Make looping BGM - Part 1 (OGG Vorbis)

[Ryan Bram 26]

How to make a perfect looping BGM for RPG Maker VX ACE (OGG Vorbis)

Credits :

Shu

 

Introduction

Have you ever wanted your battle music to play the intro once, and then loop only the main part, like most Final Fantasy battle music?

That's exactly what this tutorial will teach you how to do.

 

Required Program

Audacity 2.0, the free audio editing tool.

 

Editing the BGM

Open your desired BGM in Audacity. Find the portion that you want to loop by using the selection tool and zoom tool and carefully listening to where the song should begin looping, and where the song should restart to the beginning of the loop. These two points in the song MUST sound exactly the same! It is recommended that the loop point is loud, because trying to loop on a quiet, sensitive part of a song is more noticeable and harder to make it seamless.

 

Once you know where the points are, select the point where the loop should begin, and then go to Tracks -> Add Label at Selection. Enter "Loop Start." Do the same for where you want the loop to restart, and label it as "Loop End."

 

You can test to see if it loops seamlessly by highlighting the area inside these two labels and shift+clicking the play button.

 

 

Next, thou shall go to the bottom of the program, where you shall see some drop-down menus. Click a drop-down menu and set it to "samples" like shown in this image:

 

 

and then make sure that "Length" is checked instead of "End" like so:

 

 

Now, make sure that you have selected the area of the song from the Loop Start label to the Loop End label, and then go to File -> Export...

Name it, and make sure the File Type is set to Ogg Vorbis Files. Click Save.

 

This is the most important step! An Edit Metadata window should appear. At the bottom, click add until there are two blank tags. Double click the first blank tag and type in "LOOPSTART". In the second blank tag, type in "LOOPLENGTH". Look at the bottom of Audacity to see a number under Selection Start. Insert this number as the value for LOOPSTART without commas. Do the same for LOOPLENGTH using the number under Length.

 

 

Click OK, import your new ogg file inside your RPG Maker VX, go to Sound Test, and click Play!

If it loops exactly where you wanted it to, then you have not failed.

 

Go forth, and make awesomeness.

Edited May 15, 2012 by Ryan Bram

[Demonfire94 5]

Ok, this has to be the most helpfull tutorial I have ever read...... Thank you.

[Ultima Xehanort 1]

Very helpful tutorial for whoever wants to put their own music in the game, and not have it sound weird

 

Thank you very much, and congratulations for this wonderful tutorial

[Jawote 0]

I followed this correctly, but every time I try to preview the track in RPG Maker, it stops responding.

[Ryan Bram 26]

I followed this correctly, but every time I try to preview the track in RPG Maker, it stops responding.

 

Can you attach the sound in this forum?

I need to examine it to find out what the problem was.

[Peva 0]

I follow everything you say, but when I get to where I have to export the file, Export is always grayed out...

[Dren 0]

Sorry for the topic kick, but I also followed this tutorial to a tee and I can't for the life of me figure out what I'm doing wrong. During playback on rmvxace the song will just stop playing 10 or so seconds before the end of the loop. I've noticed playing the song on audacity starts the song again on rmvxace from the loop start point. After the song stops, no other song will play until I either restart rmvxace or test play and quit. Here's a link to the ogg file I encoded.

 

removed

 

I took the samples from selection start and selection length at 44100 Hz, they were:

LOOPSTART = 176524

LOOPLENGTH = 2293942

 

EDIT: Sorry, I figured it out. It was weird audio glitch on my computer. All audio was cutting short, very weird.

Edited January 23, 2013 by Dren

[cloudstarr2 4]

this is a great tutorial!  Bookmarked

[Ryan Bram 26]

I follow everything you say, but when I get to where I have to export the file, Export is always grayed out...

Audacity need external FFmpeg library in order to export then result to lossy compressed format (in this case is .ogg)

 

This is how to use.

[Say41Plz 0]

Thanks a lot for this one.

[Kirimash 283]

Sorry, but I have an issue. The loops start right, but it goes to the end of the song, instead of the end of the loop.

[Rikifive 3,319]

Make sure you put LOOPLENGTH : NUMBERS correctly. I had the same issue once, but I noticed I've put  LOOPLENGHT and that's why it didn't work. =P

[Kirimash 283]

Make sure you put LOOPLENGTH : NUMBERS correctly. I had the same issue once, but I noticed I've put  LOOPLENGHT and that's why it didn't worked. =P

 

What do you mean?

[Rikifive 3,319]

Make sure you to put stuff correctly when exporting file as ogg.

When I was exporting file and adding these two lines I wrote LOOPLENGTH incorrectly. =P Instead of TH I had HT, and that's why the loop end was skipped in my case. =P

Edited July 9, 2015 by Rikifive

[Kirimash 283]

Make sure you to put stuff correctly when exporting file as ogg.

When I was exporting file and adding these two lines I wrote LOOPLENGTH incorrectly. =P Instead of TH I had HT, and that's why the loop end was skipped in my case. =P

 

I wrote Length... Let me do it again...

 

EDIT: It looped now. I need to fix the loop though...

Edited July 9, 2015 by KilerDiLeo

[DarkEspeon 1]

Okay, here's my problem: the music loops nicely, at least as BGM. But when I import as ME (because I need looped music for battle end) - it doesn't work. No idea why. It just doesn't. Any ideas on what to do?

[Rikifive 3,319]

ME just works like this. ME runs once, while pausing BGM (and perhaps BGS).

It stands for Music Effect - so that would be the same as looping SE.

 

You need to use BGM for battle end. (most likely through scripting)

[DarkEspeon 1]

ME just works like this. ME runs once, while pausing BGM (and perhaps BGS).

It stands for Music Effect - so that would be the same as looping SE.

 

You need to use BGM for battle end. (most likely through scripting)

Hmmm, I see. Thank you!

Do you know any good script without any known compatibility problems for that?

[Rikifive 3,319]

 

ME just works like this. ME runs once, while pausing BGM (and perhaps BGS).

It stands for Music Effect - so that would be the same as looping SE.

 

You need to use BGM for battle end. (most likely through scripting)

Hmmm, I see. Thank you!

Do you know any good script without any known compatibility problems for that?

 

Nope, but I'll try to write one.

While I'll be working on this, please make a thread here, since this thread/area is not for script requests. Thank you. (=

It's just to keep things clean and easier to find for the others in future. (=

I'll be sure to visit your thread. (=

[PhoenixSoul 1,269]

Don't know if this counts as a necropost, but this tutorial is very helpful.

 

I will note that trying to do this with certain kinds of music doesn't really work all that well.