INTRODUCTION – TOO LONG; DIDN'T READ PLEASE CONSIDER READING THE WHOLE THING. Audio Overhaul for Skyrim is a complete overhaul to the audio system and adds thousands of magic, weapon, ambient sounds. It is strongly recommended that you load Audio Overhaul for Skyrim very early in your load order to avoid any unintended issues.
As a reminder: I am not David Jegutidse. I am just the current maintainer and developer of AOS. This port and all subsequent updates have been made with his permission and blessings.
NEWS LAST UPDATED NOVEMBER 7TH 2022 Update 4.0.0 is here – Finally, the cloned projectile and explosion records have been condensed into vanilla records. What does this mean? With Sound Record Distributor, nothing (from the user). All necessary projectile and explosion records will have sounds added to them on runtime, relieving a massive burden on users, mod authors, and patch makers. For most users, no action is necessary on your part. For mod authors and patch makers, I've left all of the old "_AOS" records in and your patches are still fine to use.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED MODS LAST UPDATED NOVEMBER 7TH 2022
❓ FREQUENTLY ANTICIPATED QUESTIONS PLEASE READ THE STICKY BEFORE COMMENTING
IS IT SAFE TO UPDATE? IS THIS COMPATIBLE WITH ANNIVERSARY EDITION? Yes, and yes. As of 3.9.0, all AE content can be patched regardless of what you own!
DO OLD PATCHES STILL WORK? Yes! All patches are backwards compatible with the latest version. However, please consider removing any weather or projectile patches.
LOOT IS SAYING THAT I NEED A PATCH THAT IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE ON THIS PAGE? The LOOT master list sometimes goes off of outdated information. Please submit a report to the LOOT team so they can issue a correction.
WILL THERE BE AN XBOX PORT? MAY I PORT THIS MOD TO BETHESDA NET? No. There are currently no plans for a console release at this time. See "Permissions and Credits" tab on the main page for more information.
WHY AM I SEEING "$" (DOLLAR SIGNS) WHEN I OPEN UP THE AUDIO SETTINGS MENU? It is possible you are either not using SKSE64 or you are using an unsupported language. Please download the compatibility patch for non-SKSE64 users in the Miscellaneous Files tab.
I'M NOT GETTING FOOSTEPS ON A CERTAIN SURFACE? Certain meshes don't have the correct havok material flags defined in the mesh itself. This can result in the wrong impact sounds (like footsteps) from being played or none being played at all. This is not an issue with Audio Overhaul for Skyrim, but with the vanilla game itself and certain meshes introduced by mods. Unofficial Material Fix is strongly recommended.
All of these mods have issues with not just Audio Overhaul for Skyrim, but vanilla Skyrim as a whole. Many of these issues cannot be fixed...! This list is not a judgement on the authors themselves, but compiled to help out users reporting and experiencing bugs. Everything written down has been confirmed through evidence, reverse engineering, and just the last seven years developing and maintaining a number of audio mods.
NPC Dialogue Audio Enhancer NPC Dialogue Audio Enhancer is, at its most generous, an accessibility mod for people who are medically hard of hearing. Its attenuation curves are nonsense, and these output models are equally used by creatures, ambience, traps, and workbenches. So it's not only boosting your voices way higher than they should be, it's also boosting random sounds up by 200+%. If you are having issues hearing NPC voices, it's more than likely you are experiencing issues with Windows Audio Enhancements. You can also just turn the volume of everything else down through the volume sliders found in the Audio Settings menu.
True 3D Sound for Headphones / Binaural 3D Surround Sound for Headphones Both of these mods are buggy and unfinished. They will crash your game, regardless of whether you're using Audio Overhaul for Skyrim, Regional Sounds Expansion, or Sounds of Skyrim. The original repository was either pulled from GitHub or abandoned, and theses two mods already ship out-of-date versions of the plugin. Skyrim's soundscape, along with Audio Overhaul for Skyrim, was built around Bethesda's audio engine, including specific output models, acoustic spaces, and attenuation curves. Certain sounds are meant for specific channels, and despite what you may hear, Skyrim already has built-in HRTF.
Skyrim's Environmental Audio Enhancer Skyrim's Environmental Audio Enhancer unfortunately causes more harm than good, while not actually doing anything it claims. It reduces the games audio quality and cause issues with other audio mods. Skyrim does not natively output true 5.1 to 7.1 surround sound. Proper multi-channel surround mixing would require extensive changes to even make possible. And given the fact that Skyrim came out in 2011, it does not support newer, advanced audio codecs like Dolby Atmos. Any perceived sound effect is usually simulated rather than genuine, typically by Windows Audio Enhancements, which you know to disable. Or it is just louder.
Reverb and Ambiance Overhaul The problems with this mod are outline in the description here. But if you want a short summary, it is bloated with unnecessary edits, uses misapplied reverb in the wrong locations, sometimes overlaps sounds, and has similar bugs and oversights. If you don't like the reverb in Audio Overhaul for Skyrim, you can either used the "Reduced Reverb Plugin (2.6.1)" or "Reverb Interior Sounds Expansion" and its reverb module. I am obvious biased towards the second option, as it is based on Audio Overhaul for Skyrim, but toned down considerably while maintaining realism without being too distracting.
COMPATIBILITY MASTER LIST NON-EXHAUSTIVE LIST – FEEL FREE TO CTRL + F HERE TOO
Audio Overhaul for Skyrim and Sound Record Descriptor distribute sounds to specified records on runtime. Runtime means "when the game starts". When the game starts, this mod will overwrite the subrecord its pointed to. You still need patches! Download them if you are unsure! If you have old patches in, nothing bad will happen. They will mostly just be redundant.
Built-in Support means the Sound Record Distributor patches any new magic effects, regions, and weapons added by supported mods. If a mod listed here adds a new weapon or spell, you can reasonably expect that record to include Audio Overhaul for Skyrim's new sounds for consistency. Many mods will still work fine without built-in support, and most don't need it.
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.
If it is not in this list, it likely needs to still be patched.
FOR MOD AUTHORS BUILDING SUPPORT FOR AOS 3.9.0+ RIGHT INTO YOUR MOD WITH NO PLUGIN REQUIRED.
If you're a mod author, adding support for Audio Overhaul for Skyrim using Sound Record Distributor is an incredibly easy and frictionless process. Simply package your mod with an SRD file and it will automatically distribute any sounds you want from this plugin to yours without any need for an additional plugin or having to update the patch for any update.
Let's say you release a mod that adds a unique dagger. In vanilla Skyrim, daggers and one-handed swords share the same impact sounds with no distinction between the two. You can package a .yaml file along with your mod and format it like this.
# Audio Overhaul Skyrim.esp|05B6EA is WPNzBlade1HandSmallImpactSet # Skyrim.esm|03CED9 is WPNBlade1HandSmallDrawSD # Skyrim.esm|03CEDB is WPNBlade1HandSmallSheatheSD
If both Sound Record Distributor and Audio Overhaul for Skyrim are installed, these forms will automatically be injected into the designated record at runtime with no manual patching involved. Due to the nature of the example given, there are virtually no risks of incompatibility and is highly recommended.
No permission is required to ship these files along with your mod and more examples will be given as this project further develops.
I've tried installing this mod on two separate occasions, and both times its been fine EXCEPT that it turns down the sound of the dragons fire/frost breath attack really low that it just stands out too much for my liking.
Hey! For right now, yes. It's going to be included in an upcoming release for Audio Overhaul for Skyrim. It's just a lot to work on, so it's been delayed multiple times. Avanchnzel Dwemer Piston Sound Hotfix is one of those mods that is safe to remove at any time.
I realize I will not really get much help with this but the mod is unable to be installed on Linux, or at least not on my system. Extracting files progress bar window pops up, reaches 100%, but before the fomod installer pops up wine crashes and MO2 obviously closes. Following Lexy's LOTD Guide and have had no issues up until this point in the guide. Any help/ideas would be greatly appreciated.
System Specs; OS: Arch Linux Kernel: 6.14.6 DE: KDE Plasma 6.3.5 Wine Version: 10.7 (Staging) (not proton or anything, just plain vanilla wine staging)
I think it's because of some of the characters used. I have to scrub them in the next update. (– — any emojis). Just install manually. The folder structure should be easy to figure out.
There is a mod that brings BACK Snow Whales, that is INCLUDED in the mods files and most do not realize it because they do not READ what they are installing, just glance and "Cool!" and roll with it and get *Plot twist* down the road..and make posts about s#*! they did and not the mod they are referencing as the "issue" :)
This mod is not compatible with Precision - Accurate Melee Collisions. Having them both enabled causes the game to crash when loading a save file. There needs to be a patch.
There is no incompatibility with these mods. They don't touch the same thing at all. Plus myself and many others have been running both of these mods for years with no crashing. You're likely experiencing some other crash.
I'm more than happy to help you out or point you in the right direction if you post a crash log, but you're looking in the wrong place.
Specifically, the game freezes instead of exiting, and it doesn't give me a crash log when it freezes. That's with Trainreck - A Crash Logger. I don't have any other information. I had both mods enabled. It froze. Then I disabled one of them. There was no freeze.
Edit: I just learned that Papyrus logging is supposed to give you some information when your game freezes. Here's the log.
Hello I'm really enjoying the mod but is there anyway to turn off the directional audio when speaking to NPCs ? If you are at an odd angle, the voices become really hard to hear.
EDIT: Nevermind, it was a windows audio setting causing the issue. For anyone looking, you have to turn off Audio Enhancements from your output device.
Thanks for this. Feel like this should be in FAQs for every audio mod. If I'm not looking at an NPC head-on, they may as well be on Secunda, and if I am, I can hear them through stone walls as if they were actually inside my head. Lovely Windows Audio "Enhancements".
Good suggestion. I've been fighting Windows Audio Enhancements forever and recommending people disable it. Sometimes I forget a lot of this information gets buried or isn't the most visible.
1964 comments
INTRODUCTION – TOO LONG; DIDN'T READ
PLEASE CONSIDER READING THE WHOLE THING.
Audio Overhaul for Skyrim is a complete overhaul to the audio system and adds thousands of magic, weapon, ambient sounds.
It is strongly recommended that you load Audio Overhaul for Skyrim very early in your load order to avoid any unintended issues.
As a reminder: I am not David Jegutidse. I am just the current maintainer and developer of AOS.
This port and all subsequent updates have been made with his permission and blessings.
NEWS
LAST UPDATED NOVEMBER 7TH 2022
Update 4.0.0 is here – Finally, the cloned projectile and explosion records have been condensed into vanilla records. What does this mean? With Sound Record Distributor, nothing (from the user). All necessary projectile and explosion records will have sounds added to them on runtime, relieving a massive burden on users, mod authors, and patch makers. For most users, no action is necessary on your part. For mod authors and patch makers, I've left all of the old "_AOS" records in and your patches are still fine to use.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED MODS
LAST UPDATED NOVEMBER 7TH 2022
Immersive Sounds Compendium
A dramatic and extensively customizable sound overhaul.
Audio Overhaul - Immersive Sounds Integration
An intelligently-made integration of Audio Overhaul and Immersive Sounds.
Unofficial Material Fix
Ensures the correct material sound plays when walking over or impacting surfaces.
Acoustic Space Improvement Fixes
A vanilla-friendly lookover of every interior cell to stop small homes from sounding like castles.
Regional Sounds Expansion
An extensive, standalone regional sound overhaul for towns, dungeons, and open-world.
Reverb Interior Sounds Expansion
A thoughtful, vanilla-friendly remodel of the base game reverb, interior sounds, and more.
❓ FREQUENTLY ANTICIPATED QUESTIONS
PLEASE READ THE STICKY BEFORE COMMENTING
❌ MODS TO AVOID / INCOMPATIBLE / BROKEN MODS
All of these mods have issues with not just Audio Overhaul for Skyrim, but vanilla Skyrim as a whole. Many of these issues cannot be fixed...! This list is not a judgement on the authors themselves, but compiled to help out users reporting and experiencing bugs. Everything written down has been confirmed through evidence, reverse engineering, and just the last seven years developing and maintaining a number of audio mods.
NPC Dialogue Audio Enhancer
NPC Dialogue Audio Enhancer is, at its most generous, an accessibility mod for people who are medically hard of hearing. Its attenuation curves are nonsense, and these output models are equally used by creatures, ambience, traps, and workbenches. So it's not only boosting your voices way higher than they should be, it's also boosting random sounds up by 200+%. If you are having issues hearing NPC voices, it's more than likely you are experiencing issues with Windows Audio Enhancements. You can also just turn the volume of everything else down through the volume sliders found in the Audio Settings menu.
True 3D Sound for Headphones / Binaural 3D Surround Sound for Headphones
Both of these mods are buggy and unfinished. They will crash your game, regardless of whether you're using Audio Overhaul for Skyrim, Regional Sounds Expansion, or Sounds of Skyrim. The original repository was either pulled from GitHub or abandoned, and theses two mods already ship out-of-date versions of the plugin. Skyrim's soundscape, along with Audio Overhaul for Skyrim, was built around Bethesda's audio engine, including specific output models, acoustic spaces, and attenuation curves. Certain sounds are meant for specific channels, and despite what you may hear, Skyrim already has built-in HRTF.
Skyrim's Environmental Audio Enhancer
Skyrim's Environmental Audio Enhancer unfortunately causes more harm than good, while not actually doing anything it claims. It reduces the games audio quality and cause issues with other audio mods. Skyrim does not natively output true 5.1 to 7.1 surround sound. Proper multi-channel surround mixing would require extensive changes to even make possible. And given the fact that Skyrim came out in 2011, it does not support newer, advanced audio codecs like Dolby Atmos. Any perceived sound effect is usually simulated rather than genuine, typically by Windows Audio Enhancements, which you know to disable. Or it is just louder.
Reverb and Ambiance Overhaul
The problems with this mod are outline in the description here. But if you want a short summary, it is bloated with unnecessary edits, uses misapplied reverb in the wrong locations, sometimes overlaps sounds, and has similar bugs and oversights. If you don't like the reverb in Audio Overhaul for Skyrim, you can either used the "Reduced Reverb Plugin (2.6.1)" or "Reverb Interior Sounds Expansion" and its reverb module. I am obvious biased towards the second option, as it is based on Audio Overhaul for Skyrim, but toned down considerably while maintaining realism without being too distracting.
COMPATIBILITY MASTER LIST
NON-EXHAUSTIVE LIST – FEEL FREE TO CTRL + F HERE TOO
Audio Overhaul for Skyrim and Sound Record Descriptor distribute sounds to specified records on runtime. Runtime means "when the game starts". When the game starts, this mod will overwrite the subrecord its pointed to. You still need patches! Download them if you are unsure! If you have old patches in, nothing bad will happen. They will mostly just be redundant.
Built-in Support means the Sound Record Distributor patches any new magic effects, regions, and weapons added by supported mods. If a mod listed here adds a new weapon or spell, you can reasonably expect that record to include Audio Overhaul for Skyrim's new sounds for consistency. Many mods will still work fine without built-in support, and most don't need it.
BUILT-IN SUPPORT
Creation Club and Anniversary Edition
Support is built-in for the following creations: Bittercup, Fishing, Necromantic Grimoire, Saints & Seducers, Arcane Accessories, and Staff of Sheogorath. More will be added over time, but this mod is overall compatible with the Anniversary Edition content.
Beyond Skyrim
Beyond Skyrim: Bruma
Beyond Skyrim: Morrowind – Bonemold Pack
Wares of Tamriel
New Lands & Quests
Wyrmstooth
Magic
Mysticism
Weapons
Destructible Display Cases
ESO Imports
Hunterborn
Immersive Weapons
Lore Weapon Expansion
Royal Armory – New Artifacts
Reforging To The Masses
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.
If it is not in this list, it likely needs to still be patched.
FOR MOD AUTHORS
BUILDING SUPPORT FOR AOS 3.9.0+ RIGHT INTO YOUR MOD WITH NO PLUGIN REQUIRED.
If you're a mod author, adding support for Audio Overhaul for Skyrim using Sound Record Distributor is an incredibly easy and frictionless process. Simply package your mod with an SRD file and it will automatically distribute any sounds you want from this plugin to yours without any need for an additional plugin or having to update the patch for any update.
Let's say you release a mod that adds a unique dagger. In vanilla Skyrim, daggers and one-handed swords share the same impact sounds with no distinction between the two. You can package a .yaml file along with your mod and format it like this.
# Audio Overhaul Skyrim.esp|05B6EA is WPNzBlade1HandSmallImpactSet
# Skyrim.esm|03CED9 is WPNBlade1HandSmallDrawSD
# Skyrim.esm|03CEDB is WPNBlade1HandSmallSheatheSD
Requirements:
- Audio Overhaul Skyrim.esp
- CoolDaggerMod.esp
Weapons:
- Form: CoolDaggerMod.esp|801
Impact Data Set: Audio Overhaul Skyrim.esp|05B6EA
Equip: Skyrim.esm|03CED9
Unequip: Skyrim.esm|03CEDB
If both Sound Record Distributor and Audio Overhaul for Skyrim are installed, these forms will automatically be injected into the designated record at runtime with no manual patching involved. Due to the nature of the example given, there are virtually no risks of incompatibility and is highly recommended.
No permission is required to ship these files along with your mod and more examples will be given as this project further develops.
Have you heard/know any way to fix this issue?
is it still relevant to use with AO?
System Specs;
OS: Arch Linux
Kernel: 6.14.6
DE: KDE Plasma 6.3.5
Wine Version: 10.7 (Staging) (not proton or anything, just plain vanilla wine staging)
Just install manually. The folder structure should be easy to figure out.
I'm more than happy to help you out or point you in the right direction if you post a crash log, but you're looking in the wrong place.
Edit: I just learned that Papyrus logging is supposed to give you some information when your game freezes. Here's the log.
[05/15/2025 - 11:12:09AM] Papyrus log opened (PC)[05/15/2025 - 11:12:09AM] Upd - Pastebin.com
I don't know if it's a bug.
EDIT: Nevermind, it was a windows audio setting causing the issue. For anyone looking, you have to turn off Audio Enhancements from your output device.
Lovely Windows Audio "Enhancements".