appropriate volume of sounds ?
Community Forums/General Help/appropriate volume of sounds ?
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| Hello, I am curious about which approach you use to be sure that : ->the volume of each sound is not too low and not high so that it can be heard well enough on most computers ->the volume of each sound is appropriate compared to the volume of the others sounds in the game My current approach is to set the windows volume to 50% and to use a sound editor (wavepad) to set what i consider a not too low and not to high volume. Then i can slightly modify the volume of each sound to fit well in the game. Thanks, |
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| Forget "most computers". Get some decent noise-cancelling headphones, and use those during all audio work. If it sounds good through good speakers/headphones, then it's up to everybody else whether or not they choose to use crap speakers. |
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| Get some decent noise-cancelling headphones, and use those during all audio work. ok i will take a look at this, thanks. |
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| If YOUR ears are the real deal - there would be no need for volume controllers on your speakers. Just use a well defined thing (albeit not "absolute" but some kind of "relative"): -3.0 db. Open up the beloved audio editor of your choise ... and checkout their "normalize" function. It will default in many cases to "0 db" or "-3 db". Of course you should cross check the result on some devices - because there are speakers whose "default" is louder than on others .... but hey, if yours will be to loud then, others will be to loud TOO. If you do not know what "loudness" is ok: open up the MP3/OGG of various music tracks - and use a "lower" db value than theirs (music is often mixed "louder" to imitate power/energy - same for the audio dynamics). EDIT: http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/23130/how-to-balance-audio-levels-to-be-loud-enough-yet-safe bye Ron |
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| That is an interesting question. Some audio groups have formal recommendations. Here are some resources, they're all good: - http://www.audiogang.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/IESD-Mix-Ref-Levels-v02.pdf - http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1018134/Audio-Bootcamp-Loudness-and-How - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headroom_%28audio_signal_processing%29 - https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Audio/Overview/index.html#generalvolumeguidelines - http://www.playdotsound.com/portfolio-item/keep-it-calibrated-learn-how-and-why-you-should-calibrate-your-studio-monitors/ - http://soundworkscollection.com/news/how-much-headroom-is-needed-before-mastering - http://designingsound.org/2013/02/loudness-in-game-audio/ |
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| I would recommend using some software such as "Goldwave" that incorporates maximising and levelling to ensure that the original waveforms of your sounds are at the correct RELATIVE volumes, so that the sounds that appear in your game when played without any further volume enhancing (i.e. such as ingame settings) will sound loud or quiet in relation to each other and the system volume level. |
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| Thanks for the tips and the links, i will take a look. :) |
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| I do it by ear, listening to the game while playing it and adjusting volumes as I go along, taking notes for later. |
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| Yes i also adjust the volume "by ear" after having set the Windows volume to 50%. But one thing that i have noticed is that on some laptops, even with the volume at 50%, the sound is barely audible. So it is probably better to use headphones. Now the question is : do all headphones output the same volume if the windows volume is at 50%. I assume that yes, approximately. And the user can also adjust the volume in the app/game so it should be high/low enough with most computers. |
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| Something I often find during development is that after a while I mute the sound.....advice: if you don't like hearing the same track(s) on loop for hours I bet your market won't either..... ;-) |
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| One thing to keep in mind when you're setting up your interface for audio setting. If your game is of a type that people might choose to play while listening to podcasts, music, etc then you might want to consider adding an additional master volume control (that overrides all other sound controls in the game) along with a mute button and a control to enable/disable these secondary volume controls in an easily accessible place (ideally on the main menu page). I listen to a lot of podcasts while playing Minecraft and a variety of other games. Usually I need to turn the game volume down or off (depending on how hard it is to hear the podcast audio) so that I can hear the podcast clearly. The problem is that many games have multiple audio settings that need to be changed and then restored to their original levels when I'm back to playing the game normally. It all becomes a bit finicky. |
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