New ATC voice database coming to P3D

[pracines 823]

https://www.fsaerodata.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=382

[riccardo74 36]

Thanks Paul, this is a great news, this will renew the old ESP atc platform and will align with the modern AIRAC so we can use the default ATC.

In this way do you think we can forget  3rd-party atc addon?

[threexgreen 3,135]

1 hour ago, riccardo74 said:

In this way do you think we can forget  3rd-party atc addon?

Depends on what you're after in terms of ATC. These voices are just a redo of the existing ones as I understand with some minor phraseology changes, probably like EditVoicepack does. The default ATC still won't include things like SIDs/STARs or any realistic procedures for that matter that it always lacked. So if you want realistic ATC I can't see how this changes the current situation of default vs. addon ATC. Me be staying with addon ATC for sure.

I don't want to be the party pooper here but what I always liked about the default ATC is that the voices sound pretty good and not robotic at all. These voices, to me, just sound like TTS voices with radio editing and very robotic. This is not to say I don't appreciate their effort or the result.

[F1Fan 121]

16 minutes ago, threegreen said:

Depends on what you're after in terms of ATC. These voices are just a redo of the existing ones as I understand with some minor phraseology changes, probably like EditVoicepack does. The default ATC still won't include things like SIDs/STARs or any realistic procedures for that matter that it always lacked. So if you want realistic ATC I can't see how this changes the current situation of default vs. addon ATC. Me be staying with addon ATC for sure.

I don't want to be the party pooper here but what I always liked about the default ATC is that the voices sound pretty good and not robotic at all. These voices, to me, just sound like TTS voices with radio editing and very robotic. This is not to say I don't appreciate their effort or the result.

I agree.  The voices don't sound nothing like the default original FS ATC at all which I think were real recordings.  These "new" voices I believe are those TTS voice sets with some modifications.  How clever of FSAERODATA....I'll be curious on how much they will be charging for this.

[pracines 823]

2 hours ago, riccardo74 said:

In this way do you think we can forget  3rd-party atc addon?

I personally use the default ATC for many IFR GA flights and all VFR flights.

I also use the default ATC as background chatter when using Radar Contact 4.3. I use Radar Contact for Airline ( and some long distance GA) IFR, for the ease of use, flexibility, transition ALT/LVL, and Copilot communications as needed. 

It will be nice to hear correct phrasing of every airport name (with a comm. channel), and all the ATC facilities properly spoken, instead of just "center" "control" "approach" "departure". Also all the airline names and added aircraft models spoken. The comparison chart illustrates what's new .

Because I fly all over the world in all kinds of situations, this product is a very useful improvement for my situation.

 

[Beckanator 6]

 

 

 

45 minutes ago, threegreen said:

"I don't want to be the party pooper here but what I always liked about the default ATC is that the voices sound pretty good and not robotic at all. These voices, to me, just sound like TTS voices with radio editing and very robotic. This is not to say I don't appreciate their effort or the result."

Ditto... (robotic voice) 😉

 

[Airline2Sim 489]

That’s one thing that MS got right with default ATC was the voice sounds were incredibly authentic. Unfortunately the functionality of it is quite the opposite. 

ATC is the only aspect left of the ESP sim that hasn’t been cracked yet. None of the myriad third party offerings come close to the simplicity and ease of use of the default ATC. 

This is a step in the right direction, though. 

[AnkH 2,233]

I agree with others. While we get an addon for almost everything you can think of and for most planes you could think of flying, an addon for proper ATC is still not really existing or the ones that we have are not really developed any further and support is limited. I wonder why? Is it really that much of an hassle to develop a proper ATC addon? I mean: PMDG reaches only Boeing fans and some more, FSL reaches the Airbus fans, A2A the GA community etc. All developers of most currently available addons somehow still serve a niche inside a niche. With a good ATC addon, you would be one of the few reaching almost all flightsimmer all over the world. The potential market is huge compared to almost any other addon (except weather and global addons). Yet nobody dares to start developing such an addon...

[Christopher Low 5,332]

I use default ATC, and I think that the voices are very realistic. I just wish that the P3D development team would look at sorting out a few minor issues.......like the annoying "stop/continue/stop/continue/stop...." messages whenever an AI plane is behind me It would also be nice to see the AI planes moving a bit faster when they are on a taxiway link just short of a displaced runway threshold. A good example of this is UK2000 Gatwick Xtreme. There are two hold short points for runway 26L at this airport, and the AI planes move sssooooo ssslllloooowwwwlllllyyyy up to the runway threshold from one of them. It offsets the advantage of having two hold short positions for departures. I really do not understand why they move much slower in situations like this than they do on normal taxiways.....

[mwilk 1,106]

6 hours ago, AnkH said:

I agree with others. While we get an addon for almost everything you can think of and for most planes you could think of flying, an addon for proper ATC is still not really existing or the ones that we have are not really developed any further and support is limited. I wonder why? Is it really that much of an hassle to develop a proper ATC addon? I mean: PMDG reaches only Boeing fans and some more, FSL reaches the Airbus fans, A2A the GA community etc. All developers of most currently available addons somehow still serve a niche inside a niche. With a good ATC addon, you would be one of the few reaching almost all flightsimmer all over the world. The potential market is huge compared to almost any other addon (except weather and global addons). Yet nobody dares to start developing such an addon...

If it were easy to do you can be sure someone would have done it already. There have been numerous ATC programs over the years. (I've owned all of them) They've all been lacking in one way or another. As you stated, it's the one addon whose appeal would be universal. There's a ton of money to be made if a developer came up with a program that contained the best of all of the programs that came before. I don't think we'll see it anytime soon.

[FPStewy 538]

1 hour ago, mwilk said:

If it were easy to do you can be sure someone would have done it already.  There's a ton of money to be made if a developer came up with a program that contained the best of all of the programs that came before. I don't think we'll see it anytime soon.

Of all the technologies out there for any simulator, the ATC has to be the biggest let down, we are still using a 20 year old default ATC. Changing the voices won't help either, how difficult can it be to just do a decent VFR ATC with flight following.

[Slick9 24]

16 hours ago, pracines said:

I personally use the default ATC for many IFR GA flights and all VFR flights.

I also use the default ATC as background chatter when using Radar Contact 4.3. I use Radar Contact for Airline ( and some long distance GA) IFR, for the ease of use, flexibility, transition ALT/LVL, and Copilot communications as needed. 

It will be nice to hear correct phrasing of every airport name (with a comm. channel), and all the ATC facilities properly spoken, instead of just "center" "control" "approach" "departure". Also all the airline names and added aircraft models spoken. The comparison chart illustrates what's new .

Because I fly all over the world in all kinds of situations, this product is a very useful improvement for my situation.

Paul - i use the same setup you do,  i thought i was the only one doing it this way.   The one annoying extra step that i do take is to request landing from P3d controllers eventhough i'm working  with the RCV4 controllers.  that seems to be the only way to maintain some kind of separation on final.   

I listened to the sample waves, I have to agree that the voices sound a little too robotic for my taste.  But i do  applaud them for putting some effort into the weakest area of flight simming, ATC

Richard

[HighBypass 2,339]

This may be a touch of rose tinted glasses but some of the best ATC predates P3D by a long way and that was contained in subLogic's Flight Assignment: ATP.

[dave2013 1,123]

6 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

I use default ATC, and I think that the voices are very realistic. I just wish that the P3D development team would look at sorting out a few minor issues.......like the annoying "stop/continue/stop/continue/stop...." messages whenever an AI plane is behind me It would also be nice to see the AI planes moving a bit faster when they are on a taxiway link just short of a displaced runway threshold. A good example of this is UK2000 Gatwick Xtreme. There are two hold short points for runway 26L at this airport, and the AI planes move sssooooo ssslllloooowwwwlllllyyyy up to the runway threshold from one of them. It offsets the advantage of having two hold short positions for departures. I really do not understand why they move much slower in situations like this than they do on normal taxiways.....

Agreed. 

I also use the default ATC and must say that despite its obvious bugs it's still pretty darn good compared to the 3rd party payware offerings currently available.  

I continue to hope that either Lockheed Martin or some 3rd party developer will simply offer a fix/improvement to the default ATC.  Maybe it's not so simple, but it seems to me far more laborious to develop an entirely new ATC system like other developers have done, and all of them have major shortcomings IMO.

Dave

[riccardo74 36]

9 hours ago, AnkH said:

I agree with others. While we get an addon for almost everything you can think of and for most planes you could think of flying, an addon for proper ATC is still not really existing or the ones that we have are not really developed any further and support is limited. I wonder why? Is it really that much of an hassle to develop a proper ATC addon? I mean: PMDG reaches only Boeing fans and some more, FSL reaches the Airbus fans, A2A the GA community etc. All developers of most currently available addons somehow still serve a niche inside a niche. With a good ATC addon, you would be one of the few reaching almost all flightsimmer all over the world. The potential market is huge compared to almost any other addon (except weather and global addons). Yet nobody dares to start developing such an addon...

I completely agree. Unfortunately, the ATC part was overshadowed by the development of aircraft and scenarios.
Yet it would be a fundamental addon that would satisfy everyone's needs. In my opinion one of the most successful addons was definitely Radar Contact, 
solid and stable, but unfortunately obsolete and with voices frankly unlistenable nowaday and with the impossibility of controlling ground traffic. 
Unfortunately it was not, and I believe it will never be updated.
We were hoping for a version 5, but unfortunately the developer didn't have the chance to continue. 
Another more recent addon is Pro ATC X but even this seems to me to not manage the ground traffic at its best and, although it has the ability to manage
SID / STARs, it still does not reach the solidity of RC e the ground controlling traffic of default ATC.
Probably the fact that there has not been a solid and updated addon to the state of the art for ATC is the lack of SDK dedicated to this aspect;
 so I hope that P3D can release SDK so that an ATC, worthy of the name, is finally developed.

Edited May 6, 2019 by riccardo74