Repetitive Sounds Problem

[tremanarch 6]

One problem in the digital world when having a game engine triggering sounds occurs if every sound is similar and gets triggered often in a short amount of time.

Example: some crash.wav that gets triggered 3 times each one 5ms after the other (because maybe 3 cars exploded nearly at the same time).

Or even bullet_firing_sound1.wav that are getting triggered in a short amount of time. You see what I did there with the x.wav naming is to show that if each of those sounds is the exact same one, in the digital audio world we get nasty side effects called: short delay effects.

Most of you probably know them already in Music titles or as some effects in movies, but to clarify I made some Audio Examples with gunsounds, but it applies to any sound:

http://www32.zippyshare.com/v/93792691/file.html

1st beep standard shot

2nd beep repeat

3rd: 5 shots fired in a short time (can happen when some soldiers shoot and the frequency overlaps so some shots get fired in a short time interval)

4th: this is the effect - reproduced with a simple delay

5th: again the short delay effect with different time intervals to show what it sounds like.

6th: some other sound examples (voice, impulses: drums) so you see this effect really dont only happens with gunsounds but everything in a game (digital world) - it just depends if it is triggered in short time intervals.

It sounds very artificial, and if you are used to it you really hear it while playing the game from now and then. It decreases the immersion, and is so easy to avoid at the same time.

in the analog reality this aint a problem, cause a sound never sounds so similar to another one that this effect happens.

What we can do in the digital game world to avoid it? We must record always 2 or 3 samples of each sound, so they get mixed up! then this effect wont happen!

I dont know if its worth a ticket as the only thing needed to avoid it is to record every sound 2 or 3 times and dont trigger one and the same sound often in a short time interval.

I know that in ArmA 2 there were sound mods that had only 1 gunsound -> delay effect, and there were other sound mods they did it right. So I guess its a known factor in a part of the community and hopefully at BIS' already.

Edited March 30, 2013 by tremanarch

[MilitantMaddox 10]

I must agree, I have encountered this many times and as you say an easy fix so hopefully BI take this into account.