I agree. A fine product let down by the staccato speech. Real world atc is of course fast and fluid. Must be very hard to reproduce that, so I can't fault RD for it.Still, it does sound very machine like, and I got a headache listening to it after a while. Eytan ornstein

Ray,maybe one more unnecessary phrase to put on your list. After getting a handover frequency, it's that : "Will give him a call".It really sounds weird, no one would say that here. Maybe I would say it, if I would plan to phone that "next" guy with my cellular phone after the flight, but certainly not during ATC conversation.After confirmation of the frequency it is obvious one will make the contact, so it's no need to say it. If one would listen to e.g. Frankfurt ATC, there's also no time to say unnecessary phrases.Mike

Mike,JD and Doug read these messages so I'm sure they'll take your comments on board.Cheers,

Hello!I just listened to the demo and voices itself sound awesome, can't really feel you used amateurs for recording (well, you can, but it is not obvious :) ). Great editing too, they are leveled up properly and only few phrases are heavily accented (volume accents)I think that problem with "robotic" feel lies in pauses between spoken words/phrases. For my ear there is a 300-500 ms pause after each word and it makes it feel like staccato and gives fales feeling of accent after each word (not easy for the ears)Would be great if we could configure the pause between words. From my exprience in this kind of appliaction around 50-100 ms is more than enough. When a real person reads a phrase (in general, not talking about ATC) pauses are only used for accents, otherwise there is almost zero gap between words.I don't have any sound editing software over here (I'd try myself using your voice from the video), but I'd really like to hear some test with much shorter pauses between words. RC is one of the very few addons for FS9 which I consider usefull and not overpriced for what it does, so I am looking forward to ver 4.0

Unfortunatly due to the shear number of wavs we have (Ray or Dean probably could give you a ball figure) it is not possible to go though and edit each one induvidually.I believe Ray has already used some features of the sound editing software to automatically remove the few ms of silience as much as possible. But again, each controller and pilot speak differently, so perfecting the setting used will not work universally for the next controller/pilot set.You can also imagine, trying to clip 300ms back to 50-100 can be done, with the risk of accidently cliping the actual words - which we could not let happen. Remember this has to be a automated process. So think of this 300ms as a 'buffer' to prevent this from happening.Subs

I understand and thanks for your reply. I think you have made great product and MS should hire your team for FS10 :)P.S. When I observe what sound guys are doing here with wavs (I work for game develpoer, but I do graphics not sound :), yes, they are pretty much editing everything by hand in such situation, after applying heavy compression and then gate to each word, so I pretty much understand how much work it is.

Ray:You're absolutely right. Over here we always say, "Cleared to THE Chicago O'Hare airport via..."It's just standard.Now, I think you guys (or whoever) have done a great job, but it's just so hard to not be critical when all of us are "experts" at this...1. "I'll give 'em a call" Oh, please...2. "Expect vectors to the runway 25L." The runway 25L what?? Visual? ILS? RNAV? You gotta advise what TYPE of approach. "Expect vectors to the ILS runway 25L final approach course." or "Expect vectors to the visual approach runway 25L."3. Agree with the guys above: I prefer the sound of the FS2004 voices.There are obviously good things.James

Rayed,Thank you for the nice words about RCv4 voices. It isn't really possible to process each wav along the lines you suggest as there are around 73000 of them. With a well-recorded set the dead space either side of a recording should be minimal. Unfortunately not all the recordings are of the same high quality and we had to work with what we're given.But listen to real world ATIS posted elsewhere in this forum and the difference between that and RC is not that different. In fact, RC is easier to understand! I think many people who haven't used RC before are probably expecting the sounds to be similar to the default ATC but we don't have the financial muscle to achieve that.The real value of RC compared to the default ATC is the accuracy of its procedures both in FAA and non-FAA areas. Compared to what the default ATC gives you Radar Contact is streets ahead.Cheers,

James,Your points are understood. I know where you're coming from. These points will be discussed amongst the RC team.Have a listen to real world ATIS and compare it to the Radar Contact example elsewhere in this forum. The difference is not great. The problem is everyone is assuming the voices in FS ATC are accurate and they're not. They're totally unrealistic but unfortunately because they're easy on the ear they're accepted as the norm. Real world ATC is not high fidelity. Transmissions are broadcast on AM - a poor medium.<>There are. Loads of them. If you want to fly using procedures as close as posisble to real world procedures there is only on-line flying with its limited coverage or Radar Contact with its global coverage.Cheers,

>If you want to fly using procedures>as close as posisble to real world procedures there is only>on-line flying with its limited coverage or Radar Contact with>its global coverage.Ray:Yeah, you're right about that. The fact of the matter is, you folks have done some great things with RC4.James

>Rayed,>>Thank you for the nice words about RCv4 voices. It isn't>really possible to process each wav along the lines you>suggest as there are around 73000 of them. With a>well-recorded set the dead space either side of a recording>should be minimal. Unfortunately not all the recordings are of>the same high quality and we had to work with what we're>given.73000? You sure that you didn't add some zeros? :)That's a lot, much more than average PC Game has, even very talkative ones. I can imagine it would cost you thousands of hundreds to process everything perfectly.>>But listen to real world ATIS posted elsewhere in this forum>and the difference between that and RC is not that different.I agree, you did the ATIS thing perfectly.>In fact, RC is easier to understand! I think many people who>haven't used RC before are probably expecting the sounds to be>similar to the default ATC but we don't have the financial>muscle to achieve that.I understand. I still think you can cheaply "improve" (I mean adjust to the user's liking, for me they are fine as they are, did I mention it before?:) ) them by some very heavy compression etc.. But, I believe this is something which you can do later on and many users will tinker with it by themselves.One more (just for the sake of it) argument is that FS9 is a game (some people may be offended by it hehe). Most of people expect game like experience even if they won't admit it. Real ATC is really hard to understand at first and if you are not sitting in a plane everyday as your dayjob, it takes time to get used to it (I know something about it, hehe). So, most of flight sim gamers expect something pleasing to the ears, the best bet is sexy female voice (j/k).(Same with the planes, flying most planes in flight sim has very little in common do with real thing, even if addon developers and we ourselves claim different. They are just very simplifed sims hidden by fancy inteface)>The real value of RC compared to the default ATC is the>accuracy of its procedures both in FAA and non-FAA areas.>Compared to what the default ATC gives you Radar Contact is>streets ahead.Amen to that. As I said this is one of the few addons worth buying between thousands of sceneries, planes whatever, which do really little to overall sim experience (usually they just destroy framerates ;) ), but cost more than the base game itself. I believe that Radar Contact is good product and this is judging only by videos, manual and few user experiences. Personally I am going to buy it ASAP and I tell you, if it vectors me to the mountains or keeps me at 2500 for a hours (like MS ATC like to do), I am going to paint CD red and send it back to you ;).Thanks for your hard work, offering something special to the community instead of useless eyecandy and I wish you best luck with your product.P.S. Any plans for downloadable version? Would be much quicker to buy..

Hi Rayed,<<73000? You sure that you didn't add some zeros? :)That's a lot, much more than average PC Game has, even very talkative ones. I can imagine it would cost you thousands of hundreds to process everything perfectly.>>We had to drop a couple of sets so it would fit on the CD. So 73000 might really be 69,000 and yes, it's not a typo. We listened to each wav in several sets taking 2-3 nights for each one. Hand editing to remove clicks, dead space and trying to make the overall volume of each one similar. This was my first attempt at sound processing and something on this scale almost blew me away. Most of the criticism has been directed at the enunciation of numbers so in slow time I will look at that aspect and see if any improvement can be made. No promises, no guarantees. I'm still suffering from wav burnout.<>I would prefer to call it a simulation. There's not much if any entertainment value in FS.;).>>LOL! Well, providing you set the options correctly in RC that won't happen. TRy a flight into Innsbruck, Austria (LOWI) for some fun. We flew there extensively during testing.I hope you enjoy Radar Contact.

>Ray:>>You're absolutely right. Over here we always say, "Cleared to>THE Chicago O'Hare airport via...">>It's just standard.>>Now, I think you guys (or whoever) have done a great job, but>it's just so hard to not be critical when all of us are>"experts" at this...>1. "I'll give 'em a call" Oh, please...>2. "Expect vectors to the runway 25L." The runway 25L what??> Visual? ILS? RNAV? You gotta advise what TYPE of approach. >"Expect vectors to the ILS runway 25L final approach course.">or "Expect vectors to the visual approach runway 25L.">3. Agree with the guys above: I prefer the sound of the>FS2004 voices.>>>There are obviously good things.>>JamesOne other thing I noticed in the videos. Numbers are expressed phoneticly instead of separated. For example The flight in the SFO-LAX video in RC4 is expressed "American Three Twenty Seven". In all the ATC recordings I've heard, it would be "American Three-Two-Seven", at least here in the US.

Tom,<>Doug Thompson (one half of the Radar Contact partnership along with John Decker) is a controller at Memphis and has advised John on the correct phraseology throughout the development of RC. I assume it is but Doug may jump in to confirm.Certainly over here in the UK callsign numbers are enunciated individually as advised by a British AT controller.Cheers,

correct. depending on what rules you are flying under FAA or other, the grouping and sounding of numbers are exactly correctly.we even go as far as say zero five left in europe, five left in the statesthere are many little tweakes for US vs everywhere else that will be probably fly past the average user.jd