The online racing simulator
GTR engine noise
(12 posts, started )
GTR engine noise
oooh! it hurts your ears, especially the high pitched tone at full revs, like a heart monitor on speed.

Really when my wifes in bed and I'm wearing headphones it actually hurts, even on low volume, maybe its just my soundcard or whatever, but other online racers tended to agree.

It's at the point where I can no longer drive these vehicles due to the engine noise sound which is a pity.

I am not a sound engineer, nor pragrammer, but surely it can't be too complicated to ammend the sounds down a decibel or two....please, because I really like the GTR cars but the noise is driving me insane.
While in the offending car, Press Shift+A. in the menu that pops up, turn down the gear whine to suit your liking. Make sure you save (give it a unique name just in case, too)

Do this for any offending cars
Yes, it's probably the gear whine, and no it's not wrong, it's normal. The M3 GTR that you have in your avatar has that noise, and it's probably even louder than anything we have in LFS :P

As Maggot said, it's possible to adjust that in the SHIFT+A panel.
#4 - bbman
Thanks guys,

I didn't even realise that shift A existed .
Some of you need to realise that gear whine doesn't sound like that at all in real life. The problem is recording it using conventional recording methods (single mic picking up all interior noise). People that have been to F1 or LMS events know this best. An F1 car does NOT sound like it does on TV. It's not even close.

However, implementing the correct sound into a game is quite unrealistic considering how much time would have to be spent on it. Even then, there's only so much you can get out of stereo headphones or even 5.1 speakers.

My suggestion has always been to make the sounds suitable for the game rather then attempt to make it "realistic". This was accomplished for the most part in patch V but W came with the horrible new sound and to me, the game hasn't felt the same since. I just wish someone would figure out a way to add sound-mods to the new system. (Shift+A doesn't cut it IMO but it's a start)
Quote from gohfeld23 :Some of you need to realise that gear whine doesn't sound like that at all in real life. The problem is recording it using conventional recording methods (single mic picking up all interior noise). People that have been to F1 or LMS events know this best. An F1 car does NOT sound like it does on TV. It's not even close.

I am not a sound engineer so this may be wrong but - Surely if a microphone is placed within the cabin of a car and the sound recorded (assuming not interfernce) then this would be the sound the driver would hear. So in the case of the bmw, for example, the driver would hear the gear whine, engine noise etc. Though it would obviously be quieter due to ear plugs and helmet.
Quote from Greboth :Though it would obviously be quieter due to ear plugs and helmet.

Wait, you don't wear earplugs and a helmet when playing LFS
Neither does your mother because she would become deaf then.
Quote from Greboth :I am not a sound engineer so this may be wrong but - Surely if a microphone is placed within the cabin of a car and the sound recorded (assuming not interfernce) then this would be the sound the driver would hear. So in the case of the bmw, for example, the driver would hear the gear whine, engine noise etc. Though it would obviously be quieter due to ear plugs and helmet.

Not quite, sadly.
Conventional mics obviously have limits in terms of what they can pick up range wise (I'm not talking about professional audio equipment here set up by a sound engineer) and the nature of sound itself makes it very hard to simulate it, especially when recorded using a singular input device (one mic inside the cabin)

Here's an example everyone should be familiar with.
Watch a vid on youtube or a home vid of your favorite rock/metal band during a performance (one you have seen live in concert) and compare it to the live thing.
On the single mic recording, you will hear only a very narrow range of tones and anything bellow or above that range turns into painful white noise.
A CD/Track recording is done with a mic and a channel for every sound source independently so this mostly fixes the issue (yet it's not even close to perfect). So the closest way to translate this into a car noise recording is to place independent mics into each of the important sound sources (exhaust, engine compartment, etc) and tune & mix them afterwards.

And that's just the input problem.
Output problem is just the same.
As sound is 3 dimensional, and your brain expects it as such, 2 or even 5 speakers ain't gonna cut it. In theory, you would need at least 6 speakers for EACH sound source to simulate this (front, back, left, right, top, bottom respectively).

Another problem is how your ears receive and you brain interprets noise.
Here's an every day example.
Why do you hold your phone to one preferred ear and why does it sound all weird when you hold it on the other?
Well, your ears are tuned differently. One is responsible for lower and the other for higher range noise. Receiving the "wrong" range for one particular ear makes the sound muffled and muddy.
You get the idea

As you can see, this is too much bloody work for a "simple" racing sim (or anything for that matter).
However, there's plenty ways to cheat. There's a great range that we as humans will deem acceptable and will have no problems interpreting and that can be simulated very well.
It's as simple as tweaking the sound to what it "might" sound in real life rather then outputting the mic recording itself.
This has been done very well in GT4 for example (GT4 hater, please don't flame).
What needs to be done is removing some of the mid-range noise and compressing highs and lows into the range. This allows your brain to hear the "cool" stuff such as the rumble and the pitch without making your ears bleed with white noise.

Hence why I'm up for LFS sound being suitable rather then youtube BMW correct.

Hope this explains it a bit better.
Sorry for the long post people.
Quote from gohfeld23 :...

Ah well, learn something new everyday
Will keep this in mind and will be interesting to see how lfs sound develops.

GTR engine noise
(12 posts, started )
FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG