I missed what you said about sound design I’m sorry. I hope that the proximity effect masking the sound of the engine from the exhaust helped. The game doesn’t sound heavily compressed on this end. There’s more frequency content and resolution than in previous forza titles. Forza Horizon 1 sounds like it’s capped at or below 20khz. It feels like there’s more bandwidth in horizon 4, along with a higher resolution.
Proximity effect doesn’t mean you HAVE to cut those low frequencies out. That’s a rookie move. There’s plenty of ways to manage those problems without completely chopping the lows out. That’s a choice that really doesn’t need to be made here. I play this game on my production rig and I can assure you that this thing is engineered very wrong in most cases, but very right in some. The new MC12 Corsa that just got added for instance is engineered very well in the interior. Almost perfect. There are several others as well tho I feel like a broken record repeating them all the time, so I’ll touch on a few others. 2017 Camaro ZL1, lots of Mercedes-Benz, A few Audis ( RS3 Sportback, RS7, TTRS ), Several of the VWs sound and feel pretty good. But out of 500+ cars this small amount is just a tease. I would jus like confirmation that something is being done about the biggest offenders. Lambos are fine, but I wouldn’t mind it if the Aventador interior didn’t have that weird LFO at WOT. The Huracan could use the R8 sound and I’d be thrilled about that. The Ferrari V8 sounds pretty good, but it’s a lil quiet for my liking ( 458 Italia, 430 Scuderia etc ) I’d like this to be engineered closer to the California T, and 488 GTB. Those 2 sound almost perfect. The Skylines have the wrong engine. They’re GT-Rs, not GTS-Ts.
My biggest beef is with the engineering. When I play this on a surround system and some of my favorite cars come out of only the center channel in both chase, and cockpit view ( the exact same sound mind you )with this obnoxiously processed mono weightless sound it’s very disappointing. The older Aston Martins were definitely better in FH3, and the updates made to FM7 blow those out of the water completely.
So I take the proximity effect excuse you just laid on me as nothing but that. An excuse. I know the techniques EDM guys use on mid bass and other instruments and those are horrible practices. They’ve clearly been applied here. This is a no no and should be fixed. Far as I’m concerned the game is broken since it sounds so horrible on a home theater setup. It’s that simple. Broken, so fix it.
While it does sound better than 3 by a long shot ( I did some lengthy comparisons last night ), it’s still extremely compressed / saturated. There is no good reason to have that much upper mids and high end. Nearly every car engine is missing so much weight down low. Lower mids and bass are almost non-existent. As I said, it feels like the work of a rookie edm guy. Most of it that is. If you record the AM Vantage and analyze it you’ll quickly see that it’s entirely too narrow vs the R8, RS7, Mercedes-Benz or any of the McLaren’s ( P1 exhaust note is still wrong as it’s just a pitched copy pasta of the 670 / 720, but that’s beside the point ) as all of these have proper width, and dynamic range. The Dodge Hellcats have almost no low end at all, and the Demon just sounds like a mono vacuum cleaner. I just want to know why all the dynamic range and width was sacrificed on most the cars. Is there a good reason for it? I just want answers. I want to know why nearly every vehicle has the engine tone coming out of only the center channel on my surround. I want to know why nearly nothing makes my subwoofer move ( Have you been in any car that doesn’t have a subby rumble at idle? ) I also want to know why FM cars need to sound different than FH. What’s the point of that? Difference for the sake of difference is just silly. The same cars are used in both games, so make them sound the same. Cars should sound the same ( unless they have exhaust mods, but y’all don’t utilize that kind of audio feature so…) so why make them different?
I just want answers and the audio team seems very unwilling to give them let alone acknowledge the problems that are there. They don’t have to record new everything, just fix the imaging and dynamic range. I don’t imagine it’s that difficult. I can mix a full song in an hour or 2. I can do a surround mix in about the same amt of time. Pull the stupid low cut and narrowing of the current sounds. Done. I want this so I can stop applying my silly EQ band-aid every time. It gets old.
If I can apply this and still hear the rest of the game very clearly then there’s something seriously wrong. It should sound muffled if I pull that shelf down as little as 6dB. I have it pulled down 12 there ( uh pay no mind to the .5dB 3.2k bump Idk how that happened. Not a normal setting.) You’re not mixing an EDM record here. This thing doesn’t have to be mastered to -4 LUFS. I hate modern engineering and the loudness war. It’s pathetically silly. SOME good things have come from modern engineering, but for the most part y’all are either deaf or out of your minds. I have VERY good speakers, and there’s no reason ( at low volume mind you ) that I should still be able to clearly hear this game with this -12dB high shelf. It should be muddy. It’s not. This is problem. You need to fix this. Idk how much more clear I can be.
It’s all too bad really. The devs will NOT be reading this thread. The support staff are apparently only interacting in the SUPPORT sub-forum.
NOTHING will be fixed. Maybe with new cars, maybe with Forza Horizon 5. But for FH4, don’t expect the cars’ audio to be fixed. As they have already said, it was a BUDGET decision. All the sales in the world won’t retrospectively change that.
(caps for emphasis, not shouting)
I believe otherwise, and they said the same about FM7 but look what is happening there. We will not give up. They’re capable, and they need to fix the issues that are there.
1 Like
Right - luckily, as consumers we have the option to not buy a product if issues continue to carry forward in future games. From what I understand, car audio issues started to surface in FH3 and got worse with the latest game.
But the question is: do they acknowledge their mistakes? How pro-active have they been in fixing the messed up sounds?
Anybody remember that Caveizel guy that worked on FM4? They need to double his salary and get him back from PD, pronto!
The Zonda Cinque sound is completely wrong in FM4, always has been.
I’ve had a degree in audio production for almost 5 years now. All I can say is that they’re listening. They showed you the viper and the skyline they recorded which are the two most complained about cars in the game. They could’ve just shown the cars that sound right. If the feedback from the stream points out something that’s legitimately wrong then I’m sure they’ll fix it. We have updates in both FM7 and FH4 that both could benefit from. T10 and PG started to get behind in FH3. It had watered down physics and a new sound platform. They’re taking their time with the next project because FM7 and FH4 are two rushed titles. FM7 debuted with one new to Forza car (the GT2 RS), and a lot of bugs that are still there. FH4 didn’t do any better, and why there isn’t a Honda Odyssey in FH4 makes no sense to me. I’m sure they’ll get it right if they take their time with the new features they’re putting into the game.
Which are both quite wrong. First gen Viper does not sound at all like anything in game. 1999 and newer Vipers sound considerably different ( They should have a tone closer to the Gallardo / Huracan or the 5.2L V10 in game. ). They also used a R33 GTS-T for the GT-R. That is also wrong. The GT-R is much more aggressive. The R34 sound that is currently in game isn’t too far off, but it’s lacking the low end weight and proper stereo imaging. It’s also pitched weirdly at the top end of the tach.
Induction/engine/exhaust sounds are downgraded in comparison to previous titles. Many cars sound exactly the same or totally wrong.
This ‘that will do’ attitude indicates that the sounds devs aren’t passionate about cars at all in my opinion.
I agree 100% - the passion probably started to wither by the end of FM6/FH3. Car sounds are top notch in both those games.
They’re focusing way too much on 4K and using it to milk the product. Quite a mess they have on their hands now it appears.
1 Like
What’s with the shifters being so loud? Paddle shifters, floor shifters, all shifters have either this really loud annoying click, or bang. That’s terrible.
After the video detailing about recording sounds I really believe they have no idea how badly they’ve messed up most of the sounds.
A Maserati Granturismo has the sound of a flatplane V8 in FH4. That says it all.
Either step your game up or sack the sound engineers, we’re fed up of excuses as to why the sounds aren’t correct.
1 Like
It would greatly help if there was someone here who could see what they were getting at in the stream, and then critique the information that they gave us. My ears aren’t trained, that wasn’t something they put in the program until graduation. Having a set of trained ears and expertise on how the sound design and recording processes can be improved is the only way they’ll listen. They’re not going to pay attention if the feedback is “this sounds bad”. I can understand the Maserati, and the P1 (I’ll even throw in the regular MC12, but post 27); BUT until someone can see eye to eye with the sound guy, and critique his work from there, we’re not going to get anywhere. They’re looking for information other than “this doesn’t sound bassy enough”, “Check other games”. How exactly can they detail the bass without masking other frequencies and sounds in the mix? Can you hear the granular synthesis? Is there anything that can be improved upon with the new granular synthesis sound design? I’ve got “wrong cars recorded” on my list.
The stream and post 27 explains what’s going on. Some cars don’t sound right and they’re aware of it. They have to update their sound library with the new granular synthesis method they’re using. FM7’s update should make its way here, just like the 599xx evo made it’s way.
I hear good things there that weren’t there in previous forza’s. They’re not slacking, they just rushed a good idea with THREE titles (FH3,FM7,and H4). They needed more than a year. They were trying to satisfy a us with a new title each year which backfired in Horizon 3. That’s all I have to say. It’s a new concept, it sounds good, it’s just not finished, post 27 talks about it. The stream goes into depth about post 27. If we could get detailed feedback on how the mixes are sculpted exactly and what they could do differently then they’ll change. Until then complain about there being a “lack of low end” until your ears bleed, the low end is there. Knowing exactly what they did and how they should change it is the only way that’s going to get the sound guys to listen.
What do you think I’ve been doing? Everything you’re saying about how I’m critiquing the sound is wrong. I have repeatedly said that the sounds not being full range and also not having the right amt of natural width is the problem. Also volume. The engine sounds playing 2nd fiddle to the music is a bad choice. If I can’t comfortably turn this game up to 80dB and not have my ears bleed the upper mids and high end is too much. On that note having to turn my volume up to 80dB just to get my subs barely moving is also a problem. The game feels like it’s been engineered just like an EDM record which the majority of the music community feels are engineered poorly. They’re full of mids, upper mids and high end yet have almost no low end harmonics at all. I have very well tuned ears, I’ve been training them for the last decade. You want us to do their job for them? It isn’t hard to grab a good video of a Skyline GT-R and match it, or go to a car show and listen to one. Record it there. Just for reference. I’m about to prove it once I have igniter. I don’t understand how you, of all these others, don’t see much issue with how this thing is engineered. There are some very good examples of well done engineering and sound design so we know they’re capable ( as I’ve also said repeatedly). We just want the rest fixed so that they’re in line with the golden examples. How hard is that to understand?
You said something about proximity effect. How is that an issue inside the car where it doesn’t get extremely loud ( in most cases ), and it should be very easy to capture a full range natural width spectrum of audio. I understand how this MIGHT be an issue outside the car, but the solution here is not to remove everything under 300hz. Whoever thought that was a good idea is definitely cutting corners. I’m of the mind that the studio doesn’t have the best gear, and it’s also not tuned very well. Prove me wrong. All my gear in my well tuned studio tell me this with a very loud voice. So loud that I can’t deal with this game turned up much past 80dB. 85dB is the recommended level for mixing movies. I’m of the mind that games should also fall into this category. You are aware of industry practices are you not? Granted this changes based on room size, but it doesn’t get much lower. Every single sound system I’ve played this on tells me the exact same thing the majority of the time. Engine volume too low, mostly coming out of the center channel, and every frequency above 2 - 300hz way too high, almost no sub movement. I’ve already shown that if the center channel is brought down a good 12 - 18dB on cars that feel too narrow that is a great improvement. Don’t imagine that’d be too hard to do on the current material.
So if they’re trying to fix it, why wasn’t that said in the stream? Why did they make us feel like we’re wrong, and they’re right? Why did it feel like they were doing nothing but complaining about how hard it is? I took nothing else from that. I sincerely hope they prove me wrong and fix everything, I just don’t have faith that they will at this point. This will change when I hear that the Skylines and Vipers get updated. Also the Dodge Hellcats and Demon. The sound isn’t necessarily wrong, but it is definitely lacking everything under say 300hz. Increase the dynamic range, widen the image, and stop removing everything under 300hz. Also stop making the shifters so loud inside the car. Drop them a good 6db. Especially paddle shifters. Those make almost no sound. I know, I’ve used them. I drive a manual trans car, and my shifter makes nowhere near the amt of noise I hear these making. I also don’t feel like any of the cars are as aggressive as they are in RL. Everything just feels a lil lazy.
I don’t feel like we should have to do their research for them. I don’t feel like we should have to do anything other than report what we hear on our sound systems. That’s it. That’s how I work. That’s how most other engineers that I know personally work. We don’t want our clients to tell us exactly how to fix their projects. If they can do that then they don’t need an engineer.
I have already acknowledged that this game sounds better than 3. That’s a fact. That doesn’t mean it’s right tho. Anyone with a set of ears and a decent sound system can hear that. Some of the sounds used aren’t exactly correct for the cars they’re attached to tho. That’s the problem the majority of the community has with it. Are they not using reference material? I can find a reference video on Youtube for just about every car in this game. That’s what I’d have open while working. Reference. They shouldn’t be creating sounds for these cars, they should be matching them to the real thing as closely as possible. For that you need a reference. An audio recording or video of the car you’re working on. If the game output doesn’t match, it’s wrong. Simple. Easy peasy.
T10 did a wonderful job with their recent FM7 updates. PG should follow suit, or get the FM7 material into FH4 and we should be informed of these things. A simple ‘we’re working on fixing these’ would have sufficed. Instead we got ‘here’s what we did so we know they’re correct’ and the rest of the team just bigged him up.
It sounds nothing like a 4.7 -liter V8, i think its even a 6 cylinder sound-file.
Shows the lack of accurateness, dedication and care.
Uninspiring.
We do not let up until every single car feels as good as the R8 V10 Plus.
This game is entirely too bright and harsh on my studio speakers (PMC two two 8, Presonus Sceptre S8, Mackie HR824 MK1, Adam A5X) at immersive volume levels (roundabouts 60 - 70dB). Every other game feels great and isn’t too bright. Not one other title is nearly as bright as this or FM7. Not that hard to grasp or understand.
I would honestly recommend that they revise their strategy and release only ONE Forza game every three years - and make sure it is completely free of bugs, glitches and severe shortcomings in the car audio department. In the meantime they can always release DLC and improvements to keep it fresh until the next game hits.
Completely uninspiring and inaccurate to say the least. And they’re justifying their “hard work” in the stream. Honestly, they should do the smart thing and revert back to FH2/3 sounds, and then make improvements to those samples after conducting thorough research.