[VETMIN] Custom TeaserMusic + Music/Sound Mod Discussion

[vetmin]

I have a general thread for my mods here (https://forums.nba-live.com/viewtopic.php?f=272&t=113117) but wanted to make a dedicated thread for this music stuff, hopefully to encourage more discussion / progress in this area of modding the game. Please feel free to discuss anything related to music / sound modding, not just my own mods. (...and S/O to Maumau for his past work & discussion on 2k music/sound, which was helpful to me!)

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CUSTOM TEASERMUSIC PACK

"TeaserMusic" refers to those two hype-video style montages that precede a decent chunk of games in 2k22. The game includes two types: one using a song called "Legendary" and the other using a song called "Way Up." What I've prepared is a pack of replacement music for those tracks, as well as an optional TeaserMusic.iff file that will prevent the text overlay from occurring (i.e., the one that pops up and says either "Way Up" or "Legendary"). FWIW, the audio snippets are very brief (~30 seconds), and I'm no expert on fair use, etc., but just want to clarify that this is not a collection of full songs; it's comparable to what you hear in iTunes previews.

Please note that -- as far as I know -- pre-game elements like TeaserMusic, sideline reports, etc. do not trigger for teams outside of the slots for the main 30 present-day NBA teams, so you will not see these TeaserMusic segments in such situations as a Play Now game featuring any of the teams under 2K's "Classic" and "All-Time" categories, nor would you see them in MyLeague using an expansion team or a team that has been modified within the game itself (under the Relocation tab). If you're using a retro roster in which the main Bulls team, for instance, has had DeRozan, Lavine, etc. deleted and replaced with Jordan, Pippen, etc., with no in-game edits in the Relocation tab, then the TeaserMusic and other pre-game stuff should trigger just fine for you.

Here are the tracks (which I've divided into four categories), as well as some video captures (NOTE: the camera glitchiness has nothing to do with these mods; I've been experiencing this glitchiness since launch with or without mods, and I've assumed everyone else has been experiencing it too; if anyone knows how to fix it, please let me know):

BROADCAST (official TV broadcaster themes)

• ESPN = Present-day NBA on ESPN theme (PREVIEW = https://streamable.com/frvmak)
• NBC Roundball Rock = Classic NBA on NBC theme
• NBC Sports RSNs = Theme for present-day NBC Sports regional sports networks (like NBC Sports Bay Area) (PREVIEW = https://streamable.com/s6hshu)
• TNT Modern = Present-day NBA on TNT theme
• TNT Retro = Early '90s NBA on TNT theme

LAST DANCE (memorable tracks from the series)

• LL Cool J - "I'm Bad" (PREVIEW = https://streamable.com/hocysm)
• Prince - "Partyman" (PREVIEW = https://streamable.com/3lorf2)
• Fatboy Slim - "Right Here, Right Now"

PLAYOFF HYPE (music used as hype music for the playoffs in real life)

• Fort Minor - "Remember the Name" (2006 playoffs) (PREVIEW = https://streamable.com/mc7vuc)
• Kanye West - "Amazing" (2009 playoffs = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLkTnWF32iQ)
• Pitbull & Ke$ha - "Timber" (2014 playoffs = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_-ZQv_nxWM)
• Kendrick Lamar - "Humble" (2017 playoffs = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bpC0Vu0sUk) (PREVIEW = https://streamable.com/v85d93)

NOTE: For versatility's sake, the versions in this download are from the studio recordings of the tracks and don't include the overlaid crowd noise, broadcaster lines, etc. in the official NBA hype videos; the one exception is "Timber," which is the version in the official video with the basketball-related lyrics. Fortunately Pitbull doesn't rap about any particular players, teams, etc.

MISCELLANEOUS (random jams just for variety, or for fictional playoff hype)

• Geto Boys - "Damn, It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta" (PREVIEW = https://streamable.com/ycw3z8)
• Goodie Mob - "Fight to Win" (instrumental version) (PREVIEW = https://streamable.com/czv0xy)
• House of Pain - "Jump"
• Bobby Shmurda - "Hot N*gga"
• Whitesnake - "Here I Go Again" (for retro leagues)

WARNING: Even though it's technically not realistic, none of these are the 'clean' versions of the songs, so you'll hear Kendrick Lamar saying things he didn't say in the official NBA hype video, lol.

DOWNLOAD HERE: https://www.mediafire.com/file/t7ib7ewzi8226s9/vetmin_-_Custom_TeaserMusic_Pack.zip/file

Installation instructions are in the included readme (as well as a separate, brief readme re: the broadcast themes in particular).

NOTES / GENERAL THOUGHTS:

• I went way into the rabbit hole on this and I have a whole list of songs that would work well for TeaserMusic, but there are no words to express how insanely tedious it is to test these damn things and I'm totally burnt out on it, so expect more tracks, but not right away because I need a break, lol.
• On that note, the reason it's tedious is because -- to the best of my knowledge -- one can't control when these teaser segments are triggered, or which one is triggered, so I was jumping in and out of Quick Play games for hours just rollin' the dice on whether the TeaserMusic would trigger or not. IF YOU KNOW HOW TO RELIABLY TRIGGER THESE THINGS EVERY TIME PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, LET ME KNOW. I don't know if I'm trippin' but after awhile I started to notice that certain segments of 2kTV seemed to correlate somewhat with TeaserMusic being triggered. Like, in Episode 21, Alexis Morgan is talking to some 2ker named Chanler (sic) and I swear most of the time when it switched over to that dude's segment it would trigger the "Legendary" TeaserMusic, whereas the segment about some 2ker dropping 50 on the male 2kTV host seemed to never lead to TeaserMusic, but again, maybe I'm just trippin'. (I'm so tired of 2kTV, omg.)
• The reason I was able to create these musical substitutes and have them actually play back is because the audio is in an *.iff file. Unfortunately, I'm still stumped re: how to directly hook a *.wav file and get it to play back, and -- as far as I'm aware -- all arena music seems to be unpacked (i.e., outside of *.iff files), so I'm unable to touch it. Fortunately, at least in my experience playing MyLeague, these TeaserMusic montages appear quite a bit (it feels like damn near half of my MyLeague games start off with one of them), so at least it's a relatively reliable avenue for slipping some custom music into the game beyond the general soundtrack. Baby steps
• Not sure why but for whatever reason the playback volume level in-game for these is a tad lower than the surrounding game audio. The tracks themselves have very healthy waveforms, so that's not really the issue, but just a heads up. If you want to see what I mean, watch the NBC Sports RSNs preview video above; I let it run into the arena portion of the game so you can hear the difference.
• In a day or two I'll provide instructions on how to make these and also share general tips / tricks to get a good end result. Just too tired to type up a tutorial rn. They're very easy to make though and I think the community could benefit from people contributing their own audio cuts.

Please LMK if anything doesn't work correctly. I've tested just about everything, so any problems are almost certainly user error (please look at the readmes) or some goof by me that I can fix without too much trouble.

[vetmin]

Below is a quick How-To. Just wanna put it out there, even if no one really cares right now, as I'm always finding things in old threads for past 2Ks that are helpful for solving problems with the latest 2K. Just payin' it forward.

The basic technical process is simply the following (and obviously big thanks to looyh for creating all of the tools that make everything possible):

1. Create the *.mp3 you wanna use.
2. Use looyh's 2k Music Converter to convert it to *.wav.
3. Extract the files teasermusic_aleksjameskairo_legendarygen4.iff and teasermusic_kairo_wayupgen4.iff from the game, using either looyh's Export Console or the export feature in looyh's Hook, if you see them load up in the file manager log.
4. Rename your custom *.wav to either aleksjameskairo_legendarygen4.RESA or kairo_wayupgen4.RESA depending upon which TeaserMusic segment you want your music to appear in.
5. Drag and drop the *.RESA file into the like-named *.iff file, replacing what's in there.

That's it. Then you just drop it into your Mods folder or the appropriate mod folder, if you're using multiple folders (like one for each broadcast presentation).

SIDENOTE: Naturally, it follows from the above that if you extract any of my modded *.RESA files and rename them with a *.wav extension, then you can open them in Audacity and listen to them directly, for instance if you're trying to reverse engineer anything for your own knowledge.

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If anyone besides me is interested in actually creating their own audio for the TeaserMusic in 2k22 specifically, then the following are some general observations that may save you time:

- Upon playback, the game will skip the first second or so of audio. Users were experiencing this too when using looyh's Music Converter for customizing their menu soundtrack, and his advice was simply to leave an empty second or so at the beginning of the track to account for this. The challenge in the case of TeaserMusic though is that these segments are already very short, and in many cases you're trying to line up the music with some of the depicted action, so it really hurts to lose any wiggle room time-wise. I don't have a fix for the general issue, but I can say that starting the music at the 1.12-second mark is safe for both TeaserMusic types, and for "Legendary" I was able to start it at 0.93 seconds in some cases, though in others I felt like it cut off ever so slightly and I had to start a little later, so 0.93 must be pretty close to the earliest possible start time for that segment.

- As I mentioned in the OP, there's no way I'm aware of to force the game to load TeaserMusic, but when testing I found it helpful to keep the file-loading log in looyh's Hook open so that on the 2kTV game-loading screen, I could quickly see ahead of time if it was going to load up for the coming game, since the *.iff files pre-load on that screen. This was helpful for being ready to video capture the previews I posted.

- Here is some potentially useful timing info:

WAY UP (total length is 31.031 seconds)
10.382 = the second mark for when the initial dunk goes in the hoop

LEGENDARY (total length is 29.596 seconds)
5.00 = the second mark for when the screen suddenly goes black
7.398 = the second mark for when the black screen returns to normal
24.543 = the second mark for when the left team name drops near the end
27.49 = the second mark for when the centered drop near the end (i.e., right before it says "NEXT")

You could identify many more hit points by cross-referencing my preview videos with the actual audio in the download (again, renaming *.RESA to *.wav and opening in Audacity). The above are just a handful.

[TGsoGood]

Great resource right here!

[TGsoGood]

Great resource right here!

[Mahmood]

Love seeing threads like these. I'm also currently looking into PA audio files / music -- you were right they are standalone files, but they should be perfectly editable like the Jukebox is. In fact, I figured out why they weren't working. 2K creates eventmusic / PA files using a different encoding method. If you open up one of the .wav's with HxD or a different Hex Editor, it shows that it was created using oggenc lancer. A simple google search shows a full forum with documentation on how to use this format. 2K also has some random padding in the header, but I think we can figure out how to create these files if we work together on this. This would allow us to finally change the PA music during timeouts, during gameplay, and even during starting lineup intros.

[vetmin]

Great resource right here!

Thanks!

Love seeing threads like these. I'm also currently looking into PA audio files / music -- you were right they are standalone files, but they should be perfectly editable like the Jukebox is. In fact, I figured out why they weren't working. 2K creates eventmusic / PA files using a different encoding method. If you open up one of the .wav's with HxD or a different Hex Editor, it shows that it was created using oggenc lancer. A simple google search shows a full forum with documentation on how to use this format. 2K also has some random padding in the header, but I think we can figure out how to create these files if we work together on this. This would allow us to finally change the PA music during timeouts, during gameplay, and even during starting lineup intros.

Thanks, and yeah I was looking into that thanks to this thread: viewtopic.php?f=236&t=105016 and another one where Maumau was pointing out the header data. Encoding the audio with oggenc lancer and then adding the header data (i.e., from the default 2K versions of those *.RESA files) via Hex Editor was actually the first thing I tried for customizing the TeaserMusic, but it didn't work, though I'm new to this kind of stuff so I could've been doing something wrong (also, I was unable to find the oggenc lancer version dated 20110424, which is the one that is listed when you hex edit game audio files of all types that I've seen; I only have a newer one, and the user in the thread I just linked also couldn't find the older version).

I tried looyh's Music Converter just on a lark, and I wasn't expecting it to actually work because when you open his converted audio in a hex editor, the ogg encoding info looks very different, but it works. Though I was happy that it worked, I was little discouraged, because:

1. IIRC, from the hex data (header + encoding info), it appears that *.RESA files in *.iff archives and the unpacked *.wav audio are the same format. I'll have to double check, but that's what I recall.
2. Clearly the game can read looyh's encoded audio as a playable substitute for that native format (i.e., header data + BS; LancerMod... aoTuV [20110424] encoding jargon).
3. That means that the only difference between the audio playing and it not playing is whether the audio file is in an *.iff (in which case it plays) or not (in which case it doesn't).
4. It would stand to reason then -- it seems to me -- that even with the exact correct encoding of an unpacked *.wav file, it likely wouldn't play back, because why would it be less picky about interpreting the audio data when it's in an *.iff vs. when it's not?

That said, it DOES work with unpacked jukebox music as we all know, so there's hope there, but I felt like the fact the game found looyh's format totally acceptable for its native format when it's in an *.iff, but unacceptable when it isn't, that that signals that the issue might not be getting the encoding right, and that it might be a larger issue that I wouldn't know how to tackle. Thoughts?

[Mahmood]

Great resource right here!

Thanks!

Love seeing threads like these. I'm also currently looking into PA audio files / music -- you were right they are standalone files, but they should be perfectly editable like the Jukebox is. In fact, I figured out why they weren't working. 2K creates eventmusic / PA files using a different encoding method. If you open up one of the .wav's with HxD or a different Hex Editor, it shows that it was created using oggenc lancer. A simple google search shows a full forum with documentation on how to use this format. 2K also has some random padding in the header, but I think we can figure out how to create these files if we work together on this. This would allow us to finally change the PA music during timeouts, during gameplay, and even during starting lineup intros.

Thanks, and yeah I was looking into that thanks to this thread: viewtopic.php?f=236&t=105016 and another one where Maumau was pointing out the header data. Encoding the audio with oggenc lancer and then adding the header data (i.e., from the default 2K versions of those *.RESA files) via Hex Editor was actually the first thing I tried for customizing the TeaserMusic, but it didn't work, though I'm new to this kind of stuff so I could've been doing something wrong (also, I was unable to find the oggenc lancer version dated 20110424, which is the one that is listed when you hex edit game audio files of all types that I've seen; I only have a newer one, and the user in the thread I just linked also couldn't find the older version).

I tried looyh's Music Converter just on a lark, and I wasn't expecting it to actually work because when you open his converted audio in a hex editor, the ogg encoding info looks very different, but it works. Though I was happy that it worked, I was little discouraged, because:

1. IIRC, from the hex data (header + encoding info), it appears that *.RESA files in *.iff archives and the unpacked *.wav audio are the same format. I'll have to double check, but that's what I recall.
2. Clearly the game can read looyh's encoded audio as a playable substitute for that native format (i.e., header data + BS; LancerMod... aoTuV [20110424] encoding jargon).
3. That means that the only difference between the audio playing and it not playing is whether the audio file is in an *.iff (in which case it plays) or not (in which case it doesn't).
4. It would stand to reason then -- it seems to me -- that even with the exact correct encoding of an unpacked *.wav file, it likely wouldn't play back, because why would it be less picky about interpreting the audio data when it's in an *.iff vs. when it's not?

That said, it DOES work with unpacked jukebox music as we all know, so there's hope there, but I felt like the fact the game found looyh's format totally acceptable for its native format when it's in an *.iff, but unacceptable when it isn't, that that signals that the issue might not be getting the encoding right, and that it might be a larger issue that I wouldn't know how to tackle. Thoughts?

Agreed, and I've given Looyh the information of the Codec and other things that may allow him to make this a reality. If anyone can do it, it's him. I'll continue to experiment myself, as well.