21st Century Digital Boy - Vocals missing

[karaokefreak]

Hi guys

I found out that rock band blitz has problems with the vocal audio in "21st century digital boy" by Bad Religion. You will just hear the background vocals and no main vocals, no matter if you are on the vocal lane or not.

Just for your interest.

btw: i play on Xbox 360 (EU, fat).

[Lowlander2]

Now that is weird, because I played that song and I'm pretty sure that did not happen for me. Try playing it again and seeing what happens.

[metalkorn]

I'm fairly sure it didn't happen for me either but I'd have to check again

[karaokefreak]

I checked it several times - happens every time I play it. Alll other songs that I played worked fine - all vocals audible. It really is only 21st century digital boy. And I am 100% positive that it is not my soundsystem. I have a 5.1 system and use an optical cable, so there is either a signal or there is none.

However - my friend doesn't have that problem either. How can it happen with only one song in my whole 1300 Song Setlist, when it doesn't happen with others?
I am pretty confused...

[Magnet]

I've played this song on the PS3 and there weren't any problems. Very peculiar.

[TubaDude49]

I checked it several times - happens every time I play it. Alll other songs that I played worked fine - all vocals audible. It really is only 21st century digital boy. And I am 100% positive that it is not my soundsystem. I have a 5.1 system and use an optical cable, so there is either a signal or there is none.

However - my friend doesn't have that problem either. How can it happen with only one song in my whole 1300 Song Setlist, when it doesn't happen with others?
I am pretty confused...

I wouldn't entirely rule out the sound system, perhaps its only outputting the left or right channel due to burnout or something?

[KMO_2000]

Your sound system isn't outputting the centre channel.

21st Century (Digital Boy) is unusual in that the vocals are mono, so they come from the centre channel, unlike most songs, where they'll come from left and right.

And other songs will be showing problems - most commonly lack of drums or bass, which often go to the centre.

Not sure why you haven't noticed this fault before with other games etc. Only thing I can think of is that you usually only feed the receiver a 2-channel feed not surround, and have "all-channel stereo" selected, so the lack of centre speaker wasn't noticed.

But Rock Band Blitz appears to always output multichannel if available, giving proper discrete stereo, showing up the problem.

[karaokefreak]

Hey KMO 2000

You were right about the center speaker. However, it was not disconnected. I just turned it down when I setup my system in order to have it match the volume of all other speakers. That is why I never realized any flaw with the center speaker - it was loud enough for all other games and even for movies. The vocal recordings in 21s century digital boy a kinda thin and tin-like, even now that I turned the volume up. That might be the reason why i never heard the vocals when the center speaker was turned down.

Anyway, thanks for your help, mate!

[KMO_2000]

Something still sounds a bit iffy here though.

If you're watching most films with a 5.1 soundtrack, the bulk of the dialogue should be coming from the centre channel only. If you couldn't hear the vocals of that song, I'm not sure how you could hear any film dialogue...

I'm thinking you've got some funny settings set somewhere, meaning you're not getting proper 5.1 surround from films, hiding this problem. Are you sure your DVD player is outputting 5.1?

And on matching levels for set-up, you should only ever do that with test tones, rather than normal material. If you had correctly level matched the centre channel, you wouldn't have had any problem hearing the vocals.

Finally, tinniness. Yes, the vocals are a bit thin and tinny on that song, but not enough that I'd mention it, so I'm suspecting another set-up problem. Have you got all your speakers set to "small" in the receiver? If not, change them to "small" now. That will make sure all the bass from all 5 main channels goes to the subwoofer - preferable in all normal systems.