The Sound Update Thread (The Return)

  • Thread starter TayeezSA
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Someone earlier posted one of my Subaru videos (Blitz exhaust on a 05 WRX). I wanted to step in and correct something.

The audio is being recorded in that video approximately 18 - 24" from the muffler, not in the same location as the GoPro. It was also recorded with a good lav mic powered via a recorder, which allows me to adjust the sensitivity as I listen to it via a decent pair of headphones in the passenger seat.

Here are some more videos for discussion purposes. Listen at 720p to get a wider range of frequencies.



Go to about the 00:50 mark. Mic is located under the hood.



This is a recording from my STI with an aftermarket intake setup and exhaust. The mic is in the airbox, hence the low frequency sound overrunning the high frequency / velocity "turbo sound."



This is recorded from the engine bay. The prominent sound is the externally vented wastegate. The fluttering is from the boost control setup rapidly adjusting and due to the oversized wastegate diameter. When the car gets sufficient load the sound smooths out because of the wastegate duty.



Here's my car again (11' STI) from the inside. I believe I used the GoPro mic for one or both of these videos, but you get the idea. It also shows the difference in engine power output between ambient temperatures.



It should be stated that the Subaru sound that people keep talking about is actually the sound generated by uneven exhaust pulses from the unequal length exhaust manifold. Not all Subarus have these, including the Subaru STI the Japanese team would have modeled the Subaru sound from, which uses a twin-scroll equal length exhaust manifold. The car in this video uses a single-scroll 4:1 equal length exhaust manifold. Notice the "rumble" is gone.



This is my car with the stock unequal length exhaust manifold. Notice the sound difference.

Learn more about this here: http://www.vikingspeedshop.com/equal-length-vs-unequal-length-subaru-exhaust-manifolds/
 
I like how Raceroom recorded the track environment and also the car unsettling itself during corners. Something for GT perhaps? The tracks and cars do need to feel more alive and have some personality to boot.



The real car



@Griffith500 , you and @Rennmeister should have a chat :P Thanks for enlightening us some more with the vids Rennmeister.
 
TayeezSA
New rule on the first page
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TayeezSA
I like how Raceroom recorded the track environment and also the car unsettling itself during corners. Something for GT perhaps? The tracks and cars do need to feel more alive and have some personality to boot.

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Raceroom does such a good job with the overall sound package that it really adds to the immersion. You can see and hear the bumps and undulations on the track and the ambient noise in the cabin, tire lockup is clear and distinct. The engine and transmission rev up and shift at the speed you'd expect the real one to. IMO it's probably the best overall sound package.
 
While I think that Raceroom video is really good, I'm hoping that some of the audio settings were juiced to suit the player. I think the internal knocking sounds were much too loud. I think something in between that and this video would be excellent. This is Johnnypenso's Little Friend, with an Audi A1 strutting its stuff.


I think P CARS might have got more things right, but some merging of them would be great.

In the very early days of GT5, PD did provide some of that cockpit view camera shake. A few people here and around the nets complained about motion sickness from it, which frankly baffled me because it was fairly mild. But rather than give us the options to control it, PD patched it out completely. Unfortunately, that shake and bounce along with judicious use of motion blur give you that sense of speed people say some games like Gran Turismo lack, so I'm hoping that if we get a Spec 2 update for GT6, we get those options added in.
 
Once again, RaceRoom gets the individual components up to a superficially high detail, but it lacks any true nuance, and the way those parts are assembled creates an unsatisfying whole. Aside from the welcome track ambience, such as it is, the external shots don't really do anything impressive, either.

Those chassis thumps are quite crudely implemented, and somehow worse then my own attempts. The trouble is that the knocks are felt, not heard; the chassis and shell do convert some of that energy to rattles and higher-frequency embellishments, but little of that is present here. That direct structural aspect should be a separate channel, e.g. for tactile transducers.

It really does seem like someone just went down a tick list, and didn't really consider how to make it all play together nicely.



Despite pCARS having arguably less detailed (and even less nuanced) parts, the way the whole has been assembled is far more successful. Its chassis noise "sweeteners" are also much better balanced, and the absence of true "structural" noise is not really missed, especially without the proper means to reproduce it.



If PD were to tackle the same things, they'd approach it according to the modern origami metaphor from Kaz: you don't reverse engineer an experience from some expected result, instead you try to build it up from its interconnected components and herd them into the desired final shape as you go.
 
There is a Need For Speed Shift video someone posted years ago which sounds incredible. Until people pointed out that the transmission whine was too loud, the knocking sounds too prominent, the blowoff valve whistle too loud, etc.

A lot of games allow you to set a number of audio components' volume with sliders, which I'm assuming/hoping is the case with these videos. I don't have any problem with anyone wanting an overbaked sonic experience to juice the gameplay up for them, but I'd like to have something which isn't quite so "Hollywood" as it has been with a few games. One thing I will do when I can is to boost the tire noise to unnatural levels, because that whine to squeal/roar spectrum is your key to knowing how well your car is taking a turn, at least for most of us. From what I recall, in GT6, everything not directly connected to the car, but including tire sounds, is in a slider labeled Environment, so I jack that up all the way. And on my stereo, it still sounds reasonable.

While it might be overkill for GT7 to allow us to set all kinds of volume aspects from turbos and blowoff valves to chassis noise and trannys, something along those lines would be a great enhancement to the game. And making the defaults about right so it sounds authentic out of the box. Do the same thing in regard to camera shake/sway options - and location, and the experience should be fantastic.
 
Yeah, they could have an authentic mix for replays and that PD Hi-Fi experience, and such, along with a user-tweakable interactive mix for racing with.

It's true that some of these videos might have wack "personal" settings in place, causing it to sound (more) "unrealistic".
 
Having driven a couple of race cars, among my own projects. I can attest that at WOT most REAL sounds would completely drown the experience. The reverb in a metal box of a car is abusive. Sound is a major concern for race tracks and race teams alike, they do what they can to mitigate it to avoid driver fatigue, particularly in endurance racing.

No game really even gets close to the sound. They are all odd sounding to me. It's like the creators never bothered to be in the cars themselves. This is especially true when you have games with 100+ cars, each with unique sounds. It's just impossible to put all that together. That being said, I've always thought sound engineers get too forgone into the sound of things, rather than taking a step back into the experience.
 
I love how Driveclub captures many layers of sounds. The off throttle burble on this Renault as well as the sound I rate has been captured beautifully

Driveclub


Real Car


The PS4 racers as of late have been producing some decent sound. GT7 is next! :D

Particularly since the AES can produce multiple layers of sound, I wonder what the results will be,
 
I have to repeat that RaceRoom has such a high bar, everything else is either just good or kind of okay. DriveClub seems to have its moments, then I'm completely meh like the above example. To be honest, it makes me content with GT6's sounds. Overall, DC is pretty good, but I think better examples could have been used than the Megane.
 
This thread has been absolutely riveting to read...truthfully.

The science of capture vs modelling is a little new to me but is it so much to ask that:

* A 4 sounds like a 4, a 6 sounds like a 6, a 12 like a 12 and so on? I think many people would be happy if their cars even remotely resembled their true sounds, even when upgraded with exhausts ect.

Many cars are good in this respect with the 458, V12 vantage IMO being good examples. However, my Murci SV sounds like a V10, the FGT should approximate a screaming mid 90's ferrari F1. The quality of the sounds is all well and good, but the immersion is lost for me when I buy a great car that sounds entirely gutless and 'off key'.

It shouldn't be so complicated to approximate the roundabout sounds for all cars.

Played the Sierra rally for the first time the other day and it reminded me why I love GT so much, bloody fantastic.
 
Tenacious D
I have to repeat that RaceRoom has such a high bar, everything else is either just good or kind of okay. DriveClub seems to have its moments, then I'm completely meh like the above example. To be honest, it makes me content with GT6's sounds. Overall, DC is pretty good, but I think better examples could have been used than the Megane.
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Ummmm. To each their own then...

The reason I posted the Megane as an example is because of the way Evo captured and displayed the exhaust burble for the car. It doesn't feel or sound like it was just slapped in but rather care was taken in adding it plus it merges well with the car's other sounds.

Another reason why I think Driveclub's sounds also set the bar high too is because the sounds in that game are very refined and work.

Enough of Driveclub though, back to GT and a little mention of Assetto Corsa.

The GT86


AC



GT



Real Life



GT5 and AC I rate captured the sound well. However GT6 is just off, it's waaaaaay too airy .
AC got the outside exhaust sound wrong though; A factory GT86 doesn't have the classic "Boxer Rumble" but has the sound of a normal inline 4 cylinder car

Though I must say that all those games (Except GT6) captured the front & interior sound well, but the rear portion with the exhaust is just all wrong. Except maybe GT5 because it's kinda close to the real deal.

Thing is though, Forza 5 captured the GT86 sound well in all perspectives.



Which leads me to this question, we all hear the same sounds but how does one interpret them in such a way that anyone can relate to them instantly? A trained ear perhaps?
 
from a trackside point of view Raceroom, Dirt rally and AC ( for some cars - C9, GT86, E30 Modded, Miura Modded, 787b modded...) are just above everything else, only in these 3, you have the feeling to hear real cars if you close your eyes. Drive club, F5 and other are Okish for cockpit and 3rd view, but still very poor for trackside replay.
 
TayeezSA
Ummmm. To each their own then...

The reason I posted the Megane as an example is because of the way Evo captured and displayed the exhaust burble for the car. It doesn't feel or sound like it was just slapped in but rather care was taken in adding it plus it merges well with the car's other sounds.

Another reason why I think Driveclub's sounds also set the bar high too is because the sounds in that game are very refined and work.

Enough of Driveclub though, back to GT and a little mention of Assetto Corsa.

The GT86


AC



GT



Real Life



GT5 and AC I rate captured the sound well. However GT6 is just off, it's waaaaaay too airy .
AC got the outside exhaust sound wrong though; A factory GT86 doesn't have the classic "Boxer Rumble" but has the sound of a normal inline 4 cylinder car

Though I must say that all those games (Except GT6) captured the front & interior sound well, but the rear portion with the exhaust is just all wrong. Except maybe GT5 because it's kinda close to the real deal.

Thing is though, Forza 5 captured the GT86 sound well in all perspectives.



Which leads me to this question, we all hear the same sounds but how does one interpret them in such a way that anyone can relate to them instantly? A trained ear perhaps?
Click to expand...





go to 8:52 for the real sound of BRZ FRS or GT86...
 
AlexN8710
This thread has been absolutely riveting to read...truthfully.

The science of capture vs modelling is a little new to me but is it so much to ask that:

* A 4 sounds like a 4, a 6 sounds like a 6, a 12 like a 12 and so on? I think many people would be happy if their cars even remotely resembled their true sounds, even when upgraded with exhausts ect.

Many cars are good in this respect with the 458, V12 vantage IMO being good examples. However, my Murci SV sounds like a V10, the FGT should approximate a screaming mid 90's ferrari F1. The quality of the sounds is all well and good, but the immersion is lost for me when I buy a great car that sounds entirely gutless and 'off key'.

It shouldn't be so complicated to approximate the roundabout sounds for all cars.

Played the Sierra rally for the first time the other day and it reminded me why I love GT so much, bloody fantastic.
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The beauty of the way PD have set up their new model is that it's pretty much blind. You take data for the real car, such as the number of cylinders, and the configuration of the plumbing (exhaust manifold, intake resonators etc.), and it spits out something that is very close "automatically"; a 6 sounds like a 6, a 7 sounds like a 7 (;)) etc., purely because it has to according to the underlying model.

From there, the task of tuning the sounds to get closer to the recordings centres around subtraction and enhancement of different frequency bands in the base sound obtained from the first step. This is exactly how it works with real cars: you choose the plumbing configuration that balances packaging, performance etc., then recursively tweak bits to meet the aesthetic (sounds "nice", "refined", "raw" etc.) and legislative elements. Except that PD only need to match an existing sound with fewer competing restrictions.


So the audio artists basically have the same tools at their disposal to achieve "realistic", synthetic clones of car sounds, in a schematic sense, that the drivetrain / NVH engineers do in creating the corresponding real-world sounds.


There is little chance to accidentally pick the wrong sound, unless they input all that data incorrectly (i.e. from another car). A single number being wrong will either be unnoticeable (and hence largely inconsequential), or totally obvious and unlikely to slip through the net, depending on what the number represents in the model, and the nature of the mistake.

The current samples have been "placeholders" for some time, so it seems less care has been taken with them than ever before, in that so many of them are incorrectly assigned from a pre-existing set of recordings dating back to GT2. All the new model sounds (using "AES") will need to be made from scratch for each car specifically, so there should be less sharing, and virtually no inappropriate sounds.


Then add on the fact that the new model can (with some effort from PD) potentially be opened up to us, the players, to give us the same tools as the automotive engineers, and it might be tempting to get a bit excited about the future of engine sounds in GT...
 
TayeezSA
I raise you this

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Professional job from hot version..



Forza 5 and Assetto corsa and Pcars the sound is like the stock cars have a racing exsaust with throttle bodies !



start at 1:11



neither one car from factory sounds like Forza Assetto corsa or Pcars...
exept the super or hyper cars...
I DONT SAY THAT THE SOUND OF GT IS BETTER
but the sound of the others games is NOT like a stock real life car!!
 
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Proof that GT4 has better emulating sounds than GT5/6, altough the current method heard in ex. GTR LM NISMO and Lotus 97T may give tons of hope.




 
The GT4 sound is from a Skyline, and it's not nearly clean / dry enough as a pure exhaust note for this car (compare footage of actual running). But then it makes sense when you remember that, in GT games, the exhaust sound is pulling double duty in the absence of intake sound; that absence is a real killer in the case of the McF1 in any guise. So overall, being a 6 cylinder sound, it kind of works - at least it would if it weren't used on half of the racing cars in that game...

The GT5 / GT6 sound arguably better captures the spirit of the dry / dull exhaust note (at least on-throttle) quite well, so if that's why it was selected, then it makes sense (for the exhaust alone). But the absence of the off-throttle variation and, yes, that intake sound, really kills the overall effect. Unfortunately, it is clearly not a recording of a normal V12; as I said, it seems it was selected only for its aesthetic similarity to the pure, full-throttle exhaust tone.

The current AES exhaust model would create a similarly "dull", droning sound (my description; compare with NSXs, E36 / E46 M3 etc.), as it should given the data, but it will also have that 3 cylinder undertone; as it should. Bring in intake sound, and only then will it make sense overall. Without it, you're back to the "double duty" tricks as before.
 
FrzGT
Proof that GT4 has better emulating sounds than GT5/6, altough the current method heard in ex. GTR LM NISMO and Lotus 97T may give tons of hope.




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Sorry but that's a crappy way to compare the game sound to the real thing when one of them is just sitting and revving.




Also, totally disagree. Its literally nothing but the exact same "V12" Sample from the Jaguar XJ220 Lm Race car going all the way back to GT2 (which itself is nothing but a slightly lower pitched version of the GT-One sample also from GT2). It isn't any better honestly.
 
well..i'm sure the new sound designer will change these engine sound..not for all cars but i hope for the most important..btw the problem is how the sound are recorded...AC have a partnership with Akrapovic with a new tech for exhaust recording..i did a lot of sound for tdu2 using youtube as a source: i will show two preview


my Ferrari 360CS sound: https://soundcloud.com/damiano-scaglietti/guess-the-engine-sound

Diablo SV: https://soundcloud.com/damys-scaglietti/pure-exhaust-note

Lancia stratos: https://soundcloud.com/damys-scaglietti/preview1
------------------------

My Audi R8 Plus V10 sound (i know is not perfect) : https://soundcloud.com/damiano-scaglietti/r8-v10-plus-sound-preview-tested-in-tdu2-wip

now this is Gran turismo 6 sound: (real recording ?)



and this is Forza motorpsort/horizon sound (recorded from Old gallardo and NOt from the LP560)



can you ear the difference ? i've used a real sound from the right car, this is what i want to see in GT7 :)
 
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I don't know guys, I'm not confident AT ALL. After buying a PS4 a week ago and playing Driveclub for those 7 days, I hear GT and I want to punch Kaz in the face.... even if he was some kind of hero for me a while ago....
Anyway, I have Driveclub and MGSV, I don't need anything else for the time being...
 
Eager Snake
I don't know guys, I'm not confident AT ALL. After buying a PS4 a week ago and playing Driveclub for those 7 days, I hear GT and I want to punch Kaz in the face.... even if he was some kind of hero for me a while ago....
Anyway, I have Driveclub and MGSV, I don't need anything else for the time being...
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This is something I've mentioned before - sometimes, with 15 years of the same issues cropping up, it's difficult to imagine change happening. For the first time, though, there is concrete evidence that they are working on the sounds. The new AES seems like it might have a huge impact on the sound of GT, based on what we know about its complexity and thoroughness in simulating aspects of a car's audio, and its results so far (even in a simplified form). We know they've hired T10's former audio lead, and judging by the notes @Griffith500 made on his lecture about sound in racing games, it's pretty clear he knows his stuff inside-out. The legacy of the Forza games largely show that (apart from the weird artistic decision for FM4 to go with crazy overdone audio). FM2's audio, in particular, is still of a very good standard to this day. With the combination of a brand new sound system and a wealth of expertise provided by new staff, I wouldn't count PD out just yet...
 
TayeezSA
Man.... I gotta hand it to Forza 6, that has their sounds on point!

Real NSX-R (Start watching at about 4:50)


Forza 6's rendition


GT6's rendition is close but needs to be more visceral and natural
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In before someone comes along to tell you what's wrong with the Forza sound and how GT's is actually better:sly:
 
TayeezSA
Man.... I gotta hand it to Forza 6, that has their sounds on point!

Real NSX-R (Start watching at about 4:50)


Forza 6's rendition


GT6's rendition is close but needs to be more visceral and natural
Click to expand...


I have definitely yet to hear ANY PC mod with sound as crisp as that. One of my biggest issues with Forza was how they had volume but never the (for lack of better terms) complete amount of layers that make that sound work. Haven't really sat down and listening to the gameplay videos but glad to see in the case of the NSX (which tends to be a very unique one itself), that no longer appears to be the issue. Now where's dat Z4? :sly:

As for GT6's, its basically the story for a lot of the sounds that aren't generic (or horribly wrong): They're there but you might as well be listening through a old TV set because they're hardly audable.

Johnnypenso
In before someone comes along to tell you what's wrong with the Forza sound and how GT's is actually better:sly:
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Denied :P
 
Dedicated intake recordings doing their thang. ;)

Seems like another step in the right direction in terms of aesthetic, almost back to where it was with FM2...

Shame I don't really like the flavour and feel of ordinary sampling any more.
 

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