# Suggestion: steal release time **URL:** \ **Category:** FMOD Studio\ **Created:** [April 30, 2021, 11:54pm UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/suggestion-steal-release-time/17144 "2021-04-30T23:54:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Alcibiade](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/alcibiade/32/4284_2.png) [@Alcibiade](https://qa.fmod.com/u/Alcibiade)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2021, 11:54pm UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/suggestion-steal-release-time/17144/1 "2021-04-30T23:54:39Z")
I think FMOD should have something similar to “Voice Steal Release Time” in UE4 concurrency settings. I found it super useful for a fantasy machine gun using a very long tail sound: with the polyphony (max count in UE4) set to 1, steal oldest, and the steal release time set to 0.3, it insures a very neat rafale shooting without abruptly cutting the previous sound, and allows for the long tail to develop only on the last sound. I think this option should be part of the scatterer instrument and the event macros. ![concurrency](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/uploads/fmod/original/2X/3/35faf792066539786d1abd63cdb4d3329318080f.png) ---
**Author:** ![Alcibiade](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/alcibiade/32/4284_2.png) [@Alcibiade](https://qa.fmod.com/u/Alcibiade)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2021, 10:17pm UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/suggestion-steal-release-time/17144/2 "2021-05-03T22:17:05Z")
Ok, I’ve read an old answer from @joseph somewhere in the forum, saying the stealing wasn’t meant to be used in a creative way, so a smooth cut will not be implemented. I disagree, but why not. However, a reason to implement it is because it’s in UE4 native audio. I mean, native audio in UE4 has awful behaviors! I pulled my hair out for hours trying to do something as simple as seamlessly transition from an music intro to a music loop. It seems to be almost impossible to do, even so The Legend of Zelda implemented this behavior in it’s main theme in 1986 (and probably before that, I can imagine). By the way, have you seen this part where the UE guy talks about FMOD? His embarrassment is hilarious: [https://youtu.be/qaOGv0gNSms?t=4823](https://youtu.be/qaOGv0gNSms?t=4823) But I should admit UE4 have more option than FMOD in regard to attenuation, spatialization and concurrency, steal release time being one of those. ---
**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:** [May 4, 2021, 12:41am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/suggestion-steal-release-time/17144/3 "2021-05-04T00:41:05Z")
If you want to achieve a smooth fade-out of a sound when playing a new instance of a sound, there are already ways to achieve that behavior in FMOD Studio, using combinations of AHDSR modulators, event instruments, trigger conditions, and command instruments. Stealing is so called because it allows you to “steal” one voice or event instance in order to use it for something new. Gradually fading out one event instance or voice while starting to play another isn’t stealing the old instance, but playing two instances simultaneously; no stealing takes place. Failing to steal an instance when it is necessary to strictly limit the number of instances would undermine stealing’s usefulness as a tool for resource management. That being said, I do understand that you want the start of one sound to trigger the fadeout of a different existing sound, and that you want a feature that allows you to achieve that behavior more conveniently to be part of playlist instruments and event macros. I’ll add that suggestion to our feature/improvement tracker. We won’t change how stealing works for the reasons I’ve already said, but we might be able to add (for example) a different feature that works in parallel to stealing and does what you want. ---
**Author:** ![Alcibiade](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/alcibiade/32/4284_2.png) [@Alcibiade](https://qa.fmod.com/u/Alcibiade)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 10:58am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/suggestion-steal-release-time/17144/4 "2021-09-15T10:58:00Z")
> [@joseph](#): > > Stealing is so called because it allows you to “steal” one voice or event instance in order to use it for something new. Gradually fading out one event instance or voice while starting to play another isn’t stealing the old instance, but playing two instances simultaneously; no stealing takes place. Failing to steal an instance when it is necessary to strictly limit the number of instances would undermine stealing’s usefulness as a tool for resource management. In fact, after thinking twice, I don’t really get the argument. I’ll explain myself. If stealing is a tool for resource management but always makes a pop by abruptly cutting the sound, then sound designers will mostly avoid to use it, but rather use it as a safety net (ideally never triggering). Eventually, why not leave the trade off to the sound designer, between an instant and hard steal, or a delayed, smoothed steal (with a temporary stealing voice count overload)? It would greatly expand the usefulness of this tool, in my opinion. And, after all, Epic made that choice in UE native sound system. ---
**Author:** ![richard\_simms](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/richard_simms/32/261_2.png) [@richard\_simms](https://qa.fmod.com/u/richard_simms)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 1:39am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/suggestion-steal-release-time/17144/5 "2021-09-20T01:39:04Z")
That is a very good point - if the resource management aspect is affecting the experience of the game then it can end up with sound designers not using it for either cases. Ideally this would be a fully fleshed out feature with “hard” and “soft” instance culling behaviour, but in the meantime it would be good to just allow fadeouts on stolen event instances as if `STOP_ALLOWFADEOUT` was called on them. I’ve raised a feature suggestion to our dev team and it will hopefully be looked in to for a future release. In the meantime, you could have a custom “soft” stealing behaviour system in place by monitoring the number of event instances for a particular event in a function and when the criteria has been met call `STOP_ALLOWFADEOUT` on the event instance of choice. ---
**Author:** ![Alcibiade](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/alcibiade/32/4284_2.png) [@Alcibiade](https://qa.fmod.com/u/Alcibiade)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 6:51am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/suggestion-steal-release-time/17144/6 "2021-09-20T06:51:24Z")
Thanks @richard_simms, And even more so, I think the option should be present in async multi and scatterer. In fact, everywhere there’s a polyphony limit setting (because in those cases, stealing is used more as a creative tool than a ressource management tool). I would imagine a knob for setting the steal release time (between 0 and a few seconds), 0 being the actuel hard culling. It would perform a standard fade out curve. ---
**Author:** ![samanabo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@samanabo](https://qa.fmod.com/u/samanabo)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2022, 8:50pm UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/suggestion-steal-release-time/17144/7 "2022-03-28T20:50:04Z")
Hi, I just wanted to add my two cents here. I think this would be great feature to add, as the current solution requires a bit of boilerplate code, and cannot be controlled by the sound designer. I believe UE and wwise both have features like this, and would allow for a sound designer to have creative control over concurrent sounds playing. It may also be sensible to integrate this with the existing AHDSR module as well. Is there some way to track a feature request like this? Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![richard\_simms](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/richard_simms/32/261_2.png) [@richard\_simms](https://qa.fmod.com/u/richard_simms)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2022, 3:36am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/suggestion-steal-release-time/17144/8 "2022-03-29T03:36:52Z")
I have added your message to our tracker for future reference, but there isn’t a way to see how this is progressing for the public to see. In the meantime, the `STOP_ALLOWFADEOUT` method mentioned above would be the best workaround. ---
**Author:** ![trjaudio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ea666f/32.png) [@trjaudio](https://qa.fmod.com/u/trjaudio)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 11:14am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/suggestion-steal-release-time/17144/9 "2023-08-11T11:14:44Z")
+1 for this feature ---
**Author:** ![deHaan](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/dehaan/32/68_2.png) [@deHaan](https://qa.fmod.com/u/deHaan)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 11:40am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/suggestion-steal-release-time/17144/10 "2023-08-11T11:40:07Z")
another +1 ---
**Author:** ![Arsen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecccb3/32.png) [@Arsen](https://qa.fmod.com/u/Arsen)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2023, 3:34pm UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/suggestion-steal-release-time/17144/11 "2023-08-14T15:34:08Z")
+1 ---
**Author:** ![Damion1](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/damion1/32/2716_2.png) [@Damion1](https://qa.fmod.com/u/Damion1)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2023, 7:07am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/suggestion-steal-release-time/17144/12 "2023-10-13T07:07:40Z")
+1 +1 +1 ---
**Author:** ![dshodge](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/dshodge/32/5755_2.png) [@dshodge](https://qa.fmod.com/u/dshodge)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2024, 4:44pm UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/suggestion-steal-release-time/17144/13 "2024-05-17T16:44:52Z")
+1 this would be really useful! Are there any updates on this feature? ---
**Author:** ![Andrew](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/andrew/32/261_2.png) [@Andrew](https://qa.fmod.com/u/Andrew)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2024, 12:35am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/suggestion-steal-release-time/17144/14 "2024-05-20T00:35:51Z")
No updates. I’ve added your vote to the feature request though. ---
**Author:** ![GiacomoF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e9c0ed/32.png) [@GiacomoF](https://qa.fmod.com/u/GiacomoF)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2025, 7:00pm UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/suggestion-steal-release-time/17144/15 "2025-03-28T19:00:55Z")
I also mentioned my +1 in another post. But will do so here too ---
**Author:** ![JavierChalcoff](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/javierchalcoff/32/9028_2.png) [@JavierChalcoff](https://qa.fmod.com/u/JavierChalcoff)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2025, 10:02pm UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/suggestion-steal-release-time/17144/16 "2025-09-17T22:02:59Z")
I can’t believe this wasn’t added yet. +20 from our entire team ---
**Author:** ![Andrew](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/andrew/32/261_2.png) [@Andrew](https://qa.fmod.com/u/Andrew)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2025, 12:55am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/suggestion-steal-release-time/17144/17 "2025-09-18T00:55:34Z")
Thanks for the input. I’ve noted your passionate interest. ---
**Author:** ![trjaudio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ea666f/32.png) [@trjaudio](https://qa.fmod.com/u/trjaudio)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2026, 6:53am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/suggestion-steal-release-time/17144/18 "2026-08-18T06:53:44Z")
Still very much needed! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Andrew](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/andrew/32/261_2.png) [@Andrew](https://qa.fmod.com/u/Andrew)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2026, 11:05pm UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/suggestion-steal-release-time/17144/19 "2026-08-18T23:05:25Z")
Ok, interest noted again. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![EdGray](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bbe5ce/32.png) [@EdGray](https://qa.fmod.com/u/EdGray)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2026, 8:33pm UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/suggestion-steal-release-time/17144/20 "2026-08-22T20:33:35Z")
Just bumped into this issue on a project I’m not able to touch the code on so a real blocker unfortunately. Big +1 from me [Next page](https://qa.fmod.com/t/suggestion-steal-release-time/17144.md?page=2)