Search Unity

  1. Megacity Metro Demo now available. Download now.
    Dismiss Notice
  2. Unity support for visionOS is now available. Learn more in our blog post.
    Dismiss Notice

Subtle volume differences after 5.4 / 5.3.6

Discussion in 'Audio & Video' started by oddgoo-io, Sep 7, 2016.

  1. oddgoo-io

    oddgoo-io

    Joined:
    Aug 22, 2014
    Posts:
    16
    We are developing an application that is very sensitive to the audio engine.

    After updating to Unity 5.4 from Unity 5.3.5, we have noticed that the nature of the sound output is subtly different, specially at low volumes, where the output just seems to drop off / become inaudible faster, and with sounds that are mostly panned to the left or right.

    Has there been any changes to processing of audio that is 2D, and panned to left and right?

    I will probably need to start planning some sort of lab testing to ascertain precise differences, but it would be very helpful if someone knew of any changes in Unity or FMOD (Updated to 4.44.56 in Unity 5.4,
    https://www.fmod.org/fmod-ex-api-release-notes) that could be the reason of these sorts of differences.

    So far nothing has popped out to me, I already tried turning off "Virtualzie Effects" in the audio settings. Otherwise sounds are all stereo, non-spatial 2D, and either panned to the left or right completely.

    Thank you very much in advance for your help!
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2016
  2. mtinkerhess

    mtinkerhess

    Joined:
    Feb 8, 2014
    Posts:
    2
    I also noticed changes in volume levels after upgrading from 5.3.3f1 to 5.4.0f3. I need to do some investigation—I have a combination of 3D sounds and 2D sounds, and after the update some of the sounds are much quieter than others. If anyone has info on this it would be much appreciated.
     
  3. oddgoo-io

    oddgoo-io

    Joined:
    Aug 22, 2014
    Posts:
    16
    Good to hear that we are not the only ones! I´m just not sure how to quantify or be precise in identifying the differences.
    As a starting point, we talked to fmod, but they told me that Unity uses a version that is heavily branched/customised.
     
  4. foyleman

    foyleman

    Joined:
    Feb 19, 2009
    Posts:
    116
    I have also found this to be an issue.
    I am running tests on the audio to see why my microphone appears to have lost its sensitivity. I thought at first it was Windows 10 with an automatic mic balancer, but I've proven it is not.

    My tests showed:
    - initial sound heard at peak volume for .1 seconds (might have included the sound of my mouse clicking the play button on the audio tone used in testing)
    - volume holds at full for exactly 1 second
    - volume drops to 15% of full and holds there for the remainder of listening.

    Then if I stop the tone test and restart it, the system will seem to reset and and allow full volume for another second.

    My settings are full volume, mono, no doppler, best latency, no effects, 2D blending.