TTTTTThor!

I just finished a fun project that came to me randomly. I decided I would make an audio mod for VVVVVV using only Thor. I’ve beat VVVVVV before and I’d like to think I’m pretty good at it. I’ve also used Thor before but couldn’t say I’m well versed in all of it’s parameters.

 

Thor is an amazing synthesizer found in Reason. What makes it different than a lot of other synths is that just about everything can modulate just about anything. You can have an LFO modulate a synths frequency. That same frequency signal could modulate the drive amount of a comb filter. Another LFO’s speed could be modulated by the frequency of that comb filter… and so on. To be honest, it’s still kind of tough for me to wrap my head around everything in Thor, but making this mod has helped me get a better idea of what’s going on.

Another lesson I learned making this mod was that games can be picky about sound file metadata. When I first tried playing the game, none of the modified sounds would trigger. I struggled to work that one out. They were the same 16bit/44.1 kHz mono .wav files with the exact filenames as the originals. Four Cokes and a lot more troubleshooting later, I finally found the culprit to be metadata. Or I should say, my boss gave me the idea it might be metadata. It turned out that removing the extra metadata that Reason or Pro Tools may have added to the files did the trick. My guess is that the game uses this data to authenticate the files.

Here’s a short video of me playing the modified game. I promise I’m only dying to demonstrate the sounds. 🙂

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm50TvXYte8]

If you have VVVVVV and want to try out my sounds, you can download the modified sound folder below.


Download VVVVVV Thor Sound Mod by Stosh

To install on a Mac, control-click on the VVVVVV app and click “Show Package Contents”. The sounds are located in ‘Resources/data/sounds’. Simply replace the “sounds” folder with the one I’ve provided. You’ll want to keep a copy of the original sounds, of course.

I can’t give specific directions for installing on Windows, however I’m assuming the sounds are located somewhere in the “Program Files” folder. If you don’t have VVVVVV, get it. It’s an amazing game with an outstanding soundtrack for just $5.00. It’s the kind of game where dying over and over again only makes you want to try it again and again.

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