chiswick72

No problem Dean - glad you sorted it out ! :smile:

Hi Dean, It sounds like certain high frequency sounds are too prominent in your setup. Have a look in the sound folder and identify the particular high frequency sounds that are too loud for you and use a simple audio tool to lower the volume of just those sounds. And don't forget to back up your files before proceeding.

Hi Steve, I had a listen to the two versions and they are both fine. Kyle's recording was made in the middle of the beta phase and since then I have continued to evolve the sounds - the main changes I made was to add more high frequencies in the mix balance. That explains the difference in the recordings. So there is nothing wrong, you are listening to different versions of the same soundset. Now, if you prefer less of the high frequencies, you can always manually adjust the individual sound file volumes to get the sound mix that you prefer, but always back up you files before making any changes. And finally, go with the recommended sound settings so that the panel sounds and voices balance correctly with the engines.

Added to the fix list!

In my experience, the sound that you hear and feel on your own computer is heavily dependent on the sound card and speaker hardware that you use. You are never going to get the immersive sound experience that we designed through a built in laptop speaker, or a pair of 50 dollar desktop speakers that came with free with your PC. Investing in a mid range speaker system with a sub woofer will significantly enhance the sound experience that you hear and feel, because a lot of the sound work focused on adding mid bass and sub bass layers that you will never experience unless you have the appropriate sound hardware. Also, I have noticed that other factors like onboard sound effects running on your sound card can also harm the sound experience. Many sound cards have reverb effects, 3D sound effects, noise cancelling effects and others which are on by default without the users knowledge, these also impact the sound experience you will get, and that's why we recommend that you check your systems for these effects and turn them all off. And also, use the recommened sound levels that are provided, this will give you the optimal sound balance between the engines, panel sounds and AFE sounds. If still your engines are not loud enough then turn up the master speaker volume. So in summary, for the best sounds experience use good hardware, turn off all effects and use the recommended volume settings.

I don't think that most people are aware that the sound system implemented and provided by MSFS / P3D is vastly more functional than XPL. Functionality like 3D sound, direction based sounds, distance based sounds are all built into MSFS and P3D, all a sound engineer needs to do is use that functionality to add those effects to an aircraft, and for all of our MSFS / P3D aircraft we have added all these features. However, XPL has nothing like this, it does not even have a basic usable sound system. If you want to do anything in XPL you have to first build your own custom sound system, this is done by application programmers and not sound engineers. We are very lucky that Chris built a comprehensive sound system very similar in behaviour to FSX / P3D, to allow me to then design and implement the XPL sounds. We decided that since this is our first ever XPL project, that we would add the other sound functionality people are used to in FSX / P3D in future releases, because Chris will have to implement this into the sound system first and then I can use it to design the 3D and distance based sounds. But it is important to note that if you want to do anything in XPL related to sounds, you have to build your own sound system to do it, and not have the luxury of using the sound system that is already provided by the flight sim platform creator.

The sounds for engine 4 only playback through the right speaker. Can you try to start engine 4 only, do you hear the sounds only out of the right speaker?

Dear all, Before modifying the actual files please set the correct volume levels in the sound options. We recommend the following settings: Engines 50% Com Radio (AFE) 80% Avionics Fan (Panel) 50%

Thanks for the feedback!

Hi Felipe, Im interested to know what you mean about improving the sounds. What sound card / speakers do you have ?

Hi Felipe, I presume you are referring to a comment made by Frooglesim, however, it is not a bug and hence it does not require a fix. This is our first X-plane aircraft, and already we have implemented a comprehensive sound system that is far superior to the default sound implementation of X-plane. Distance based volumes on sounds for the external view is a feature and it will be added in a future update.

Hi Terry, All PMDG engine sounds behave like other FSX aircraft - you should also be able to control the engine volumes using the same FSX engine sounds slider. It sounds like you are experiencing the FSX engine sound bug where the engine sounds playback incorrectly for your current throttle setting - if it happens press the Q button twice to reset the sounds.

Robert - thanks for your kind words! Ok back to work !!!!! John, The FSX engine implementation is quite complex - FSX has provided us quite a versatile way to make rich layered engine sounds using dozens of sound files - you assign sounds to engine curves, and as you move the throttle up and down the pitch of the sound varies - just like speeding up or slowing down a record on a turntable (yep im quite old to bring this up!). Of course we have total control of how we pitch sounds up and down based on the engine N1 across the full throttle range. Imagine you have a clean recording of a jet engine at idle - the recording in fact contains a number of tones and elements of the engine (the bass rumble, the high pitched airflow, the humming of the engine , the whining of the turbines etc). Since it is all contained in one recording, when FSX pitches it up and down, it pitches all the elements of the sound at the same rate. But on a real engine as the throttle is moved up and down the different elements of the sound vary in different rates. So you cannot just place one or two recordings across the throttle range and hope it will sound realistic ... it wont! The trick is to deconstruct all the elements from the recordings into seperate sound files and then deal with each sound element in its own right based on the performance of the real engines from the aircraft. The act of deconstructing the engine sounds from one file while keeping the character of each deconstructed sound is the main challenge. But as Robert said, if you manipulate the sounds too much with the pitching then the audio will noticably sound weird and distorted - because the further you pitch a sound away from its original pitch, the worse it will sound.

Hi John, Usually we get our sounds from two sources, all cockpit sounds and some of the engine sounds are recorded by Paul and Ryan from the team, this usually comes from recordings from the actual aircraft we are simulating. In addition to that I record a lot of the engine sounds myself. When I'm flying long haul I try to sit as close to the front as possible, to be able to the get the audio levels as close to the cockpit levels. For example, I got some great RR RB211 recordings sitting in row three on the upper deck from a while back - these of course will be used on the upcoming 744 release. Fundamentally, all our engine sounds are programmed via the FSX / P3D engine implementation, and then every other sound is custom programmed by the PMDG team. Overall, there are over 500 sounds to mix, and from there we build a stereo and surround sound sets depending on your hardware. Of course it is a challenge to mix, level, pan and EQ all the sounds, especially the engines, it usually takes about a year to lock it all down and get it to final mixes that you experience in the released versions.

Why would you open a ticket ? Ive told you the only solution!

Hi Alex, That shouldn't happen - as Preston said, there is a sub bass sound file that plays when the speed brakes are deployed in flight - it is mostly not audible, you should feel it rather than hear it, as it is that low in the frequency range! Check your soundcard FX / EQ settings - you shouldnt have any "Bass boost" or similar effects running, or any other fancy special effects unique to your soundcard. Or, it could be a speaker issue - sub bass sounds like this are not designed for laptop speakers or cheap desktop speakers - worst case, you can locate the sound file concerned and reduce its volume using an audio editor. Cheers,

Dear Al, Thank you for your detailed feedback - the bad news is that, as far as I am aware, it is not possible to have a surround sound setup in the external view in FSX - it looks like that is the way they implemented it. Instead of surround sound in the external view, they went with the "Sound cone" technology where the sounds vary considerably as you walk around the aircraft - this implementation (like the 5.1 sound in the cockpit) also uses mono sound files - so in theory, the external view sounds are already in the correct format for 5.1 - but I noticed way back making the first FSX soundset for the 747X that no matter what I tried I could not manage to get the external sounds to playback in 5.1 mode. So its a known issue since day one in FSX unfortunately (disclaimer: as far as I am aware!).

The typo has been fixed - it was related to the Stereo / 5.1 Surround soundsets - the typo was that these soundsets were in the "External" section in the OC but they are for the cockpit only!

Ok - there are a number of different touchdown sounds in operation on the 777: Firstly - there are the FSX ones which are in the same folder as the engine sounds - the problem is that the FSX implementation is not too good in this area - even with the sound files at max volume you struggle to hear the sound in the sim (unless you hit the ground so hard that it is almost a crash!) - so basically not realistic and you rarely hear these in any aircraft. Secondly - we added 9 main gear touchdown sounds (yes nine!) - and one is chosen at random in every flight - the files are located in the "FSX/Sound/PMDG/Various" folder and are named "PMDG_777_Touchdown.wav" to "PMDG_777_Touchdown9.wav" - These are programmed so that the volume of the sound is proportional to touchdown impact force. As you can see from playing back the nine sounds that it is mostly the sound of cockpit rattling - rather than bass heavy thuds or bangs - but they are there and do playback. If you really want to test that they are played back on landing - turn off the FSX engines - turn off the packs and im pretty sure you will hear one of the nine play back on main gear touchdown. Alternatively - you can always use an editor to make them louder or replace them with any other sound you wish.

Actually - if anything the 5.1 sounds will have a slightly smaller VAS impact as they use mono files, while the stereo soundset uses stereo sounds Looks like a typo on the Operations Center - The 5.1 sounds are for the cockpit / interior - so please give them a try.

Probably depends if it is a true surround sound or virtualised surround sound headphones. But in any case I recommend the stock 777 Stereo sounds with regular stereo headphones. Ive mentioned in another post that the surround sound is far inferior to the stereo sounds in FSX due to the lack of decent signal delay programming per surround channel - basically, the surround sound in FSX is bordering on mono no matter how many speakers you have !!!!! I have to give Steve Inwood the credit - it was his suggestion to try stereo option and the results are spectacular. Rest in peace mate.

Hi Eric, We will release the cockpit 5.1 sounds as a standalone install in the next few days. I am not sure how we will do it in the future for SP1 or newer products - we may add it to the installer as a selectable option or we may just make the 5.1 sounds available seperately as a standalone installer.

Thanks Martin! :lol:

Steve, Dont worry about it! Working on it now - almost finished! Should be available shortly! :lol:

Yes - definately - You will get by far the best 777 audio experience setting your soundcard to 2.1 (stereo) and using two speakers for playback. This is an interesting idea - maybe with this method you can have the current 777 high quality stereo sounds in the back speakers while having the cockpit panel sounds infront ? Some one please try this: 1 - Set the sound card to stereo (2.1) - Not sure about this ... but maybe even is stereo mode you can use the outputs of the rear speaker are a pair of sterer speaker outputs that are not in surround mode? 2 - If part 1 is possible - assign the FSX sound to the rear speakers - so the engines play the 777 current engines via the rear speakers in Stereo. 3 - Assign the PMDG cockpit panel sounds to the front two speakers via the FMC sound options.