Sound design in Assetto Corsa

[BanjoMaster]

Hi, first post here, so be gentle ;-)
I’m watching AC’s development with extremely high interest. I’ve never had the opportunity to experience NK or FVA first hand, but other people’s opinions are high enough to convince me that AC will be the benchmark for all sims going forward.
My specific question – and forgive me if this has already been covered here or elsewhere, but I didn’t see anything specific on my trawl – is what are Kunos’ plans for sound design in the software. So far, it looks like most other boxes have been ticked; graphics look amazing, handling is unlikely to be anything less than spot on, online and offline racing is being tackled, and the game is to be moddable from the start. So far, so very good. But I haven’t seen that much from Kunos on sound, apart from the sounds we heard in the videos to date were placeholders, and that sitting above the pits at Vallelunga all day serves a fairly up-front reminder that it’s been a neglected aspect of racing sims up to this point.
I’m not a programmer or anything, but I know enough about it to realise that modelling sound anywhere near real life is probably very difficult and resource hungry, but are we anywhere near a stage where we can incorporate realistic behaviour such as in this vid (Monza, appropriately):

I don’t know the technical terms enough to try and use them without mixing them up and confusing people, but it should be immediately obvious what I mean; the echoes off the trees and barriers, the backfiring on the over-run and on the gear change, and (probably the most difficult but perhaps the most important effect) the way the sound ‘carries’ and ‘floats’ as the car storms off round the Curva Grande. Is this possible? Is it feasible?
Another aspect that I’ve never seen captured is the difference in engine note from different ends of the car; the huge differences between induction and exhaust noise, suitably demonstrated by this vid of the Merc SLS GT3:

Again, it’s fairly obvious what I’m talking about. The induction noise of the car coming towards you couldn’t be any more different to the exhaust noise (if you can even call it a ‘noise’. Perhaps ‘force’ would be a better description :-D ) Again, I’ve no idea how difficult it would be to model on a scale that could be used in a simulation, but I’m asking the question anyway: Is it possible? Is it feasible?
If graphics are scaleable for different system levels, why can’t we do the same for sound if resources are an issue?
As more than a few people have noted, sound is often the most neglected aspect of racing sims. I’ve heard the samples Simbin put out as GTR3 teasers, and they were definitely a step in the right direction, assuming they hadn’t been enhanced post-production. I’m not convinced we’ll ever see GTR3 though, and AC has already captured a lot of attention from a lot of fans. If AC get the sound right, I doubt I and a lot of other people will need to go looking elsewhere for a while.
Cheers

 

[Xzess]

I have to say, I know a bit about sound and this is what I have to say about AC sounds for know, and maybe clear things about it.
First to say is that i don't know really well how AC handles sounds, but first impresions are that it's similar to rfactor, short samples, blend and pitch RPM based, plus various FX as road surface, chasis sounds, backfires etc... that are triggered when neccesary.

I have done very little research but this is my oppinion about it.
My thought about the engine is that it needs some fine tunning, pitch bend is not correct, things like downshift or upshift are not blending ok. Sounds are low/high pitched when they have to change sample, as result "vacuum" effect is clearly audible. To solve this problem they can add some extra sample for shifts, or tweak sample selection when shifting up or down. FX are triggered ok and they sound good as thery are, they have good quality. I have only say that i think some more FX trigger events added will do a richer mix.

But the worst think i have saw is quality and processing of the samples used in game are very bad, they have done a bad work in this area, they seem to be placeholders.
I have done some sample analisys with 458 interior sounds, and I have to say:
- Samples are recorded in a ver bad bad way
- Samples have a clearly high frecuency cut, I think to erase sample noise, this erase lots of sound detail.
- Some samples have no dynamic at all some they have but very poor, some they digitally clip by tons of DBs some are limited at -0.1 DBs crunchy ones.
- Every sample has lots of extra noise, not engine or cockpit related, but from bad recording.
- They aren't normaliced at same DB level.

Looks that they don't know what they do with sampling or they didn't recorded anything ok. They look as placeholders, it's not a good work for a sound engineer. In the other hand, sound FXs as chassisFX or roadFX, are well sampled, they have good dynamic and frecuency, they are in a good quality level, very far from engine sound.

But my conclusion is that with good sampling or modders out there, with pitch correction solved, and some extra FX AC will sound great, it has the potential, as RF with some extra FX. It's a beta, we can expect Kunos to do it better, but for now it has bad engine sound, and some programming tweaks to do.

 

[Tobias Kluge]

..
First to say is that i don't know really well how AC handles sounds, but first impresions are that it's similar to rfactor, short samples, blend and pitch RPM based, plus various FX as road surface, chasis sounds, backfires etc... that are triggered when neccesary.

After looking into the sound ini files a few weeks back, it seems to be that way. Some cars have only very few engine sound samples, so the gaps (>greater than 1500rpm on some models) to blend for the AC sound engine are very big, resulting in a very synthetic engine note while reving.
Some cars have engine samples which aren't used in the ini files. I hope this get's fixed or they license a sound generator software like this, to make better and more engine sound samples.