Hi all!
I am amazed at what I read about sounds: awesome! They most likely are better than what we are accustomed to, but nobody asks why and how?
Add-on sounds are usually released as replacement sounds. Then, if you changed physics (notably brakes) or values for notches, then the best sound package you install next becomes awful. You have to come back to default settings to appreciate sounds as they should.
On the contrary, if you hold on your modified settings, you have to rework sounds, to get the same result with a better driving experience.
Here come some trouble: you have first to determine why the new sound package is better than previous ones.
For instance, in the case of EMD sounds by Ron Furto, I guess what makes the difference is how he manages several streams not the Kuju's way but the NALW/Svenson's one, and above all with three or four power streams, which is new. This management uses volume and frequency values that necessarily take into account values for notches and physics. That makes extremely difficult to use them with non-default settings. May I add that values for notches also have repercussions in cab (throttle)?
I suggest designers should provide some literature about their creation, as Svenson did, to explain what their aim was, where the innovations are (waves, streams, volume, frequency ...), how they
adjust volume and frequency values to notches and so on.
It would make possible at least for some to tweak their own sound files, bringing in them some innovations from new packages, in order to benefit from new sounds, without moving back to less driving realism.
How do volume and frequency relate to notches? How do triggers relate to braking physics? Without answers to such questions, we are jailed in this dilemma: sounds or physics, immersion or driving realism.
Hope TSTS or TA will provide both, as Spoorsim does.
Regards.
Bernard
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