Version 2.02 "Improved Racing Sounds"

  • Thread starter leighton
  • 325 comments
  • 38,695 views
I record music and sound for a living. I have almost 20 years experience and own my own recording studio. When you play GT5 and compare it to other racing games you just can't help but feel the sound was almost bolted on like an afterthought. Tenacious D's comments about some of the engine sounds sounding like they are over compressed MP3's are spot on. there is just no depth to the audio. Compare the effects to other games such as Forza 4 or Shift 2 and there really is no comparison.

If you take a look at Kaz's choice of menu music the gentle Jazz piano and almost sterile pop sounds the noise of the cars engines almost fit right in, they are not "in your face" or scary. Anyone who has spent days on a real race track knows that V8's do not sound like they do in GT5, they should instil that feeling of danger and almost intimidate you with the tickover.

I love GT5 but as a sound engineer I wish I could have a crack at re-mastering those sound effects. and I would be happy to do it free of charge just to enjoy a full and proper audio driving experience
 
I record music and sound for a living. I have almost 20 years experience and own my own recording studio. When you play GT5 and compare it to other racing games you just can't help but feel the sound was almost bolted on like an afterthought. Tenacious D's comments about some of the engine sounds sounding like they are over compressed MP3's are spot on. there is just no depth to the audio. Compare the effects to other games such as Forza 4 or Shift 2 and there really is no comparison.

If you take a look at Kaz's choice of menu music the gentle Jazz piano and almost sterile pop sounds the noise of the cars engines almost fit right in, they are not "in your face" or scary. Anyone who has spent days on a real race track knows that V8's do not sound like they do in GT5, they should instil that feeling of danger and almost intimidate you with the tickover.

I love GT5 but as a sound engineer I wish I could have a crack at re-mastering those sound effects. and I would be happy to do it free of charge just to enjoy a full and proper audio driving experience

I would most certainly hire you and Griffith500! :sly:
But on a serious note, I have to agree on the V8s sound being intimidating. Those and most race cars do that mostly because of the "growl" and because they're loud, that's a combination that would make almost every human being flinch or get goosebumps by hearing them.
From what I remember reading, Griffith500 said that what GT5 lacking the most is the intake. I'm not sure how much that alone would do to the quality of the sounds, but I believe that it would at least add more of that "growl".
 
Last edited:
I think engine sounds stay the same because it says racing sound. Squeels , scrapes, thud.. etc. If they overhaul engine noise i will eat my socks.
 
I highly doubt they'll change engine sounds, of which some are great and others not so great. I often see people complaining about sounds that are actually spot-on with what a stock car in real life sounds like. The problem comes from people watching and listening to modified cars in real life that have no cats, a different muffler or none at all, different tubing width, etc. They then hear the stock exhaust and engine in GT and think it's crap. That's the funny part, is that people are complaining about sounds that are perfect in the game and are just as boring sounding in real life before you mod the hell out of it.

Anyway, I figure the 'racing sounds' will be an editing of the thump/crash sounds, maybe some new tire squeal tweaking along with other small stuff like that.
 
EDIT: Eep, 's a big un! Last paragraph is the important bit; the other stuff is just how I justify my opinions. :D
I record music and sound for a living. I have almost 20 years experience and own my own recording studio. When you play GT5 and compare it to other racing games you just can't help but feel the sound was almost bolted on like an afterthought. Tenacious D's comments about some of the engine sounds sounding like they are over compressed MP3's are spot on. there is just no depth to the audio. Compare the effects to other games such as Forza 4 or Shift 2 and there really is no comparison.

If you take a look at Kaz's choice of menu music the gentle Jazz piano and almost sterile pop sounds the noise of the cars engines almost fit right in, they are not "in your face" or scary. Anyone who has spent days on a real race track knows that V8's do not sound like they do in GT5, they should instil that feeling of danger and almost intimidate you with the tickover.

I love GT5 but as a sound engineer I wish I could have a crack at re-mastering those sound effects. and I would be happy to do it free of charge just to enjoy a full and proper audio driving experience

In terms of sound design, you might be right that PD favours a more understated approach. I would argue that PGR4 was the same, but that has excellent (accurate) sounds for most if not all (100 ish) cars. So it's not really anything to do with the jazz or what have you, especially with the "rock" and house type stuff that's thrown in there too (sure, no hip-hop). Add in the awesome high dynamic range of the large theatre setting and it really falls apart - that's nothing if not in your face!

It seems to me that GT sounds the way it does potentially more because of an oversight early on in the series when recording cars. Perhaps getting sounds for the 650 cars in GT2 was just too much at that time, and the hardware couldn't really do the samples the best justice anyway (only the player's car used the new samples; the opponents reverted to the GT1 method).
So along came the PS2 and its extra horsepower, the samples were now applied to all cars on track, and they included the engine sound too. But, possibly, the recordings they had didn't include intake, or the intake sound was too inaudible to be of any use (especially if free revving was used for all cars, which seems likely given the cost and relative geographic dispersion of many of the cars). So in a way, GT3 sounded at once better and worse than GT2, just in terms of engine sound.

GT4 included more cars than there had ever been, but the recording methods seemed the same as they had been for GT2, although most of the samples from GT2 were carried over anyway. That said, there are a few examples of cars that were recorded on rolling roads, perhaps only when "convenient" (Audi's R8 etc., there was even a video of a car - I think a Vector or similar - being recorded for GT2 on a dyno, too.) Some cars have better samples than others, in that they're clearer and less marred by looping artefacts and instabilities and have less "ancillary" masking, like flow noise from exhausts or belts, fans and other things on engines, with the sound of combustion seemingly radiating from the block more clearly (try the E46 M3 startup sound; that's got a prominent block noise, sounds like a tractor). In that sense, it may be possible to pinpoint those cars that were recorded on the rolling road.

That still leaves the massive gap with missing "upgrade" sounds (again, most of which I recognise from GT2, with some frankly "interesting" additions that most people seem to loathe, myself included) and, once again, missing intake. It's possible PD have intake recordings for all or some cars, but don't include it for consistency reasons (rolling road vs. free revving) so that all cars have whizzy engines, and more-or-less accurate stock exhausts.

All of this leaves us, often, with interior views dominated by the engine noise, which of course is bereft of intake sound. Guess what sound is most important in interior views, especially in stock cars?
Secondly, the modified sounds; there is little consistency: why does the '64 GTO always sound like a V8 irrespective of mods, but a C4 ZR-1 (or '00 Camaro SS, same samples) will sound like a 6-cyl as soon as it's tweaked? Add in a general scarcity of modified sounds, and we have the state that GT5's sound can be if you're not paying attention.


Of these issues, the only one I expect could be "fixed" is the consistency of accuracy of the modified sounds versus the car in question - i.e. make the ZR-1 sound like a cross-plane V8 (the samples exist!), and my beefed-up Sirion like a proper 3-cyl (any skyline loop will do!) when modified, please!
The lack of samples (intake, plus modifieds) will have to wait until PD realise what they've done and get around to re-recording what they missed. Maybe they've started already.
Hopefully the other sound effects, turbo, exhaust overrun / splosions, gearbox whine, tyres, wind etc. can all be tweaked (and retweaked, by us) too.
 
Dude..that sounds like ass. Like somebody recorded a youtube video and chopped it up with freeware audio editing programs and then slammed it in. Oh wait, it's rFactor, that's exactly what they did.:yuck:

Agree! but its how a car sounds.. on youtube 360p lol, but GT5 has youtube1080p video sounds but recorded a vaccum and blender
 
The external samples are awful! It's good for what it is, but it shows why recording your own samples is so important. Every time the throttle transitions, the samples noticeably start again. I'd find that quite fatiguing.

Dude..that sounds like ass. Like somebody recorded a youtube video and chopped it up with freeware audio editing programs and then slammed it in. Oh wait, it's rFactor, that's exactly what they did.:yuck:

The point is I am able to recognise that as an early 90s F1 Williams-Renault V10 and that has been done by an amateur in his/her own time. PD should be doing much better than they are. I don't think there is one car in GT5 that I would be able to recognise by the sound alone... even distinctive sounding engines like the quattro's straight five turbo or the Mazda 787B. Yes, the other sound effects sound pretty cool but the car engine/intake/exhaust sounds themselves are usually lame with the occasional passable sounding car.
 
The point is I am able to recognise that as an early 90s F1 Williams-Renault V10 and that has been done by an amateur in his/her own time. PD should be doing much better than they are. I don't think there is one car in GT5 that I would be able to recognise by the sound alone... even distinctive sounding engines like the quattro's straight five turbo or the Mazda 787B. Yes, the other sound effects sound pretty cool but the car engine/intake/exhaust sounds themselves are usually lame with the occasional passable sounding car.

The stock exhaust sounds (and the engine sounds, actually, they're still recorded; lack of intake put aside) on most of the 1000 cars are pretty accurate. Don't forget that amateurs can use any material they want, PD can only use their own, which makes the achievement that much more impressive.

Of course they could do better; but videos like that are below the standard PD should be aiming for, so whilst they're interesting in and of themselves, they're not actually relevant.
 
The fact that my Inline-5 Volvo sounds just like an RB26 is what annoys me. And that the RB20 sounds a little off, it has a great sound in-game, just not what an RB20 should sound like.
 
Obli I saw the audi quattro reference coming from a mile away and I am right there with you. I actually have an 86 coupe gt and the sound that it emits is so beautiful and soothing under normal driving, but when you get into the throttle that baby gets MEAN! It doesn't sound like the 2 stroke washing machine they gave us!!!

A little OT: I can't be the only one wondering why the grand daddy of all of todays amazing rally cars, both the wrx and the lancer, is not premium. I mean they could have modeled the interior off of mine dang it!! (/rage)
 


The engine sounds in this mod put GT5 to shame. Yes, something's not right with the downshift sounds but the rest is incredible.

As someone else put, the cars have always sounded poor in GT games so what are the chances that they will improve significantly via a patch? Sorry to burst some bubbles but probably close to 0% likely.


This kind of sound is the sound coming from a TV when we watch a live broadcast in a living room, not the sound you heard from inside the cockpit wearing a helmet in a real life racing situation.
 
This kind of sound is the sound coming from a TV when we watch a live broadcast in a living room, not the sound you heard from inside the cockpit wearing a helmet in a real life racing situation.

I guess they lifted the samples from this:

 
Obli I saw the audi quattro reference coming from a mile away and I am right there with you. I actually have an 86 coupe gt and the sound that it emits is so beautiful and soothing under normal driving, but when you get into the throttle that baby gets MEAN! It doesn't sound like the 2 stroke washing machine they gave us!!!

A little OT: I can't be the only one wondering why the grand daddy of all of todays amazing rally cars, both the wrx and the lancer, is not premium. I mean they could have modeled the interior off of mine dang it!! (/rage)

I don't think any of the five cylinder cars sound particularly 5-like. I don't know why. Even the V10s struggle when modified. At least they included the road-going "Ur-Quattro"; they didn't bother with the rally versions at all! :ouch:
 
yes, what a joke, and what a disgrace to a Marvelous Ferrari Engine (Hear a REAL F330, and remember that sound in this video is not even recorded in all its glory but still it's 10.000x time better than the last GT5 awful vaccum cleaner's Ferrari 330 video)... GT6 should be ALL ABOUT sound!!! Kaz you nailed the Graphics, so GET THE SOUND IN PAR, DAMM'IT!

 
Last edited:
I'm keeping Neutral about this one...Not gonna get disappointed already or over-excited already.

I...just...need...to...wait...a...bit...longer...
 
I'm keeping Neutral about this one...Not gonna get disappointed already or over-excited already.

I...just...need...to...wait...a...bit...longer...

My brain says do not expect anything you'll be disapointed, my heart can't wait to go to the garage and demo the ZondaR, RM Vettes, SuperGT NSXs, 458 with a race exhaust...
Yes I know, my heart will be broken and my brain will be saying "I told you so"!
 
Obli I saw the audi quattro reference coming from a mile away and I am right there with you. I actually have an 86 coupe gt and the sound that it emits is so beautiful and soothing under normal driving, but when you get into the throttle that baby gets MEAN! It doesn't sound like the 2 stroke washing machine they gave us!!!

A little OT: I can't be the only one wondering why the grand daddy of all of todays amazing rally cars, both the wrx and the lancer, is not premium. I mean they could have modeled the interior off of mine dang it!! (/rage)

I don't own a ur-quattro - I wish I did, it's my real-world dream car! I do own a 1991 Audi 90 20v, and I've had her for ten years, which is a 2.3 20v straight-5 (naturally aspirated) and sounds fantastic! The sound of the quattro in GT5 is poor though, sounds nothing like the real thing. Also, it should be more tune-able than it is - 2.2 Audi 5-pot turbos can generate massive power! Sorry, went a bit off-topic there!
 
I just decided to play GT5 Prologue a while and one thing I noticed was that the exhaust sounds sound better and much clearer than GT5s. 👎
I still don't understand why they made the exhaust sounds worse :guilty:
 
yes, what a joke, and what a disgrace to a Marvelous Ferrari Engine (Hear a REAL F330, and remember that sound in this video is not even recorded in all its glory but still it's 10.000x time better than the last GT5 awful vaccum cleaner's Ferrari 330 video)... GT6 should be ALL ABOUT sound!!! Kaz you nailed the Graphics, so GET THE SOUND IN PAR, DAMM'IT!



That can't be legal.
 
If they don't change the sound of the engine/exhaust I'll just go back to listening to the big 4 and Pantera when I drive.
 
I just decided to play GT5 Prologue a while and one thing I noticed was that the exhaust sounds sound better and much clearer than GT5s. 👎
I still don't understand why they made the exhaust sounds worse :guilty:

Your so right about GT5: Prologue.

GT4, GT5: Prologue, Forza 3 and Forza 4 all have better engine sounds then GT5. I just don't see why PD didn't use GT4's engine sounds for GT5.
 
Back