Question Regarding Sound Frequency

[PSUColonel]

Does anyone know what determines the frequency/variability individual sound files are used during the course of a game? If I have say 40-45 rally sounds, it seems the ones I added almost never get used during a game…is there a limit to the number of rally or ambient sounds you can have that will be used?

[kcstengelsr]

PSU
I use more than 45 ambients in some of my parks and I assume that I could add more. Keep in mind that ambients play at random and if you have ambient volume loud enough to notice when they occur you will find that on rare occasions the same ambient will be chosen twice in a row--they are random and one can for example throw snake-eyes or boxcars twice in a row. Also, sometimes two ambients can play at the same time. If your volume is too low to notice your ambients you probably will miss their random nature and frequency.

I think the game plays ambients more frequently when the crowd is enthusiastic, like during playoff and world series games or when the home team takes the lead late in the game. In regular season games when the home team is being blown out it seems the ambients are less frequent despite the frequency setting--the crowd is half asleep.

Here is my rule of thumb for using 40 or more ambients:
1. With crowds of less than 5K I set ambient frequency at default 100 normal and ambient volume at 170 to 190.
2. With crowds about 15K in size I still set ambient frequency at default 100 normal but also set ambient volume at default 100.
3. For world series games I set ambient frequency at very rare (next to lowest setting) with ambient volume at 80 or 90 depending upon your taste while also toning down the crowd volume to 90.
4. Estimate ambient frequency and volume in cases in between the first three listed.

Now I do not use a huge number of rally sounds. I like to have less than 10 and most of my parks only have about 7. If you have less than 4 or 5 they probably will be too repetitive but if you have more than 10 they probably will be rare enough that your home team might go games without hearing a favorite of yours, since after all the rally sounds are situation dependent like home team batting late in the game in a close ballgame. You likely will not hear a rally sound with the visiting team at bat or in a hopeless situation.

Does this help a bit? One has to experiment a bit with sounds as I tend to adjust settings depending upon crowd size and enthusiasm.

[PSUColonel]

well, it just that I have around 40 rally sounds...and NEVER hear a number of them. OOTP seems to have it's "favorites" like maybe 5-7 files, and seems to stick to them.

[kcstengelsr]

PSU

I think that you don't hear some of the rally sounds because you have too many of them. The default sounds file also has too many rally sounds in my opinion. I like to have only 5 to 7 rally sounds available in the random rotation.

Let's consider modern baseball. Almost all modern teams have a go-to rally sound, often encouraged by either the organ player or recorded sound. For example, if you go to a game in Kansas City you should often hear, "Let's Go Royals (clap, clap, clap, clap, clap)." In order to get that common rally in my 2022 Royals ballpark to play on a fairly frequent (and it is very frequent in real life), I think that I should have two versions of that (one with big crowd, one with a small group trying to get it started) along with maybe only three to five other assorted rallies.

You do want at least four or five rallies for some variety. I made a rally for Cleveland with their famous drummer John Adams but found that it got to be overwhelming with less than four or five choices.

My suggestion is to listen to your 40 rallies and delete 30-35 of them [or even better, rename those less wanted 30-35 rallies as additional ambients, giving them an ambient###.ogg (ambient number) which is not already being used].

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by kcstengelsr

PSU

I think that you don't hear some of the rally sounds because you have too many of them. The default sounds file also has too many rally sounds in my opinion. I like to have only 5 to 7 rally sounds available in the random rotation.

Let's consider modern baseball. Almost all modern teams have a go-to rally sound, often encouraged by either the organ player or recorded sound. For example, if you go to a game in Kansas City you should often hear, "Let's Go Royals (clap, clap, clap, clap, clap)." In order to get that common rally in my 2022 Royals ballpark to play on a fairly frequent (and it is very frequent in real life), I think that I should have two versions of that (one with big crowd, one with a small group trying to get it started) along with maybe only three to five other assorted rallies.

You do want at least four or five rallies for some variety. I made a rally for Cleveland with their famous drummer John Adams but found that it got to be overwhelming with less than four or five choices.

My suggestion is to listen to your 40 rallies and delete 30-35 of them [or even better, rename those less wanted 30-35 rallies as additional ambients, giving them an ambient###.ogg (ambient number) which is not already being used].

Thanks!