Master Audio - AAA Sound Solution. #1 audio plugin on Asset Store!

prepurchase question.

My game involves needing to play the same sound from multiple different items at the same time.

The player places blocks which do things. Like a pusher block that extends out an arm to push the block next to it. When it does so it plays its arm extending sound. But there could be numerous pusher blocks placed around that are all extending their arm at the same time so you can have the same sound coming from several locations at the same time (actions are synchronised, so every block acts and plays its sound at the same time, the start of each sound is not spread out).

At the moment i'm just using a simple free sound manager which is fine when there's only one or 2 but starts getting glitchy when several are placed next to each other.

Would master audio be able to handle doing this sort of thing more gracefully (playing the same sound from several sources at once) out of the box?

 

yes. and you will place a limit on how many can play at the same time. the default max is 1 but you adjust to whatever you need.

 

I have a sound question that may be a unity limitation. Clean recordings played in the Unity editor sound as if reverb has been added, yet I use none. I can play just the sound file. Clean. Play the same sound in the unity editor via a unity audio source and I hear reverb. Do you know what this is? I own master audio, but have not brought it into the project yet. Can master audio fix this?

 

It must be in a reverb zone or something causing that.

Master Audio won't fix it because we just use Unity audio entirely under the covers. We just make it manageable and trackable and "no code needed". It won't change functionality or bugs.

 

Solved: One of the assets in my project placed an Audio Reverb Filter on my main camera.

 

Aha! Yeah I figured it was something.

 

Hi there,

I'm trying to subscribe to the 'SongChanged' custom event. When I implement the 'ICustomEventReceiver' interface, I don't see any way to specify what parameters I want sent to the message receiver (it seems RecieveEvent just takes the customEventName and the transform position). In the documentation it mentions 'A MusicSetting object containing everything about the song is passed to the SongChanged event handler', but I can't figure out how to wire anything up to the SongChanged event which allows the MusicSetting object to be passed in.

Any advice on how this is meant to work?

Edit - I figured most of it out. Geez isn't that always the way, spend hours trying to solve it, then make a post and figure it out within the next 5 minutes. Turns out it's not the custom events which the docs refer to, but PLAYLIST events that have the answer, a bit confusing: http://www.dtdevtools.com/docs/masteraudio/TriggeringAudioCoding.htm#PlaylistEvents. However it passes in a string of the song name instead of the MusicSetting object the docs refer too, so I'm not sure what's going on there.

Edit Edit - The docs are a bit out of date there is seems, the new method signature does indeed pass in the MusicSetting object! Well we got there in the end.

 

Ok, now please let me know which docs are out of date for what, because I try my best to make sure everything is always up to date, including the API and the documentation website. Is it the picture on that linked page above? Looks like it. I just updated it to show both parameters. The API page looks correct: http://www.dtdevtools.com/API/maste...roller.html#a847a3695b9d70fb513778f82556bab75

Sorry about that.

And do let me know which parts were confusing so I can go read it again a couple times and hopefully fix the docs for future users!

-Brian

 

Thanks for looking into that, the API looks correct now. I hope my post didn't come off as negative towards master audio. The support you put into this asset is absolute platinum tier!

The bit I found confusing was in the docs when it mentions:

So if you click on the PlaylistController in the Unity hierarchy you see all the custom events at the bottom like "Initialized Event", "Song Changed Event", which then let you type in a custom event name. This made me assume then that I must have to hook up a custom event somewhere, so I went to the custom event docs and that's where I got lost.

Having a link in that quote that goes to the Playlist Events page (ie, the delegate type) so that people don't get it confused with custom event type might help.

Thanks again Brian.

 

I have some questions about can I add a new variation to a group via script?

 

Hi There,

Can I add a new variation to a group via script?

 

Hi. We have a fairly big project and its taking a long time to enter play mode.
After some profiling I found "AudioScriptOrderManager.cs" to be taking up to 0.4s sometimes.
While I can read the code and try to speculate at what does it do. I figured I will just comment the static constructor out and it seems to have done nothing to break the sound of our game.
Is this script really nesessary?

 

Sorry, I didn't get any notifications this time of replies to my thread. Emailing us at the support email or our official support forum is better because I always check those daily.

You can add a new Variation by calling the following method:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. MasterAudio.CreateGroupVariationFromClip
3.  

 

Sorry, I didn't get any notifications this time of replies to my thread. Emailing us at the support email or our official support forum I always check daily.

Yes the script is necessary. It may have already ran its static code once and perhaps that's all that needed. That is used to basically put certain Master Audio scripts in the correct Script Execution Order without every user having to go manually configure that. For certain cases they need to execute in the correct order or you will get errors.

However, I found a way to make it not execute when you press play. Add this if statement to the top of the static constructor. Then it will only execute when you open Unity.

Code (csharp):

1.  
2.         static AudioScriptOrderManager()
3.         {
4.             if (EditorApplication.isPlayingOrWillChangePlaymode)
5.             {
6.                 return;
7.             }
8.  
9.  

 

I have drawn up a decision tree for what happens when you tell Master Audio to play a Sound effect. It can now be viewed on the Troubleshooting and Diagnostics page of the documentation and I'm putting it right here in this post as well. There is a huge update for Master Audio coming this week, just finishing up the documentation. Stay tuned!

 

Hey, I'm trying to get my audio to fade out nicely so I'm using FadeToVolume(0f, 1f) and I have "zero volume causes stop" enabled in settings. But it doesnt work for looped clips?

 

It happens at the end of the fade so it should work. Are you saying it works only if you turn off loop?

 

Hello Guys! Is it okay to use this plugin for more than 200 audio clips? I means will it cause performance issues?

 

You can use as many as you'd like. The Master Audio Inspector may get a little laggy having to render that many. Please read the Best Practices and Audio Memory Allocations page on the online documentation for memory management tips. They are linked at the bottom of this page:
http://www.dtdevtools.com/docs/masteraudio/TOC.htm

Also, know that Unity can only play 32 Audio Clips at the same time, it will mute the rest.

 

V 4.3.2 changelog. HUGE update!

• Breaking Change: Removed "Stop Oldest" checkbox for the Bus. Instead there is a "Voices Exceeded Behavior" dropdown there to choose "Do Not Play New Sound" or "Stop Oldest Sound". This dropdown appears when you set a voice limit for the Bus. If you had previously set "Stop Oldest" checkbox, you will need to select "Stop Oldest Sound" from the dropdown now to get it to work the same as before.
• Breaking change: FadeOutNow method on SoundGroupVariation is renamed to FadeOutNowAndStop, because it does stop at the end, always has. If your scripts call this, you will need to update your call to the new method name.
• Fixed bug: Single song playlist that loops with Preload Audio Data turned off would loop just the crossfade section endlessly.
• Fixed bug: Sound Groups limited by "Limit Polyphony" option can now find a Variation to play using Retrigger Percentage, if one exists that satisfies that.
• Fixed bug: Bus "stop oldest / farthest" sometimes stopped a voice and not end up playing a new one.
• Fixed bug: Bus "stop oldest / farthest" sometimes wouldn't play a new one when maxed out on voices.
• Fixed bug: Playing a voice with Retrigger Percentage would also stop the oldest voice when not necessary.
• Fixed bug: Bus voice limit requires an additional variation to exist for the group to play a new voice even when Bus Stop Voice Fade Time is 0 (i.e. you had to have 3 group voices with bus voice limit 2).
• Fixed bug: AudioScriptOrderManager was executing every time you press play. Now it only executes when you open Unity.
• Fixed bug: A a song that was fast-forwarded by code would then start that song next time in the fast-forwarded spot. Now goes back to zero.
• Made music unducking start instantly if the Variation that triggered the music ducking gets paused or stopped.
• Added help text to property drawers to let you know if Master Audio game object is not in the Scene.
• Added new option for Voices Exceeded Behavior for the Bus: Stop Farthest Sound. If you select that, the sound playing the furthest away from the Audio Listener will be stopped to play the new sound.
• Added new option for Voices Exceeded Behavior for the Bus: Stop Least Important Sound. If you select that, each Sound Group will have an Importance and Uninterruptible control. The Importance control you can see on the mixer if you turn it on with "Show Group Importance" and you can also see both on the Sound Group's Inspector. Importance and Uninterruptible work the same here as on Variations. If your bus is at max voices and you try to play a new sound, Master Audio will try and locate a sound that's not Uninterruptible and of lesser or equal Importance to stop. If it can't find one, the new sound won't play.
• Added "Group Play Rule" to Mixer section. Choices are "Always" (default), "When Actor In Audible Range", and "Allow Different Per Group". This is only visible if your Group Spatial Blend Rule is not "Force All to 2D" because the audible range part requires 3D Audio Sources to pull the Max Distance value from. If you choose "When Actor In Audible Range", the Sound Group will only play if the Actor is within audible range, based on the Max Distance of the Audio Source.
• Added a red error box if you haven't made a prefab out of the Master Audio prefabs. To tell you what to do so you don't get your settings overridden (make your own prefab).
• Added an overload to AddSongToPlaylist that takes a MusicSetting object, so you can use that with all the properties you want.
• Added StartPlaylistOnClip method to load a playlist and start playing a certain song.
• Added optional callback arguments to the Fade methods on SoundGroupVariation.
• Added "ClipLength" variable to Playmaker Custom Action "Playlist Controller Get Props".
• Adding a song to a Playlist via code now populates the default song metadata into the song.
• Added an option under Gapless Music Switching for "Auto-Reschedule". It will fix gapless even if you skip around in the track. It only works perfectly with pitch of 1 and sample rate of 48,000 or above. You can override your sample rate to 48,000 for it to work, and that even works on compressed files.
• Added 2 new events to Event Sounds script: Code-Triggered Event 1 & 2. These can be called from code or used in events in the Animation Window by entering the method name (ActivateCodeTriggeredEvent1, ActivateCodeTriggeredEvent2).
• Renamed "Show Range Gizmo" in Event Sounds to "Adjust Audio Range". Now only shows if you have a Sound Group selected to play.
• Changed "Bus Stop Oldest Fade Time" in Advanced Settings to "Bus Stop Voice Fade Time".
• Added Min Distance to range adjustment for Event Sounds, shown by toggling on "Adjust Audio Range".
• Added new controls for Dialog Sound Groups: Importance slider (0-10), which you can set importance for Variations. Only Variations of equal or higher importance than the current playing Variation can interrupt it.
• Added new controls for Dialog Sound Groups: Is Uninterruptible. Check this to hide the Importance slider and this Variation can never be interrupted by another.
• Added Video Player support for Master Audio. Video Players have their own special Sound Group created when you drag them into the Video Players section in Master Audio. Requires Unity 2019.3+.

 

V 2020.3.3 changelog:

• Changed the major version number to the year.
• Fixed bug: Max Pos. Recalcs Per Frame setting in Advanced Settings for Ambient Sound didn't respect your setting.
• Added display of Active Ambient Sound Scripts at runtime under Ambient Sound Settings in Advanced Settings.

 

Hi,

About Music Ducking issue.
I set the Master Playlist Volume to 0.12

On version 4.3.1
After sound play end, music ducking will return Master Playlist Volume to 0.12
But after upgrade to 2020.3.3.
After sound play end, music ducking will return Master Playlist Volume to 1.0

Do I need additional settings?

 

I will try and take a look at this in the next day or 2 and report back. Thanks.

 

Yes, reproduced this bug and fixed it. The ducking refactor in the last version broke this. To fix it, open up PlaylistController.cs and add this code to the switch statement at line 1965. The if statement is needed to add here.

Code (csharp):

1.  
2.                 case AudioDuckingMode.Unducking:
3.                     _activeAudio.volume = _initialDuckVolume +
4.                                           (Time.realtimeSinceStartup - _timeToStartUnducking) /
5.                                           (_timeToFinishUnducking - _timeToStartUnducking) * _duckRange;
6.                     if (Time.realtimeSinceStartup >= _timeToFinishUnducking)
7.                     {
8.                         _activeAudio.volume = _originalMusicVolume;
9.                         ResetDuckingState();
10.                     }
11.                     break;
12.  

 

@jerotas I recently switched my project over to using Addressables and changed all of my AudioClips to use Addressables and to be loaded via Addressables in Master Audio. For some reason during gameplay I start to get some of these errors produced by Master Audio:

Followed by:

Any thoughts on what might be the issue here? I'm running MasterAudio V 2020.3.3

 

Negative, we haven't actually started using Addressables in our company. I just did some simple Addressable tutorials to make the functionality, although it took several weeks. You may need to send me an example package that reproduces the issue. The easiest would be to modify one of the included Example Scenes.

You can also send me a full stack trace with line numbers and I can attempt to spot a coding error.

Thanks,
-Brian

 

Okay, finally got the error to happen again @jerotas , it can take a while of letting my game run before it occurs. Here's the full stack traces:

It's interesting as the error seems to only happen on the specific Sound I'm requesting to play of "Giblet_Splat", each time the errors appears it comes from that same event. I checked the Sounds group for "Giblet_Splat" and don't see anything wrong with it....

 

Sorry but that stack trace doesn't help because it doesn't contain line numbers from the Master Audio code. Are you running on device or in Unity? If it's device, you may need to select "development build" to get line numbers or something.

 

Sorry, those are on device logs. I'll try to reproduce in editor and see if I can get line numbers.

 

ok. development build might do that on device.

 

Hm, I guess this error have to do with change to how LoadAssetAsync works when called from AssetReference. Previously you could call it as many times as you wanted, now AssetReference seem to be holding on to handle and not allowing to be loaded more then once.
More to read in post bellow. Might want to scroll down in post and read response from unity_bill where he explains more about how it works.
https://forum.unity.com/threads/1-15-1-assetreference-not-allow-loadassetasync-twice.959910/

PS.
I belive simpel fix is just to replace loading to not use AssetReference method, like so.

That way you will be able to run it as many times as you want and code bellow in lock will take care of releasing not needed handles.

 

Wow thanks so much @Ghetaldus ! I'll take a look at that thread.

 

Either let me know how to reproduce the error so I can try the fix, or go ahead and modify AudioAddressableOptimizer.cs with the fix above (the code is only in 1 or 2 places) and let me know if it fixes the issue.

Thanks.

 

I was only able to reproduce with a single audio clip for some reason so I decided to just remove it as I couldn't get a stack trace with line numbers. (I'm testing on Switch with il2cpp so that strips out all that stuff).

You should read through that forum post if you haven't @jerotas so your handling of Addressables is correct for all Master Audio users. I'll modify AudioAddressableOptimizer.cs myself for now.

 

Sorry to bother @jerotas but I also am using Pool Boss with Addressables.... Is there any obvious code you could point me to so I could fix Addressable loading for that plugin as well?

 

It's going to be exactly the same sort of thing. If it fixes it in one it will be identical in the other. I will try and reproduce (and then fix) this when I have time. What version of Unity are you using and how do I reproduce it?

 

Unity 2020.1.7f1 with Addressables 1.8.5. Besides the error I was seeing it sounds like you'd want to make the change suggested by @Ghetaldus just for memory sake. Otherwise I think every time that code is run there's a big memory leak over time.

 

I will be taking a look. Let me know anything you find, or the fix if you get to it before me.

 

Hello there, apologies for the silly question but I haven't been able to find the answer in the doc: I want to take advantage of 3D sound spatialization but how do I tell MasterAudio from where my sound is played? Like for example: how can I play the Gunshot sound from an enemy's gun position?

 

If you're using Event Sounds, that's the default, shown below. You can also choose "Attach to Caller" from that dropdown which follow the caller around.



If you're using code, use a method with "Transform" in the name, such as

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. MasterAudio.PlaySound3DFollowTransformAndForget("YourSoundGroupName", this.transform);
3.  

 

Yes it appears this is the fix. Fixed for the next version.

I wanted to note that I was unable to reproduce any error with the old code, even today with the newest Unity and Addressables package.

 

I wanted to note that I was unable to reproduce any error with the old code, even today with the newest Unity and Addressables package. Please let me know if your error goes away with the fix. There are 2 places in the Addressable Optimizer Helper class that have the LoadAssetAsync method that you need to replace.

 

Hi, I've read the docs and some posts on this and your own forum, but still a bit unclear about import settings for sound effects and layered music. We're using Resource files, not addressible, so I think that:

* Short SFX should generally be set to Decompress on Load with ADPCM.
* Long looping SFX should be set to Compress on Load with Vorbis.
* Music (layered tracks) should be set to Compress on Load with Vorbis.
* I'm very unclear whether either/both should have Preload Audio Data enabled or disabled. We have a lot of music and I'm trying to keep audio memory load to a minimum....

Any guidance would be most appreciated, thanks!

Dave

 

Preload Audio Data should always be on, and is by default, unless you want to turn it off to save memory and add latency for less played effect. There's no point having that turned off with Addressables or Resource files as you have to load them anyway and it's done when they're requested. Using Addressables or Resource files or streaming or Preload Audio Data turned off is how you conserve memory. Only 1 of those at a time.

Any sound effects or music should keep default import settings as below, except as noted above:

Load Type: Decompress On Load
Preload Audio Data: on
Compression Format: Vorbis
Quality: 100
Sample rate settings: preserve sample rate

I'm curious as to why you suggested that it would be different for looping clips?

Layered music, just keep the default import settings as above. Try using "Stream" if you're not on mobile and if it doesn't take too much performance away.

Let me know if you think any of these point could be more clear in the documentation and I will take a look.

Thanks!

 

Thanks for the quick reply! Yeah, I would like to save memory. I have about 150mb of sfx and 250mb of music, so trying to figure out how to reduce the RAM footprint for audio.... Even with Vorbis at 50% compression, having all the music tracks compressed in memory all the time really adds up

Any idea how much latency disabling Preload would add? I assume it's not tolerable for layered music, but could be for sfx that don't need to have split-second timing?

Looping...well, I guess that's irrelevant, just happened to be what I have :/

I thought that streaming was not advised for layered music, due to the CPU load? Is that not really a concern anymore?

thanks!

 

The music tracks would only be in memory while they're playing if you use Resource files OR turn off Preload Audio Data OR use Addressables.

The latency totally depends on the size of the clip. As long as you don't mind waiting a little bit when you change songs, the old song will still be playing during the load time.

Streaming totally depends on the platform. Mobile games I wouldn't do more than 1, but on PC and power platforms you can probably do a few or more. I just modified my "never" comment on the documentation to say "be wary of" and a little more explanation is there.

 

So we are using Resource files, and also have Preload selected -- so if we move them out of the Resources folder (and leave Preload selected), then they WON'T all be in memory all the time? And then there won't be any latency? If so, why would we make them Resource files, what would be the advantage of that? (And would we use Decompress on Load or Compressed in Memory then?)

Sorry, I'm probably overthinking this, but having a hard time parsing the phrasing to understand the various scenarios.

 

Turning off preload audio data for a resource file or addressable has no effect because you already have to load them and master audio takes care of that for you when you tell those to play.

If you move your resource files out of resources folder , then you could use a different option in order to not have them in memory all the time such as addressable, streaming or turning off preload audio.

If you want no latency for your sounds than they will always occupy audio memory, even when they are not being played. That is the trade off you must decide for each sound.

 

V 2020.3.4 changelog:

• Fixed bug: changing bus doesn't automatically fix order when using Group By Bus.
• Fixed bug: changing the bus in Bulk Edit mode didn't work for more than 1 Group.
• Fixed bug: unducking no longer stopped at previous volume for Playlist Controller after previous version related ducking fix.
• Fixed bug: Addressables package broke its usage so code has been modified to work with the latest version.
• Added 'Clip id' optional field for Variations. This allows you to now use Variations in Dialog Groups so you don't have to create so many Dialog Group. You can give multiple Variations the same Clip id and it will choose one at random when you specify that Clip id as the VariationName to play. Clip id is searched first, and then the name of the Variation Game Object after that. You can still use the Clip id in non-Dialog groups as well if you like, but it's not really necessary.

 

(Thanks for the detailed answer <3)