Telltale Games Forums - View Single Post - Hissing voice recordings once again *sigh*

KMFDMvsEnya · 03/17/2009, 05:34 pm

First I have a background in the film and though I am not an audio engineer I do have a fair amount of knowledge in regards to proper audio quality.

I just signed up specifically to chime into the big reason why all the dialog has a crackly, crispy, and distorted sound to it.
It is called audio clipping which occurs when the audio engineer mixes the audio level beyond the threshold, or rather the range. What you will hear then is distortion and when excessive with speech you will experience those annoying artifacts. Everyone has a strong digital lisp, painfully apparent with the neighbor lady.

Audio compression, different from mp3 compression, is another annoying attribute that is far too common in the game industry and notoriously in the music industry. Audio compression reduces dynamic range in order for the sound to be louder, when used properly it is an essential tool but these days it is excessively abused.

I enjoyed the demo from a visual and game play aspect but the poor mixing between the various audio elements is frustrating and should be addressed with separate volume levels. Why is the music mixed so much louder than the dialog?
Frankly it all sounded very lo-fi. I know the ogg format can deliver clean dynamic audio if that is what is provided. Heck a game from 1996, the Pandora Directive has cleaner dynamic audio than today's stuff.

This is not a driver or sound card issue, this is an originating audio engineering issue which is perpetuated by those who have lost some hearing and listen to low quality audio sources, such as todays modern music recordings and earbuds, on less capable audio systems.

Unfortuntately this is a big reason why I haven't purchased any of the second season of Sam & Max or even completed the first series because of these issues.
I know my equipment and it is not the highest end stuff in the world but it is more than adequate to reveal great recordings and accurately reproduce poor ones. Alas as far as the demo shows and S&M this is systemic to Telltale Games audio department and even worse is that so many people assume that crispy distortion equates to good sound.

I lament the good old days of Hi-Fi.

Best Regards
KvE

-Not affiliated with this site.
Check out this website to learn more about audio compression and audio clipping. There are additional articles in respects to these issues.
http://www.audioholics.com/education...rm=compression

PPS
Actually to disprove my observation someone should extract the dialog audio and examine it in an audio editing suite, please post some pics because it will be very telling.

03/17/2009, 05:34 pm	#18
KMFDMvsEnya Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 1	First I have a background in the film and though I am not an audio engineer I do have a fair amount of knowledge in regards to proper audio quality. I just signed up specifically to chime into the big reason why all the dialog has a crackly, crispy, and distorted sound to it. It is called audio clipping which occurs when the audio engineer mixes the audio level beyond the threshold, or rather the range. What you will hear then is distortion and when excessive with speech you will experience those annoying artifacts. Everyone has a strong digital lisp, painfully apparent with the neighbor lady. Audio compression, different from mp3 compression, is another annoying attribute that is far too common in the game industry and notoriously in the music industry. Audio compression reduces dynamic range in order for the sound to be louder, when used properly it is an essential tool but these days it is excessively abused. I enjoyed the demo from a visual and game play aspect but the poor mixing between the various audio elements is frustrating and should be addressed with separate volume levels. Why is the music mixed so much louder than the dialog? Frankly it all sounded very lo-fi. I know the ogg format can deliver clean dynamic audio if that is what is provided. Heck a game from 1996, the Pandora Directive has cleaner dynamic audio than today's stuff. This is not a driver or sound card issue, this is an originating audio engineering issue which is perpetuated by those who have lost some hearing and listen to low quality audio sources, such as todays modern music recordings and earbuds, on less capable audio systems. Unfortuntately this is a big reason why I haven't purchased any of the second season of Sam & Max or even completed the first series because of these issues. I know my equipment and it is not the highest end stuff in the world but it is more than adequate to reveal great recordings and accurately reproduce poor ones. Alas as far as the demo shows and S&M this is systemic to Telltale Games audio department and even worse is that so many people assume that crispy distortion equates to good sound. I lament the good old days of Hi-Fi. Best Regards KvE -Not affiliated with this site. Check out this website to learn more about audio compression and audio clipping. There are additional articles in respects to these issues. http://www.audioholics.com/education...rm=compression PPS Actually to disprove my observation someone should extract the dialog audio and examine it in an audio editing suite, please post some pics because it will be very telling. Last edited by KMFDMvsEnya; 03/17/2009 at 05:59 pm.