Introduction

There are already several reviews of this product available to the public for viewing that fully explain all the capabilities of this hardware/software combination. To date, all of these reviews are nothing short of practically falling over backward praising this product. Ok, it is my turn to pick myself up from the floor and hop on the bandwagon. As I always do, I will try to do my best to reach the average simmer with a dabbling of online capabilities thrown in for the virtual airline pilots. I will not dissect signal-to-noise ratios or any other truly technical beeps and squeaks magic of voice recognition. I am a flight sim hobbyist that reviews at a level that hopefully a majority of our readers can relate to. Voice Buddy 2 (VB2) is a combination core voice recognition engine with game specific software layered in. This review will specifically cover the FS2004 Game Edition, but there is a growing list of additional editions that are becoming available at a regular pace. If it is a modern day combat simulator or shooter, eDimesional has you covered with VB2. eDimensional also provided an AudioFX Force Feedback Gaming headset to fully appreciate the quality that rounds out this experience. (Voice Buddy 2 is capable of working with any high quality headset but do not use USB headsets with Voice Over IP applications like Advanced Voice Client or Roger Wilco.) So let's see how VB2 works with FS2004 and how it can add to your flight sim experience. (This review will use the stock Beech King Air 350.)

Installation and Documentation

The Core CD and the FS 2004 Edition CD installed with no problems. Each has its own .exe to run as well as a registration code to activate the program. It occupies about 77 MB of disk space. I am a little more finicky than most when it comes to documentation so I was not very impressed with the method of documentation used by eDimensional for this product. It consisted of a “Help” format like WinXP Help. There is an install guide with the Core CD but that is it. Most of the useful information is displayed in a two-pane “Windows Explorer” format with the category on the left and the information on the right. A real mess and cumbersome to print out.

Supplying a .pdf file would have made it easier to print out and follow. Still though, the depth of the content provided in the documentation was quite sufficient to learn from. There are Help files for the core program as well as the specific edition. FS 2004 Edition comes with over 80 interactive checklists including all the stock FS2002 and 2004 aircraft. (More on these later.) Here is the real key to success when using this program. TRAIN it!! If you install the software and do just one training session you will have tremendous success with voice recognition. It has 8 different sessions for voice training. As a minimum, accomplish one, more will get it almost perfect. Each session takes less than 10 minutes. VB2 also continues to improve as you use it.

The AudioFX headset requires a free USB port for power, and connects to your sound card or sound ports of your motherboard. The headset is comfortable with a capital “C”. The Force Feedback part is neat but my system had a constant high-pitch sound with the Vibration set to “on” in the headset. When I switched Vibration off, that background sound went away. The overall sound in the headset was very rich in bass and very absorbing due to the soft-snug earpieces closing off outside noise.

Test System P4 3.2 Ghz processor 1 GB SDRAM Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT 256MB video card 60 GB Hard drive 19" MAG Innovision Monitor Windows XP/SP2 Soundblaster Audigy 2ZS Logitech Z-560 Surround-Sound 5 Speaker system Logitech Wingman Extreme joystick w/throttl Flying Time: 22.5 hours

The Program

First start FS2004 then start VB2. This will recognize that FS2004 is running and select it as the current edition. The Main Menu is pretty basic with a volume bar, and buttons to all it’s features.

How can VB2 work for you? Let’s start with the inexperienced simmer that wants to just fly around on short flights and experience the joy of flight (albeit simulated). I would guess that most of these types of simmers start with engine/engines running because they may not know how to start the aircraft. One of the joys of actual flying is getting the engine cranked up, giving you a sense of power at your fingertips. With VB2’s interactive checklist you can start your stock aircraft with your voice. Start by printing out the aircraft’s “Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)” checklist that VB2 provides so you can follow along and say the right things. For example on the King Air 350 with engines off sitting on the ramp you would start with the pre-start checklist. So say “King Air pre start check 1”. At this point VB2 begins calling out the steps in the checklist in a challenge and response format. (If VB2 goes too fast for you between steps in the checklist, you can edit the time between steps to help you keep up.) VB2 says “Door”, you say “Open Door”. (Your entry door falls open for passengers!) You step through about 15 other items in a similar manner until you get VB2 saying “Engine start sequence 1-2” and you reply with “Engine autostart”.

When you observe your aircraft from an external view, you will see a puff of smoke from the initial light off of the number one engine as it spools up to idle and then repeats the process on the number two engine. There are 15 checklists alone for the King Air from pre-start to shutdown. For the advanced simmer that is constantly changing aircraft types, it is very easy to forget switch locations and procedures between different aircraft so having these SOPs and using your voice in a crew format environment is much easier than to hunt down switches on multiple panels.

With the King Air’s door closed, it is time to accomplish the “before taxi” checklist. One of items in this checklist is to set radios for taxi. You would say “Display Panel Two” and the radio stack would come up. Two…Three…Four…which one is the radio panel?? What if you can’t remember? Well, a one time edit and train of “Display Panel Two” to “Display Radio Stack” will change that command to something easier to remember. You can do the same for “Hide Panel Two” to “Hide Radio Stack”. This same procedure can be applied for all the commands. Whatever is more comfortable or natural for you to say is capable of being programmed into getting the desired result. A few that come to mind are “Display GPS”, “Raise Seat”, “Change View”, “Autopilot On”. These are just examples of how I would prefer to say certain actions and get the desired results

One important note…speaker volume setting and VB2 readback phrases. If your volume is up and the phrase VB2 repeats is identical to the phrase you just used, you can get into an oscillation. For example, I said “All Lights Off” and VB2 readback “All Lights are Off”, with the volume up loud enough it picked up this command and kept repeating it until I backed my head far enough away or I turned down the volume. Easy fix though any time that happens; just go into the Command Manager of VB2 and change the readback response to something different. In the example just stated, I edited the VB2 response to “All off”. Additionally you may have to fiddle with the VB2 Response a little to make it sound right. I had to put space between the P and the S of GPS to make it say it right, otherwise it said “GPEES”. With the space in there it says “ G P S”. One thing you currently cannot accomplish though is voice transmitting a frequency change like “one twenty one decimal two five”. You can bring the radio stack up and highlight the comm/nav/transponder box but you cannot voice transmit a physical change of the numbers, you will have to use your mouse to change these. Since there is no keyboard command to do this, VB2 is not able to do it.

Let’s get airborne. After takeoff you can call “Gear Up” and then “Flaps Up” at the appropriate speed. Climbing out I will call for “Autopilot Master Switch On” followed by “Heading Hold On”. This puts us in a controlled climb on our current heading. If I call out “Kneeboard” I can view my kneeboard. As you continue on your flight you can update the local altimeter setting (assuming you have some sort of weather being fed into FS2004) by saying “Reset Altimeter”. Once you reach cruise and the autopilot is progressing you along your route, you can tell VB2 to “Go To Sleep”. This commands turn off voice recognition for everything except “Voice Buddy Wake-Up”. So if you have other noises in your room or if you want to set down your headset and walk away without the possibility of some strange noise being recognized as “Gear Down” at 15,000 feet, you can rest assured this won’t happen. When it is time to get serious about putting the aircraft back on the ground, you can use “Extend Flaps One” to incrementally extend your flaps or “Full Flaps” to get them all at once. Once established on final, you can annunciate your “Gear Down” call to lower the gear. On short final I take over the controls with a “Autopilot Master Switch Off” call and once on the ground, call “Reverse Thrust”. When you clear the runway you can clean up your aircraft with all the appropriate calls like “Flaps Up”, “Anti_Ice Off”, “Pitot Heat Off”, “Set Parking Brake” and a few others in the SOP. Bring it all down at the end with “Set Mixture to Idle Cutoff” and the engines finally spool down.

These are just some of the options that are available while flying the stock FS2004 Beech King Air 350. Other airplanes have additional commands like autothrottle, spoilers, yaw damper and more, all of which are included in the SOPs. If you have other aircraft that have additional keyboard commands associated with them, like the PMDG series, Flight One and Eaglesoft aircraft, the Captain series and more, you can train these additional keyboard commands as phrases and add to your capabilities.

Online Flying With VB2

You do not have to set aside VB2 while flying online in the virtual skies. VB2 is more than capable to accomplish both with no problems. On the Settings menu, VB2 allows for proper setup of Push to Talk (PTT) and Push to Mute (PTM) buttons that allow for the microphone to know when you are talking to ATC and when you are talking to VB2. I use Advanced Voice Client (AVC) and have both PTT and PTM on VB2 set to the CTRL key and AVC set for the CTRL key as well to talk over it. So when I push the CTRL key it mutes the VB2 side while I talk to online ATC, and when I release, VB2 is ready to receive commands again. Slick! It works with Roger Wilco as well.

Command Manager

This is your interface to the power of VB2. You can Print command sets, Edit commands and responses, Delete/Add commands and train them as well. By simply highlighting the current command like “All Lights On” and selecting Edit you can adjust what is said and done. This is where I changed the voice response for the example of “All Lights are Off” to “All Off”. You can use some special syntax (explained in the documentation) to repeat keystrokes or insert timing options to key commands. Pretty flexible. I wanted to go from the cockpit to the chase view without saying “cycle view forward” three times to step through virtual cockpit, tower view and finally chase. So I added a command called “Chase View” and entered the keyboard command as [s;3,1] (equates to s key three times within 1 second). Now when I say “Chase View” it goes right from the cockpit to the external chase view in a second. Don’t forget that there must be a valid FS2004 or add-on keyboard command for VB2 to be able to program an action. You just can’t make up stuff that FS2004 would not normally recognize.

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Voice Buddy 2

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