X-Plane/Sounds in 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)

Please feel free to edit this Wiki page. 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.


 * 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 the sounds folder are six other folders named:

Alert

Contact

Engine

Systems

Weather

Radio Chatter

Each of these folders 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 skid upon touchdown, etc.

"Engine" contains generic sounds for piston, turbine, jet engines etc.

"Systems" contains sounds for flaps, gear, avionics, APU, etc.

"Weather" contains sounds for rain hitting the windshield, snow, wind, etc.

"Radio Chatter" contains tower to plane communications and so on. Radio chatter can be turned on or off in XP; under "Settings" choose "Sounds..." and turn radio chatter on or off.

If your airplane has no custom sound information these sounds are going to be used by XP 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.


 * First 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 a 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.


 * Now, on to customizing the sounds for your airplane,

When you design an airplane in XP or download one that someone else has posted, inside the main folder are folders such as "airfoils" or "objects" or "weapons". There might also be a folder called "sounds", inside of which will be subfolders exactly the same as the Sounds folder discussed above. If this folder/subfolders exists in your aircraft folder XP will use the contents instead of the default sounds in the resources folder.

So, if you want to use custom sounds for an aircraft, create the folder called "sounds" inside your main airfraft folder and within "sounds" create the subfolders "alert" "contact" "engine" "systems" "weather" and "radio chatter". You don't have to use all of these; you could create only the subfolder "engine" for instance. XP would use default sounds for everything except for the .wav files you have placed into your "engine" sub folder.

On an fairly advanced airplane you might typically find all of the subfolders except for "radio chatter". As this is being written, .org member "wendygirl" has posted radio chatter files based in Japan as opposed to major U.S. cities; substituting these .wav files for the originals will make XP flying in Japan's airspace a bit more realistic. Wendygirl's files are intended for XP users who might want to replace the default radio chatter: the point here is that whatever you put into the custom sound subfolders will be used by XP; if in your "alert" folder you replace the "200 ft" message with "oopsie daisy" this is what XP will play when your plane descends through 200 feet.


 * Specification of the .wav files:

"sampling rate" of the .wav files should be:           22 khz

"length" in seconds of the .wav files should be:

"other attribute" of the .wav files should be:


 * Sounds Available:


 * 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

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 ?


 * .wav files can be edited; to do this requires a sound application. There are several of these available as freeware.  For the PC search out Audacity which is a freeware product.  With it you can preview .wav files, adjust the time and probably lots else with .wav files.  If you do and become an expert, please share your experience with other XP users here in this wiki.


 * matching frequencies with engines parameters, also props

advanced editing, discovering engine frequencies, etc.


 * hints and tricks