Extra Drumkit for programmable speaker music

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mmmPI
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Extra Drumkit for programmable speaker music

Post by mmmPI »

What is this about ?
This is about this mod : https://mods.factorio.com/mod/PMI-Drumkit

It adds 2 additionnals "Drumkits" instruments to the programmable speakers ! ( and some kicks )
What does it look like in game ?
It look like additionnal options in the dropdown menu :
drumkit recap.jpg
drumkit recap.jpg (145.02 KiB) Viewed 266 times
What does it sound like ?
1)Funk

Here is a video of a machine that has a few "Funk" pattern encoded with the Drumkit Funk :



Here is a blueprint of the machine that contain a few explanations ( require the mod ! ) :



Here is also a savegame with only this mod active and the blueprint on it, to make it easier to hear for yourself and make sure there's no conflict with other instruments :
Demo Funk box 6.zip
(4.83 MiB) Downloaded 12 times
2)House

Here is another machine that plays a little house loop using the "Drumkit House" and a melody using other modded instruments ( all links below the video :) )



blueprint ( requires few mods ) :

Save map with the blueprint on it to "sync" the mod easily :
House machine 7.zip
(4.74 MiB) Downloaded 11 times
Inspiration for the loop and melody : Oliver $ & Jimi Jules - Pushing On

Extras :
It was made similar to a previous mod which has more detailed explanations : viewtopic.php?t=129359

But contrary to the other musical instruments that have many notes ( 88 or 96 + ) which can last up to 8 second each , here a full drumkit of 16 sounds has a total duration of 8 seconds or so, which means the mod is very very small, less than 2 MB !

It was also much more difficult to make the samples sounds "good" in the game, the compression to "max quality" .ogg was used, but even then, some alterations occurs, and also when the sound are played in the game, they sound a little further distorted, especially the kicks in the additionnal instruments, those are WIP, different EQ and mastering where attempted to try and mitigate such effects.

This mod will possibly be extended with some more sounds or maybe even a full drumkit, as i see fit when trying to make musical machines, if you have any suggestions feel free to let me know !
House machine 7.zip
(4.74 MiB) Downloaded 11 times
Attachments
House-demo-1(1).mp4
(3.28 MiB) Downloaded 14 times
Funk-Box(1).mp4
(5.32 MiB) Downloaded 16 times
Last edited by mmmPI on Sat Jun 21, 2025 2:46 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Donion
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Re: Extra Drumkit for programmable speaker music

Post by Donion »

mmmPI wrote: Fri Jun 20, 2025 10:51 am It was also much more difficult to make the samples sounds "good" in the game, the compression to "max quality" .ogg was used ...
You could give the Opus codec a go. Although I don't think it will make a difference since the bitrate in your files is so high (for most of them at least).
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mmmPI
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Re: Extra Drumkit for programmable speaker music

Post by mmmPI »

Donion wrote: Fri Jun 20, 2025 11:12 am You could give the Opus codec a go. Although I don't think it will make a difference since the bitrate in your files is so high (for most of them at least).
Thanks for the tip, i can indeed do this, i see this and it opens many new settings i never heard of in audacity, i didn't know "opus codec" was a thing nor that it was supported. Will proceed to more experiments ! x) I like the current result for the way it sound, but it may sound closer to the originals then !

I'm not blaming the game in any way for the distortion btw ! I think it's that drumkits are particularly sensible to compression or change of audio format, for some instruments they sound exactly like in FL studio, but those no ( even when cranking up the quality to levels beyond what my ear could distinguinsh or the spectrogram).

I thought it could also be maybe an EQ in game similar to what differs when selecting "global" or "local" and unzooming maybe there is a "default" one which is noticeable or some necessary mastering between the different audio source, things that are bound to be there. Made the challenge for myself to try and learn how to deal with it. Will report on that :)
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Donion
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Re: Extra Drumkit for programmable speaker music

Post by Donion »

mmmPI wrote: Fri Jun 20, 2025 12:00 pm i didn't know "opus codec" was a thing nor that it was supported.
The support was added in 2.0.24. Opus codec is supposed to perform better than Vorbis in lower bitrate scenarios, at high bitrates there shouldn't be much perceptible difference.
mmmPI wrote: Fri Jun 20, 2025 12:00 pm I thought it could also be maybe an EQ in game similar to what differs when selecting "global" or "local" and unzooming maybe there is a "default" one which is noticeable or some necessary mastering between the different audio source, things that are bound to be there. Made the challenge for myself to try and learn how to deal with it. Will report on that :)
You could use .wav to check if it's the compression or the mixing in game. The game decodes samples into unsigned 16 bit depth (down from 32 bit float Vorbis uses), that will play (some) role in it too.
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mmmPI
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Re: Extra Drumkit for programmable speaker music

Post by mmmPI »

Donion wrote: Fri Jun 20, 2025 12:39 pm You could use .wav to check if it's the compression or the mixing in game. The game decodes samples into unsigned 16 bit depth (down from 32 bit float Vorbis uses), that will play (some) role in it too.
I had not taken this into consideration. I think that the compression is responsible for most of what my ears were able to distinguish as when i turn the samples from original .wav into "16 bit PCM" first in Audacity, then it sound the same in game and outside. The new version now contains those .opus file of the "highest bitrate" but made from 16 bit PCM Wav files, it took a bit of time to document about how it works and what are all the settings for. They are from a environment at 48KHz and not 44.1KHz too i think, just in case.

It sound the same as before in game to me :lol: . At least I can't hear if it's now slightly "better" due to the maximum bitrate being seemingly higher for .opus than .ogg ( the files are twice as big from 1.5 MB to 3MB) , recordings show something a bit different on the spectrograms so maybe other players with better ears and more powerful gears can notice something if played very loud or something, but those are not meant to be material for professionnal music creation so i'm not too worry :)

It will be easier to make the sound design in an 16-bit enviromnent in the future to put in the game, rather than doing so in 32-bit, and having this alteration sometimes noticeable at export or in game when starting with high quality sounds, i have already noticed on some vocals x).
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