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You have to love GTA3's mp3 player feature, but if you want a bit more variety in your playlists then you can customise every radio station in the game.
Basically you replace the radio station wav files with ones of your own: allowing you to have a jazz station instead of the trance one for example.
This makes the game very, very cool; and gives you the added satisfaction of an entire city driving around listening to your favourite tunes. I'm posting a step-by-step guide on how to do it. But for those who think they're a bit l33t, check the audio sub-folder and work it out yourself.
Basically you replace the radio station wav files with ones of your own: allowing you to have a jazz station instead of the trance one for example.
This makes the game very, very cool; and gives you the added satisfaction of an entire city driving around listening to your favourite tunes. I'm posting a step-by-step guide on how to do it. But for those who think they're a bit l33t, check the audio sub-folder and work it out yourself.
Page:
Hee hee!
What?
I read that and thought
"Er...just go rockstar games/gta3/data/mp3" like it says in the manual.
I read that and thought
"Er...just go rockstar games/gta3/data/mp3" like it says in the manual.
Goatboy wrote:
> Or just put your favourite MP3s into the file marked "MP3"
> in the sub-menu, then change the radio station until the one called
> "MP3 Station" clicks on.
Make him feel stupid why don't you! :-)
> Or just put your favourite MP3s into the file marked "MP3"
> in the sub-menu, then change the radio station until the one called
> "MP3 Station" clicks on.
Make him feel stupid why don't you! :-)
Or just put your favourite MP3s into the file marked "MP3" in the sub-menu, then change the radio station until the one called "MP3 Station" clicks on.
Customising ALL the radio stations in GTA3: An idiot's guide
====================================================
We'll be using two programs:
MP3 Multiplexer 3.0 which can be found at download.com (search for it!) or from the author's horribly designed homepage at http://pages.prodigy.net/spurkus/home.htm
(To install this program just unzip it into a suitable folder, eg C:\My Music\Tools\ Run it by navigating to its folder and double-clicking.)
and
dBpowerAMP Music Converter which can also be found at download.com or from the company website at http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm
(Run the installer: it'll end up on your programs menu.)
For the example we'll use Rise FM
===
ONE
===
Decide on the mp3 files you want to play in place of Rise FM. There's no limit on numbers other than your storage space (wav files are BIG). For ease of use copy them into a seperate folder (C:\My Music\Rise\).
===
TWO
===
Normalising the volume. To stop the volume of your new radio station fluctuating wildly, we'll make all the tracks the same volume. (If all your chosen tracks are from the same source (eg, ripped from a CD) then you can skip this part.)
Start dBpowerAMP Music Converter and navigate to your new folder. Select all the tracks you wish to play: single-click the first file; then while holding Shift single-click the last file; all files should now be selected - if not, you can add extra files by holding Ctrl and clicking on them. Press Open. On the tiny screen that appears, click MP3 [lame].
On the dBpowerAMP Music Converter screen put a tick in the following boxes: Same Folder As Original; Volume Normalize; Preserve ID Tags; Delete Source File(s) After Conversion (you ARE working with copies, aren't you?). Click Convert. A warning screen will pop-up: click OK to overwrite the files.
dBpowerAMP Music Converter will normalise the files. This could take a while: increase the priority if you want, but you're better off having a cup of tea or going for a walk.
=====
THREE
=====
Now we'll turn the individual tracks into one big mp3 file. Start MP3 Multiplexer 3.0 (the program file is called mp3muxer.exe). Try to ignore the garish colour scheme.
Click on "1. Output Folder" and select C:\My Music\Rise\. Click OK to get rid of the confirmation message.
Click on "2. Select MP3 Files..." and navigate to C:\My Music\Rise\ Select all the files, in the same way as in step two, and click Open.
If you want you can edit the order in which the individual tracks will appear by opening the Sort Song List menu and choosing either an alphabetical or manual sort. Once you are happy with the order click on "3. Merge MP3 Files".
The program will work for a while and then prompt you for a name: type RISE and click OK.
You now have one big mp3. Close MP3 Multiplexer 3.0.
====
FOUR
====
GTA3 plays its radio stations as .wav files, so we now need to convert our mp3 file into that format.
Run dBpowerAMP Music Converter again. This time open your big mp3 file: C:\My Music\Rise\Rise.mp3
On the splash screen choose Wave.
Now you have a choice: either convert at CD quality (the default) or choose a lower setting to save on conversion time and hard drive space. If you decide on lower quality audio then click change format to choose your new setting: as a rough guide, the lower the value of *kbp/s, the lower the quality of the sound (but you'll get a smaller file, quicker).
Put a tick in the Same Folder As Original box. This time leave Delete Source File(s) After Conversion unticked.
Click convert: be prepared to wait again.
====
FIVE
====
You now have a file called rise.wav in c:\my music\rise\
Right click on it and select 'cut'. Now navigate to your GTA3 folder (C:\Program Files\Rockstar\GTA3\ or whatever). Open the 'Audio' folder. Right click inside it and select 'paste'. Click OK to overwrite the file: if you want to restore it at a later date then copy it from the CD.
Start GTA3, steal a car and select Rise FM: congratulations you are now playing your very own radio station.
Rise FM is probably a different volume from the other, original stations. If you want to change this then run the normalisation procedure again: this time open rise.wav and another radio station file (eg msx.wav); select wav; check normalise and press Convert.
====================================================
We'll be using two programs:
MP3 Multiplexer 3.0 which can be found at download.com (search for it!) or from the author's horribly designed homepage at http://pages.prodigy.net/spurkus/home.htm
(To install this program just unzip it into a suitable folder, eg C:\My Music\Tools\ Run it by navigating to its folder and double-clicking.)
and
dBpowerAMP Music Converter which can also be found at download.com or from the company website at http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm
(Run the installer: it'll end up on your programs menu.)
For the example we'll use Rise FM
===
ONE
===
Decide on the mp3 files you want to play in place of Rise FM. There's no limit on numbers other than your storage space (wav files are BIG). For ease of use copy them into a seperate folder (C:\My Music\Rise\).
===
TWO
===
Normalising the volume. To stop the volume of your new radio station fluctuating wildly, we'll make all the tracks the same volume. (If all your chosen tracks are from the same source (eg, ripped from a CD) then you can skip this part.)
Start dBpowerAMP Music Converter and navigate to your new folder. Select all the tracks you wish to play: single-click the first file; then while holding Shift single-click the last file; all files should now be selected - if not, you can add extra files by holding Ctrl and clicking on them. Press Open. On the tiny screen that appears, click MP3 [lame].
On the dBpowerAMP Music Converter screen put a tick in the following boxes: Same Folder As Original; Volume Normalize; Preserve ID Tags; Delete Source File(s) After Conversion (you ARE working with copies, aren't you?). Click Convert. A warning screen will pop-up: click OK to overwrite the files.
dBpowerAMP Music Converter will normalise the files. This could take a while: increase the priority if you want, but you're better off having a cup of tea or going for a walk.
=====
THREE
=====
Now we'll turn the individual tracks into one big mp3 file. Start MP3 Multiplexer 3.0 (the program file is called mp3muxer.exe). Try to ignore the garish colour scheme.
Click on "1. Output Folder" and select C:\My Music\Rise\. Click OK to get rid of the confirmation message.
Click on "2. Select MP3 Files..." and navigate to C:\My Music\Rise\ Select all the files, in the same way as in step two, and click Open.
If you want you can edit the order in which the individual tracks will appear by opening the Sort Song List menu and choosing either an alphabetical or manual sort. Once you are happy with the order click on "3. Merge MP3 Files".
The program will work for a while and then prompt you for a name: type RISE and click OK.
You now have one big mp3. Close MP3 Multiplexer 3.0.
====
FOUR
====
GTA3 plays its radio stations as .wav files, so we now need to convert our mp3 file into that format.
Run dBpowerAMP Music Converter again. This time open your big mp3 file: C:\My Music\Rise\Rise.mp3
On the splash screen choose Wave.
Now you have a choice: either convert at CD quality (the default) or choose a lower setting to save on conversion time and hard drive space. If you decide on lower quality audio then click change format to choose your new setting: as a rough guide, the lower the value of *kbp/s, the lower the quality of the sound (but you'll get a smaller file, quicker).
Put a tick in the Same Folder As Original box. This time leave Delete Source File(s) After Conversion unticked.
Click convert: be prepared to wait again.
====
FIVE
====
You now have a file called rise.wav in c:\my music\rise\
Right click on it and select 'cut'. Now navigate to your GTA3 folder (C:\Program Files\Rockstar\GTA3\ or whatever). Open the 'Audio' folder. Right click inside it and select 'paste'. Click OK to overwrite the file: if you want to restore it at a later date then copy it from the CD.
Start GTA3, steal a car and select Rise FM: congratulations you are now playing your very own radio station.
Rise FM is probably a different volume from the other, original stations. If you want to change this then run the normalisation procedure again: this time open rise.wav and another radio station file (eg msx.wav); select wav; check normalise and press Convert.
You have to love GTA3's mp3 player feature, but if you want a bit more variety in your playlists then you can customise every radio station in the game.
Basically you replace the radio station wav files with ones of your own: allowing you to have a jazz station instead of the trance one for example.
This makes the game very, very cool; and gives you the added satisfaction of an entire city driving around listening to your favourite tunes. I'm posting a step-by-step guide on how to do it. But for those who think they're a bit l33t, check the audio sub-folder and work it out yourself.
Basically you replace the radio station wav files with ones of your own: allowing you to have a jazz station instead of the trance one for example.
This makes the game very, very cool; and gives you the added satisfaction of an entire city driving around listening to your favourite tunes. I'm posting a step-by-step guide on how to do it. But for those who think they're a bit l33t, check the audio sub-folder and work it out yourself.
Page: