Cyberpunk 2077

There have been a lot of requests for instructions on how to replace the radio station music in Cyberpunk 2077. After a few days of trial and error, I was able to cobble together an understanding of how to do so by sifting through posts on the Nexus and over at the Cyberpunk 2077 Modding Discord Server. But I have not yet found a centralized explanation anywhere that is easy to grasp for noobies like me. So, even though I am the most amateur of modders, I wanted to provide some reasonably detailed instructions for those who may want to create their own custom radio stations.

The following represents my workflow for replacing the songs on the various radio stations in Cyberpunk 2077 (if you're smarter than me and know of a simpler method, feel free to chime in):

1a) Gather all of the music files you want to use for your replacer.
1b) Convert the music files to .wav.
Audacity is free audio software suitable for this purpose; you can export multiple files to .wav in a single batch.
- Don't worry about the file names for each individual song at this time; what matters is that they are converted into .wav format.
1c) Optional: Make sure that you're replacing the vanilla songs with modded songs of exactly (or near exactly) the same length. This will require determining the length of each vanilla song on the radio station in question; I will not be describing how to determine that here.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If any of your modded songs exceed the length of the song they're replacing, the song will be cut off early; if any are shorter than the song they're replacing, the difference will be filled by silence until the next song begins to play. Until further research is done by those who are smarter than myself, matching song length seems like the only solution to achieving a seamless replacement for the songs on a given radio station in Cyberpunk 2077.
2) Next, we need to convert the .wav files to .wem, which is the file format that Cyberpunk 2077 utilizes for much of its audio.
Wwise is free audio software necessary for this purpose.
- IMPORTANT NOTE: Make sure to install the 2019 version of Wwise using the launcher, rather than the 2021 version.
3) Open Wwise, and create a new project; you can title it whatever you want.
4) In Wwise, click "Project," then click "Project Settings," then click "Source Settings," then click "Default Conversion Settings," then "Factory Conversion Settings," then "Vorbis," and select "Vorbis Quality High." Once that selection is highlighted, click "OK."
5) In Wwise, click "Project," then click "Import Audio Files," then click the "Add Files" button. Search for the .wav files you want to use for your replacer. Select all of them and click "Open." You should see all of your .wav files in the menu. Now click "Import."
6) In Wwise, turn your attention to the "Project Explorer" window. Under "Actor-Mixer Hierarchy," expand the "Default Work Unit." There you should see all of your imported .wav files. Select them all, right-click, then click "Convert." A new window should open, the word "Windows" should be check-marked, and all you need to do is click "OK."
7) Now navigate to the "Documents" folder on your PC. There should be a folder titled "WwiseProjects." Open it. Click the folder inside (it should bear the title you gave the project in step 3 above), then click the ".cache" folder, then click the "Windows" folder, then click the "SFX" folder, and your converted .wem files should be inside.
8) Refer to the following Cyberpunk 2077 Song List to figure out which radio station music you want to replace. Note the file names of each song for the radio station you're planning to mod. They will each be numbered (ex: "253367813"). 
9) Navigate to your converted .wem files and begin changing their file names to match the numbers of the songs listed for the radio station you're modding (ex: "253367813.wem").
10) Now create the following folder structure: [modname]/base/sound/soundbanks.
- This can be done on your desktop or wherever you feel like placing the created folders.
11) Place the converted .wem files into the soundbanks folder you created.
12) Download WolvenKit.CLI (until WolvenKit is officially updated to match the most recent dev branch).
13) Open the WolvenKit.CLI application within the linked .zip file from the previous step.
14) Pack your .wem files using the .CLI.
- In order to do so, you must point the .CLI command at the necessary folder structure.
- Type out the following in the .CLI command prompt: pack -p "[precise directory location of modname folder]"
- The easiest way to determine what should be included in the quotation marks above is to open up the [modname] folder you created (which contains base/sound/soundbanks/.wem files), right-click in the Windows explorer search bar, and click "Copy address as text." Then paste that copied text between the quotation marks from the example above. Hit the "Enter" key after you have properly typed the necessary command. If done properly, you will have successfully packed an .archive that replaces the songs from a particular radio station.
- This process can be repeated for each individual radio station, or you can lump as many replacement songs for as many radio stations as you wish into a single .archive. I find it more manageable to engage the process for one radio station at a time.
15) Once packed, place the resulting .archive in your Cyberpunk 2077\archive\pc\mod folder.

Now go ahead and start up the game, tune to the radio station you modded, and listen to your awesome jams! This workflow might seem daunting, but it's really quite a breeze once you get the hang of it. Hopefully somebody will come along with a solution for the issue of needing to match each song's exact length in order to avoid cut-offs/silence. Otherwise the listener simply has to either deal with the imperfections or limit themselves to songs that are near enough to the lengths of the songs they're replacing.

Provided I have the time, I will update this article if and when further knowledge is available to me regarding successful methods for replacing the songs on CP2077 radio stations.

Anyway, good luck to you!

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pezzonovante87

3 comments

  1. raresica
    raresica
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    Why would you not show us how to determine the length of the songs after putting so much effort into this post :) Thanks anyway!
    1. x0nix
      x0nix
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      Windows can tell you how long the file is just by hovering your cursor over the file in question.
  2. raresica
    raresica
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    didnt work :(