The First Distant Guns mod!

[Admiral Nelson]

If you are like me, you enjoy the gameplay offered by Distant Guns but not the music.... I've compiled together some more appropriate Japanese and Russian music to replace the included music. It was rather moving to watch a Russian cruiser capsize and sink while "Hail to the Tsar" was playing (and not the weird electric organ version in the game). Music included is:

music0 == Gunkan (Warship March)
music1 == Kronstadt march
music2 == Kol slaven
music3 == Preobrajensky march
music4 == Russian sailors dance
music5 == Japanese unknown
music6 == Japanese unknown
music7 == Calming of the country
music8 == Sorrow Of the Motherland
music9 == Rikugun
music10 == Slavonic Farewell
music11 == Umi yukaba
music12 == Old jaegermarsch
music13 == March of the Ishmael regiment
music14 = God save the Tsar
music15 = Japanese nat'l anthem (Kimi Ga Yo)

Edit: New file format means only a 12 meg download!

This music is all really old and in the public domain (AFAIK).

Here is a link for anyone interested:

Download (http://www.savefile.com/files/8597761)

[mbv]

I'll give that a try, thanks. Anything has got to be better than the cheapo electric keyboard sounds currently in-game.

[WallysWorld]

Thanks a lot, Admiral.

I'll download these when I get home.

But I think the delivered music is pretty good. I play it in the menu area and shut it off during battle. Rather hear the chugging of the engines and the sound of battle.

[Neutrino 123]

Is it possible to add these on by renaming rather then completely replacing the current music files?

[Admiral Nelson]

You can try, but only Norm could say for sure if it will recognize numbers beyond 15. Music14 and 15 are the exact same pieces in my mod as the original music, only non synthesized.

[Lempereur1]

Gents:

Add the music files onto the existing list of file names. I believe the numbers need to be sequential after the last file in the list.

The system should then add them to the play list!

[NormKoger]

Distant Guns music files are wav's. Any wav file should play just fine.

It turns out that wav files are a bit more flexible than most folks think. The wav files included with the game are actually mp3 encoded. They do not need to be huge. I actually have game playable mp3 encoded versions of the following installed in my development system...

http://media.vad1.com/temporary_url_20060509kctqm/bozhe-tsarya-khrani-acapella-valaam_1991.mp3

http://media.vad1.com/temporary_url_20060509kctqm/glinka-choir-glory-words_by_rosen-acapella-valaam_1991.mp3

http://media.vad1.com/temporary_url_20060509kctqm/kol-slaven-acapella-valaam_1991.mp3

...but could not include them in the game for legal reasons.

I love this Valaam choir, and have a couple of their CD's. There is some particularly good stuff on their "Hymn to Heroes" Russo-Japanese war tribute CD.

All you need is the Windows XP "Sound Recorder" utility that, I believe, comes with XP. Import a file into Sound Recorder, select "properties", select "convert now", 44k 16 bit stereo, format "mp3", and let the utility do the conversion for you. Save the file as a wav file. You're done. Works on my system:)

[Admiral Nelson]

44k/16 bit describes WAV encoding, but not MP3 encoding, unless I am real confused. There is no way to select that combination as 44k/16 bit isn't actually an option when you tell it to convert to mp3 format. Is there a particular combination of attributes Distant Guns expects when saved this way? Will it just work with renamed MP3 files?

[NormKoger]

44k/16 bit describes WAV encoding, but not MP3 encoding, unless I am real confused. There is no way to select that combination as 44k/16 bit isn't actually an option when you tell it to convert to mp3 format. Is there a particular combination of attributes Distant Guns expects when saved this way? Will it just work with renamed MP3 files?Renamed MP3 files will not work.

Both WAV and MP3 are actually quite flexible. WAV is a general audio file format. MP3 is a compression codec. MP3 compression is an allowed codec for WAV files. If you do not have the MP3 format option in your Sound Recorder / Sound Selection dialog, you may need to find an MP3 codec compressor somewhere. If you have the MP3 compression codec installed on your system, it will show up on the Sound Recorder options.

One additional thing you will need to do - Sound recorder needs WAV files for input, so you will have to use another utility (which probably came with your sound card) to convert an MP3 file to WAV (any format), then input that wav file into Sound Recorder. Default settings I sometimes use are shown in the bottom dialog below.

This is a set of dialogs from a conversion of a 28 second slice of Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech from WAV/PCM to WAV/MP3 this morning.

http://www.stormeaglestudios.com/pr_images/soundrec2.jpg

[Vigilante]

The Valaam Choir pieces are wonderful, thanks Norm - they're going in my Amazon "to buy" bin right now. :)

[Admiral Nelson]

Thanks for the info, Norm.

Here is a link to a new version of the mod which is only 12 Meg!! :)

Download (http://www.savefile.com/files/8597761)

Has anyone tried this? Any feedback would be nice! :)