uncledonnie
Banned
I can hear both gun types easily in that video. Anything louder would get annoying pretty fast.
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Issues with Cuphead's sound design . . .
- Thread starter ScOULaris
- Start date
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I can hear both gun types easily in that video. Anything louder would get annoying pretty fast.
Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot that all those cartoons had soundtracks that had nothing to do with the visuals on screen, and weren't intended to be in time with them in any way shape or form.
My mistake.
The music is good, as music, it just doesn't fit the action at all. It doesn't even adapt when the boss gets knocked out.
Just imagine how it would be if pressing the fire button effectively turned on and off the fast and light beats of the percussion in the music. Would feel amazing.
BluePigGanon
Member
Was going to post this. Jesus.
Yeah I can here it as well. Sounds fine to me. You have to be careful with sounds, they can be really grating if used in a bad way.
Jawbreaker
Member
All I know is it's likely going to have one of my top-3 soundtracks of the year.
It would be really annoying to hear loud, constant shooting. That being said, I think an option to increase its loudness should be added for those who prefer it.
It would be really annoying to hear loud, constant shooting. That being said, I think an option to increase its loudness should be added for those who prefer it.
thesonovabeach
Member
Yeah the sound design is indeed not the best. In a game with so much shit on screen I hope the final game will have a bit more sound feedback when hitting enemies or being hit.
The music is really cool but a bit too present. If it was made to highlight your progress like in Doom, it would not need as much sound design, but this gameplay video feels like a bit of a mess and I think it's a lot due to the lack of sound feedback.
Edit : Cuphead always made me think of Mickey Mania, which even had a B&W Disney style level at the beginning, and they managed to make the music catchy and the sound effects obvious : https://youtu.be/6znkZOa5EBE
Of course, that's not a shooter, so...
The music is really cool but a bit too present. If it was made to highlight your progress like in Doom, it would not need as much sound design, but this gameplay video feels like a bit of a mess and I think it's a lot due to the lack of sound feedback.
Edit : Cuphead always made me think of Mickey Mania, which even had a B&W Disney style level at the beginning, and they managed to make the music catchy and the sound effects obvious : https://youtu.be/6znkZOa5EBE
Of course, that's not a shooter, so...
yeah you're actually deaf if you can't hear the sound effects, sorry
either that or your earbuds are like trash-quality tier
Shpeshal Nick
aka Collingwood
I get what youre saying Scoularis but Im fairly sure its intentional and honestly, every time I see this game I get sucked into watching it like its a cartoon from that era so its like my mind subconsciously expects muted sounds. So I guess it doesnt bother me like it does you and others?
Seganomics
Member
Look at 2D platform/shooters of the past, ones based on Disney ip's for example. This has never been a thing. I don't get why you'd expect it of Cuphead.
I have a different problem with the sound than you do, OP.
So much loving craft was put into making the visuals mimic a 1920s/1930s cartoon, but not nearly as much attention was paid to the sound. The game looks like an old cartoon, but it doesn't sound like one.
In actual cartoons of that era, the music was a big part of the storytelling. Go watch old Looney Tunes or Tom & Jerry and you find that the incidental music was always a character in the action. Rather than just being an ongoing track, it would accompany and react to the actual action on screen. Accomplishing that in Cuphead might have been a lot more difficult, but other games (like Rayman Legends) have accomplished it.
Additionally, the music should have had a muffled filter applied to it in order to mimic what you hear in old cartoons, along with significant popping and hissing (you can hear this in between scenes but it seems to vanish during actual gameplay). As it stands, the music sounds practically CD-quality. Yet the sound effects have the muffled sound I'm looking for, so it creates a huge inconsistency in the sound design.
Additionally, it feels to me like the style of jazz they used doesn't really fit the era.
This game is such a love letter to old cartoons visually, but the sound just doesn't come nearly as close. It's not going to prevent me from playing of course, but I just think they underestimated the importance of incidental music to the illusion they were trying to create.
So much loving craft was put into making the visuals mimic a 1920s/1930s cartoon, but not nearly as much attention was paid to the sound. The game looks like an old cartoon, but it doesn't sound like one.
In actual cartoons of that era, the music was a big part of the storytelling. Go watch old Looney Tunes or Tom & Jerry and you find that the incidental music was always a character in the action. Rather than just being an ongoing track, it would accompany and react to the actual action on screen. Accomplishing that in Cuphead might have been a lot more difficult, but other games (like Rayman Legends) have accomplished it.
Additionally, the music should have had a muffled filter applied to it in order to mimic what you hear in old cartoons, along with significant popping and hissing (you can hear this in between scenes but it seems to vanish during actual gameplay). As it stands, the music sounds practically CD-quality. Yet the sound effects have the muffled sound I'm looking for, so it creates a huge inconsistency in the sound design.
Additionally, it feels to me like the style of jazz they used doesn't really fit the era.
This game is such a love letter to old cartoons visually, but the sound just doesn't come nearly as close. It's not going to prevent me from playing of course, but I just think they underestimated the importance of incidental music to the illusion they were trying to create.
totally agree with the OP. Also, what the fuck is tht ABYSMAL weird filter? It looks like a old movie, wtf, Where are my 4K hi res graphics, I dont want no fucking old timer filter.
And that music is ABYSMAL, what is this, the 1920s? Where's my dubstep, get some Skrillex on there.
2/10
And that music is ABYSMAL, what is this, the 1920s? Where's my dubstep, get some Skrillex on there.
2/10
Baleoce
Member
I'm no sound designer, but just listening to it, it feels like a lot of the percussive instruments that occupy similar frequency ranges as the intended game sound effects are too loud, and it becomes almost disorienting to the player. Like I'm not sure what to be listening to for gameplay feedback.
Funny that you sarcastically agree the with OP when you clearly didn't read it.
OrbitalBeard
Member
I made the following post in this thread prior to the game's release:
I'd like to focus on the bolded. So yeah, I've played through most of the game at this point . And I can safely say the sound design in this game is downright phenomenal.
I'd like to focus on the bolded. So yeah, I've played through most of the game at this point . And I can safely say the sound design in this game is downright phenomenal.
UnnecessaryTodd
Member
Apart from the sound effect when you hit an enemy being nearly non-existent I thought that the muted style was fine? I really like the enemy death noise. They do need to add a more audible sound to indicate contact though.
You can hear it a tiny bit when he shoots the mushroom:
https://youtu.be/iMkCIdGikmk?t=29
but they need to turn that up a fair bit so that you can hear it over the rest of the music/sound effects. That being said lol at people not getting the difference between soundtrack and sound-design. I've had similar problems when trying to talk about game design rather than gameplay so I know your feels OP.
You can hear it a tiny bit when he shoots the mushroom:
https://youtu.be/iMkCIdGikmk?t=29
but they need to turn that up a fair bit so that you can hear it over the rest of the music/sound effects. That being said lol at people not getting the difference between soundtrack and sound-design. I've had similar problems when trying to talk about game design rather than gameplay so I know your feels OP.
NecromorphTX
Member
balladofwindfishes
Member
I love the muted sorta gibberish voice acting in the game. That is spot on for the era.
Polioliolio
Member
Love the look and the sound.. However, some of the singing in these songs is just too clear. Feels a bit out of place. Needs to sound like it was recorded in a saltine box on the other side of the room. So more muffled, and maybe crackly.
I have to agree, I don't think there needs to me an emphasis on the sound of hitting something because the game's visual cues are on point.
I'm a few hours in at this point and loving it.
UnnecessaryTodd
Member
I'm getting flashbacks to the thread about the cut in the Zelda BotW main theme.
OP checking in with an update now that the game is out.
My concerns about the overly subdued and limp gunfire and bullet impact sounds have been completely allayed. Everything sounds great while playing, so I think that YouTube compression might be to blame for the low drone of gunfire in this game sounding near-silent in gameplay videos.
Congrats to the developers of this game. It's going to be a great success and completely deserves it. Thanks to m0dus for editing my originally hyperbolic thread title as well.
My concerns about the overly subdued and limp gunfire and bullet impact sounds have been completely allayed. Everything sounds great while playing, so I think that YouTube compression might be to blame for the low drone of gunfire in this game sounding near-silent in gameplay videos.
Congrats to the developers of this game. It's going to be a great success and completely deserves it. Thanks to m0dus for editing my originally hyperbolic thread title as well.
Eh? The whole point of the thread is that by 2D platform game standards the sound design is really weak.
The defense given was that we were supposed to be judging Cuphead by the audio standards of the cartoons it emulates, not those of a video game.
It doesn't matter, though. As it stands it fails on both counts.
Haven't seen any of the new batch of videos. Would be good if this was all just down to some recording glitch.
hokagespit
Member
op the sound design is top notch! every little move or tell has a sound, wearing headphones really helped me do better.
Not only that, but it kind if reminds me of the voices from old arcade brawlers like TMNT and The Simpsons for some reason. Maybe it is the muffled, arcadeiness.
As an aside, does anyone else think that this game feels a lot like Megaman X if you remap the controls (with dash set to a shoulder button obviously)?
The sound FX for the game are spot on; it's the soundtrack that I think misses the mark a little, both in style and execution. It's better in actual in-person play than it seemed in trailers, but it still doesn't quite capture the era.
Aizo
Banned
1930s Jazz doesnt capture the era of the 1930s?
The music in Cuphead is less this:
https://youtu.be/m_-IpeU2Su4
And more this
https://youtu.be/27BfZO2BDo0
The music of the era Cuphead is trying to emulate was more late 20's-early 30's swing jazz, when the music in-game sounds more like ragtime from earlier in the 1920's, it's a slight difference, but a big one when trying to emulate the style of the cartoons of the late 20's and early 30's. Like if you were trying to emulate Spielberg movies, you'd want it to have a soundtrack like John Williams and not an ambient synth soundtrack like Tangerine Dream or Giorgio Moroder, even though both were contemporary in the 80's.
Exactly.
If you watch a bunch of Looney Tunes, Tom & Jerry etc., it was more small orchestra than jazz/ragtime band: more horns and strings, very little piano. A lot of the background music in those cartoons was slower ballads, and recognizable hits of the time like "It Had to Be You" et al. And even the more upbeat stuff was a little different. Not all 1930s music was the same style.
I also maintain that they needed to add more of a muffled filter to it to match the effects.
balladofwindfishes
Member
Other than a handful of songs, the soundtrack sounds like swing/jazz. There's barely any piano used at all. There's like one ragtime song, and it's not like old 30s cartoons didn't use ragtime occasionally.
Crab Milk Mickey
Member
This is an unlockable after you
acquire P-ranks (read: pacifist) for all the run & gun stages
My point was that those cartoons actually didn't use jazz or swing much, at least not quite the same style this game uses most of the time.
Good to know, but it makes me wonder why they didn't do that by default. It's kind of jarring to hear CD-quality music next to the sound effects that do have that filter on them.
balladofwindfishes
Member
That's a pretty hardcore challenge for such a simple unlock
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