VRC_SpatialAudioSource advanced settings bypass Compressor allowing dangerous volume levels
Kaittycat
When Steam Audio was pushed to Live from Beta, (but not during beta,) many avatar sounds like those used in horror roleplay communities became much quieter or much louder, even dangerously so. Many of us adjusted our volume levels up and down to compensate, but I did way too much testing and found:
- Using default VRC_SpatialAudioSource settings, my test audio (with a lot of reverb and sudden attack) is overly compressed to nearly inaudible levels, sometimes as low as 20%
- - - This also caused creators to pump their volume up to compensate because we don't know what's really going on
- Using ANY of the advanced settings (near, volumetric radius, disabling spatialization, or using the audiosource volume curve) makes sounds play as as they do in Unity PLUS applying gain, making them LOUDER than they are outside of the game with the default Gain 10.
- - - Both Near and Volumetric Radius, separately, have volume at 100%+gain volume until you reach the end of their radius, then they sharply become very quiet or nearly inaudible until you reach the Far radius.
- - - This ends up allowing sounds that are dangerously loud, often unintentionally!
I'm a bit crazy and wrote up a really detailed report here as I tested to understand what audio components were doing
⚠️⚠️WARNING⚠️⚠️ the attached video is LOUD. I used earmuffs to visualize distance only.
It shows 4 different audio sources with different settings on each:
Default settings, which is Gain 10, Far 40, Near 0, Volumetric Radius 0, disabled Use Audiosource Volume Curve
Default settings + Near 10
Default settings + Volumetric Radius 10
Default settings + Use AudioSource Volume Curve with 40 Max Distance on a Linear Rolloff
Avatar for testing: (again, ⚠️ sounds are loud )
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