Because it will help me with Noir.

Challenge:

To record a custom, 5-second sound of your voice, put it into a plugin, and get it to function as a weapon sound. Record all steps you took, and, if possible, attach files of the different steps.

Reward:

A personalized custom ship in my Possibly-To-Be-Released TC, Noir.

---

Okay, so maybe the reward isn't amazing, but it will help out an innumerable number of people who have attempted this, failed, and lost interest in plug-making as a result. Like me.

How do you mean like, shouting "Bang!" or making funny zapping noises or anything? What exactly is so difficult about this? And why 5 seconds - that seems fairly long?

1. Because I want the person to tell me what software they used to record the sound with, and what settings they used to record it in.

2. Because I have encountered strange issues with sound effects longer than 3 seconds or so.

3. It does not matter what you say, just make it clear that you're speaking so that I know you didn't just grab an audio file off google.

4. If you find it so easy, please, complete the challenge!

Well, a ~10 second recording of a singing birthday candle that I made with SimpleSound several years ago works perfectly when copied into Nova as a weapon sound. Unfortunately, SimpleSound doesn't run in Classic, so I can't say anything about how exactly to use it, or whether it can convert other sounds to a valid format.

I'll keep working on this, and try to come up with a way to turn, say, a .wav into the right format.

Edwards

SoundAppPPC can do the formatting. You just need to know the settings.

Looking at what Nova uses for weapon sounds now, it seems that it will work if you use:
8-bit linear PCM
Mono
11127 Hz

This is far more restrictive than Nova is on some other types of sounds; landing sounds can be 16-bit, for example. When you're dealing with 8-bit sounds, it's nearly impossible to convert "real" sound recordings to that format without static resulting. Your best bet is to manipulate the weapon sound directly to find something that sounds decent----not record and convert.

I use an old version of Sound Studio to convert sounds to System 7 format. The current version no longer does System 7, but the Pro version (distributed by FreeVerse instead of the developer) might.

In the past, I've used Quicktime Pro. My license is so ancient that I can only do conversions with MoviePlayer 2.5 under Classic, though.

For making, cleaning, and otherwise tweaking sounds, I've fallen in love with Audacity. I export .wavs from it to turn them into Sys 7 sounds in Sound Studio.

I'd do your challenge, Hamster, if I had the time! I've got a fair number of sound effects based on my own voice already, but I don't think any are 5 seconds.

Alec, didn't I already send you the .snd files for ARPIA2?

Shouldn't they also work as weapon sounds?

For those, I used Sound Studio, followed by SndSampler™.

I use WireTap Pro to record sounds, save 'em as .wav files, then use SoundAppPPC in Classic to convert them to System 7 Sound files using the settings Lindley put in, then copy and paste the resources in ResEdit.

Alright, I'll try this one more time, and post my steps meticulously...

:sigh:

I've done it - five seconds exactly. Please find attached. I replaced the Light Blaster sound, because it's the easiest weapon to get a hold of (i.e. the player starts with it).

Steps taken:

1. Looked for the mic in my room. No luck.
2. Snuck into my mother's office and stole the headset that comes with the phone, but discovered that the plug was too small.
3. Went upstairs and fished through the spare computer parts drawer - found a mic, yay!
4. Recorded the sound using GoldWave, but discovered it was too soft (realised later that was because I didn't have the Line In volume turned up).
5. Did the same as above, but using my laptop. Got a good sound this time.
6. Imported the sound into a plugin using EVNEW.
7. Opened EV Nova.
8. Fired weapon.
9. Laughed and laughed.

Attached File(s)

• voice.zip (23.62K)
  Number of downloads: 42

OK, I'm glad I downloaded that.

...and this is where I feel like an idiot for forgetting to make my sound mono. forehead smack

Well I tried the challenge (since I'm sure Hamster was looking for instructions on how to do it on a mac). QuickTime Pro can't save as System 7 (at least not anymore) and I can't run classic apps like SoundApp but I do have the old bundled version of Sound Studio (v2). I first tried the settings Lindley mentioned but Sound Studio freezes if I try to record in mono on anything lower than 44kHz. So I used 44kHz, 8-bit mono and that worked as a weapon sound. Then I tried 16-bit and that also worked. Then I tried stereo but that didn't play. Then I tried mono with 24-bit but that played static.

1. Open Sound Studio and make a new sound at 44kHz in either 8 or 16-bit mono.
2. Record. >5 seconds is okay.
3. Save as System 7 sound.
4. Close sound. Must do this or it doesn't get saved properly.
5. Open sound file in your resource editor and copy snd resource into plug.
6. Give ID of 208 (Light Blaster)
7. Save, open Nova, fire blasters and listen to laughter. On OS X at least.

This post has been edited by Guy : 26 August 2006 - 09:00 PM

I think there's some kind of bug that makes things jump to 2x if you record weapon sounds in the wrong format. I forget whether it's related to the Hz or the bits, though.

@lindley, on Aug 26 2006, 07:42 PM, said in Hamster's Nova Engine Challenge:

I think there's some kind of bug that makes things jump to 2x if you record weapon sounds in the wrong format.

No, we determined that that bug was caused by a lack of snd 129. The bad formatting was just an early guess, and turned out to be incorrect.

@belthazar, on Aug 26 2006, 05:08 PM, said in Hamster's Nova Engine Challenge:

9. Laughed and laughed.

That last step is definitely the most important. Great job on the sound effect!

Edwards

This post has been edited by Edwards : 26 August 2006 - 10:19 PM

That was awesome, Belthazar! I want to use that sound effect now. Not in SFA, mind you, but somewhere.

@dr--trowel, on Aug 27 2006, 11:18 AM, said in Hamster's Nova Engine Challenge:

OK, I'm glad I downloaded that.

@edwards, on Aug 27 2006, 12:58 PM, said in Hamster's Nova Engine Challenge:

Great job on the sound effect!

@uncletwitchy, on Aug 27 2006, 01:37 PM, said in Hamster's Nova Engine Challenge:

That was awesome, Belthazar!

Thanks, all. After making that sound effect, and discovering how humorous it was when used in the game, I've sort of considered making a plugin that replaces all of the weapon sounds with noises made by yours truly ( polite noises, mind you) but I'm not sure when I'd find the time.

UT said:

I want to use that sound effect now. Not in SFA, mind you, but somewhere.

Sure, if you like. Feel free to edit out that little pause at the start as well if you want to - I was caught unawares by the speed the recording started when I pushed the button, but I didn't want to re-record because I liked that one (and wasn't sure I could reproduce it) and I couldn't crop the file because Hamster specified five seconds.

Audacity is a great free and open source, sound editing/recording program. I does not support the System 7 sound format, though.

This post has been edited by pez : 27 August 2006 - 09:11 AM

Belthazar, Guy, and all who helped me out with this, thanks very much.

And Belthazar, you're definately getting your own ship. :laugh: Awesome little plug.

I am going to try and finally convert my huge home-made sound effect library into compatible sound...

I shall post my progress here.

@hamster, on Aug 28 2006, 12:28 AM, said in Hamster's Nova Engine Challenge:

Belthazar, Guy, and all who helped me out with this, thanks very much.

No problem.

Quote

And Belthazar, you're definately getting your own ship. :laugh: Awesome little plug.

Hooray! Today I have achieved immortality.

In other news, work on my sound-effects plugin is going well, aside from a few mishaps - for example, I almost died laughing the first time a flock of Vipers came at me going "Pyu! Pyu!". For that matter, I actually did die, since I was laughing so hard I forgot to move out of the way. :laugh:

On another (but probably unrelated) note, here's another (hopefully) amusing little plugin I just came up with an idea for. It modifies the hyperjump warmup sound - make sure you try it out on both normal speed and 2x speed (preferably normal speed first). Chocolate slice points for anyone who can tell what it's a reference to. I've even thrown in a little teaser for my own sound-effects plugin, so see if you can spot it. (Incidentally, if anyone's interested, I discovered while doing the plugin that the maximum length the game allows for normal-speed hyperjump warmup sounds is roughly 6.3 seconds. Or thereabouts. Any longer, and the jump simply goes, and the rest of the sound never gets played.)

Attached File(s)

• Ludicrous_Speed.zip (79.86K)
  Number of downloads: 26

This post has been edited by Belthazar : 27 August 2006 - 11:11 AM