Sound mods in ETS2 and ATS: why every old one broke with FMOD in 1.37, how .bank mods work, and how to judge a pack

24 Oct 2026 · 3 min read · ModsDrop

Pictured: Scania Mega Pack Free, from the ModsDrop library.

Sound mods used to be the simplest thing in Euro Truck Simulator 2: a folder of audio files and a definition, swap the engine note of your favourite truck, done. Then version 1.37 in 2020 moved the games to the FMOD audio engine, every sound mod on every site stopped working overnight, and the format that replaced it is still what sound mods use today. Here is what changed, how modern sound mods work, and what to look for before downloading one.

Before and after 1.37

Old sound mods shipped .ogg audio files and text definitions that told the game which file to play at which engine speed. 1.37 replaced that system with FMOD, a professional audio middleware, in which sounds are packed into .bank files built with FMOD Studio, with the mixing, layering and transitions defined inside the bank rather than in game text files. Nothing from the old format carries over. A sound mod from 2019 does nothing on a current game; it does not even produce an error, because the game no longer reads the files.

What a modern sound mod contains

A .bank file (or several) and a small set of definitions that assign the bank’s events to a truck’s engine, exhaust, turbo, transmission, interior and exterior. Good packs include separate interior and exterior recordings, since the game mixes them depending on the camera. Sizes range from a few megabytes for one engine to a couple of hundred for a pack covering many trucks and environment sounds.

Truck-specific and general

Engine packs target one truck model or one engine family and replace its sounds. They are the most common and the ones to check for the exact truck: a Scania NextGen pack does nothing for the Scania R 2009 and vice versa.
Modded trucks ship their own sounds, usually. A truck mod that says “uses default sounds” takes the sound of a stock truck and can be paired with a sound mod for that stock truck.
Environment and effects packs replace tyre noise, wind, rain, air brakes, turn signals, horns, and the ambience of cities and countryside. The best known of these is a long-running pack of hundreds of small fixes; packs of this kind affect every truck and sit at the bottom of the load order.

Load order

Sound mods go below trucks and trailers. Two sound mods for the same truck conflict; the higher one wins. An environment pack and an engine pack do not conflict. A truck mod with its own sounds and a sound pack for the same truck will produce whichever is higher, which is a quick way to compare them.

Version sensitivity

FMOD bank formats have changed a few times since 1.37 as SCS updated the FMOD version in the game. A bank built for an older FMOD version may be rejected (silence, or the default sound) on a newer game. Sound mod authors therefore rebuild their packs after major updates; check the mod’s page for the game version it was built for, more carefully than for a paint job. The 1.62 beta does not announce an audio change, but the Escape radio station’s new tracks show that SCS keeps touching audio content with each release.

Testing a sound mod fairly

Activate it alone with the truck it is for. Drive in the interior camera, then the exterior.
Rev through the range at a standstill; a good pack has no gaps or obvious loops between engine speeds.
Listen for the turbo and the exhaust under load uphill, and for the gear changes.
Try it at night in a city with the window open (the game has a window toggle on most trucks), where the exterior mix is most audible.

Volume and mixing

Sound mods cannot change your mixer settings, and most are recorded louder than the stock sounds. If a pack is overpowering, lower the engine or exterior slider in the game’s audio options rather than looking for a “quiet” version. If one truck is loud and the rest are normal, that is the pack’s mastering; tell the author, who can fix it in a minute.

Where sound mods come from

Recording a real truck well is hard, which is why the respected packs are few and often come from people who have access to the vehicles. Reuploads with “improved” in the title are usually the same bank renamed. The author’s name in the file list, and a consistent set of trucks covered, are the tells; a pack that claims every truck in 20 MB is a pack of stock sounds remixed.