The peripherals maker releases a new piece of software for game developers - and soon, a shiny new headset for the rest of us.
Turtle Beach may not be the biggest name in peripherals, but they’re working hard to capture their own little piece of the gaming market, and their most recent release certainly has us curious.
They’ve released the PX5 Advanced Sound Editor, a tool that gives game developers the ability to create and upload custom presets for specific games, which you’ll then be able to download and save onto the upcoming PX5 Wireless Gaming headset.
Developers can program settings for every aspect of the game sound, as well as the microphone and chat systems. Each channel has an adjustable multi-band equalizer than can be adjusted according to the game situation, and something called SonicLens technology allows developers to focus the sound mix on specific audio cues – footsteps, far-off explosions, or approaching vehicles, for example. They can also filter out undesired noise for true silence, where needed, or subtly adjust in-game volume without increasing loud noise levels – all in the name of creating the ideal audio experience for each individual game.
Once the sound preset is created and saved into Turtle Beach’s upcoming PX5 User Portal, anyone who owns a PX5 headset will be able to download it and, by way of USB, save it to the headset. Developers can also make the presets available on their own official or community sites. The idea is to make a whole range of custom-made presets available for a huge range of different games, so you never have to manually adjust your headset again, while still getting the best sound out of any situation.
The trick will be getting enough developers using the software to make it worth your while. Turtle Beach already have one cab off the rank: Visceral Games, who are creating several custom presets for Dead Space 2. These presets, according to Steve Papoutsis, DS2’s executive Producer, have ‘helped amplify every subtle sound in the game so when I put on the headsets while playing Dead Space 2, I felt even more immersed in the horrific game world we created.’
We found Dead Space 2 plenty scary when we played it the first time, so we’ll be quite keen to give it another spin once we get our hands on the PX5 headset – and possibly keeping a change of underwear handy.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012