What do you make of Kaz's answer regarding GT5s sound

[hennessey86]

So I'm sure by now you have read the interview in the news section, apparently GT's engine sounds are too realistic. It seems he lives in his own little, does this mean we will get the same recycled engine samples in GT6. It seems so.

 

[TJC_69]

So I'm sure by now you have read the interview in the news section, apparently GT's engine sounds are too realistic. It seems he lives in his own little, does this mean we will get the same recycled engine samples in GT6. It seems so.

Mazda 787B is spot on .... But there are many cars in the game that sound off pitch .

So it's hit or miss really . He's probably just gonna do a cut and paste like you say 👍

 

[1241Penguin]

Here's the interview, for anyone's information:

GTPlanet: Critics often complain about the car engine sounds in GT5, claiming they sound sterile or artificial. What is your opinion on these engine sounds in GT5, and will these critics’ concerns be addressed in future games?

KY: My perspective is that the sounds in Gran Turismo are just too real. With the recording method we use, we use a dyno and put the load on, and the sound we produce is just too accurate. I think it would be a good thing to sort of design the sound a little bit, and so that is something I would like to challenge ourselves with in the future.

What I find is that one of our themes with Gran Turismo is to create something that is real; that is what our team is focused on, but that can be an issue sometimes as well. If we see something in front of us, we try to reproduce that very accurately, and that tendency is getting stronger.

But, I think we maybe need to make things sexier sometimes, and I think that is something the Gran Turismo team might need to work on. It could also be because our team is growing in number, which could be one of our barriers to that goal.

I think he's saying that they're not capturing the sounds they want, hence the need to "design" the sounds.

 

[TexasTyme214]

I think the sounds are mostly accurate until you get to aftermarket exhausts and the race cars. GT6, I expect, will share a lot of the same sounds as GT5 to reduce development time.

 

[Nismo34]

I think the sounds are mostly accurate until you get to aftermarket exhausts and the race cars. GT6, I expect, will share a lot of the same sounds as GT5 to reduce development time.

This.

However, being Kaz admitted some sounds may need to be a bit "sexier", I believe they'll address that for 6 and fix the ones that are brutally bad.

 

[GODfreyGT5]

I think he's saying that how they capture sounds is the reason why many of them sound a little awful, and the sounds in the game are as they were recorded irl, not 'pretty'd up as it seems they may plan to do for GT6.

 

[GTP_Gearhead]

I respect Kaz and his answer for saying it is what it is. The sounds are accurate as the sounds are taken from the physical cars, of course some are ported over to like cars.

I feel the sounds are okay, but at the very least need a "bass boost", ya dig.

 

[Samus]

Their recording methods are inadequate (compare photos of PD recording a car and the Forza guys) and for some cars they don't even bother, ie the HSV. You shouldn't be releasing a car until you can sample it, especially such a unique one like that.

 

[cuco33]

I thought this was a joke until I read it myself.. wow, Kazakhstan needs a hearing aid

 

[Smuttysy]

I honestly thought the series was destined to be better after gt5, but his "too realistic" comment has now convinced me it's a dead horse waiting to be sent to the glue factory.
Not one of the sounds has any kind of "mechanical" sounding aspects to them in my opinion, as in they're all far too clinical and clean to have been sampled/recorded properly. (Or they're badly processed afterwards, which has ruined them) Also, as stated previously, some of them they didn't even bother trying to get them right, instead favouring their copy and paste abilities with incorrect displacement sounds, in some cases.

Kaz, do us all a favour and either sell the franchise to a more proficient, and productive, developer or simply pull the plug. I'm done with all the false promises and p***-poor excuses.

 

[gogatrs]

I think there may have been some translation/language issues here.

I think what he meant is they're a little too... perfect if you get what I'm saying.

 

[PAPPACLART]

I have little faith in GT6

 

[Samus]

I think there may have been some translation/language issues here.

I think what he meant is they're a little too... perfect if you get what I'm saying.

The interview doesn't mention a translator, it appears Kaz was speaking directly in English.

 

[gogatrs]

The interview doesn't mention a translator, it appears Kaz was speaking directly in English.

All the more reason his point might come across incorrectly.

 

[lldantell]

Mazda 787B is spot on

The Lexus lfa sounds right too

 

[Barra333]

Not going to comment on the sound thing, but Kaz seems like a nightmare to interview. Jordan could have asked him what colours are on the Japanese flag and would have received and indirect, vague answer.

 

[Famine]

The interview doesn't mention a translator, it appears Kaz was speaking directly in English.

There was a translator present - just not Translator-san (who I'm told has broken his ankle - get well soon Translator-san!) - and Yamauchi rarely speaks in English at all, let alone full interviews.

However, invoking "lost in translation", I kind of understand what he's getting at, even if I don't necessarily agree.


"Sound" is a complex field - it's not as simple as recording a noise and playing it back. A really basic example is how you sound differently on a tape recorder than you do in your head. While I'm sure that how they record sounds isn't necessarily how I'd do it (doing it on a dyno is sensible - loading the engine with no road noise), the simple fact is that you will not be able to tell the difference on an equaliser between the real car and the GT5 one. It'll be the same pitch (frequency) spectrum at, if you choose, the same volume. This is what I suspect Kazunori means by "too real" - 1:1 on the equaliser.

This isn't the problem with GT5's sounds. The problem is what he refers to as "sexier" sounds - or what musicians will know as timbre. If you play two musical instruments at the same pitch and same volume an equaliser will show no difference - but they're different, aren't they? You know how you can tell between a synthesiser version of an instrument and a real instrument - or a human voice and autotune? This is due to timbre - timbre is what gives "sexiness" to sound. You can even tell between two identical instruments played entirely in synch with each other due to timbre...

What constitutes timbre is tough to pin down - it's essentially every characteristic of a sound that isn't the frequency or volume It's often referred to as "sound colour" and you'll hear terms bandied about like ADSR (attack [the start of a note], decay [normalisation from the attack to the sustain], sustain [the intended note], release [return to zero]), but it's really tough to explain and even tougher to compress and shove onto a CD/DVD/BD, uncompress, dynamically simulate and allow space for a game.

What many games do to substitute for timbre is make it louder and add more bass - because we associate noise, particularly bassy noise, with feeling. If you can feel the noise move through you it feels more "real" (and at real race tracks, sound hits you like a wall). Shoved through a set of TV speakers, it sounds "better" than the quieter and more accurate (in terms of the equaliser) note. GT games don't do this (with the exception of GTHD) and so, through TV speakers, they sound like ass because there is neither real feeling nor fake feeling - just the frequencies and volume. They sound better if you have speakers with better range and quicker reactions or if you have a good amp to dig the sounds out (on the pair of monitor speakers I usually use for gaming, GT5 sounds fine, if a little vague sometimes. Good enough at least that my wife can hear I'm driving a V8, three walls and a floor away) but the lack of timbre or a substitute for it prevents the realism.

There's certainly more they could do. Sound recording needs to be primarily in the driver's seat for cockpit, in the engine for nosecam, two feet behind and four feet above the car for coptercam (though winding in some essence of the other two for each will help add character). It needs to be pushed through a spectrometer rather than an equaliser before being passed as satisfactory. It needs to be optimised for different settings - the ghacky 2W TV speakers most people play through, a stereo system, a basic surround system (2.1), a middle surround system (5.1), a geeky surround system (7.1) and a full cinema system (what's this up to now? 14.2?).

Or they could make it louder and add bass.


Take "real" as "faithful frequency and amplitude reproduction" and take "sexier" as "better timbre or bassier/noisier" and the response makes sense.

 

[Hayden]

So... Who's in the mood to argue with Famine, in what looks to be one of his millions of sectors of knowledge? You put it into words far better than I ever could, top notch explanation of something that can be very hard to understand 👍

 

[TDZdave]

I'm not fussed how "accurate" the noises are, apart from the Mercedes cars the rest sound like hot hatch Nissans,

and I wouldn't car if hey remained the same, providing they fix the engine braking problem, or lack of engine braking, I'm a little excited for GT6, they discovered aero drag this time round hopefully they discover other car physic's along the way,

this is probably the biggest criticism I have with the game, having driven race cars in anger around the green hell, with the same set up on the car crossed over to the game I found that there a sections that you approach flat out then lift for a brief moment turn in and power on, now because of the aero drag system and aero points system this has been made closer, but if you lift off on the game it does nothing, so you need to tap the brakes in a car with 35 aero points or less but if you got the option to run 40 points plus it is just a lift but you still need to tap the brakes with heavier tire wear to get the nose in, but in real life you can still get through some corners with a longer lift but not requiring the brakes,

 

[Felix]

So... Who's in the mood to argue with Famine, in what looks to be one of his millions of sectors of knowledge? You put it into words far better than I ever could, top notch explanation of something that can be very hard to understand 👍

Ditto , bloody good answer there!

 

[NLxAROSA]

I think PD already has the proper sounds, but the balance/mix is screwed up in cockpit and bumper cam. Just drive a Ford MkIV using the cockpit/bumper can and then using the chase cam. From chase cam it sounds bloody awesome! In bumper/cockpit you hardly hear the exhaust note anymore, just the transmission whine. I think most cars can be fixed by simply rebalancing.

Though the above will not fix the cars where there's actually a wrong set of samples used.

 

[Ridox2JZGTE]

Snip ...


Take "real" as "faithful frequency and amplitude reproduction" and take "sexier" as "better timbre or bassier/noisier" and the response makes sense.

Couldn't agree more 👍 This is why I always play GT5 with external AVR and surround speaker set + subwoofer, the only way to get a decent sound field and pressure or you could say volume.

 

[otakukid96]

He says that the sounds are real, so now people can stop complaining that they aren't real. They may not apparently be 'good', but they are real, which I think is all that matters.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Kaz's answer is in the best tradtion of a true politician. Never answer anything directly, never admit fault, and make some vague reference to forthcoming changes that can be interpreted to mean anything. Politicospeak or doubletalk I think they call it.

What I'm hoping he means by "sexier" is to jazz up the sounds more as someone mentioned above. Throw in some bass and some growl to the motors, even if it isn't perfectly realistic it'll sure be a lot more enjoyable. And you don't have to "ruin" the perfect sound of every car either, if that's what he truly believes we have now. Just have the "enhanced" sound as some kind of option in the exhuast tuning menu.

What he should have said was, "Yes, I am aware of the multitude of complaints and while we tried to be as accurate as possible with GT5 engine sounds, we obviously need to improve the sound experience for GT6. In that regard, we'll solicit a lot of feedback from current drivers so we can get a handle on what they really would like to see in GT6" In other words, talk to the people playing the game directly, don't try to figure it out on your own and come up with some half a$$ed solution that might even be worse than what you have now.

 

[KraigA]

The F1 cars in the F1 game by codemasters sounds 10x better than the F1 cars in GT5, especially in the gear changes/down shifts. There are a few cars that sound bang on in GT5 but alot of them seem to drone and have the same boring tone.

 

[XS]

Couldn't agree more 👍 This is why I always play GT5 with external AVR and surround speaker set + subwoofer, the only way to get a decent sound field and pressure or you could say volume.

Indeed, also a great set of cans produces a similar effect. Both setups bring alive the engine and mechanical sounds too subtle to notice on TV speakers. I never play GT5 without my stereo and subwoofer on, or wearing my cans, the difference is there. Cars that pop into my head that sound completely different on TV speakers vs. a setup are, GT40 Race Car, Speed 12, any Lamborghini, Ferrari California, and TVR Tuscan Speed 6 - they all sound way different.

 

[Spagetti69]

42

 

[Sier_Pinski]

I honestly thought the series was destined to be better after gt5, but his "too realistic" comment has now convinced me it's a dead horse waiting to be sent to the glue factory.
Not one of the sounds has any kind of "mechanical" sounding aspects to them in my opinion, as in they're all far too clinical and clean to have been sampled/recorded properly. (Or they're badly processed afterwards, which has ruined them) Also, as stated previously, some of them they didn't even bother trying to get them right, instead favouring their copy and paste abilities with incorrect displacement sounds, in some cases.

Kaz, do us all a favour and either sell the franchise to a more proficient, and productive, developer or simply pull the plug. I'm done with all the false promises and p***-poor excuses.

This. 100% This. As soon as I saw that response myself on the news feed, I was in sudden shock. Kaz is either still unaware of his own faults and/or is still trying to hide all his mistakes and broken promises. It has been two years since this game released, and he and his team are still showing a commitment to ignorance from the truth.

And since the release of the HSV race car, I have been shown that this still stands today and for the foreseeable future:

Their recording methods are inadequate (compare photos of PD recording a car and the Forza guys) and for some cars they don't even bother, ie the HSV. You shouldn't be releasing a car until you can sample it, especially such a unique one like that.

PD has failed at an unimaginable scale with this one. They couldn't even borrow the sounds from the game's Ferrari F1s?

GT5:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07NaykwN-Ho
Real Sound:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebEMJy4cznQ

I had some shred of hope that GT6 would fix many of the issues GT5 had, especially the sound. I had hoped that it would be the end-all solution--the redemption, even, for every bit of stress, dissapointment, and frustration that GT5 has brought to me.

But after this, I'm done.

I'm done with the Gran Turismo series, and with my shrinking motivation to play other PS3 games and the fact that my steering wheel set is breaking down, I may well be done with the Playstation brand as well. And, unfortunately, I may also call it quits with GTPlanet. I'm done trying to look for updates on the next big game. I'm done waiting for the next GT. And I'm done trying to make witty posts in unrelated subforums just to try and get some replies and attention as I wait--they never get any anyway. It's been fun talking to all you guys, but I see no further reason to continue my existence in this forum. Thank you all for the help, advice, and other things you have given to me over the past two years.



Sier_Pinski, signing off.


.

 

[C_Raccoon23]

Kaz is sure pushing a lot of people over the edge after this interview.

 

[Samus]

He says that the sounds are real, so now people can stop complaining that they aren't real. They may not apparently be 'good', but they are real, which I think is all that matters.

You always make me laugh. If Kaz told you the moon was made of cheese would you believe him?