Adam and Sam, during the last Roadmap Stream, discussed the sound in the game. Good but broken, bad but not broken. It's even complicated for me, although it shouldn't be because I'm complicated myself. The topic is not about complaining, but trying to define and describe the problem. What makes it worse and what makes it good. My few subjective comments: - rolling on rails, not juicy enough - too little is going on, it is monotonous, I would add some creaking, etc. (more sound sources) - not violent enough - trains are violent and rude! - switches, levers - too quiet - safety system's alerts - to loud - balance, volume levels - some violent phenomena (driving over a switch) - even louder (101 seems almost OK) - environmental effects - passing trains are often noiseless - are these cabins so soundproofed? - etc EDIT all of the above with the clause "sometimes" BR o7 EDIT From my perspective, it is not about the original sounds, recorded on real trains, but about whether they are juicy and qualitative appropriately. The volume balance can also be improved in my opinion.
It bothers me that many locomotives do not hear the switch at all. When the train crosses the switch, the wheels clap and you can hear a lot.
Yes. That's how it is said in Polish. Perhaps in English this is not the correct association. Rich. Not flat. The thunder during the storm is juicy \o/
I'm imagining the sound of a medium rare steak sliding on the rails Jokes aside. Positives: PZB and LZB aural alarms sound good (to my ears). Sound occlusion is (for the most part) much much better than TS2021. In TS2021 you can clearly hear church bells and level crossing bells as if the windows were opened. The same when you pass another train going in the opposite direction. In reality you would barely hear any of this and in TSW2 this effect is nearly perfectly modeled (I think the church bells outside Aachen could be occluded a bit more but passing trains is quite good). The exterior sound of freight wagons is very good in my opinion. You can hear the grinding sound from the wheels and the "stretching" (think steal being twisted and taught by huge forces) sound of wagons and couplers under the pull of the locomotive. In the BR155 and BR185.2 the brake squeal from inside the locomotive (and outside) when stopping is good. Perhaps it could be slightly more exaggerated for harsh braking such as this very "pleasant" sounding video: I would say that the BR155 has good sounds, perhaps slightly too low volume in some respects but it is one of the DTG developed locos with the best sound in my opinion. Negatives: BR146 doesn't sound anything like reality. The sounds are very "robotic". BR185 also doesn't sound realistic. There are plenty of cab ride videos of this locomotive (and BR146 too, for that matter) so DTG should be able to compare and get good results. The data is available. Nearly every (German) locomotive has too low horn sounds. The BR101 is excellent in this regard but the BR143, BR155, BR185 etc sounds too weak.
Interestingly all of these are there in the game, just usually not all of them for a given locomotive. For example on LIRR, the rolling sounds I think are good, and you can hear going over junctions pretty well and it's nice. You also have great flange squel and random metallic noises while driving. But then opening the windows barely increases noise levels, horns are too quiet and passing trains don't have any "wooosh" sound to them (or often no sound at all). On the other hand I drove Köln - Aachen today (with the mod that adds the extra service even if I only have RHN) and for the Traxx, while the horn was also really quiet, opening the windows made a lot of wind noise which was amazing. The freight cars behind me also made nice, realistic noises. And some trains passing by made a great whooshing noise, while the Talent for example didn't. Also how some routes have reverb and echo in tunnels, while other routes have none at all. I believe on Köld-Aachen I even heard a different track sound while going over bridges, but other routes usually have none of that. So it would be good if they could get a standard for sounds and such, because the technique is clearly there to make great sound mixing, as every route/train has some strong points. So clearly it would be possible to make everything sounds amazing, if they used the good techniques in uniform on all routes and trains.
I think this effect differs a lot between the types of trains you use but in many modern high speed trains or locomotives the isolation is so good (and the wind noise is so high) that you can barely hear anything from a passing train. Go to 19:05 in the following video for an example So I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, just want to point out (mostly to DTG) that the "wooosh" sound should be implemented (or not) on a case by case basis.
And what about reflective sounds? Trains are incredibly noisy things and having no reflection of sounds when going under bridges and tunnels plus things like going over steel bridges and going past lineside buildings or retaining walls along with crossings leave me un immersed as it is at the moment, I always find myself going back to TS2021, but even there sadly devs are failing to implement all the sounds they have available to them of late?
Yes! Juicy - like a good North American horn. Or paint peeling, window rattling, bone shaking ... take your pick; the point is not to be subtle and understated. Some NA horns in TSW are better than others and the F7 is a nice improvement, but still not quite juicy enough. I am holding out hope for the new SD-40 horn.
I actually think sounds is the only area where I would maybe like them to be slightly unrealistic, sounds are the only way we (stuck in our homes) can really "feel" movement, so a silent train (even if 100% prototypical) will feel strange, so I think "running sounds" (so the whooooosh of the rails in contact with the wheels and the sound the train makes when going over a joint) could be a tiny bit boosted compared to real life to "improve sensation of speed" to use the words of AP, not everywhere, particularly modern high speed trains running on newly built high speed line, like for example the ICE3 which is expected to be extremely quiet. The worst trains in terms of sounds (in TSW2) are obviously the Traxxes, followed by the 143 and 182, the 155 is fine, but it's just overall too quiet, the best being (IMO) TGV Duplex, Class 465 and DB BR101.
A good way to check if there is reverb in the tunnels is to pause the game while going through a tunnel and you will hear any reverb still ringing out just after pausing. For me, the sound for trains has to do the following things... Not sound unpleasant, annoying or harsh (or have obvious looping artefacts). Give the impression to the player that they are in a big powerful machine (or next to one if outside) on tracks. Get as close to the real thing as possible whilst observing the above. Some things need exaggerating for immersion and some things need taming for sanity. That’s an art in itself, some of which is clearly going on in the sound for TSW already. Work as intended all the time. Getting the mix right is paramount and also having things like AWS horns being obvious but not frightening and not having the windscreen wipers the loudest sound in the cab (even if they are in real life, which I doubt) for example. The trickiest bit is having certain sounds playing only when necessary and appropriate such as how loud flange squeal should be on corners. It doesn’t need to be as loud as real life but it needs to be present. In a lot of cases taming it has been quite well done in TSW. That covers the trains. For the world, just the appropriate sounds playing where they should be. No huge indoor terminus station ambience sound for small open platform stations. In those situations no sound would be better than an obviously out of place sound playing far too loudly. I have heard some great ambient sounds in TSW. There’s a lovely distant owl in Clinchfield and some great humming grey boxes next to the tracks in some routes. And as a top priority, fixing the preserved collection sounds to the point where they are listenable. There are still some shocking things going on there, as we know. And as ever all the sounds will forever be subjectively received differently by every single player. Quite the task.
Probably number one item for me is the lack of reverb in tunnels, steep cuttings or the sound traversing bridges. It doesn’t need to be overcooked but it should be there. Following on from that is track sound in general, even welded rail generates noise or flange squeal on a tight curve.
