# I need a little bit of help in debugging **URL:** \ **Category:** Unreal Engine\ **Created:** [April 26, 2023, 9:21pm UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/i-need-a-little-bit-of-help-in-debugging/20171 "2023-04-26T21:21:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![apfelbaum](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/apfelbaum/32/4843_2.png) [@apfelbaum](https://qa.fmod.com/u/apfelbaum)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 9:21pm UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/i-need-a-little-bit-of-help-in-debugging/20171/1 "2023-04-26T21:21:57Z")
Hello, At the moment the project takes shape and I met another problem with the sound. ![grafik](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/uploads/fmod/original/2X/b/b4f028c345c5b6136da29429f0e87be4aa0de3d8.jpeg) These are the current stats and I see that the amount of channels (total) increased by over 10 times since we use traffic cars. Surely there are some tricks to reduce the amount? At this state there are only a couple of things in range that can be heard so I guess most of the sounds are culled somehow? My problem now is that a lot of sounds that are not the loudest are randomly turned on/off, although there shouldn’t be too much to hear. Any help is appreciated or a way to check for this problem. Best regards. ---
**Author:** ![joseph](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/joseph/32/264_2.png) [@joseph](https://qa.fmod.com/u/joseph)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 12:29am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/i-need-a-little-bit-of-help-in-debugging/20171/2 "2023-04-27T00:29:59Z")
> [@apfelbaum](#): > > These are the current stats and I see that the amount of channels (total) increased by over 10 times since we use traffic cars. Surely there are some tricks to reduce the amount? Every playing instance of an instrument within an event instance uses a channel (or multiple channels, in the case of scatterer instruments). If you want to reduce the number of channels being used, therefore, you should reduce the number of event instances, reduce the number of instruments being triggered, and reduce how frequently those instruments are triggered. > [@apfelbaum](#): > > At this state there are only a couple of things in range that can be heard so I guess most of the sounds are culled somehow? There are a number of different ways in which channels may be culled, but the most common ones are governed by our virtual voice system, which you can read about [here](https://fmod.com/docs/2.02/api/white-papers-virtual-voices.html). > [@apfelbaum](#): > > My problem now is that a lot of sounds that are not the loudest are randomly turned on/off, although there shouldn’t be too much to hear. There are a number of ways of addressing this issue, but without knowing exactly the behavior you’re hearing, it’s hard to know which solution should be applied. Could you describe some specific examples of what kinds of sounds are being cut off inappropriately? ---
**Author:** ![apfelbaum](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/apfelbaum/32/4843_2.png) [@apfelbaum](https://qa.fmod.com/u/apfelbaum)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 6:26am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/i-need-a-little-bit-of-help-in-debugging/20171/3 "2023-04-27T06:26:12Z")
Here I recorded two clips, first with working audio and second with the bugs. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/NIxlDnYK-sI/maxresdefault.jpg "ok") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIxlDnYK-sI) In the second clip you can hear the engine sound apart from one barely hearable sample being turned off completely as well as the tire skid sounds. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/EIp-xyakJDY/maxresdefault.jpg "broken") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIp-xyakJDY) Edit: I was able to reduce the amount of total channels to this by adding only the engine sounds to traffic cars, skipping tire skid sounds, rolling sounds and using only simplified engine sound for the traffic cars. ![grafik](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/uploads/fmod/original/2X/2/24c8b4c00d2538461eb909467359fedf1e499072.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![joseph](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/joseph/32/264_2.png) [@joseph](https://qa.fmod.com/u/joseph)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 6:47am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/i-need-a-little-bit-of-help-in-debugging/20171/4 "2023-04-27T06:47:17Z")
Ah, so it’s gameplay-critical sound effects that are being culled? That’s definitely a problem. It’s possible that the missing channels are being virtualized by our virtual voice system. Our virtual voice system tries to cull the quietest channels first, so it usually only culls channels that are silent or inaudible - but if you have an extremely large number of audible channels, it may have to cull some of the audible voices in order to keep the channel count down. If this is the case, the best solution would be to use fewer channels. If that’s not an option, however, a close second is to give gameplay-critical events a higher priority than the default priority of “medium.” An event’s priority property can be found in its macro controls. When it is necessary to virtualize channels, channels in events with a higher priorities are virtualized last, so this feature can be used to protect specific events from being virtualized. ---
**Author:** ![apfelbaum](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/apfelbaum/32/4843_2.png) [@apfelbaum](https://qa.fmod.com/u/apfelbaum)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 6:55am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/i-need-a-little-bit-of-help-in-debugging/20171/5 "2023-04-27T06:55:05Z")
Thanks, I will have a look into this and make a few tests.