ACCEPTED Audio Overhaul for Skyrim (by David Jegutidse)

[Nearox]

If you need compatibility patches for ASO, michaelrw made a few and put them on nexus.

 

https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/44541/?

[TechAngel85]

Nice! Do these cover most or preferably all of the STEP conflicts?

[rootsrat]

I will be checking them out in next few days as well, as I'm redoing my Skyrim set up.

[Nearox]

I don't know, I haven't used michaelrw's patches since 1.2 and since I've been working on the STEP review (I haven't tried AOS 1.4 yet). From what I remember, I believe a few weeks ago Lord Korn sort of 'endorsed' michaelrw to do the patches (don't quote me on this though). 

 

Is AOS beging considered for 2.2.8? If it is I'll enable it and see how the patches work out with STEP, since I'm currently in the testing mood anyways :)

[TechAngel85]

It's just a thought at the moment but would be a massive compare I think to do between the Sounds of Skyrim mods we currently have and this one. Possibly keeping parts or all of both even.

[Nearox]

I see. Kind of a doubt an extensive comparison is useful though... You'd essentially be comparing apples with oranges.

 

AOS is more like en enhanced version of vanilla skyrim. There are very few additions, almost all the edits of the mod are improvements of exisiting sound records.

 

SoS on the other hand adds literally hundreds of extra sounds on top of the vanilla sounds. It modifies very few vanilla sounds. 

 

If you open them up in TES5Edit you'll see the difference immediately.

[TechAngel85]

How bad is the compare in TES5Edit? Major conflicts with SOS or can they be used together with a bit of patching?

[Nearox]

Not many, about 20 or so. They are important though. Almost all conflicts are Region conflicts with regards to weather and the sound effects that belong to a specific weather region (e.g. WeatherPineForest). 

 

You'd have to chose between the weather sound effects of either AOS or SoS. if you don't, you'll be hearing thousands of birds flapping around constantly when in the wilds xD (joke idk but the sheer amount of sound effects would be overkill). This also gets much more complicated when CoT is added in, which is why Lord Korn said he won't be making SoS and AOS 100% compatible. 

Q: Will there be a compatibility patch for Sounds of Skyrim (SoS)?

A: There won't be from me for two reasons. One is that compatibility is tricky enough with making sure that the CoT weathers work with the compatibility patch. Adding SoS, another mod that edits region data into the mix and required it's own compatibility patch for CoT, will make things very complicated for me and the user. I didn't want this mod to be difficult to get working.

Other than that, the thousands of other changes from AOS seem not to conflicts with the additions from SoS, at least not esp-wise. I'm not sure what it'll do performance-wise though if you add 2 big sound overhaul mods... With SoS alone I'm already sometimes (kinda rare but still) getting a 2-3 second sound lag... And the reverb effects of AOS must take their toll as well somehow I guess. Moreover, both sound overhauls out of necessity have to touch a ton of vanilla records anyhow to add in their own effects. I just personalyl wouldn't feel comfortable combining running them both tbh.

 

But we'd best ask michaelrw if proper conflict resolution is possible between these mods... 

[exploiteddna]

Nice! Do these cover most or preferably all of the STEP conflicts?

honestly i havent really compared to a STEP-only install yet. My main priority from the beginning was to provide DLC patches and DLC versions (merged, so no patch needed). Aside from that, Ive basically been running around patching up little petty conflicts that people have. The majority a large number of conflicts ive seen are a matter or preference, not game-breaking or loss-of-function conflicts. There are several of the small sound mods (Improved Horse Steps, Smooth Blade Draw & Sheathe, Improved Combat Sounds) that definitely have conflicts.. but since these mods only have a few records in them AND tend to load after AOS, they dont really need patching unless you want AOS to be conflict winner (and if thats the case then you may as well just disable the small mod altogether)

 

I think AOS is a great mod and has a lot to offer. It is definitely a complex mod just because of its nature (sound mods tend to be very far-reaching and edit lots of different record/subrecord types).  As far as STEP is concerned, i think it could be a viable option so long as all the checks and balances are accounted for, so to speak.

[Nearox]

michaelrw, if you find the time, would you mind having a look at AOS with the 3 SoS esps? It doesn't look that complicated to patch at first sight but I;m not sure if combining the region records from both mods is a good idea in this case. Espeically since Lord Korn said it would require difficult patching to make them compatible...

 

Would be curious about your opinion. On your mod page you say you take requests so here's one :P

[mothergoose729]

I played a while with this mod, and there is a lot I like, and there is quite a bit I don't really like. I am a huge fan of the echo and reverb going on and I am very reluctant to give that up. That being said some of the sounds are just really odd. In particular, the bow shooting sound is both too loud on the string vibration, and the impact sound for an arrow hitting is not at all positional, so even when you hit a target very far away and sounds like its right in your ear. The footstep sounds for the smaller animals are much to loud but its not too distracting. I much prefer the weapon sheathe sounds from STEP and a few others as well, but I do like the idea that AOS replaces about 10 of my sound mods by itself and does a better job than most of them.

 

When I get home I will try out some of michaelw's patches and then do a run through with STEP only a post my opinions.

[TechAngel85]

I played a while with this mod, and there is a lot I like, and there is quite a bit I don't really like. I am a huge fan of the echo and reverb going on and I am very reluctant to give that up. That being said some of the sounds are just really odd. In particular, the bow shooting sound is both too loud on the string vibration, and the impact sound for an arrow hitting is not at all positional, so even when you hit a target very far away and sounds like its right in your ear. The footstep sounds for the smaller animals are much to loud but its not too distracting. I much prefer the weapon sheathe sounds from STEP and a few others as well, but I do like the idea that AOS replaces about 10 of my sound mods by itself and does a better job than most of them.

 

When I get home I will try out some of michaelw's patches and then do a run through with STEP only a post my opinions.

This is the type of analysis I was looking for on this mod. Detailed about different sounds. Any audiophiles around here?

[exploiteddna]

michaelrw, if you find the time, would you mind having a look at AOS with the 3 SoS esps? It doesn't look that complicated to patch at first sight but I;m not sure if combining the region records from both mods is a good idea in this case. Espeically since Lord Korn said it would require difficult patching to make them compatible...

 

Would be curious about your opinion. On your mod page you say you take requests so here's one :P

yeah i could take a look at it i suppose. i first need to patch up requiem that someone requested like a week ago, but ill get to SoS sometime this weekend, maybe tomorrow.

The other thing to consider is, a lot of the conflicts im sure are purely preferential. Also, if LK said it would be hard to get the two mods to play nicely together, that doesn't bode well for me. nonetheless, i will see whats going on with it and report back

I played a while with this mod, and there is a lot I like, and there is quite a bit I don't really like. I am a huge fan of the echo and reverb going on and I am very reluctant to give that up. That being said some of the sounds are just really odd. In particular, the bow shooting sound is both too loud on the string vibration, and the impact sound for an arrow hitting is not at all positional, so even when you hit a target very far away and sounds like its right in your ear. The footstep sounds for the smaller animals are much to loud but its not too distracting. I much prefer the weapon sheathe sounds from STEP and a few others as well, but I do like the idea that AOS replaces about 10 of my sound mods by itself and does a better job than most of them.

 

When I get home I will try out some of michaelw's patches and then do a run through with STEP only a post my opinions.

its odd that your arrow impacts are sounding as if they were right next to you when they should sound distant.

One of the main features i love about AOS is that, when you cast the explosive fireball spell (not firebolt), the sound dynamically changes depending on how far you are from the point of impact. When youre in the mountains and the fireball explodes in the distance, it sounds super realistic IMO.. it sounds much more faint and has a "sound traveling" effect to it. But, I have not noticed any sort of problem with the bow, although I use my own custom sounds for bow release/fire.

Based on the fact the author has implemented the type of acoustics that I described for the fireball, I find it odd that they would be lacking from the arrow impact. Either I just simply haven't noticed, one of the other STEP sound mods is overwriting (either the sound files or in the plugin), or you have some record conflict in your load order that is causing this.

[Neovalen]

Personally love the bow sounds now that I'm used to them. :)

[phazer11]

I played a while with this mod, and there is a lot I like, and there is quite a bit I don't really like. I am a huge fan of the echo and reverb going on and I am very reluctant to give that up. That being said some of the sounds are just really odd. In particular, the bow shooting sound is both too loud on the string vibration, and the impact sound for an arrow hitting is not at all positional, so even when you hit a target very far away and sounds like its right in your ear. The footstep sounds for the smaller animals are much to loud but its not too distracting. I much prefer the weapon sheathe sounds from STEP and a few others as well, but I do like the idea that AOS replaces about 10 of my sound mods by itself and does a better job than most of them.

 

When I get home I will try out some of michaelw's patches and then do a run through with STEP only a post my opinions.

This is the type of analysis I was looking for on this mod. Detailed about different sounds. Any audiophiles around here?

<--- Audiophile here. But I'm still working on re-installing all of my mod setups, sans the junk since as I said Mod Organizer was eating up 50GB or better of my SSD space.