Sound Quality

[ThirdOnion 4,898]

Starting with the addition of Striker to the game, we've seen (or rather heard) quite a few new sounds added: those for Magnum, Rugby, supplies / overdrive, meteorites, and Juggernaut. Yet the quality of the majority of these new sounds seems much lower than that of the older ones to my ears. So, let's look at the spectrograms of some of the newer and older sounds to find out what the case is.

 

You can download most of the sounds in Tanki here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/e5wh2stfy8n1f9f/Tanki_Soundpack.zip?dl=0

 

First, some older sounds:

 

CP ally point capture:

 

 

 

 

 

Mine explosion:

 

 

 

 

 

Supply pickup:

 

 

 

 

 

Twins shot:

 

 

 

 

 

Tank engine at max speed:

 

 

 

 

 

Nothing out of the ordinary. Now let's look at some of the newer sounds:

 

Magnum minimum-power shot:

 

 

 

 

 

Juggernaut engine:

 

 

 

 

 

Meteorite explosion (from 2018 Cosmonaut's day event):

 

 

 

 

 

Rugby ball drop:

 

 

 

 

 

Striker shot:

 

 

 

 

 

Supply ready sound:

 

 

 

 

 

Notice that all of these sounds have practically no frequencies above 6 kHz, unlike the older sounds, which have a considerably larger frequency range. It is as though someone took some normal sounds and then indiscriminately applied a low pass filter to all of them. The question is, why? Doing so makes everything sound worse. Compare the sounds of RGB to those in CTF or CP. RGB quality sounds much worse. Compare the sound of a Striker or Magnum explosion to a tank explosion or mine explosion. The latter sound much better. Why is it that audio quality is seemingly intentionally going backwards? It's all very strange.

 

Admittedly, not all of the new sounds have a frequency cutoff at 6 kHz. Take the Juggernaut Railgun sound:

 

 

 

 

 

. . . or the sound of double damage being enabled:

 

 

 

 

 

Both of these sound fine in game, and unsurprisingly, have a normal frequency range. Juggernaut voice lines sound fine too. So why do the rest of the sounds have such a limited frequency range? Why is audio quality so inconsistent in this game?

 

Image gallery:

https://imgur.com/a/asF0HSP

Edited December 21, 2018 by ThirdOnion

[Maf 32,326]

Good point. Perhaps the sounds were made by different people who were given different guidelines? And maybe lower frequency sounds are faster to load and reduce the initial download time?

[Pyre 3,485]

Interesting.

[splitterpoint 10,986]

Striker's explosion literally sounds like a pirated MP3 file.

CP sounds are also out of wack, way too loud.

 

PLIUEEEEENGHETHTEHTTEHTENG

Edited December 20, 2018 by splitterpoint

[GorgoBlesk 831]

Tanki devs should just remake all shooting and exploding sounds like War Thunder devs did few times.

[Hancho 3,902]

Is it me or I just haven't played with the sound on for at least 2 years now? I play better in silence. 

[Maf 32,326]

Is it me or I just haven't played with the sound on for at least 2 years now? I play better in silence. 

That's odd. For me it's the exact opposite - sounds are extremely helpful and I rely on them a lot to play effectively, such as shooting my Magnum when I hear the reload, knowing when there's shots nearby behind a wall, when the flag is being taken, or when someone is driving behind me.

[DieselPlatinum 5,121]

Is it me or I just haven't played with the sound on for at least 2 years now? I play better in silence.

 

 

 

 

That's odd. For me it's the exact opposite - sounds are extremely helpful and I rely on them a lot to play effectively, such as shooting my Magnum when I hear the reload, knowing when there's shots nearby behind a wall, when the flag is being taken, or when someone is driving behind me.

Maybe for some players all the sounds in the battle are a lot of information to process. No I'm not calling those players stupid. I'm just saying that some just want to play the game and blow things up without needing to worry about who's near them or what's shooting at them.

 

It just depends on the player.

[Hancho 3,902]

I have always been playing Tanki without any sounds on. The silence gives me smooth game-play. Of course, there are more reflexes required in battles with no sound on but my reflexes are really good since I always end up first in battles. 

 

I even used to play CSGO without any sound on, always used to mute team mates so I don't hear them through the mic. Somehow I play better without any sound/music in the background.