How do I get rid of bird chirping and VAB hum SFX forever?

[devikwolf]

For several years now I've been trying to eliminate what is without question the absolute worst part of KSP, in my mind:

* Birds chirping (extremely loudly) when in the KSC view -- audio matches GameData/Squad/Sounds/sound_ambience_nature.wav (yet making any changes including deleting the file outright does nothing)
* Buzzing hum when in VAB/Hangar -- unknown file source

These two sound effects are extremely loud and grating. The chirps are shrill and aggressive. The VAB buzz sounds almost identical to a pulsating ground loop hum. This has been present for at least 6 or 7 years. I've been trying to resolve this aggravating issue for that entire time.

These are not added by any mods; they appear in bone-stock base KSP. If you have never heard the VAB sound before, drop "Music" to 0% and listen. It's not a hardware issue -- it has happened on 8 different computers I've used, without fail, on any install -- modded or otherwise. The hum ONLY appears in the VAB/Hangar. 

I can mute them by dropping the Ambient volume slider to 0%, but this also mutes every single other ambient sound, like re-entry effects. 

I've edited the "sound_ambience_nature.wav" with Audacity to mute the sound effect, but the game continues to blast this chirping noise as soon as I load any save. I've deleted the file outright and it makes no difference. This audio is so loud, grating, obnoxious, and migraine-inducing that I open the Windows volume mixer panel before opening KSP, and I selectively mute KSP whenever I'm at the KSC or any building inside of it -- basically, unless I'm actually flying a rocket at the time, the game is left muted. It's not an exaggeration when I say this is absolutely the worst thing in the game, specifically because I cannot find ANY method to resolve it -- in the UI, with a mod, or by deleting sound files.

It seems that only a half dozen other people besides me have ever noticed this and been bothered by it. I can find only a handful of references in forums, and in every single one of them the OP is told it's a hardware issue. Googling the problem nets me only a few results outside of the forums, and all of them are either unresponded or the issue is blamed on hardware failure.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE help me find the source of this so I can finally play this game without getting a headache from these aggressively terrible sound effects. 

[Fraktal]

The [x] Science mod lets you mute these by right-clicking on the mod's button.

[devikwolf]

OH MY GOSH thank you! I've used this mod for a while and never knew it had this capability.

[BigStar Aerospace]

I normally just turn down the music all the way and it works.

[BmB]

There is one particular chirp which is extremely high pitched and hurts my ears. However, I have no interest in muting the birds since leaving KSC in death silence just makes the game feel like even more of an unfinished pre-alpha than it already does. It would be best if the ambient sound could simply be replaced with something nicer.

[Natorius]

4 minutes ago, BmB said:

It would be best if the ambient sound could simply be replaced with something nicer.

Soundtrack Editor lets you replace it.

I changed the main menu to use Home by Askerad, and the KSC to play the ambient menu music (the track that plays after you sit at the menu for a bit). It sounds pretty nice. Definitely more pleasant than the birds, and it doesn't sound weird starting over whenever you exit a building.

[BmB]

I'll try that, thank you.