Volume of sounds in SoundService are decreased during character movement

[Vmena]

For any sounds playing that are descendants of SoundService, they will play at a reduced volume once the player moves his character. If he stops moving his character, the playing sound will return to it’s normal volume after a couple of seconds.

Here is a video example:

This only occurs in SoundService afaik, sounds parented to Workspace do not have this issue (workaround).

Here is a related post in “Scripting Support” that shows this problem has been happening since at least January of last year:

Sound keeps changing volume

I’ve had this issue in my game where sounds keep “cutting” into a lower volume when I start walking at random times and when I move my camera. It will go back to being loud moments after. I’ve tried printing the volume of the sounds but it does not actually change when it happens. At first I thought it was my headset, then my friend said it happened to him too. If you listen VERY carefully it happens exactly when I start walking. It’s not so noticable in the video but very noticable in-game …

[thirdtakeonit]

Thanks for the report! I filed a ticket in our internal database and we’ll follow up when we have an update for you.

[ReallyLongArms]

Hey @Vmena, I took a look, but couldn’t reproduce the drop in volume – are you finding that this happens more often with certain audio assets? If you have a file that encounters the behavior feel free to send it my way!

[Vmena]

Thank you for the swift response @ReallyLongArms,

I have looked further into trying to find the cause of this bug myself and I will try to help clarify as many things as I can in order to help you reproduce it.

Answering your questions

@ReallyLongArms

Are you finding that this happens more often with certain audio assets?

I find that this occurs for all Sound instances that are descendants of SoundService, regardless of which audio asset is being used.

@ReallyLongArms

If you have a file that encounters the behavior feel free to send it my way!

This occurs for me both in-studio and in-game (hence the “Engine Bugs” category). However, I do not experience this bug when playing on my mobile device. For this reason, I believe that this bug could be device-specific and a file would not give you a working reproduction.

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After further investigation, when switching my audio device to my speakers, I do not encounter this bug. This leads me to believe that this problem exists specifically with my headphones (probably other pairs of headphones as well but I don’t have the capacity to test that).

I have had a device-specific bug with these headphones before in roblox (back in January 2021). Funny enough, you are the one who actually replied to that bug report way back when (and it ended up being resolved.) Here is the link to it:

Can't hear any sounds in front of me

On any roblox game, I cannot hear sounds when looking at or near their source. I have to turn anywhere from 15 to 30 degrees to the left or right of the source to be able to hear it. I do not believe this is a problem with my headphones. I do not experience this problem at all outside of roblox, sounds in front of me play perfectly fine. I’ve reinstalled my headset’s firmware, changed from surround sound to stereo, and turned off auto audio repositioning. Nothing has solved the problem. I am u…

My headphones are still the same model as in that post and I still use the same drivers and everything (except I’m on Windows now). If you need more information please let me know. I’m confident you can resolve this one if you could resolve the last one! Godspeed.

[ReallyLongArms]

Thanks for the additional info!

Does this still happen if you lower the volume of Roblox or any of the sounds you’re playing? We are wondering if the headset drivers have a builtin limiter that might be kicking in when the overall volume crosses a threshold; the music alone might not be loud enough, but perhaps the music and footsteps are?

[Vmena]

Hi,

That doesn’t seem to be the issue. In setting the Sound.Volume to 0.05 and my roblox volume to 1/10, I can still hear a difference with movement.

I noticed you mentioned footsteps. I initially assumed this could be causing it as well, however after deleting the HumanoidRootPart.Running Sound, this bug still occurs. I also find it interesting that it seems to always wait the same amount of time after I stop movement before returning to normal volume (seems to be exactly 5 seconds).

I will also note that I tried playing two sounds in SoundService at once to see if playing one decreased the volume of the other, but I couldn’t notice any change as far as that went.

I’m happy to help with anything else I could test for you that would help narrow down the bug. Thank you.