Sound issues...

[Varius Mayhem]

Does anyone know a solution to turn up or down the volumes of music/sounds/voices? Some voices simply go down as the sounds and music overwhelm them.

[motorsep]

For once, there is no music in Doom 3. Sound volume is set via game's System menu.

[Varius Mayhem]

Call it ambient sounds for all I care, and the sound volume is only the master volume. But I want the voice volume up and sound and ambient sound volume down.

[Rockhead Gaz]

Originally posted by motorsep:

For once, there is no music in Doom 3. Sound volume is set via game's System menu.

Since when is there no music in Doom 3? Just because it's dischordant and unconventional doesn't mean it isn't music. There's a very clear difference in Doom 3 between the ambient noise and the music, and without either, the game's atmosphere would suffer.

In response to the OP, sorry to say that character speech being drowned out by background noise and music has always been an issue Doom 3 has suffered, and as far as I know, there's no way to fix it.

[motorsep]

Originally posted by Rockhead Gaz:

Since when is there no music in Doom 3? Just because it's dischordant and unconventional doesn't mean it isn't music. There's a very clear difference in Doom 3 between the ambient noise and the music, and without either, the game's atmosphere would suffer.

Doom 3 never had any music. You are confusing Doom 3 and Quake. Quake had music track that seemed more like a collection of ambient sounds. Doom 3 on contrary has no music tracks what so ever. Only menu has a theme track. Game's levels have a ton of ambient sound effects which keep your ears busy.

[Rockhead Gaz]

Originally posted by motorsep:

Originally posted by Rockhead Gaz:

Since when is there no music in Doom 3? Just because it's dischordant and unconventional doesn't mean it isn't music. There's a very clear difference in Doom 3 between the ambient noise and the music, and without either, the game's atmosphere would suffer.

Doom 3 never had any music. You are confusing Doom 3 and Quake. Quake had music track that seemed more like a collection of ambient sounds. Doom 3 on contrary has no music tracks what so ever. Only menu has a theme track. Game's levels have a ton of ambient sound effects which keep your ears busy.

I'm not confusing Doom 3 and anything. Seems you're the one confused, between what constitutes music, and what constitutes environmental sound effects. There's definitely music in Doom 3, even though it's few and far between and much of it is just a looped sound effect or small collection of looped sound effects. It's still mostly distinguishable from background or environmental sound effects

Example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO_M16ue8vg

Listen carefully from about 8:20 onwards, that's definitely music, and not environmental sound effects. It's the most prominent example I can think of in the game, but there are a few others.

[Varius Mayhem]

Originally posted by Rockhead Gaz:

Originally posted by motorsep:

For once, there is no music in Doom 3. Sound volume is set via game's System menu.

Since when is there no music in Doom 3? Just because it's dischordant and unconventional doesn't mean it isn't music. There's a very clear difference in Doom 3 between the ambient noise and the music, and without either, the game's atmosphere would suffer.

In response to the OP, sorry to say that character speech being drowned out by background noise and music has always been an issue Doom 3 has suffered, and as far as I know, there's no way to fix it.

Well I played both Doom 3 and Doom 3 BFG Edition. While the english version also slightly suffered if one was fighting when Sgt. Kelly was giving orders, it was bearable. Now with BFG Edition and german voice acting, it is a nightmare since voice, sound and ambient music seem to be on full volume at once. And a brief Google search turns out that this is a flaw to many gamers out there.

Maybe over the console...

[motorsep]

Originally posted by Varius Mayhem:

Well I played both Doom 3 and Doom 3 BFG Edition. While the english version also slightly suffered if one was fighting when Sgt. Kelly was giving orders, it was bearable. Now with BFG Edition and german voice acting, it is a nightmare since voice, sound and ambient music seem to be on full volume at once. And a brief Google search turns out that this is a flaw to many gamers out there.

Maybe over the console...

I checked out console cmds, nothing there to separately tune volume :/

The way sounds are handled in Doom 3 / BFG is via sound shaders. So individual sounds can have different volume and that can be tweaked as development goes on. When they did localization, I bet they didn't take that into consideration.

I also wonder if there is a way to setup speakers vs 5.1 sound. I recall having set 5.1 sound on stereo speakers will result in sound issues.

Try s_ (type that and hit Tab) cvars in the console.

[motorsep]

Originally posted by Rockhead Gaz:

Listen carefully from about 8:20 onwards, that's definitely music, and not environmental sound effects. It's the most prominent example I can think of in the game, but there are a few others.

There is no music in the game, period. If you don't understand what music tracks are and what environmental sounds are, then go dig Google.

[Rockhead Gaz]

Originally posted by motorsep:

Originally posted by Rockhead Gaz:

Listen carefully from about 8:20 onwards, that's definitely music, and not environmental sound effects. It's the most prominent example I can think of in the game, but there are a few others.

There is no music in the game, period. If you don't understand what music tracks are and what environmental sounds are, then go dig Google.

Those are not environmental sounds. Environmental sounds are sound effects originating from objects or living beings in the environment. The video I posted clearly demonstrated a musical loop being played at a key point for atmospheric purposes. Music doesn't have to be orchestrated or conventional to still be considered music. It can be discordant. It can be a sound sample looped (as is the case here, mostly). It can incorporate recorded speech, sound effects and any other manner of designed sound. It seems you're the one who doesn't understand the difference between sound and music, whether it be ambient or otherwise. As a musician, I understand perfectly well the difference between sound effects, whose purpose is to fill the environment with expected noise with the purpose of creating a believable atmosphere, and music, whose purpose is to enhance an atmosphere or provoke an emotional response, fear being the example in the video I posted.

Again, it seems you are the one who doesn't understand the difference.

[motorsep]

Originally posted by Rockhead Gaz:

As a musician, I understand perfectly well the difference between sound effects, whose purpose is to fill the environment with expected noise with the purpose of creating a believable atmosphere, and music, whose purpose is to enhance an atmosphere or provoke an emotional response, fear being the example in the video I posted.

Of course, Mr. Know-it-All. But the guy who actually did sound work for Doom 3 said otherwise:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2004/07/30/chris-vrenna-talks-doom-3

There is no music, except theme.

[Rockhead Gaz]

I'm going to quote from that article:

"Chris Vrenna: Yeah, but it's not even that. They're just like little mini-loops or phrases, weird little things to be dropped in here and there. They didn't really want to go that traditional route. Last when I saw it there would be small, little musical things, more like little sound design snippets based more in musical stuff".

Non-traditional or unconventional music is still music. In this case, it's simply unstructured music made up, mostly, of sound loops. But much of it doesn't originate in the context of the game's setting, and therefore, is music.

[motorsep]

Whatever you say.... Play other games which feature traditional music tracks. That's music. We can operate technical terms here, but at the end of the game there is no music in Doom 3 from consumer's point of view.

From technology point of view there is no music either because all those non-traditional loops and sample treated as ambient sounds by idTech 4. Therefore you don't get a slider to regulate volume of those non-traditional music loops.

John Carmack said Doom 3 has no music (dig up an interview).

So no, Doom 3 has no music as people understand word "music" in traditional sense, which means Doom 3 has no music.

[Rockhead Gaz]

Originally posted by motorsep:

Whatever you say.... Play other games which feature traditional music tracks. That's music. We can operate technical terms here, but at the end of the game there is no music in Doom 3 from consumer's point of view.

Listen to heavy metal music. That's music, so therefore nothing else counts as music. This argument is severely flawed. Music can fit into many different genres, just because most games implement traditional, orchestrated musical scores, doesn't mean that other musical implementations are invalid, or "not music".

Originally posted by motorsep:

From technology point of view there is no music either because all those non-traditional loops and sample treated as ambient sounds by idTech 4. Therefore you don't get a slider to regulate volume of those non-traditional music loops.

The technical implementation of it is irrelevant. These sound loops may never even have been designed as music. But their implementation, from an artistic point-of-view is very much musical. And that implementation is purely down to the game's designers. Not the technical designers, or even the sound designer.

Originally posted by motorsep:

John Carmack said Doom 3 has no music (dig up an interview).

So no, Doom 3 has no music as people understand word "music" in traditional sense, which means Doom 3 has no music.

John Carmack didn't design the game. He's responsible for the technical implementation. Until the person responsible for the artistic implementation of sound in the game says there's no music, I still stand by my argument.

And exactly how do people understand the word music in the traditional sense? The same way you do? Or the same way I do? Is that question even answerable? No, it isn't, so, again, I stand by my viewpoint.

[motorsep]

That is exactly that - your opinion. Everyone is entitled to have one :)

[Varius Mayhem]

Folks, ease down... This thread is not about the discussion whether or not D3 has music or not, it is about finding a solution to a problem. There are ambient tracks in this game that wouldn't count as music such as this, but to say the game is without music isn't right as well because of these ambient tracks

It is safe to say you're both wrong and right.

However, as mentioned, this thread is about finding a solution and it seems the devs are right now the only ones who could deliver one. Just my luck, it spoils the game to have such poor audio quality.