Calibrating audio can be tricky if you don't have an objective measurement system, since individual loudness preference can vary depending on individual taste. Thankfully, Oculus have introduced their Audio Loudness Meter, which you can use with Sansar, or outside of it for comparison. It's pretty easy to use, even for audio newcomers.
- Download Oculus Audio Loudness Meter, install, and run.
- If in Desktop mode, set Options menu > Select Input to your current audio listening device . Otherwise leave it set to Rift Audio if you're using Sansar with a Rift in VR. You can change this at any time.
- Start Sansar. In More Options > Settings make sure Master, Voice, and Experience audio are all at 50 (the default). you can mute UI music and UI sounds.
- Visit your scene, and in the Oculus Loudness Meter, click RESET to begin monitoring.
Guidelines to listen for:
- Background ambience (like gentle nature sounds and roomtone) should sit in the range of -30-45 LUFS.
- If you have 1-shot (not loops) sounds tied to interactive games and such, try playing those too, repetitively. They should raise the overall LUFS.
- If other avatars are using voice chat, expect this to exceed the target of -18 LUFS, especially if they're shouting or on distorted/crappy microphones — -15-16 LUFS is expected and typical.
- But generally, with the control you have to edit your scene's audio mix, aim for -18 LUFS or quieter.
- Also pay attention to footstep sounds, as they're an "anchor" of relative loudness.
This can also be useful if you're visiting scenes you didn't create, and want to compare other creators' relative loudness to yours.
The overall goal is that you shouldn't have to keep changing your Experience audio slider up and down when you visit different scenes. (That's annoying, like having to change the volume on your remote when a crazy-loud car commercial comes on.) There'll be situations where you do want that control, such as if there's a noisy club where you want to have a voice conversation.