Greetings CMDR,
I love Elite's sound design. But. When flying for hours, in particular when exploring, hearing the same sound FX all the time easily annoys me. I find high frequencies unpleasant in the long run and even in Night Mode, too loud to fully appreciate the meditative space ambience. Not mentionning that be those sounds simulated by some cockpit device, they nevertheless often take me out of the immersion. So I looked for a way to nerf those sounds and to improve the spacey atmosphere; I'm not talking realism here! I wanted to cut out the high frequencies and keep only the low frequencies to obtain an effect closer to what one would expect to hear in space, if one could hear anything at all. Something that resembles how you hear sounds underwater.
I used the Equalizer APO software for that (easy, light, free). Download it, install it, and reboot. It'll allow you to enable an equalizer on your whole OS (Win 7 to 10).
Look for Editor.exe and fire it up. By default, there are 3 modules enabled: Preamplification, a Room EQ module (to use with the Room EQ software) and a graphic equalizer. Power off the first two by clicking on the Power button on their left. We'll have to play with that third module. Go to the installation folder\config and create a .csv file named 'EliteDangerous' for example (you can use the Notepad for that). Open it and copypasta those values below:
25 -10
40 0
63 0
100 0
160 0
250 0
400 -11
630 -19.8
1000 -38
1600 -70
2500 -113.2
4000 -131.6
6300 -110.8
10000 -130.8
16000 -210
They are the equalizer's settings. It's really basic but it'll do the trick until some skilled person finds a better setting. Save and close the doc. Go back to the Editor and import that file into the Equalizer (bottom right corner). Done!
Now if you play anything on your pc, you'll notice the change. For Elite, you won't hear the high-pitched sounds (scanners charging, panels activating, etc.) and Cortana will have a funny voice. You will be left with organic bass sounds that can -finally!- stand out and evoke the lack of air and maybe provide a more visceral experience. I haven't tried in combat, I'm curious as to how it'd sound!
To disable the effect, simply power it of from the Editor.
N.B.: the experience may vary depending on your sound setup. I have a capable subwoofer (Focal Cub3), so bass are very present. Consider nerfing pre-amp or tweaking the bass frequencies themselves if your setup isn't precise or calabrated enough. The sound unbalance may break your head after 6 hours of it as well
Here's a small clip to preview the effect; the sound in there is less nerfed than in the settings above. It's also mp3 conversion.
[video=youtube_share;zjGIXi-TUJw]https://youtu.be/zjGIXi-TUJw[/video]
I love Elite's sound design. But. When flying for hours, in particular when exploring, hearing the same sound FX all the time easily annoys me. I find high frequencies unpleasant in the long run and even in Night Mode, too loud to fully appreciate the meditative space ambience. Not mentionning that be those sounds simulated by some cockpit device, they nevertheless often take me out of the immersion. So I looked for a way to nerf those sounds and to improve the spacey atmosphere; I'm not talking realism here! I wanted to cut out the high frequencies and keep only the low frequencies to obtain an effect closer to what one would expect to hear in space, if one could hear anything at all. Something that resembles how you hear sounds underwater.
I used the Equalizer APO software for that (easy, light, free). Download it, install it, and reboot. It'll allow you to enable an equalizer on your whole OS (Win 7 to 10).
Look for Editor.exe and fire it up. By default, there are 3 modules enabled: Preamplification, a Room EQ module (to use with the Room EQ software) and a graphic equalizer. Power off the first two by clicking on the Power button on their left. We'll have to play with that third module. Go to the installation folder\config and create a .csv file named 'EliteDangerous' for example (you can use the Notepad for that). Open it and copypasta those values below:
25 -10
40 0
63 0
100 0
160 0
250 0
400 -11
630 -19.8
1000 -38
1600 -70
2500 -113.2
4000 -131.6
6300 -110.8
10000 -130.8
16000 -210
They are the equalizer's settings. It's really basic but it'll do the trick until some skilled person finds a better setting. Save and close the doc. Go back to the Editor and import that file into the Equalizer (bottom right corner). Done!
Now if you play anything on your pc, you'll notice the change. For Elite, you won't hear the high-pitched sounds (scanners charging, panels activating, etc.) and Cortana will have a funny voice. You will be left with organic bass sounds that can -finally!- stand out and evoke the lack of air and maybe provide a more visceral experience. I haven't tried in combat, I'm curious as to how it'd sound!
To disable the effect, simply power it of from the Editor.
N.B.: the experience may vary depending on your sound setup. I have a capable subwoofer (Focal Cub3), so bass are very present. Consider nerfing pre-amp or tweaking the bass frequencies themselves if your setup isn't precise or calabrated enough. The sound unbalance may break your head after 6 hours of it as well
Here's a small clip to preview the effect; the sound in there is less nerfed than in the settings above. It's also mp3 conversion.
[video=youtube_share;zjGIXi-TUJw]https://youtu.be/zjGIXi-TUJw[/video]
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