Poll: How do you set your gaming music?

[BFG10K]

I was curious to hear about how everyone sets their music while gaming. I've always done 1 but am considering moving to 2.

 

[DeathReborn]

Pretty much always off, exception being Carmageddon as the music really adds to the mayhem. The main reason is I got so fed up of the music spoiling the game (music changes, then bad guy appears...), something that I doubt has changed.

 

[OCNewbie]

Often I don't even mess with it. Playing Minecraft I sometimes leave it on (at a lower than default volume), or turn it off completely. Depends on the pack I'm playing it seems.

 

[nakedfrog]

I usually don't touch it, but sometimes I turn it down.
I did turn it completely off for OlliOlli2, because I absolutely hated the music, and just turned on my own music in the background.

 

[Stg-Flame]

The music is usually half of the atmosphere. I can't count how many games had outstanding soundtracks, so I'll never understand how people will play with gaming music off or just blaring external music over the game music.

 

[Zenoth]

Voted #4.

It's variable. It depends if I like the soundtrack or not, to start with. If it's good, I usually leave it on, but the volume will usually not be turned all the way up to max. Even if I love the soundtrack I'll usually keep it at maybe half volume since I do prefer to hear the rest of the game's audio in priority over the music. But there's been some exceptions to that 'rule'. In cases where the "music" is actually more of an ambient soundtrack and isn't too melodic then I can in those specific cases just leave it on at full volume if it doesn't bother me much.

I've done that for a few games such as STALKER (the first one) and both Borderlands 1 and 2. However, even in those cases sometimes the music will be dymanic and based on what's happening (I.E. exploration music, or combat music) such as the soundtrack of the Elder Scrolls games. That's where mods come into play, where I would leave the exploration / outdoor music play at around full volume most of the time, but would mod the game in order for the combat music to be turned almost all the way down or simply turned off (or specific combat tracks to be removed, but keeping some at half volume).

Now, in cases where I like the game but don't like the music much I'll usually just turn it off and play something else in the background from the desktop apps, or I'll just plain and simple play without music at all. I've done exactly just that for Diablo 3 for the majority of the years I've played it. I don't "hate" D3's OST, but I simply don't like it enough to keep it on all the time. I've heard it play a couple of times and it was enough (D2's OST was a completely different story though; kept it on all the time at near max volume).

So yeah it's variable and pretty much a per-title case by case scenario.

 

[EXCellR8]

I just set it lower than FX and dialogue. So like:

Master = 100%
Dialogue = 90%
Effects = 80%
Music = 70%
etc.

something like that. voted 2

 

[clamum]

Usually I set it at 0%/off but semi recently I guess I've just set it low, like 20%. But more often it's still off. I just can hear dialog and game sounds better this way.

I also always have captions on (with TV/movies as well) cause I can miss what was said if dialog is super quiet (which it frustratingly seems to be so many times).

 

[GodisanAtheist]

It really depends.

For most narrative driven games, I'll leave the settings alone and enjoy the game as it was meant to be played.

Othertimes, if it's my nth playthrough of a game or it's a sim game that I'm playing while watching Netflix or blasting my playlist then the game music or all game sounds go off. I don't need the music to enjoy a run through Civilization or Simcity or something.

 

[Craig234]

I usually just listen to it at the intended level. If I don' t like it I turn it off.

 

[Igo69]

Voted 1 and 2...
Mostly off. Most music in games sucks and ruins the atmosphere. Very few games has nice music and still i turn it on low

 

[DigDog]

im getting old - i actually have a teeny tiny bit of music in the background.