Music extremely loud?

[MrsPlatypus]

I usually play with music volume set to 15-20% but recently when I start Vintage Story, it plays much louder, to the point where I have to drop it all the way to 2-4% to be able to hear anything else. Setting it back to 20% is deafeningly loud, 30% is around the max volume of my speakers.

Has anyone encountered this? How do I fix this / "reset" the volume setting back to the range of "very quiet - normal - loud" instead of "very quiet - loud - very loud - nuclear explosion"?

[Never Jhonsen]

1 hour ago, MrsPlatypus said:

Has anyone encountered this?

There was a post last month of a few people talking about the music being loud in general, but nothing about the music being too loud on low volume.

1 hour ago, MrsPlatypus said:

How do I fix this / "reset" the volume setting back to the range of "very quiet - normal - loud" instead of "very quiet - loud - very loud - nuclear explosion"?

Unfortunately, I'm not sure  I will ask a few troubleshooting questions however;

1. About what game version did you first notice this change?

2. Have you changed any audio settings outside of Vintage Story? For example, new headphones, or new computer parts.

3. Did Windows do a computer update around the time this issue started showing? Alternatively, did you do an update on your OS, whether Windows, macOS, or Linux?

[ubertronic]

Just want to reply to this and say I have the same issue and always have. I have the must set to volume 2 and its plenty loud enough. Not a problem I guess but something isn't right!

[MrsPlatypus]

54 minutes ago, Never Jhonsen said:

1. About what game version did you first notice this change?

2. Have you changed any audio settings outside of Vintage Story? For example, new headphones, or new computer parts.

3. Did Windows do a computer update around the time this issue started showing? Alternatively, did you do an update on your OS, whether Windows, macOS, or Linux?

I have been playing 1.20 all along, I haven't updated since I first installed the game. I'm not using any new hardware and there were no Windows updates around the time I noticed it.

I was consistently playing with 15% volume and I haven't touched the volume settings at all. I set it lower when I went looking for bees. Then I turned off the game and during the next play session I wanted to put it back at 15%. And it was like the entire intended music volume (1-100%) got compressed into that 15% range I originally set. As in - 15% was what 100% should be, and everything above 15% was just deafeningly loud.

Edited August 2, 2025 by MrsPlatypus

[Never Jhonsen]

I'm about to suggest something that sounds very silly and I have little hope of it doing anything, but.

25 minutes ago, MrsPlatypus said:

I set it lower when I went looking for bees. Then I turned off the game and during the next play session I wanted to put it back at 15%. And it was like the entire intended music volume (1-100%) got compressed into that 15% range I originally set.

So if you dropped if from 15% to lower, and it "reset" the 1-100% inside that 15%

What if you maxed out the volume, restarted the game, and then put it back to your desired 15%?

If this seems to fix your issue, then this is without a doubt a bug, and I strongly recommend filling out this form the best you can.

[MrsPlatypus]

(edit) Spoke too soon, it seemed to work, but now it looks like when I restart and the music starts fading in, it starts at the volume I set and as it fades in the volume rises well above comfortable levels. 

 

Wow, how did I not think of this! Thank you, it worked. After setting the volume to 100%, restarting the game and bringing it back down to 15%, the volume is as it should be, I no longer need to set it to 3% to hear the rest of the game.

I'm not going to submit a bug report though, I don't have a GitHub account and I don't want to put my data on yet another platform just for this one thing.

Edited August 2, 2025 by MrsPlatypus
Correction

[Never Jhonsen]

21 hours ago, MrsPlatypus said:

I'm not going to submit a bug report though, I don't have a GitHub account and I don't want to put my data on yet another platform just for this one thing.

That's fair, I don't blame you there I'm the same way with a lot of things too

21 hours ago, MrsPlatypus said:

Wow, how did I not think of this! Thank you, it worked. After setting the volume to 100%, restarting the game and bringing it back down to 15%, the volume is as it should be, I no longer need to set it to 3% to hear the rest of the game.

(edit) Spoke too soon, it seemed to work, but now it looks like when I restart and the music starts fading in, it starts at the volume I set and as it fades in the volume rises well above comfortable levels. 

Something's off, but alas I've reached the end of my helpfulness here  Someone who knows more than me will need to help you

[Thorfinn]

Is it all songs or just one? There is one that is excessively hot. I forget which one. I think it plays in Autumn, but don't quote me on it. I just run all the music through a chain including an expander, compressor, limiter and normalizer, not just VS, but most games, because so much music has been mastered in the loudness wars.

[Mrozak]

5 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

I just run all the music through a chain including an expander, compressor, limiter and normalizer

You mean ALL game audio, not just music, right?
Or is there some way to separate the music from the rest? i don't see any means to set a different audio output just for music in VS - is there maybe some hidden setting???

[MrsPlatypus]

6 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Is it all songs or just one? There is one that is excessively hot. I forget which one. I think it plays in Autumn, but don't quote me on it. 

Nope, all music.

[MrsPlatypus]

1 hour ago, Mrozak said:

You mean ALL game audio, not just music, right?
Or is there some way to separate the music from the rest? i don't see any means to set a different audio output just for music in VS - is there maybe some hidden setting???

No, I mean just music. There are separate sliders for music, weather, UI sounds etc. Everything else is behaving normally, music volume is all over the place and when it breaks like I described, music gets several times louder than all other sounds in the game.

[Mrozak]

7 hours ago, MrsPlatypus said:

No, I mean just music. There are separate sliders for music, weather, UI sounds etc. Everything else is behaving normally, music volume is all over the place and when it breaks like I described, music gets several times louder than all other sounds in the game.

Aha, like i wrote, no separate output for music.
So the effects you put on the one output, will affect every sound the game makes.
Sure, depending on settings and IF only the music gets loud, it may not be a problem in case of limiter or even compressor, but that wouldn't work for me (i'd need the music level at ~25% compared to the rest of the audio).

Fortunately, i never experienced the music getting too loud for no reason.
But i could still use a separate output for music, so i can have a quick keyboard shortcut to mute that output when i am not in the mood for music (even with music freq. set to "sometimes", there are times when the music plays while i want silence).

[Thorfinn]

14 hours ago, Mrozak said:

You mean ALL game audio, not just music, right?
Or is there some way to separate the music from the rest? i don't see any means to set a different audio output just for music in VS - is there maybe some hidden setting???

No I use a DAW to do that. My DAW of choice is Studio One, but I'm sure Reaper can do it, though you might not be able to do it batch. I suspect Audacity can do it, too. (I mention the latter two because they are free. They both cover the big 3 OS, Audacity is arguably easier to learn.)

[MrsPlatypus]

This is beginning to fly WAY over my head, I'm not interested in learning how to separate audio outputs, I just want to chase my goats with a bucket and build a wonky windmill without going deaf.

[Mrozak]

16 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

No I use a DAW to do that. My DAW of choice is Studio One, but I'm sure Reaper can do it, though you might not be able to do it batch. I suspect Audacity can do it, too. (I mention the latter two because they are free. They both cover the big 3 OS, Audacity is arguably easier to learn.)

Aha. You are modifying the music audio files - that wasn't clear from what you wrote earlier.

[Mrozak]

13 hours ago, MrsPlatypus said:

This is beginning to fly WAY over my head, I'm not interested in learning how to separate audio outputs, I just want to chase my goats with a bucket and build a wonky windmill without going deaf.

How about the mixer in Windows (or whatever OS you are on)?
Maybe it's sliders got changed.
(i assume you are not using something like VoiceMeeter? - assuming if you did, you would know to look in there anyway).

Or if you are on Windows, look at the audio ducking feature (i forgot where that is) - it's supposed to lower the volume of everything else when you have some voice communication going on (a phone call, or things like Discord voice chat, etc.).
Sure, it is supposed to make other things quieter, not louder, but maybe it could misbehave, or maybe it was active for some reason all the time, and now it finally isn't.

Could be also a bug in VS, but i didn't experience anything like that, not even in 1.21.0-rc.2.
Then again, not all bugs always happen to everyone.

[Mrozak]

Also, what are your other audio sliders set to in VS?
Here are my settings for comparison:
- Master: 60%
- Effects: 80%
- Entity: 100%
- Ambient: 80%
- Weather: 80%
- Music: 8%
- Directional Audio: ON

As you can see, i too have the Music set waaaay lower than anything else, but it just stays like that, it doesn't change, the music doesn't suddenly play louder (of course, some tracks vary in loudness, but not to an extent where i would need to go fiddle with the slider).
But this is all subjective.

Maybe it would help you if you'd make a mod with the music files normalized like Thorfinn mentioned.
Or maybe he will be nice enough to share it with you.

Edited August 5, 2025 by Mrozak

[Never Jhonsen]

This is what mine are set to as well