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Sound Block/Jukebox Directional Audio

ryan west shared this bug ago

Investigating

For a while I have had an issue with most of the sounds in the sound block and jukebox, where the audio will only play through the left ear regardless of player orientation to said block. After looking at the files I found that all of the sounds that work properly were in WAV format and the ones that did not work properly were in XWM format.

Through some trial and error I did seemingly "fix" the problem by converting all of the XWM files to single channel WAV with a 16 bit sample size. The sounds now play in 3D space as they are supposed to, but I am unsure why the XWM's didn't work for me in the first place.

This seems to be a pretty uncommon issue, but I figured I would share in the hopes that someone finds this information useful.

I have the same bug

Replies (1)

Keen SWH QA Agent 2 ●

Hello Ryan,

We’re currently investigating several reports related to in-game sound issues, and we already have an internal ticket for this here;

Sound block audio only plays in one ear | Space Engineers PC Support

We’d appreciate your help in gathering a bit more information, as your input really helps us track down the cause and work toward a proper fix.

To assist us in identifying and resolving the issue, please provide the following details:

Audio Setup

Headset or speaker make and model
Connection type: USB, 3.5mm Jack, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, HDMI, or Optical
Operating System (e.g., Windows 10 or 11)

Sound Configuration

Default audio output device selected in Windows (found under Control Panel > Sound > Playback tab)
Speaker configuration: Stereo, 5.1 Surround, or 7.1 Surround (found in Speaker Setup)

In-Game Context

What were you doing in-game when the issue occurred? (e.g., inside a ship, flying, listening to the jukebox, etc.)
Did the issue start after a specific update? If so, which one?

Required

Log files from the game session where the issue occurred
To access your log files, type %appdata% into your Windows search bar to open the hidden Roaming folder. Then navigate to:
\Roaming\SpaceEngineers

Optional (but appreciated)

A short video with sound enabled demonstrating the issue, if possible

Thank you for taking the time to support this investigation.

Kind Regards,

Keen Software House: QA Department

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ryan west ●

Audio Setup

Headset- Sennheiser HD 280 Pro
Connection type- 1/4 inch (headphones plug into an audio interface, which is USB)
Operating System- Windows 11

Sound Configuration

Default Device- VoiceMeeter (audio mixer)

System audio is run through VoiceMeeter, then the audio interface, then to the headphones.

In-Game Context

Cause of issue- Appeared seemingly out of nowhere, sometime in the last 1-2 years, although I'm really not certain. I just happened to notice the issue one day, as I never really used the Sound Block/Jukebox in builds. They did work properly at some point, and I have gotten a new PC in that time frame as well.

The attached log file is from a new save created for the video demonstration.

Video of the issue (fresh save/no mods): https://youtu.be/m4c0jspVmMA

- The first sound "Alert 1" works properly. The second sound "Enemy Detected" shows the audio only coming through the left ear regardless of player orientation.

Video after manual file conversion: https://youtu.be/8565SQUSLVU

- I use the same "Enemy Detected" sound after converting it to the same format as "Alert 1" in the previous example, single channel WAV 16 bit sample size, which seems to fix my issue.

Thank you for your reply.

Files:

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Skye Mors ●

I have had this same issue for multiple years now- Sound Blocks and Jukeboxes play their audio correctly at the right reduced volume based on position and proximity- BUT this is drowned out by a single surround channel (for me, Right Surround, seems like Left Surround for you) playing the same audio at max volume, making it sound like it's not playing from the object at all. Contextual audio like thrusters and assemblers are perfectly fine- but anything that plays selected audio on-demand does this. Not sure how long ago i reported it, also included a video which caught it.

As a complete side-note, I reported this years ago when this started happening because I had just finished my party boat (yes, small grid complete with cycling floor lights) and one day the music was just broken, which kinda killed my love for the game for a bit because I had spent quite a while building it and was going to sail it and some others with friends to show off what we'd come up with for boats, but the bug still persists.

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ryan west ●

My best uneducated guess is that it's related to the specific hardware in my PC, and since I'm not smart enough to know what's causing it, I figured I'd post what fixed it for me and hopefully someone smarter than me can put something together.

I've had many ideas for builds incorporating sound blocks but every time I tried to use them it just discouraged me, so I kind of just stayed away from them. And while I'm happy I seem to have found a solution for myself, a bigger part of me is even more frustrated because I wasn't able to find the actual issue. But hey, at least now there's nothing stopping me from making things with as many complicated and over-engineered accessories as possible.

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Skye Mors ●

I'm pretty sure it's an audio porting issue that doesn't know how to convert Mono to Stereo and then in turn to 7.1+ Surround internally- and the devs aren't working with Surround Sound (I assume because they're unable to reproduce it, and still not fixing it yet). Pretty sure it gets reported multiple times a year, maybe it'll not be a bug in SE2 when it releases, before they fix it in SE- thus fixing it at the cost of buying the sequel. :V

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