internal mixes, I would highly recommend putting your music files and the accompanying thememd.ini file together in a separate expandmdXX.mix file. For the XX, pick any number between 10 and 90. 1 is used by the base game, 2-10 are sort of unofficially agreed upon for use by community tools and patches, and over 90 I would tend to avoid for the same reason. UMP uses 98 and 99 for instance, if I recall.

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[Chaotix000]

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...I'm disappointed in myself for not trying an expandmd mix.

Thank you.

NVM Didn't work

[WoRmINaToR]

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What method are you using to create the mixes? I just did it myself and it worked great for me.

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[Chaotix000]

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XCC Mix Editor.

[WoRmINaToR]

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Weird, I did the same and it worked a treat for me.

What did your mix look like? What did you name it? Does it look something like this when you open it? Did you make sure to have your thememd.ini in there?

Also, what do you mean specifically by "didn't work"? You don't see the music files, you see them but can't play them, you observe no change in-game at all?

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[Chaotix000]

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This is what my mix looks like. thememd is in there. the only thinkg i notice about yours is that your is all lowercase.

Ingame there is no music that plays nor are there any tracks listed in the tracklist in the options.

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[WoRmINaToR]

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Weird. What did you name it? I named it expandmd51.mix and everything is happy. I doubt capitalization is an issue but could be worth looking into.

I assume the tracks all work if you just drop them loose into your RA2 folder along with your thememd.ini?

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[Chaotix000]

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its called expandmd10.mix. The songs do work loose.
I'm going to try lowercase but who knows.

[WoRmINaToR]

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That name should work just fine. Weird.

As far as in-game behavior: does it override the existing Yuri's Revenge tracks, so you get absolutely no music at all (like the main menu is silent)? Or do you just get default music as if the game doesn't even read your mix?

Oh, and check the rest of your game files. Make sure there aren't any other expandmdXX mixes in there, except for 01. And make sure there aren't any other thememd.ini files or .wav files.

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[Chaotix000]

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I added the Normal=no to all the regular tracks so they wont play or show in the list. I replaced the sound tag to the tracks I wanted to play for intro and loading. Nothing plays while everything is in the mix. There are no other expandmd files around that aren't 01 and I moved the thememd.mix out of the main folder. the only thememd.ini I know of is the one in it's original mix file (I can't remember which one that is).

EDIT: Lowercase had nothing to do with it working.

[WoRmINaToR]

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Try putting thememd.mix back in. There's no reason to remove it and it may actually be causing your problem.

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[WoRmINaToR]

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Hmm, nevermind my last suggestion. I tried removing thememd.mix from my folder and the music continued to work just fine.

I'm curious-- next time you try testing, start up an actual game and go into your sound options menu. You should get a track list there-- do you see all of your new tracks there (but no sound when you try to play them), the old Yuri's Revenge tracks, or nothing at all?

Also, formatting might be an issue. Try cracking your new mix open in XCC mixer and select one of your tracks. What audio format are your tracks in? They should be 22050 or 44100 hz IMA ADPCM, 16 bit (if stereo, will show in mixer as 4 bit stereo). RA2 is already very picky about its track formats but I believe it's even pickier when they are in a .mix file.

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[MRMIdAS]

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Please, for the love of jeebus, tell me they work loose.

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[WoRmINaToR]

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Chaotix000 wrote:

its called expandmd10.mix. The songs do work loose.
I'm going to try lowercase but who knows.

According to him they do. All rather strange-- hard do say why it works just fine for me and not him.

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[E1 Elite]

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Don't use XCC Mix Editor, it has not been updated for long and it corrupts the mix files on newer OS. Use XCC Mixer, create empty mix file and open it and then drag and drop your contents in it. Recent discussion - https://ppmforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=579195 .

[Chaotix000]

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The Mix editor was one of two problems.

1. Mix Editor apparently did exactly what E1 said and corrupted the mix file so the game didn't read it at all. So I used the method in the link and just dragged and dropped with in XCC Mixer. Also thememd.ini needs to be loose in the RA2 folder.

2. I originally used the theme writing tool in XCC Mixer but doing it that way only seems to work with loose files. I had to rename every track in thememd.ini to the exact filename with out the .wav extension.

This way works. All I'd have to do now is add all of the tags into ra2md.csf to display the names correctly in the game.

TLDR:
Order of Operations:
1. Convert songs with XCC Winamp plugin
   http://xhp.xwis.net/utilities/XCC_IMA_ADPCM_WAV_Writer.zip

2. Add songs to INI:
    [Themes]
    XX=filename

    [FILENAME]
    Name=THEME:FILENAME
    Sound=filename

3. Add THEME:FILENAME to ra2md.csf

4. Open XCC Mixer->New->expandmdxx.mix

5. Drag converted music files only into blank mix file. !!!DO NOT COMPACT!!!

Hope that makes sense. Also try to keep filenames to a 6 character maximum to make the process of adding them to the ini and csf files less tedious. Also if you aren't using Notepad++ id recommend it.

Thanks for all the help everyone! I'm glad there was a solution that we can share with everyone.

[E1 Elite]

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Thememd.ini can be put in expandmdXX.mix.

[Chaotix000]

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It didn't wanna work that way for me. That's why I said that.

[WoRmINaToR]

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Strange, wonder why XCC mix editor worked great for me but not for Chaotix. I'm on Win 10 which is about as new as it gets right now.

Either way, glad it got sorted!

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[G-E]

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The bug is random, I used XCC Mix Editor for years, and the larger the mix got, the more likely the corruption. It still happens with XCC Mixer as well, but luckily I don't need those anymore

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[suffle19]

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Im adding soundtracks by using only XCC Mixer and Audacity. Easy way imo.