Separated sound with FSUIPC

[BABA767]

Hi to all,

I have my homecockpit based on the 767 Leveld and I am looking for a way to separate the sounds on a second sound card (eg for cabin sounds); I saw in the FSUIPC.ini file the list of available sound cards and wanted to know if there is a way to route the sounds to a specific card. At the moment the only way I have used is within P3D in the "sound" menu, but I would like to separate the sounds on another board..

cheers,

V.

[Pete Dowson]

57 minutes ago, BABA767 said:

I have my homecockpit based on the 767 Leveld and I am looking for a way to separate the sounds on a second sound card (eg for cabin sounds); I saw in the FSUIPC.ini file the list of available sound cards and wanted to know if there is a way to route the sounds to a specific card. At the moment the only way I have used is within P3D in the "sound" menu, but I would like to separate the sounds on another board..

The sound cards are listed in the INI file only so that Lua plug-ins written to play sounds (from .wav files) can make them go to a selected card.

I don't know a way to separate sounds played by P3D itself. Might be worth asking in the P3D forum on AVSIM.

Pete

 

[BABA767]

thanks Pete,
after some research in the forum I believe that the correct approach is to use luascript that generates a sound from an event (eg virtual button in FSUIPC), indicating on which board device (ref. FSUIPC.INI ) to play the sound. It's correct?

Valerio

[Pete Dowson]

40 minutes ago, BABA767 said:

after some research in the forum I believe that the correct approach is to use luascript that generates a sound from an event (eg virtual button in FSUIPC), indicating on which board device (ref. FSUIPC.INI ) to play the sound. It's correct?

If you have some WAV files you want to play on an event, yes, you can do that.  By "cabin sounds" do you mean some which are not supplied with your LevelD 767?

You may find is more satisfying to look at something like SimSounds, an add-on application which provides a multitude of sounds related to aircraft events and surroundings. That's what I use.

Pete

 

 

[BABA767]

ok Pete now everything is clearer ..🙂

I would have another thing to ask about the management of the sounds .. since I have a real "audio control panel" I would like to be able to hear the various audio morse from relative VOR / ADF etc .. through this panel.

Each VOR / ADF / MRK output etc.. has its own dedicated sound card connected to the audio panel so by selecting the frequency of a VOR..etc is there a way to direct the morse audio to the dedicated sound card?

Obviously pressing the button on the panel would allow you only to listen to the audio but it has no influence within the simulator so the morse should already be present in the background when I select the frequency.
I hope I explained myself..😅

cheers

V.

[Pete Dowson]

17 minutes ago, BABA767 said:

Each VOR / ADF / MRK output etc.. has its own dedicated sound card connected to the audio panel so by selecting the frequency of a VOR..etc is there a way to direct the morse audio to the dedicated sound card?

Sorry, I don't know a way of doing that. All those sounds will be from the one source, the 767, won't they? Or built into the sim. Why is their a sound card for each radio source? Does the real 767 have different speakers for each?

20 minutes ago, BABA767 said:

Obviously pressing the button on the panel would allow you only to listen to the audio but it has no influence within the simulator

Why not? Is this not supported by the 767?  There are separate Sound controls available in the Sim.

22 minutes ago, BABA767 said:

so the morse should already be present in the background when I select the frequency.

The Sim itself will sound the morse if that redios sound is enabled and the transmitter is in range. I don't know what your 767 is doing differently.

Pete

 

 

[BABA767]

1 hour ago, Pete Dowson said:

Sorry, I don't know a way of doing that. All those sounds will be from the one source, the 767, won't they? Or built into the sim. Why is their a sound card for each radio source? Does the real 767 have different speakers for each?

The sounds come from the sim when selecting a frequency of a VOR / MRKetc.. each true audio panel allows you to listen on the same speaker distinct channel for VOR / MRK etc .. via a button/potentiometer to adjust the volume. Therefore each type of radio aid should be directed to the respective sound card.

1 hour ago, Pete Dowson said:

Why not? Is this not supported by the 767?  There are separate Sound controls available in the Sim.

Because the audio control panel does not act on the simulator it as in reality is like a mixer with IN / OUT signals but a source is needed for each channel.

In this interesting video (at min. 4.50) there is what I would like to implement but I don't know how to do it; I only connected the two VHFs but I am not clear how to listen to the morse code

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD1UG_dTZyM

 

1 hour ago, Pete Dowson said:

The Sim itself will sound the morse if that redios sound is enabled and the transmitter is in range. I don't know what your 767 is doing differently.

Pete

Maybe there is an offset/variable inside Sim to manage the audio morse when transmitter is in range..

cheers,

V.

[Pete Dowson]

14 hours ago, BABA767 said:

Maybe there is an offset/variable inside Sim to manage the audio morse when transmitter is in range..

 

There are on/off switches controlled by offsets. All you need to do is search the offsets list for "sound":

02FB for ADF2
3105 for VOR1
3106 for VOR2
3107 for ADF1
plus the group of switches corresponding to the default sound control panel in offset 3122 which also includes Marker and DME, but not ADF2.

Pete

 

 

[BABA767]

On 2/1/2021 at 5:45 PM, BABA767 said:

 

340 / 5000

 

 

Thanks Pete for indicated offsets🙂, so these should always be set to ON and routed to each sound card. The listening of the morse signals will then be allowed from the real audio panel through the relative buttons.
Now the last problem is… how do I route each sound to a distinct channel (ie sound card)?
V.

[Pete Dowson]

2 hours ago, BABA767 said:

so these should always be set to ON and routed to each sound card.

I don't know how you are going to tell the Sim to send them to different sound cards. How do you do that?

2 hours ago, BABA767 said:

how do I route each sound to a distinct channel (ie sound card)?

But that's what I am asking you. All those sounds are just sounds from the Sim. The switch offsets I listed are for the Sim sounds! The Sim simply doesn't differentiate sound cards -- there's no way to assign them per sound.

What is the point of having 4-5 (or more -- engines, ATC/ATIS, weather) different sound cards? How are you using them?

Pete

 

[BABA767]

Hi Pete,

although i could set the offsets to ON to activate morse audio (ex. by SIOC) i was hoping there was a way to be able to route them to separate sound cards but apparently there is no possibility within the sim. Maybe it's need some external software that sends such signals just like in the above video.

As inside the 767 I have 2 speakers on the sides of the main instrument panel, for audio transmissions (VHF), cabin and ground; another 2 at the top for the warning sounds and proximity to the ground and another 2 for the rest (engine, environment, weather, etc.)

thk,

V.

[Pete Dowson]

13 hours ago, BABA767 said:

Maybe it's need some external software that sends such signals just like in the above video.

Yes, I am sure that can be done and there may already be such programs, but it could also be done with a Lua plug-in to FSUIPC. You'd need the wave files for the morse tones (probably a wave file for for each letter) and send to the relevant opened sound card using the Lua sound library). You'd have to read the offsets for the signal strength and the IDs and act accordingly. Perhaps one plug-in each for VOR1, VOR2, ADF1, ADF2, DME.

However, I don't know what sort of aircraft has separate speakers (presumably spaced around the cockpit somewhere) for each type of radio signal. Seems really strange to me. Can you explain why that is so? You say:

14 hours ago, BABA767 said:

As inside the 767 I have 2 speakers on the sides of the main instrument panel, for audio transmissions (VHF), cabin and ground

So all of the radio identity signals come from those?  I would expect the same sounds emanate from both -- for clarity to both captain and first officer. So why a separate sound card for each type of radio?

In my 738 cockpit I have four speakers and a bass woofer for the main sounds (from the Sim, or in my case, ProSim) engine sounds etc, and speakers in the overhead for ATC and some other sounds. I can switch the ATC sounds to headsets (one each side) with one of the overhead switches.

The main sounds are from the sound card in the main Sim PC, whilst the overhead and headsets are connected to a speparate computer which runs the ATC program (Pilot2ATC) and SimSounds.

Pete

 

[BABA767]

12 hours ago, Pete Dowson said:

Yes, I am sure that can be done and there may already be such programs, but it could also be done with a Lua plug-in to FSUIPC. You'd need the wave files for the morse tones (probably a wave file for for each letter) and send to the relevant opened sound card using the Lua sound library). You'd have to read the offsets for the signal strength and the IDs and act accordingly. Perhaps one plug-in each for VOR1, VOR2, ADF1, ADF2, DME.

Hi Pete this is nice idea actually I have already seen that it is possible to have a wav file per letter .. you would then have to compose the signal ID (read from the offsets) and send the morse tone to the relative sound card; the problem is how to compose the tone maybe someone expert could indicate how to do it with the Lua plugin.

 

12 hours ago, Pete Dowson said:

However, I don't know what sort of aircraft has separate speakers (presumably spaced around the cockpit somewhere) for each type of radio signal. Seems really strange to me. Can you explain why that is so?

The speakers are on the sides of the MIP one for each pilot and by acting on the audio control panel (one for Capt and one for F / O) each one can independently select both the microphone with whom to speak and also which channels to listen to (e.g. VHF1, VHF2 , cabin and Morse tones of the radio aids). Basically, the ACP is a mixer and does not interfere with the simulator but only serves to direct and select which sounds (coming from the sim) to send to the speakers; it is also used in output to select which microphone channel to use (eg VHF for communication with air traffic, CABIN, ground ..).
However if you see the video shown in the link it becomes clear ...

12 hours ago, Pete Dowson said:

So all of the radio identity signals come from those?  I would expect the same sounds emanate from both -- for clarity to both captain and first officer. So why a separate sound card for each type of radio?

In my 738 cockpit I have four speakers and a bass woofer for the main sounds (from the Sim, or in my case, ProSim) engine sounds etc, and speakers in the overhead for ATC and some other sounds. I can switch the ATC sounds to headsets (one each side) with one of the overhead switches.

The main sounds are from the sound card in the main Sim PC, whilst the overhead and headsets are connected to a speparate computer which runs the ATC program (Pilot2ATC) and SimSounds.

Pete

 

Exactly the morse signals are the same for both speakers and each must go to the respective channel of ACP, therefore each channel a sound card; then, depending on what you want to listen to through the ACP, select the relative button (VOR ADF etc. ..) and the signal comes out on the relative speaker. Basically ACP and speaker side Capt and an ACP F / O and speaker but the source is always the same.

..sorry for my english i'm tring make my best for explain😅

V.

[Pete Dowson]

10 hours ago, BABA767 said:

the problem is how to compose the tone maybe someone expert could indicate how to do it with the Lua plugin.

I'm afraid I know nothing about converting a string of WAV files into one file. There's no function provided by Lua to do this.  I suppose, if you know the format of WAV files (which will be documented on the web somewhere) you could do it be reading the files and putting the wave parts together, changing some stuff in the header to deal with the changes. That's what any function in the Windows system, if one existed, would need to do in any case.

Facilities for reading and writing files are available in the FSUIPC Lua implementation 00 see the LuaFileSystem.pdf provided with your FSUIPC documents.

10 hours ago, BABA767 said:

The speakers are on the sides of the MIP one for each pilot and by acting on the audio control panel (one for Capt and one for F / O) each one can independently select both the microphone with whom to speak and also which channels to listen to (e.g. VHF1, VHF2 , cabin and Morse tones of the radio aids). Basically, the ACP is a mixer and does not interfere with the simulator but only serves to direct and select which sounds (coming from the sim) to send to the speakers

Yes, all that is normal and I understand, but you seem to have been saying that you have a separate sound card for each radio (VOR1, VOR2, ADF1, ADF2, DME):

On 2/1/2021 at 7:08 PM, BABA767 said:

Therefore each type of radio aid should be directed to the respective sound card.

I only have separate sound channels for COM (for ATC) -- same channel for COM1 and COM2, and one channel for all the other radios. They come from my networked PC running ATC and SimSounds. My main 5-speaker system is for all the main aircraft and environment sounds from P3D5 and ProSim. I can't see any reason for having another 4-5 sound cards and speakers. The cockpit is that small that I don't think i could differentiate them in any case! 😉

Pete

 

[John Dowson]

4 hours ago, Pete Dowson said:

I'm afraid I know nothing about converting a string of WAV files into one file.

There's an online converter for that: https://clideo.com/merge-wav, and also quire a few freeware programs (ask google!).

 

[Pete Dowson]

35 minutes ago, John Dowson said:

There's an online converter for that: https://clideo.com/merge-wav, and also quire a few freeware programs (ask google!).

That may be so, but you'd need to do that for every possible Navaid ID -- probably any combination of 4 (or is it 5?) alphabetic character representations in morse. The idea here is to have just 26 wave files for the morse characters and play them as one temporary wave file.

I think it may be too much for a humble Lua plug-in. it really needs an application.  There may well be a Windows function in its sound facilities to automatically concatenate waves on the fly (ie whilst playing them) -- maybe send a list of files instead of just one.

Pete

 

[BABA767]

10 hours ago, Pete Dowson said:

I only have separate sound channels for COM (for ATC) -- same channel for COM1 and COM2, and one channel for all the other radios. They come from my networked PC running ATC and SimSounds. My main 5-speaker system is for all the main aircraft and environment sounds from P3D5 and ProSim. I can't see any reason for having another 4-5 sound cards and speakers. The cockpit is that small that I don't think i could differentiate them in any case! 

 

...in my case using the true ACP each audio channel (VHF, VOR1, VOR2, ADF1, etc ..) is separate, therefore in input (ie output from the sim) each of these goes to a specific ACP input so for each of these channels you will need a sound card. The ACP which is a mixer, will then send the sounds to its speaker.

 

10 hours ago, Pete Dowson said:

That may be so, but you'd need to do that for every possible Navaid ID -- probably any combination of 4 (or is it 5?) alphabetic character representations in morse. The idea here is to have just 26 wave files for the morse characters and play them as one temporary wave file.

I think it may be too much for a humble Lua plug-in. it really needs an application.  There may well be a Windows function in its sound facilities to automatically concatenate waves on the fly (ie whilst playing them) -- maybe send a list of files instead of just one.

Pete

 

.. so we figured out how to get each letter as a .wav file; a process could be this:
1- Read the Navaid ID from FSUIPC offset
2- the XYZ ID must be sent and interpreted by an external plugin that associates each letter with the .wav file
3- Compose the string of the 3 .wav file into one
4- Send the file generated by Lua script to the respective sound card

Points 1 and 4 would already be possible, the problem is the other two... I have no idea how to do it but at least I understand what I'm missing😅😅

V.

[Pete Dowson]

8 hours ago, BABA767 said:

Points 1 and 4 would already be possible, the problem is the other two... I have no idea how to do it but at least I understand what I'm missing😅😅

It would be better if 2 and 3 were integrated internally, and without using the file system. I expect the Windows sound system can play sounds from a wave stored in memory. I've a feeling the process would be rather slow using Lua plug-ins and external files -- the whole idea really needs a separate application. Maybe it's time to learn som C++ or C# programming?

I would have thought this sort of thing would have already been done if there were any demand. Or is your setup unique?

And having to have separate sound cards then a mixer just sounds wrong (or peculiar) to me. Since you are already talking about selecting the sound card in Lua, why not only select the one sound card for the appropriate speaker(s), and thereby save having multiple sound cards and the mixer?

I think I've just about exhausted any help or advice I can give on this subject.

Pete

 

[BABA767]

Hi Pete,
it generally depends on the type of setup that everyone has..it's mine in progress:

using real equipment often you have to adapt in different ways.
In my case, the use of multiple sound cards depends on the use of ACP which necessarily requires separate sounds on different audio channels.

There has probably not been a request so far because no one has used this configuration yet.

I was hoping that someone had already tried this mode with a ready-made plugin ... anyway thanks so much!

V.