Audio Normalizer

[JuggernautOfWar]

What do these sliders do?

Let me also say I welcome the 0.21.1 new SAS functionality.

Edited July 25, 2013 by JuggernautOfWar

[Andersenman]

Yes, I'm digging out this old thread, for I have the same questions. Is there any documentation available on this feature? I am familiar with dynamics processors and their terminology, but this one leaves me rather clueless due to its arbitrary and unitless values and ranges. Squad? Anyone? Any answers would be most appreciated.

Thanks

A.

[arq]

Shooting ideas out my butt, but just based on the label I would expect it to be some sort of automatic gain control (AGC) that makes the sound louder when quiet and quieter when loud, so that you can hear stuff (and not have your ears blown out) regardless of if you're drifting through the endless void or sitting atop a 3000t rocket.

If my guess is correct, then 'responsiveness' controls how quickly the filter reacts to new data. A fast responsiveness will adapt quicker but may overreact to something loud and short like an explosion, whereas if it is slow it will be steadier (and more accurate) over time, but may take some time to converge to that state.

'Threshold' is more mysterious to me, but I would guess it is some regularization that keeps the louds slightly louder than the quiets (and vice-versa) so that the AGC does not wash out all of the dynamic range.

These values are unitless because audio is generally dealt with in unitless quantities (since you have a speaker amplifying everything, adding any units would be a waste anyway). However, it is likely that 'Responsiveness' corresponds to the forgetting factor (or maybe its logarithm) for a single-pole IIR filter that acts on the audio energy over short time windows or individual samples.

Based on my assumptions, a model for the Normalizer could be given by this recursion:

a[n] = (1-R)*a[n-1] + R/sqrt(T + x[n]^2)

y[n] = a[n]*x[n];

where a[n] is the gain at time n, T>0 is related to 'threshold', and 0<R<1 is related to 'responsiveness', x[n] are the raw audio samples from the game and y[n] are the normalized samples

[thirstyemu]

A normaliser is essentially the same as an audio compressor.

What it tries to achieve is to make quieter sounds louder, and at the same time, any really loud sounds a bit quieter.

This 'should' give you a more consistent audio level while playing instead of, for example, really quiet rocket sounds and then suddenly and immensely loud bang.

The threshold is when it will start becoming active on a particular sound. Il have to check this, but i assume its working as a compressor threshold i.e. bigger value means quieter overall sounds. Although it could also be acting as a gain ratio... Il check this in a bit.

The responsiveness is just that, how fast it will react to a change in sound, a smaller value should make it act less harshly with a larger setting making it only react for prolonged sounds or those with excessive energy.

Just note, the two here are a rather crude way of normalisation. From an audio engineers perspective you would normally have many more variables so... I'm kinda guessing at which way the sliders work based on the assumption that responsiveness is done in ms (i.e. 16ms from your screenshot) and the normalisation as a compression ratio, as stated above.

Hope this helps.

Edited July 28, 2013 by thirstyemu

[WuphonsReach]

(yes this is a necro, but it's directly related)

Has anyone played around with these values much in 0.25? Are the default values good/bad? I'm thinking that the Responsiveness value is too low at just 16 and should be higher by default.

Guess I'll have to crash some things in sandbox mode and see if I can get better audio out of KSP.

[Holyvision]

(yes this is a necro, but it's directly related)

Has anyone played around with these values much in 0.25? Are the default values good/bad? I'm thinking that the Responsiveness value is too low at just 16 and should be higher by default.

Guess I'll have to crash some things in sandbox mode and see if I can get better audio out of KSP.

I'm sorry to assist in this necro, but I would also be curious to know if anyone has any recommendations for different settings besides those that are default post .25.

I find that at times, some of my KW Rocketry engines and KAS sounds do not play as they should; and it's not an installation issue.

[DuoDex]

I also think that this necro is validated. I never seem to get what I would call "optimal sound" in KSP and want to know if I can do anything beyond playing with the volume sliders.

[Andersenman]

Kindly requesting disinterration of this topic for official autopsy so we can finally lay this case, answered, to rest.

[viktor19]

Kindly requesting disinterration of this topic for official autopsy so we can finally lay this case, answered, to rest.

By reviving it after 6 months?

[HafCoJoe]

So... does anyone know what the best slider settings are, so that one doesn't blow their ears out with dual mainsails when attempting to hear ant engines?

[*Aqua*]

I don't change the sliders and instead use the normalizer in my sound driver. For me it does a good enough job.

Have you tried that?

[Andersenman]

On 3.5.2015 at 6:04 PM, viktor19 said:

By reviving it after 6 months?

I can do one better, even, revive it after 13!

So, dear Squad, could we please get documentation, labeling, explanation, confirmation, or anything else that makes clear, without doubt, what these sliders and their values affect, and how?

Thanks

Edited January 1, 2017 by Andersenman

[bewing]

This is in the launcher, and not in the actual game settings, right?

[Andersenman]

No, it's in the game settings, Audio section.

[bewing]

OK, jplrepo looked at the code. The answer is basically that KSP is based on Unity, and Unity has an "audiolistener". And the units for "threshold" and "responsiveness" are defined inside Unity for their silly audio thing. So if you don't like the units, or you want more detail on what they mean, ask them.

"The threshold is used to check against the levels of the current audiolistener -- if the levels of the current sound being heard are above the value of the threshold, then the volume is decreased. So the higher the threshold the less the volume is decreased.

The responsiveness is used to adjust the volume based on user input. So if you change the volume the responsiveness is how fast the volume will adjust (respond)."

 

[Andersenman]

Thanks for the insight.

I've tried to find threshold and responsiveness in the Unity documentation, but to no avail. I did find a compressor and a ducking functionality described, but all of them require a lot more parameters to be set rather than just those two, so I tentatively presume this is some functionality wrapped around the listener.

The problem to easily deduce the functionality from these sliders aren't just their missing units, it's also their ranges. A threshold of 0 might suggest that ALL signal, all the way down to silence, was affected, and a threshold of 5 (as in, 5 sources at playing at 100 % at once, theoretically) could easily be exceeded by multiple engines firing at once, or many parts crashing into water, making this threshold rather pointless. Also, where's the compression or limiting in there? Is it somehow tied to the Threshold slider?

In the end, these are but wild speculation. This isn't really a technical issue, it's usability and accessibility! These sliders are presented to a PLAYER, a PLAYER shouldn't need to try and guess their inner workings, it should be obvious and clear from their presentation alone what they do!

Edited July 12, 2017 by Andersenman

[Andersenman]

Another handful of updates has gone by, another handful of updates without clarification on this functionality. So once again I'd like to raise this still relevant thread from the dead and ask,

On 1/1/2017 at 11:39 AM, Andersenman said:

Dear Squad, could we please get documentation, labeling, explanation, confirmation, or anything else that makes clear, without doubt, what these sliders and their values affect, and how?

Thanks.

 

Kind regards,

A.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

4 years? Wow, that's persistence right there!

[Andersenman]

Isn't it just! 

(Yay, my 2^8th post!)

Edited October 25, 2017 by Andersenman

[Harry Rhodan]

If you actually want an answer then why don't you ask in the tech support section or one of the announcement threads instead of bumping a thread for years in the community self help section that no dev ever visits?

[Andersenman]

I don't think in said four years anyone has stopped any mod from moving it there ...

[Cpt Kerbalkrunch]

On 1/3/2017 at 8:43 AM, bewing said:

OK, jplrepo looked at the code. The answer is basically that KSP is based on Unity, and Unity has an "audiolistener". And the units for "threshold" and "responsiveness" are defined inside Unity for their silly audio thing. So if you don't like the units, or you want more detail on what they mean, ask them.

"The threshold is used to check against the levels of the current audiolistener -- if the levels of the current sound being heard are above the value of the threshold, then the volume is decreased. So the higher the threshold the less the volume is decreased.

The responsiveness is used to adjust the volume based on user input. So if you change the volume the responsiveness is how fast the volume will adjust (respond)."

 

Didn't this answer the question nearly a year ago?

[Andersenman]

On 10/27/2017 at 8:16 PM, Cpt Kerbalkrunch said:

Didn't this answer the question nearly a year ago?

 

On 1/3/2017 at 5:15 PM, Andersenman said:

Thanks for the insight.

I've tried to find threshold and responsiveness in the Unity documentation, but to no avail. I did find a compressor and a ducking functionality described, but all of them require a lot more parameters to be set rather than just those two, so I tentatively presume this is some functionality wrapped around the listener.

The problem to easily deduce the functionality from these sliders aren't just their missing units, it's also their ranges. A threshold of 0 might suggest that ALL signal, all the way down to silence, was affected, and a threshold of 5 (as in, 5 sources at playing at 100 % at once, theoretically) could easily be exceeded by multiple engines firing at once, or many parts crashing into water, making this threshold rather pointless. Also, where's the compression or limiting in there? Is it somehow tied to the Threshold slider?

In the end, these are but wild speculation. This isn't really a technical issue, it's usability and accessibility! These sliders are presented to a PLAYER, a PLAYER shouldn't need to try and guess their inner workings, it should be obvious and clear from their presentation alone what they do!

No.

[bewing]

3 hours ago, Andersenman said:

I've tried to find threshold and responsiveness in the Unity documentation, but to no avail.

threshold: https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/class-AudioCompressor.html

3 hours ago, Andersenman said:

In the end, these are but wild speculation. This isn't really a technical issue, it's usability and accessibility! These sliders are presented to a PLAYER, a PLAYER shouldn't need to try and guess their inner workings, it should be obvious and clear from their presentation alone what they do!

In a perfect world. All the devs can give you is the sliders. Take it or leave it.

 

[swjr-swis]

3 hours ago, bewing said:

All the devs can give you is the sliders.

Well.... given the documentation you linked to, it would seem the devs can in fact do at least one bit more: actually add units to the two in-game sliders. That tiny bit more could possible have prevented this entire thread.

After-thought: they could even add tooltips that give a short explanation of the slider effect, which would allow to explain the 'responsiveness' slider even if the actual effect of it cannot be given a fitting unit (eg. if they chose for that slider to affect both attack and release, but each of those in a different range). Tooltips are shown in the 'mini-settings', so the code for that is already in there.

Edited October 30, 2017 by swjr-swis
after-thought