ATC Voice

[grajay 2]

Well I've just order RC4 and as soon as I get it I shall look at editing the wav files that deal with numbers. I thinkI could live with the rest of it, but the numbers really need sorting.I was please to see that Lars from EVP added his comments earlier - now if Lars could just do a version of EVP for RC4........ *sigh*

[jd 57]

here is the link to a live machester atis recording, 11khz, 8bit monohttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/135375.zipi set up the same weather at manchester, and had Radar Contact give me the atis, 11khz, 8bit monohttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/135376.zipyou will find neither are hidef, hi-fidelity recordings, because in the real world, it isnt.hope this clarifies what you are hear in RC and what you hear in the real world.jd

[TomCYYZ 218]

Sounds good to me jd! Great job! I'm waiting by the mail box for my copy of RC4 with my hand extended anxiously...Regards,Tom

[Guest dickwu]

Um.. John, thanks for your comparison. Actually I'm totally satisfied with the sound quality of ATIS, I can't see any differences between RC 4 and real life regarding to ATIS broadcast. What I concern is the voices of all other controllers, which I believe there are still rooms to be improved...

[jd 57]

there is always room for improvement. quality recordings yield quality results.a number of people with audio expertise have emailed me, and we will try to utilize their expertise in the near future.jd

[Ray Proudfoot 9,038]

Dickwu,And please remember you, as the user, have complete control over which voice sets you choose to enable. This process has been completely revised in v4. So if you're flying in Europe it's easy to disable all the US voices and vice-versa of course when flying in the US if that's what you want. Personally I like hearing lots of different accents anywhere in the world.Cheers,

[Bigmack 30]

I just installed RC4 and finally made a complete flt. To me is not that the voices sound robotic so much. I think it's the pauses, delays or breaks between words is why it sounds sort of robotic. If there is a way to shorten the time between words, RC4 would sound great.Bill M

[ronzie 21]

My experience has been that upping the audio setting for acceleration in the sound card driver or via dxdialog.exe can help shorten pauses between words and phrases. It seems to function either like a look ahead disc cache or buffer size adjustment or perhaps allows a look ahead thread function in the audio driver.It helps to have a separate sound card to use this so the sound processor is separate from memory access conflicts with the main processor which is heavily burdened.Let us know your experience, please, if you try this.

[aerdt 0]

After a few flights with Radar Contact v4, I am truly happy for a very good ATC add-on. However, I tend to agree that the quality of the voicesets varies greatly. Some of the sets have a way lower volume than others and some sound a lot more 'robotic' than others, mainly due to gaps between the recording that are just a tad too long to sound human.Also, I think that all ATC instructions should be about 20% faster, which would probably eliminate a lot of the 'robot-voice' impression. I would have also liked to see in the interface WHERE the controllers are from. I am not so much interested in their name than in their accent, so instead of "Craig Keating" (for example), I would have rather seen "UK #1" or something like that. It is also a tad disappointing to not receive more detailed taxi or gate assignments - so on the ground, you're pretty much on your own.Mainly because of the quality of the voiceset recordings, it will probably be rated as a 'very good' add-on, but won't receive an 'excellent' rating. Sure, I agree that the recording of the voice sets is very complicated and tendious, but... that is what ATC (and Radar Contact) is all about, no? I am surprised that this issue hasn't come up during beta testing.At a last point of slight criticism (I am done now, promised): I am not a fan of the AdvDisplay and would have wished for a proprietary dialog box with some window transparency -or- the default MS ATC interface, which has been used in a various addons, like FS Cargo.But all issues aside, great job, guys, and a MAJOR improvement over the default ATC.Cheers.

[Guest DaveI]

Hi All I have watched the London-Paris download demo and my reaction I am sorry to say is "what a shame !!". I admire all the work that has gone into RC4 and the functionality is superb,but I cannot face listening to the robotic,halting,uneven paced,unnatural ATC voice for hours at a time.It will drive me nuts!! I will stick with MS ATC with all its faults hoping for ATC which has the sound of FS9 ATC and the functionality of RC4 Some folks ARE difficult to please !!Best wishes

[John Burgess 0]

Hi Dave,Thanks for your kind words and the feedback. It's good folks have had the chance to see and hear something of what RC does before deciding whether or not to purchase.Hopefully at some point we'll be able to welcome you as a happy user!Remember that the voice won't play continually (as in the video). You usually have a fair gap between instructions, especially once airborne!All the best,John

[Ray Proudfoot 9,038]

I would second Ronzie's suggestion. I have always used a separate sound card (Audigy 2 ZS) and although I run Radar Contact on the same PC as FS I'm not hearing any substantial pauses, breaks or delays. We're removed all the dead space in each wav so a command such as "Speedbird 1234, contact London Control on 123.45" should be very fluid with any of the controller voice sets.The sound quality of the sets is variable because each volunteer has a different setup but you should still hear fairly fluid speech. Any significant delay between words might be down to an integrated sound card and not the Radar Contact sound files .We always recommend you install a separate sound card.Cheers,

[Ray Proudfoot 9,038]

Aerdt,<>If you could identify the owner of the voice and the wavs in question I will have a look at our master set and see if anything can be done. You'll appreciate that with nearly 40 sets and over 70,000 wavs in total it would be an impossible job to locate individual possible rogue wavs. We did listen to as many as possible but some may have slipped through the net.Thanks,

[aerdt 0]

Hi Ray,I will try to identify them, if I can, but it will be tough, because I don't know which controller exactly talks to me at a given time. I just noticed it yesterday on a short flight. It is nothing really earth-shattering and, trust me, I just can't see how you all keep up with the 80,000 files that come with RCv4 anyway. On second thought, it might be even more realistic to have some volume changes. After all, that's what happens in real life as well.Thanks again,Pat

[Ray Proudfoot 9,038]

Hi Pat,If you knew it was an American accent or British accent that would be a start. You can identify the accent behind each set by clicking on the named button in the Voices option. Disable all those that don't match the accent if you're able to remember what it sounded like.Tedious I know but I can't think of an easier option. We will be looking at the important 0-9; A-Z wavs but with around 40 sets it's still a lot of wavs to listen to.I suppose if we'd only provided 3 or 4 sets of exceptional quality some folk might have complained there wasn't enough variety. Damned if you do, damned if you don't :-(The other point I would make is that so far all the discussion has been about the voices. For those flying in non-FAA air space I'm sure you must be enjoying all the different ATC rules, transition altitudes etc. and for the jet pilots the option to request a descent at pilot's discretion. I don't see those in the default ATC so for the purist maybe those rules are more important than the voices? Just a thought.Cheers,