Metasounds are capped at volume level 1.0

Summary

Metasounds cannot be played louder than volume 1.0. Audio player devices can be played up to 4.0 and sound cues can be modulated (I believe without limit but up to 10.0 I’ve tried and seems to work) but the new system of metasounds is severely limited because of this clamp.

I understand it was included as a safety feature to stop us making audio too loud but I can just reimport the amplified sound or use an audio player device/sound cue to achieve the same volume.

Please can we rethink this limitation as it’s just making things more awkward for no reason?

Please select what you are reporting on:

Unreal Editor for Fortnite

What Type of Bug are you experiencing?

Audio

Steps to Reproduce

Place a sound component on an entity and change the volume either in the VolumeBase part of the sound component or in code.

Expected Result

Volume changes based on that float

Observed Result

Volume stays the same

Platform(s)

All

Video

I understand this has been said to be working as intended to clamp the audio output but because none of the metasounds functions are exposed we can’t amplify the sounds at all (an easy fix would be to let us access modulate in metasounds) or use sound cues in them

It’s making us not want to use sound_components because they’re so restricted compared to the other methods of playing audio

1 Like

Hi @X_TyFighter_X - Yes, this sound is capped because it’s very easy to accidentally hurt people’s ears. In the long run, the team will be looking for a better solution for volume and mixing.

But the audio player device and sound cues do not have the same limitations. Its not an audio cap because it depends on the volume of the source file. We would just like parity between old devices and the new Scenegraph component or no one will use the new one as it is far more restricted

Clamping the audio to a max decibel level would be totally fine but if I import a sound effect that has a quiet source file then I cant amplify it with metasounds unlike cues and audio player so I have to amplify it externally and reimport it.

A quiet sound effect is clamped at 1.0 which would still be much quieter than a loud source sound effect at 0.5.

Does that make sense?

Nor is the cinematic sequencer clamped or the sound component in the blueprints, etc

1 Like

I’ll pass that along to the devs.

1 Like

Just wanna add too that i tried with a normal wav i imported and i couldnt increase the audio either so idk if its all audio and not just the meta sound option you mention ?

I too went back to audio player and teleporting it to the location and play at device location.

FORT-1049500 changed to ‘Needs More Info’. We’re missing information that would help us determine the source of the issue.

@Flak what more info do they need please?

They should just uncap it and let us create games instead of putting things behind epic internal locks. I don’t get the big issue.

I never use this comp at all now total waste of time even creating the thing if they cap it.