Audio Tweaking (dev branch)

[huffur 10]

The issues:

- I get an odd very short bass thumping at the very end of tails, so if I do a 5-round burst, there's a 5-thump about 4sec after I fire

- footsteps and player sounds (incl reloading) are hard to hear even at close ranges (even without gunfire, and yes my audio is turned up fairly high)

- basically only 1 audio sample per sound makes things sound very repetitive

- different weapons' levels are all different, even though they should be fairly similar

- suppressors are extremely OP, they're silencers effectively now

- sonic cracks sound like someone tapping a ruler on a snare drum or something

- the sonic cracks are cutting out the actual firing sounds it seems, meaning even without the OP silencers I'm mostly hearing cracks when in the front 120-degrees of the weapon

- the bass! constant heavy thumping thumping, especially for MX series rifles - way overdone bass at a very low frequency, hurts my head!

- most of the audio samples just sound simplified and monotonic, MIDI-like

- because the gunshots are so loud (DYNAMIC RANGE!!!) they basically clip any other sound in their same range

Bolded and made it a bit bigger... that, that and that.

After the patch the sounds of weapons slightly pointing in your direction has more or less been removed, a single guy within 100m can fire at me full auto but all I can hear is the bullets *Plicking* in the air and then going *Plock* if they hit anything near me wich results in it sounding like there is 20 different people all around me with silenced weapons taking shots at me with no good way to know where the shots are actually coming from.

My best example of this is from multiplayer, a guy comes around a corner not even 10m away from me with a Zafir LMG, its not silenced but it doesnt need to be because I could see him spraying bullets at me and I could hear the bullets flying at me but thats it, there was no sound coming from the actual gun at all or if it was it was somehow outdone by the *Plick* the bullets made when they flew past me wich is also very strange because they arent that loud that they would completely cover the Zafir going full auto..

I died ofc, being able to hear him shooting at me wouldnt have saved me from that then but he had been shooting at me before and I was willing to bet money on him being at least 300m away due to not really hearing him fire at me, so I took cover by the wall.. unaware that the guy shooting at me was actually just 20m or so away when he shot at me the first time. With the old sound I would have heard him, known he was REALLY close and been ready at the corner instead of preparing for a long range engagement. Sadly thats hardly the first time since the patch that someone has been shooting at me from less than 10m away and I have no clue where they are, thinking they are far away and trying to run to cover.. yeah good luck running to cover when they are more or less right next to you, old sounds I again would hear them and perhaps be able to fire back instead of running aroung like a chicken without a head trying to figure out where they are shooting from.

I found this comment on the Steam forum and I think it describes my problem fairly good, if a bit colorful: "Holy crap WTF did you guys do to the gun sounds? Sounds like I'm at war with an army of secretaries on electric typewriters!!!"

[icehollowpoint 10]

No no no, the new system is great, it's just not yet configured as good as it could be.

You make it sound like something that is perceivably good with a few tweaks

its not. Its complete garbage, there is not a single good thing about this new sound system. The effects are garbage and the way they are implemented is worse. People being pedantic about realism vs good soundscapes completely miss the issue when it sounds neither good nor realistic - because it isnt realistic at all.

[Bouben 3]

You make it sound like something that is perceivably good with a few tweaks

its not. Its complete garbage, there is not a single good thing about this new sound system. The effects are garbage and the way they are implemented is worse. People being pedantic about realism vs good soundscapes completely miss the issue when it sounds neither good nor realistic - because it isnt realistic at all.

You will have to go in details in order to make your opinion relevant.

[froggyluv 2135]

I agree. BF4 does sound great, and I have never said otherwise :)

However! The BF4 soundscape would not fit into Arma, and I do hope that Arma developers do not try to sound like recent games in the BF series.

Man I'd kill for that soundscape in Arma

[roshnak 41]

The effects are garbage and the way they are implemented is worse.

Please explain what you mean by this.

[CaptainObvious 95]

You make it sound like something that is perceivably good with a few tweaks

its not. Its complete garbage, there is not a single good thing about this new sound system. The effects are garbage and the way they are implemented is worse. People being pedantic about realism vs good soundscapes completely miss the issue when it sounds neither good nor realistic - because it isnt realistic at all.

So let me get this straight, you say dynamic environmental filters, frequency attenuation filters based on distance, indoors/outdoors sound attenuation filters and the general goal for a higher dynamic range are all bad things garbage?

e: Thanks MAXZY, I should pay more attention!

Edited April 17, 2015 by CaptainObvious

[Maxzy 12]

...are all bad things?

:nono: Not bad - garbage!!! Obviosly this is an opinion of highly qualified sound systems expert that we all should take into consideration.

Back to topic - It is obvious that sound of your own shots is too loud compared to all other sounds. It is heard very clearly when unit standing shoulder by shoulder with you and firing the same weapon. I'm certain that work on this issue and overall sound ballance is happening right now and we'll just have to wait, expressing from time to time our thoughts about one feature or another =).

[I give up 152]

The issues:

- I get an odd very short bass thumping at the very end of tails, so if I do a 5-round burst, there's a 5-thump about 4sec after I fire

- footsteps and player sounds (incl reloading) are hard to hear even at close ranges (even without gunfire, and yes my audio is turned up fairly high)

- basically only 1 audio sample per sound makes things sound very repetitive

- different weapons' levels are all different, even though they should be fairly similar

- suppressors are extremely OP, they're silencers effectively now

- sonic cracks sound like someone tapping a ruler on a snare drum or something

- the sonic cracks are cutting out the actual firing sounds it seems, meaning even without the OP silencers I'm mostly hearing cracks when in the front 120-degrees of the weapon

- the bass! constant heavy thumping thumping, especially for MX series rifles - way overdone bass at a very low frequency, hurts my head!

- most of the audio samples just sound simplified and monotonic, MIDI-like

- because the gunshots are so loud (DYNAMIC RANGE!!!) they basically clip any other sound in their same range

^

This.

After 1.40 the sound got worse, after 1.42 is completely ruined, under every aspect.

And that's a shame, A3 was a game that had one of the best.

Wondering the reason behind such a disgrace.

[metralla 19]

^

This.

After 1.40 the sound got worse, after 1.42 is completely ruined, under every aspect.

And that's a shame, A3 was a game that had one of the best.

Wondering the reason behind such a disgrace.

The sound engine is still in development. Until the stable version 1.46 or 1.48 is not recommended nor reasonable review the quality of the sounds in Arma3.

In the development version sound has changed for the better, much remains to optimize and improve the sounds, patience friend. :622:

[2nd ranger 282]

And that's a shame, A3 was a game that had one of the best.

...Really? Until they started working on it in the last few weeks, A3's sound was just like in all the previous titles: bare-bones and seriously underwhelming. This is the first game in the series that has had any attention paid to the soundscape at all. The new features are in their infancy right now. Let's give BIS a chance to develop things further before getting all hysterical.

[I give up 152]

The sound engine is still in development. Until the stable version 1.46 or 1.48 is not recommended nor reasonable review the quality of the sounds in Arma3.

In the development version sound has changed for the better, much remains to optimize and improve the sounds, patience friend. :622:

Ok, let's wait.

Hope it gets better asap.

[audiocustoms 375]

Until the stable version 1.46 or 1.48 is not recommended nor reasonable review the quality of the sounds in Arma3.

Where did you get that from? What's your source?

[Sterlingarcherz101 15]

Where did you get that from? What's your source?

Being a developer.

---------- Post added at 12:59 ---------- Previous post was at 12:52 ----------

Audiocustoms, what is your opinion on new sounds ( taking into account wip)

---------- Post added at 13:00 ---------- Previous post was at 12:59 ----------

Ie feedback.

[St. Jimmy 272]

Wait, who's a BIS developer in this page?

[dnk 13]

So let me get this straight, you say dynamic environmental filters, frequency attenuation filters based on distance, indoors/outdoors sound attenuation filters and the general goal for a higher dynamic range are all bad things garbage?!

That's all and good, but it needs to be executed right. The current execution makes me feel like it should've stayed on dev branch for another 6 months, rather than be thrown out while still clearly in an alpha state. I mean, how did the QC guys feel this system was remotely ready for prime time on the main branch? The issues are massive and glaring. This is why we have the dev branch...

There's a saying in video production, to paraphrase, "bad video can be forgiven, bad audio will ruin a project". Well, Arma's video has been low-FPS and stuttery since time immemorial, but at least the audio was mostly acceptable, albeit simplistic. I don't find the game playable anymore - the two issues together are too much for me to enjoy playing, I just get a headache. Now, I'll have to wait for multiple patches until I can return to MP, because they rushed out this major overhaul with an apparent minimal amount of testing/balancing done?

Two steps forward, two steps backwards. As always.

[audiocustoms 375]

Audiocustoms, what is your opinion on new sounds ( taking into account wip)

I haven't had the time to go deeply into all the new stuff according to sounds and tails. But what i can tell is that the direction BI is heading is very promising and also complex.

It is a new path and probably a whole new experience for the BI crew. It is something that has never been in arma afaik and like all new stuff it has to be learned, understood and grown into. I think that is what BI does here.

They gave us a new sound system and new soundfiles and they want to grow into it with YOUR / OUR help by giving them CONSTRUTIVE feedback and not just whining about how bad something is...

Everybody knows the feels when you got a new toy and know the basics to handle it. But time comes your friends tell you what you can do better or work around something to be even more better in doing your stuff.

I can remember the times i started to work audio on DAWs apart from live stages what i was used to. I got some good mixes but they weren't as good as they could be. A lot of friends and colleagues helped me to improve my skills on DAWs to get to the point i am now.

So let us be those friends and colleagues to BI and help them to improve that they have now. I've read a lot of really good posts in here, but still way to much complaining without beeing clear an what they want.

[instagoat 133]

Only thing that's missing is some sort of reverb, and terrain occlusion. Is the engine capable of that? Arma 1 had a rudimentary terrain occlusion system, but that even turned a single tree into a hill and ignored hills at times.

Listening to a battle from a distance is much more immersive now, just the little bit of an edge is still necessary. What I am noting right now is:

Distant sounds get slightly attenuated, but there is no reverb and refraction. Especially the refraction is important, I think, because it's a major part in sound occlusion.

[joostsidy 685]

The current execution makes me feel like it should've stayed on dev branch for another 6 months

I agree with this very much.

- Even though some of the sound quality is subjective, it's safe to say some the basic gun sounds are not good and don't sound like firearms at all at the moment

- Some of the sounds are broken with dynamic effects missing or hardly noticable

- The overall balancing is off

The result of this is that the current soundscape doesn't sound good and is detrimental to the gameplay in a functional way. With update 1.40 I was shocked at the overall decrease in sound quality. I made a post on the feedback tracker but devs as well as a lot of players didn't give it much notice which surprised me. I even didn't want to play the game for a few days because some of the changed sounds were so weird to say the least.

I understand that improving the sound is a huge step and takes time. However the current soundsystem is so 'experimental' that I feel it doesn't belong in the full game I play, it belongs in the dev-branch. I hope the current situation is the result of circumstances and maybe some misjudgement by BIS and not a deliberate planned strategy. I'm not in favor of the one-step-back two-step-forwards taking place over many months in the full game release.

---------- Post added at 16:47 ---------- Previous post was at 16:25 ----------

I've read a lot of really good posts in here, but still way to much complaining without beeing clear an what they want.

For instance the Vermin SMG sounds like an electric stapler to me now, but is it because because of the basic sample? or wrong dynamic effects? In the current situation it is hard to judge and give good feedback. So my main wish is to release big things like these later in a more polished form so we can give more accurate feedback.

This also would help in decreasing some of the 'panicy' reactions about the sound system (of which I'm guilty as well :-)

[bonham 10]

Is there a way to define building interior with a script? Currently, when you're outside a building and there's a sound source behind said building (a flying helicopter for example), its loudness is the same as if there was no building at all. I've seen an earplug script at some point, but that muffles all sounds until you take them out. I guess at some point in the future BIS introduces audio occlusion for terrain and objects, but it would be nice to be able to simulate such a behavior.

Also, I played Deus Ex some time ago and I really liked how they handled sounds inside buildings, namely that conversations and SFX would be audible through doorways and windows, even though the source was further away to the sides. Basically sound waves bouncing around corners. It would make it very difficult (and interesting) to locate a shooter outside a building for example.

[joostsidy 685]

Most scripts use the 'lineIntersects' (or similar) statement, using it to draw a line to the sky, if it hits a ceiling you're indoors :-)

[enex 11]

I really like bush collision sound with a strider.When I tried with hunter it seemed weird.Quite a difference.

[2nd ranger 282]

Indoor gunshots are no longer muffled in today's build. Direct speech still is, though.

[tpM 478]

Would be cool if we could disable this indoor attenuation for certain sounds (via config).

[Fushko 59]

Indoor gunshots are no longer muffled in today's build. Direct speech still is, though.

What about door and footstep sounds?

[2nd ranger 282]

They're fine too.