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X-Plane/Sounds in X Plane
From StrategyWiki, the video game walkthrough and strategy guide wiki 0 1 < X-Plane Airplanes have noises associated with them of course, and X-Plane (XP) allows the airplane designer to customize the sounds associated with his or her plane. The following will attempt to explain how this is done within XP. Current Stable XP release - 8.50 (as of this date 8.60 beta 8 is out) It is my hope that perhaps the community will take more advantage of this type of resource; I believe that we as XP airplane designers are constantly reinventing the wheel and this might save us all a bit of time and trouble.
Contents
1 Default sounds 2 Copyright Issues 3 Customizing the sounds for your airplane 4 List of Sounds 5 Editing .wav files 6 Sounds and PlaneMaker 7 Hints and tricks
Default sounds
Within your main XP folder is another folder named "Resources". Inside are folders such as Earth Nav Data, Default Scenery, Plugins, Preferences, and "Sounds". Inside this Sounds folder (hereafter referred to as Resources/Sounds) are six subfolders. Each of these subfolders contains a collection of .wav files (.wav describes a fairly common type of audio file usable by both Macs and PCs). The titles of the folders are somewhat self explanatory: "Alert" contains messages such as a voice saying "200 feet". If your aircraft has instrumentation that warns the pilot as the plane descends through 200 feet, XP will play this message. "Contact" contains sounds associated with the airplane interacting with ground. Crash sounds, rolling on the runway, tire screetch upon touchdown, etc. "Engine" contains generic sounds for piston engines, turboshafts, jet engines etc. "Systems" contains sounds for flaps, gear, avionics, APU, etc. "Weather" contains sounds for rain hitting the windshield, hail, wind, etc. "Radio Chatter" contains tower to plane communications and so on. Radio chatter can be turned on or off in XP; in the game, under "Settings" choose "Sounds..." and turn radio chatter on or off.
http://strategywiki.org/wiki/X-Plane/Sounds_in_X_Plane
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You can listen to these .wav files by just double clicking on them. On a Mac usually a Quicktime panel will pop up, it could be iTunes depending on how your preferences are set up. On a PC usually a WindowsMediaPlayer panel will open and you can listen with that. If your airplane has no custom sound information these are the sounds that XP will use when your plane is loaded. They're not bad, but they are limited and custom sounds go a long way to enhancing your airplane's "realism" in the sim.
Copyright Issues
A note on copyrights. I am not an expert or even knowledgeable in this area, so please assign the proper value to these comments. As we all do these days, the first place you will look for sounds is the internet, and there are lots of sounds out there. Some authors place restrictions on their copyrighted work (as is their right) and some don't. Some just ask for attribution, i.e. if you use their stuff you have to give them credit in a written description of your aircraft. Most do not want their work to be used in for profit activities. X-Plane.org is (rightfully) very strict on this issue. As an aircraft designer, you should err on the side of caution; include a text file description of your aircraft in the aircraft file and credit everyone appropriately. If the work is copyrighted and has restrictions, just look elsewhere for appropriate sounds. Its a small thing and its easy to cheat; do the right thing.
http://strategywiki.org/wiki/X-Plane/Sounds_in_X_Plane
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List of Sounds
In the "Alert" folder: 10ft.wav 20ft.wav 30ft.wav 40ft.wav 50ft.wav 100ft.wav 200ft.wav 300ft.wav 400ft.wav 500ft.wav 1000ft.wav caut.wav glid.wav gwrn.wav mini.wav pull.wav sink.wav wshr.wav tcas.wav stall.wav alternator_off.wav radar_lock.wav transonic.wav In the "contact" folder: land.wav lrun.wav ROLL_RUNWAY.WAV BOOM1.wav skid_dry.wav loff.wav boom2.wav boom3.wav boom4.wav land_water.wav roll_ground.wav skid_wet.wav note - I don't believe these are case sensitive in any way, can anyone confirm this ? In the "engine" folder: engn1.wav engn2.wav engn3.wav engn4.wav and so on, you can have as many of these as you have engines.... prop1.wav prop2.wav prop3.wav prop4.wav and so on, you can have as many of these as you have props; if you have multiple props on one shaft....maybe someone will have an answer for that one ! star1.wav star2.wav star3.wav star4.wav and so on, you can have as many of these as you have starters... reverse_thrust.wav afterburner.wav There are several generic engines sounds in the "sounds" file located in "resources" that I will not duplicate here. The reader can look, or rather, listen to these and determine if they are appropriate to his design. in the "systems" folder: flap.wav gear.wav mdot.wav mdas.wav stall.wav Gear_Warn.wav alt_alert.wav APU.wav avionics.wav click.wav climb.wav dash_MIDDLE.wav dash_OUTER.wav descend.wav dot_INNER.wav dot_MIDDLE.wav seatbelt.wav I have seen two planes with a "stal.wav", I believe this is a typo ? in the "weather" folder: rain.wav wind.wav hail_impact.wav hail.wav thunder1.wav
http://strategywiki.org/wiki/X-Plane/Sounds_in_X_Plane
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thunder2.wav thunder3.wav thunder4.wav thunder5.wav thunder6.wav I will update these periodically as we "discover" more of these... A lot of the sounds in the "resources/sounds" folder should probably never be duplicated in the sound folders of individual aircraft. For instance the "thunder" series of .wav sounds; why include these with an individual plane ?
http://strategywiki.org/wiki/X-Plane/Sounds_in_X_Plane
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A general gripe with XP at this time is the quality of this particular aspect of the sim. In the future we might get the ability to put in two or three sounds over the RPM range to get better sounding engines. Round engines especially have rough throaty idles which don't smooth out until higher RPMs; the current system doesn't model this sound behavior very well, and if you are into round engines, this is unforgivable ! For now you need to know the RPM that your sound was recorded at or make an educated case using trial and error. The only way to hear the sounds is to fire up XP so trial and error can be a slow process. It is possible to download software to analyze .wav files and determine the fundamental frequency (which is not the same but related to RPM based on number of cylinders, two vs. four cycle, etc). If you find a sound you like you can analyze it to answer the sound questions ! As I recall, this was a huge pain in the rear as the UI for the software is difficult. The software is not free but you can download a one day free trial version (www.ymec.com). At this site they go through the exercise of determining the RPM of a Ferrarri at idle by analyzing the sound of the enginepretty interesting. Another analysis package that seems easier to use (if only because you can open .wav files directly) is sigview with a one month trial period available at sigview.com. Finally we get to turbine engines, turboprops, turbines, high bypass, etc. The fourth sound related question asks "N1 that get or turboprop was recorded at". N1 refers to the speed of the large fan or low pressure compressor section of a turbine engine (in general N1 refers to the speed of the first bladed rotor that air flowing into a turbine engine sees). All of the comments made for recips above apply here also. If you don't know this value you have to either guess or analyze. N1 is expressed as a percentage of maximum RPM, i.e. an N1 of 80% on an engine with max RPM of 25,000 would represent an RPM of 20,000. The answer to this fourth sound question is not an RPM but a percentage ! BTW, if your airplane has reciprocating engines, you can ignore the question about N1. If your airplane has a turbine engine, you can ignore the prop and recip questions. If you don't have any custom wind, prop, or engine sounds, leave the four questions at default values (200, 2500, 2500, 100)
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http://strategywiki.org/wiki/X-Plane/Sounds_in_X_Plane
7/20/2013