Moderator Note
The change happened in the new version of OpenAL-soft. Please refer to this page for further information, and potential workarounds, as well as to this comment from @unknown.
The bug
The sounds are too much related on the player's view, what causes a mono sound if a sound is applied perfectly at right or left.
Linked issues
is duplicated by 9
MC-125155
Sounds Muffled
Resolved
MC-127077
Stereo Sound Offset Is Too Strong
Resolved
MC-127357
Snapshot Game Sound : Very low quality!
Resolved
MC-129257
Audio panning too aggressive
Resolved
MC-131468
Incorrect sound positions
Resolved
MC-132266
Audio Issue - Stereo panning is too intense depending on where the player is facing
Resolved
MC-134034
Minecraft Sound is too directional (still)
Resolved
MC-136944
New 1.13 Sound System
Resolved
MC-138873
Stereo moves between left and right speakers too quickly after 1.13
Resolved
Comments 17
The change happened in the new version of OpenAL-soft - you should be able to get the old behavior if you manually override the openal library by adding a JVM argument -Dorg.lwjgl.openal.libname=path/to/openal_dll_or_so. openal version that lwjgl2 used is 1.15.1, which you can get here: http://kcat.strangesoft.net/openal-binaries/openal-soft-1.15.1-bin.zip
@unknown, @unknown: Just for the record. Are we talking about this issue here? https://github.com/kcat/openal-soft/issues/129
@unknown: That issue does seem to address the audio panning part, but doesn't address the strange sound filtering/quality issues that I'm getting. Now that I think of it, the filtering might be a different issue from this one.
@unknown, okay, well, maybe if you have some free minutes left, you could browse their bugtracker and see if you can find something else.
I know that this is an old issue, but despite the sound quality and stereo panning problems sometimes sounds are coming from completely wrong direction e.g. placing sign on a wall to the right of the player and the sound comes from the left side.
I don't know if that is also a bug from the new OpenAL libraries, but it is something that needs to be taken care of (If that's possible without reverting back to old LWJGL)
Also I wasn't able to find proper instructions about how to override and use the older oal-soft version, is there more detaied explanation somewhere?
I was able to get old audio back and i have had a go at trying to explain how to. https://pastebin.com/BQrP3rY3
Please change the status back to confirmed. This cannot be intended behavior. The sound isn't working properly, and it's Mojang's job to make sure it is. I know that OpenAL is part of LWJGL. But OpenAL is broken in LWJGL3. It's Mojang's responsibility to not use broken third party software in their production release.
At least implement the workaround internally in the release. Do not force the player base to apply the workaround. Most of them won't even be able to do it.
Please, disregard this if there's an actual plan for a fix!
This can't be intended. Is Mojang really going to use broken third party software in their final release?
affects 1.13-pre5
1.13-pre9
Why is this being ignored? Please reopen.
Agreed. The sound is absolutely awful in 1.13, and will definitely turn people away.
Please refrain from posting comments that are not useful to the report.
Another potential thing worth mentioning: it's not always possible to reliably tell if you're using headphones or speakers, and openal might not be configured properly as a result of that; one solution is to manually set "stereo-mode = headphones" in alsoft.ini/conf. In the future we will most likely ship with the config file, and make it somehow toggleable between headphones and speakers, but it is not really something that is possible with the current way we do things.
Best results will be produced with headphones and with hrtf, as described here: https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/1fzonq/psa_for_games_using_openal_including_minecraft/
but this is certanly not something that the game should do for you, and something that you'll have to do yourself.
Sound is a very subjective thing, and even though the newest library version with the proper configuration is my preferred setup, some people will want to keep it exactly like it was before, and that's why my original response tells how to go back to the exact way it sounded in 1.12.2.
I think that's the issue. If I'm using my desk speakers the directional sound sounds much more accurate because the sound is coming from in front of me. With headphones, it's too far to one side and there's not much center sound.
I'm using the older openal version you posted and the sound is perfect with it. Hopefully we can get speaker/headphone options in the future.
This took me longer to figure out than I'm willing to admit, but if you're trying Georgii's workaround, be sure to put quotes around your path name:
-Dorg.lwjgl.openal.libname="C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\openal-soft-1.15.1-bin\Win64\OpenAL32.dll"
I extracted the zip file into my .minecraft folder, but you can probably stick it anywhere.
Please add an in-game option for this.
Can confirm, also the sound quality appears to have gotten worse. Here are videos of sound in 1.12.2 and 17w43b, recorded with Windows 10's native game recorder.
I do have HRTF audio enabled via this method, but it shouldn't explain the apparent degradation in sound quality.