TNS Music Overhaul

Have you ever gotten tired of hearing the same few songs on repeat, hundreds of hours into a Valheim playthrough? This mod is for you.

TNS Music Overhaul replaces Valheim's music with a brand-new soundtrack of 112 original songs, over 5 hours of music, that follows the world around you. A clear morning in the Meadows sounds different from a stormy night in the Black Forest. Sailing through rain sounds different from sailing under the stars. Resting by your fire sounds different when thunder rolls outside.

What you're getting

The soundtrack

• Most songs run 2 to 3½ minutes.
• Sunrise and sunset pieces are short, about 45 seconds, and play once as the day turns.
• The download is about 400 MB, almost all of it music.

How a song is chosen

Every biome has its own music for day and night, in three kinds of weather:

When the game is about to play music, the mod looks at where you are, whether it's day or night, and the weather, then picks a song from that set. Each set is played in a shuffled order, so you hear every song in it before any repeats, and never the same song twice in a row. The places you'll spend the most time, clear days in each biome and at your base, have the most songs. If the weather changes while a song plays, it fades out, and the next song matches the new weather.

The same applies to resting at your base and to sailing, which use their own sets for each weather and time of day. At sunrise and sunset, one of the short transition pieces plays instead of Valheim's.

What stays the same

The mod only changes what plays, not when. Valheim still decides when music starts and how long to wait between songs, so the game keeps its familiar pacing. These keep their original music:

• Mistlands and Ashlands. Their original soundtracks are excellent, so they were left alone.
• Deep North
• Combat, boss fights, raids, dungeons and traders

Installation

With a mod manager (recommended)

Install Music Overhaul by TrueNativeStudio with r2modman or the Thunderstore Mod Manager. That's it. BepInEx is installed for you.

By hand

1. Install BepInExPack Valheim.
2. Copy the contents of the download's plugins folder (TNSMusicOverhaul.dll and the whole Music folder) into Valheim/BepInEx/plugins/TNS-Music-Overhaul/. Keep the folders inside Music as they are, since they decide when each song plays.

Client-side only

This mod only changes the music you hear. Everything happens on your own computer:

• Servers don't need it. It works on any server, vanilla or modded, dedicated or hosted.
• Friends don't need it. Everyone else in your game keeps their own music, whether or not they have the mod.
• It's safe to add or remove at any time. It doesn't touch your world or character saves.

Recommended: turn on Continuous Music

Unless Continuous music is on, Valheim goes quiet after each song and waits a while before starting the next, so you can play for long stretches in silence. To hear the soundtrack properly, turn on Continuous music in Valheim's audio settings.

The mod works either way. This setting only decides how much music you hear.

Customizing

Swapping in your own music

Every song is a plain .ogg file in the mod's Music folder, sorted by where and when it plays:

Music/
  Meadows/  BlackForest/  Swamp/  Plains/  Ocean/  HomeRest/  Mistlands/  AshLands/
    ClearDay/  ClearNight/
    RainyDay/  RainyNight/
    ThunderstormDay/  ThunderstormNight/
  Mountain/  DeepNorth/
    ClearDay/  ClearNight/
    SnowDay/  SnowNight/
    BlizzardDay/  BlizzardNight/
  Transition/
    Morning/  Evening/
  Raids/
    Tier1/  Tier2/  Tier3/  Tier4/

Add, remove or replace any .ogg or .wav file and restart the game. File names don't matter; the folder decides when a song plays. An empty folder falls back to that time of day's clear-weather songs, or to Valheim's own music if there are none.

Empty folders, ready for your own songs: Deep North, Mistlands, Ashlands and the raid tiers ship empty, each with a PUT_MUSIC_HERE.txt note. Mistlands and Ashlands are also switched off in the settings so their original soundtracks play. To use your own songs there, remove them from DisabledBiomes (see Settings).

Raid music: the Raids folders start empty, so raids keep their original music. Songs you add there loop for as long as a raid lasts. Raids are grouped by progression: Tier 1 for Eikthyr's and The Elder's armies, forest trolls and skeletons; Tier 2 for blobs, Bonemass's army and surtlings; Tier 3 for wolves, Moder's army and bats; Tier 4 for the Fuling army.

Settings

Settings are in BepInEx/config/TNS-Music-Overhaul.cfg, which is created the first time you start the game with the mod. Mod managers can edit it in their config editor.

Troubleshooting

• Long silences: this is Valheim's normal pause between songs. Turn on Continuous music.
• Still hearing the original music: check BepInEx/LogOutput.log for a line like Loaded 122 track(s). If it says 0, the Music folder isn't next to TNSMusicOverhaul.dll. Also remember that combat, bosses, raids, dungeons, Mistlands, Ashlands and Deep North keep their original music on purpose.
• Other music mods: mods that also replace Valheim's music may conflict with this one. Use one music mod at a time.
• Wrong song for the weather: the log records the weather for every music change. Please include those lines when reporting it.

Future plans

• Home music for every biome. Resting at a base will get its own music depending on where you built it, so a mountain cabin sounds different from a hut on the Plains. It will still follow the weather and time of day.

Changelog

1.0.5

• New: MusicFolder, at the top of the config file, sets where the music lives. Point it outside your mod manager's profile (e.g. D:\ValheimMusic) to keep profile exports and syncing small, and to share one copy of the music between profiles. Leave it alone and nothing changes.
• New: change that setting and the music moves itself to the new folder the next time you start the game, songs you added included. Nothing is overwritten: if the new folder already has music, both folders are left as they are and the new one is used. A path that can't be used, a typo or a drive that isn't plugged in, leaves the music where it is and puts a warning in the log.
• Changed: LogChanges moved from the [Debug] section to [Troubleshooting], so the folder setting sits at the top of the file. Old, unused settings are now cleared out of the config file.

1.0.4

If this update deleted music you added yourself, I'm sorry. Installing it replaces the mod's folder, so anything kept in there is gone, and it can't be recovered. That won't happen again: from now on your music lives somewhere updates never touch.

• Fixed: songs you added yourself were wiped whenever the mod updated, because mod managers replace the whole mod folder. All music now lives in BepInEx/config/TNS-Music-Overhaul/Music, which they leave alone. The mod copies its songs there the first time you run it, using the same folders as before.
• New: that folder is yours to change. Songs you delete stay deleted, songs you add stay added, and updates only add what's new. To get the mod's songs back, reinstall it in your mod manager and launch the game.

1.0.3

• New: music no longer leaves you in long silences, for example after stepping out of your base. The wait before the next song is capped at 60 seconds, adjustable with MaxSilenceSeconds (0 keeps Valheim's own waits).
• Fixed: songs for moments where Valheim has no music of its own never played. The Meadows at night, for example, stayed silent. They now play outdoors; dungeons and other interiors keep their silence.
• Fixed: the log no longer mentions sailing music while you're on land.

1.0.2

• New: a Discord server for bug reports, questions and song suggestions, linked from the mod's page.

1.0.1

• Fixed: installing with r2modman or the Thunderstore Mod Manager loaded no songs, so the game played its original music with the sunrise and sunset pieces missing. The mod manager was flattening the Music folder. Update to this version and the whole soundtrack plays as intended.

1.0.0

• First release: 112 original songs for the Meadows, Black Forest, Swamp, Mountain, Plains, Ocean, sailing, resting at your base, and sunrise and sunset.