More Awesome Than You!

Hey, I wrote this tutorial in InSIMenator, since it got screwed, I'll post it here.

Tools you will need:
SimPE

Part one - Finding the wanted soundtrack(s):

The game and its expansions each have a folder that holds packages of sounds, sim voices, special effects and more.

The folder mostly on this route: X:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 ANY EXPANSION NAME\TSData\Res\Sound while the X's are for the drive where you installed the game.

The folder hold files like Voice1, Voice2 and on, and Misc and more, do not touch these, you dont want the sim sounds, we want music tracks, the different stations named files like Pop, Metal, Salsa... or the CAS, Build mode and Buy mode music.
If its an expansion it most likely will not have all the stations, only tracks added to the game represnet there.

Part two - Extracting the MP3(s):

Well, thats the second and last part (few, that was very long!) first, open SimPE by either double clicking on the file on the sound folder or browsering the file in SimPE.

Lets say you want Natasha Bedingfield's Pocketful Of Sunshine in Simlish from FreeTime, we need to open the file Pop.package in the sound folder of FreeTime, by highlighting it you will have the option to extract it, save the file somewhere and you will get an MP3 file and a XML file, you only need the MP3, you can use the XML later if we want to package few MP3's together.

MP3 Packaging Information:

Its not required for you to read it, you can read it if you want to know more about this subject.
To repackage few soundtracks or one sound track right click the resource list and you will have the option to add, add the wanted XML file, save it somewhere and your done.

I hope this tutorial helped you, I feel quite unawesome for posting it here, but I did it anyway :D

Thanks, this is great!


http://www.insimenator.org/index.php (http://www.insimenator.org/index.php)

Mini Tutorial - Extracting the game MP3's (http://www.insimenator.org/index.php/topic,89903.0.html)

Heh. Incidentally, I was about to ask for a way to extract certain sim sounds, because I don't want them (I need to identify them before I can overwrite them) :D. Can't wait to try your tutorial out.

Khan of Wyrms:
Thanks, yes, I did copied what I wrote there.

sloppyhousewife:
I think that you can replace the sims sounds, but there are alot of them and  I dont suggest you messing up the sims sounds, unless you backup the original files.

But messing with game files is fun!! Just kidding - thanks for the warning. I've been planning to get rid of annoying sounds forever (like I did with awful portraits), I just haven't got around to finally trying it and thought that the extracted files would have some weird file format. It was a pleasant surprise to read that they're just MP3s :).

Don't feel so "unawesome". This is by far the best tutorial that I have ever read! I ignored SimPE's warning about updating, and prevailed upon my third attempt. (Without blowing up my game.:P)
There is hope for me yet.

Also, I believe game sounds can't be extracted as mp3 but xa. You may need this (http://modthesims2.com/download.php?t=40438). Good luck messing up with game files, fun!  :P

Well, messing up the game is fun indeed, but this tutorial is only for extracting the Simlish songs and tunes of TS2, I also tried, and you can repack tunes.

I've found the program "Ant Renamer" to be quite useful for renaming the oddly-named MP3 files that result from extraction, as it can read the  ID3 data embedded in the songs from everything after UNiversity. Unfortunately, the Base-Game songs don't have ID3 tages, so the only way I've fouind to discern which is which is by listening to each song and comparing it to the in-game music in the Sound Options panel.

About the XA files (Maxis ADPCM), FFmpeg can convert them into MP3.