Volume levels on new leaders is wrong.

[Cort Haus]

I was about to ask "Does anyone else find that the music for some of the new leaders in the diplo screen is too loud?", when I decided to check in an audio editor, and I will now confidently assert that it is too loud, relative to the levels of the original files.

I was alerted to the problem when meeting Hannibal late-at-night. Ouch. Waaay too loud relative to the rest of the music, and I had to turn all audio off just to play the game without disturbing people.

Soundforge proved my point. Most of the original files peak around -10 to -12db. Hannibal peaks at about -2db, and is visually far louder.

So it doesn't look like the original and new audio files were engineered to the same level. IMO the new files badly need compressing and normalising to a lower level, which is what I'm going to do to my version to make it listenable.

Examples of very high peaks include the big heavy drums that come in at around 30s on Brennus_Early.mp3, and the killer symbol crashes after 9s on Wangkon_Middle.mp3.

I compressed at a ratio of 4:1 at a threshold of -10db, with no gain compensation and that seems to put the peak levels down to something comparable with the vanilla levels. I'll see how it comes over in the game itself, but even with the harsh peaks flattened, it may need normalising downwards a couple of db.

[Cort Haus]

I was able to edit all but two files before the mp3 plugin on my sound editor expired, so that's all I can do for now. Hopefully this levels fault can be fixed in a patch.

(On a completely unrelated and subjective note, I have to say that from a personal aesthetic value-judgement, all the new diplo music except Mehmet's is completely awful, and a very unpleasant audio experience to my ears. I don't know what other people think.)

[Blaupanzer]

The new music is more attention-getting in performance, which I like but wouldn't say was "pleasant." I have not noticed a volume issue, however.

[Virdrago]

They are warlords. They want your attention.

On topic, I haven't noticed any volume issues, but I'm partially deaf, being a musician.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Virdrago
They are warlords. They want your attention.

On topic, I haven't noticed any volume issues, but I'm partially deaf, being a musician.

But I don't want them getting the attention of other householders.

If you have a wave editor that can load mp3, then compare the files in the Diplo folder of the Warlords audio to those of the pre-warlords leaders. You can see how much louder they are just by looking at the waveform.

The RMS levels of the new stuff when analysed was considerably higher than for the pre-Warlords files.

[Virdrago]

I'll check... I'll get back to you.

[Virdrago]

You're right, the new music is louder. I can't fix it personally, but maybe it can be done in the patch... I'm not very good computer literacy-wise.

[alexman]

It is relatively easy to adjust the volume of the diplomacy music for each leader in the game without changing the sound files.

All you have to do is change iMinVolume and iMaxVolume in Audio2DScripts.xml. Currently, all values are set at 75. What values would you suggest for the new leaders?

[Cort Haus]

Cheers, Alexman.

I'll try doing some tests with those two parameters.

[Dis]

or just kick out the people you live with.

Civ should be played in a deep, dark basement.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by alexman
It is relatively easy to adjust the volume of the diplomacy music for each leader in the game without changing the sound files.

All you have to do is change iMinVolume and iMaxVolume in Audio2DScripts.xml. Currently, all values are set at 75. What values would you suggest for the new leaders?

I had a go with changing the parameters, but it wasn't the easiest way to test volume levels, and I believe the issue is with the dynamic range, rather than just overall volume. If I turned the parameters low enough to bring the very loud bits down, quieter bits would be too quiet.

So adjusting these parameters is a work-around, imo, and as I said above, the full solution would be to re-engineer the mp3 files using a compressor to push down the peaks without dropping the quiet bits.

Anyway, so far, I think all Hannibal's files can come down to 55 (I set both params to this), as they are all-round loud everywhere. I also set Mehmet's files to 55, and also China1, China 2 and Wan Kong.

The others probably only want to come down to 65. However, despite spending some time on it, I wasn't fully confident enough that these values are best, and I need to have another session on it.

I set up the testbed using wordlbuilder, a bunch of spies, all the new civs, some old ones to compare - and adding techs by era to all civs to get the different files playing in diplo. I wasn't too experienced with WB and had some difficulty adding techs, so I wasn't always sure which file I was listening too.

What I can say with certainty is that the Great Wall wonder movie music is very loud. Are there params for the audio levels on that too, as I couldn't find any?

[Cort Haus]

I should add that if I had the .wav file version of the files I could remaster them to bring them into line, but I don't currently have the tools to do this for mp3's. Besides, it's best to edit the hifi version and then mp3 it rather than convert an mp3 back to a wave, edit it, and reconvert it again - which is too lossy.

PM me if you want to arrange an FTP for this, Alexman, and I'll do it.

[alexman]

Thanks Cort Haus! I think we'll just go with the XML workaround.

Also, unfortunately there is no easy way to adjust the volume of just one Wonder movie.

[Addled Platypus]

Originally posted by Virdrago
They are warlords. They want your attention.

...lol


no noise issue here