homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation IL-2: FB, AEP, PF If only....

If only IL-2 had Spitfire audio loops like the ones heard on this video....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUx3MU9iM6c

I hope BOB will have a sound like this...

nice movie btw.

Even through the internet the sound sends chills down my spine. Thanks for the link.

Every day I hear that sound..

Externally, I'd agree wholeheartedly.

The challenge for sound is what is heard in the cockpit. We've all been trained by movies to expect what a plane sounds externally to be precisely what the pilot hears.

This isn't true - the object in WWII was to drown out as much aircraft noise as possible for the pilot (for a host of reasons, including allowing him to hear the radio without going deaf in a short period of time).

The IL-2 series has the in-cockpit sounds pretty close, IMHO; where they fall down is externally.

They knew the state of the engine not from sound so much as vibration; unfortunately, we simply don't have that luxury in a flight sim.

Perhaps it's a function of bass where the low of the engine is retained but higher frequencies stripped out - IMHO, I think it's the difference between the original IL-2 and the IL-2: FB series in sound. Seems like there was more resonance in the original.

It's a real immersion killer for me to hear other planes from my cockpit sound like I'm watching them from a lawn chair on an airshow strip, with over the top doppler effect. I've seen some youtube video of "improvements" to the sound that had me laughing outright - it's not even "Hollywood;" it's cartoonish.

As always, I'd like to see a full set of audio options for the user, a "restrictive" and "dramatic" setting (labeling them "realistic" and "arcade" is just spoiling for a fight). Spare me the "cheater" arguments about "radar" hearing. We already have this with the attenuation setting.

And yeah, I have mine set to where unless it is right outside my cockpit, I don't hear it. The reasons are, naturally, well documented.

http://www.simhq.com/_air7/air_256a.html

Trooper, I'm not even going to ask you how

Dart - I agree with your comments on IL-2 audio - but the (unrealistic) external views are just begging for an upgrade

This also depends on your audio settings and source. A well configured, high end sound card accompanied with a high end 5.1 surround headset/desktop speakers won't sound the same as the opposite.

buttkicker

I never have and never will buy the theory that what you hear in the cockpit with IL2 is close to the real thing, you have no sensation of vibration or feel and the fake sounds fail to account for that, having a background in audio processing I'm just not that easily convinced.

That's just my humble opinion!

I've never actually flown in a Spit or Mosquito. But I've been in a B-17 on the ground with only one engine running and I've spent many hours in DH Otters & Beavers and assorted Pipers on the coast of Labrador. I've also been in the engine room of a patrol boat that had 3 Packard-Merlins.

IL-2 sounds more like the Piper than the Packard and nothing like the B-17

There's the system called attention where quiet-but-meaningful sounds can be heard above louder sounds. The cocktail party syndrome and the pilot's daughter telling him to pull up and so on. Sony's system for crunching audio down taking advantage of the nervous system's redundancy er, systems

There's more to a good sound track than attempting to make it faux-realistic sitting in a chair at a computer terminal. IKEA probably but never mind that now

Good points Oggers and a background in audio processing (engineering in my 19" rack case) may not be enough to turn Oleg's head around. But there's at least two of us pleading the case for more 'realism', more 'what you know it sounds like, something we all agree on. A Merlin how many more times' than Oleg's 'the full audio spectrum recorded on a dummy head of Boy George it was going cheap and did we mention from 500Hz to almost 2KHz'

Where's the throbbing. Ness. We demand more buzzing and rattling too the audio is far too clinical where are the ambient sounds. Yep an hour of Crysis can do this to you chirp

Ming

Just read any of the classic WWII aviation biographies, for instance, Geoffrey Wellum's 'First Light'..
He gives a vivid impression of the noise and power of the Merlin from inside that cockpit.. not the muted drone that some of our armchair experts would have you believe.
Me.. I'd prefer the explanation from someone who actualy flew the things!

I'm with Ogdens. I don't know about you chaps but I have flown Cessna 150's, 172s and Piper Cherokee's and I do know that what most Flight SIMS offer as authentic internal sounds for those aircraft couldn't be further from the truth - there is a lot of noise and vibration. I fail to see how the racket in a WWII aircraft could be any quieter than any of these latter day civilian aircraft.

IMHO Software developers have a long way to go before they will even come close to modeling authentic cabin sound.

and



Both come to the heart of my point - that the sensation of sound, not the tone, is the thing.

While I haven't flown in a warbird, I've had some experience with tracked vehicles. With the helmet on the sound isn't very loud - even a rapped out Detroit Diesel immediately to my right never seemed loud. I could hear commands over the intercom and radio crisp and clear.

But the feel of the engine and the tracks went right through me. I could tell if a track was loosening or I had lost a track shoe's "tooth."

I suspect the sound guys at 1C: Maddox are highly qualified in the wrong areas. Great programmers, terrible audio technicians. Recording, IMHO, isn't good enough. They've got to tinker with those samples to make them "feel" more realistic.

I'll defer to Ming, of course, to explain where the resonant frequencies that should be enhanced or even added are.

Airframe/fuselage etc resonances are present in real-audio recordings Dart and show up in scope traces and FFT analysis for example. No hockey horse droppings mate I'm not big on maths but that's how to suss peaks/resonances out. Used to examine a metal compound for example and you see just three or four peaks on the display "Let's see: calcium, magnesium" etc. Ironically Oleg is using a synthesised system (believed to anyway) which is ideal for adding those resonant peaks, strange that the basic Il-2 audio isn't tweaked to recreate a more authentic-feeling in inverted commas soundtrack. We need a boomier cockpit and less earplugs. I appreciate the sound of the clock but along with all the other plane sounds it's a clock ticking in an anechoic chamber...

I've heard quite amazing aircraft sounds in a modified flight-sim lately pace legal beagles, one of the most impressive being the sound of the propellor tips going almost ultrasonic in near speed-of-sound conditions, high frequency chaotic fluttering like a whip before cracking, you definitely wouldn't want to get sucked into one of these props- gobsmacking. That was in an A-20 I think. The other very welcome sound is that (in a bomber with plenty of room) of the interior of say a B-17 we hear in WW2 movies, the droning rumbling 'resonant tube' interior soundtrack. That you fall asleep on duty to if you're not careful like a train's mesmerising clickety-clack clickety-clack zzzz send me money

Ming

I agree with that although a Scorpion or Scimitar clipping along at full belt is a pretty loud affair, even with a full helmet..and they were gassers! My gripe has always been that the sounds have been designed to simulate reasonably closly what a pilot might hear in the cockpit but not taking into account that we "hear" with our entire body therefore certain allowances need to be made. I'm not a fan of synthesised sounds as they lack the true dynamic spectrum of a well recorded version of the real thing, sound that you feel in your gut!

Maybe we'll see (hear) a difference with SoW as those who have heard the non-legal sounds say there is a marked improvement to the sim overall...and that can only be good!