Daggerfall Workshop Forums

This mod provides hand-adjusted SFX amplitudes in an attempt to bring some dynamics to Daggerfall's extremely loud soundscape.

Some ideas presented:

• Smaller animals (eg. rats, imps) and quieter/stealthier animals (eg. spiders, scorpions) should not be able to make as much noise as a large beast (eg. gargoyle, giant)
• Magic should be a little bit quieter than physical combat, unless there's an explosion involved
• Deliberate noises from an enemy (eg. grunt while attacking) should be louder than incidental noises (eg. grunt while walking unaware)
• Background noise/ambience should be quiet
• Animals/enemies further away from you should sound like they really are

Since there are a very large number of unique ways to trigger sound effects in Daggerfall, I am releasing this "first draft" in hopes that this community can find bugs and provide feedback/suggestions. Having said that, I'm sure that at least 99% of used sounds in the game have been adjusted, and I have tested and tuned this for a for a few hours already. Enjoy!

Tamriel Mixdown v0.3

PS: I'm blatantly assuming Daggerfall Unity uses DAGGER.SND and not an updated package of some sort... I made this for OG Daggerfall. Please let me know if this is not the case.

Hi Helegad,

I haven't experimented with that personally, but from what I understand Daggerfall Unity has overloading mechanisms that allow you to replace original sounds with .wav files (either plain, or packaged in a mod file). See reference info here
The main benefit is that you could use higher quality audio later because I suppose DAGGER.SND can only contain 11kHz samples?

I've definitely considered overhauling the sound effects, lawd knows some of them are pretty whack. It's a big job though, and I'd want to go all out with it and get maybe three to five variations on each sound for randomization to keep things fresh. For now, I've achieved what I wanted, and I'll continue to fine tune it and see what the feedback is like.

Version 2 is up! Made some further tweaks.

Where do I put it ?

Well, its not the mods folder, its called a mod...
Maybe soundFonts ?
Somebody help me please....

It's a replacement DAGGER.SND file for classic game data. Probably best way to install is backup the normal DAGGER.SND in ARENA2 then overwrite it with this file.

Daggerfall Unity should then be able to read it from your game files on next run, but I haven't had a chance to test it yet.

Interkarma wrote: ↑Tue Oct 09, 2018 11:00 pm It's a replacement DAGGER.SND file for classic game data. Probably best way to install is backup the normal DAGGER.SND in ARENA2 then overwrite it with this file.

Ya, I figured it out on my own unbelievably.

I like the idea, but it seems like the sounds it changes get wonked out somehow.
I hear feedback when the birds chirp, when your guy walks, and when the crickets start.....cricketing..
Its like fuzziness in the sounds or something, don't know what but you can hear it if you turn the music down, and the footsteps are way to quiet for me..
I need my footsteps in Daggerfall I guess....I never knew

You know I gotta say, the fact that this stuff is even possible, and this is even happening, I think is pretty cool.
Thank you guys for messing with my beloved game

Unfortunately the fuzziness/static is due to the heavy-handed audio compression the game uses. I have a feeling whoever did the SFX for this game made everything so loud to cover it up.

There is nothing I can do about it. It's either everything is extremely loud or there's a good bit of static in the background. It's not hugely distracting to me, and honestly I'd rather that than my horse and a bunch of Skeletal Warriors tearing away at my eardrums. To each their own though. Once you get used to it, you hardly hear it.

I recommend turning the music volume slider down to about half-way to get the most out of this mod.

Hi Helegad,
Saving as wav files could be useful not only for an overhaul, but also in the short term to work around that issue by not requiring to save modified audio in the original audio format straightjacket.

Sadly the quick tests I did to override sounds effects didn't work, I must be missing something...