This lil uh, loudness war you have going on here in the game world… stop it. Immediately. This game is at least 5dB louder than FH5 ( set this game’s master out to 60 to match FH5 ) and I don’t consider that one to be totally acceptable for home theater. A BIG portion of these audio issues that so many complain about will be cleaned right up by pulling back on the compression. Don’t bring your modern music mixing techniques here. Mix this like a movie. Mix all games like movies. There is NO good reason to try to make all channels in the mix 100% audible at all times (why is the rain so loud?!). That’s not how it is for real, and that’s not how it should be here. When in the car cockpit with stock exhaust we should BARELY hear the exhaust. Even when the radio’s off. There is NO need for any of these antiquated mixing techniques in this spatial audio era.
You know what spatial audio affords us as engineers? A HECK OF A LOT LESS HEADACHE from FIGURING OUT HOW WE’RE GOING TO FIT ALL THAT AUDIO IN THE TINY BOX ( compressed box. silly marketing engineering). In the spatial mix we just position these sounds. Maybe clean them up a lil bit.
Pay real close attention here >> WE DO NOT NEED MAXIMUM FAKE LOUDNESS. WE NEED MAXIMUM DYNAMIC RANGE.
So. Got this lil Graphic EQ on my Denon X4700H here and when I turn 63, 125 and 250hz up 6dB, the game sounds infinitely better. Stop mastering everything so flat. It sounds awful.
Stop ‘mastering’ and start ‘LISTENING AND FEELING’. Don’t let the marketing dept tell you how it needs to be louder. Tell them that it needs to be more accurate. In order to do that it needs to be quieter and have more dynamic range. It’s really quite easy once you start going down this path. There’s no squeezing every lil bit you can out of each sound so it can fit inside that tiny marketing dept loudness box.
Seriously tho. Back off the compression. A LOT
If compression isn’t it then check your room. Check your monitors. Something is off. I’m willing to bet that you have the room control set wrong or something. Idk. Something definitely isn’t right. I have like 15 years audio engineering under my belt and I dealt with electronic music. This is like Metallica’s Death Magnetic 2.0. This sounds like you got one too many tips from Noisia or someone in the Neurofunk arena. Just… no. Back it off. Engineer this like a movie plz.
1 Like
What a great post. This is precisely what they need to do. Use real mixing and balancing like they do in movies, so the stuff that needs to stand out and loud in the sound stage does.
It’s definitely a dynamic range issue and needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. My surround amp is always getting underworked with Forza Motorsport.
The cars lack soul, character, and impactfulness. I just hate their sound mixing techniques in the current state.
1 Like