GT lost it’s Audio lead

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Samus
The audio lead. The guy in charge. The guy PD hired specifically to improve the audio. The guy who did finally improve the audio. It is significant. What effect it has, only time will tell. But it is certainly no positive to (seemingly) have your audio lead poached away by another studio. He's not just some guy.
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When you hire someone like him you are also "buying" know-how. The rest of the audio team must have learnt a lot from him so even if he leaves, they're keeping the know-how or most of it.
 
RacingFan1
When you hire someone like him you are also "buying" know-how. The rest of the audio team must have learnt a lot from him so even if he leaves, they're keeping the know-how or most of it.
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Should have, not must have. Nor does it guarantee that his working methods will stick now he has departed, particularly as @Quakebass has outlined, that a lot of the quality improvement were a result of the capture methods he directly carried out.

The number of variables are far to great for anything to be a 'must'.

Best case scenario is that they had a succession plan in place and his replacement is someone invested in his approach and methodology, and that PD will continue to support them.

Worst case scenario is that he let because his methodology had to be forced through internal politics that didn't see it as right, cost effective, etc.
 
Sad news lets not forget how the Forza series after forza 4 and forza horizon 2 their sound quality gone really garbage.

I hope gran turismo does not end up the same way with crappy car sounds 🥲
 
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SestoScudo
Sad news leta not forget how the Forza series after forza 4 and forza horizon 2 their sound quality gone really garbage.

I hope gran turismo does not end up the same way with crappy car sounds 🥲
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Well, people do always say they wished GT7 was more like the older games...
 
RacingFan1
When you hire someone like him you are also "buying" know-how. The rest of the audio team must have learnt a lot from him so even if he leaves, they're keeping the know-how or most of it.
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Again, it's not just about know how, it's about a change in leadership and what that might bring.

You could have a restaurant full of amazing chefs but if one manager who instructed them to cook high quality meals from high quality ingredients leaves and is replaced by someone who cuts corners and instructs them to make meals to maximize profits over quality, those amazing chefs are going to produce average food.

That's the concern. How this department are now run, if whoever takes over keeps the Mike methods or if they decide the cheaper ways are best for business.
 
Samus
Again, it's not just about know how, it's about a change in leadership and what that might bring.

You could have a restaurant full of amazing chefs but if one manager who instructed them to cook high quality meals from high quality ingredients leaves and is replaced by someone who cuts corners and instructs them to make meals to maximize profits over quality, those amazing chefs are going to produce average food.

That's the concern. How this department are now run, if whoever takes over keeps the Mike methods or if they decide the cheaper ways are best for business.
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I suppose Kaz decides on that, so if they want to reduce quality in the area it should be because of Kaz decision, not becaue that guy leaving or not. And as far as I know, Kaz likes his stuff to be of good quality so I doubt he would make this decision.
 
You know. He could have left simply because of the difficulty travelling to and from Japan. Family reasons, or God forbid, they believe someone is better suited for the position.

Regardless, 7 years at any studio is a long time. If he’s already in a new position he probably left PD some 6+ months ago.
 
Here's a replacement:

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Won‘t be an issue, not even in the slightest. This is The Real Driving Simulator. If your car is making unpleasant noises just turn the music volume up to drown out the sound of your engine/transmission/suspension etc.
 
Car sounds are a huge part of the immersion and can add to the cool factor of a car aswell, hopefully the quality isn't noticeably bad or worse PD just reuses the sounds they already have for every new car added to the game.
Even now with how good the sounds are there is still alot of room for improvement, as I mentioned in a post months ago, the cars in GT7 and GT Sport while they sound good sound too muted and soft compared to their real counterparts, the race cars and Hypercars with the exception of the Veyron should sound very aggressive and racy.
Instead they sound heavily muffled on any view that isn't the interior camera which also brings to another problem with the sounds. GT Sport and GT7 do not seem to account for intake noises on alot of the cars, and cars that have very audible intakes IRL such as the Carrera GT, 155 DTM, Ferrari LaFerrari and McLaren F1 '94 are pretty much muted ingame which takes away from alot of the immersion when driving the cars.
 
SestoScudo
Sad news lets not forget how the Forza series after forza 4 and forza horizon 2 their sound quality gone really garbage.

I hope gran turismo does not end up the same way with crappy car sounds 🥲
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Forza Horizon 5 would like a word. Several, in fact.

I hope this news doesn't mean GT will fall back into its original pitfalls regarding audio (remember when people used to say having 5.1 or 7.1ch audio made things sound better in the GT5 days?), but with GT being GT and dancing to its own tune, I don't have the most confidence in the matter.
 
Who knows, maybe it's for the best that Mike did leave. I mean, I'm surprised many had forgotten how some would say Forza had exaggerated sounds back in the day because the sounds were accurate/better than GT5/6 because, according to Kaz, the sounds were "too real". Then suddenly when PD coincidentally picks up Mike (the same man who worked with Forza), only then the sounds had gotten better and many starting to love it, in spite of them saying the sounds that HE made in Forza were exaggerated.

This man was the sole reason GT even got the sounds that it does now. But now with him going somewhere else, I don't know if the sounds are going to keep the same quality. But with anything PD, as always, I don't have any hope, nor confidence whatsoever. But I will say this however. When cars like the LFA eventually do get added into the game later on, it's going to be very interesting to hear how they sound like. I'm very much looking forward to that one. Kaz does love his "human drama" after all. :sly:
 
RacingFan1
And as far as I know, Kaz likes his stuff to be of good quality so I doubt he would make this decision.
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Decisions like padding out a car list with Standard cars?

If they decide to abandon Mike's workflow, I wonder if we'll end up with Standard vs Premium car sounds when the audio team can't get enough actual recordings...
 
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Techlet
Decisions like padding out a car list with Standard cars?

If they decide to abandon Mike's workflow, I wonder if we'll end up with Standard vs Premium car sounds when the audio team can't get enough actual recordings...
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I would imagine they’ll stick with it, or something that gets the same results. They were aware that their audio was lacking, which is why they brought Mike in, at the very least they’ve got experience with high quality audio, so hopefully Mike’s work pays off into the future as the team adopt his practices (if they haven’t already), or at least have a workflow which produces the same level of quality.
 
Theufcveteran
I would imagine they’ll stick with it, or something that gets the same results. They were aware that their audio was lacking, which is why they brought Mike in, at the very least they’ve got experience with high quality audio, so hopefully Mike’s work pays off into the future as the team adopt his practices (if they haven’t already), or at least have a workflow which produces the same level of quality.
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Never underestimate peoples ability to catastrophize every conceivable aspect of Sony, PD, or the GT franchise. No matter how far fetched.😆
 
Chances are, since Mike's departure was in May, they at PD may have already filled this role.

However, whomever has filled the role will have their own methods and direction which they wish to take the sound. So even if PD staff were comfortable working with Mike's methods, this new senior audio lead may direct the staff to do things differently. Hopefully it's all for the best.
 
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Samus
Again, it's not just about know how, it's about a change in leadership and what that might bring.

You could have a restaurant full of amazing chefs but if one manager who instructed them to cook high quality meals from high quality ingredients leaves and is replaced by someone who cuts corners and instructs them to make meals to maximize profits over quality, those amazing chefs are going to produce average food.

That's the concern. How this department are now run, if whoever takes over keeps the Mike methods or if they decide the cheaper ways are best for business.
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Surely releasing the upgraded sounds as microtransactions is an option?
 
RacingFan1
I suppose Kaz decides on that, so if they want to reduce quality in the area it should be because of Kaz decision, not becaue that guy leaving or not. And as far as I know, Kaz likes his stuff to be of good quality so I doubt he would make this decision.
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You mean the same Kaz who said the sounds in GT6 were too accurate? The same Kaz who was happy with standards being in GT5 and 6? The same guy who has been happy to ship terrible AI and catch the rabbit events for years? Yeah...
 
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Quakebass
I feel like worst case scenario it’ll just be a slower process to get the audio work done, I struggle to see why audio/sample quality would dramatically drop with the experience they have.
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If they keep using the samples for the cars they have I'm sure they'll be fine. It's how they deal with new cars, and whether the audio continues to improve alongside other games in the genre.
RacingFan1
Well, let's say the important thing is not what he says but what he does
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Right. And what he did was have the sounds in GT5 and GT6 be pretty awful. And as others have pointed out, he thought that they were not only fine but "too accurate". Which is so far from the truth that it invalidates any opinion he might have on sound.

You don't want Kaz being the one having the final say on sounds. Some people just don't have the ear for it. That's why specialist audio professionals exist.
 
Imari
If they keep using the samples for the cars they have I'm sure they'll be fine. It's how they deal with new cars, and whether the audio continues to improve alongside other games in the genre.

Right. And what he did was have the sounds in GT5 and GT6 be pretty awful. And as others have pointed out, he thought that they were not only fine but "too accurate". Which is so far from the truth that it invalidates any opinion he might have on sound.

You don't want Kaz being the one having the final say on sounds. Some people just don't have the ear for it. That's why specialist audio professionals exist.
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GTboyz
well, what he did so far is questionable though.
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What he did was hire some important audio guy to improve sounds, and we got good sounds in the end.
Another thing is, that at the same time he talked some marketing nonsense (GT5/GT6 sounds being so good and all that)
 
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