How to extract Music and Soundtrack from The Sims 4

In this article I’ll be teaching you how to extract Music and Soundtrack from The Sims 4. For this process you will need:

• S4PE (Sims 4 Package Editor)
• EALayer decoder

STEP 1 – ORGANIZING THE TOOL FOLDERS

After downloading the required tools for extracting music, you’ll need to lay them out specifically. Create a folder that’s meant for extracting music, and extract the Package Editor files there (I advise you to put all those files inside a new folder). Then, create a folder where you’ll extract the EALayer decoder + .package files for decoding.

STEP 2 – LOCATING AND EXTRACTING THE AUD FILES

Open s4pe.exe and select File > Open. Locate where your The Sims 4 game is installed. As you have The Sims 4 installed through Origin, you can figure out where Origin installs your games by going to Origin > Application Settings > Advanced > Downloaded Games.

If, for example, you’re looking for music from The Sims 4 Base Game, go to The Sims 4 > Data > Client. There you’ll see several .package files that are marked with ClientDeltaBuild and ClientFullBuild. ClientDeltaBuild packages contain content that have been patched in The Sims 4 Base Game, while ClientFullBuild packages contain original content from the Base Game. For this tutorial, we’re going to open up ClientFullBuild1. Other packages in the Base Game folder that include Music and Soundtrack are:

• ClientFullBuild1
• ClientFullBuild2
• ClientFullBuild3
• ClientFullBuild4
• ClientFullBuild5
• ClientDeltaBuild1
• ClientDeltaBuild2
• ClientDeltaBuild3
• ClientDeltaBuild4
• ClientDeltaBuild5

At first, you’re gonna see bunch of files with all sorts of tags such as _VID, _AUD, _IMG and so on. What you need to do is filter out the _AUD tag so that other files don’t stand in your way. You can do so by writing _AUD in the Tag field below (and checking the Tag box), checking the Filter Active box and pressing the Set button.

The other thing you need to do is press the Memsize sort button TWICE, so that it lists files from biggest to smallest.

Sadly, you’ll be ”blind” when it comes to knowing which soundtrack you’re extracting. The Package editor cannot locate the names of the files inside the packages. But, you can find a difference between Music/Soundtrack and Sound Effects. Music from The Sims 4 is tagged with the 0x01EEF63A Type tag, while the rest is SFX.

Select all files inside the package that are tagged with the 0x01EEF63A Type tag, right click on one of them and select Export > To file… . As these files require decoding, you’ll want to extract them to the Decoder folder where you extracted those zipped files.

STEP 3 – DECODING THE .SNS FILES

Your Decoder folder should look something like this:

Now that you have all your desired Soundtrack and Music pieces extracted, open up the Start.cmd file and let the command executer do its thing.

After you’re done, feel free to remove unecessary .SNS files.

STEP 4 – TIDYING UP THE SONG FILES

There really isn’t an easy way to find the names of the music you extracted. The method I use is open The Sims 4, go to Options > Music and find the music files that are matching.

When it comes to the size of these songs, you should consider reducing the quality from 1411kbps to 192kbps. You can use Audacity, Adobe Audition or similar programs to achieve that.

Extracted music files that take up more than 100MB of space are Soundtrack files from Build Mode, Map View or CAS. They cannot be opened using music players and must be extracted once again, but this time using special audio programs such as  Audacity and Adobe Audition.

Each The Sims 4 Soundtrack file has 16 layers (8 if you make them Stereo). First Layers contain only 1-2 instruments and they build up as you progress through Layers.

To get the final version of the Soundtrack, I need to extract the file to Layers. Using Adobe Audition you can do by right clicking the file and selecting Extract Channels to Mono Files.

As I want the full, final version of the Soundtrack piece, I need to insert the last 2 layers from the Soundtrack into a Multitrack Session.

From there I’ll make AUD_16 layer stereo balance to right and AUD_15 layer stereo balance to left.

All that’s left is Exporting the Multitrack mix and your Soundtrack piece is ready for listening!