A2MBXT - Sounds & Music

[SAJewers]

Sheath's Sound Effects should be slightly off-key versions of the sound effects, like in Kanji Factory

[SAJewers]

I see, well I'll leave it to the level author.

By the way, I still think the coin sound effect is way too loud. It sounds worse than when raocow played A Terrible Level.

Looking at the base SFX files they all peak at about -10.7 dB, give or take a few tenths of a decibel. coin.mp3 peaks at -8.1 dB. Some of Kashkabald's other SFX are similarly unbalanced: do.mp3 peaks at -5.1 dB for example.

Today I'm going to work on relevelling Kashkabald's SFX so they're the right volume. I'll also go through SAJewers' suggestions and assign them to particular sounds and relevel them if necessary. I'll also make new SFX where I already have appropriate stock FX available: glass breaking for Mother Brain's container, for example. I also thought that since we've radically changed some enemies we should change their sounds. For example, Birdo's now a robotic toaster thing, so we could change Birdo's spitting sound to a toaster sound. I'll see if I can find a good sound for that.

Just wondering, but what did you do to relevel them? I'm thinking I may need to do the same thing to the music.

[Menshay]

"Seeking the Vicar's Approval" (I don't remember what song it replaces) sounds way low, for example.

[Doctor Shemp]

Just wondering, but what did you do to relevel them? I'm thinking I may need to do the same thing to the music.

Audacity. Import the track, Ctrl+A, Effects->Amplify, New Peak Amplitude. Remember that although -0.0 dB is the absolute maximum for digital sound, -0.3 dB is the absolute safe maximum since some sound cards automatically increase the volume slightly which, if the peak is higher than -0.3 dB, may push it higher than -0.0 dB which is bad (it causes terrible-sounding clipping).

[SAJewers]

OK, done. I also managed to make a bunch of the songs loop better, which consequently lowered the filesize of the DevKit from 226 MB to 189 MB. I'll probably release that tomorrow.

[Maiku Wotaharu]

"Seeking the Vicar's Approval" (I don't remember what song it replaces) sounds way low, for example.

It was meant to be that way. I wanted to give make it quiet for a cave/ghost house section...

[Doctor Shemp]

"Seeking the Vicar's Approval" (I don't remember what song it replaces) sounds way low, for example.

It was meant to be that way. I wanted to give make it quiet for a cave/ghost house section...

That really only works if you could turn down the SFX for that level too. Otherwise the result is just out of balance music & SFX.

[Maiku Wotaharu]

"Seeking the Vicar's Approval" (I don't remember what song it replaces) sounds way low, for example.

It was meant to be that way. I wanted to give make it quiet for a cave/ghost house section...

That really only works if you could turn down the SFX for that level too. Otherwise the result is just out of balance music & SFX.

I didn't want to make it too loud or else it would sound distorted. Will this be better?

[Doctor Shemp]

Amplification won't cause distortion unless you amplify past -0.0 dB and create clipping. Assuming the SAJ man has done his stuff correctly that won't be an issue. If amplification is causing it to sound weird and you're sure it's not clipping then it's because at the higher volume you're hearing odd frequencies - probably resonant frequencies - that you missed before because you weren't listening at a high enough volume. Playing your original version of the track in a stereo and cranking the volume knob up would have caused the same problems. The solution to that is to find the resonant frequencies and EQ them out, usually with some low Q precise EQing so as to avoid "unnatural" sounding results.

Alternatively, if whatever program you're using has a mastering plugin at the end, cranking the volume up might be causing soft clipping. That's probably not the case though: if you had a mastering plugin at the end it would probably have been loud to begin with.

[SAJewers]

http://www.mediafire.com/download/d6ydy ... DevKit.zip

Some songs to me still sound a bit low, notably the ASMT Underground music (pm-yoshis-village).

[SAJewers]

http://www.mediafire.com/download/d6ydy ... DevKit.zip

OK, this should be better.

[Doctor Shemp]

There's many tracks that haven't been relevelled correctly. This pack fixes the problems by relevelling everything in a new way I've found that focusses on perceived average volume rather than actual peak volume, and also changes a track I wrote that was mistakenly credited to docopoper to being credited to me instead. Just overwrite the existing music folder with the contents of this one.
Music Pack

It was clear from playtesting that I needed to do the same to the SFX, so here's the pack for that that also includes the standardisation of Sheath's SFX I mentioned. Again, just overwrite the existing sound folder with this one.
Sound Pack

I think it would also be a very good idea for me to take the intended final release of the game, relevel all the custom tracks and send it back to you as the real final version. That way all the custom music will be in balance with the normal music and the SFX.

[ztarwuff]

I think it would also be a very good idea for me to take the intended final release of the game, relevel all the custom tracks and send it back to you as the real final version. That way all the custom music will be in balance with the normal music and the SFX.

You'll definitely need to do it for the music from EuroShell R&D. When SAJewers played the level, I couldn't hear him over the music. I had no idea it would be so loud in comparison to the person who'd be talking over the level.

Either that or SAJewers needs to speak up a bit more. :D

[SAJewers]

Dunno if it's just me, but the sound effects sound way too low now.

[Doctor Shemp]

Dunno if it's just me, but the sound effects sound way too low now.

Ok, I've updated the Sound Pack to be about 1.5 dB louder.

What do you think now?

[SAJewers]

To me, they still sound too low.

[Doctor Shemp]

How about now?

[SAJewers]

I can still barely hear most of the sounds, especially the changed ones. The coin sound is practically inaudible, it's way too quiet. The unchanged ones sound ok, but could be a tad louder.

[Doctor Shemp]

Ok, how about now?

[SAJewers]

still the same to me. While some sounds are ok, most of the commonly heard ones are barely audible. Some things, like entering a pipe, hitting a ceiling, or the sound sound are find, maybe a tad too loud, things like the coin and bomb I can barely hear.

EDIT: Maybe this will help you.

[Doctor Shemp]

still the same to me. While some sounds are ok, most of the commonly heard ones are barely audible. Some things, like entering a pipe, hitting a ceiling, or the sound sound are find, maybe a tad too loud, things like the coin and bomb I can barely hear.

EDIT: Maybe this will help you.

The only thing that I'm hearing that's possibly too quiet is the coin and the explosion. Considering that the biggest complaint about ASMBXT's SFX was that the coin was way too loud, I don't know why you want me to crank it up, but here you go, the SFX pack with the coin sound (& the bomb sound) cranked way up.

[SAJewers]

I dunno. To me, there's still some sounds that sound way too low compared to others.

[Doctor Shemp]

Which ones specifically? And are you sure it's not just a quirk of your speakers?

[SAJewers]

I'm on Headphones. The main ones that sound low are all the changed ones except the toaster sound and bullet sound.

[Doctor Shemp]

I give up. I've reverted it to the peak volume method but dropped the player grow & shrink sounds. Same link as always.