[MC-973] Bat noises are painful and cause headaches.

Going caving has become really annoying lately, and using my mob farm is almost impossible.

The bats spawn and make extremely high-frequency noises which are actually painful to my ears; I get a headache after just 5-10 minutes at normal volume. If I reduce the volume it's fine, but then I can't hear creeper noises either. 😞

The bat "death" noise is fine, it's just the passive ambient noises that are a problem.

Please lower the frequency of the bat noises so they are not painful for those of us with extremely good high-range hearing.

Linked issues

relates to 1

MC-11519 Epilepsy trigger from collecting a lot of EXP Resolved

Attachments

Comments 13

Cad'ika Orade 2012-10-28T04:16:12Z

Have you ever been around real bats before?
As someone who lives within walking distance of a massive bat colony, I can say that bat calls are already annoying low-pitch. Real bat calls are much louder, more constant, and at such a high frequency that I don't know anyone over the age of 30 capable of hearing them.

Kyle Moffett 2012-10-28T04:31:28Z

While I appreciate the thought, the exact behavior and noises of "real bats" aren't really relevant here.

Minecraft is very much an "abstract interpretation" of the real world. Many other things that would normally be extremely painful or immediately fatal (such as being hit with an arrow or falling in lava) are dramatically reduced in effect to provide an enjoyable game. I see no reason why the bat noises should not be adjusted with the same effect in mind.

Much of Minecraft's target audience tends to be the under-30 crowd in the first place, who are precisely the people who would be most affected by this problem. Also, if you are incapable of perceiving the painful high-frequency portions of the bat noises, why are you objecting to their removal?

Cheers,
Kyle Moffett

Cad'ika Orade 2012-10-28T05:30:51Z

Why are you claiming that your opinion on a sound constitutes a bug?

Kyle Moffett 2012-10-28T09:33:57Z

Because it's not so much "my opinion" as it is "I literally cannot continue to play Minecraft because the bat noise is excruciatingly painful over even short play sessions". While I can't speak for anyone else, I strongly suspect that there are others in the same boat.

To put some data to my argument, I pulled out the "mobs/bat/idle1.ogg" through "mobs/bat/idle4.ogg" sounds and ran them through an FFT in Audacity (screenshots attached). There is a substantial amount of power in the extremely-high-frequency 10kHz to 16kHz range, but most computer speakers and headphones can't reliably reproduce much above 9kHz. I tried playing with my Bose QC-15s, for example, and they actually make the bat noises a bit tolerable because they attenuate some of the objectionable 10k+ frequencies (cite 1).

It's pretty trivial to generate a 10kHz sinewave with Audacity or other similar software and play it through your speakers. If you try, I think you'll agree that there's no reason for Minecraft's bat noises to use >10kHz frequencies.

Mojang is more than welcome to close this bug as "Working as Intended" and then I will go back to playing WoW or something, but I figured I should at least make sure they're aware of how debilitating these noises are for some players.

Cheers,
Kyle Moffett

(1) http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/photogallery/measured-bose-qc15-noise-canceling-headphone

kumasasa 2012-10-28T10:02:24Z

The current bat sounds are IMO quite realistic and well fitting.

3 more comments

Saskia Pahl 2012-10-28T12:15:21Z

I am just a person with migraine. And even while i have no headache and sitting in front of a pc, this.. Itwich - sound strongly gets on my ears. After being underground for a while.. i needed to close my game session due to heavy headache and earapain. I am not even playing on 100% sound. I just got 7%. And its still pretty ... well since lately i kill all bats - first thing. I really hate those mobs. They dont make minecraft pleasant. i like it how they are .. flapping about.. but thats all. I really would like them in the game.. but you make it impossible - on me. Since i can hear real bats.. i must say they sound more.. pleasant not so pitched. To smooth the sound and to reduce the heights shouldnt be that much of a problem.. and should be done in less than 5 min. I recommend.. or any headache or migraine attacked people.. will be strongly repulsed by this flappy black sweety things.

Jens Bergensten 2012-10-31T08:35:33Z

Made noises slightly deeper in pitch.
Made bats less noisy when sitting still.
Decreased number of bats that are spawned.

Michael Martin 2012-11-01T19:58:27Z

It might be better to, instead of dropping the pitch, mess with an equalizer to drastically reduce remove the frequencies higher than 10KHz. It'll make the bats sound different, but it should prevent headaches in those people who can still hear the 'mosquito' audio file.

EDIT

Here's a link to a zip file with modified bat noises that are the same pitch, but have a highpass filter at a bit below 10KHz. Those of you who have headache problems, can you listen to this and let me know if it still has the headache-inducing qualities of the originals? I'm getting a little too old. [BOTCHED THIS ONE, SEE COMMENTS BELOW]

Jonathan Haas 2012-11-01T20:31:04Z

Michael, to me your new sounds are much less painful than the ingame ones. I really prefer them, although they have lost some of their bat-like feeling.

Edit: Although when directly comparing them to the 1.4.3 prerelease files, the only difference I hear is that your files are much more silent.

Michael Martin 2012-11-02T04:10:35Z

Apparently I was wrong about what a high-pass filter does. What I wanted was a low-pass filter.

I re-did it, this time being aggressive on some samples and less so on others. The volume is close to the same, but the high frequency sounds are mostly gone. See how this works for you.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/14806794/batsounds2.zip

If it does work, Mojang, you have my permission to use these modified files.

Kyle Moffett 2012-11-02T06:01:25Z

I'll go ahead and see what (EDIT)1.4.3 changed, but here's my take on Michael's "batsounds2" adjustements:

So hurt1, hurt2, idle1, and idle2 sounded like substantial improvements to me, but all the rest were basically the same; I think idle3 and idle4 could still use some improvement.

Thanks for the consideration!

Cheers,
Kyle

Michael Martin 2012-11-03T03:04:24Z

I'm out of town for a week; when I get back I'll probably do some more tweaking.

Saskia Pahl 2012-11-03T13:05:33Z

My opinion is that idle 2, 3 and 4 - especially 3 and 4 need improvement. Idle one.. is ok, for now.. i would need to see how it would be implemented in the game. hurt 1 and 2 still get on my ears.. the other two sounds are pretty okay without being implemented i can say that for sure X)