Voice recognition with FSX ATC

[sargeski 16]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will give them a try.My problem is not phraseology, Bob. In real life, I have flown from a Cessna 120 (first plane that I owned) to a Cessna 421. And, I started flight simming at the beginning of PCs. Not being arrogant, but I think that I understand the phraseology. I did all of the speech recognition training, and the system has no problem recognizing my pronunciation and enunciation. Also, I was using the IYP quick start instructions, so I was using the phrases printed in the instructions (whether I would have said it that way in real life or not). It is the interface with FX ATC, itself, that I can't seem to figure out. As I mentioned, MultiCrew worked, from a voice recognition standpoint. It lowered flaps, raised flaps, lowered gear, raised gear, turned on landing lights, etc., etc. IYP seems to start from an overly complex website and go downhill from there.I guess that I am not making myself clear. The question is, how do you get FSX ATC to understand voice recognition? I could never figure out how to make it work with IYP, and there were no instructions in the manual that I could find. With voice recognition, when you get an instruction from ATC, do you repeat the instruction back, or do you say "One", if the choice is #1 on the interface menu? And, what software will accomplish that? If I install Vox ATC, for example, what do I say when FSX ATC says to contact Approach? "552, Roger. Contacting Approach on . . ." or, do I say "One" (the menu selection).See what I mean?I'll give Vox ATC and SpeechBuddy2 a try.Wilson

Wilson,I'm sorry, I did not mean to imply that you did not know proper ATC phraseology. What I did mean is that each software package has it's own particular phraseology. I myself as many of the others that have posted use MCE.Regards,Bob

[Wilson 2]

Thanks to everyone for all of the positive responses. Lots of good ideas here.Bob, no offense taken. I misinterpreted you response.I would like to take Gerald up on his offer. I thought that MultiCrew might be the answer, but ran out of time.I just spent $100 on a new headset to do this, so my wife wants to be sure that it works, lol.Wilson

[DickB 6]

A good quality headset is a good investment, whichever product you choose. It's also important to do some speech training - as well as getting speech recognition trained to your voice, it will also get you used to talking to your PC, which is not something everyone does ! With MCE, make sure you run the Application Wizard (which includes some speech training) and the ATC-specific speech training segment. These each take 5-10 minutes, and are well worth it. And check out the (unofficial) MCE forum at http://rainbird.heavenforum.org/ for tips and comments.(For support email the MCE folks direct.)

[N1G 88]

Hi,Just one thing to note here. Many addons offer the ability to be networked, allowing the product to be installed on a computer other than the one you are using for FSX. Addons such as ASE, RadarContact, IYP, Rex, Aivlasoft EFB as examples, but there are many others. The last time I checked, VoxATC must be installed on the FSX machine. Personally I need every CPU cycle for FSX, so I prefer to use those products which allow me to offload to another computer. You may have a really high end machine, and this may very well allow you to run this without it affecting FSX performance. RegardsBob

[tf51d 284]

Sorry that you missed out on the Demo.If you are interested, please get in touch and we will send you a link to download extended trial package.This offer extends to anyone eager to try MCE, and finds himself unable to do so due to time constraints.Cheers.Gerald.http://www.multicrewxp.com

Thanks for your offer, unfortunately my problem using it is my cheap headset. I can't even get the volume meter above the yellow level. The speech training section which I went through at least 4 times, actually went pretty well, I was getting upwards I would say of 90% accuracy rate. In flight mode though it just didn't work. I couldn't get ATC to respond to me at all and my copilot only understood me about 10 to 20% of the time.When I asked for APU start, and it go and switch com frequencies instead. Both my copilot and me were getting upset that it didn't understand me. Quite frankly I don't like my computer getting uppity with me because it doesn't understand what I'm saying. If I ever get a better headset, I'd gladly give this product another shot. The one other thing that does concern me, is that on installation it apparently replaced my current 56K airline.cfg file with a 3K file dated 2008, with no apparent backup created. Worse it write protected the file, so the next time I ran EditVoicePack it failed because it couldn't write to the file. When that happened my heart sank, because I'm in the process of modifying the default ATC phraseology, and I thought I lost all my work. When I figured out what had happened, I took the read only switch off the file and was able to successfully rerun it without losing anything. What concerns me are there any other FSX config files this installation overwrites that we should know about?

[FS++ 708]

Thanks for your offer, unfortunately my problem using it is my cheap headset. I can't even get the volume meter above the yellow level. The speech training section which I went through at least 4 times, actually went pretty well, I was getting upwards I would say of 90% accuracy rate. In flight mode though it just didn't work. I couldn't get ATC to respond to me at all and my copilot only understood me about 10 to 20% of the time.When I asked for APU start, and it go and switch com frequencies instead. Both my copilot and me were getting upset that it didn't understand me. Quite frankly I don't like my computer getting uppity with me because it doesn't understand what I'm saying. If I ever get a better headset, I'd gladly give this product another shot. The one other thing that does concern me, is that on installation it apparently replaced my current 56K airline.cfg file with a 3K file dated 2008, with no apparent backup created. Worse it write protected the file, so the next time I ran EditVoicePack it failed because it couldn't write to the file. When that happened my heart sank, because I'm in the process of modifying the default ATC phraseology, and I thought I lost all my work. When I figured out what had happened, I took the read only switch off the file and was able to successfully rerun it without losing anything. What concerns me are there any other FSX config files this installation overwrites that we should know about?

Thanks for prompting a rethink about how “airlines.cfg” should be copied.After unzipping the downloaded package and running setup.exe, if the installer finds that you have a large file, it assumes that your are using EditVoicePack and normally doesn’t update it. If it’s the default file that ships with FSX or FS9 it is overwritten by simply copying either airlines9.cfg or airlinesX.cfg None of which is write-protected.Maybe some security software stepped in??? I don’t know.But I do believe when you say it may have happened.On the subject of what exactly is done to your FSX or FS9 folder, here it isIt’s important to note that no “aircraft.cfg” files are touched.FsInsider.dll is copied to FSX root folder and/or FS9\Modules\ subfolderA folder called \MCE dlls\ is created inside FSX and/or FS9 folder.Fsx.cfg is saved as fsx-original.cfg. To make ATC more realistic, the following items are changedUsePilotVoice=0ShowATCText=0PilotVoice=0Going to FS dialog box, General-Settings for FSX or ATC settings for FS9, and ticking the relevant boxes will restore the above settings. If you have any of the following aircraft, the keyboard ini file will be saved, and a new one will replace itWilco Airbus: original “Prefs.cfg” saved as “Prefs.mce”PMDG 747X: original “PMDG_747-400_Kbd.ini" saved as “PMDG_747-400_Kbd.mce"PMDG MD11X: original “PMDG_MD11_Kbd.ini" saved as “PMDG_MD11_Kbd.mce"IFly 737NG: original “KeyAssignment.ini" saved as “KeyAssignment.mce"That’s it folks.When you un-install MCE via Windows Control Panel, the next time you start either simulator, you will be prompted to manually delete fsInsider.dllAt that point, MCE is gone for good. There is absolutely no need to re-install FSX or FS9 as a result of trying out the Demo. MCE is written the hard way in Native C & C++ just like Windows and FSX. No .Net framework software layer is needed for it to run.Regarding headsets…You don’t need an expensive headset at all. If you avoid the under $15 dollars sort of headsets you will be fine.We’d rather see our customers spend the spare cash on high quality voices like the ones from IVONA to take MCE to an even higher level.http://www.ivona.com/Geraldhttp://www.multicrewxp.com

[Fortiesboy 1]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will give them a try.I guess that I am not making myself clear. The question is, how do you get FSX ATC to understand voice recognition? I could never figure out how to make it work with IYP, and there were no instructions in the manual that I could find. With voice recognition, when you get an instruction from ATC, do you repeat the instruction back, or do you say "One", if the choice is #1 on the interface menu? And, what software will accomplish that? If I install Vox ATC, for example, what do I say when FSX ATC says to contact Approach? "552, Roger. Contacting Approach on . . ." or, do I say "One" (the menu selection).See what I mean?IWilson

What would work if it is still available is Game Commander 2 . A company called Mindmaker ( I think ) did it. It was good, with no speech training needed, but I don't think it is available now. Worth a search though.

[DickB 6]

Programs which allow you to assign a particular word or phrase to a keystroke don't work for FSX ATC, the problem being that the same ATC option will appear with a different option/keystroke number depending on the circumstances. That's the clever part about MCE -it knows what options are available and associates your response with the appropriate keystroke at that time.

[GSalden 4,656]

What would work if it is still available is Game Commander 2 . A company called Mindmaker ( I think ) did it. It was good, with no speech training needed, but I don't think it is available now. Worth a search though.

With GC 2 you can train voice commands, so the program knows your way of talking.I know of someone who simple talked to the default FSX ATC by saying what he wanted to say and then ended by saying "Choose + the number for his option" in the ATC window. Eg : "KLM 512 Heavy asking for clearance . Choose 1 " --> The choose 1 triggered option 1 on the ATC window. With every voice recognition program you can do this. Simple , but effective.

[Fortiesboy 1]

With GC 2 you can train voice commands, so the program knows your way of talking.I know of someone who simple talked to the default FSX ATC by saying what he wanted to say and then ended by saying "Choose + the number for his option" in the ATC window. Eg : "KLM 512 Heavy asking for clearance . Choose 1 " --> The choose 1 triggered option 1 on the ATC window. With every voice recognition program you can do this. Simple , but effective.

Yes this would work fine I should think. An excellent way to do it.

[DickB 6]

Not very realistic though ! Most/all of the solutions mentioned above have some kind of voice training facility, and it's important to go though this in order to get acceptable levels of recognition.

[Fortiesboy 1]

Not very realistic though ! Most/all of the solutions mentioned above have some kind of voice training facility, and it's important to go though this in order to get acceptable levels of recognition.

Game Commander doesn't need voice training. I've used it for years. Get the microphone level right and say the phrase and voila!