What's a good level for music and sound?

http_gamesalad

Hello! I just wanted to know what's a proper level for music and sound? I'm making my first game and I didn't want to set my sound and music at 10 in fear of it being way to loud. So that's just about it!

Thanks !

Socks

@vnwadike13@gmail.com said:
Hello! I just wanted to know what's a proper level for music and sound? I'm making my first game and I didn't want to set my sound and music at 10 in fear of it being way to loud. So that's just about it!

Thanks !

1

I'd make your audio as loud as possible (which is 1 in GameSalad), users can turn down their iPad if they feel 1 too loud, let's imagine they prefer it around 0.6 - so they will turn it down to 0.6 . . . .

. . . but if you set the music at 0.6 and they think it's a little quiet they cannot turn it up beyond that level.

And of course you can include a music level control within your game, so they can decide for themselves.

Give them the full dynamic range, I squash my audio to death, compress it then heavily limit it (to -0.1dbFS), if you want really high quality audio I'd recommend you duck (turn down) the music every time a sound effect plays, this little trick is what radio stations and TV broadcasters have been using for decades to make everything sound big, punchy and clear.

http_gamesalad

@socks Thanks bro! How would I "duck" them?

gyroscope

Hi, I'm sure @Socks won't mind me answering for him:

First, determine the length of each of your sound effects - best done in an Audio Editor.

Back to GSC, put just before your Play Sound behaviour, an Interpolate behaviour, along the lines of:

Interpolate game.Audio.Music Volume to 0.6
Duration: 0.1 seconds
Play Sound your sound effect
Timer: After ?? seconds -- ?? is the length of your sound effect
Interpolate game.Audio.Music Volume to 1
Duration: 0.1 seconds

Obviously play around with the durations in the interpolates to see which is best, as well as the music volume that it ducks to.

To confirm, it's best to produce your sounds as loud as possible without distortion, and adjust the individual volumes in each of the Play Sound behaviours - because some sounds might be too loud compared with others.

Also useful to include a volume control as an option in your game too - it's quicker to adjust for the user than using the device button.

Socks

@gyroscope said:
Hi, I'm sure Socks won't mind me answering for him:

I was thinking of using an actual duck

Back to GSC, put just before your Play Sound behaviour, an Interpolate behaviour, along the lines of:

Interpolate game.Audio.Music Volume to 0.6
Duration: 0.1 seconds
Play Sound your sound effect
Timer: After ?? seconds -- ?? is the length of your sound effect
Interpolate game.Audio.Music Volume to 1
Duration: 0.1 seconds

Yeah basically this, I do it this way . . .

When FX = true

Change game.Audio.Music Volume to 0.4

Interpolate game.Audio.Music Volume to 1 (easy ease in / duration fast (0.4-0.8))

This is what I use for reasonably fast percussive sounds (which tend to be 99% of sound effects) but like you say you need to play around with all these values to see what works.

Socks

@gyroscope said:

@vnwadike13@gmail.com said:

Here's a quick demo . . .

Click on the button on the left and the right, one has the music ducked, the other just stays at the same volume - all the audio, the background music and the voice, are at identical levels throughout - you can hear that when the music is not ducked the voice is lost in the music quite a bit - and when it is ducked the voice jumps out at you a lot more (even though it's the same volume on both buttons).

Link: https://www.mediafire.com/?72bo3of7kap77ls

Sorry about the glitchy loop ! (GS is crap at looping audio).

http_gamesalad

@socks thanks for the template !

gyroscope

@Socks said:
I was thinking of using an actual duck

D'oh, I thought you meant duckin' and divin', wheelin' and dealin'...

@Socks said:
Yeah basically this, I do it this way . . .

When FX = true

Change game.Audio.Music Volume to 0.4

Interpolate game.Audio.Music Volume to 1 (easy ease in / duration fast (0.4-0.8))

This is what I use for reasonably fast percussive sounds (which tend to be 99% of > sound effects) but like you say you need to play around with all these values to see what > works.

Ah yes, more efficient than my suggestion...