Music.tbl

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FSO Revision: 5307

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music.tbl is a table file used by the FreeSpace game engine to define the music played during the game.

In FSO, this table can be further extended with any modular table with a filename ending with -mus (e.g. AF-mus.tbm, bp-mus.tbm, v_music-mus.tbm).

music.tbl consists of two sections defined as follows:

1. The soundtracks, which are music files intended to be played during a mission.
2. The menu music, which are music files intended to be played for other purposes.

Comments (which are not parsed by the game engine) can be added at the start of a line, or after any line containing formatting, by beginning with a semicolon (;).

-mus.tbm modular tables use the exact same formatting as music.tbl.

Soundtrack

Each individual soundtrack must start with #SoundTrack Start, end with #SoundTrack End, and have the following lines in between:

1. $Soundtrack Name:
2. One of the following:

• 12 lines, all starting with $Name:

FS2 Open 3.6.10:

• 12-14 lines, all starting with $Name:
• 14 lines, all starting with $String:

$Soundtrack Name:

$Soundtrack Name: is immediately followed by the name of the soundtrack. This primarily affects how the soundtrack is referred to in FRED as well as its variants. The name of the soundtrack can be prefixed with a number to keep listings organised, such as the underlined code below:

  $Soundtrack Name: 1: Genesis

Flags

FS2 Open 3.6.10:

The following flags can be added in extra lines after $Soundtrack Name: in modular tables.

+nocreate

This flag should be added if the soundtrack is intended to completely overwrite an existing soundtrack with the exact same name.

+Cycle: FS1

This cycles the Normal and Battle tracks the FS1 way, instead of the FS2 way.

+Allied Arrival Overlay: NO

This allows the Allied Arrival track to play on its own, as it did in FS1.

$Name:

For this section, refer to the code for FS2_Amb_A01.wav, as follows:

  $Name:	FS2_Amb_A01.wav				25.0	105840	; * Ambience 

The code above can be explained using the following table:

$Name: (fixed)	Filename	Number of Measures (m)	Samples per Measure (s)	Comments (optional)
$Name:	FS2_Amb_A01.wav	25.0	105840	; * Ambience

The subsections describe each of the above columns in more detail.

$Name:

The individual music segments in a soundtrack is defined using at least 12 lines, all beginning with $Name:. The FreeSpace engine parses and plays the audio file referenced in each line in the following order:

Order	Situation	Details
1	Ambience	Normal track. Plays when nothing is happening or units are out of combat range. Loops on itself until another situation is called, but if Ambience 2 is defined in FSO builds, will usually segue to it.
2	Allied Arrival during Ambience	Plays when a friendly unit arrives while Ambience is playing. By default, plays on top of other audio tracks without seguing; in FSO builds, if +Allied Arrival Overlay: NO is added below $Soundtrack Name:, the currently playing track will segue into this instead.
3	Enemy Arrival during Ambience	Plays when a hostile unit arrives while Ambience is playing.
4	Battle 1	Battle track 1. Plays when units are in combat range. Usually segues into Battle 2.
5	Battle 2	Battle track 2. Plays when units are in combat range. Usually segues into Battle 3.
6	Battle 3	Battle track 3. Plays when units are in combat range. Usually segues into Battle 1.
7	Allied Arrival during Battle	Plays when a friendly unit arrives while any Battle track is playing. By default, plays on top of other audio tracks without seguing; in FSO builds, if +Allied Arrival Overlay: NO is added below $Soundtrack Name:, the currently playing track will segue into this instead.
8	Enemy Arrival during Battle	Plays when a hostile unit arrives while any Battle track is playing.
9	Victory 1	Plays when a goal is completed. Segues into Victory 2, Ambience, or a Battle track depending on the remaining goals and hostile units remaining, and whether Victory 2 has already been called.
10	Victory 2	Victory 1 segues into this track when all goals are completed and there are absolutely no hostile units present. Is only called once; if additional goals are validated in-mission and/or new hostile units arrive after this track has already been played, Victory 1 will segue into Ambience or a Battle track.
11	Goal Failed	Plays when the goals of a mission are failed. Does not appear to be called in-game.
12	Player Dies	Plays when the player is killed and goes to the death screen.

FS2 Open 3.6.10:

• The following lines can be added.

Order	Situation	Details
13	Ambience 2	Normal track. Plays when nothing is happening or units are out of combat range. If Ambience 3 is defined, usually segues into it, otherwise segues into Ambience.
14	Ambience 3	Normal track. Plays when nothing is happening or units are out of combat range. Usually segues into Ambience.

The order and situation of the lines cannot be changed and are required in order for the engine to parse the audio files in the correct situations. If there is no audio file available for any of the situations (such as Battle 3, for instance), a placeholder line denoting an empty track should still be included, such as the bolded code below:

  ...
  $Name:	FS2_Btl_A02.wav				27.8	81415	; * Battle 2
  $Name:	silence.wav				0.0	0	; * Battle 3
  $Name:	FS2_AArv_A01.wav			1.8	105840	; * Allied Arrival during Battle
  ...

Filename

The filename of the audio file must also include its file extension. FS1 and FS2 only support the playback of Waveform Audio (.wav) files.

FS2 Open, 3.6.x:

FSO supports the playback of Waveform Audio and OGG Vorbis (.ogg) files.

If there are two versions of the same file—one in Waveform Audio and one in OGG Vorbis format—FSO will typically attempt to play the OGG Vorbis version, even if the referenced file in music.tbl has a .wav file extension. In addition, if $Name: references a file that has the .ogg file extension, but only a Waveform Audio version of the file is available, FSO will still play the latter as if it is referenced directly in music.tbl.

Number of Measures and Samples per Measure

The FreeSpace engine's dynamic music capabilities are defined using the number of measures (m) and samples per measure (s). Using m, the engine parses the audio track by dividing it into individual parts, called measures; if an event happens that would change the music being played, the game will play the current audio track until the end of the current measure, whereupon it segues into the correct audio track via a built-in crossfade. The length of the measures is defined using s, which is the number of samples in a measure.

m is user-defined and can be set to a decimal point for greater fine-tuning.

s is calculated using the following formula:

  s = 2 × sample rate (hertz) × total audio length (seconds; up to 3 decimal places) ÷ m

Depending on the m and s values declared, the game may only play a portion of the actual audio file or, if the values result in it attempting to play the audio file beyond its actual length, playing nothing for a period of time after it finishes playing the actual audio file.

In the case of FS2_Amb_A01.wav, it is defined in music.tbl as an audio track that has 25 m and 105,840 s, so even though the file has an actual audio length of 62.556 seconds, the engine only ever parses the first 60 seconds of the audio file as its total audio length (hence omitting the last 2.556 seconds), split into 25 measures. This is because a reversal of the above calculation for s results in:

  105,840 (s) × 25 (m) ÷ 22,050 (hertz) ÷ 2 = 60.000 seconds

The length of the measures in the audio track cannot be individually adjusted by any means—s applies to all the measures in the audio file with no exceptions.

Alternate Calculation Method

If defining m and s is too time-consuming, the following formulae can be used to still make use of the FreeSpace engine's dynamic music capabilities, and would result in a maximum of 2 seconds' silence (since each measure would be 2 seconds long):

  m = audio file length (seconds; up to 3 decimal places) ÷ 2
  s = 4 × sample rate (hertz)

As an example, if we use the above alternate formulae with the actual audio length of FS2_Amb_A01.wav, we get the following:

  m = 62.556 seconds ÷ 2 = 31.278
  s = 4 × 22,050 (hertz) = 88,200

m would be rounded to the nearest decimal point. Hence, we would input the following as the alternate length for FS2_Amb_A01.wav in music.tbl:

  $Name:	FS2_Amb_A01.wav				31.3	88200	; * Ambience 

FS2 Open 3.6.10:

$String:

FSO includes an alternate way to parse individual tracks.

Instead of using $Name:, $String: can be used, with the String syntax being the situation reference, such as:

  $Normal 1:	FS2_Amb_A01.ogg				25.0	105840	; * Ambience 

Note that this system follows a different situation order from parsing $Name:, and it also cannot be changed under any circumstances. The situation order for parsing $String:, as well as the corresponding $String: to use for each situation, is as follows:

Order	Situation	$String: to Use	Details
1	Ambience	$Normal 1:	Normal track—plays when nothing is happening or units are out of combat range; usually segues into Ambience 2
2	Ambience 2	$Normal 2:	Normal track—plays when nothing is happening or units are out of combat range; usually segues into Ambience 3
3	Ambience 3	$Normal 3:	Normal track—plays when nothing is happening or units are out of combat range; usually segues into Ambience
4	Allied Arrival during Ambience	$Ally arrival 1:	Plays when a friendly unit arrives while any Ambience track is playing
5	Allied Arrival during Battle	$Ally arrival 2:	Plays when a friendly unit arrives while any Battle track is playing
6	Enemy Arrival during Ambience	$Enemy arrival 1:	Plays when a friendly unit arrives while any Ambience track is playing
7	Enemy Arrival during Battle	$Enemy arrival 2:	Plays when a friendly unit arrives while any Battle track is playing
8	Battle 1	$Battle 1:	Battle track 1—plays when units are in combat range; usually segues into Battle 2
9	Battle 2	$Battle 2:	Battle track 2—plays when units are in combat range; usually segues into Battle 3
10	Battle 3	$Battle 3:	Battle track 3—plays when units are in combat range; usually segues into Battle 1
11	Goal Failed	$Failure 1:	Plays when the primary goals of a mission are failed
12	Victory 1	$Victory 1:	Plays when a goal is completed
13	Victory 2	$Victory 2:	Plays when all goals are completed and there are absolutely no hostile units present; is only called once
14	Player Dies	$Dead 1:	Plays when the player is killed and goes to the death screen

Menu Music

All menu music tracks are defined in the lines within one instance of #Menu Music Start and #Menu Music End. Up to 50 menu music tracks can be defined across all .tbl and -mus.tbm files being referenced.

Each menu music track must have the following 2 lines in order:

1. $Name:
2. $Filename:

For the subsections, refer to the code used to call FS2_Brief_01.wav in-game, which is:

  $Name:		Brief1		
  $Filename:	FS2_Brief_01.wav			; briefing music 1

$Name:

The first line always starts with $Name:, followed by the name of the audio track, which is mainly referred to in FRED and its variants.

  $Name:		Brief1

FS2 Open 3.6.10:

• The following flag can be added after $Name: in modular tables:

+nocreate

This flag should be added if the track is intended to completely overwrite an existing track with the exact same name.

$Filename:

The last line starts with $Filename:, followed by the file name of the audio track.

  $Filename:	FS2_Brief_01.wav			; briefing music 1

Format Sample

The following is a heavily truncated version of music.tbl located within Root_FS2.vp.

  ;
  ; music.tbl
  ;
  ; Specifies which .wav files to use for the different sections of event-driven sound-tracks
  ;
  ; format:  $Name:  filename.wav  num_measures (samples_per_measure)
  ;
  #SoundTrack Start	         				; SoundTrack 0
  $Soundtrack Name: 1: Genesis
  $Name:	FS2_Amb_A01.wav				25.0	105840	; * Ambience 
  $Name:	FS2_AArv_A01.wav			1.8	105840	; * Allied Arrival during Normal
  $Name:	FS2_Arv_B01.wav				3.8	81415	; * Enemy Arrival during Normal
  $Name:	FS2_Btl_A01.wav				25.8	66150	; * Battle 1
  $Name:	FS2_Btl_A02.wav				27.8	81415	; * Battle 2
  $Name:	FS2_Btl_A03.wav				39.8	81415	; * Battle 3
  $Name:	FS2_AArv_A01.wav			1.8	105840	; * Allied Arrival during Battle
  $Name:	FS2_Arv_B02.wav				3.8	81415	; * Enemy Arrival during Battle
  $Name:	FS2_Vict_A01.wav			2.8	52920	; * Victory 1 ( goal completed )
  $Name:	FS2_Vict_A02.wav			30.8	52920	; * Victory 2	( all enemies dead, goals completed )
  $Name:	FS2_Dth_A01.wav				23.8	132300	; * Goal Failed
  $Name:	FS2_Dth_A01.wav				23.8	132300	; * Player dies
  #SoundTrack End							; End Soundtrack 0
  ;
  #SoundTrack Start	     					; SoundTrack 1
  $Soundtrack Name: 2: Exodus
  $Name:	FS2_Amb_B01.wav				17.0	132300	; * Ambience 
  $Name:	FS2_AArv_A01.wav			1.8	105840	; * Allied Arrival during Normal
  $Name:	FS2_Arv_B01.wav				4.8	81415	; * Enemy Arrival during Normal
  $Name:	FS2_Btl_B01.wav				39.8	132300	; * Battle 1
  $Name:	FS2_Btl_B02.wav				23.8	75600	; * Battle 2
  $Name:	FS2_Btl_B03.wav				31.8	75600	; * Battle 3
  $Name:	FS2_AArv_A01.wav			1.8	105840	; * Allied Arrival during Battle
  $Name:	FS2_Arv_B04.wav				4.8	75600	; * Enemy Arrival during Battle
  $Name:	FS2_Vict_A01.wav			2.8	52920	; * Victory 1 ( goal completed )
  $Name:	FS2_Vict_B02.wav			40.8	88200	; * Victory 2	( all enemies dead, goals completed )
  $Name:	FS2_Dth_A01.wav				23.8	132300	; * Goal Failed
  $Name:	FS2_Dth_A01.wav				23.8	132300	; * Player dies
  #SoundTrack End							; End Soundtrack 1
  ;
  #Menu Music Start
  $Name:		Brief1				
  $Filename:	FS2_Brief_01.wav			; briefing music 1
  
  $Name:		Brief2
  $Filename:	FS2_Brief_02.wav			; briefing music 2
  
  $Name:		Brief3
  $Filename:	FS2_Brief_03.wav			; briefing music 3
  #Menu Music End

Related Links

• Music tables 301 | Hard Light Productions Forums