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Driveclub new sound clips

L

Loudninja

Member
New sound clips in the link.
If you’ve been keeping track of our recent DRIVECLUB videos – in particular the 4TheSense clip above – you should hopefully have twigged that developer Evolution Studios is hell-bent on delivering the most technically sophisticated console driving game on the market. Its visuals and gameplay systems obviously play a huge part in achieving that goal, but there’s another, less-trumpeted area in which the team are achieving some extraordinary things: audio.

Squirreled away in a corner of the sprawling Evolution complex outside Runcorn in the north of England, Audio Manager Alan McDermott and his team have been hard at work building an enormous library of sound effects for the forthcoming PS4 racer. And unlike most games in the genre, every single one of them is 100% bespoke.
Click to expand...
We did initially look and see if we could buy samples in, and approached manufacturers,” McDermott tells me. “But it just wasn’t good enough for us to do what we wanted to do.”

Instead, his team has spent the last two and a half year travelling the globe painstakingly recording the sounds of every single car featured in the game.

“We’ve been chasing these cars around the world,” he says. “There aren’t that many Pagani Huayras available. They don’t just send them out on a whim. It’s in Japan on a Wednesday, it’ll be in Italy on Saturday… we chased them. We’ve gone all out.”

And when they did track a car down, it wasn’t just a matter of sticking a mic in the exhaust pipe and pressing record. Evolution has gone to unprecedented lengths to capture a complete picture of what these machines sound like.

“We wanted to bring the engines to life. There’s a lot of competition out there that has already set the bar for us. We knew how good we had to be and that we had our work cut out. We didn’t want to be the same as our competitors – we wanted to take it a step further. It has consumed us completely for the last two and a half years.

“A lot of the time with simulation car games, the developer will record a set of samples and then that’s it,” he continues. “They use those samples for both internal and external sounds. We didn’t do that. We recorded bespoke samples for everything – exhaust, engine, cockpit… We had a surround sound mic in the cockpit, which could be awkward as most of these cars don’t have much room in there!”
Click to expand...
“So what?” some of you may ask. What difference does a few pitch perfect engine roars really make to how much fun you’re going to have with the game?

“It’s what makes you feel connected to the road,” argues McDermott. “Coupled with the physics and the handling, I’d say the audio is one the most important aspects of the experience. If the audio sounds wrong it breaks the entire experience. The whole connected experience goes right through from physics to audio.”

“Maybe not everyone will notice everything we’ve done, but we’re obsessive about this stuff and we go the extra mile for the small percentage of people who will notice.”
Click to expand...
http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2014/05/29/driveclub-realistic-sounding-racing-game-ever/
 
P

Phazon

Member
It will be very interesting to hear which game has the most realistic/best audio: Project Cars or Driveclub. I'm very happy to see they are tackling this issue this generation, because that was a thing that always disappointed me in the past.
 
Shortt Sirket

Shortt Sirket

Member
Paging Saladine!

Seriously, I would say that how the car sounds is one of the most important thing for any racing game and yet so many get it wrong. Seriously can't wait for this game.
 
C

CosmicGroinPull

Member
“It’s what makes you feel connected to the road,” argues McDermott. “Coupled with the physics and the handling, I’d say the audio is one the most important aspects of the experience. If the audio sounds wrong it breaks the entire experience. The whole connected experience goes right through from physics to audio.”
Click to expand...

He gets what PD does not.

So they really went around the world to borrow the manufacturers' cars? Incredible.
 
G

Gestault

Member
Having a more visible focus on sound design in a racing title is great to see. I'm wondering if having a more approachable selection of vehicles makes this easier to implement for the developer, compared to titles like GT6 that have to deal with more than 22x the number of cars. People who've been able to hear games like Forza 5 on a full sound system will know what I mean when I say it's an indispensable part of the immersion in a driving game.
 
K

king grimlock

Member
Maybe its because I'm listening through my phones speaker but those sound don't do anything for me like forza's sounds do but its nice that there are putting some focus on sound can't stand generic car sounds
 
H

Hoo-doo

Banned
Seanspeed said:
Good that they're giving this attention. Game certainly sounds good.

But most realistic ever? Nah, sorry.
Click to expand...

Their soundcloud lets you compare the real thing to the in-game driveclub audio.

I'd say they pretty much nailed the Ferrari 458 italia at least.

Could you name a game that does it better?
 
M

moolamb

Member
I agree that sound is a huge part of immersion. Battlefield 4 had some of the greatest sound samples I've ever heard.

A good friend of mine, a professional sound recordist, would pass by when I was playing and just go gaga at the machine gun running out of bullets sound.

Very glad they're taking it seriously.
 
K

Konosuke

Member
Mystery car sounds amazing. The 458 sounds way too digital, especially when they have a real sample, which makes it easier to compare.
 
V

velociraptor

Junior Member
Hoo-doo said:
Their soundcloud lets you compare the real thing to the in-game driveclub audio.

I'd say they pretty much nailed the Ferrari 458 italia at least.

Could you name a game that does it better?
Click to expand...
Goddamn, that is good.

NFS and Shift have pretty good sounds but they're fake. I find most of the cars in these games to sound very similar and they just amp up the engine growl to compensate for the lack of accuracy.
 
H

Hellshy.

Member
king grimlock said:
Maybe its because I'm listening through my phones speaker but those sound don't do anything for me like forza's sounds do but its nice that there are putting some focus on sound can't stand generic car sounds
Click to expand...

Seanspeed said:
Good that they're giving this attention. Game certainly sounds good.

But most realistic ever? Nah, sorry.
Click to expand...

Im not sure hoe they could get it to sound more realistic when rverything is 100% bespoke .
 
S

Sodding_Gamer

Member
Reading this just made me realise. Why do no racing games, or hell any game that you can drive a vehicle in have simulated wind sound when driving fast? I guess it might sound annoying to start off with but it would be ace to hear wind when using an outside cam but it to be super quiet in cockpit cam.

What you guys think?!
 
H

hesido

Member
saladine1 said:
Driveclub sounds alright. Other games out there however, do it better.

Gran Tursimo FTW!
Click to expand...

The sound team who went to great lengths will not be pleased with such reactions, I feel sorry for them...

But we should remember there's compression in these videos, e.g. youtube compression cuts frequencies above 10kHz in low badwidth videos.
 
S

spwolf

Member
Sodding_Gamer said:
Reading this just made me realise. Why do no racing games, or hell any game that you can drive a vehicle in have simulated wind sound when driving fast? I guess it might sound annoying to start off with but it would be ace to hear wind when using an outside cam but it to be super quiet in cockpit cam.

What you guys think?!
Click to expand...

hm, but they do?
 
N

nib95

Banned
Pretty organismic. They've pretty much nailed the sound in terms of realism, at least with the 458. A lot of other games exaggerate and manipulate vehicle sounds with added effects and samples, so you have to bare that in mind when comparing. Based on the India footage they released earlier, what really stands out for me audio wise is the sound of racing itself. They've replicated that atmospheric, encompassing bellow of a mass of race cars all racing together, better than any other racer I've personally heard.

On a side note, that mystery car sounds ridiculous. Anyone have any ideas?
 
S

saladine1

Junior Member
hesido said:
The sound team who went to great lengths will not be pleased with such reactions, I feel sorry for them...

But we should remember there's compression in these videos, e.g. youtube compression cuts frequencies above 10kHz in low badwidth videos.
Click to expand...

Believe me, I absolutely applaud any developer out there who chooses to make audio in racing games a priority. There is nothing worse for me, than a racing game where the cars and associated effects sound ridiculously bad.
I mean, a driving game features cars as the stars and every care should be taken to ensure that not only do they look right, but sound right as well.
What good is it if a BM3 3.0 looks absolutely amazing yet it's Inline 6 sounds like an Inline 4 firing on 2 cylinders?

Again, appreciation is given to any dev out there who takes audio seriously and it certainly sounds like Evo are doing exactly that.

We shall see when full product is released..
 
cjp

cjp

Junior Member
“BMW and Mercedes actually called us up and asked if we’d be happy to give them a copy of our recordings to replace their own versions,” says Alan with a grin. “That felt pretty good!”
Click to expand...

Nice.
 
S

shandy706

Member
Sounds alright. The F12 was also not too bad, although it doesn't sound much like a real F12 on a race track.

As someone who plays a lot of sims (and I know a lot here do), I have high expectations sound wise. A throaty V8/V12 shouldn't sound like a light "whir".

Sound doesn't ruin a game for me though...plenty of mediocre sounding racers with great gameplay. (I'm not saying DC has mediocre sound) It's awesome when you can crank the surround and "feel" the engine in your car though.
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
will they have road noise from the tyres too? I'll probably be playing this most from the cockpit view so having the proper noise that you'd get in the cockpit will be great.
 
R

rashbeep

Banned
We'll see how it ends up. The 458 example was nice, but there are others like the GranTurismo which sounds pretty dull (disappointing because it sounds awesome). Hopefully they'll get some consistency because sound is very important in any racing game.
 
S

sykoex

Lost all credibility.
Any chance other games like Forza and Project Cars will be able to use these recordings? Since they're sharing them with the car manufacturers.
 
M

meta4

Junior Member
shandy706 said:
Sounds alright. The F12 was also not too bad, although it doesn't sound much like a real F12 on a race track.

As someone who plays a lot of sims (and I know a lot here do), I have high expectations sound wise. A throaty V8/V12 shouldn't sound like a light "whir".

Sound doesn't ruin a game for me though...plenty of mediocre sounding racers with great gameplay. (I'm not saying DC has mediocre sound) It's awesome when you can crank the surround and "feel" the engine in your car though.
Click to expand...

It sounds better than any console sim I have played. Check out the Ferrari 458 sound comparing the real world with driveclub in the link.

Goddamn I wish they let us know what the mystery car sound is.
 
I

ICPEE

Member
mrklaw said:
just post PD a hard drive with the sounds on. At least they'd have a few cars with decent audio
Click to expand...
My exact thoughts. Don't these studios share resources. I mean if that was possible Polyphony Digital would have that much less audio work to do but then again PD's audio capture may not be entirely the same so some inconsistencies can pop up.
 
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