You clearly need direction on how to mix properly so here goes. First off stop crushing the dynamic range. Let the sounds breathe. Worry about loudness later. Better yet, let the end user worry about that. 97% of the engine sounds need more center channel. That’s where the weight comes from. In music mixing the vocals, kicks, subs, and snares are generally mixed with strong emphasis on the center channel. Stereo is an afterthought. Try mixing in mono first then adding stereo fx later. I’ve heard this on a very well tuned audio setup 'n it just does not have the guts it requires (Where’s the subs?!). Distortion isn’t a bad thing when used sparingly. Give these sounds some grit. They’re crying for it. The audio channel mixer in options is way off. I have literally everything else but the car channel turned down at least 6dB. This is pathetic. You’re not mixing an EDM record here. Treat this as you would a film. Gimme at least DR 6 ( would prefer DR12 ) without touching any of these channels ( the base setting before tweaking ). And finally…EASE OFF THE HIGH END!
The Lamborghinis sound attrocious. Most Ferraris do as well. Not cool.
To recap:
Boost Center channel everywhere. More low end. More dynamic range. Less compression / limiting. Less wimpy.
It’s mastered for speakers, cheap TV speakers at that. On headphones, good headphones like ATH-M50Xs, you’re right, there’s no dynamic range, it’s extremely fatiguing if you set the volume a touch too high and feels like listening carefully through a cardboard tube at sustainable volumes.
Edit: have to disagree about the distortion. Many engines like the Chevy 6.2L sound like they were distorted, bit-reduced, then high-passed. Grating, nasty, ugly sounds.
Nope. It’s definitely closer to +18 to get the engine sounds to have proper low end. [Mod Edit - Abbreviated profanity, profanity and profanity that is disguised but still alludes to the words are not permitted - D]
It’s part of my interface so hardware that isn’t RME can’t use it. I’ve found some that may work for other hardware. Basically just use some sort of EQ software to pull everything above 200hz down 'till it feels right. You’ll have to compensate the volume loss elsewhere, but it is what it is 'till they decide to fix this. Here’s a small list of EQs that should work >> https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/windows-sound-equalizers/
I recommend Equalizer APO as it appears to have the most capability.
The proper way would be to set a high shelf at 200hz 'n pull everything above that down. If you boost the low end, your speakers will fart quite a bit. Not good. I just got sick of having weak low end in this game so I took some time to figure out what needed to happen in order to fix it. This is just a band-aid for those that want to use it, but it does make the game feel better audibly. In the audio settings I have the car channel maxed out, and everything else at 3. Then get yourself an EQ 'n do something similar to this below.
Unfortunate side-effects are that you have to disable this every time you want to play the cars that sound right without needing a band-aid (Ferrari California T, Audi R8 etc ) or play something else, listen to music, or watch a movie. Idk what these guys use to mix audio with, but judging from this I’d say nothing but some airpods 'n laptop speakers. Like [Mod Edit - Abbreviated profanity, profanity and profanity that is disguised but still alludes to the words are not permitted - D] is going on in that audio dept?!
