Skyrim Special Edition
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Created by

David Jegutidse

Uploaded by

DylanJames

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About this mod

Audio Overhaul for Skyrim is an extensive sound overhaul aiming to make the soundscape more immersive, responsive, and ultimately fun.

Requirements
Permissions and credits
Translations
  • Ukrainian
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Changelogs
Looking for the original release of Audio Overhaul for Skyrim?
Check it out right here on the Skyrim Legendary Edition Nexus.
An additional installation option is available for
Epic Games Store, Xbox Game Pass, and Non-SKSE Users.
It can be located under "OLD FILES" – the first option.


REQUIREMENTS (4.0.0+)
Sound Record Distributor 
Engine Fixes 

RECOMMENDATIONS
Audio Overhaul - Immersive Sounds Integration
Immersive Sounds Compendium 
Acoustic Space Improvement Fixes


DESCRIPTION

Audio Overhaul for Skyrim is an extensive sound overhaul aiming to make Skyrim's soundscape more immersive, clear, responsive, impactful and ultimately fun, while also aiming for maximum compatibility, performance and coherency with the original game. Ambience, weapons, magic, movement, reverb system, sound propagation, creatures and the overall mix are key areas of change. Sounds have been tweaked and often redesigned from scratch in thousands of instances of content and implementation, to achieve one coherent vision for the soundscape that does not rely on third party content or code.

The overall style and tone moves away from a "gamey" soundscape and instead uses more real-life audio behavior as a guideline. Audio Overhaul for Skyrim tries not give itself away as a mod. Through subtlety and coherence, new and old content should meld together seamlessly, even if that means that the majority of changes will not be consciously noticed.

No content has been stolen from other games. New audio content is unique to this project.
There is nothing that was just copied straight out of a sound library.


   
Audio Overhaul for Skyrim Third-Party Showcases
Respect to Brodual and Heavy Burns

MAIN FEATURES

DISTANCE PROPAGATION 
A case-by-case treatment that includes minimum distance, attenuation curve and maximum distance settings. For example, the audible range for weapon impacts has been increased by roughly 200%. The range for an NPC biting an apple is still close to what it used to be. The overall the chance that you hear what you see and expect has been increased significantly. The world is more alive as a result.

EXTENSIVE REMIX
The game is about 10-15% louder (as much as the engine allows). Adjusted amplitudes across the board for optimal balance between gameplay relevance and immersion, and a more dynamic and airy mix (the difference between quiet and loud is more prominent). The changed frequency content of many sounds for a more balanced and dynamic sound spectrum. More high range detail, less cluttered low-mid, low and sub-range frequencies. Instead of just a collection of individual assets the soundscape now functions better as a whole.

REVERB OVERHAUL
With the reverb changes, different environments now have a much more present, realistic and varied space response. Not just increased volume of reverb, but remodeled reverbs for all different environment types for optimal balance between reverb sound quality and the core of each environment atmosphere, as much as the engine allows. Reverb is now enabled in exterior locations, meaning there are outdoor reflections now. Explosions (runes, fireballs, dragonfireballs) now have special outdoor reflection tails as you would expect from a loud sound.

FOLEY AND FOOTSTEPS 
An almost complete overhaul has been undertaken for all humanoid, and some creature's footsteps, utilizing over 1000 unique sounds. Worn armor types (cloth, light, heavy) are now coherent and always present for different surface types and movement speeds.

MAGIC SYSTEM
New magic sounds have been designed from scratch, with additional modifications to spells for increased variety. There is more clarity between casting, projectile and impact sound and more aggressive, snappy, punchy impacts and explosion design that makes throwing projectiles at enemies more satisfying and responsive. Sustained destruction sounds are now more intense when dual cast by adding additional layers and you can hear magic projectiles flying by your face no matter the distance it had to travel.

WEAPONS
Weapon impacts have been redesigned for better distinction between weapon types and more presence in the mix. Daggers now have unique content, no longer reuse sword assets. Redesigned bows firing and arrow impact sounds, made from real medieval bow recordings. Arrows now have projectile sounds. Changes to make sure the game uses the right content intended for different situations instead of falling back to generic samples.

AMBIENCE
Roughly 500 new ambient sounds throughout Skyrim, chosen and placed with care in terms of location. These sounds are subtle, non-intrusive, but significantly more vivid and varied compared to what is available in the base game. Vanilla sounds have had their timing and presence adjusted to prevent overlap. Out-of-place sounds have been lowered or even removed, with others added to emphasize the character of the environment.

More focus on animated objects in the environment such as fires, waterfalls or windmills. You hear what you see and can use your ears to find things which you might otherwise miss, more than before. Adjusted content and timing of randomized ambient sounds (like birds, insects) in most exterior and interior regions. Lowered or even removed some sounds that were out of place or annoying, added others to emphasize the character of the environment. Remixed heavily. Many really good vanilla Skyrim sounds were hardly noticeable before, some others stuck out too much.

TRAPS
Lots of traps have been made snappier and louder in order to hopefully scare you more.
Igniting oil is much more intense.

CREATURES 
New sound design and many modifications for various creature types. Changes reach from small modifications, like foxes, to complete redesigns, like frostbite spiders. Special attention to things that are big and epic. Dragons biting, landing, flying by, tail whips, stampeding mammoths, groaning centurions, etc.

PERFORMANCE AND BUGFIXES 
Performance had been taken in consideration from the beginning of the project. For a majority of users, there will be no performance hit using AOS. Many vanilla Skyrim sound bugs have been fixed either directly or as a side effect of the other changes. All changes relevant to AOS have been forwarded from USSEP.



"Rapids of the Reach"


INSTALLATION STEPS

Installation instructions are as follows...

■  Download and install Sound Record Distributor.
■  Install Audio Overhaul for Skyrim and let it overwrite all content if asked.

If you are using a weather compatibility patch for Audio Overhaul for Skyrim, please remove it.
This is to avoid doubling up on sounds in the environment and sound regions.


LOAD ORDER GUIDANCE

Load order guidance is as follows.

[Base Game Content]
Audio Overhaul for Skyrim.esp
Immersive Sounds - Compendium.esp
AOS_ISC_Integration.esp
Regional Sounds Expansion.esp
Reverb Interior Sounds Expansion.esp
[Weather Plugins]


SOUND RECORD DISTRIBUTOR
WHAT IS ACTUALLY BEING DISTRIBUTED

With Sound Record Distributor, sounds are distributed to records at runtime. "Runtime" means "when the game starts".
Here is a non-exhaustive list of what is currently being distributed by Sound Record Distributor, in greater detail.

  • Dagger Impact Sounds: In vanilla Skyrim, daggers use the same sounds as one-handed swords. Audio Overhaul for Skyrim addresses this by adding in new sounds for daggers to use. With Sound Record Distributor, these sounds are automatically distributed to daggers instead of having to manually edit the weapon record itself.
  • Region Sounds: In Skyrim, both weather probability and regional sounds are handled by one record. This meant in the past, you would have to have a plugin resolving any conflicts between Audio Overhaul for Skyrim and your weather mod of choice. With Sound Record Distributor, these sounds are now injected into the region records at runtime.
  • Interior Weather: The feature that added interior weather sounds has been stripped in the more recent releases of Audio Overhaul for Skyrim, and instead serves as a simple replacer for the interior rain file sound in the vanilla game. This means that mods that add their own interior rain sounds will take priority. Interior sounds still remain, and when you're in interiors you will hear house creaks and wind from outside under certain conditions. This is patched into interior region records at runtime, similar to other exterior and interior regions noted above.
  • Magic Sounds: In previous versions of Audio Overhaul for Skyrim the records attached to magic effects were clones of projectile and explosion records. As of 4.0.0, a majority of these changes have been consolidated into projectile and explosion records. Those records are then assigned their sounds on runtime, minimizing the need for almost all patches.

REMINDER:
Support for Immersive Sounds Compendium's magic sounds is built into the Sound Record Distributor configuration.
Make sure you download Audio Overhaul - Immersive Sounds Integration for everything else - it will just work.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS 

If you're updating from 3.4.3 to 3.9.0, very little is required on your part.
Check out the sticky comment for more answers to commonly asked questions.

Q: Do patches still work?
A: Yes! All patches are backwards compatible with the latest version.

Q: With Sound Record Distributor, does this mean I no longer need patches?
A: No! You still need patches! However, it means you will need a lot less – see above for examples!
If you have a simple patch, it's okay to keep it. Having it in your load order won't break anything.


BUILT-IN SUPPORT


Support is built-in for some of the most popular mods and all Anniversary Edition and Creation Club content, regardless of whether or not you have it installed. Additionally, supported mods that add new content can be assured that they will be patched with the new sounds added by Audio Overhaul for Skyrim.

Beyond Skyrim: Bruma
Beyond Skyrim: Wares of Tamriel
Beyond Skyrim: Morrowind – Bonemold Pack
Destructible Display Cases
ESO Imports
Hunterborn
Immersive Weapons
Legacy of the Dragonborn
Lore Weapon Expansion
Mysticism
Royal Armory – New Artifacts
Reforging To The Masses
Skyrim Extended Cut: Saints and Seducers
Wyrmstooth



"The sun sets over Whiterun..."


RECOGNITION (2.5.1)

Special Thanks and Support – Thank you to Alt3rn1ty, fadingsignal, isoku, itsfutile, keithinhanoi, michaelrw, Nelly and Jinn (who know who they are and what they did), raphou112, T3nd0, and UnmeiX.

2.5 Beta Testers – Thank you to AthrunNailo, EmancipatorJCH, OrmrSnaethorsen, Silverylos, snow, syentism.


RECOGNITION (2.6.0+)

David Jegutidse – For letting a guy you didn't really even know take over maintaining and supporting Audio Overhaul for Skyrim 2. I know it took a few years, but I'd like to think I held true to a lot of my original promises. And I'm so happy hundreds of thousands of people get to experience this classic project now and long into the future!

aers – For fixing the sound category bug for me back in 2018, allowing custom sound categories and volume sliders to properly exist in Skyrim. Something that had been bothering me for years up until Engine Fixes came along.

Doodlezoid – For taking me up on my proposal and bringing to life Sound Record Distributor. The framework shows incredible potential, and I'm so happy to have a tool like this available for mod authors and users-alike who may have felt intimidated by installing audio mods in the past.


RECOGNITION

Thank you to Bethesda for allowing everyone to modify their vast games and promoting an active and creative community.
Thank you to everyone who has provided translations for Audio Overhaul for Skyrim over the last few years.

David Jegutidse
Dylan James