Welles radio invades Xbox One

[Wellesnet]

Longtime Wellesnetter Terry Wilson has created what he describes as an "entry-level" radio mod (modification) for the popular Fallout 4 video game, containing 18 Welles broadcasts, including dramas, comedies and horror.

Here is the Wiki entry for Fallout 4:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_4


Here's the hair-raising original trailer for the game:


With the mod, one can build a receiver in the game so the Mercury Theatre plays in the environment, and one can also wander the post-apocalyptic ruins of Boston while listening to My Little Boy or The Apple Tree (in addition to the stations included by developer Bethesda, which feature old time and ironic hits by the likes of Bob Crosby, The Ink Spots and Danny Kaye.)



Terry says his main hope in doing this project is just for more people to discover how awesome Welles' radio work with the Mercury was.

The mod has thus far been uploaded to three sites, with over 1500 downloads and a positive reception:

1) Nexus, for PC (where mods are downloaded and installed via the Nexus Mod Manager freeware.)
http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/20919/?

2) Bethesda.net, for PC (where mods are downloaded from the game's main menu):
https://bethesda.net/en/mods/fallout4/m ... il/3388949

3) Bethesda.net, for Xbox One (also via game's main menu):
https://bethesda.net/en/mods/fallout4/m ... il/3389266
(PS4 owners are sadly out of luck, as Sony disallows any original content in the mods.)

Here are the included episodes. Terry said sound quality, length, and quality of the episode were the considering factors.

The Mercury Theatre on the Air:
7/11/1938 Dracula
7/18/1938 Treasure Island
8/29/1938 The Count of Monte Cristo
9/5/1938 The Man Who Was Thursday
9/25/1938 The Immortal Sherlock Holmes
10/9/1938 Hell on Ice
10/30/1938 The War of the Worlds

The Campbell Playhouse:
1/13/1939 Mutiny on the Bounty
1/27/1939 I Lost My Girlish Laughter
3/24/1939 Twentieth Century
2/11/1940 Mr Deeds Goes to Town
3/17/1940 Huckleberry Finn

The Orson Welles Show:
1/19/1942 My Little Boy

Suspense:
5/18/1944 Donovan's Brain (part 1)
5/25/1944 Donovan's Brain (part 2)

This Is My Best:
3/13/1945 The Heart of Darkness

The Mercury Summer Theatre:
6/7/1946 Around the World in 80 Days
6/21/1946 The Hitchhiker
9/6/1946 The Apple Tree


While not necessarily advocating anyone to actually purchase the game, Terry cautions anyone wishing to do so on PC to be sure to double check the recommended hardware specs, as the software is quite resource-heavy.

[Wellesnet]

Here is a demo on Youtube of how it works:

[Terry]

It's taking me forever, but here are the episodes I'm fairly settled on including in version 2 of my mod. Thanks to Lilly, I'm able (and burdened) to redo the whole thing. If I overlooked anything, feel free to chime in.

The Mercury Theatre on the Air:
380711 Dracula (Lilly)
380718 Treasure Island (broadcast version) (Lilly)
380801 The 39 Steps (Lilly)
380815 Abraham Lincoln (Lilly)
380829 The Count of Monte Cristo (Lilly)
380905 The Man Who Was Thursday
380925 The Immortal Sherlock Holmes (Lilly)
381009 Hell on Ice (Lilly)
381016 Seventeen (Lilly)
381023 Around the World in 80 Days (Lilly)
381030 The War of the Worlds
381106 The Heart of Darkness/Life with Father (Lilly)
381113 A Passenger to Bali (Lilly)
381120 The Pickwick Papers

The Campbell Playhouse:
381209 Rebecca (Lilly)
390106 Counselor-at-Law (Lilly)
390113 Mutiny on the Bounty
390127 I Lost My Girlish Laughter (Lilly)
390210 The Green Goddess (Lilly)
390217 Burlesque
390310 The Glass Key (Lilly)
390324 Twentieth Century (Lilly)
390519 The Bad Man (Lilly)
390910 Peter Ibbetson (Lilly)
390917 Ah, Wilderness (Lilly)
391008 Algiers (West Coast) (Lilly) [Welles was right, this performance is better]
391015 Escape (Lilly)
391029 The Magnificent Ambersons (Lilly)
391112 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (West Coast) (Lilly)
391203 Lost Horizon (Lilly)
391217 There's Always a Woman (Lilly)
391224 A Christmas Carol (West Coast) (Lilly)
400114 Theodora Goes Wild (Lilly)
400121 The Citadel (West Coast) (Lilly)
400128 It Happened One Night (Lilly)
400211 Mr Deeds Goes to Town (Lilly)
400317 Huckleberry Finn (Lilly)
400331 Jane Eyre (Lilly)

The Greatest Book in the World:
400322 Genesis (Lilly)

The Free Company:
410406 His Honor, the Mayor (Lilly)

The Orson Welles Show:
411201 Something's Going To Happen to Henry/Wilbur Brown Habitat Brooklyn
420119 My Little Boy

Orson Welles' Almanac:
440607 D-Day (Lilly)

The Mercury Summer Theatre:
460607 Around the World (Lilly)
460621 The Hitchhiker
460906 The Apple Tree

[Le Chiffre]

Sounds great, Terry, good job. How are things in virtual 2287? Have you spotted Trump yet?:

[Terry]

I saw that one and got some chuckles from it, but I wouldn't bother installing it. There are over 25,000 mods for Fallout 4 on the Nexus Mods site, so many that there's no way to even know what they all are.

I'm tempted to add the truncated Julius Caesar broadcast to my station, though I'd want to patch in the intro and outro from the rehearsal version.

[Terry]

I'm almost done editing and patching (inserting the missing bits for) all the Lilly episodes. In doing so I'm able to listen to all of them yet again, with re-listenability being a key criterion for inclusion (the others being directed by Welles and starring the original Mercury.) Subsequently several things have dropped out of contention:

381113 A Passenger to Bali: weak storytelling, and Welles is dreadfully hammy
391112 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd: Welles is unbearable as Poirot. I can't even listen to this one, which is a shame as I'm perfectly intrigued otherwise
400121 The Citadel: tepid and insubstantial. I do like Welles raging about "the cyst!" but that isn't enough
440607 D-Day: I love Agnes and Benny's contribution and Welles' soundscape, but the other actors are hammy (including Welles.) The middle of the show is basically another Ceiling Unlimited episode and too propagandistic for relistening
460906 The Apple Tree: I can't find a good copy of this one, so I've warmed to the Lady Esther version instead

And a few things have found their way in:

390421 Private Lives: very amusing. Edgar Barrier's performance is way over the top, and the recurring musical theme outstays its welcome, but a fun episode
390602 Victoria Regina: cute enough, and Welles' German accent is absolutely gorgeous and one I haven't heard him use anywhere else
420112 The Apple Tree

I had in mind that there should be 50 episodes for the radio station, but I have yet to find 50 that I enjoy enough. I'm at 43 currently. Any suggestions?

Has anyone else noticed that at a certain point Welles dropped the affected Mid-Atlantic accent and reverted to his native Midwestern? I think it corresponds with his transition from fine artist bringing art to the masses to experimental commercial artist.

[Terry]

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods ... escription

[Wich2]

Salute, Terry! A worthy task.

Neat that you're using the Lillys as foundation, and tweaking as needed. Can I ask why quality you've worked in, and at what quality they are posted?

- Craig

P.S. - In a similar vein:

I have been asked, as in several years past, to salute The Carol on Yesterday USA next month. They're running the 1938 Merc, and I'll share an interview about it that I did for my book with my late friend Arthur Anderson ("Christmas Past.") I made sure that they're using the Lilly version, as the ones previously in circulation were missing a few words and lines due to damaged discs.

[Terry]

Thanks!

When I downloaded the episodes from Lilly's site, I got m4a files. Converting these to wav, they were stereo 44k/16-bit. I converted those to mono, then edited the disc breaks, patched in (from my other copies) any missing bits I noticed, did some volume repairs on Ambersons, Christmas Carol '39, and Dracula (and for that one I even resorted to some compression,) then ran everything through a notch filter at about 10 kHz (there's some high-end surface noise up there, and not a lot of audio I care about.) From there, the game uses Microsoft xWMA files. I have no control over that conversion and don't know what bitrate they use (a 30 minute file is 11 megs.) They sound fine to me and I don't notice any artifacts.

[Wich2]

Please check your mailbox, sir?

[Terry]

Redacted until I do more volume-fixing. It's amazing how much inconsistency there is for the level of loudness for a simple conversation. Were people in 1939 constantly readjusting their radios as the audio kept flipping from pianissimo to fortissimo for no apparent reason?

[Wich2]

Terry -

I think it may sometimes have to do the fact that the actual AM broadcasts were probably compressed - a lot. (To prevent exactly the continual home adjustment you're describing.) We're not usually listening to recordings of what the receivers got on their end back then.

Too, I've had very sharp engineers encourage me to not level too much dynamic range out of a raw recording; it gives it color and life.

- Craig

[Terry]

Terry -

I think it may sometimes have to do the fact that the actual AM broadcasts were probably compressed - a lot. (To prevent exactly the continual home adjustment you're describing.) We're not usually listening to recordings of what the receivers got on their end back then.

Too, I've had very sharp engineers encourage me to not level too much dynamic range out of a raw recording; it gives it color and life.

- Craig

Thanks, that's something I should look into: what kind or amount of compression was going on with AM broadcasts circa 1939. If I can figure that out and emulate it, and then apply it to the Campbell recordings presumably made off the mixing board at CBS, I'd wind up with a good approximation of what people at home were hearing. Maybe?

[Wich2]

Terry -

I do know that when I first listened to AM (early Sixties), first hung around AM stations (late Seventies) and first produced shows that AM would air (mid Nineties), compression was laid on pretty heavily.

- Craig

P.S. - I'm dealing with the same issue, as I polish the '38 Merc CAROL for our upcoming webcast. And I often (crazy man that I am) "walk" through the show, adjusting levels "by hand."

[Dan_UK]

Redacted until I do more volume-fixing. It's amazing how much inconsistency there is for the level of loudness for a simple conversation. Were people in 1939 constantly readjusting their radios as the audio kept flipping from pianissimo to fortissimo for no apparent reason?

Could the changing levels be because the Mercury & Cambells were on 4 or 5 minute discs and the levels would change from disc to disc? They'd have to have 2 (or more) disc cutters operating so that one could start recording just before the other one reaches the end so there'd be a small overlap, and the levels on each one wouldn't necessarily be the same.