
PickaxeSoundChanger
Changes the high-pitched pickaxe sound to use the default axe sound.Pickaxe Sound Changer
I vibe coded this BepInEx plugin to replace the annoying pickaxe sound effects with more mellow sounds that are already in the game. The pickaxe basically sounds like the regular axe now. This is good if you have misophonia for high-pitched metal-on-metal sounds, but I also think it's good for anyone because the default sounds are so loud and annoying lol. By default Valheim plays the metal-on-metal sound effect even when you hit a TREE with the pickaxe... that's unhinged!!!
I over-designed this plugin so you can replace almost any sound with any other sound, or mute any sound, or change the volume and pitch of any sound. You've just gotta turn on the sound logger and copy the sound variable name from the BepInEx console log! Syntax is "target_sound = replacement_sound" or "target_sound = mute" or "target_sound" with adjustments to pitch/volume. Valheim's pitch shifter isn't very good, so don't go much below 1.0 haha. The volume should also max out at 1.0.
By default, pressing "K" toggles the plugin on and off. Valheim doesn't use K normally, so this is a cool way to compare how insane the normal sound effect is... you can disable the hotkey by just deleting the K in the settings.
Detailed reasoning: depending on what you hit with the pickaxe, Valheim will play one or both of sfx_pickaxe_hit (very high-pitched) and sfx_rock_hit (still unsually high-pitched). They sound like chiseling a church bell or smashing champaign glasses together. The natural fix is to replace sfx_pickaxe_hit with sfx_axe_hit because the regular axe sounds more mellow. But that leaves some scenarios where the pickaxe sounds mellow, and other scenarios where the sfx_rock_hit still pretty shrill.
For sfx_rock_hit I swapped in the sfx_rock_destroyed effect at a very low volume. This provides the feeling of dirt or pebbles being created with the tool. When this is combined with the mellow axe sound effect, they almost sound like they are supposed to be that way!

