Hi! We have created all sounds needed for our game. Only question I have is who should ballance sound volumes for the game, sound designer directly OR game (read: sound) programmers by attenuating each sound's volume from arbitrary configuration (file / hardcode)? Ty!

The sound designer should control this, with the programmer providing the tools. Nothing should be hard coded; ideally, you want to be able to adjust everything on the fly using beautifully designed, bug-free software.

In reality you'll probably have to settle for a spreadsheet or text file containing all the sounds and their corresponding volume values, and every time you alter a value you'll probably have to relaunch the game. This isn't a good system by any stretch of the imagination, but asking a programmer to change something then waiting for the next build of the game is not an option.

I go through this all the time and it depends on the team. Sometimes the asset lead will not have a problem changing the volumes using engine parameters, or even better through scripting. And sometimes they ask me to change the volume of the sounds either because they want batch edits (like all 300 lines of dialogI just sent they want turned down to 70%...well that's easy with SoundForge.)

On the other hand, teams that are using particular sound API's like FMOD usually I deliver the sounds at the highest possible volume as FMOD easily attenuates, It boosts as well, but typically you'll get a better sound boosting a low level signal through actual audio hardware than any API's algorithm.

So, from my experience, it depends on the sound engine and certainly the team.

Tony