General Sound Feedback: Drop The Bass

[Cemges]

Many people prefer gaming for extended pwriods especially until late hours. If you have seen nightcore mixes in youtube, you'll notice how nice they go with higher frequencies and high speed, especially for gaming. Now what i notice in warframe is that music is percussion and bass heavy. Along with some atmospheric sounds once in a while when fight stops. That infested music in the opening of game was nice but i couldnt hear it in the game itself. But more importantly, theres no melody, and music is not memorable. But utmost importance is the fact that loose bass frequencies and heavy percussion focus dont make up for a good combo for extended gaming periods at late night. I can't dare yse a headphone and working with the mixer of windows was painful, and even though my mixer is heavier on high mid frequencies , extreme amounts of low mids just start tiring me and headache gets insane after a while. I'd suggest adding a mixer for players or at least letting thwm choose volumes of dynamic music layers. But still, a melodic music that is memorable would be of help for those issues as well.

Also soundtracs that give the oomph of awesomeness can influence enjoyment of game extremely. Say, like MGR R, these sorta music make up for extremely nice sessions of game with shorter burst and some stops in between.

[MayPeX]

Why must the infested music have a melody? Infact why must it sound like music? The infested aren't here to provide the player with intense firery action thrilled adventure. They are something more sinister.

 

The soundtrack for the infested is working as intended. It's dissonant, it has non-standard harmonies, non-linear qualities  and noise. You could say it is unpleasant to the ear and rightfully so. It's not suppose to pump you up, it's meant to put you in a sense of unease. This is the psychoacoustics of Warframe. Too be honest whether the sound guys at DE are trying to mess with our biological innate responses to age old threats. (Sounds that are hardwired into our biology as a species).

 

I like to believe DE are pumping some Infrasound out of our speakers, aye?

[Cemges]

But percussion is not the kind of music that makes up for a good experience anywhere.

[MayPeX]

In your opinion maybe. That can be alone to the fact you listen to nightcore? I'm not judging, but you clearly mentioned it yourself you don't like low frequencies of the percussion in Warframe. The difference between you and me is I don't raise my mids on my mixer. I boost the low ends and high ends to even out the frequence levels captured by our ears.

 

Our ears are focused around the mid ranges because that's the level humans communicate in. Using the mixers on Windows default only gives you a limited band Equaliser, I doubt the Equaliser Microsoft provides is any good, you probably get a lot of digital harmonic distortion by adding and subtracting frequencies using it.

 

Percussion is a integral part in war and Japanese cultural, (Implying that Warframe and Japan are linked together) It's evident in Warframe's soundtrack that it borrows the instrumentation of Japan. In other newer pieces it's more of a Orchestral Hybrid. I can understand you'd want something more action packed, fast and something to make you feel awesome. But Warframe projects a dark kind of action, it can be monotonous and heavy.

 

Adding a melody can erase the Infested's seriousness and tension, making it music could make the Infested seem less threatening then they already are.

 

I am afraid that the Hollywood approach of low end drones and bass is quite the cliche but it works.