Only Slave Meat doesn't like Kenshi's drums, if he were merciful enough he would end your sad existence with a blow from his iron.

I found additional info that confirms what you all already know; the game's audio is made in-game. and its not directly playing the song raw files. There is some kind of 'directing' being done by the game. The game's music creator, Kole Hicks in his youtube video "A Full Explanation of Kenshi's Music System" He goes over the music mechanics/layers in play.
It seems like the 'bed' layer is the one being played so many times/too loudly.

I wanted to come back and leave these bread crumbs for anyone else interested.
I have commented on his video, but its a 12 year old post; so I likely wont get a response/more info.

They use Wwise to create a music system that doesnt use 'traditional music loops'.
Thanks again!

Thank you for leaving this up and with all the comments, It allowed me to better understand the complexity of the issue.
I think for me, I'll load up my favorite tracks on youtube and play them in the background.

I can definetly echo the feeling of "It gets louder and louder each night till my ears start to hurt" (with my music set at 20.)

The music being hard coded / attached to some ingame process would explain the weird effect.
I agree with others who are thankful for this mod being up, and the learning involved. Games are not always easily mod-able / accessible without the game dev's blessings. Thank you! I applaud you for all your hard work checking/editing all of the files!
I was able to throw myself at something similar to 'fix' it, but seeing the mountain of work you've already done havent been able to resolve it helps me not to spin my wheels on it.

o7

Can you please send the .bnk so i can replace mine? I dont really like missing on the Dunes OST because of this crap sound but i dont know how to do it myself.

If not, can you at least tell me what program can be used to edit the bkn?

The mod did work at one point, though, I remember benefiting from it. It wasn't just being placed by Bo, either, it was genuinely significantly quieter just at that specific loud part.

@Abstract Incognito, The project itself truly was a failure, but you're right! Learning from our failures as well as our successes is paramount for our next failures becoming successes. Thanks so much, I love your positive outlook :D

" with this failed project"
Don't see it as a failure man, I'm sure you learned some things that will help with modding in the future on your modding journey!

Yeah, this mod 100% doesn't work anymore.

Does this still work? I made a new save a few days back and the music seems louder than it should be.

thank you for saving my hearing !

Crazy description XD

I there a similar mod to this? I am fed up with the earrape

@Drake Ravenwolf, I think it's just a placebo effect. I also thought it worked for a long time, only to realise that the mod 'stopped' working after a while once I had discussed it with a few people who know more about it than I ever have.

If the mod does help anyone, even if it's just a placebo, then I'll keep everything as it is.

Please leave it as is, I swear it is doing something
Before the music was unbearable and after it is def better

PSA: Since most of us have accepted that a mod like this won't/can't work, I'm going to remove all files in the mod and replace it all with just one silent audio file at some point today.

There are still a few thousand people who have this mod installed and I don't want it using anyone's SSD/HDD storage unnecessarily, especially since my last attempt brought the mod's total file size to a couple of gigabytes if I remember correctly.

In fact... It won't be today. I'm going to compose an ironic song about Kenshi's loud music and put that in instead. It won't be more than a few megabytes if I render it as an MP3 or something. That's much better than 2 GB, right?

Give me a week or two to compose the trash, but in the meantime I'll still bring the mod's file size down to that of a silent .WAV lasting less than a second.

@Herliger, If that's the case, then there's absolutely no chance that I'll ever be able to make this mod work lol. Even with years of modding experience in terms of installing, using and troubleshooting mods for multiple games, I'm nowhere near as skilled as the average game developer.

Only the devs of Kenshi can fix the music issue, but if it's hard coded then maybe it's not possible at this stage without making major modifications to the game's engine (which in turn would force other changes which aren't necessary). The best I can hope for is that they're aware of the music being too loud and don't make the same mistake with Kenshi 2.

For me, the overbearing music volume is literally the only thing that lets the game down, and it seems to be the same for a LOT of people.

@OhHeyItsLee based on the way the composer and main dev talk about the music it may very well actually be. They use an "involved music system" controled by "Wwise" that controls the intensity of the music, what is played and when - aswell as background music layers ??? - based on specific prompts in the gameplay. Or rather that is how they explained it themselves 6 or more years ago.

I do not know how it works, but I have a feeling this may be your issue.

@Drake Ravenwolf, With all of the constant attempts to balance the audio files time and time again, the majority of the edits are wildly unbalanced and I'll need to edit everything from scratch again.

There are reports that even with replacing the game's music in the .BNK files, the volume is inconsistent/sometimes won't play at all, and so it's probably not a good idea to do.

Before Kenshi, I've never come across a game that feels like the music is hard coded lol. I don't know if that's the case, but it certainly feels that way.

Presuming that the edited sound files are in this mod... could your provide instructions on how we would go about packing them into this .bnk ourselves?

@[YAC] Thunderstorm, That's just the thing. The music and audio are really well done, but the decibel balancing is what lets it all down. The devs are good people and listen to the community, so I'm sure they won't make the same mistake for Kenshi 2.

Thanks for trying! That one highly distorted track is so loud and ugly, I even avoid staying in these areas for long, much less build a base there. It's a shame they not only added such a crappy production, but also made it extra hard to change the audio files. :/

@OhHeyItsLee Yeah, good to see the silver lining. Hopefully see you on the workshop when Kenshi 2 comes out!

@Deathwatch, Thanks mate. If anything came out of this for me, it's two-fold. I learned quite a fair bit more about modding in general, and also Kenshi's community is so very supportive and it's refreshing. It kind of reminds me of the old days of Morrowind and Oblivion modding before Skyrim was even a concept to players.

I'm glad you tried to solve the problem at least. :) Thanks.

@Ordonim, This mod doesn't work and, according to recent findings with help from Rhadamant, it unfortunately never did. All those times I thought my tests were working must have been all in my head. It's embarrassing, but it is what it is.

This goes to you and everyone else: don't waste the HDD or SSD space with this failed project, it doesn't work and never will by simply replacing individual files.

The only way this mod will ever work is if I pack my edited files into the game's .BNK file, provide that as a download and tell everyone to overwrite the game's vanilla .BNK with it. It's not feasible.

I really am sorry for wasting everyone's time and HDD/SSD space. Here's hoping Kenshi 2 doesn't have music loudness problems, eh? Or at the very least, is easily modded if it does.

Thank you very much!

@Astasia, Rhadamant and I came the same conclusion a short while ago. I'm kind of putting off taking the mod down because I'm as stubborn as a mule and I don't want to admit defeat lol.

I'll probably release a final update to reduce the mod's file size and then remove the mod from Steam. If Steam doesn't delete removed mods from people's computers, I don't want to leave anyone with 1 GB of useless files. For people with SSDs, every gigabyte matters to some (myself included).

AFAIK this mod isn't possible, the game ignores mods trying to touch the "music" and only looks at the base game files. There was a mod on the nexus a while back that went through the same hurdles before settling on a file with a manual installation process to overwrite the base music pack file. This worked for a while, but the game then changed whatever hash it was checking and started ignoring the altered file causing music to stop playing entirely and the mod author took it down instead of trying to redo it.

TLDR is you need to create a new Dunes_Music_Bank.bnk with the altered tracks inside it and overwrite the base game file with it, and somehow make the game recognize the new bnk file which it doesn't always do.

@Rhadamant, Credit where it's due, if it weren't for you mentioning about the file formats (OGG and WEM), who knows when, or rather if I'd ever figure it out lol.

No need to credit me, I'm just a Twitch streamer who got tired of having to tweak the music dial every time Dunes came on. I'll be testing this in a day or two =]

@Rhadamant, I hope it's working, I really do! Once I'm confident that your suggestion has fixed it, l'll be sure to properly credit you in the mod's description.

In fact, if a few or more people can confirm whether or not the recent update has properly fixed the loudness problems, I'd really appreciate the feedback.

1GB For ear drum wonder! No problem!

Aaaaand... the update's released! I'm sorry that the mod's download size has gone up from ~230 MB to over 1 GB now, but it's unavoidable without being able to use a different file format.

And as I was typing that last comment, the notorious 1-minute long "Sands at Dusk" track played and was juuuuuuust right for my tastes.

In the past, I've found that Sands at Dusk has had a tendancy to get even louder the longer I've kept the game running for, so I'm hoping that's not the case now.

@MasterCrumble, Wow, has it really been 2 years? It doesn't feel like this mod is that old lol. Bloody hell I think this mod is the only thing I've stayed committed to for this long! Heck, I didn't even commit to school or college for this long lmao.

Anyhow, I've been playing Kenshi with the mod for a short while now (since my previous comment pretty much) with the music interval set to every 3 minutes, and not one piece of music has been overbearing. I'll keep testing to be absolutely sure, so if all is well then I'll release an update within the next 2 to 3 hours. If it takes longer, then I've simply lost track of time because I'm thoroughly enjoying Kenshi with music :D

Well I'm very thankful you stuck with the mod. You've been at this thing for years. Hah, I'm definitely not one to knock weed. A friend of mine uses it when migraines hit. I'm sure it's for anxiety as well.

Uh I've nothing else to say, except that the Kenshi soundtrack is beautiful, and it deserves to work properly. Turning it down really is a massive sin.

@MasterCrumble, I've just finished converting the mod's files back into WEM so we'll all know soon enough if our ears can finally relax.

Even if this works, there's still a fair amount of work to be done with balancing each individual file's decibel counts to be more or less the same volume all around. My previous attempts to fix this problem resulted in more than a few files are drastically too quiet, but fixing that is easy peasy compared to what we've been dealing with so far lol.

And yes, the "medication" is exactly that. Even though I'm on strong prescription medication anyway, weed is the only thing that actually does anything positive for my mental health, anxieties, sleep, etc.
I hate the taste and smell of it, but by god I sleep so much better and I'm so much less paranoid after a joint.

Good luck on the mod. I've been following these comments on for a while, and it's really gonna be one of those essential mods when it's working. Also, why do I feel like the meds are weed :P

@Rhadamant, thanks :)
I've just woken up and the medication has worn off so I'll make a start on the plan soon! Fingers crossed.

@OhHeyItsLee Hey, absolutely my pleasure. I'm just as invested in this mod working as you are!

PART 2
I've taken some "medication" for the evening to help with my mental health and sleep issues, so don't expect a release within the next 12 to 14 hours at least. I don't want to potentially make a mistake in my medicated state and release a fubar update. I'll make sure it works properly before ruining people's days/ears :)

You, Rhadamant, may just be the saviour we've all been hoping for <3

PART 1
@Rhadamant, That's precisely what's been confusing me all this time, the game will play the default volume, essentially the original file, despite having been told not to do so.

I can't remember why I opted for OGG format, since the game's original format is WEM. Maybe that's where I went wrong all along. It's such a small thing and I never gave it a thought.

I'm going to re-render all of the mod's file back to WEM, properly done as well and not just using simple quick-fixes like some people tend to do, and see if it makes a difference. If so, I'll recreate the mod from scratch since re-rendering multiple times can massively reduce sound quality, and I'll release it as soon as I possibly can.

As far as I can tell your mod isn't even making Kenshi use the OGG versions where you've tweaked the volumes, its still using the default soundtrack. I replaced all of the dunes music with other OGG music naming the files 0001...0054 and the original Dunes still plays.

@Kolljak, To be fair to the sound designers, they did an amazing job with the music and sound effects. It's just overshadowed by the music being too loud, unfortunately. I'm really hoping they don't make the same mistake with Kenshi 2. The "loudness wars" don't have any place in video games, in my opinion.

Maybe in the process of making the music, the step of mastering the volume to an appropriate level was overlooked. I can confess to overlooking and completely forgetting about simple but crucial steps in composing music. Heck, I still make silly mistakes to this day and I've been composing music for over a decade lol.

honestly whoever did the sound track for this game got paid to much. its like 90% someone with a fork scraping a garbage can.

@Kolljak, Some music tracks are still somehow playing at their default volume regardless of how much I reduce their decibel counts. The latest mod version has every single music file altered to be quieter, with the main culprits having reduced decibels even further.

I've spent so much time trying to figure it out, but alas to no avail. I've gone through every single file individually within the music databanks, so unless there are a few music files in other parts of the game's file structure, there's not much more I can do.

I should try to get in contact with the devs and ask them directly if they know what's causing some music to play at default volumes, but I'm afraid to ask due to my poor mental health and anxiety issues. Even responding to comments here takes its toll, but I can't just leave the mod where it's currently at tbh, so it's a long battle for me to get around to contacting the game's developers.

i have this mod... but... it seems the music tracks that shatter my molars are still playing.

@OhHeyItsLee Thanks for the heads up, and thanks again for the mod :)

@16jackcole, I'm glad the mod is still helping people. Just be aware that there are a few tracks that still play too loud despite having been edited, and I have no idea how to fix it.
From memory, other people's comments point to tracks in the Dunes and Foglands regions, as well as the Ashlands (I haven't personally confirmed Ashlands personally, but a few people have reported it as one of the troublesome places). If you spend any length of time in either of these regions then be prepared for sudden loud music.

This is a great mod, my ears were getting sore from the random songs that would play much louder than the rest, and I would have to turn the volume up and down on my headset between songs, but since I have installed this mod I have been able to play with the volume turned up without issue. Thank you!