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Topic: Can a .wav file be edited to lower the volume on it? (Read 8626 times) previous topic - next topic
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Can a .wav file be edited to lower the volume on it?

First time posting here and I know next to nothing about editing sound files.

I have a PC game, Doom 3. I recently installed a 3rd party sound pack for a specific weapon in the game, namely the Plasma Gun. I love the sound of it but it's way too loud in comparison to the rest of the weapon sounds. This sound pack is a few .wav files.

Is there a way to edit those .wav files to lower the volume to match the rest of the game's weapon sounds? I wouldn't know where to begin or how to tell exactly what the volume is supposed to be to begin with.

Any help appreciated. Thanks

Can a .wav file be edited to lower the volume on it?

Reply #2 –
I need a tutorial! Heh heh.

This seems pretty complicated. I checked those links and didn't understand them. I wouldn't know how to set this up. I wouldn't know what the volume of those .wavs are supposed to be to begin with to match the other sound files in the game.

Wish the guy who created them would have done his homework. All he had to do was listen to the weapon sounds and easily see the one he created was twice as loud as the rest of them and adjust accordingly. As I'm a rookie when it comes to this stuff, I wouldn't know where to begin to do that.

Can a .wav file be edited to lower the volume on it?

Reply #3 –
I'm not much of a gamer (well, I'm into Lincity-NG lately ), but the few games that I have played always had separate volume sliders for special effects and for music. An established game like Doom3 wouldn't lack such a basic feature, would it?

EDIT: oops, wasn't reading carefully... I thought you wanted to adjust the music to better hear the weapons, but that's not what the post said at all

Can a .wav file be edited to lower the volume on it?

Reply #4 –
I'll be damned if I didn't figure this out. I actually had a .wav editor and didn't even know it. It comes with Nero 7 Ultra (which I have). Anyway I opened each .wav (there were 6 of them in question) with the Nero Wav Editor and adjusted each one, put them back into the game and tried them. It took me 2 tries to get it right being I was guessing by ear. I ended up adjusted those .wavs to -10 (first time I tried -19 but it was too low) to get them to be equal in volume to the rest of the weapon sounds.

That Wav Editor is trippy. I understood very little of what I was seeing there. More adjustments than the kitchen sink (actually I think that was there too). I clicked "Volume/Normalize" and adjusted it there and it worked. Heh heh.

Anyone got any Jimi Hendrix tunes they want me to adjust? Gives you a little clue as to my age. LOL!


Quote
I'm not much of a gamer (well, I'm into Lincity-NG lately ), but the few games that I have played always had separate volume sliders for special effects and for music. An established game like Doom3 wouldn't lack such a basic feature, would it?


In some games there are adjustment sliders for Effects and Speech but not for individual weapons.

Can a .wav file be edited to lower the volume on it?

Reply #5 –
Quote from: Mike89 on
I need a tutorial! Heh heh.

This seems pretty complicated. I checked those links and didn't understand them.


OK, let's do this another way.

(0) Copy your WAV file.
(1) Assuming WinXP, then Start, Run, "C:\WINDOWS\system32\sndrec32.exe", <enter>.
(2) In sndrec32.exe, File > Open > [your original WAV file].
(3) Play button to check volume level.
(4) Then Effects > Decrease Volume.  Personally, I would do that Decrease Volume step something like three times in succession.
(5) Play button to check new volume level.
(6) File > Save

Use copied file as a backup which you can restore by renaming.

There.  That should be simple enough.

Can a .wav file be edited to lower the volume on it?

Reply #6 –
Quote
(1) Assuming WinXP, then Start, Run, "C:\WINDOWS\system32\sndrec32.exe", <enter>.


Or just right click on that wav file and hit "record"?

Can a .wav file be edited to lower the volume on it?

Reply #7 –
This is what I do, but I have a proper wave editor. I presume something similar can be easily done in GoldWave/et al, though.

I use Cool Edit Pro 2.1 (now Adobe Audition):
1. Open the WAV.
2. Highlight (select) all the WAV. Ctrl-A (select all) probably can do this.
3. In one of your option menus, there'll be a volume or in my case, effects->amplitude section which alters volume, in CEP2.1 your selected amount of dB at a time.

Although this isn't probably relevant in your case (since you're not talking about high-end audio, but low-quality WAV SFX), normalising WAV files generally isn't a good thing. But it probably isn't relevant for you.

- Spike