Perhaps a sound bug?

[Peaceful Joe]

First of all music and sound fx are always louder in battle than outside of battle. Second, occasionally certain sound effects will fade to lower volumes, especially when exiting and re-entering a area. Also, there are some sounds that stay muffled unless you have the in game audio set to higher numbers or maxed. It seems the only solution is to lower your volume on your headphones rather than in game and then just have the ingame volume set to 100 for both sound fx and music. That still doesn't solve the problem where battle music/sound is higher than the rest of the game.

Anybody else experiencing this?

[StockyBaldy]

I experienced that almost the same way like you. Apparently almost everyone who has ever played this game on PC has gotten at least one sound issue, my guess is that It's normally broken like that because FF7 wasn't meant for PC gameplay. The only way I found to "fix" it is to set audio within the game to 100 and 100 for both music and sound and then lower the volume on your PC to whatever feels right. It still will probably not sound correctly and might still be a little loud but hopefully it will work. And if that doesn't seem to work, then I would verify the game cache using RMB on FF7 through the steam menu, properties, and verify cache. If not even that perhaps a different audio system specifically for this game would work. If it still somehow persists then I would either search for a mod on the internet that could fix this problem.

In last resort I would try re-installing the game :/.
Good luck!

[Peaceful Joe]

Yeah I'm going to have the in game volume at max and turn down the volume for my gaming headphones. I don't like doing that because it feels like the sound has less punch, but final fantasy 7 doesn't have earth shattering sound to begin with anyways. I just want a consistent audio experience throughout my playthrough without worrying about the volume. Hopefully, ff 8 doesn't have the same issues.

[timpejohn45]

thanks bald man i'll give that a try if it don't work i'll guess i'll just have to live with it 7 is 1 of my favorite ff games