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Let's Talk About Module Sounds


Bananimal

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One of the things that I often dwell on after buying a brand new module is the sounds that come with some of these modules. While the aircraft and systems get tremendous attention from the developers, it seems that the sounds are not given that much attention all.

 

I can say that DCS is not the only title I have where this is evident. It seems to be a common theme with many developers. As an example, Dovetail's Train Simulator will release a locomotive module. I'll buy it, dive into the sim and load up the locomotive only to hear sounds that literally destroy the immersion to a level where one of the first things I go out and look for is a sound mod to hopefully fix it. And I say "hopefully" because it's not always possible. I've even had to fix some myself if I could.

 

Most recently on the DCS side of the fence, at least for me, the F-14 sounds. Heatblur spent all kinds of time developing an outstanding model that looks and behaves so realistically, if you were to superimpose it over a photo of real terrain, you'd have a hard time telling it was CGI. But the sounds. They sound nothing like an F-14. At all! And in my eyes, it destroys all of the effort they put into the model itself. Why put that much effort into something and ignore one of the most important things required to suspend disbelief? The sounds. That's 50% of the experience given 10% of the attention. It makes no sense to me.

 

The other issue is, I feel there is no continuity between devs in how they decide to implement the sounds for their models. I think it would be helpful if ED required the devs to adhere to a specific sounds framework when they build a module. This would achieve some consistency. Right now, some of the modules use the old sound methodology, and some like the F-18, use a newer method. At least that is how I understand it.

 

Now, I'm not looking to start arguments here. This is my opinion. If yours is different, that is great. I just wanted to get some ideas from others and see if they are feeling the same about our beloved hobby. If we had an improved sound engine for DCS there would be very few shortcomings in most of the modules. But to me, the sounds are pitiful efforts in many cases.

 

If you think I'm off my rocker, ask yourself why ED module promotional films use real aircraft sounds in them and put a disclaimer about it. Just the mere act of doing that tells me they must feel the same way about the sound engine in DCS as well.

 

What are your thoughts? Please no flaming. I get it if some of you are okay with the sounds. I hope to get some good input from the community and hopefully something good may come out of it.


Edited by Bananimal

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Well I am with you here but I will use as an example your train Simulator, to accurately reproduce that would need an array of 18" Subwoofers probally to accurately reproduce and I don't see many people having that..

 

 

For PC's we are lucky to have 1-10" crappy subwoofer. now the same would go for the plane simulator but I would summise a buttkicker could help with this to rumble the seat but massive subwoofer would need to be in place..

 

 

As for the cockpit sounds they seem real enough to me as I have never sat in a working jet for any real military plane and was able to hear what it really sounded like..

 

 

Now to get these sounds accurately they would need to be recorded in a controlled environment. This would be very costly to have all the sounds recorded to accurately get them.. the cost would be very high..

 

 

I am sure a Foley artist and sound experts can pull some magic with sound devoces for high end recording equip[ment but one would need to know how it originally sounded at the least and they would need to see one of these planes in real life like for instance the sound of a certain switch flipping..

 

 

I don't see that level and I imagine that is what you are wanting I am with you but not gonna happen.. they probally tap into a sound bank of which are available in Hollywood and the like and just use those..

 

 

I think they did a good enough job there but some sounds are weak I agree that goes for any game.. I remember when my nephew had his Xbox hooked up to my Home theater with a 12' cubic foot 18" subwoofer now they sounded like some real explosions.. as if a 10" sub could do that not hardly or headphones forget about..

 

 

So I am unsure if you are referring to the Accurate reproduction of the sounds to that level but it would take one hell of a sound system to pull it off accurately..

 

 

Or to just have better quality in the sound through the headphones is not what I am clear on but I think I covered both basses..

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I was mostly speaking to the external engines sounds. Sorry, I should have clarified that. Most DCS modules suffer from an annoyingly constant thrust sound from the rear while on the ramp or taxiing. In the case of the F-14, it is excessively loud and never changes with throttle input. I'm hopeful Heatblur has some changes in mind. I know that Belsimtek did do some work on the F-18 after release and it is much better that it was at release.

 

As far as sound volume? I wasn't speaking to how loud a jet is, but more just what they sound like.

 

Here's an example, although the poor quality mic used here is clipping, you get the idea.

 

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Well OK are you referring to the High end noises? I been to air shows and the like but I have never seen an F14 so I can say but those high ends noises are deafening outside the jet. I will have to give the jet outside a listen I have not done that with the 14/../

 

 

What also you don't hear is the low end. You would need probally some pretty expensive recording equipment to peoperly get that recorded..

 

 

I am pretty sure they just opted for some generic sounds from a farm bank like Hollywood uses.. to get those sounds recorded in the field would be costly..

 

 

and even if they used a sound reproducer program to get it accurate to like in the video would be very time consuming hence cost increases so that is probally why they got sound banks for their sounds..

 

 

I am wondering if us end users could replace the sounds they used with our own if we used sounds from recording or such?


Edited by The_Nephilim

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Please do not take videos like this as reference. Most of the time they do not reflect how the airplane would actually sound like in real life if your were hearing them in person.

 

Regarding your first post in this thread, I agree with you. The F-14 does not sound very convincing, especially inside the cockpit with the afterburner on. It's the same deal with the Viggen, which has also audio looping issues. Definitely looks like sound design is not Heatblur's strength...

On Razbam's side, Mirage in-cockpit sound is bad too but for different reasons.

 

Now other devs do a great job. ED, Belsimtek, Polychop have made some great quality stuff that are difficult to criticize.


Edited by Nooch

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I think part of the issue is implementation. Many of the aircraft have that constant jet blast from the rear when in reality it's nowhere near that loud when on the ramp or taxiing. And the absence of pitch shift with throttle input makes it worse. If only ED would take some time to hash this out. It hasn't changed much since the Lock On days.

 

If it costs a little more per module to get proper sound, I'm in. I spend much more time finding, downloading, installing, and testing sound mods to complain about a five or ten dollar increase. The cost vs. time savings is certainly a consideration. Hell, even a for purchase "Pro Sound Pack" would be awesome, so those that are willing to pay more for more realism have that option.


Edited by Bananimal

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  • ED Team

When you talk about bad sound in DCC modules, please specify which modules you are talking about. We have many third-party modules, such as F14, which the DCS cannot change. Write specifically to the forum thread of the developer, which module do you have in mind.

With regards to the DCS modules - some were made several years ago. Therefore, I agree, the sounds are outdated in places and require updating. We update the sounds constantly, but there are already a lot of modules and there is not always enough time for it. Because we constantly make new modules.

But please understand us - we simply do not have access to most of the aircraft. We can not record their sounds. We try to reproduce the real picture from the records on YouTube and the feedback from the pilots. The newer the module, the more technology is involved and the sound is better. You can see it on the example of the Yak-52, F-18 and in the near future I am sure you will like the sound of the FW190A8 and F16. On which all free time is now spent.

 

Also, user assistance always helps us. If you consider any of the modules that are outdated in sound, we need to urgently update, please contact me, Refine your request with links to video-audio materials. And we will try to do better immediately, as soon as free time appears.

Many thanks.

Best regards,

Kanstantsin Kuzniatsou (btd)

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Thanks for diving in on this thread Kantantsin.

 

I will say, the newer ED aircraft have been much, much better than the older ED modules. Your work there has certainly been noticed and appreciated. I was speaking more to the older modules like those in the FC3 series. The F-86 is another one. The f-5 Tiger, another. The afterburners on that thing sound more like an F-15.

 

I'd be willing to bet bags to donuts that if you guys reached out to the community to assist with acquiring sounds for some of these aircraft, you'd get a barrage of replies with links to their personal videos that may not be posted on YouTube. That's the one thing about this community, we'll help make the sim better if we can. I try to do my part by skinning. Collectively, I truly believe there are enough talented customers to help drive the product further.

 

If you take a look at Echo-19s F-18 Sound mod for the DCS F/A-18 you'll see how far some in the community are willing to go if given a proper framework to work with. Evidently, you guys did it right with the F/A-18. For the Heatblur F-14 though, it appears they took some significant shortcuts in the sound implementation and therefore the same level of realism is not attainable, even with a community mod.

 

That's why I think it would be a good idea for ED to have a few round tables with the 3rd party devs and outline a standard framework in the SDK for sounds and how they must be implemented in their modules. Otherwise, you get what we're getting, 3rd party devs doing what they want, which is not necessarily a good thing for assuring customers that they will receive an expected level of quality when purchasing these modules. Continuity in quality is important for the brand.

 

The other thing with DCS is that many aircraft share the same sound files. That's a good thing for saving HDD space, but a really bad obstacle for modders because changing one sound to get more realism in a specific aircraft results in changes to the sound for other aircraft as well. Being a long time MS Flight Simulator, FSX, P3D guy.......each aircraft has it's own sound folder. Don't like the sounds? Swap out the wav files for more accurate sounds and that aircraft is the only one affected. The way DCS is currently setup, this is not possible, so we tend to be stuck with the older sounds on some of the earlier modules.

 

I've been a customer of ED products since the first version of Flanker back in the 90's. I've had every iteration of the product and own just about all of the modules and scenery to date. We're so close to having perfection in the sim, I think the older sounds and the way they were implemented is really the only thing falling short.


Edited by Bananimal

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Bananimal said it best, the community as a whole is always willing to help, I mean the hornet sounds from ECHO 19 are great but you guys gave him a great base to work with. Heatblur did not do their homework when it came to the sounds. I had made a post about this when the tomcat first had come out and they said they used real sounds for the F-110. To be completely honest, its horrible and ive seen and hear enough real tomcats in life to know that it sounds nothing like a tomcat. The attention to detail is there but its lacking in the sound so much for example. The F-110s have a distinct sound or should I say HUM when in full afterburner. It gives me the chills to this day...and its something I was hoping for, but that is something real technical. Now the idle sound is where I have my biggest issue. It sounds NOTHING like a real tomcat.....hell the new F-16 BLK 50 yall are making will blow it out of the water sound quality wise. They have the same engines and I would hope they would consider taking those sounds and applying it to their tomcat as they are some what compatible. The distance sounds are god awful.....they really took short cuts and it shows. Everything else they did a great job and its still my favorite plane in the game but the damn sound takes so much away from it that its tough to fly it. The tomcat is where the biggest issue is for me on sounds and I know you said that you cant do to much but if you could find it in your best interests to make a suggestion and see what happens. Your best bet is pulling stuff from a youtube and doing a lot of research on there.


Edited by Mrjollyroger103
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  • ED Team

"ask yourself why ED module promotional films use real aircraft sounds in them"

 

Wanted to chime in quickly regarding that one.

 

Using sounds directly from the in-game footage we record, could easily be translated as to doing those types of recording in real life as well, with the same angles and situations (more or less).

 

When you have a camera attached to the aircraft, all you hear is "FSSSSHHHHFSSSHHSH" (lovely translation of a jet engine and wind, I know :D ).

When you want the focus of that scene to be of another airplane wizzing by, there is no way you would be able to hear it. Maybe a suuuuper slight and faint "wush".

 

Or - say you are in a dogfight, 4-5 aircraft flying around, and you have the camera faaar away (maybe on the ground below, looking up), and you are zoomed in to 1 specific aircraft.

Now ask yourself how you - the viewer - is going to be able to hear that 1 specific jet we are looking at.

 

Again, you can't. With all that background noise it would just blend in with all the other jets.

Not to mention that when you get far enough away, audio becomes quite muddy and creeps down into the low frequency spectrum.

 

So trailers, specifically, are an artistic representatin of what you are expected to hear, according to what you are seeing. I need control over what audio comes to your ear.

On top of that, all the audio needs to be mixed in nicely with the music as well, which is a topic all on it's own really.

And with audio editing, we can also greatly give the viewer more variation of sounds, because let's face it - hearing loud engine noises all the time scene after scene might give you some audio fatigue (if that's the right word?). So we can go from some noisy engine sound for one scene, and transition to a more soft engine "rumble" for the next one etc.

 

+ it can give some scenes a certain "audio texture", if you will.

 

So it's not that we don't want to use in-game audio, because quite frankly, I use alot of in-game assets all the time in the trailers, but they are usually mixed in with other audio elements as well. But it's mainly that it's super difficult, and sometimes straight out impossible to use the in-game audio to match with the visuals. Not in all cases, but for most "cinematic" cases, I guess you could say.

 

For the Fw 190 A-8 trailer - the very first flyby sound you hear is a recording straight from the game. I could do this because it's a flyby close to the camera, and I was the only aircraft in the area. And I thought it actually sounded pretty good.. Just as an example. :)

 

Anyway, maybe a simplified explanation of things overall, but I hope it makes sense. :)


Edited by Glowing_Amraam
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Definitely makes sense. I've never really thought about that, to be honest. I guess that's why I'm not a video creator. :-)

 

Don't get me wrong, the videos are great, it's just we customers have no way of knowing what the aircraft will really sound like when it is released for purchase, and then we get a sound dud like the F-14 that enhances our skepticism. At least mine, anyway. I can't speak for the entire DCS community.

 

And please, I hope neither of you are taking this as a personal attack. It's not intended to be. I just noticed a lack of continuity across the mods in terms of sound implementation. Some standardization would help a good bit. If the framework is there and it's consistent, then any correction the community may want to make will be possible. As I understand it, the F-14 is not really that correctable. At least not to the level the ED F/A-18 is. It's more like the older FC3 modules.

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Agreed, especially F-14 sounds pretty awful. Heatblur just considers those sounds good and pretty final, although it sounds pretty much not like at Tomcat at all. I'm not sure are there much to do by modding. I've tried myself by replacing those external engine sounds with F-16 samples but they don't really sound what it's suppose to.

 

F-18 on the other hand sounds quite good, especially with Echo-19's mod.

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  • ED Team

I'd be willing to bet bags to donuts that if you guys reached out to the community to assist with acquiring sounds for some of these aircraft, you'd get a barrage of replies with links to their personal videos that may not be posted on YouTube. That's the one thing about this community, we'll help make the sim better if we can. I try to do my part by skinning. Collectively, I truly believe there are enough talented customers to help drive the product further.

 

Well, Maybe it's a really good idea ;) When I finish the work with FW190A8 and F-16, let's try this for .... F-86 for example ) I'll create the thread on the forum. And we'll update the sounds for this old module as free time appears. Sorry, I don't have it at all now.

 

That's why I think it would be a good idea for ED to have a few round tables with the 3rd party devs and outline a standard framework in the SDK for sounds and how they must be implemented in their modules.

you are mistaken, considering that we do not do that. There are standard framework in the SDK already. And we do not stand still. SDK always updated for 3rd party devs as they ask. And sound engine always updated.

 

The other thing with DCS is that many aircraft share the same sound files. That's a good thing for saving HDD space, but a really bad obstacle for modders because changing one sound to get more realism in a specific aircraft results in changes to the sound for other aircraft as well. Being a long time MS Flight Simulator, FSX, P3D guy.......each aircraft has it's own sound folder. Don't like the sounds? Swap out the wav files for more accurate sounds and that aircraft is the only one affected. The way DCS is currently setup, this is not possible, so we tend to be stuck with the older sounds on some of the earlier modules.

For quite a long time for each aircraft you can replace almost all sounds separately. Even if they are in the main folder of sounds. It is enough to place the sounds (and sdefs) in the folder of a specific aircraft with the same name (for example ...\LockOnExe\Sounds\Effects\Aircrafts\F-16\ and ...\LockOnExe\Sounds\sdef\Aircrafts\F-16\). And they will be used instead of default

Best regards,

Kanstantsin Kuzniatsou (btd)

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For quite a long time for each aircraft you can replace almost all sounds separately. Even if they are in the main folder of sounds. It is enough to place the sounds (and sdefs) in the folder of a specific aircraft with the same name (for example ...\LockOnExe\Sounds\Effects\Aircrafts\F-16\ and ...\LockOnExe\Sounds\sdef\Aircrafts\F-16\). And they will be used instead of default

 

Hello and thanks, but I don't quite understand.

If I would like to revert the sounds of the A-10C to the ones pre-2-5.4 (I have a full backup of DCS from december 2018) what should I do?

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Thanks for the feedback. I saw that in a threat earlier today. Apparently, an update to the aircraft.lua file is all that is needed. I appreciate your taking the time to reply.

 

Can you elaborate please ?

 

Cheers

Jafa

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While we are talking about sound quality....

 

Could ED make the DCS a ear safe game? Meaning, when pilot gets killed, do not transfer camera directly outside of the aircraft.

When you crash on ground, do not transfer camera just meter from the ground zero!

 

Please, please, PLEASE!

 

Seriously, the eardrums gets blown out with a such sudden volume impact!

 

Please, make the camera jump outside 300-500 meters from the aircraft when pilot dies.

Please, make the camera jump 500-800 meters from the ground zero where aircraft crashes!

 

Just to save the players ears!

It does not help at all that default camera transitions are just next to aircraft, not at all! No "Fly-by" cameras or anything, it is not even visually impressive to watch the crashed aircraft from 1 meter distance.

 

Alone such small change would make huge improvement to the gaming experience, almost like comparing VR to normal display.

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Could ED make the DCS a ear safe game?

 

 

This is really a serious problem, and I continue (after years) not to understand why this problem (because it's a problem) is not solved with the highest priority.

 

 

Critical.

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  • ED Team

If I would like to revert the sounds of the A-10C to the ones pre-2-5.4 (I have a full backup of DCS from december 2018) what should I do?

Just revert DCS to those version you want to. You can't revert only sounds.

 

Could ED make the DCS a ear safe game? Meaning, when pilot gets killed, do not transfer camera directly outside of the aircraft.

We implemented fade-in feature, you can adjust volume fade-in time in Saved Games/DCS.openbeta/Config/autoexec.cfg file. Add a line:

 

sound.world_fadein_time = 4

 

By default, fade-in time is 4 seconds.

 

If your version of the game does not have this feature, please be patient. It will appear in the next updates.

Best regards,

Kanstantsin Kuzniatsou (btd)

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Just revert DCS to those version you want to. You can't revert only sounds.

 

Well, obviously I don't want to revert the WHOLE DCS....

 

But I still don't get it, you wrote, and I quote:

 

For quite a long time for each aircraft you can replace almost all sounds separately. Even if they are in the main folder of sounds. It is enough to place the sounds (and sdefs) in the folder of a specific aircraft with the same name (for example ...\LockOnExe\Sounds\Effects\Aircrafts\F-16\ and ...\LockOnExe\Sounds\sdef\Aircrafts\F-16\). And they will be used instead of default

 

 

?????

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  • ED Team

Well, obviously I don't want to revert the WHOLE DCS....

 

In this case it's not so easy.

You can try to replace from prev version of dcs following files:

 

/LockOnExe/Sounds/Sounders/Aircraft/Engines/Engine.lua

/LockOnExe/Sounds/Sounders/Aircraft/Engines/TF34.lua

/LockOnExe/Sounds/Effects/Aircrafts/Engines/EngineTF34GE100InL.wav

/LockOnExe/Sounds/Effects/Aircrafts/Engines/EngineTF34GE100InR.wav

/LockOnExe/Sounds/sdef/Aircrafts/Engines/EngineTF34GE100InL.sdef

/LockOnExe/Sounds/sdef/Aircrafts/Engines/EngineTF34GE100InR.sdef

 

I hope this will help for you

Best regards,

Kanstantsin Kuzniatsou (btd)

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In this case it's not so easy.

You can try to replace from prev version of dcs following files:

 

/LockOnExe/Sounds/Sounders/Aircraft/Engines/Engine.lua

/LockOnExe/Sounds/Sounders/Aircraft/Engines/TF34.lua

/LockOnExe/Sounds/Effects/Aircrafts/Engines/EngineTF34GE100InL.wav

/LockOnExe/Sounds/Effects/Aircrafts/Engines/EngineTF34GE100InR.wav

/LockOnExe/Sounds/sdef/Aircrafts/Engines/EngineTF34GE100InL.sdef

/LockOnExe/Sounds/sdef/Aircrafts/Engines/EngineTF34GE100InR.sdef

 

I hope this will help for you

 

Hello Kanstantsin,

 

Well, that worked perfectly, THANK YOU VERY MUCH INDEED! :thumbup:

Now there is a proper sound feedback from the throttle, as it was before.

Why don't you try it yourself? Don't you find it is much better this way?

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