I recently started playing Nehrim, like many other people in the forum , and I noticed many nice things, and one of them was the great sounds in the forests, the wind moving the leaves, birds singing, and I thought that those were mod added.

So I asked in the Nehrim thread what mods exist that could add such sound effects and shadowbeast368 answered that those were Oblivion sounds that were just louder. And now ofcourse I want to modify the volume of the Oblivion sound effects to match those of Nehrim. Where can I do that?

Can't you just turn up the sound effects volumes on the audio interface? You don't have to turn up the master or other sounds, just the sound effects? Or am I missing something?

To adjust the volume levels on the sound files in Oblivion, you'd have to have a program that allows you to adjust sound levels in .wav files. Then you would need to figure out what the files are and go from there. I've used Sony Sound Forge and Adobe Soundbooth on other projects, but those are two expensive solutions. I'm sure there's a cheaper program out there, although it might not give you the same sound control.

Just keep in mind, sound varies from machine to machine and from speakers to earbuds to headphones. Personally, I'd try just turning up the volume first.

~ Dani ~

Thank you for the reply! The volume is maxed already. I don't what the guys that created Nehrim did to enhance so much the Oblivion sound effects but I guess they used what you mention, some sort of program to adjust sound in the .wav files...

Most Oblivion sounds have been made quieter through the CS, so you can make them louder without changing the actual wav files. Open the CS, load the Oblivion.esm and click on the 'sound' category in the object window (subcategory of the miscellaneous category). There you will find all the sounds, the ambient sounds start with AMB. If you double-click on a sound a tab will open with the settings for that sound. There is a slider for 'static attenuation'. Most sounds have this slider moved to the right to lower the volume. Simply because the source wav files are pretty loud and it was easier for Bethesda to adjust the volume of the different sounds through a slider in the CS than to adjust every wav file over and over until is has the desired volume. Now all you need to do is move the slider to the left (the negative decibel value will increase).

I like the forest sound effects in Nehrim, but the wood creaking sound really got on my nerves after a short while. Draaam...draaam...draaaam. That very loud sound came up about every ten seconds. Made me go crazy, I made a mod to turn the volume back to almost vanilla Oblivion volume.

Thank you for the very clear instruction on how to change the files! There is one thing that is not clear for me though. You say that most sliders in the static attenuation are on the right, but I see them in the left, with a -0 db and if I move the slider to the right I can see the value becoming more negative. Is this right?

Also what would be a recommended value in db to move the slider to, since I've never played with these settings until now?

No, if it's at 0 db already then you can't maker the sound louder without changing the wav files. But most of the regular ambient sounds are not at 0 db, like birds, crickets, wind and tree sounds etc. They all have negative db (at least the ones I checked). Recommendations are impossible as every sound is different (both the source wav volume and where/how it is used). Just look at the db rating and increase it by a few percent. Like if it was at -25 db set it to -20 db, if it was at -10 db set it to 8 db and so on. Maybe go through the sounds by category and test in game so you know what to change if you think the sounds are too loud now or still not loud enough. For example alter all bird sounds and listen to them in game, if you like what you hear change the wind sounds etc.

I know that the annoying creaking sound in Nehrim was changed from -25.99 in vanilla (very subtle, hard to hear at all if you don't pay much attention to it) to something like -11 in Nehrim (very loud).

Alright, everything is clear now, I will play around with this once I take a break from playing Nehrim and start playing Oblivion again . Thank you for the help! :foodndrink:

Or you could perhaps use a mod like http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=19038.

Yes, I know of this mod, and I used it in the past, the problem is that it uses an esp slot, and since I have about 200 mods I would like to avoid that.

But is this mod safe to use - http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5861, instead of manually tweaking the Oblivion ambient sounds?