Edit:
for sake of clarity, most obvious and bothersome example of the problem and a small&simple attempt at a fix I made.
Following is how center of Luna with music switched on works for me. I assume it is no different for anyone else: I recall to Luna and head for the bank. I spend a minute or three moving back and forth a bit, running about radnomly and doing normal day-to-day stuff around the Luna bank room. The loud, hyper melodic Inn theme music keeps starting, stopping, starting again, stopping, starting ad nausea as long as I stay/go anywhere near, or underneath the Inn located above the bank. I find this incredibly annoying.
I made a super simple small fix, which seems to work pretty great. For me&for now at least.
All music UO plays is located in Ultima Online/Music/Digital. It is basically a very simple, ordinary music folder of stuff in mp3 format. I noticed song called Tavern1.mp3 is the one I don't want to be so damn invasive in Luna.
Using an open source, freeware sound editing software named Audacity I loaded Tavern1.mp3 up and merged it with another Mp3 file; 30 secods of complete silence! Now, my Tavern1.mp3 spends merciful, precious and blissful 30 seconds playing silence, and only then delivers the wicked tavern chime. This way, one pretty much needs to be still to " get to" hear it, which I think is optimal.
I uploaded the modified tavern1 in case anyone feels like giving it a spin! This is 1:1 the original, only with 30 secs of silence at the beginning of track, heh.
Dropbox - Tavern1.mp3
Backup copy your original Tavern1.mp3 somewhere, then throw this to your UO's music folder and enjoy the silence!
Another small experiment,
Merged Tavern ambience available via creative commons on background of the original Inn theme of UO. Comes with 15 seconds of silence
Dropbox - Tavern1.mp3
Putting this to UO's Music folder replaces Login-screen music with Stones, very big deal for me personally!
Dropbox - LoginLoop.mp3
For some reason, log in screen insists on playing the song on loop and I am not sure if it is possible to prevent it. So I added 1 min of silence at end of track, so actual song keeps playing in loop but at intervals.
Track called Britainpos gets played every time you approach the city, or couple other locations. It isn't a bad song, but I've heard it so many times I never want to do so again! I simply replaced the song with other present in UO's folder, track Newmagincia conveys similar atmosphere with added benefit of not having been heard a million times yet. This is just renamed newmagincia.
Dropbox - Britainpos.mp3
Ever-merry Britain1 is a song I really want to hear!!
,,,two times a year or so. This is untouched original track with one minute silence before song begins. Likely saves one from hearing for the most part, but not always. Which is how I'd like it.
Dropbox - Britain1.mp3 I feel tracks such as (capital)city themes could really benefit from medieval market ambience or such. I just haven't found any that are suitable and under creative commons. IIRC Baldur's Gate I&II, contemporaries with UO, have excellent city ambience..but I guess they can't be used or shared freely.
All of the above applies at least to CC, no clue how EC handles music.
Old OP:
Every once in a while somebody pops up saying UO's "new" music is bad. I've made such statements in past just as well. Plenty of people miss the old songs, or claim irritation towards the new.
Like most others, (?) I almost always play with music switched Off, having it On proves an utter irritation and ear bleed without exception. I fruitlessly gave it yet another chance just today. It dawned me how heart of the issue isn't the case of ("new") songs being all that bad; I find the quality uneven, far from bad as such. Ultimately, I feel tis entirely other factors that ensure Music stays OFF for most everybody.
UO's philosophy and approach to music, sound and soundtrack is from angle that ensures utter dysfunctionality. Any good MMO is played for several years. Entire notion you should hear one or two highly melodic action tracks every single time you enter combat is utterly awful. As is the idea that there'd be anyone at all who'd want to hear some 90 second invasive City theme every single time they recall into a city.
Way I see it, heart of the matter consists of three issues
* Triggers that make songs start/stop playing are ill chosen, horrible and dysfunctional. Entering city or any other area should not, ever, mean an immeidiate and invasive triggering of a song. Players not AFK usually move and teleport around too much for this to be good. Insanity tier is reached if the song actually has the nerve to LOOP ad nausea! Having one or two same epic battle musics play every time one enters combat is also insanity tier. Additionally, these triggers usually just malfunction. Recall to Luna and game goes TRALALALALA..ride around for five seconds and it randomly cuts off. Move back to where you came and it's TRLALALAL once more. Awesome. Yet, recalling away, rather than moving, seems to often leave the original song playing no matter what.
* In general, UO's songs have way, way too much melody everywhere. Everybody enters Luna or combat like bazillion times a day.Is there anyone who would want to hear some epic and triumphant uber melodic tralah-lalalah every single time this happens ? Often heard songs should be far more formless, low key and subtle.Ambient. Which takes us to how...
* ....there should be much less songs and much more subtle pure background ambience in their stead. We'd do well to have soundscapes, not soundtracks;
When stepping inside an Inn, I'd rather hear moody and low can't-quite-make-out-the-words mumbling of conversation of patrons, clattering of plates, distant laughter at jokes unheard, ale poured, dart games played.
When entering city, I'd rather hear merchants, crowds, wagons rolling by.
When in dungeon, distant echoes of footsteps, gruntings of something nasty, mumbling of a spell in distance..
In each case, I sure as **** would rather NOT hear some loud, uber melodic, lifted-from-money-shot-of-Errol Flynn-flick TARALALALLAHHKLALALALLALALALLALA -nightmare every time I recall anywhere.
I'm certainly not saying traditional, classic songs should be removed entirely..but they'd truly benefit from being bit more..low key in terms of time, place and frequency played. And never, ever not in a bazillion years should a 40-120 seconds long highly melodic song EVER play on loop anywhere in any video game for any reason ever.
I feel everything I've spoken of here is stuff that'd be reasonably easy ( or at any rate, entirely doable and affordable) for either devs or community to try and fix. Plenty of games with vibrant mod scenes have managed very impressive ambient sound-scapes added by players. Maybe something for us to think about.
It'd be up to devs of course, to do something more sophisticated like adjustment of the obsolete and terrible song-triggers.
It'd be entirely within power of community to figure out ham fisted ways around the bad song triggers.
Example: As it stands, track with uber melodic loud drivel starting at 00:01 begins playing every time you enter combat. Could one not replace it with track that has, say, sounds of battle for 4 minutes, then, perhaps, the uber melodic song if combat keeps lasting, followed by other 4 mins of battle. There are plenty of free-to-use libraries for this stuff available. These things are not within devs reach due to non-profit angle. But for reach of the community? Certainly. Granted, it is questionable if this method, either, would cope with terrible malfunctionings of the "song triggers". I have a feeling there'd be many good work arounds, such as leaving some 30 seconds of silence at start of a track etc.
Examples of what I mean by Ambience and Soundscapes Vs songs
Every time I enter Inn or such, I'd hear this:
Rather than this:
When entering a city, I'd hear a city, rather than orchestra of TRALALALLALA. Like so:
Example of how well it works if a very melodic songs gets bit of a low key treatment and is allowed to sink underneath atmospheric ambience:
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