Time for a sound overhaul!

[aholbert32]

Time for EA to finally focus on Sound/Commentary. This yrs game is horrific when it comes to sound.

- Gus constantly uses the numbers and not names. He called Wes Matthews (a player thats been in the NFL for 2 seasons) #24.

- It appears that EA has eliminated all the NFL songs (Sam Spense) that have been in the game for years.

- Many of the EA Trax songs are decent but don't fit in a football game.

- Sometimes the EA songs play over team fight songs.

- Finally, its time for EA to allow us to put in stadium specific songs. Other games have this option and it adds to immersion.

What other sound related ideas do you guys have?

[Beeks]

Re: Time for a sound overhaul!

Time for EA to finally focus on Sound/Commentary. This yrs game is horrific when it comes to sound.

- Gus constantly uses the numbers and not names. He called Wes Matthews (a player thats been in the NFL for 2 seasons) #24.

- It appears that EA has eliminated all the NFL songs (Sam Spense) that have been in the game for years.

- Many of the EA Trax songs are decent but don't fit in a football game.

- Sometimes the EA songs play over team fight songs.

- Finally, its time for EA to allow us to put in stadium specific songs. Other games have this option and it adds to immersion.

What other sound related ideas do you guys have?

Did Wes Welker and Ryan Mathews have a love child?

j/k!

I totally agree with you though, whoever is in charge of Madden sound has been AWOL for 5 years now.

[mva5580]

Re: Time for a sound overhaul!

They took out the NFL Films music? Horrible. Guess I will just have no menu music at all this year then. Every other year I've turned off ALL the EA Trax and just listened to the great NFL Films music.

[Shawny1983]

Re: Time for a sound overhaul!

Gotta say my buzz for this year's game is really getting killed with all these reports of bugs and glaring omissions.

On topic though, I'd like to see a sound setup that's optimized for 5.1 and 7.1 systems. Context specific crowd noise is something that no sports game has completely nailed. I want to feel the difference between crowd noise and intensity from a routine 1st down in the 1st quarter, to a pivotal 3rd down late in the game, to a in-division rival, to playoff games.

The only game that has come close to that type of effect was NBA Live 2010. I thoroughly enjoyed the crowds as they had some nuance and intelligence to them.

Obviously the gold standard for commentary is NBA 2K11, and it'd be great if the Tiburon teams studied the tech behind the stitching in that game.

[jetup2343]

Re: Time for a sound overhaul!

Commentary should be coming next year.
As for the crowd, it needs buzz, even between plays. I remember Maden 04 being like that. It's such a killer when the teams are hudling up on the first play from scrimmage in a WC game and it's just dead(see Chiefs WC vid). It just kills the whole experience for me; sucks out all the excitment. Also, no J-E-T-S chant at opening kickoff and after Jets' scores. Bad bad bad.

[ACARDINAL]

Re: Time for a sound overhaul!

No Sam Spence/NFL Films music????

That is a big fail EA.

[bkrich83]

Re: Time for a sound overhaul!

Indeed. Sound is way behind the times.

[malky]

Re: Time for a sound overhaul!

The numbers instead of names is a REAL KILLER for me; I'll wait for more threads to see how bad the number calling is come on EA!!

[inkcil]

Re: Time for a sound overhaul!

Time for EA to finally focus on Sound/Commentary. This yrs game is horrific when it comes to sound.

- Gus constantly uses the numbers and not names. He called Wes Matthews (a player thats been in the NFL for 2 seasons) #24.

- It appears that EA has eliminated all the NFL songs (Sam Spense) that have been in the game for years.

- Many of the EA Trax songs are decent but don't fit in a football game.

- Sometimes the EA songs play over team fight songs.

- Finally, its time for EA to allow us to put in stadium specific songs. Other games have this option and it adds to immersion.

What other sound related ideas do you guys have?

Wow...how could they take out the Sam Spence and Madden Riffs?!? Those need to go back in immediately.

Also, how about custom soundtracks finally???

[jpdavis82]

Re: Time for a sound overhaul!

Luckily EA didn't just now realize this. They ripped out the old engine during Madden 12's development and are putting all of the commentary on the same engine that FIFA uses for theirs, starting with Madden 13.

I don't know what I'm about to say is for sure but I'm 90% sure that is the reason why we aren't hearing certain players names and stuff because they were working on stuff for Madden 13 on the new engine, because it takes two years for most games to redo commentary with play by play and everything. I think they did some work on commentary for Madden 12 with pregame, starting lineups, Qb's taking the field and DPP, but other than that I think they worked a lot on the commentary for the future Madden's. Mike Young talks about this in a podcast I heard and how they are doing with the commentary next year, what they did with visual presentation for Madden 12. The camera angles,team intros, and stat overlays and everything was being prepared and developed during Madden 11 development. I fully agree with the OP and thankfully it seems like EA does too.

[Only1LT]

Re: Time for a sound overhaul!

I don't know if this is any better this year, because I don't have the game, and am still undecided as to if I will get it, but the obvious sound area that I can think of that the game needs improvement is the crowd.

[falconfansince81]

Re: Time for a sound overhaul!

They took out the NFL Films music? Horrible. Guess I will just have no menu music at all this year then. Every other year I've turned off ALL the EA Trax and just listened to the great NFL Films music.

that is a damn shame...i turn off all the awful ea trax as well. the classic sam spence was one of the few things in the game that still gave an ambient nfl vibe when in the menus or sitting through a 3 hour online franchise drafts. sadly, there will not be much of this game thats NOT muted...when in turn there is so much EA could do with audio alone that transitions a true football vibe such as CBS, NBC, ESPN theme music.

[STLRams]

Re: Time for a sound overhaul!

Wow, no players name during commentary, no NFL sounds, the (maybe next year) thing is still going on. I wish the game atleast had a custom soundtrack feature, then we could atleast add music to play at certain periods during the game.

[jhoff80]

Re: Time for a sound overhaul!

I said this in the presentation thread, but it fits here as well:

One thing I don't get, sound-wise. There's STILL glitches where Collinsworth says something that back in 2010 corresponded to a comment from the old guy, but doesn't fit with what Gus Johnson is saying.

Example:

"And just like that they'll have to punt." "I don't know, they seemed pretty mixed up there."

If you're not going to have one person mention mixed up, the second half of that just sounds unnatural. It worked better in 2010 when he said "They're going to have to mix up plays better than that" first. Now it just seems silly, and yet there's a few instances of this. I mean, doesn't anyone at EA actually listen to the commentary after it's recorded?

[Bill_Abner]

Re: Time for a sound overhaul!

Sound is an area that really needs some serious attention. I was particularly surprised when playing a playoff game that Gus and Chris didn't even acknowledge that it was the AFC Championship game.