New ATC voice database coming to P3D

[regis9 4,013]

I’ve tried almost all of the atc addons out there and always end up coming back to default.

As for this product I will be curious to see what it does that EVP does not other than different accents.  I do the majority of my flying in North America so the accents aren’t a huge deal for me, especially if they still play randomly rather than based on where your plane is in the world.

[pracines 823]

2 hours ago, Slick9 said:

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 set up STB to separate arrivals 12 NM out and 4 NM apart, that does a pretty good job for the approach phase. It is very rare for me to see constant go arounds. Now to prevent AI from getting a T/O clearance while I'm on final, I set up an FSUIPC hot key (ctrl-3 as a toggle) to freeze ground traffic. I freeze ground traffic about 7-15 miles out depending on back-taxi requirements, then after I touch down I release the ground traffic. 

 

1 hour ago, HighBypass said:

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.

Yes I agree, it was very good ATC for its time, but with no AI to contend with, and an instant teleportation feature from the terminal to the runway, made ATC kind of easy.

 

7 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.....

There is a conversation in the official P3D forums about this.  Rob McCarthy from LM seems to be interested in at least exploring options of improving P3D ATC. It couldn't hurt to add to the conversation. 

http://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6306&t=133127

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I think most flight simmers agree that ATC needs improving. This specific Voice Database from FSAerodata is a step in the right direction as Navdata and AI schedule updates are much more frequent these days for many.  

[dave2013 1,130]

I've posted my ATC wish list on the P3D forum.

It's nice to see that the Core Lead developer is involved in the discussion.

Hopefully we'll see improved ATC in the next version of P3D.

Dave 

[pgde 571]

Terrible voices. Will be a pass for me.

[WarpD 824]

One of the reasons the default ATC sounds like an actual person talking is... it was an actual person talking.  Computerized voices still sound artificial.  Won't be on my purchase list.

[CFIJose 5,485]

Flight Unlimited II & III had the best ATC sounding voices I've ever heard in a flight sim. Too bad it will never be replicated.

[ARCO 245]

I am using default ATC too, in spite of its drawbacks. It is most unfortunate that ALL developers who made attempts to create a realistic ATC were unable (technically or financially or both) to manage reaching the quality level of the original FSX ATC voices. I don't mind having "only" six or seven different voices instead of 120, as long as they sound like in real life. I concur with all the posts above stating how regrettable this is for our hobby, ATC has been neglected by LM and perhaps it's high time something is done about it. Enough of these "cut and paste" sound bites, this is tolerable on an answering machine because you listen to it a few seconds, but not during a three to four-hour flight session. 

FSAerodata is trying hard to make ATC more accurate for our flights, how about going the extra mile and make it "accurate" too for our ears? Yes it will be more costly and require competent handling on the sound recording side, but I too would predict that such a product would sell well! I'd be the first on the buying line...

Edited May 7, 2019 by Jean-Claude

[Christopher Low 5,352]

Talking of "cut and paste" sound bites, this is something that annoys me at times with those EditVoicePack updates for airline callsigns etc. The bit that annoys me is that there are times when some of the voices pronounce the callsign reasonably well, and yet the remaining ones are a bit of a garbled mess. A good example of this would be the "NEPTUNE" callsign that I have installed (West Atlantic UK). A handful of the voices pronounce this as "NEP-TOON" or something similar, which is fine. However, the rest pronounce it something like "@£*&-TOON". In other words, the first part is just unidentifiable nonsense.......and that drives me nuts! In fact, I have decided to change the callsign for a handful of airlines to something completely different (an alternative callsign is better than just a number), simply because I can't stand listening to garbled rubbish.

Edited May 7, 2019 by Christopher Low

[CFIJose 5,485]

I still prefer default ATC with Editvoicepack mods. I agree that with some voices it's a challenge to get the name of the airport to sound correct, but it's still user friendly. I hope that LM addresses the ATC bugs and considers improving it in this version of P3D.

[Airline2Sim 489]

Part of the problem is that a third party developer would need to record the 24,991 airport names in the database before you even begin. Then you have all the control centres and the FIR boundary names.

Then you need to record realistic accents for the whole globe. Now, the aviation language is English so this does make life a bit easier as you could lump together the voices of non-native English speakers for a lot of places - Scandinavia, Latin America and the Iberian peninsula, Eastern Europe, huge swathes of the Far East, the Caribbean, the Arab speaking world etc etc. Yes there’s enormous generalising going on but even as a native English speaker I couldn’t tell the difference in accent between a Moroccan speaking in English or a Jordanian from 2500 miles away. 

But then you need to control AI, vector, handle SIDs and STARs, the list goes on. I think it would be an enormous job  

The easiest thing would be to open up the SDK of the existing ATC so that you can add new voices and functionality and give it support for SIDs and STARs etc. But before then you’d need to fix the issue of not being able to direct the sim to use specific runways as with light variable winds, it’s often a crapshoot as to which runway it wants to use. Hence I use the ‘force ATC wind lock’ feature of AS to force a steady wind for planning purposes. 

Edited May 7, 2019 by Airline2Sim

[Christopher Low 5,352]

The American accents of the ATC tower controllers and AI pilots do not bother me. I am more concerned with them being clear and precise. Of course, there are one or two annoying issues.....like the lady who pronounces "Bombardier" as "BOMBA-DEER"

[ARCO 245]

30 minutes ago, Airline2Sim said:

to record the 24,991 airport names in the database

This appears to being done by FSAerodata

30 minutes ago, Airline2Sim said:

to record realistic accents for the whole globe

Totally unnecessary, having "only" eight voices to start with is not a problem as long as they are clear and intelligible.

 

32 minutes ago, Airline2Sim said:

to control AI, vector, handle SIDs and STARs

This is already done by some of the ATC developers.

If all the above could be translated into proper professional voice recording and put together as Microsoft did it years ago, the job would be done. There are enormous talents out there demonstrated by the numerous ATC programmes available, but none went the professional route for the recording of voices as Microsoft did, this not a programmer's job this is probably why no one bothered to research the "how to" achieve that, costs involved would be significant indeed - as this means cooperation with a sound engineer with the proper equipment -, but so would potential revenues. 

[DylanM 1,069]

14 minutes ago, Jean-Claude said:

Totally unnecessary, having "only" eight voices to start with is not a problem as long as they are clear and intelligible.

This would add a whole new level of immersion, but is certainly something that could be phased in, or perhaps if these were available as addon packs.

Edited May 7, 2019 by DylanM

[ARCO 245]

2 minutes ago, DylanM said:

This would add a whole new level of immersion, but is certainly something that could be phased in, or perhaps if these were available as addon packs.

If you read my post above, it says "to start with", we lived with eight voices all these years, a few more with a complete new ATC limited to 8 voices would be an incredible achievement!...

[Airline2Sim 489]

It’s not really moving the game along to have a handful of new voices though it is? In an age where we have simulated bug splatters and toilet flushes affecting the CoG of the aircraft, the same six voices with generic Midwest US accents on a long haul flight from Bangkok to London just doesn’t cut it for me. 

I’d want to talk to an Asian ground controller, tower controller, radar controller and centre controller who eventually become Indian/Pakistani, Persian, Turkish, Eastern European, German, Dutch and then British. And she/he would stay British all the way down to the guy who gives me the gate assignment at Gatwick. 

That’s a game changer. It’s doable, but it would be an enormous task.