How To Place Custom Music in Dungeon Siege

Okay, I felt I should give some more to the Dungeon Siege Community to let it prosper. This tutorial entails how to get custom music into Dungeon Siege 1.

Note: Let me make it clear that this is strictly for Dungeon Siege 1. Not 2, just 1. I haven't touched Dungeon Siege 2, so if getting custom music into DS2 works the same way, good for you. But, I don't want to get messages of people complaing, "...I read ur tutorial but i cant get music into ds2. i think u did something wrong...". Doing this will unleash the wrath of the entire Helghan army. You have been warned.

Also, please note that this tutorial will have a fair amount of images in it, to make things easier for the eager young modder to understand. No complaining about that, either. If you are someone who knows your way in the Dungeon Siege web that is modding, and you find an error, please PM me to let me know, and I'll make the appropriate changes. Thank you. This tutorial can placed on other websites if you want, but only if you ask me first.

Alright, class, let's begin.
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Lone Knight's Tutorial:

How to Place Custom Music in Dungeon Siege 1

What you will need:

Siege Editor
Dungeon Siege (at least v1.0)
TankCreator
TankViewer

Step 1: Choose the song you want. It should be in .mp3 format. Any other format will probably not work. Be 100% certain that your song is .mp3 format! You can always check what kind of format a file is by checking it's properties. In this case, I am choosing the song, Helghast Assault by The City of Prague.

That was easy? Wasn't it? Yes? I hope it was, because things get progressively difficult from here. This whole process itself is actually pretty simple, but if you mess once, it won't work at all.

Step 2: Now that you know the song you have chosen, I want you to open up TankViewer. When it is opened, open up the .dsres file called Sound.dsres. If you don't know how to do that, use some common sense; TankViewer is relatively easy to manage. The path to where Sound.dsres is located is as follows:

My Computer/C Drive:/Program Files/Microsoft Games/Dungeon Siege/Resources

Step 3: Alright, now open up Sound, and you should see three things: effects, music, and a file that says "dir.lqd20", or as I call them, "Liquid" files. Enough of me, though. Anyway, the two folders are where the music in Dungeon Siege goes.

The effects folder is where everything that needs a sound effect goes. Kinda self explanatory, eh?

Step 4: Okay, enter the music folder, because that's where today's class is headed. Here is the good stuff. If you have good hand-eye coordination, and you were skillful enough to click on the correct folder, then you should see a long list of .mp3 files with odd names such as s_m_arcticcaverns_01.mp3.

Let's explain what these titles mean. One day, the creators of GPG decided that instead of tossing everything into random folders, it should all be categorized.

As I said before, in every music file in Dungeon Siege has s_m_ at the beginning. Well, this is for categorizing. The "s" represents "sound", because it is all in the Sound Folder. The "m" is for "music", because it is in the Music Folder. Make note that if you don't have the s_m_ (music) or the s_e_ (environment) or the s_v_ (voices) the game will not play the music. Make sense?

An important note is that the .mp3 at the end. Yes, it means the file is .mp3. We all may know that .mp3 is compressed, making it a smaller file than, say, .wav format. In this process, the .mp3 is of lesser quality. Not really, but technically, it is. Because of the high amount of music in Dungeon Siege, it was decided to use .mp3 for the music, rather than .wav to save space. Note that all sound effects in Dungeon Siege are in .wav format. I assume because of the better quality feature. However, the game was sorta locked into these rules. You can't put .wav or .wma file into the music folder, and you can't put a .mp3 file into the sound effects folder. For someone planning on adding heavy sounds and music, a mp3-wav converter is a must.

Step 5: Right click on s_m_arcticcaverns_01.mp3 and select "Extract". A window should appear, showing you where it plans on extracting it to. I recommend you extract it to your desktop. The setting "Selected" should be selected, as well as "Use Folder Names", nothing else. The others extract them in different ways, but we don't want that here. Click "Extract".

Only a few seconds should pass, and the window closes, and there you are, staring at the Window full of .mp3's. That second was all it took to extract the file. Note that extracting all of the music for your enjoyment takes minutes.

Step 6: Now, if you took my recommendation, go to your desktop screen, or if you were pigheaded, whatever folder you chose to extract it to. You should see a folder that simply says "sound", spelled exactly how it is. Open it, continue through "music" then you will see that lovely .mp3 waiting there for you. You can listen to it later...I said later!

Take a look at this, however. In the ten commandments of modding Dungeon Siege, one of them was that the correct folders must be in the correct order in order for something to work. Otherwise...it won't work, as simple as that. What I like about Tank Viewer is that it extracts the songs in the exact correct order...but only in this case. If I wanted to replace a character's texture, I would need to go through art and all of that shinanigans.

Step 7: Okay, place the s_m_arcticcavern_01.mp3 and put it somewhere else completely out of sound/music. It doesn't matter where, because it has no more relevancy in this tutorial. On your desktop, create a folder, name it "mood". Put "sound" inside it. Otherwise, Dungeon Siege will mark it as out of order it and not play it. This is a must. Your file should appear like this:

mood/sound/music

Step 8: Get your .mp3 song that you wanted, in my case, Helghan Assault, and put it in "music". It must be in the exact folder where s_m_arcticcavern_01.mp3 was.

Step 9: Now, rename it. In my case, my song will now be called "s_m_helghan_01". You are still in Tankviewer, so make sure your title isn't the same as any other music title, or problems will occur.

Step 10: Open TankCreator, and let's make this thing! For "Source", choose "mood", the file located on my Desktop, or if you were pigheaded, in that folder you designated. Under output, type in "mymusic", and make sure it places it on your desktop. TankCreator will automatically convert "sound" and anything within it (including the .mp3) into a .dsres file. When TankCreator says it is completed, go to your desktop screen, where you should see a .dsres file that says "mymusic.dsres".

Step 11: Move the .dsres file to:

My Computer/C Drive:/Program Files/Microsoft Games/Dungeon Siege/Resources

Step 12: Open Siege Editor, and go to the "Tools" tab, and from there open the "Mood Editor". You aren't making any moods if you want, but this is the quickest way to determine if it worked. Create a new mood folder, add a new mood, and select "Edit Music". A window should appear. Check "enable music". Now, under standard track, there should be a space that says "Sound File", and a button with three dots on it. Click the button. A new window should appear that shows "sound". Open "sound", then open "music", then you should see the list of .mp3's again. Scroll down until you see s_m_helghan_01. Select it, and click "OK". Click "OK" until you are back in the "Mood Editor" window. Make sure your mood is selected, click the "Test Mood" button, and then click "Test Standard". If the song was correctly in .mp3 format, it will begin playing.

Viola! You've completed your first custom music in Dungeon Siege. From here, you can add it to games and have a hell of a lot of fun.