[Tutorial] Making your own Concert Mod

A basic guide concerning making one's own mod for the Concert map. Not for those with zero experience, unless you have good intuition.

Beginning

Okay, when I wanted to make a concert mod, here's the tools I used (google them if you need to)-

1. A valid Steam copy of Left 4 Dead 2
2. L4D2 Authoring Tools installed (for VPK packer)
3. Audacity (freeware sound editing tool)

There might be better software to use other than Audacity, but I'll be describing what to do with Audacity, so if you use something else you'll have to play it by ear.

Alright, let's give this a shot!

1. Create your mod's directories.

Make the root folder first, and give it an appropriate name. For example, if it was a KISS concert mod, try naming the folder /kissconcert/ or something. You'll want to be able to find it later if needed, and you want the name to be short enough to type from memory.

Inside this root folder, create your addoninfo.txt file. Instructions on how to do this can be found in other tutorials.

Then add the rest of the folders. I figured a picture would work better than words, so create the following folder hierarchy into your root folder (ignore the files, just create the actual folders MINUS the materials folder, that's a different tutorial altogether):

2. Take four songs to put into the concert.

The concert has four tracks it plays. Look back at the attachment above.

Midnight Ride is the first song that plays.
Midnight Tank plays during the first tank fight.
One Bad Man plays after the first tank.
One Bad Tank plays during the second tank.

You'll want a song for each one. Here's the basic process for converting these songs for use in the concert.

Open the mp3 (or whatever format it is) in Audacity. You'll probably want to just open Audacity and choose File > Import > Audio.

If you're not concerned about file sizes, skip this step. Select the whole track in Audacity (Ctrl - A works fine) and click Effect > Amplify. Use a value of 2.0 or so. If I remember correctly, this lowers filesize after converting at the cost of audio quality. You don't have to do this step, but when I didn't, I ended up with a concert mod that was nearly half a gigabyte in size.

Make sure your file has two tracks, because it should be stereo. Like below:



If it doesn't, here's a quick fix. Select the whole track and hit COPY (Ctrl - C). Delete the track by clicking its 'x' in the top left corner. Then hit Tracks > Add New > Stereo Track. Then hit PASTE (Ctrl - V) to paste the track back in, which should now have two tracks for stereo.

Also make sure the rate is 44100.


Once this is done, EXPORT the track.
File > Export.
File format should be WAV. Save the name to whichever track you want this to replace - here's a reminder of their names.


So if you wanted this to be the first song played, export it as a WAV file named midnightride.wav in the root/sound/music/flu/concert folder.

Now repeat the process with the other three songs.

3. Place the root folder into your addons folder.

Why? Because we're going to create a soundcache. Technically it's not always necessary to do this, but we're going to ensure it works right the first time (hopefully).

Your mod folder should be in addons folder, kinda like this:


Now, open L4D2.

In the console, type the following:

snd_buildsoundcachefordirectory addons/[modnamehere]

For example, if your folder was called "kissconcert", the command would be

snd_buildsoundcachefordirectory addons/kissconcert

The command should only take a few seconds and say that it 'touched' four files. If it didn't, you probably messed up a step. Anyway, once it's done, type "exit" into the console to close L4D2.

4. The home stretch! Drag your root folder into the VPK packer and package your mod.

If your root folder is still in /addons/, that'll put your new VPK into the same place, so you'll be ready to go.

BE SURE you don't leave any other concrt mods enabled.
BE SURE to NOT DELETE your root folder yet. If you made a mistake, you'll want to be able to fix it.

Go ingame and test it out!

Well, that's the basics. Let me know of any other questions you have, or chastise me if I said anything incorrect here.

Addendum: Materials

I won't be covering all the details regarding how to edit and replace textures, but if you are looking for the materials used for concert posters/stage/etc, this may help you:

[Marinara Sauce]

Hey, I did everything here step by step and yet my mod doesn't play music like it's supposed to? Can I show you my mod and maybe could you help me with it if you have the time?

[sigmatilla (Anti-Bácsi)]

It's alright. I have been searching for videos for days now, but i just can't find one. I found some "Sound replace" tutorials, but it's rare to find one that explains how you are supposed to work with Audacity. So i'm just here right now, trying to figure out what i am supposed to do, no idea how to use the software, and how to even begin, other than me editing the songs for the concert, and trying to work with a 1 minute custom song, and a 5 minute Vanilla song. I have been trying to alling the lenght, the bit and the Rate. Some tutorials say that it has to be just as loud as the original, as long as the original, basically almost everything has to be the same as the original.

[Qwazzy]

Someone else might have, but I haven't made any video guides, sorry.

[sigmatilla (Anti-Bácsi)]

Question, is there a video Step-by-Step video? I am trying my best to work, but i don't even know how to use Audacity.

[Qwazzy]

You can also try in Audacity, Effect > Volume and Compression > Amplify, which should raise the volume at the cost of audible quality. Could be worth trying if my previously mentioned method does nothing useful.

[Qwazzy]

There could be several reasons for that, though my best guess would be to check the "level" of the file in Audacity:
https://i.imgur.com/qkWHl6R.png
By default it's in the middle. If it's also in the middle, try raising it a few levels, then exporting and testing ingame.
You can also use Audacity to test its current volume, boost the slider, then test again to see by how much it raised.

If this doesn't seem to help any, it could be another reason. Perhaps L4D2's music volume setting, for example. But without further details I can't really say for sure.

[The Big Deal]

It's me again. Why is every song the concert playing so quiet?

[Qwazzy]

By "root" I mean the primary folder your custom content is in prior to being packaged into a VPK.

The name of the root folder doesn't matter much - as long as the folders within are arranged properly, it will package and work.

So for example, if you have your music in musicmod/sound/music/flu
And your posters are in postermod/materials/signs
Then you can combine them into one, let's say "combinedmod"
So you'd open the "combinedmod" folder and inside you'll see a "materials" folder with the textures inside and a "sound" folder with the sounds inside.
Then the "combinedmod" folder can be packaged up with valve's VPK.exe tool.

[Trosky]

Hello, I'm trying to merge two mods into a single VPK file. One changes the music and the other changes every Midnight Riders related poster/image to [band]. I can't figure out how to fix this issue you mentioned:

"I'm assuming it wasn't nested in another "root" folder when you had it packaged as a VPK, right? If you open the finished VPK and the first folder in the top level of it is "root" then that needs to be fixed."

[Qwazzy]

After it touches all four files and sits there doing nothing else, you should be fine. I believe you can type “disconnect” in the console to return to the main menu. Though you’ll probably want to close the game entirely so you can package your files into a VPK and test it.