Sound Sprays: Audible "Sprays"

Spray sounds!

What are "Sound Sprays?"

Sound Sprays (or Spray Sounds, etc.) are little bits of audio that can be played when a bind is pressed, however, they function just like sprays. They upload themselves from the client to the server, just like a spray, but as an audible "Wav" format. This little but cool feature was added somewhere in 2011, sort of hid under the rug by Valve, then it was broken by the steampipe update for some time, then it was patched and functional again.

Just like sprays, Sound Sprays have a cool down time to prevent spam, and can only be played when you are alive. This cool little feature is heavily underlooked by the community, now coming in alternative forms of plug-ins and HLDJ, however, since it is an official feature, sv_pure 1 based servers like official Valve servers allow it, but any server with sv_pure 2 do not.

So how do you work it? Lemme show you!

How to apply Sound Sprays

The Sound File

Sound Sprays can be anything you want, as long as it's not too long and at a 44100 (higher quality, takes a bit more space) or 22050 (lower quality, takes a bit less space) sample rate of course. All that can be configured in an audio editing program named Audacity. Once you're done with that, you're gonna export it to

Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\tf\custom\*Any name you want*\sound\player
and name it "Jingle.wav"

Your sound has to be under 512kb for this to work.

The Console/Autoexec

This is the hardest, but an easy part. Configuring the console, which can be done through a config file known as "autoexec." If you don't have one, just create a new text file, name it "autoexec.cfg", and put it in:

Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\tf\cfg

Make sure it's file extension is ".cfg". Then you can open it with any text editing program like Notepad. Then you will copy and paste these commands into it:

cl_customsounds "1"
cl_soundfile "sound/player/jingle.wav"
bind "*any key here*" "impulse 202"
cl_allowupload 1

Then join a server, hit the key, and your sound should play!

The Problem

The problem is that other players have to have the command "cl_customsounds 1" enabled in order to hear other people's sounds, which is disabled by default. It doesn't appear in the settings either, and the procedure is really easy, yet so obscure. Not to mention Valve IS aware of it, however, they support it indirectly and hardly touch it. So that's why I want this signal boosted, it's a pretty cool and fun feature that Valve should really emphasize on, let them know the stuff we want to share through sounds!

So there you have it, happy speaking!

[翔鶴]

Update for this guide:
-Audio has to be mono, note this when exporting
-Put your custom sound in Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\tf\custom\*Any name you want*\sound\vo\player (the extra vo folder is important since sv_pure 1 does not check for voice acting folder, so any custom sound goes as long it meet the guide requirement and mono channel)
-Modify this line in your autoexec: cl_soundfile "sound/player/vo/jingle.wav" (it dont have to be named jingle.wav, as long you write the name right and your sound name matches, it'll work)

Other note: sound spray share the same cooldown with image spray, which mean if you play a sound spray before, you wont be able to spray an image before the cooldown reset and vice versa. Also getting a kill will reset the cooldown, nobody know why.

[Thespikedballofdoom]

An extra command for server operators: decalfrequency controls how fast you can spray. Default is 10 seconds.

[Crobos]

I cant get it to work let alone a trimmed down bot client.

[Gonubax]

Can't wait for botters to use that as earrape destined to memers.

[Crobos]

Great guide. Am I supposed to hear the sound myself too or is it not working if I don't?

[Battlecatz2008]

It used to work but then it’s telling me in console probably missing from directory please. Help!

[Glesas 🍍]

Thanks for guide, i spam at server, which has a fast cooldown time, so its infinite E sound

[All hail the Cartlord]

Right, sorry, uh, I figured that out. Shoulda clarified that.

[Sheepless Ram]

@All hail the Cartlord
Open Explorer, click under View on Options and then a Folder Options window will pop up. There you have to go to the "View" tab and uncheck "Hide extensions of known file types". All you have to do now is rename the file extension from .txt to .cfg

[All hail the Cartlord]

How do I make a .cfg file? It always saves as a text doc.