Make looping BGM - Part 1 (OGG Vorbis)

[RyanBram]

How to make a perfect looping BGM for RPG Maker VX ACE (OGG Vorbis)
Credits : Shu​

Introduction
Have you ever wanted your battle music to play the intro once, and then loop only the main part, like most Final Fantasy battle music?
That's exactly what this tutorial will teach you how to do.

Required Program
Audacity, the free audio editing tool.

Editing the BGM
Open your desired BGM in Audacity. Find the portion that you want to loop by using the selection tool and zoom tool and carefully listening to where the song should begin looping, and where the song should restart to the beginning of the loop. These two points in the song MUST sound exactly the same! It is recommended that the loop point is loud, because trying to loop on a quiet, sensitive part of a song is more noticeable and harder to make it seamless.

Once you know where the points are, select the point where the loop should begin, and then go to Tracks -> Add Label at Selection. Enter "Loop Start." Do the same for where you want the loop to restart, and label it as "Loop End."

You can test to see if it loops seamlessly by highlighting the area inside these two labels and shift+clicking the play button.

Next, thou shall go to the bottom of the program, where you shall see some drop-down menus. Click a drop-down menu and set it to "samples" like shown in this image:



and then make sure that "Length" is checked instead of "End" like so:

Now, make sure that you have selected the area of the song from the Loop Start label to the Loop End label, and then go to File -> Export...
Name it, and make sure the File Type is set to Ogg Vorbis Files. Click Save.

This is the most important step! An Edit Metadata window should appear. At the bottom, click add until there are two blank tags. Double click the first blank tag and type in "LOOPSTART". In the second blank tag, type in "LOOPLENGTH". Look at the bottom of Audacity to see a number under Selection Start. Insert this number as the value for LOOPSTART without commas. Do the same for LOOPLENGTH using the number under Length.

Click OK, import your new ogg file inside your RPG Maker, go to Sound Test, and click Play!
If it loops exactly where you wanted it to, then you have not failed.

Go forth, and make awesomeness.

 

[LeoHalliwell]

So, what if there is no sound at all when I go to test play? 

EDIT: I also tried just exporting the selection as both OGG and mp3 and it loops the part before my selection (which is like half a second long, so you can imagine how annoying that is) But the loopstart and length are correct in the tag/edit thing. 

 

[deathsia]

I followed an archived version of this tutorial using foobar as it said to, I ended up with a corrupted unusable file. Thankfully I had a backup.

Do you guys love to mess with people or something? Get your laughs thinking "oh man, if they do this they'll have royally screwed up their audio file! hahaha!"

because this tutorial is the exact same thing and the result will be the same.

 

[rpglover88]

Nope. I followed this tutorial (well, Shus tutorial, not this one. But both are the same) step by step with audacity and it worked perfectly. This tutorial is really easy to understand, i have no idea how you ended up with a corrupted file....

 

[JacobM]

Works for me just fine.

 

[PixelPusher]

I know this is an old thread but I just wanted to say the first time I did this it saved/exported a 0byte file. I then re-exported the file and it worked just fine. I've not used Audacity much as I'm use to using GoldWave. It's still confusing me how to add this loop data to an ogg file with GoldWave..

Thanks for the tut. It's easy enough!

 

[defunct-user]

I followed an archived version of this tutorial using foobar as it said to, I ended up with a corrupted unusable file. Thankfully I had a backup.

Do you guys love to mess with people or something? Get your laughs thinking "oh man, if they do this they'll have royally screwed up their audio file! hahaha!"

because this tutorial is the exact same thing and the result will be the same.

OR, maybe, you just didn't do something properly? Just because YOU can't get something to work doesn't mean it's a bad tut. Maybe you're just a bad student. All these people can't be wrong and just you be right.

I've been using this very tut method to loop my BGM for rpgs now for well over a year.  Best method I ever found!

 

[nwh212]

Can you do an Adobe Audition tutorial or is it not possible in Audition?

 

[Shine Bright Shadow]

Is there any way to be able to properly play Ogg files that use this technique
in an easily downloadable program?

 

[0.MisC.0]

Thanks for posting this! I greatly appreciate it. Been using FL Studio 10 for about 5 years now and although it's easy enough to loop in that, it sometimes keeps the ends even with the loop setting when exporting. So again, thanks for the really easy to follow info!

 

[djDarkX]

Is there any way to be able to properly play Ogg files that use this technique
in an easily downloadable program?

Yes, actually. If you just want to listen to them without having to have RM open and still hear the loops, good for testing and leisure listening, use XMPlay with the Winamp in_vorbis plugin added. They loop like they do in RM and it's a great way to quickly test your loops to ensure they will sound good as a finished product. I do it for that reason and just to listen to my favorite tracks without having RM open.

 

[Shine Bright Shadow]

Yes, actually. If you just want to listen to them without having to have RM open and still hear the loops, good for testing and leisure listening, use XMPlay with the Winamp in_vorbis plugin added. They loop like they do in RM and it's a great way to quickly test your loops to ensure they will sound good as a finished product. I do it for that reason and just to listen to my favorite tracks without having RM open.

Thank you! your help will likely be very helpfull for any future Rpg maker's!
I'm sorry, i figured out another solution to my problem before seeing this.

 

[The Magic Circle]

This has always been my least favourite part when it comes to making music and I've mostly given up on trying to do it. Do you have any advice on how to make loops sound okay when you're working with sounds that have a long release time/lots of reverb?

 

[Shine Bright Shadow]

This has always been my least favourite part when it comes to making music and I've mostly given up on trying to do it. Do you have any advice on how to make loops sound okay when you're working with sounds that have a long release time/lots of reverb?

Oooh! Oooh! i know this!
put the beginning of the looping part on another track and make it loop
from the end of the part of the beginning that was copied.
That always results in a great sounding loop.
just make sure the part you copy is big enough to cover
the start point till the end of the reverb.

Glad i could be of audio service.

 

[Puffer]

Oh wow, really nice tutorial, don't know why I haven't seen this tutorial yet!

 

[The Magic Circle]

Oooh! Oooh! i know this!
put the beginning of the looping part on another track and make it loop
from the end of the part of the beginning that was copied.
That always results in a great sounding loop.
just make sure the part you copy is big enough to cover
the start point till the end of the reverb.

Glad i could be of audio service.

That's so useful Thank you!

 

[ObnoxiousOboe]

How about battle music? I just started making a Pokemon Essentials game but I would like to have all the OST tracks looping consistently like in the original Pokemon games. I just experimented with the Trainer Battle music and I've tried what you said, Ryan, and it just goes from the Loop Start to Loop End. I have to start the Battle Music from the very beginning anyway so how exactly do I do that and then loop the selection which is roughly 25 seconds into the song? Do I need to splice the first 25 seconds into its own track in Audacity or something and then add that to the event script for every trainer battle? What do I need to do?

 

[djDarkX]

Let's see if we can understand your predicament a bit better. What you're essentially saying is that you have the music rendered, you went into Audacity and you added the loop points the way it shows in the guide, but then when you play it, it's not playing the start of the battle music, only the looped section over and over?

 

[ObnoxiousOboe]

Ummm....yes. How is my post rocket science? I don't think it was incomprehensible. Anyway, that's what I am talking about. I need to be able to loop the section of the battle music AS WELL AS have the music start at the beginning. That was all in English.

 

[djDarkX]

It's just the way it was worded that was a tad confusing. Had to go back and read it a few times. Anyway, not the point. Have you tried looking at the metadata and reopening the finished OGG in Audacity? Wondering if you only saved the looped section.