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Forgive this poor wayward trainsimmer for asking such basic (and probably already answered) questions, but..Does MSTS recognize MP3's?How/where would I place the soundfile, if I wanted to put it in a passenger car as background music?
First, MSTS does not recognize MP3 files, it only recognizes .wav files. The MP3 file can be converted to a .wav file with Goldwave.Second, the resulting .wav file can become quite large, depending on the original music file that you are considering. A single tune, running about 3-4 minutes, will be about an 8 meg .wav file. Given that you will be hearing the same tune over and over every 3-4 minutes (assuming that you choose to loop it), it'll become tedious after a few plays, so you may choose to put several tunes together into a single .wav file. You could end up with a 20 meg .wav file, large for both storage and for memory allocation. The default memory allocation for ScalabilityGroup 5 is 30 meg. I'm not trying to discourage you, just advising you of the limitations of MSTS.Below is the oebarpas.sms file, (located in the Sound folder of the default 380) with a piano music stream, randomly selecting one of two tunes (not really very random, MSTS seems to select the first file about 90% of the time). There are two streams, the first is a random selection of the oe_pamb_xxx.wav file (passenger ambience sounds), the second stream is the piano music. Substitute the name of your music .wav file for the oe_pamb_pianox.wav file. Do your editing with Wordpad, save the file as XXXpas.sms (your file name goes where the XXX is), place the xxxpas.sms file and the music .wav file in the Sound folder of the wagon you wish to have music in. If there is no Sound folder, create one. You may need to edit the xxx.wag file to point the sound to the new xxxpas.sms file.SIMISA@@@@@@@@@@JINX0x1t______ Tr_SMS ( Skip ( *********************************** ) Skip ( *** Orient Express Piano Wagon *** ) Skip ( *********************************** ) ScalabiltyGroup( 5 Activation ( PassengerCam() ) Deactivation ( ExternalCam() CabCam() ) Stereo() Streams ( 2 Stream ( Priority ( 3 ) Triggers ( 1 Initial_Trigger ( StartLoop ( 2 File ( "oe_pamb_lite1.wav" -1 ) File ( "oe_pamb_full1.wav" -1 ) SelectionMethod ( RandomSelection ) ) ) ) ) Stream ( Priority ( 3 ) Triggers ( 1 Initial_Trigger ( StartLoop ( 2 File ( "oe_pamb_piano1.wav" -1 ) File ( "oe_pamb_piano2.wav" -1 ) SelectionMethod ( RandomSelection ) ) ) ) ) ) ) Skip ( ** As above but no piano ** ) ScalabiltyGroup( 3 Activation ( PassengerCam() Distance (55)) Deactivation ( ExternalCam() CabCam() Distance(50) ) Stereo() Streams ( 1 Stream ( Priority ( 3 ) Triggers ( 1 Initial_Trigger ( StartLoop ( 2 File ( "oe_pamb_lite1.wav" -1 ) File ( "oe_pamb_full1.wav" -1 ) SelectionMethod ( RandomSelection ) ) ) ) ) ) ) )
You can add more .wav files to the .sms file. I have had 5 2-4 minute songs playing in a random selection (except, as you said, MSTS is very good at "randomizing"). Just change this section Stream ( Priority ( 3 ) Triggers ( 1 Initial_Trigger ( StartLoop ( 2 File ( "oe_pamb_piano1.wav" -1 ) File ( "oe_pamb_piano2.wav" -1 ) SelectionMethod ( RandomSelection ) ) ) ) ) ) ) to: Stream ( Priority ( 3 ) Triggers ( 1 Initial_Trigger ( StartLoop ( 4 File ( "your_wave1.wav" -1 ) File ( "your_wave2.wav" -1 ) File ( "your_wave3.wav" -1 ) File ( "your_wave4.wav" -1 ) SelectionMethod ( RandomSelection ) ) ) ) ) ) ) Just put the .wav files in your .wag folder and away you go! Also, when you convert your MP3's to .wav, you need to be sure that they are sampled at 11025 Hz, 16 bit stereo, signed. Otherwise weird things will happen. Good luck.
You can also consider cutting the size of the music .wav files in half by coverting them to 11025hz, 16 bit, MONO, and remove the STEREO () statement at the front of the .sms file.
You would add the music stream statements to the xxxcab.sms file. Also, be sure to change the total number of streams to reflect the addition stream that you are adding.Below is a portion of the xxxcab.sms file I tested this on. Previous to adding the music, the STREAMS line was 11, so I changed it to 12 when I added the music stream. It was a simple copy/paste procedure, but be sure to include all the parenthesis marks. ScalabiltyGroup ( 5 Activation ( CabCam ( ) Distance ( 100 ) ) Deactivation ( PassengerCam ( ) ExternalCam ( ) Distance ( 100 ) ) Stereo ( ) Streams ( 12 Skip ( ** music loop ** ) Stream ( Priority ( 3 ) Volume ( 0.2 ) Triggers ( 1 Initial_Trigger ( StartLoop ( 2 File ( "piano_boogie.wav" -1 ) File ( "who.wav" -1 ) SelectionMethod ( RandomSelection ) ) ) ) )
Hey, Chuck, that's a great idea! Hadn't thought of that. Most of the music I am using is converted stereo recordings of old big-band stuff anyway. Thanks for the tip!Johnp.s. Darkfyre, I don't know about adding music to the cab .sms. If it works, let us know!
It works!!It's like having stereo speakers in the cab with you The only problem is you need to integrate it into all the other streams to eliminate interference
