Multichannel MetaSound to Multiple Audio Components

[mjiggidy]

I thought this would be possible, but as I’m digging into it, maybe this isn’t how MetaSounds is structured.

I have a mechanical sliding door. My idea was that I could create a MetaSound Source that would act as a “controller” to drive the sound effects of it opening and closing. I wanted to keep elements of the sound on separate channels/tracks/busses/whatever, such as the sounds of the door sliding on the track, the rumbling of machinery opening the door, and a latch that closes at the end. I was going to put Audio Components at the relevant locations and assign those individual element channels to the different Audio Components to create more of a spatialized sound. Then play the MetaSound and have the separate elements sent to the assigned Audio Components.

In other words, I don’t want a “mixed down” 5.1 or something, I just want certain mono elements to be located spatially where they would be coming from and controlled by a single MetaSound.

Is there a way to do that? Or do I need to create a separate MetaSound Source for each of the sound elements and explicitly play each one? That’s not the end of the world but it would be nice, in terms of design, to have one MetaSound Source sending out the separate elements to the separate audio components.

[TheNewTeed (Dave Raybould)]

You could do that with the new Audio Bus Writer and Reader nodes in UE5.3.
In your ‘controller’ you’d set up your system that triggers off the sounds at the correct times, and then each of these would be fed into their own individual audio busses

Then in your ‘receiver’ MetaSounds, you’d simply have a Bus Reader feeding into the Output

There are some potential voice management issues that you’d need to think about, but it would work.

[mjiggidy]

Oh wow, what excellent timing for them to release this feature just as I need it! Thank you very much!