The Sound Update Thread (The Return)

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SDSPOWER01
Huh are you serious?
The Ferrari La ferrari is one of those cars that sounds excellent as they already are.

Are you telling me they made it sound bad now?
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Yeah, sadly they downgraded the sound or changed it entirely. I have no idea why, maybe its a bug?
 
J.D
Ferrari 250 GTO also doesn't sound good



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WTF? That car also sounded INCREDIBLE before the patch. Now it sounds like a blender!


For anyone thats more technically minded, why have some of the sounds been downgraded? Is it due to memory constrictions?
 
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Is the Willow bug like this one? (Posted in June).



Going by the camera zooming, it looks like the game doesn't know how far away the car is and it oscillates really quickly, causing the Doppler system to introduce a warbly, stuttery and sometimes noisy artefact over the top. Could be a pointer issue, reading from a random point in memory, possibly as a result of switching camera / car repeatedly.

SPOOLMAN
WTF? That car also sounded INCREDIBLE before the patch. Now it sounds like a blender!


For anyone thats more technically minded, why have some of the sounds been downgraded? Is it due to memory constrictions?
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The 250's always been wrong.

For starters, it's the wrong firing order. Ferrari switched to the BMW-style order (as adapted from aero engines, e.g. J-J 213E) starting with the 456, probably influenced by their own F1 testing (F50?), temporarily reverted (vibration issues), then set it in stone for the 575M and subsequent V12 models. Lamborghini also made this firing order switch with the Aventador.

The older engines used the smoother running order that most V12s have had, whilst the "new" aero(ish) / F1(ish) style firing order is simply kinder to the crank whilst preserving the exhaust groupings (packaging, tuning).


The dominating feature of the 250 are the 12 Weber chokes. The original, smooth-running order has an even richer intake note, less like a straight six (e.g. McLaren F1) and more its own thing, almost lumpy. So it's the missing dedicated intake sound again.


I can't hear a difference in videos of the La Ferrari from before and after the patch.
 
Griffith500
Is the Willow bug like this one? (Posted in June).



Going by the camera zooming, it looks like the game doesn't know how far away the car is and it oscillates really quickly, causing the Doppler system to introduce a warbly, stuttery and sometimes noisy artefact over the top. Could be a pointer issue, reading from a random point in memory, possibly as a result of switching camera / car repeatedly.


The 250's always been wrong.

For starters, it's the wrong firing order. Ferrari switched to the BMW-style order (as adapted from aero engines, e.g. J-J 213E) starting with the 456, probably influenced by their own F1 testing (F50?), temporarily reverted (vibration issues), then set it in stone for the 575M and subsequent V12 models. Lamborghini also made this firing order switch with the Aventador.

The older engines used the smoother running order that most V12s have had, whilst the "new" aero(ish) / F1(ish) style firing order is simply kinder to the crank whilst preserving the exhaust groupings (packaging, tuning).


The dominating feature of the 250 are the 12 Weber chokes. The original, smooth-running order has an even richer intake note, less like a straight six (e.g. McLaren F1) and more its own thing, almost lumpy. So it's the missing dedicated intake sound again.


I can't hear a difference in videos of the La Ferrari from before and after the patch.
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Wow. thanks for the insightful and informative post. I think its due to memory limitation that pd are unable to record all these intricate sounds and details.

It seems they also changed the sound of the 458 GT3. Unless my home theater system is spazing out again. Maybe the dynamic range of my home theater has been adjusted or something.
 
Please report any sound bugs on the GT Sport Playstation forum as this seems to get checked by devs specifically. https://community.eu.playstation.com/t5/GT-Sport/bd-p/65

I have gotten many issues fixed by reporting them there.

Would definitely be nice to have a dedicated community manager for GT Sport that responds on forums and things though. They really need a better bug report system.
 
It's quite an easy exhaust note to execute in some respects because, although it's raspy, it's quite a clean note - not unlike an E46 M3. It is missing the occasionally emergent 12 cylinder howl of the real car.

It sounds a lot like it could be from the same recording used to create samples used for other cars in previous games, at least I find it very familiar sounding (and being subtly distinct from the real car, as I already said).


This car has a very loud exhaust compared to its intake, so the lack of intake sound in the game is less apparent. Except for onboard, where an absence of lumpy modulation of the otherwise dry exhaust note is pretty clear.

The tone of the exhaust doesn't change off throttle in the game, because it's not how the sampling / synth scheme is set up.


There was only ever one car that had this feature in a GT game, the Subaru VIZIV Vision GT car in GT6, and even then only when it was first introduced, as they patched it out again. All the other cars had the same texture on and off throttle, albeit at a different volume, which itself resulted in extra effects on the other cars with AES-synthesised sound. But the VIZIV was always richer, until they patched it to be like all the others.



Patched version can be found here.
It's best to try to match the volume of these videos when comparing.



The exhaust sound is basically almost silenced off-throttle in Sport.


These two issues continue to be GT's chink in the armour as far as sound is concerned: lack of dedicated intake sounds, and no proper on / off throttle variation for exhaust sounds.
Luckily, the McF1 GTR suffers less than most from the consequences of those design decisions.
 
Griffith500
It's quite an easy exhaust note to execute in some respects because, although it's raspy, it's quite a clean note - not unlike an E46 M3. It is missing the occasionally emergent 12 cylinder howl of the real car.

It sounds a lot like it could be from the same recording used to create samples used for other cars in previous games, at least I find it very familiar sounding (and being subtly distinct from the real car, as I already said).


This car has a very loud exhaust compared to its intake, so the lack of intake sound in the game is less apparent. Except for onboard, where an absence of lumpy modulation of the otherwise dry exhaust note is pretty clear.

The tone of the exhaust doesn't change off throttle in the game, because it's not how the sampling / synth scheme is set up.


There was only ever one car that had this feature in a GT game, the Subaru VIZIV Vision GT car in GT6, and even then only when it was first introduced, as they patched it out again. All the other cars had the same texture on and off throttle, albeit at a different volume, which itself resulted in extra effects on the other cars with AES-synthesised sound. But the VIZIV was always richer, until they patched it to be like all the others.



Patched version can be found here.
It's best to try to match the volume of these videos when comparing.



The exhaust sound is basically almost silenced off-throttle in Sport.


These two issues continue to be GT's chink in the armour as far as sound is concerned: lack of dedicated intake sounds, and no proper on / off throttle variation for exhaust sounds.
Luckily, the McF1 GTR suffers less than most from the consequences of those design decisions.
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I wonder why they had to reduce the expressiveness of the exhausts for GTS. Maybe because of CPU problems? It worked well on GT6, but there were imperfections, like crackles and pops. It improved a bit in GTS beta, but suddenly they removed it from all cars.

 
I think that was wholly an aesthetic decision. All they did there was tone down (rasp, noise settings) and reduce the volume of the synthetic component.

In GT6, they were already playing samples at the same time as the synthesis, but the samples were always very quiet, so as to be virtually inaudible.

So in that respect, there's no real difference, performance wise, between GT6 and GT Sport's car sound, except for any quality improvements made to the synthesis itself (it sounds smoother, but it might not have actually cost any performance) and the larger memory allowing more / larger samples to be loaded.

But sure, losing the Cell's SPUs has possibly been the reason that some of the more clever and interesting aspects (the environmental mixing in particular) have actually taken a step backwards.
 
I understand why PD decided to go that route, the cost is much lower. However, so far deep sampling still gives much better results. I just hope this "half sample half synth" method brings substantial improvements in the next game.

Not totally off topic but here's something interesting:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/GeneCars-synthesizer-overview_fig1_280086598

Polyphony software may be something similar to that, I believe.
 
Fabr_123
I understand why PD decided to go that route, the cost is much lower. However, so far deep sampling still gives much better results. I just hope this "half sample half synth" method brings substantial improvements in the next game.

Not totally off topic but here's something interesting:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/GeneCars-synthesizer-overview_fig1_280086598

Polyphony software may be something similar to that, I believe.
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It's essentially the same principle, but the actual numerical process must be abstracted slightly from what I've seen of the input data. Do note that I have never seen any actual code whatsoever, only the preset files that serve to differentiate each sound in GT6 (here's an example of what's in them).

Andy Farnell is mentioned - his book, Designing Sound, is a very good teaching tool for the general approach (one which Kaz noted is lacking in the industry). Direct synthesis, in a more abstract sense than outlined in that link (basically runs faster), is very powerful if you can get the control in place, and get your head around the maths, and figure out how to make it easy for sound designers to use....


If by cost you mean of recording, then no, it's not lower. You should still record the real thing if possible. The cost of creating the sounds from the raw data is also the same for one sound for one car. Where this approach should offer the most advantage is in tuning, which is basically free once you figure out sensible boundaries for the inputs; and in interactive expression, which is only limited by runtime computational resources, and can continue to improve based on the same collected data. PD have not yet fully leveraged either advantage to any real effect (possibly because of quality concerns), and have actually taken a step backwards for Sport by doubling their workload in creating these hybrid sounds (which to me just seem like stopgaps, given how many are partially recycled).

"Deep sampling" as you say is doomed to fail under the ever increasing complexity and scale of games, unless either / both of those things are to be constrained.
 
Griffith500
It's essentially the same principle, but the actual numerical process must be abstracted slightly from what I've seen of the input data. Do note that I have never seen any actual code whatsoever, only the preset files that serve to differentiate each sound in GT6 (here's an example of what's in them).
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Yes, I remember that. It seems quite complex. It would be interesting for someone to get into GTS files to see what has changed.

Andy Farnell is mentioned - his book, Designing Sound, is a very good teaching tool for the general approach (one which Kaz noted is lacking in the industry). Direct synthesis, in a more abstract sense than outlined in that link (basically runs faster), is very powerful if you can get the control in place, and get your head around the maths, and figure out how to make it easy for sound designers to use....
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There seems to be a long way to go before getting a tool that mimics sounds accurately and is easy to use. Even more of a car, since different sounds come from different places.

Off-topic, but I think you've heard of Physical Modelling Synthesis. Some companies managed to achieve fairly decent results inthe music industry. Here's a piano and a violin. I wonder how the PD tool is behind the hood, with all the expression and parameters turned on, running in real time. Must be intense on the CPU.

"Deep sampling" as you say is doomed to fail under the ever increasing complexity and scale of games, unless either / both of those things are to be constrained.
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Depends on where PD wants to be in terms of sound. For example, take the Driveclub (which is the game with the best sound data I've seen, microphones everywhere), would a car game need a more complex sound? Of course, the scale is an obstacle. But accuracy can be 99% if it is mixed correctly.
 
Fabr_123
Yes, I remember that. It seems quite complex. It would be interesting for someone to get into GTS files to see what has changed.
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I'd wager very little from an architectural point of view, instead they seem to have doubled down on re-doing the samples this time.
Fabr_123
There seems to be a long way to go before getting a tool that mimics sounds accurately and is easy to use. Even more of a car, since different sounds come from different places.

Off-topic, but I think you've heard of Physical Modelling Synthesis. Some companies managed to achieve fairly decent results inthe music industry. Here's a piano and a violin. I wonder how the PD tool is behind the hood, with all the expression and parameters turned on, running in real time. Must be intense on the CPU.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what it's all about, yes. Kaz himself has talked about it. Sonory sort-of does the same thing for engine sounds (here), in that they focus on traditional sample playback, but the samples are completely synthetic ("offline", i.e. non real-time simulation means the quality is high). They have of course more recently offered recorded sample sets, too.

Not too long ago it was thought sampling was the way to go with musical instruments, especially for something like a piano - but, for one example, sampling is woefully inadequate for correctly representing sympathetic resonance between strings, and although modeling struggles with the finer points of control at times, it can really model whatever you want it to. That violin is a hybrid scheme, the sampled basis for which is easier to hear in the woodwind instruments.

Fabr_123
Depends on where PD wants to be in terms of sound. For example, take the Driveclub (which is the game with the best sound data I've seen, microphones everywhere), would a car game need a more complex sound? Of course, the scale is an obstacle. But accuracy can be 99% if it is mixed correctly.
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The key difference is that Driveclub doesn't have tuning - you decide whether it's worth having sounds that reflect the state of tune ;)
External mixing is also comparatively limited because of the focus on the interior sound.
 
Griffith500
I'd wager very little from an architectural point of view, instead they seem to have doubled down on re-doing the samples this time.
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True, but it's been about 6 years since we saw the first car using AES, right? During this period, they must have perfected the software a lot, but for some reason we haven't seen any convincing results in GTS.

This is exactly what it's all about, yes. Kaz himself has talked about it. Sonory sort-of does the same thing for engine sounds (here), in that they focus on traditional sample playback, but the samples are completely synthetic ("offline", i.e. non real-time simulation means the quality is high). They have of course more recently offered recorded sample sets, too.

Not too long ago it was thought sampling was the way to go with musical instruments, especially for something like a piano - but, for one example, sampling is woefully inadequate for correctly representing sympathetic resonance between strings, and although modeling struggles with the finer points of control at times, it can really model whatever you want it to. That violin is a hybrid scheme, the sampled basis for which is easier to hear in the woodwind instruments.
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Very interesting indeed. This is an essential area for deepening my knowledge.

The key difference is that Driveclub doesn't have tuning - you decide whether it's worth having sounds that reflect the state of tune ;)
External mixing is also comparatively limited because of the focus on the interior sound.
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That's where the physical modeling is unbeatable. Theoretically, it is possible to accurately simulate the behavior of the sound, especially the exhaust, in the environment. But has anyone accomplished this?

Samples can give good results (eg Raceroom and Dirty rally), but it is not accurate.
 
Tbh imo GTS definitely nailed engine sound better than previous installments. Especially 4 and 6 cylinder and smaller displacement they all sound spot on to my ears. Some 8 cylinders sounds decent with signature rumbling sounds. Only higher displacement engine like 10 or 12 that sometimes need a bit more tweaks though all of the sound samples are closely accurate to real ones. Don't know much about the EV cars sound in GTS but imo the electric motor in Tesla sounds rather loud and noisy in cockpit view than what we thought it would be in real life. That except electric race car like Audi VGT the electric motor is loud because it is purpose built for racing so noise doesn't matter I guess.
 
That exterior audio sounds pretty close. If you're including all that mad distortion in the comparison it's not gonna match up.
 

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