Sound effects don't play in the Creation Kit

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My custom audio will not play in Creation Kit[edit | edit source]

If you create a new Sound Descriptor form and find that your custom sounds do not play when you click the play button, here are a few things you should know:

  • Sound files should be saved as WAV, uncompressed. While many will tell you that they must have a sample rate of 22050, I have found that 48000Hz works for me. Shoot for 16 bit as well.
  • Make sure your sounds are in a sub-directory of where the editor points you when you select a new file. This often means your file should be in the FX folder, and possibly in a sub-folder of that. It is good practice to keep all your sound files in a sub-folder named after your mod.
  • Some users have reported that CK adds a backslash to the location of their file. This is not always the case.
  • Often times your sound will not play in CK, but will work in Skyrim. Test it before moving on to more drastic measures. In this case, restarting the Creation Kit will fix this issue.

Different audio editors save WAV files in different ways. To check a sound file and see exactly how it was saved, you can use a program called Gspot[1]. Opening any audio or video file with this program will list exactly what codec or compression is used, the sampling rate, channels and more. Remember that PCM is essentially the same as uncompressed. If your wav file has something other than PCM listed, Skyrim might not be able to read it properly. You can use a program like GoldWave[2] to re-save it in a new format.