Broadcaster -- A Custom Stereo Music Utility (UPDATED: 14 September 2021)

Changelog

14 September 2021:

• Fixed bug with workout randomizer package in which working out did not decrease hygiene or make Sims fatigued. The main Broadcaster tool is unaffected and does not require an update.

27 March 2020:

• Fixed issue with bootstrap assembly in which slow dance stations were being registered as workout stations. This fix is not retroactive; any existing stations marked as slow dance stations must be recreated using the updated version of Broadcaster.

Reminder: When removing or updating mods, it is good practice to clear the ScriptCache.package file from your Userdata folder.

There's been a way to add custom songs and stereo stations to the game for some time now, but it can be a rather tedious process even if you know what you're doing. Now, there's an easier way with Broadcaster!

What Is Broadcaster?
Broadcaster is an external program that massively simplifies the process of creating packages to add custom stereo music and stations to The Sims 3.

Assuming the desired music is already in MP3 format, no technical expertise is required to use Broadcaster aside from the ability to click buttons, enter text, and follow dialog prompts.

Usage

1. When Broadcaster opens, click "Add Music..." and a dialog box will appear, allowing you to select any number of MP3 files you want to add to the game.
2. Upon exiting the add music dialog, the selected files will appear in the box at the top of the program. If there are any files you want to remove from this list, highlight them and click "Remove Selected."
3. Use the text box to specify the station to which the selected files will be added. You can either select an in-game station from the drop-down menu to add the music to that station, or type in a custom value to create a new station with that name. Note that if a station from an expansion or stuff pack that is not installed is selected, the station will be properly added to the game, but it will not contain any music from its respective add-on.
4. Check "Is Workout Station" if you want this station to be used during workouts, and "Is Slow Dance Station" if you want it to be a valid station for autonomous slow dancing. Note that these settings do not affect additions to existing stations. It is recommended to use the included workout randomizer package alongside custom workout stations; see below for more info.
5. Click "Broadcast" and another dialog box will appear, allowing you to specify where to save the resulting package.
6. Broadcaster will attempt to convert the specified MP3 files to a game-readable format, then generate a custom package file containing the music and the necessary scripts to instantiate it in-game. The in-game titles and artists of tracks will be the titles and artists of the songs as specified in the MP3 metadata (or simply the file name and a blank line if titles and contributing artists are not found).
7. A confirmation message will appear if the process was successful, and an error message will appear if it was not. When the broadcasting process is complete, all settings and selections will be cleared, allowing the process to be repeated.
8. Place generated Broadcaster packages in the Packages folder with the rest of your mods. Your custom stations and music should appear in-game!

Technical Details


Workout Randomizer
Also included on this download page is a workout randomizer package I've written as an optional, but recommended complement to Broadcaster stations. EA clearly never meant for any stations other than Electronica to be used as workout stations, as the method that selects the workout station to use will always return the first one it finds in the list of stations, meaning only one station at any given time will ever be used for workouts unless a different workout station is already playing.

The workout randomizer fixes this by selecting a random workout station to change to every time a stereo workout is performed unless a workout station is already playing. Again, it is not required to use Broadcaster or Broadcaster-generated stations, but custom stations with the "Is Workout" flag may not function as intended without it.

Other Notes
Broadcaster requires .NET Framework version 4.5 or higher to run; this should be included with Windows 8 or higher, and can also be downloaded here and installed on Windows Vista or Windows 7 (if you're crazy enough to still be using them). It is not compatible with MacOS or Linux.

The workout randomizer and the packages generated by Broadcaster are compatible with game version 1.69. They may be compatible with earlier versions, but they have not been tested; use them at your own risk.

The workout randomizer overrides the "Work Out" interactions on stereos, and will conflict with any other mod that does the same. Packages generated by Broadcaster are designed so as to be unique and independent, and should not conflict with other mods or with each other.

At this time, Broadcaster only supports the English language. Support for other languages may be added in future releases, depending on demand.

The names of custom stations and songs must only contain letters within the ASCII character set (i.e. the English alphabet). Using other characters from other languages will cause the station to not appear properly in-game and/or may cause Broadcaster to return errors.

Broadcaster utilizes the S3PI library for package generation, as well as TagLib# for reading MP3 metadata. In accordance with the licenses of those libraries, the source code for Broadcaster has been published here under the GPL 3.0 license.

Known Issues

• I am not a UI designer, and it kind of shows

Additional Credits