MRFA Wav Volume Notes
v. 1.02.2 (07/08/2004)

If you build your own mrfa you might have issues with the music
being very quiet.  The only reason I can figure out for this is that the
BFV game engine is trying to treat every sound (including your music) as a 
3D sound source - which requires all the sounds used to be a fairly uniform
volume.

I am going to lay out the process I have used to get decent sounding
music using the patcher and builder utilities.

For processing wavs I have used GoldWave software - its a good tool and does
everything you could want.  Theres even a trial period.


Step 1: Mono
The first step is to convert your music file to a mono 16bit wav file. BFV requires
the sound to be mono - or it will not be played.


Step 2: LowPAss High Pass filter
*BASS

Bass is a big issue.  If you just crank up the volume of your wav file - you
will most likely start to hear it crack and distort.  To get the wav volume on
par with what BFV needs we need to run a low/high pass filter:

In Goldwave: Click Effect->Filter->Low/HighPass

The settings for the Low/Highpass should be:
Initial cutoff: 80
Final Cutoff: 80
Check: Highpass
Check: static
Steepness: 10

You probably want to save this as a preset.  Once you use this filter you will notice your
music sounds a bit thin (that's on purpose and will be remedied by Step4).

Step3: 
*Compression

This step will compress the music into a specific dynamic range.  In effect what this will do is squeeze
the song into a specific frequency range.  Since all the wavs will be compressed in this manner - we get
a fairly uniform compression.

In Goldwave: Click Effect->Compressor/Expander
Multiplier(db): -40.0
Threshold(db): -6.0
Attack(s): 0.0
Release(s): 0.0
Mode: Compressor
Settings: Anticipate Attach (checked)
Settings: Use Smoother (not checked)
You probably want to save this as a preset.  You will notice in the wav display how the music is
crunched in a fairly uniform manner.

Step4: 
*Matching
The last step in the process is called matching.  This process will *try* and make the the volume
of your file uniform.  I use the word *try* because its not perfect and you might have to tweak
the completed file a bit.

In Goldwave: Click Effect->Volume->Match
Average(db): -8.4

Once this filter runs your music should be VERY loud - but without distortion.

Step5:
Tweak each file.  I ran some of my songs using a batch method - then tweaked the results individually.

Notes:

I noticed while messing around with some of the wavs that the BFV folks used soundforge to save them (at least).
There might be some functions available in SF that do things better (I have no idea).







