Halo: Combat Evolved - Campaign Audio Normalization Fixes

About this project

Patch Name: Halo: Combat Evolved - Audio Normalization Fixes - v1.00

Author: Corey DeFrancesco (Apocalypse612@yahoo.com)

Version: 1.00

Download link: https://archive.org/details/halo-ce-audio-normalization-fixes

Version History

v1.00 – 20200904 – Initial version of the patch released.
- The patch details are found below.

Patch Information

The version of Halo: Combat Evolved (Halo: CE) that shipped with the original Xbox, while a great title that still holds up to the test of time today, had a major problem with audio normalization. This ranges from music to dialogue to sound effects, a lot of the time when a character is speaking (especially Cortona), it's extremely difficult to hear over the SFX / Music.

This patch aims to better normalize all the music and dialogue sound events found within the campaign maps of Halo: CE. Unfortunately, there is no proper way to fully and correctly rebuild Original Xbox Halo maps. With that said, this is a full tag-only modification of the map files. Until invader can build original Xbox maps, the author will not be able to make any further enhancements that this mod really needs for it to be done correctly (which requires editing the .wav files, mainly).

In summary, this generally will make all cinematic music events play at 75% of their normal volume, most dialog has been bumped up from 85% to %100 volume, and all non-cinematic music has been standardized to about 80% volume with a few exceptions. In “The Library” and “The Maw”, it was also altered so 343 Guilty Spark’s dialog events have an ‘infinite’ range for playback, and he can no longer get cut-off while speaking, even if you are far away on the other side of the map.

This should do a better job of normalizing most of the audio, but it's not perfect. Alas, it's still consider this to be a large improvement.

Giving Thanks

First of all, thanks to the team over at XboxChaos // Assembly. Without those guys, this patch wouldn't have been possible. Cheers guys!

If you liked this patch and would like to donate to the author on PayPal, you can do so at:
Apocalypse612@yahoo.com

You can also contact him at the above email address if there are any problems.

Enjoy!!