Originally Posted by: MikeJoe1990 
Originally Posted by: iTZz x Karma 
After the video detailing about recording sounds I really believe they have no idea how badly they’ve messed up most of the sounds.
A Maserati Granturismo has the sound of a flatplane V8 in FH4. That says it all.
Either step your game up or sack the sound engineers, we’re fed up of excuses as to why the sounds aren’t correct.
It would greatly help if there was someone here who could see what they were getting at in the stream, and then critique the information that they gave us. My ears aren’t trained, that wasn’t something they put in the program until graduation. Having a set of trained ears and expertise on how the sound design and recording processes can be improved is the only way they’ll listen. They’re not going to pay attention if the feedback is “this sounds bad”. I can understand the Maserati, and the P1 (I’ll even throw in the regular MC12, but post 27); BUT until someone can see eye to eye with the sound guy, and critique his work from there, we’re not going to get anywhere. They’re looking for information other than “this doesn’t sound bassy enough”, “Check other games”. How exactly can they detail the bass without masking other frequencies and sounds in the mix? Can you hear the granular synthesis? Is there anything that can be improved upon with the new granular synthesis sound design? I’ve got “wrong cars recorded” on my list.
The stream and post 27 explains what’s going on. Some cars don’t sound right and they’re aware of it. They have to update their sound library with the new granular synthesis method they’re using. FM7’s update should make its way here, just like the 599xx evo made it’s way.
I hear good things there that weren’t there in previous forza’s. They’re not slacking, they just rushed a good idea with THREE titles (FH3,FM7,and H4). They needed more than a year. They were trying to satisfy a us with a new title each year which backfired in Horizon 3. That’s all I have to say. It’s a new concept, it sounds good, it’s just not finished, post 27 talks about it. The stream goes into depth about post 27. If we could get detailed feedback on how the mixes are sculpted exactly and what they could do differently then they’ll change. Until then complain about there being a “lack of low end” until your ears bleed, the low end is there. Knowing exactly they did and how they should change it is the only way you’re going to get the sound guys to listen.
What do you think I've been doing? Everything you're saying about how I'm critiquing the sound is wrong. I have repeatedly said that the sounds not being full range and also not having the right amt of natural width is the problem. Also volume. The engine sounds playing 2nd fiddle to the music is a bad choice. If I can't comfortably turn this game up to 80dB and not have my ears bleed the upper mids and high end is too much. On that note having to turn my volume up to 80dB just to get my subs barely moving is also a problem. The game feels like it's been engineered just like an EDM record which the majority of the music community feels are engineered poorly. They're full of mids, upper mids and high end yet have almost no low end harmonics at all. I have very well tuned ears, I've been training them for the last decade. You want us to do their job for them? It isn't hard to grab a good video of a Skyline GT-R and match it, or go to a car show and listen to one. Record it there. Just for reference. I'm about to prove it once I have igniter. I don't understand how you, of all these others, don't see much issue with how this thing is engineered. There are some very good examples of well done engineering and sound design so we know they're capable ( as I've also said repeatedly). We just want the rest fixed so that they're in line with the golden examples. How hard is that to understand?
You said something about proximity effect. How is that an issue inside the car where it doesn't get extremely loud ( in most cases ), and it should be very easy to capture a full range natural width spectrum of audio. I understand how this MIGHT be an issue outside the car, but the solution here is not to remove everything under 300hz. Whoever thought that was a good idea is definitely cutting corners. I'm of the mind that the studio doesn't have the best gear, and it's also not tuned very well. Prove me wrong. All my gear in my well tuned studio tell me this with a very loud voice. So loud that I can't deal with this game turned up much past 80dB. 85dB is the recommended level for mixing movies. I'm of the mind that games should also fall into this category. You are aware of industry practices are you not? Granted this changes based on room size, but it doesn't get much lower. Every single sound system I've played this on tells me the exact same thing the majority of the time. Engine volume too low, mostly coming out of the center channel, and every frequency above 2 - 300hz way too high, almost no sub movement. I've already shown that if the center channel is brought down a good 12 - 18dB on cars that feel too narrow that is a great improvement. Don't imagine that'd be too hard to do on the current material.
So if they're trying to fix it, why wasn't that said in the stream? Why did they make us feel like we're wrong, and they're right? Why did it feel like they were doing nothing but complaining about how hard it is? I took nothing else from that. I sincerely hope they prove me wrong and fix everything, I just don't have faith that they will at this point. This will change when I hear that the Skylines and Vipers get updated. Also the Dodge Hellcats and Demon. The sound isn't necessarily wrong, but it is definitely lacking everything under say 300hz. Increase the dynamic range, widen the image, and stop removing everything under 300hz. Also stop making the shifters so loud inside the car. Drop them a good 6db. Especially paddle shifters. Those make almost no sound. I know, I've used them. I drive a manual trans car, and my shifter makes nowhere near the amt of noise I hear these making. I also don't feel like any of the cars are as aggressive as they are in RL. Everything just feels a lil lazy.
I don't feel like we should have to do their research for them. I don't feel like we should have to do anything other than report what we hear on our sound systems. That's it. That's how I work. That's how most other engineers that I know personally work. We don't want our clients to tell us exactly how to fix their projects. If they can do that then they don't need an engineer.
I have already acknowledged that this game sounds better than 3. That's a fact. That doesn't mean it's right tho. Anyone with a set of ears and a decent sound system can hear that. Some of the sounds used aren't exactly correct for the cars they're attached to tho. That's the problem the majority of the community has with it. Are they not using reference material? I can find a reference video on Youtube for just about every car in this game. That's what I'd have open while working. Reference. They shouldn't be creating sounds for these cars, they should be matching them to the real thing as closely as possible. For that you need a reference. An audio recording or video of the car you're working on. If the game output doesn't match, it's wrong. Simple. Easy peasy.
T10 did a wonderful job with their recent FM7 updates. PG should follow suit, or get the FM7 material into FH4 and we should be informed of these things. A simple 'we're working on fixing these' would have sufficed. Instead we got 'here's what we did so we know they're correct' and the rest of the team just bigged him up.