Tools For Creating Music Packs
If you are interested in creating your own music packs, whether it be the ones from other C&C games that are described in this manual, or to create music packs of your own audio files, you are going to need tools adequate for the job.
Yuri's Revenge needs its music tracks to be in 22.050 kHz WAV IMA ADPCM format, or else they won't be read. I have observed that 24.000
kHz will also play in the game. Both stereo and mono are supported, so mono tracks from old games will play fine (they just won't be stereo).
If your source file is a different format, you'll have to convert it.
If you are a mod author you will probably want to use mono rather than stereo,
given that stereo files are twice the size of mono files.
To extract music files from C&C games, you will need XCC Mixer. XCC Mixer will also convert WAV files to the proper compression format, and will aid in the conversion of AUD files used by the older C&C games. Additionally, XCC AV Player will play the tracks a bit less cumbersomely than the Mixer will, and XCC Mix Editor will give you the ability to assemble your audio track files into your own MIX files. Therefore, I feel the XCC suite of utilities is essential.
You can get the XCC Utilities at the XCC Website. Go to the Downloads page, and be sure to get the XCC Utilities package first (this contains the entire suite of utilities). Once you have extracted these tools to a folder on your computer where they will live, download XCC Mixer and extract it to the same folder (overwriting XCC Mixer.exe that's already in there). In this way you'll have the entire suite of programs, and also have the latest version of the Mixer.
The dBpowerAMP Music Converter lets you quickly and easily convert audio files. With installation of the proper codecs (also available from the site), you can deal with audio files of almost any format at all. Installation offers Windows shell integration, making it very easy to use its abilities whenever you want.
Editing Audio Files
Nearly all the music tracks from C&C games will play and sound just fine in Yuri's Revenge once they are converted into the proper format. Audio files from other sources may be improved by additional editing, particularly in the area of playback volume and normalization. If you find this is necessary, there are several free audio editing programs available on the web for this purpose, or perhaps you may have a serviceable program already installed along with your soundcard driver package. I'll make no recommendations here because user needs and program preferences tend to differ widely.