For Heaven's Sakes Codies, Please Balance the Audio Mixing!

[Jake Cushing 816]

It's been how many months since release now, and tons of DLC content.

And the audio mix is still an embarrassment. Phil's voice will boom loudly before a race starts, then go 30db quieter in the car. Different cars have an absurd difference in their engine volume. It is frustrating in the utmost to jump into a daily or whatever challenge, only to have to pause the game to re-adjust the voice and engine volumes. 

Seriously, your game would have a much less shabby presentation if this basic kind of thing was done already. It can't be a difficult task!

 

 

[DaleRossi 619]

May be a placebo, but I feel like there were quite a few missed codriver calls in yesterday's dailies, too.

[Fontelek 1]

3 hours ago, Jake Cushing said:

It's been how many months since release now, and tons of DLC content.

And the audio mix is still an embarrassment. Phil's voice will boom loudly before a race starts, then go 30db quieter in the car. Different cars have an absurd difference in their engine volume. It is frustrating in the utmost to jump into a daily or whatever challenge, only to have to pause the game to re-adjust the voice and engine volumes. And then half the time to find the voice level adjustment doesn't even make any difference.

Seriously, your game would have a much less shabby presentation if this basic kind of thing was done already. It can't be a difficult task!

 

I have noticed the downturn in the sound since I tried the game for the first time and today it remains the same, in this aspect Dirt Rally takes several turns to it.
The sound is loud with the vehicle stopped at the exit and until you apply the handbrake, at which point it gives an important downturn. I have not measured it, but it is very evident.
I use body shaker and that's where it shows most. If there is a spin on that and this part of the power of sound is improved.
 

[MaXyMsrpl 281]

I know, what I will suggest is not a solution. But maybe it will help you to play the game until CM will fix that.

From what you are saying I suspect the issue appears in conjunction with surround sound systems. I play only in VR, so I need to downmix audio to stereo (for headphones). I'm using VoiceMeeter Banana which allows me to route audio signal to headphones independently from main speakers in addition downmixing it. Saying that I can confirm I noticed no audio issues you are talking about in such configuration.

By analogy you can try to switch your Windows playback device to stereo which potentially can help with the issue (after that the game should generate stereo audio only).

[UnderclassGDfan 489]

6 hours ago, DaleRossi said:

May be a placebo, but I feel like there were quite a few missed codriver calls in yesterday's dailies, too.

Strange.

I am almost 100% sure I heard that previously missing "1 left" at germany yesterday for the first time.

[Jake Cushing 816]

I'm on the Xbox One X, btw, and using normal stereo output, not surround sound. There are no similar issues with other games whatsoever. 

The levels in this game have not been balanced. 

 

[MaXyMsrpl 281]

Maybe the issue is console related only then.

[75Vette 509]

On 8/21/2019 at 5:37 AM, UnderclassGDfan said:

Strange.

I am almost 100% sure I heard that previously missing "1 left" at germany yesterday for the first time.

Very odd.

I swear I heard my co-driver whisper quietly "clip that rock idiot". 

[SkiddyMcCrash 311]

27 minutes ago, JesseDeya said:

Very odd.

I swear I heard my co-driver whisper quietly "clip that rock idiot". 

The Ken Block Co Driver dlc has arrived

[battfinkz 36]

On 8/20/2019 at 10:55 PM, MaXyMsrpl said:

Maybe the issue is console related only then.

Not for me. I'm on X but I'm using the dolby atmos setting, with a dolby atmos 5.1 system, which both upscales non atmos games pretty decently and I'm not getting any volume mix issues.

 

Although I will add there is an audio bug in this game sometimes but I have figured out what causes it. Sometimes the car audio is very quiet, but it is triggered by watching a replay and backing out whilst the car is far away from the camera during the replay, the distant sound of the engine being quiet translates to the restart, if that makes sense.

 

Simple fix for now is to go back into the replay and back out again when the car is close to the camera and loud

[Jake Cushing 816]

As the Golf Kitcar has way too loud an engine noise (on the xbox at least) I thought it worth reminding Codies of this. 

I've never played a racing game that requires the player manually re-balance audio between cars. Until now. 

Codies please: normalise the engine audio

[Tranzitive 309]

i have mentioned this myself a long, long time ago.

although the audio in general is absolutely fantastic, the mix is a bit inconsistent, especially with the engine volume. the NR4 cars, for example, are very quiet compared to some others. just off the top of my head. my setup is a PS4 Pro, a Steinberg UR22 mkII sound card and JBL LSR350 monitors. but i also notice the same thing even with a pair of headphones plugged directly into the PS4 controller, which will bypass my audio setup entirely. so it's not setup-dependent for me.

from a realism standpoint it maybe makes sense as yeah, some cars are going to have quieter engines than others, and some are going to be quite loud ... but from a gameplay perspective it makes more sense to have the mix adjusted. bit annoying to keep adjusting the codriver and engine volume depending on what car you're driving, although not a huuuge deal. it only seems to be the mix between codriver volume and engine volume for me, all other sounds seem fine.

think the thread title is a bit harsh imo.

[Jake Cushing 816]

Well I wrote it in a fit of exasperation. Duly edited now. 

It remains a very poor situation with audio balance this far after release. Take any other racing game and imagine this issue was present. It'd be rather appalling. 

@Riggs Is this issue on 'the list'?

 

 

[Riggs 1,669]

That list is gone lol, it disappeared after a few patches since the issues got solved, or at least most of them.

[Jake Cushing 816]

2 hours ago, Riggs said:

That list is gone lol, it disappeared after a few patches since the issues got solved, or at least most of them.

What? That list was a thing of beauty. It should have been incorporated into the game, instead of a scrolling 'credits' list like most games have, you could have the Riggs List scrolling to some music.

[Jake Cushing 816]

Aaand the Peugeot has the same issue too! In fact, this one is so loud I am struggling to hear the co-driver with the engine volume set to its lowest possible level (50) and co-driver volume at max.

@PJTierney Is this issue on the dev radar? If they do not want to normalise engine volume across all cars, letting us at the very least reduce the engine volume below '50' would help. A rally game where you struggle to hear the co-driver on certain cars is not a fun experience!